The First Commandment

Morrell looked toward the door and then back at Harvath. “Yes.”

Harvath had suspected all along that the president had been involved, but now he had confirmation.

“What I am about to tell you,” continued Morrell, “stays in this room. Your current status as a fugitive notwithstanding, you are still bound by your oath and the National Security nondisclosure agreements you signed before going to work at both the White House and DHS. Is that clear?”

“ Crystal,” replied Harvath.

Morrell took a deep breath. “There is only one instance where the United States will break its own rule of not negotiating with terrorists.”

In all Harvath’s experience he had never seen the First Commandment broken. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what would qualify as an exception.

Harvath had seen many horrible things in his career as a counterterrorism operative. A part of him questioned whether he truly wanted to know what would warrant such an exception, but he needed to know why the president was holding him back from protecting the people he cared about. He needed to know why some sick terrorist had been granted blanket immunity to do whatever he wanted to innocent American citizens.

“The exception,” said Morrell, “is when a terrorist or terrorist organization has targeted children.”

“You mean whoever has been carrying out these attacks targeted kids as well?”

“No. The five released from Guantanamo were still there when the attack in question took place. The group that brokered their release used the attack as leverage to get them out. I know you have been through a lot, but if it’s any consolation, the president had absolutely no choice in this.”

Harvath wasn’t ready to give Rutledge a pass just yet. He needed to hear more and signaled for Morrell to continue.

“Two days before the Gitmo five were released, a school bus filled with children as young as five years old went missing in Charleston, South Carolina. The terrorists threatened to begin killing a child every half hour until their demands were met.

“An immediate news blackout was ordered and federal authorities went into overdrive to find the bus. Satellites were retasked, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was activated, and members of Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, SEAL Team Eight, and even elements of the CIA were brought in. This was a direct attack upon our nation, the psychological impact of which could have been extremely severe. The president stopped at nothing.

“To demonstrate how serious they were, the terrorists killed the bus driver and left her behind the wheel of the abandoned bus. When the report came in about the dead driver and the fact that we were no longer looking for a bright yellow school bus, people got even more worried. Either the terrorists had the children at one central location, or worse, the group had been broken up and taken to several different locations.

“Images of the Beslan school massacre in Russia were running rampant through everyone’s mind. Everybody knew that trying to take the children back by force could be a horrendous and deadly mistake. If the terrorists were attacked, there was little doubt that they would martyr themselves and take the children with them. There was absolutely no question, the United States ’ only option was to negotiate.

“Originally, the terrorists wanted all of the prisoners released from Guantanamo. Slowly, the negotiators whittled it down to five and agreed that the president would sign some sort of letter promising, among other things, that all the secret detention facilities the United States was using around the world would be shut down, that prisoners at Gitmo would be provided with better food and medical care and more frequent visits from the Red Cross, that all prisoners would be brought to trial for their alleged crimes, and that these trials would be transparent, with international monitors present to vouch for their legality.”

“And the president went for that?” asked Harvath.

“He had no choice. The terrorists had put a gun to his head and they were ramping up to kill their first child. Their leader directed the president to a website where camera phone photos of the child the hostage takers had selected to be the first to die were posted. From what I was told, the photo would have broken your heart. They picked the youngest and cutest of the bunch. The image would have played very, very badly on the news.

“The NSA and several other agencies went to work on the website, while the president huddled with his advisors in the Situation Room. He had a very difficult and potentially historic decision to make.

“And we all know how it ended,” responded Harvath.

Morrell held up his hand. “No you don’t. It wasn’t over, not by a long shot. For the United States, the trouble had only just begun.”

Chapter 66