by Brad Thor
“You’re emotionally unavailable, Bentzi. Any woman can see that. It makes you more attractive.”
“Are you psychoanalyzing me or is this supposed to be some weird compliment?”
“Neither,” Nava replied. “I’m just telling you the truth. No matter how well she shoots or fights, she’s deeply insecure. We both know that.”
“Everyone’s insecure. If you don’t have doubts, there’s something wrong with you. She may be insecure, but she’s a good person.”
“The hooker with the heart of gold. Except she isn’t really a hooker anymore. She’s an asset. Our asset, and whatever let’s-play-house, happily-ever-after fantasy she has created in her mind with Damien, it needs to come to an end. Right now. Israel can’t afford fantasies.”
“You think that is what this is all about? She sees Damien as her way out?”
“If you’re going to reach for a parachute, why not one spun from platinum?”
Mordechai let that sink in for several moments.
“Of course, the other possibility,” Nava suggested, “is that she is trying to make you jealous.”
“Jealous of what?” he demanded. “There’s nothing to be jealous about.”
Nava put her hands out. “Okay, don’t get angry.”
“I’m not angry. I just want this all fixed. There isn’t time to start over again. If she’s not successful, we’re through.”
“You mean Israel is through.”
“Israel, the United States, all of us.”
Now it was Nava’s turn to think. “Maybe there’s another way to motivate her.”
Mordechai didn’t want to hear it. He cared for Helena. The fact that they were trying to figure out how to manipulate her bothered him. It bothered him even more because none of this should have ever happened. She had failed him and in doing so, he had in turn failed Nava. It was just one enormous cluster fuck.
“We need to slam a red-hot jolt of adrenaline right into her chest,” Nava continued. “Something that’ll keep her attention no matter what Damien says or does.”
A million things ran through Mordechai’s mind, and none of them were good. No matter what depraved routes his brain was travelling, it was guaranteed Nava’s were worse. Much worse.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. “Carrot or stick? Do you want to grab someone from her family?”
She shook her head. “If we did that, we’d lose her forever. I have a better idea.”
As Nava crushed out her cigarette and lit another, she explained what she was thinking.
Mordechai sat there, stunned—not knowing if he could follow through. It was one of the worst things he had ever been asked to do.
CHAPTER 11
* * *
CONGO
Ash and his team had mapped out a series of guesthouses and ranger stations between Bunia and the Matumaini Clinic. Like a chain of islands in a vast and unstable ocean, they could provide anything from food and rest to communications equipment and sanctuary.
Because of their encounter with the FRPI rebels, they had decided to backtrack and take a new route. There was no telling what would have been waiting up ahead on the road they had been on. There had to have been more vehicles somewhere. It would have been impossible to move all of the rebels they had encountered in one pickup truck—even as heavily as they filled them with men and supplies in Congo.
Backtracking had cost them hours. By the time they reached the first ranger station, the rain had stopped, the sun was out, and it was almost time for lunch.
Jambo was the first one out of the vehicles, pumping the rangers’ hands, smiling and wishing them well in Swahili. He spun a long tale about how the team had managed to get one of the trucks stuck on the way out of Bunia that morning and had spent hours before finally getting it free. They needed to rest and take showers. They had brought their own food and water, but would gladly pay the rangers for their hospitality, as well as for any beer the men might have. Happy to augment their income, the rangers gladly agreed and threw in lunch for free.
Harvath didn’t like the idea of drinking in the middle of the day, but after what they had been through, they needed to take some of the edge off. And much like the phony “we’re not carrying any guns” stickers in the Land Cruisers’ windows, drinking beer in the middle of the day sent a message that they were not a threat and had nothing to hide. Harvath had ditched the CARE International door magnets hours ago. There was no telling if the word had gone out among the broader FRPI or not. The less his team advertised, the better.
There was one shower at the ranger station and the Brits politely offered it to Dr. Decker first. She hadn’t said a word since they had escaped. She had leaned against the window the entire way, eyes closed, pretending to be asleep.
While they took turns using the shower, they kept an informal patrol, watching for anything unusual. Taking a break to rest and recharge didn’t mean letting their guard down.
Because the rangers would have been upset to see them carrying weapons, the Brits kept their Glocks concealed beneath their shirts. Harvath was unarmed. He left the rear doors of LC1 unlocked and made sure nothing was sitting on the rear bench. If anything happened and he needed a weapon, he would either take one off one of the rangers, or make a run for the shotgun under the backseat.
He watched as the rangers prepared lunch. When Jambo explained how much they were charging for their beers, Harvath understood why they were throwing in lunch.
When a small plastic bag with “fresh” meat came out, Harvath asked Jambo what kind of meat it was. “Bush meat,” he replied.
Harvath immediately shook his head. “No way.”
“Why?”
Bush meat was the vehicle by which some of the worst diseases in Congo travelled. It was his op and he wasn’t going to risk anyone getting sick. “Please tell the rangers thank you, but we’re vegetarians.”
Jambo looked at Harvath for a moment, trying to figure out how he was going to convincingly communicate this, but ultimately gave up and relayed the message to the rangers. Why anyone would waste good bush meat was beyond them, but they didn’t care. It meant more food for them and the money was the same. The rangers’ deal only got better.
By the time it was Harvath’s turn to grab a shower, the hot water had run out. He washed quickly, using the soap he had brought, being careful not to let any of the water get in his mouth or nose. The last thing he wanted was to get sick.
The thought of it brought him back to the rebel camp and all of the men who had been masked up. Decker said she thought it was yellow fever. If she was right, he didn’t have anything to worry about. It wasn’t communicable, unless an infected mosquito bit you, and he had already had the vaccine. But what if it wasn’t yellow fever? What if it was something more serious? He tried to shake the thought from his mind.
Everything in Congo seemed to be covered in a layer of clay-colored, red dust. Turning off the shower, he toweled off with the only “clean” towel that was left—a small, lime-green hand towel with characters from a popular American children’s movie. Finding slices of western culture in the middle of a place like Congo always reminded him that the world was a lot smaller and interconnected than most people realized.
As dry as he was going to get, Harvath dressed in fresh clothes and joined the rest of the team for “lunch.”
While Jambo had no problem eating the bush meat, the rest of the team picked at stewed cassava leaves and boiled vegetables.
When the meal was finished, the Brute Squad rested on the front porch, keeping one eye out for trouble while Ash and Mick gathered intel from the rangers about the area they were heading into.
Jambo offered to clear the table and as he took the stack of plates to the sink, Decker approached Harvath. “Can I talk to you for a moment?” she asked.
Harvath nodded and, picking up h
is beer, followed her outside.
They followed a rubble-strewn walkway to a clutter of lean-tos behind the station.
Once she was satisfied that they were fully out of earshot of the men on the porch, Decker laid into him, “Don’t you ever pretend to be a doctor again. Do you understand me? I’m the doctor, and I am in charge here.”
Had Decker been a man, Harvath would have been torn between laughing and knocking him out. But since Decker was a woman, and he lived by the code that no man should ever strike a woman—even an astoundingly arrogant one—he chose the former.
She glared at him. “You’re laughing? How dare you?”
It was time to put her in her place. “Dr. Decker, I am going to make this very clear, so that there’s no misunderstanding. This is not a medical assignment. You are here to assist me. That means you do what I say, when I say it. If I tell you not to do something, then you don’t do it. Do we understand each other?”
Decker’s glare had turned into a glower. “Your arrogance is astounding. Do you know that?”
“My arrogance?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Your arrogance. It wasn’t you who opened Matumaini Clinic. It wasn’t you who poured sweat and blood into making it happen. And it wasn’t you who lost very good friends there to God knows what. So, yes, your arrogance is astounding.”
She was in shock. That was the only charitable explanation he could think of. Their encounter with the rebels would have been traumatizing for any civilian, even a doctor who had previously been a war correspondent. Add to that the fact that she had already shown up for duty worried about the staff from the Matumaini Clinic, and you had a more than perfect recipe for psychological disaster.
“You’ve just been through a pretty intense—” Harvath began.
“Don’t you dare patronize me,” she spat.
“No one is patronizing you.”
“The hell you aren’t.”
Harvath needed to shut this down. “Dr. Decker, I’m willing to cut you a little slack after what happened, but—”
“But what?” she demanded, cutting him off again.
“Either you start pulling your act together, or I’m going to arrange to send you back.”
That seemed to get her attention.
Harvath watched her for a couple of seconds. He had known some emotional women in his day, but he had always thought it was demeaning to blame everything on emotion. People and arguments were usually more nuanced than that.
There was, though, some convoluted chip that Decker carried on her shoulder. He had no idea where it came from, and he didn’t want to know. That was for her shrink or, God help him, her boyfriend to figure out.
All Harvath cared about was whether or not she’d take orders, and whether or not he could count on her to see the rest of this operation through. He didn’t like manipulating people, but Decker had positioned herself in such a manner that he had no problem doing whatever he needed to do. But before that, he wanted to make a couple more things crystal clear.
“After everything that happened this morning, we’re very lucky that nobody died.”
She looked at him, her eyes smoldering with incredulity. “Nobody died? Nobody?”
Harvath corrected himself. “We’re very lucky that none of us died.”
“So they don’t matter.”
“The rebels?”
“Yes, the men back there that you killed, murdered in cold blood.”
Good Lord, thought Harvath. “All of those men were armed combatants.”
“Who you shot before they could even get a chance to shoot you!”
What the . . . This woman was nuts. “You know that’s the idea, right? To shoot them before they can shoot me?”
In Harvath’s short time on this earth he had heard some incredibly stupid and incredibly offensive things, but that one was very near the top of his list. “Do you think I enjoyed shooting those men?”
“I don’t know,” Decker replied. “You tell me. You sure seemed pretty good at it.”
“I’m good at it, Dr. Decker, in the same way I’m sure you’re good at what you do. Because that’s my job.”
She had a triumphant expression on her face, as if she had just caught him in the lie to end all lies. “Except my job is to save lives.”
“Mine too.”
“But—” she began.
“But I’ve still killed people?” he asked, interrupting her this time.
Decker nodded.
“I have, and I would do it again because some lives are more valuable than others.”
Once more the look of triumph flashed across her face, but Harvath shut it right down.
“Not every life is worth saving, Dr. Decker. In fact, some aren’t even worth fighting for.”
“All lives matter,” she countered.
“The life of a Hitler? A Stalin? A Mao? A bin Laden?”
“The men we encountered this morning were not a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Bin Laden,” she replied.
“No, but they tied you up and gagged you just the same, right?”
Decker dismissed his question as if it were beneath her. Her ideology was more dangerous than Harvath had originally feared. Not only had she been willing to jump out of the Land Cruiser and go blindly into the jungle with anyone who asked, but she also appeared to lack the capability to feel any shame or responsibility for what had happened because of it.
He was about ready to write her off for good when she made an interesting admission and asked him a question very few had ever asked.
“I don’t get you,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I assume you’re a spy, or a soldier, or something.”
“Or something,” Harvath admitted.
She looked at him long and hard, as if the answer to her next question would have to already be written on his face for her to believe it.
“Why do you do it?” she asked. “Any of it?”
It wasn’t a funny question, but Harvath laughed again anyway.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” he said.
“Try me.”
She had said try me, not trust me. There were many explanations Harvath could have given her for why he had chosen the path he was on.
One was his desire to please his deceased father who had seldom been there for him because the man was always away chasing his own adventures. Another had to do with a desire to push himself further and challenge himself more. Yet another had to do with the fact that he was just plain addicted to the lifestyle and thought so highly of his ability that he had come to believe that he was the only person who could get the hard assignments done.
There was another part to why he did what he did. It had started when he was much younger and lived next door to a developmentally impaired boy who was regularly picked on. He had inserted himself as the boy’s protector, which resulted in him getting into a lot of fights. He got into a lot of trouble, but he also became a good fighter.
Though he wanted to believe that what he was doing was noble, and it was, there was also a certain degree of selfishness to it. The boys he fought with were usually bigger than he was and there was often more than one of them. Nevertheless, he beat them time and again until no one challenged or made fun of his “friend.”
It wasn’t until he was older that he realized the gusto with which he had punched out any kid who made fun of the developmentally impaired boy came from a deeper place inside himself. What he did for that boy is what he wished his father had been around to do for himself and his mother. He was protecting him.
He also came to realize that what he had voluntarily chosen to do for his neighbor, his Navy SEAL father had also voluntarily chosen to do for others. There would always be people who needed the protection of others. True nobility came in offering that protection freely. Onc
e he came to fully accept that idea, his path in life became pretty clear.
Looking at Decker he said, “We talk a lot back home about the American Dream. Without someone willing to protect it, it can’t exist.”
“You’re right,” she replied. “I don’t believe you.”
So much for building rapport, Harvath thought. Not that he was surprised. He could tell that they had much different worldviews.
“Your belief in why I do what I do notwithstanding, I need to know whether or not I can count on you moving forward,” he said.
“That depends.”
“Sorry, I need a yes or no answer. No contingencies, no qualifiers. Either you agree to do what I say, or you’re not going back out with us.”
Decker was quiet for several moments. “I really thought those soldiers were Congolese military. I wouldn’t have gone with them had I known they weren’t.”
Harvath didn’t know what to make of her statement. It almost sounded like an apology. Regardless, it showed she was capable of insight, which went a big way toward fixing the problem.
“I’m not saying you can’t help people. That’s what you do. I understand that. But right now, our job is to figure out what happened to the people at the Matumaini Clinic. That needs to be our focus. Agreed?”
Whatever storm had been raging inside of Decker, it seemed to be receding. Her face had softened and her posture was less aggressive.
“Agreed,” she said.
Harvath looked at his watch and computed how much daylight they had left. If Ash and his team were onboard, he wanted to push to make it to the clinic before nightfall.
The sooner he was out of Congo, the better.
CHAPTER 12
* * *
After negotiating for some extra fuel and water at the ranger station, the team headed out. Typical Congo, everything was fine until it wasn’t.
They traversed two relatively shallow rivers, only to discover that they had built an inflated sense of confidence when it came to a third. It was much deeper and faster than the others. The water rose almost to the windows, and at one point, both Land Cruisers began being pushed downstream. As they started to rock and threatened to roll over, Ash passed the word to be ready to bail out.