The First Commandment

CHAPTER 120

The hull of the bright-red Cigarette boat sliced right through Roussard’s Cobalt. At the moment he realized what had happened, the deed was done. Roussard was barely able to throw his hands up in front of his face before impact.

Passengers aboard the Polaris began screaming as soon as they saw that the low-slung Cigarette boat was doing nothing to avert an impending collision with the bright-yellow Cobalt.

The sound of the impact was sickening. Fiberglass was ripped apart and rent asunder as the Cigarette plowed right through its victim and kept going, grazing the stern of the Polaris.

The Cigarette finally stopped when it ran aground halfway up the rolling hill that met the thin strip of rock, sand, and grass that composed the Harvard Club’s shorefront.

The first thing Harvath heard as he came to were the terrified screams from the Polaris. Blood was dripping into his right eye, and he raised his hand to his forehead and felt a gash several inches long. Looking to his left, he couldn’t find Morrell and assumed he’d been ejected.

Smoke was pouring from the engine compartment. Harvath cut the engines and the wildly spinning props soon fell silent. Stumbling from the boat, he looked for Morrell and found him lying near a rock wall over thirty feet away. He was barely conscious, and Harvath knew better than to move him. He told Morrell to stay still and that he’d be back with help soon.

What he didn’t share with him was that he had something else he had to do first.

Off the end of the Harvard Club boat pier, Harvath could see the two halves of Roussard’s boat upturned and bobbing just above the waterline. Ignoring the splitting pain from his head, Harvath took off running down the pier, launching himself at the end of it in a flying leap over the water.

When he plunged beneath the surface, he opened his eyes and began looking for Roussard. He stayed down as long as he could, until he had no choice but to come up again for air. Circling the wreckage in search of the terrorist, he ignored the burning sensation of spilled gasoline that was pouring into his wound.

He was about to submerge himself again when he heard coughing from about seventy-five yards away. It had come from a fleet of moored sailboats. Swimming as quietly as he could, Harvath made for the sound.

From Fontana, the village air raid siren was calling the police, volunteer fire, and rescue workers to duty.

Unobserved, he moved closer to the sailboat, and then, taking a deep breath, Harvath slipped once more beneath the surface of the water.

When he got beneath the sailboat’s heavy, fixed keel he looked up and saw a pair of legs feebly treading water. Sliding his Benchmade from where it was clipped in his pocket, Harvath depressed its lone button and the blade swung up and locked into place.

Like a great white shark circling its prey, Harvath made a loop beneath Roussard and headed upward, quietly breaking the surface behind him.

The man must have sensed Harvath’s presence, because all of a sudden he spun, his eyes wide with fear. Blood was running from his nose as well as both of his ears. When he coughed, great gobs of it came out, and as Harvath positioned himself for the kill, he noticed that one of Roussard’s eyeballs must have become detached, as it remained stationary and didn’t track the way the other one did.

There was no mercy in Harvath’s heart for this terrorist, this killer of innocent men and women. Roussard was beyond rehabilitation, and Harvath knew the greatest gift he could give the American taxpayers was to prevent Roussard from ever standing trial and living out the next twenty years on appeal after appeal in some prison somewhere.

Harvath swung the knife with one fluid slash, and its blade tore through the soft flesh of Roussard’s throat. That which has been taken in blood, can only be answered in blood, he thought to himself.

Watching him die, Harvath began to realize that he’d made a mistake. The blade was so razor-sharp that Roussard probably hadn’t even felt it. Bleeding to death was too good for him. Harvath wanted him to be filled with terror as he died, just as so many of his victims had.

Quickly swimming around behind him, Harvath placed both of his hands upon Roussard’s shoulders and pushed him beneath the surface of the water.

The man struggled violently for almost a minute. Then his body fell quiet and Harvath knew he was dead.