Code of Conduct

by Brad Thor

  The man must have been pressed against the wall and had leapt out the minute he saw the door open. All Harvath could do was react. The man was literally on top of him. He couldn’t get his weapon into a good enough angle to shoot, and so he snapped his head forward, driving his night vision goggles into his assailant’s face.

  The man staggered backward, blood pouring down his face. Instead of surrendering, though, he charged again. This time, Harvath had enough distance and dropped him with two shots to his head. That left one final door.

  Harvath crossed over to it and listened. There was no sound. But there hadn’t been in his other two encounters either.

  Signaling the team, he twisted the doorknob. It was locked. Taking a step back, he kicked it open, and they poured in.

  Like the other room, the bed was unmade, but there was no sign of its recent occupant. As Ashby quickly checked beneath it, Palmer checked the closet, and Harvath crossed to the bathroom.

  It was secured by a sliding pocket door that hadn’t been closed all the way. Through the crack, Harvath could see the man identified as Jeffery, Damien’s valet, putting a shotgun in his mouth.

  He took a step back and fired five shots in rapid succession through the door.

  The valet screamed in agony as he dropped the shotgun onto the bathroom floor.

  Harvath ripped open the door and kicked the weapon out of the way. This guy wasn’t going to get the luxury of taking the coward’s way out and committing suicide. All of his shots had been below the waist, including the valet’s groin.

  Leaning over he placed the hot suppressor against the wound, and the valet screamed even louder.

  “That was from Helena,” Harvath said. “Now tell me where Damien is.”

  CHAPTER 54

  * * *

  BIRD CAY, BAHAMAS

  TWO NIGHTS LATER

  Harvath jumped from the ramp of a C-17 Globemaster transport plane, popped his chute, and glided through the warm night air toward the crystalline water below.

  Undoing his chest strap and belly-band, he splashed down thirty-two nautical miles north-northwest of Nassau. As soon as his feet touched the water, he disconnected his leg straps and swam free of the main lift webs, leaving his rig to slowly sink. With his dry-bag bobbing in front of him, he paddled toward Pierre Damien’s tropical two-hundred-fifty-acre Bahamian refuge.

  Francis Francis—a British sportsman and heir to the Standard Oil fortune—had originally developed the private island in the 1940s. In addition to being an incredible amateur golfer and a member of both the English track and fencing teams, he had also been a renowned aviator who helped develop the ejector seat.

  The island had played host to the rich and powerful of its day. Among Francis’s many notable guests were Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Noël Coward, Rock Hudson, David Niven, the Duke of Windsor, and even King Leopold III of Belgium.

  It was a tradition of hospitality that Pierre Damien had largely eschewed, preferring instead to keep his ownership of the island secret. Even the Mossad had been unaware of it.

  Jeffery had given up its existence, but not without extreme coercion. There was something off about him. Though he had been in great pain as Harvath had interrogated him, he had seemed to enjoy parts of it. The man had problems, lots of them.

  Those problems, though, created a psychological makeup that had complimented Damien’s. Renfield-like, Jeffery was devoted both to him, and to his ultimate objective. They were a match made in hell.

  Jeffery had not only conducted the torture of Helena, but had led her gang rape once Damien had fled. Like his employer, he was beyond evil.

  He had been left behind at the Virginia redoubt to handle communications and to carry out any of Damien’s dirty work should Linda Landon or any of the others fail to carry out their responsibilities. The men Harvath had encountered and killed at Clifton had been in the process of assembling supplies to augment what was already at the fallback location.

  According to Jeffery, the only means of communicating with Damien was a highly encrypted email system that was sent via satellite burst.

  None of that mattered to Harvath. He had no intention of communicating with Damien electronically. He wanted to chat with him face-to-face.

  As he made landfall on the eastern side of the island, he picked his way across the rocks, careful not to leave any footprints in the sand. Once back in the brush, he unpacked his dry-bag and assembled his equipment.

  Even though he didn’t have to traverse much terrain, his plan had been to travel light. He had packed an H&K 45 Compact Tactical, a Knight’s Armament Company suppressor, and a CRKT James Williams Shinbu knife. In and out. Cold, hard, and fast.

  After lacing up his boots, he conducted one last comms check.

  “Moonracer, this is Norseman. How do you read?”

  “Reading you five by five,” Nicholas replied.

  “Current target locations?”

  Nicholas relayed what he was seeing via satellite, and Harvath marked the men’s positions on his map. He then signed off. It was time to move.

  He followed the road from the beach until he reached a fork, and then headed west toward the clutch of whitewashed guest cottages on the other side of the narrow island. About half a kilometer from the main residence was where Damien would be housing the security team he had flown in. According to Nicholas, there was no activity. No one at that location was standing guard.

  Stepping off the road as he approached, he examined a series of support buildings. There was a garage, a maintenance shed, and a storage building—all of which were devoid of people.

  The next structure he came across appeared to be a caretaker’s cottage and he slipped soundlessly inside via an unlocked screen door.

  Clean dishes sat in a rack next to the sink, and the kitchen curtains fluttered in the ocean breeze of the open windows.

  Attached to the refrigerator was a to-do list of groundskeeping items accompanied by a list entitled Meal plans for Mr. Damien. Raising his pistol Harvath crept toward the bedroom.

  At the door, he took up the slack in his trigger and then eased it open. It slid quietly on well-oiled hinges. In the bed was an older couple fast asleep. They were not combatants.

  Lowering his pistol, he retreated from the room, closing the door behind him and leaving their home.

  Pushing on to the beach, he examined a large boathouse packed with all types of watercraft. An overhead winch system was used to place the selected toy onto a trailer. The trailer then rode on a narrow set of rails down into the water where the ski boat, sailboat, WaveRunner, and even a bright yellow mini-sub could be launched.

  Confident that no one was inside the boathouse, Harvath moved on to the first guest cottage. The sound of the waves crashing along the beach masked his approach.

  Like the caretaker’s cottage, this cottage had its windows open and storm shutters pinned back to allow the breeze in. It was divided into two bedrooms, each with its own entrance facing the beach. Through the curtains, he could make out a figure sleeping in each room. Stepping around to the beach side, he silently entered the first cottage door.

  Even though the man was asleep, Harvath recognized him instantly. He was one of Jan Hendrik’s men who had helped butcher everyone in the Matumaini Clinic, as well as the village back in Congo.

  With his pistol pointed at him, Harvath kicked the corner of the man’s bedframe and waited for him to open his eyes.

  When he did, Harvath raised his index finger to his lips and warned him to be quiet.

  “I’m the one who kidnapped your boss in Bunia,” he whispered. “I wanted you to know that all of those people you murdered for Mr. Damien in Congo—the men, the women, and the children—they were all immune to the virus.”

  The man’s look of shock quickly turned to something else. When he opened his mouth to yell for help, Harv
ath shot him twice in the head and quickly moved to the next room.

  Here, another butcher lay sleeping, and Harvath repeated his drill, kicking the bedframe and making sure the man knew why he was there before shooting him in the face.

  The next cottage was empty, as were the nearby toilet and shower facilities. The one after that, though, had two more of Hendrik’s mercenaries, and Harvath rapidly dispatched them both.

  He checked the final cottage only to find it empty. He knew where everyone else was.

  Inserting a fresh magazine into his weapon, he stepped outside and headed toward the main house half a kilometer up the beach.

  Halfway there, was another empty support building, which Harvath cleared before closing in on Damien’s residence.

  The large main house was at the tip of the island with stunning views of the ocean in three directions. It was shaped like a U with a two-story central structure and two, single-story wings jutting back off each end.

  It had all been built of stone quarried right on Bird Cay and whitewashed like the cottages. There was also a dramatic walled pool and a paved courtyard surrounded by archways. The entire property was simple and elegant, a reminder of an era long gone.

  The feature Harvath was interested in the most, though, was the external stone staircase that led to a terrace off the master bedroom and from there up onto the roof. But before he could get to Damien, he needed to get through the rest of his security team.

  Two men were on a roving patrol around the outside of the house. That was where Harvath started.

  His suppressor was exceptional, but he needed to make sure that absolutely no sound traversed the open air and gave him away. Securing his pistol, he drew the Shinbu.

  It was 14.75 inches in length, 9.25 of which was its high-carbon steel, tapered-tip blade designed for slashing and deep penetration. It had been created for Special Forces Operatives to employ when their firearms couldn’t be employed—like right now.

  Using one of the archways of the open-air courtyard to conceal himself, Harvath waited for the first guard to pass, and then he sprang.

  He clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth and bent his head back as far as he could. Plunging the blade up and through his rib cage on an angle, he punctured both lungs and lacerated his heart.

  He held on to the guard until he ceased struggling and then dragged his body off to the side where it wouldn’t be seen.

  Wiping his blade on the man’s clothes, he returned behind the stone archway and waited for the next guard. Minutes later, he appeared. But then something went wrong. Instead of passing, he stopped—right on the other side of the arch. Had he seen something? Did he know somehow that Harvath was there? The only word that came to Harvath’s mind was that one that rhymed with truck.

  The man was so close, he could hear him breathing. And then he couldn’t. But it wasn’t because he had walked away—it was because he was about to attack.

  Harvath charged to his left, but the man wasn’t there. He had gone in the opposite direction.

  Pivoting, Harvath sent the tip of his blade back in the direction he had come and followed it with his body.

  The guard had indeed come around the other side of the wide column and Harvath’s blade caught him in the lower abdomen.

  He didn’t waste any time. Pushing the knife the rest of the way in, he then jerked it upward, but the guard slammed his rifle down on top of it. He then swung the butt of his weapon as hard as he could toward Harvath’s head.

  Harvath jerked back, getting caught in the side of the face with a glancing but painful blow.

  Bringing his rifle around, the guard prepared to fire. Harvath would get only one chance.

  Pulling the blade from the man’s stomach, he canted it forty-five degrees and sent it sailing upward.

  It caught the guard beneath his right ear. With a quick twist, Harvath finished the job. Two down, two to go.

  One guard was sitting outside the main entrance, the other was sitting near the French doors that opened onto the pool. At this point, Harvath didn’t care if either of the men heard his suppressed pistol. By the time it happened, there would be no one they could call for backup. He decided to take the man at the main entrance first.

  Hugging the south wing, he used the tall, ornamental grasses Damien had planted to his advantage.

  When he was close enough to the front door and had a clean enough shot, Harvath took it. He depressed his trigger in rapid succession. The first two shots to the man’s chest caused him to bend forward. The shot to his head snapped him backward and out of his chair. Now, it was pool time.

  The final guard was right where Nicholas had said he would be. He was also committing a cardinal sin while on guard duty. He was smoking.

  Harvath had been able to smell the smoke long before he saw the man. Sitting in the darkness, he waited until the man took another deep drag on his cigarette and then shot him twice through the head, splattering the French doors behind him. Now, only Damien remained.

  While Harvath had originally considered the exterior staircase, he now decided against it. The master bedroom had too many windows, and if Damien was awake, there was too great a chance that he would see him coming. Instead, Harvath returned to the main entrance, rolled the dead guard out of the way, and let himself inside.

  The home was just as he had imagined. From its marble entry floor and fixtures, to its sweeping staircase and green palm frond wallpaper, it looked frozen in the 1940s. All it was missing was Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall passing through in search of more gin for another batch of martinis. Testing his weight on the stairs, Harvath carefully moved upward toward Damien’s bedroom.

  The second floor was decorated much the same as the first. There was a series of lesser bedrooms, all of which were empty. Arriving at the master, Harvath raised his suppressed pistol and pushed open the door.

  Not only was the room empty, but the bed had not been slept in. What the hell had Hendrik’s men been guarding?

  After checking the master bath, Harvath retraced his steps and rechecked the rest of the rooms on the second floor. Where the hell was he?

  Moving quietly back downstairs, Harvath checked the entire south wing. There was a library, a workout room, a billiards room and bar, and a sauna, but no Pierre Damien.

  Coming back into the main structure, he checked the living and family rooms and then proceeded into the dining room. Just beyond it, he found him.

  Damien was in a glass solarium, just before the kitchen. Several panels of glass had been retracted so he could smell and listen to the ocean. His back was to Harvath, but he knew he was there.

  “Some of you Jews are more clever than I give you credit for. I have been wondering if you would come.”

  There was a newspaper in his lap, a glass of red wine and its bottle on a table to his right.

  “Hands where I can see them,” said Harvath, as he maneuvered around him.

  “How many did the Mossad send? Just you?”

  “Just me,” Harvath replied, now face-to-face with Pierre Damien. “And I wasn’t sent by the Mossad.”

  “No?”

  Everything about the man was perfectly manicured—his hair, his nails, right down to his crisp, pressed robe and pajamas.

  “You’re an American citizen,” said Harvath. “The United States has no intention of letting Israel have you.”

  “So America has sent you to kill me?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you cooperate. We’ll start by me telling you one last time to keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Damien returned his hands to the arms of his chair, but nodded toward his drink. “May I?”

  “In a minute.”

  He looked at Harvath, trying to figure him out. Did he have a weakness, something he could e
xploit? He was very difficult to read. “What is it the United States wants?”

  “An admission.”

  Damien smiled, and his smile then turned to laughter. “Now I know you’re here to kill me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you don’t know the first thing about negotiating.”

  Harvath adjusted his pistol, pressed the trigger, and shattered the 1947 bottle of Château Cheval Blanc next to him.

  “As I was saying,” he continued. “The United States wants your full and complete confession.”

  Discharging the weapon had startled Damien, but he tried not to show it. “In exchange for what?” he asked, slowly wiping bits of glass and red wine from his sleeve.

  “That depends on how thoroughly you cooperate.”

  “You’ll have to give me some sort of a hint.”

  “I don’t have to give you anything,” Harvath replied. “But I will tell you this, I am going to get a confession out of you one way or the other. It’s up to you how painful it will be.”

  “And if I cooperate?”

  “If you cooperate, then as an American citizen there are a number of things that the United States is prepared to do.”

  “None of which you’ll tell me.”

  Harvath simply stared at him.

  “Maybe you’re a better negotiator than I thought,” said Damien. “Where do we start?”

  •••

  The man rambled on for over two hours, quite convinced of his clarity of vision and moral superiority.

  He repeatedly attempted to explain to Harvath that there no longer would be any such thing as a United States, that the concept of the nation-state was finished.

  Harvath’s was a fool’s errand, he stated, the wind in his sails the last breath of a dying empire. Within weeks, America as he knew it would cease to exist. And when it did, along with all of the other sovereign nations, the world’s survivors would seek a new kind of leadership, a global leadership. The United Nations would then step forward and take up that mantle, and a new golden age of enlightenment, informed by a healthy respect and stewardship of the planet would begin.