The First Commandment - A Thriller

Scot Harvath is now the country's only hope. Fighting his way through the burning streets of Manhattan, he must mount his own operation to locate a man the United States government refuses to admit even exists.

From the national bestselling author of The Lions of Lucerne, Path of the Assassin, and State of the Union comes the most gripping international thriller yet featuring Navy SEAL turned covert counterterrorism agent Scot Harvath.

"Scot Harvath is the perfect all-American hero for the post-September 11th world."

-- Nelson DeMille

When a mystery thousands of years in the making threatens to catapult the enemies of America to a sure and decisive victory, the only person the president can call for help is the man the administration has just fired.

Caught live on Al Jazeera in an off-the-books operation, Scot Harvath's career has been terminated and he is forced to go to ground as the president bows to pressure from a ruthless senator with her sights set on the White House. But when the tide in the war on terror suddenly turns against the U.S., the president has no choice but to secretly bring Harvath back inside.

Ducking a congressional subpoena, Harvath travels to the Mediterranean, where he learns of a shadowy organization that has been combing the earth for decades in search of the ultimate weapon to use against the United States and her allies.

Now, after three summers of record-setting heat across present-day Europe, one steadily melting Alpine glacier has given up an ancient secret--one with the potential to thrust civilization back into the Dark Ages.

June 632 A.D.: Deep within the Uranah Valley of Mount Arafat in Mecca, the Prophet Mohammed shares with his closest companions a final and startling revelation. Within days, he is assassinated.

September 1789: U.S. Minister to France Thomas Jefferson, who is charged with forging a truce with the violent Muslim pirates of the Barbary Coast, makes a shocking discovery - one that could forever impact the world's relationship with Islam.

Present day: When a car bomb explodes outside a Parisian café, Scot Harvath is thrust back into the life he has tried so desperately to leave behind.

Saving the intended victim of the attack, Harvath becomes party to an amazing and perilous race to uncover a secret so powerful that militant Islam could be defeated once and for all without firing another shot, dropping another bomb, or launching another covert action.

But as desperate as the American government is to have the information brought to light, there are powerful forces aligned against it - men who are just as determined that Mohammed's mysterious final revelation continue to remain hidden forever.

What Jason Bourne was to the Cold War, Scot Harvath is to the War on Terror. Brad Thor has created "the perfect all-American hero for the post September 11 world" (Nelson DeMille) and will keep readers glued to the pages as he once again takes them across the globe on a heart-pounding chase where the stakes are higher than they have ever been before.

In a dangerous assignment that the United States government is prepared to deny, Scot Harvath must secretly infiltrate Kabul’s notorious Policharki Prison and free the man the kidnappers demand as ransom—al-Qaeda mastermind, Mustafa Khan. But when Harvath arrives, he quickly learns that there is more to the kidnapping than anyone dares to admit. And as the subterfuge is laid bare, Harvath must examine his own career of hunting down terrorists and ask himself if he has what it takes to help one of the world’s worst go free.

After rescuing the President from kidnappers, Navy SEAL turned Secret Service agent Scot Harvath shifts his attentions to rooting out and capturing or killing all those responsible for the plot. As he prepares to close out his list, a bloody and twisted trail of clues points toward one man -- the world's most feared, most ruthless terrorist, Hashim Nidal, who has assembled an international league of Islamic terrorist networks in an ingenious plot to topple both Israel and America. Harvath and his CIA-led team must reach Nidal before it's too late. One problem remains -- they have no idea what the man looks like.

On a cold January morning, the United States awakes to discover that an old enemy, one long believed dead and buried, has crawled out of its grave to lay siege to the world's only superpower.

With the stunning discovery that enhanced Soviet-made suitcase nukes have been secreted in America's major cities, President Jack Rutledge gathers his National Security Council to weigh the feasibility of a first strike against the Russian Federation. There's only one problem. For over two decades, the Russians have been funneling international aid money into a top secret air defense system, which has just been brought on-line and which will render any conventional attack upon their country utterly ineffective.

After exhausting all of his other options, and with Soviet sleeper agents preparing to detonate their deadly payloads across the United States, the president turns to the nation's final hope, ex-Navy SEAL and Secret Service Agent Scot Harvath.

Assigned to a covert section of the Department of Homeland Security and charged with defending the nation against all foreign aggressors by any means necessary, Harvath finds himself hand-picked by the president to unravel a brilliantly orchestrated, fiendishly timed conspiracy that has already shattered the fragile peace between the world's nations and which, if successful, will leave the United States in smoldering ruins.

With family friend and former Deputy FBI Director Gary Lawlor nowhere to be found and suspected of betraying his country, Harvath embarks on an adventure that will test the bonds of loyalty and reveal a nation's deepest secrets.

As high-voltage and timely as they come, State of the Union is a frighteningly real, headline-ripping tale of espionage and intrigue that will keep readers guessing until the last tantalizing piece of the puzzle locks into place.

On the snow-covered slopes of Utah, the unthinkable has just become a nightmarish reality: thirty Secret Service agents have been viciously executed and the vacationing president of the United States is kidnapped by one of the most lethal terrorist organizations in the Middle East -- the dreaded Fatah.

But one man, surviving agent and ex­Navy SEAL Scot Harvath, doesn't believe the Fatah is responsible for the attack. Driven by his professional code of duty and honor -- and a solemn vow to avenge his fallen comrades -- Scot creates his own rules to get some answers. But his search for the truth raises the blood pressure of his superiors...and casts his own life in mortal jeopardy. The deadly machinations have been set in motion by a shadowy coalition, comprising some of the highest-ranking officials in government and business -- men who operate above the law, men who realize the threat Scot poses to their hidden agenda...men who will do anything to stop him.

Navy SEAL turned covert operative Scot Harvath is called to action once again in Brad Thor’s hottest political thriller yet.

  Buried within the black ops budgets of the Department of Defense, a new spy agency has been created.  Unfettered by the oversight of self-serving politicians, it reports only to a secret panel of military insiders.  Its job is to target America’s enemies - both foreign and domestic - under a charter of three simple words: Find, Fix, and Finish.

Recruited as a field operative, Scot Harvath has just returned from his first assignment abroad when a bombing in Rome kills a group of American college students. The evidence points to a dangerous colleague from Harvath’s past and a plan for further attacks on an unimaginable scale. 

Harvath is tasked with leveraging his relationship to lure the man out of hiding and kill him on the spot.  But what if it is the wrong man?

Simultaneously, a young woman is struck by a taxi in a hit-and-run in Chicago.  With only two intoxicated witnesses and over five thousand cabs in the city, the Chicago Police have given up on their investigation.  But when the family’s attorney digs deeper, he will uncover a shocking connection to the bombing in Rome and the perpetrators’ plans for America.

Born in the shadows and kept from heads of state, there are some missions so deadly, so sensitive, that they simply don’t exist.

When one such mission goes horribly wrong, a wave of dramatic terrorist attacks is set in motion. Their goal: the complete and total collapse of the United States.

With the CIA’s intelligence abilities hobbled, former Navy SEAL Team 6 member turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath launches an audacious plan to infiltrate the terrorists’ network and prevent one of the biggest threats the United States has ever faced.

Simultaneously, a foreign wet work team has been sent to California. Their target: one of Hollywood’s most famous filmmakers.

While working on a secret documentary project, movie producer Larry Salomon has unknowingly exposed one of the world’s wealthiest and most politically connected powerbrokers—a man with a radical anti-American agenda poised to plunge the nation into deadly, irreversible chaos.

As the plots rocket to their pulse-pounding conclusion and the identities of the perpetrators are laid stunningly bare, Harvath will be left with only one means to save America. Unable to trust anyone, he will be forced to go Full Black.

From behind the rows of razor wire, a new breed of counterterrorism operator has emerged. 

Just as skilled, just as fearsome, and just as deadly as their colleagues, Delta Force’s newest members have only one thing setting them apart—their gender. Part of a top-secret, all-female program codenamed The Athena Project, four of Delta’s best and brightest women are about to undertake one of the nation’s deadliest assignments. 

When a terrorist attack in Rome kills more than twenty Americans, Athena Team members Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper are tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives. But there is more to the story than anyone knows. 

In the jungles of South America, a young U.S. intelligence officer has made a grisly discovery. Surrounded by monoliths covered with Runic symbols, one of America’s greatest fears appears to have come true. Simultaneously in Colorado, a foreign spy is close to penetrating the mysterious secret the U.S. government has hidden beneath Denver International Airport.