The First Commandment

CHAPTER 48

Harvath hung up the phone in utter disbelief. He had no idea who the president had spoken to while he’d had him on hold, but when Jack Rutledge got back on the line he was beyond angry, and their conversation went from bad to worse.

The president told him point-blank to back off the investigation, and when Harvath refused, the president said he had no choice but to order his arrest on grounds of treason.

Treason? Harvath was shocked. How could trying to save the lives of people who were important to him, people who were American citizens, be an act of treason?

The president gave him twenty-four hours to get back to D.C. and turn himself in. “And if I don’t?” Harvath had asked.

“Then I cannot and will not be responsible for your well-being,” Rutledge had answered.

And there it was. The cards were all on the table and Harvath now knew exactly where he stood.

He ended his conversation with the president by saying, “I guess we’ve each got to do what we feel is right,” and hung up the phone.

It was a moment Harvath could never have foreseen. The president of the United States had actually threatened his life. It was incomprehensible — just as incomprehensible as being labeled a traitor. For a moment, Harvath wondered if this was all some sort of bad dream, but the stark reality of the situation was too much to be anything but real.

His standing was now clear. In spite of years of selfless service to his country, he was disposable. His expertise, his track record, even his loyalty, were nothing more than items on a balance sheet to be weighed and disposed of at will.

Though Harvath wanted to give the president the benefit of the doubt, he could not bring himself to; not now. Not after having been taken into the president’s confidence so many times in the past. Never once had Harvath betrayed that confidence. His loyalty and his discretion were above reproach, but those apparently mattered little if at all anymore to Jack Rutledge.

Harvath felt betrayed and abandoned. The president had actually chosen the terrorists over him. It was absolutely surreal.

Be that as it might, the one thing Harvath didn’t feel was hopeless. The president could threaten him with arrest for treason, or worse, but the threats carried weight only if he got caught. And with a twenty-four-hour head start, the last thing he planned on doing was being apprehended.

Looking down at the folder he’d put on Tom Morgan’s desk, he pulled out the latest smattering of data he’d been given before leaving the conference room.

As he studied the list of aliases used by the released detainees, he came across one that he actually knew from his past, but it had belonged to a man he had killed and whom he had most definitely watched die. There was no way he could still be alive. The discovery could only mean one thing. Somebody was using his alias.