The First Commandment

“The old intelligence agent’s credo. How amusing, especially considering what you have done to my family.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My mother, my girlfriend-don’t act like you don’t know.”

“Your mother?” said Al-Tal. “How could I have done anything to your mother? I don’t even know who you are. You say you are the man who killed Asef, but I don’t even know your name.”

Harvath didn’t believe him. The man was lying. “This is your last chance.”

“Or else what? You will shoot my wife?”

“You saw what I did to your bodyguard.”

“Yes, but it is something entirely different to shoot a man’s wife, a mother.”

The Syrian was right. Harvath had absolutely no intention of shooting her. But he was willing to torture the hell out of her to save his own family and loved ones from going through any more pain.

Harvath slowly holstered his weapon. He watched a smile creep across Al-Tal’s sharp face. The man’s overconfidence was sickening. He thought he had Harvath all figured out. He was about to learn how wrong he was.

“Some things are worse than being killed,” said Harvath as he removed a small can of Guardian Protective Devices OC from his jacket pocket. Attached to the nozzle was a long, clear plastic tube.

Grabbing a tight handful of Al-Tal’s wife’s hair, Harvath immobilized her head and shoved the tube into her ear. “Have you ever been exposed to pepper spray, Tammam?” he asked as the woman screamed from behind the duct tape across her mouth.

“Leave her alone,” demanded Al-Tal.

Harvath ignored him. “The way it burns in your eyes, your nose, your throat?”

“I said leave her alone!”

“Going in through the ear canal is another experience altogether. When I depress this button, a fine, aerosolized mist will rush through this tube and it will feel to your wife as if someone has coated the entire inside of her skull with flaming gasoline.”

“You are obscene!”

“I’m nothing compared to you. And the fear you feel flowing through your body right now is nothing compared to the guilt you will feel from what else I have in store for your family.”

When Al-Tal didn’t respond, Harvath pulled his wife’s chair right alongside his and said, “Take a good look at her face. What’s going to happen now is because of you.”

The woman’s eyes were wide with fear, as were those of Al-Tal’s son and the male nurse.

Wrenching the man’s hand open, Harvath forced all his fingers closed around the can of OC. Lifting Al-Tal’s index finger, he slid it onto the release switch.

Al-Tal’s wife had never stopped screaming and now she screamed with even more force. Her body writhed against its restraints and she violently threw her head from side to side trying to dislodge the tube that had been shoved into her ear canal.

“Yes!” shouted Al-Tal, unable to bear his wife’s being tortured any further. “I will tell you how to contact Najib, you bastard. Just leave my family alone.”

Chapter 54

“Tell him the imam is not well. He must come quickly so that they may read from the Koran one last time together.”

When Tammam Al-Tal’s wife finished delivering the carefully scripted message, Harvath pulled the phone away from her ear and hung up. Now, all they had to do was wait.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. Mrs. Al-Tal didn’t need to be reminded about what would happen if she didn’t do and say everything exactly as they had rehearsed.

Harvath lifted the phone back up to her ear and leaned in to listen.

Abdel Salam Najib had a deep, penetrating voice. He spoke in quick, authoritative clips and was every bit as arrogant as his mentor. “Why did the imam not call himself?”

“He is too weak,” Al-Tal’s wife responded in Arabic. Her words were thick with panic and fear.

“He is dying, then.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“How much longer does he have?” asked the man.

“We have been told he will probably not live through the night.”

“You are still at the apartment?”

“Yes. The doctors wanted to move him to the hospital, but Tammam refused.”

Najib scolded her. “You should know better than to use his name over the phone.”

Harvath tensed. Was she trying to tip Najib or was it an honest mistake? Harvath had no way of knowing. Pulling a tactical MOD fighting knife from his pocket, he opened the blade and pressed it against the woman’s throat. Harvath agreed with Najib. She should know better, much better.

Al-Tal’s wife choked back a terrified sob. “He wishes to be taken back to Syria, but the doctors have told us the journey would only hasten his passing.”

“The doctors are right,” said the operative. “The imam should not be moved. Who is in the house with you?”

The woman spoke slowly, careful not to phrase the information in any way that might get her into trouble. “Our son is here, of course, as is the imam’s nurse. There is also another friend who came with us from home and attends to the imam’s safety and comfort.”

Najib knew both the bodyguard and the son. They could be trusted. The nurse, though, he didn’t know. “Have you learned how to administer your husband’s medications?”