The First Commandment

Chapter 52

When Al-Tal’s wife and twenty-year-old son returned from the mosque, Harvath was waiting for them. Wearing a thin, black ski mask, he slipped out of the stairwell into the dimly lit corridor and placed his silenced,.45 caliber Taurus 24/7 OSS pistol against the back of the son’s head.

When the mother opened her mouth to cry out, Harvath grabbed her by the throat. “If you make any sound,” he told her in Arabic, “I will kill you both.”

With the mother and son Flexicuffed and pieces of duct tape across their mouths, he relieved them of their house keys and let himself into the apartment. Before entering the building, Harvath had gone through the dossier, committing pertinent facts about Al-Tal’s residence and its occupants to memory.

He’d read enough about Al-Tal’s bodyguard to know that he was extremely dangerous. A former interrogator for the Syrian Secret Police, the man had routinely brutalized subjects by submitting them to horrific beatings and making them watch as he raped and sodomized their wives and children.

When Harvath crept into the apartment, he found the hulking bodyguard wearing a leather shoulder holster over a sweat-stained T-shirt. He was focused on a pan of greasy lamb’s meat he was heating over the stove in the kitchen. He looked up just as Harvath’s pistol spat two rounds into his forehead.

The hot pan clattered to the floor and Harvath made it into a short hallway just as Al-Tal’s nurse appeared. Undoubtedly, Al-Tal had chosen him because of his size. If push came to shove, the cagey intelligence operative had probably figured he could use the nurse as extra muscle.

Harvath struck him full in the face with the butt of his weapon, and the man folded like a cheap wallet.

Stepping over the nurse, Harvath swung into the rear bedroom. He found Al-Tal propped up in bed and affixed to an IV with a PCA, or patient-controlled anesthesia. It allowed him to regulate the flow of morphine for his cancer pain via a small device in his claw-like hand.

“Who are you?” the man demanded in Arabic as Harvath entered the room.

Before Harvath could answer, he noticed the gray-haired man’s right hand slip beneath his blanket. Harvath put three rounds into the bed, and Al-Tal immediately drew back his hand.

Harvath walked over to the bed and pulled back the blankets. He found both a pistol and a modified AK-47.

“Who are you?” Al-Tal spat again as Harvath removed the weapons. His eyes were narrow and dark, his voice arrogant.

“You’ll discover who I am soon enough,” said Harvath, knowing the man spoke flawless English.

Binding his hands and feet to the bed, Harvath gagged him and left the room.

Chapter 53

Harvath secured the nurse, fetched his bag from the stairwell, and then brought Al-Tal’s wife and son inside. After he was certain they had gotten a good look at the bodyguard and knew that Harvath meant business, he dragged the corpse into the bathroom. Removing the plastic shower curtain and liner, he wrapped the body, sealed it with duct tape, and dumped it into the tub.

Using Omar’s schematic, he tore out all of the video and listening devices. Though he believed the GID operative had been straight with him, he decided to leave the ski mask on. Now he had to deal with the rest of the mess he had made.

Harvath hated taking hostages. Not only were they a liability, they were a downright pain in the ass. They needed to be fed, given bathroom breaks, and kept from escaping. On such short notice, though, and considering the time constraints and the fact that Al-Tal was at the stage where he never left his apartment, it was the best that Harvath could do.

Cutting Al-Tal free of his restraints, Harvath pulled the IV out of his arm and dragged him into the bathroom so he could see what had become of his bodyguard. Once he’d gotten a good look, Harvath dragged him into the dining room where his nurse and family were being kept.

Harvath jerked a chair from the table and shoved Al-Tal down into it. After he had Flexicuffed the Syrian to it as tightly as he could, he removed the man’s gag.

“You will die. I promise you,” sputtered Al-Tal.

“An interesting threat,” replied Harvath as he removed another chair and sat down, their faces nose to nose, “especially since you already placed a $150,000 price on my head.”

“It’s you. The one who killed Asef.”

“Don’t you mean Suleiman?” asked Harvath. “That was the name you had given him, wasn’t it? Abdel Rafiq Suleiman?”

Al-Tal didn’t answer.

It made no difference to Harvath. He could read everything he needed to in the man’s face. Al-Tal was furious and terrified all at the same time.

“I know a lot more about you than you think, Tammam.”

“What do you want?” demanded the Syrian spymaster.

“I want information.”

Al-Tal laughed derisively. “I will never give you anything.”

Harvath hated everything about him. It wasn’t often that he took pleasure in killing, but this would be different. “I’m going to give you one chance. Where is Abdel Salam Najib?”

Al-Tal stopped laughing.

Harvath looked at him. “If you prefer, we can call him Suleiman. After all, you gave him that alias after Khashan died.”

“You mean after you killed him.”

“Neither of us has much time, Tammam. Let’s not bicker over semantics.”

“Let my family go and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Now it was Harvath who laughed.

“At least let the nurse go. He has nothing to do with this.”

Harvath wasn’t going to do anything for this monster. “Where is Najib?” he repeated.

When Al-Tal refused to answer, Harvath leaped up and grabbed Al-Tal’s wife. He didn’t like doing it, but she knew well enough who her husband was, and this had to be done.

Harvath dragged her within two feet of Al-Tal, keeping his eyes locked with the man’s own the entire time.

“What are you going to do to her?”

“It’s up to you,” replied Harvath as he removed the pistol from beneath his jacket and used it to comb the woman’s hair over her left ear.

“In our line of work, we don’t target each other’s families,” snapped Al-Tal. “You know that.”

“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.