The First Commandment

Three hours later, the DCI contacted the president and shared with him the good news. After digging a bit deeper, the reporter from the Baltimore Sun had discovered that his sources were not as reliable as he had originally thought. Subsequently, he had decided not to pursue his story.

Jack Rutledge was relieved to hear it. That was one problem down. Now, they needed to refocus all of their resources on stopping Harvath.

Chapter 83

ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL

Even in the limited moonlight, Harvath’s small boat appeared more to hover than float atop the amazingly clear water.

He slipped the anchor quietly beneath the surface and slowly played out the rope. When the boat was secure, he gave his gear one last check and slipped over the side.

Harvath swam with the confidence of a man who’d spent all of his life near an ocean. His strong, sure strokes propelled him forward through the warm waters of Angra dos Reis Bay.

With a set of night vision goggles and a specially illuminated compass, he navigated his way through the darkness toward the private island known as Algodão.

On the leeward side, he low-crawled out of the water and unclipped from around his waist the rope that he’d used to pull a small dry bag behind him.

From the bag, Harvath removed the 9mm Beretta pistol that he had sent to himself via FedEx priority international shipping.

Harvath checked the weapon and then set it aside as he removed a change of clothes and got dressed. He pulled out a flashlight, his Benchmade Auto Axis folding knife, some Flexicuffs, and a few other items and shoved them into his pockets. He buried his swim gear near a large rock on the beach and checked the remaining contents of his dry bag.

The dogs the Troll kept were one of his biggest concerns. Since rescuing one of them in Gibraltar, he had done a little research on them. Caucasian Ovcharkas were amazing animals-swift, agile, ferocious when need be, and fiercely loyal. It was obvious why they’d been the breed of choice for both the Russian military and the East German border patrol. It was also obvious why the Troll had selected them.

Harvath thought about his own Caucasian Ovcharka, or rather the poor dog he had asked Emily Hawkins to take care of while he made up his mind about what he wanted to do with it. He had a big problem with keeping a “gift” from a man who’d been complicit in the slaying of countless Americans, including one of Scot Harvath’s best friends.

To be honest, with Tracy in the hospital and everything else that had happened, he hadn’t really thought much about the puppy until Gary shared with him the animal’s grisly torture. It was a horrible picture that Harvath forced from his mind. He needed to focus.

Harvath listened long and hard before slinging the bag over his shoulder and creeping into the island’s interior. Except for the narrow spits of sand on each side, the island was nothing but trees and luxuriant vegetation. The Troll’s lair was at the tip of the island, built outward on stilts above the water.

Harvath had thought hard about how he wanted to handle the dogs. A tranquilizer gun would have been the easiest method, but he didn’t have one. The only things he had access to for this trip were those in his safety-deposit box, as well as a small storage locker he kept in Alexandria. It wasn’t a lot to choose from.

Though he had his Beretta, he didn’t have a silencer for it, and therefore killing the dogs was out of the question. It would make too much noise. He had to find another way to incapacitate them. But to do that, he’d have to isolate them without arousing suspicion in their master-something easier said than done.

The dogs were the Troll’s own private security force. They never left his side-except when they went outside to relieve themselves. That was their moment of greatest vulnerability. And that was when Harvath planned to strike.

Based on satellite imagery he’d studied, Harvath had noticed that the Troll let the animals out a final time around ten o’clock in the evening. It was now just after nine-fifteen, which meant that Harvath had less than forty-five minutes to lay his trap and get himself into position.

Dogs in general, and the Ovcharkas in particular, excelled at night vision and the detection of movement, so it was imperative that Harvath be nowhere near the bait when they came outside.

Opening his dry bag he removed a football-sized object wrapped in paper. He’d had it prepared especially for this situation. It was ten kilograms of freshly ground beef into which Harvath had the butcher in Angra dos Reis grind a kilo of fresh bacon for added irresistibility.

Then, once safely away from shore, Harvath added his own special ingredient, a high-powered laxative from the pharmacy he’d visited in Rio.