The First Commandment

“And along comes this mystery person who claims he can get Najib out if the price is right.”

“More or less.”

“So what was the price?” asked Harvath.

“I had to agree to nullify the bounty I had placed on you.”

Harvath was dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”

“We struck a bargain,” replied Al-Tal. “I canceled the contract and Najib was released from American custody.”

Harvath was beginning to believe that the man was playing him. “How is that possible if you didn’t even know who I was?”

“I still don’t know who you are,” responded Al-Tal as he drew a circle around his face-an allusion to Harvath’s ski mask. “Normally, hostage-takers only keep their identities hidden because they know at some point they will release their hostages. Is that why you haven’t shown us your face?”

“I’ve kept my word and will continue to do so. The outcome of this situation is completely in your hands. If you cooperate with me, I’ll let your wife and your son go.”

“What about my nurse?”

“Him, too.”

“And me?” asked Al-Tal as if he already knew the answer.

“That, I am going to leave up to Najib,” said Harvath.

Chapter 56

THE WHITE HOUSE

President Rutledge was angry. “I don’t want any more excuses, Jim,” he said to his director of Central Intelligence as he balanced the phone on his shoulder and bent over to tie his running shoes. “You should have had this guy by now. If you can’t start showing me results, I’ll replace you with somebody who can.”

“I understand sir,” replied James Vaile. He deserved the admonishment. The team he had fielded to apprehend the terrorist stalking Scot Harvath was more than qualified to do the job. The problem was that the hunted was outsmarting his hunters at every turn. The only evidence he left behind was what he wanted his pursuers to find. While Vaile had no intention of admitting defeat, certainly not while American lives were at stake, everyone-including the president-knew that they were chasing a formidable quarry.

“Now what about the alert?” demanded Rutledge, as his mind turned to the people behind the killer and the threats they had made against America.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” replied the DCI, “not yet.”

“Explain.”

“Even if the terrorists can ID Harvath from the closed-circuit footage from the airport in Mexico, we still have complete deniability. He’s gone off the reservation and we’re doing everything we can to apprehend him. And at the end of the day, they’re the ones who provoked him.”

“And we’re the ones who couldn’t control him,” stated the president as he strapped his digital heart monitor to his wrist. “Frankly, I’m having trouble seeing any downside here. We quietly send the alert out to state and local law enforcement agencies and ask them to keep their eyes open. We don’t have to say we have specific intelligence of an imminent terrorist action, because we don’t. We won’t raise the national threat level. We’ll just leave it at that.”

The DCI was silent as he composed his response.

“With that many cops and state troopers on the lookout, we might get lucky and thwart any potential attack,” added Rutledge.

“We might,” said Vaile, conceding the point. “We might also get a lot of questions, and I guarantee you someone is going to connect it to what happened in Charleston.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Mr. President, cops talk to each other, and they’re very good at connecting dots. Lots of them are going to draw the same conclusion. And the press is going to pick up the thread eventually too. Once word starts circulating about this alert, we won’t be able to put the genie back in the bottle.”

“So your plan is to do nothing?”

“Absolutely, if for no other reason than if the terrorists get wind of the alert, they could take it as an admission of guilt on our part. If they saw us girding for the exact type of attack that they had threatened, they’d know we were behind Palmera’s death.”

That was an angle Rutledge hadn’t considered. “But what if they do attack and we did nothing to prevent it? Could you live with the consequences-especially in this case? I know I couldn’t.”

“I probably couldn’t either,” replied the DCI. “But, we’re not at that point yet. This is about one man out of five. A man who, I might add, had a lot of enemies and who probably would have died a violent death sooner rather than later.”

Vaile’s reasoning made sense. Though the president’s gut was telling him not to go along with the DCI’s plan, he decided to trust his intellect. “What about Harvath, though? He’s the wild card in this that could push everything into all-out chaos.”

“That’s where we have some good news,” Vaile assured the president. “We’ve already got a line on him. If he doesn’t turn himself in by your deadline, we’ll have him in custody soon after.”

“Good,” said Rutledge as he prepared to leave for his run. “I just hope we get him before he puts the nation any further at risk.”

Chapter 57

AMMAN, JORDAN