The First Commandment by Brad Thor

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.

Chapter 29
    It seemed an odd request at first, but Harvath wasn’t the world’s fastest typist either, and Morgan had assured him that they wouldn’t be putting themselves at risk.
    With his headset on and a nod from Morgan that it was safe to proceed, Harvath said, “Okay, I’m here.”
    “Agent Harvath, how nice to hear your voice,” replied the Troll over their encrypted voice-chat link.
    “Yours, too. It’s a lot deeper than I expected.”
    The Troll laughed. “All the better to prevent you from building an accurate voiceprint of me. That Echelon listening program your government has is quite good, you know.”
    Harvath tried to place the man’s accent. He spoke the Queen’s English with an exceptional British accent, but there was something beneath it.
Czech, maybe?
Or was it Russian? Harvath spoke passable Russian and knew many native Russian speakers. This man sounded more like he came from outside mother Russia proper. Perhaps Georgia.
    That fact notwithstanding, Harvath still had no desire to make small talk, so he got to the point. “Your last transmission said you had something for me. What is it?”
    “Through a couple of sources I still have access to, I was able to secure a list of names. Four, to be exact,” lied the Troll. “All released en masse from the U. S. naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.”
    “And why would I be interested in them?” asked Harvath.
    The Troll paused for effect and then said, “Because one of those men is the person you’re looking for.”
    Harvath looked at Finney, Parker, and Morgan, who were all quietly listening in on the exchange. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
    The Troll laughed. “As it turns out, Agent Harvath, there is quite a bit