Brad Thor - The First Commandment

“For a while, yes. If I could convince him to follow my orders, I would not only have beaten Adara, but in a small way, I would have regained my son. But I realized eventually that he was out of control and likely would have come after me. Which is why I left the hospital in Italy and returned here.”

The man was absolutely pitiful, and Harvath shook his head and turned to walk away.

“Where are you going?” demanded Schoen.

“Home,” replied Harvath, who hoped to never gaze upon Ari Schoen’s hideous face again.

Schoen laughed. “You don’t even have the courage to pull out your gun and shoot me.”

“Why should I?” replied Harvath as he turned back to face him. “As far as I’m concerned, a bullet is too good for you. And as for courage, if you had any you would have already shot yourself. The worst thing I can do for you is to wish you a long life and walk right out that door.”

And that was exactly what Harvath did.

As he exited the shop he noticed a black SUV with heavily tinted windows parked across the street. It was strangely out of place.

Reaching beneath his jacket, Harvath’s hand hovered just above the butt of his pistol.

The SUV’s rear window rolled partway down and in the sea of black, there was suddenly a flash of white. It belonged to a long white nose and was followed by a pair of dark eyes and two long white ears.

Harvath crossed the street and held his hand up for the dog to smell. As he scratched Argos behind his ear, the SUV’s window rolled the rest of the way down.

“Did you have a nice visit?” asked the Troll, who was sitting inside between his two Caucasian Ovcharkas.

“Hello, Nicholas,” replied Harvath. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?”

“We have unfinished business between us.”

Harvath removed his hand from the dog’s head and said, “No we don’t. I made good on my promise to you. You cooperated and I didn’t kill you.”

“I want my data and the rest of my money back,” responded the Troll. “ All of it.”

The man had balls, big ones. “And I want my friend Bob and the other Americans killed in New York back,” stated Harvath. “ All of them.”

The Troll leaned back and conceded. “Touché.” Slowly, the little man’s eyes drifted up to the apartment above the antique store. “What about Schoen?” he asked. “Did you kill him?”

Harvath shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

“After everything he did to you. Why not?”

Harvath thought about it for a moment and then replied, “Death would have been too good for him.”

“Really?” stated the Troll, raising an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you feel that way.”

“If you could see what he’s been reduced to,” said Harvath, “you’d understand. Life is a much crueler punishment for Schoen. He’s already been blown up on two occasions.”

The Troll withdrew a small beige box, extended its antenna, and depressing its lone red button replied, “Then maybe the third time’s the charm.”

The explosion blew the windows out of the top-floor apartment and shook the entire block. Shards of broken glass and flaming debris rained down onto the street.

Harvath picked himself up off the ground just in time to see the Troll’s SUV recede into the distance.

Harvath had refused all the president’s invitations to come and meet with him at the White House.

Though the charges of treason against him had been dropped, Rutledge still wanted to have a serious heart-to-heart so that they could put the past behind them and move forward.

To his credit, Harvath was smart enough not to deny the president’s requests outright. Since Tracy ’s release from the hospital, she had been living at his place. He told everyone that taking care of both her and his recovering puppy kept him busy around the clock.

The president knew Harvath was lying, but let it go. Harvath had been through a lot. He’d been thrown under the proverbial bus, and not only had the president not helped him out from under, but he had ordered him to stay there while the bus’s tires rolled right over him.

Rutledge didn’t blame Harvath for not wanting to see him, but enough was enough. The president called Gary Lawlor and told him in no uncertain terms that he wanted Harvath standing in front of his desk inside the Oval Office by the end of the day or it was going to be Lawlor’s ass on the line.

Ever the good soldier, Lawlor had his assistant clear the rest of his day, and he went to drag Scot in to meet with the president.

When he arrived at Bishop’s Gate, he didn’t see Harvath’s car and figured he had gone out to pick up groceries or medications for Tracy or the dog, which they had named Bullet, after their mutual friend, Bullet Bob, who had been killed during the attacks on New York City.

Lawlor parked his car and walked up the front steps. Looking down at the threshold, he wondered for the umpteenth time what it must have been like for Harvath to come down and find Tracy lying there in a pool of blood. It was a horrible image, and he tried to shake it from his mind as he raised the heavy iron knocker and let it slam against the thick wooden door.

As he waited, he thought how ironic it was that Harvath should live in a former church. The man had become a devout penitent to the people whom Roussard had harmed. He visited his mother repeatedly in California, and as her eyesight began to return, he made sure she had the best of care once she was ready to come home. He visited both Carolyn Leonard and Kate Palmer at their hospital in D. C. as often as he could and kept their rooms filled with fresh flowers until they were well enough to be discharged. After that, he bombarded them with more flowers and basket upon basket of food. No matter what anyone said to him, Harvath wouldn’t stop. This was his self-imposed penance, and until the guilt was lifted from his soul there was no stopping him.

When it became known that Kevin McCauliff had used the NGA’s DOD computers on Harvath’s behalf, the young analyst was brought up on discipline charges. Harvath called in every favor ever owed him and pulled every string imaginable to have the charges dropped and for McCauliff to be honorably discharged from his position at the NGA. Tim Finney and Ron Parker offered McCauliff a job at Sargasso the very next day.

Lawlor knocked upon the heavy door once more, but no one answered. There wasn’t even the sound of Bullet’s barking which was a given lately.

Having been told where Harvath kept his spare key, Lawlor retrieved it and opened the front door.

“Hello?” he shouted as he poked his head inside. “Anybody home?”

Lawlor waited, but there was no response. Coming the rest of the way inside, he closed the door behind him.

He walked into the kitchen first and found that everything had been cleaned and put away. Normally, it was a chaotic jumble of pots, pans, dishes, and glasses as Scot and Tracy moved from one culinary undertaking to the next. Something definitely wasn’t right.

Opening the fridge to help himself to a beer, Lawlor found it completely empty. None of this was making any sense.

He strolled out of the kitchen and into the large area that functioned as Harvath’s living room. Everything here had been straightened and put in its place as well.

Suddenly, Lawlor noticed something on the stone mantelpiece above the fireplace. Walking over, he found Harvath’s BlackBerry and his DHS credentials. Next to them was a crisp piece of Tracy ’s stationery folded in half.

Opening it, he read a simple two-word message that had been written in Harvath’s hand.

Gone fishing.

My beautiful wife, Trish, made it clear that in this book I should thank my readers first. She’s right, of course (she’s always right, I’ve learned), but there’s part of me that wonders what kind of husband I would be if I didn’t thank her first. On more nights than I can count, Trish came home from her own demanding career only to gladly feed and bathe our little ones so I could keep on writing. Thank you, honey. I love you more than you will ever know.