The First Commandment (29 page)

The villa Harvath had selected was outfitted with all the creature comforts: high-speed internet, plasma television with satellite hookup, an impressive stereo system, and a kitchen worthy of a master chef.

The Troll was standing near the stereo with his laptop as Harvath put the rest of the groceries away.

“Do you mind?” he asked. “I like to play music when I cook.”

Harvath shrugged and continued to unpack the bags and boxes as the Troll connected his laptop to the stereo and uploaded one of his digital playlists.

“Since you went to the store,” announced the Troll as he shoved his way past Harvath into the kitchen, “the least I can do is cook lunch.”

“You don’t have to do that,” replied Harvath.

“Yes, I do,” he said as he took a stepladder from the broom closet and dragged it over to the sink, where he washed his hands. “Done with a focused mind, cooking can be a Zenlike experience. I find it helps relax me. Besides, I don’t get to cook for other people that often.”

Pulling a Brahma beer from its six-pack, the Troll held it out as a peace offering.

Harvath needed the beer more than the little man knew and reached out and accepted the bottle. He found a church key, popped the top, and sat down on a bar stool at the kitchen island. His mind was racing. He needed to check in on his mom and Tracy. He also needed to check in on Kate Palmer and Carolyn Leonard, as well as Emily Hawkins and the dog.
Jesus,
he thought. It was no wonder he felt he needed a drink before getting into all that.

He took a long pull. It tasted good. Cold, the way beer was supposed to be. It was a small pleasure, but one of the very few he’d allowed himself in a long while. The monastic life did not agree with him.

As the Troll’s music began playing, he removed the wafer-thin stereo remote from his pocket and punched up the volume. “Cooking is all about the ingredients,” he remarked. “Even the music.”

Harvath shook his head.
What an eccentric,
he thought to himself as he took another sip of beer. The liquid was halfway down his throat when he realized what they were listening to. “Is this Bootsy Collins?”

“Yes. The song is called ‘Rubber Duckie.’ Why?”

“Just curious,” replied Harvath, who owned the
Ahh…The Name Is Bootsy, Baby!
album, from whence “Rubber Duckie” came, on vinyl
and
CD.

“What?” asked the Troll, a dish towel over his left shoulder and a chopping knife in his right hand as he prepared lunch. “You don’t think a guy like me can appreciate classic American funk music?”

Harvath held up his hands in mock self-defense. “I just don’t meet a lot of people who are into Pachelbel
and
funk.”

“Good music is good music, and when it comes to funk, Bootsy is one of the best. In fact, without Bootsy and his brother Catfish, there’d be no funk music at all. At least not like we know it today. James Brown never could have become the Godfather of Soul without the Pacesetters shaping his sound. And don’t even get me started on what they did for George Clinton and Funkadelic.”

Harvath was impressed. “I’ll drink to that,” he said, raising his beer. There was a lot more to the Troll than met the eye.

It was like watching a magician. Harvath considered himself a good cook, but he was far outside the Troll’s league. The little man had taken a small amount of fish, a little bit of bread, and a few other ingredients and had created an amazing fish soup with bread and rouille.

As Harvath cleared the table, he picked up the remote and muted the music. “Something is still bothering me about all of this,” he said. “In all your dealings with Adara Nidal, you never asked her what her son was up to?”

The Troll pushed himself back from the table and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “Out of courtesy, of course I asked. She wasn’t very forthcoming when it came to matters regarding Philippe. I think she was extremely disappointed in him. She would say things like,
He’s working for the cause,
or,
He continues to show great promise as one of Allah’s most noble soldiers.
”

“Which was all bullshit, right?” stated Harvath as he set their dishes near the sink and turned around. “I mean, she never struck me as a devout Muslim. She drank and did a whole bunch of other stuff I think Allah would have frowned on.”

The Troll laughed. “Despite the many habits she had developed to better blend into Western society, I feel she was still a true mujahideen at heart.”

Harvath pulled another beer from the fridge and sat back down at the table with the opener. “So who’s running Roussard then? He didn’t spring himself from Gitmo. With Hashim and Adara dead, the Abu Nidal organization effectively fell apart. It wasn’t a many-headed hydra like Al Qaeda. We cut off two heads and the monster died.”

“Or so your intelligence told you.”

“Do you know something different?”

“No,” said the Troll as he got up to make coffee. “Everything I have seen is in line with your assessment.”

“So then Roussard became a free agent. Somebody had to have picked him up. The question is who?”

The Troll slid the stepladder over to the stove and climbed up. “If we knew what kind of leverage was used to get the U. S. to release Philippe and his four fellow prisoners from Guantanamo, maybe we could begin to piece together who he was working for. But we don’t have that, and without it, I really don’t think we have very much to go on.”

Harvath hated to admit it, but the Troll was right.

He also hated to admit that the only way to get around the impasse he now saw himself at was to share a secret of enormous national security importance with a direct enemy of the United States.

This time, Harvath really had committed treason. There was no doubt about it. The only saving grace would be if something of greater value came of it.

It couldn’t be something of greater value to himself. It had to be something of greater value to his country. Failing that, Harvath very well could have just betrayed everything he stood for.

He searched the Troll’s face, but there was nothing there. “This plot doesn’t sound familiar to you in any way? Adara or the Abu Nidal organization never mentioned anything like this to you?”

“By targeting children, the plot sounds very much like what happened in Beslan. In fact, I’d say hijacking the school bus was an improvement. It’s a lot easier to capture a school bus than a school.”

“But what about Adara? Did she or her people ever mention something like this?”

“I didn’t talk tactics with her,” replied the Troll. “At least, not often. I deal in the realm of information. That is my stock in trade. If Adara or her deceased father’s organization had any plans for an attack like this she would have known better than to talk to me about it. She knew me well enough to know that I would be against it.”

“That’s right. I forgot,” said Harvath. “Saint Nicholas.”

“In the world we live in, bad things happen every day. Innocent people are killed. Sometimes these innocents are children. I believe in America you call it collateral damage. But to specifically target children is reprehensible. Whoever conceived of this attack should be strung up by his balls.”

Harvath couldn’t argue. But his agreement with the Troll’s position didn’t bring him any closer to finding out who was behind Philippe Roussard and what else they had planned.

He sat there for a long time in silence, thinking, until the Troll said, “I’ve been trying to find a connection, outside of ideology, between Philippe and the other men who were released with him. Maybe that was a mistake.”

“How so?”

“Maybe there is no connection. Maybe the other four were simply decoys. Like when multiple versions of your president’s helicopter lift off at the same time and go in different directions.”

Harvath hadn’t thought of that. “I started with Ronaldo Palmera because he was close, proximitywise.”

“It doesn’t matter who you started with. We’ve been looking for a connection between the five released from Gitmo and I don’t think there is one. I think this has been about Philippe from the beginning, and lumping him in with four others was a smoke screen.”

Harvath was with him that far. “Okay, so let’s say the other four don’t matter for our immediate purposes. We still know nothing about who’s behind Roussard.”

“Not yet at least.”

“I don’t follow you.”

The Troll looked at Harvath and smiled. “The one thing we can agree on is that someone is helping Philippe. Whoever that person-”

“Or organization,” added Harvath.

“Or organization is, they’ve obviously got it out for you and they sent Philippe to stop me from helping you.”

“Agreed.”

“Then let’s break this down into the smallest, most logical bits of data we can,” replied the Troll. He was the puzzle master and completely in his element now. “Most likely, Philippe had neither the contacts nor the resources to mount that attack on me. Someone had to play matchmaker and paymaster for him.”

“And he used Arabic-speaking talent,” added Harvath.

“Which narrows down the pool of operators in South America considerably.”

“Unless they were shipped here specifically for this job.”

The Troll nodded. “It’s possible. But a lot went into this. Someone had to secure the weapons, the helicopter, and a willing pilot. Most likely surveillance was conducted. Even if the muscle came from outside, someone had to help them locally, and it had to be someone Philippe’s people had a relationship with and could trust.”

Harvath watched him as he listened.

“There’s one other thing,” said the Troll. “The most important thing of all.”

“What’s that?”

“The money,” he replied. “This would have been pretty expensive. They couldn’t have just walked into the country carrying that kind of cash. The Brazilians are very serious about money laundering and illicit activities. This would have required-”

“Banks,” interrupted Harvath.

The Troll nodded again.

“Do you think there’s a way to track backward via the money flow?”

Pressing his fingers into a steeple, the Troll thought about it. “If we knew what group or individual Philippe used locally to facilitate everything here, I think I could.”

“What would you need?” said Harvath, careful not to let his enthusiasm show in his voice.

“Two things. First, it takes money to find money. I’d need cash and a lot of it. You’d have to unfreeze a substantial sum. I’m going to have to go to market to get the facilitator’s name and background info. To get that information quickly we’re going to have to pay a premium. Antennae will go up among the brokers we’re going to approach. They’re going to smell blood in the water and will wonder if they can sell the information someplace else for more. We have to be able to offer so much right off the bat that they’ll be afraid to jerk us around and shop the intel.”

“What’s the second thing?” asked Harvath.

“Once we’re on the trail we’re going to have to move fast. I’m going to need a lot more computing power than I have now.”

“How
much
more?”

The Troll looked at him and replied, “Do you have any friends at the NSA or CIA who owe you a favor?”

Harvath had friends at both the NSA and the CIA. In fact, he’d even recently taken a steam bath with the CIA’s director at his country club. But something told him that reaching out to anyone for help at either agency at this point would only make his problems worse.

By having the Troll define his computing needs a little bit better, Harvath realized the NSA and CIA weren’t the only government agencies with the capacity that would satisfy him. There were others, one of them being the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, or NGA.

Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA was a major intelligence and combat support subsidiary of the Department of Defense. They also had serious computer power at their disposal and just happened to be the current employers of a friend of Harvath’s named Kevin McCauliff.

McCauliff and Harvath were members of an informal group of federal employees who trained together every year for the annual Washington, D. C., Marine Corps Marathon.

McCauliff had been instrumental in helping Harvath during the Fourth of July terrorist attacks on Manhattan and had received a special commendation from the president himself. It was something he was very proud of. Though he’d broken many internal NGA rules and more than a few laws in the process, he would have done it all again in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

Since McCauliff had helped him with sensitive assignments in the past, Harvath hoped he’d be able to count on him again.

It took the Troll two days and twice as much money as he’d anticipated to get the information he was looking for. But in the end, it was worth it. Brazil was a relatively small country, and he not only discovered who had assisted Roussard locally, but he also assembled a loose idea of how they washed and had moved their money.

At that point it was Harvath’s turn, and he decided to call Kevin.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” asked McCauliff when Harvath got him on the phone. “No way.”

“Kevin, I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important,” said Harvath.

“Of course you wouldn’t. Losing my job for helping you is one thing, losing my life when I’m found guilty of treason is something completely different. Sorry, but we are done with this conversation.”

Harvath tried to calm him down. “Kevin, come on.”

“No,
you
come on,” he replied. “You’re asking me to turn over control of DOD computers to a figure renowned for stealing intelligence from government organizations.”

“So firewall off any sensitive areas.”

“Am I talking to myself here? These are
D-O-D
computers.
All
their areas are sensitive. It’s one thing to ask me to pull imagery, Scot, but it’s another thing entirely to ask me to open up the door and give you an all-access pass…”

“I’m not asking you for an all-access pass. I just need enough capacity to-”

“To launch a denial-of-service attack from U. S. government computers on several banking networks so you can more effectively hack your way inside.”

That was the crux of the request right there, and Harvath couldn’t blame McCauliff for his reluctance. Everything he’d asked the NGA operative to do for him in the past paled in comparison to this. McCauliff was going to need a bigger reason than just their friendship to put his career and possibly more on the line.

Harvath decided to fill him in on what had happened.

When he was finished, there was silence from the other end of the line. McCauliff had no idea Harvath had been through so much since the New York City attacks. “If the banks found out where the attacks came from, the fallout for the U. S. would be beyond radioactive,” he said.

Harvath had been expecting this answer, and the Troll had made extensive notes for him on what he wanted to do. “What if there was a way this could be done without a trail leading back to the U. S.?” asked Harvath.

“What do you have in mind?”

Harvath explained their plan as McCauliff listened.

“On the surface,” the NGA operative replied, “it makes sense. It’s probably even doable that way, but there’s still one wild card that kills the deal.”

“The Troll,” said Harvath despondently.

“Exactly,” replied McCauliff. “I’m not saying you would ever intentionally do your country harm, but this could be the mother of all Trojan Horses and I am not going to be the dumb son of a bitch remembered for having swung open the gates so it could be wheeled inside.”

Harvath couldn’t argue with McCauliff’s reasoning. Allowing the Troll access to those computers was akin to handing a professional mugger a loaded gun and sending him into a dimly lit parking garage full of bejeweled society matrons. You couldn’t trust either of them to be on their best behavior.

Though McCauliff felt for Harvath’s predicament and genuinely wanted to help, boosting an enemy of the United States over the government’s firewall was out of the question.

The image, though, gave Harvath an idea. “What if we leave the Troll out of this?” he asked.

McCauliff laughed. “And I’m supposed to feign idiocy when I get questioned? I know you’re with him right now. If I even open up one socket for you, it’s the same as opening it for him.”

“But what if you didn’t open anything for either of us?” asked Harvath.

“Who would I be opening things for? If it’s not you, and not the Troll, who are you going to get to carry out this hack?”

Harvath paused for a minute and then replied, “You.”

“Me?” replied McCauliff. “Now I know you’re nuts.”

McCauliff disliked the idea of carrying out a hack against a host of financial institutions just as much as allowing Harvath and the Troll inside the DOD network to run the operation themselves. Either way he looked at it, there was no upside.

It wasn’t that McCauliff couldn’t do it. His talents at breaching complicated networks weren’t in question. The problem was that he actually enjoyed his job. He liked the NGA. He liked his bosses and he liked the people he worked with. This time, Harvath was simply asking for too much.

The list of things that could happen to McCauliff if he got caught was just too long. He wanted to help Harvath out, but he couldn’t find a way to do it without putting himself in serious jeopardy.

Harvath must have known exactly what he was thinking because he said, “I’m sending you an email,” and moments later, there was a chime as something arrived in Kevin McCauliff’s inbox.

The email was from Harvath’s official DHS account and provided the NGA operative with the one thing he needed to strip away his reservations and come to Scot Harvath’s aid-plausible deniability.

In the email, Harvath stated that he was working under direct orders from President Jack Rutledge and that McCauliff’s assistance, as it had been in the New York City attacks, was necessary in a matter of urgent national security.

Harvath specifically noted that McCauliff’s discretion was of paramount importance and that he was not to inform his superiors or anyone else that he worked with about what he was doing. The email assured him that the president was well aware of McCauliff’s role and was appreciative of his undertaking any and all tasks that might be assigned to him by Harvath.

Plain and simple, it was an insurance policy. As soon as McCauliff finished reading it, he printed out two copies. One he locked in his upper desk drawer and the other he placed in an envelope, which he addressed to himself at home.

The content of the email was bullshit and Kevin McCauliff knew it, but he liked Harvath a lot and wanted to help him. The last time he’d broken the rules, and the law, for Harvath he’d received a commendation from the president for his efforts.

McCauliff figured that if this time his bacon landed in the fire, the right attorney could probably use the email from Harvath to save him from getting fried.

That, of course, presupposed his getting caught, which was something Kevin McCauliff didn’t plan on letting happen.

“So are you in?” asked Harvath.

“Seeing as how I’ve been informed that this is a direct request from the president of the United States,” replied McCauliff, “how can I say no?”