The First Commandment

CHAPTER 28

It was midmorning when Ron Parker called Harvath and told him to meet him in the dining room.

Harvath grabbed a quick shower, throwing the temperature control all the way to cold at the end to help wake him up and shake off the remnants of the horrible nightmare that had visited him every night without fail since Tracy’s shooting.

He dressed in the spare clothes Finney had arranged for him and then called both hospitals to check on how his mother and Tracy were doing.

In the restaurant, Parker already had breakfast waiting for them. Harvath poured himself a cup of coffee and asked, “Where’s Tim?”

“He’s glued to the markets this morning. There’s a stock in South America he has his eye on.”

Harvath got the picture and didn’t ask any more questions. Once he had gulped down his breakfast, Parker drove him out to Sargasso.

When they entered the conference room, Tim Finney and Tom Morgan were waiting for them.

“The weather’s almost cleared,” said Morgan as Harvath poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. “We should be hearing from our friend shortly.”

“How’s your mom doing?” asked Finney as he took the chair next to Harvath.

“Awful.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How about Tracy?”

“No change,” he replied. Wanting to steer the questions away from his series of misfortunes, he posed one of his own. “Has that sawed-off little shit bag moved at all?”

“Nope,” replied Parker as he stood in front of his laptop and took a sip of coffee.

“Has anyone been out to the island to see him?”

“Negative.”

Harvath leaned back in his chair and massaged his face with his hands. “So we’re back to waiting.”

Finney tapped his pen against the conference table. “Yep.”

The screens around the room were all illuminated and showed the chat room with the last message from the Troll indicating that he had information for Harvath but that it would have to wait until the rain had passed.

“How’s Alison look?” asked Parker, breaking the silence that had fallen upon the room. “Good?”

Harvath smiled. No matter how luxurious the surroundings, lying in wait was still lying in wait, and cops as well as soldiers always talked about the same thing. “Yeah,” Harvath replied. “She looks very good.”

“If I could convince her to move here full-time, maybe we could have something.”

Finney snorted derisively. “And deprive all the resort’s female guests of your attention? Not on your life.”

Parker laughed. “It doesn’t matter. San Diego is where her career is. She’s not going to leave that. Not even for me.”

Harvath was going to respond when Tom Morgan snapped his fingers and pointed to one of the screens. The Troll was back.