by Brad Thor
They took a circuitous route, partly to make sure they weren’t being followed, and partly to disorient Hendrik as much as possible. The less he knew, the better.
When the van came to a stop at the safe house on the outskirts of Bunia, Hendrik’s body tensed. Harvath slid the door open and Asher nudged the South African to move forward. He refused. So pulling his arm back, Asher slammed his left elbow through the hood and into Hendrik’s mouth. A stream of blood and saliva ran over his chin, down his neck, and stained the front of his shirt.
Harvath stepped out of the van and dragged Hendrik with him. Laying the man facedown in the dirt, he used his knife to slice through the restraints binding his ankles. He and Ash then lifted him to his feet and guided him to a shed at the rear of the property.
It was a stifling, unventilated space that smelled like gasoline and animal dung. It was not intended to be pleasant.
A metal chair had been placed in the middle of the shed. Hendrik was walked over to it and made to sit down. Ash zip-tied his left leg to the left leg of the chair and did the same on the right side. He then re-zip-tied his arms to the arms of the chair.
If Hendrik had resisted, or tried to lash out in any way, Asher had been prepared to punch him in a very sensitive part of his anatomy. Hendrik, though, had not resisted. He had not even spoken.
While Ash kept an eye on their prisoner, Harvath walked back to the house. Everything he had asked for was there. Stacking as much of it as he could in a metal washtub, he walked back out to the shed.
Mick and the Brute Squad had arrived. With all of the vehicles now inside the gate, Jambo locked it and then helped his relatives cover the van with a tarp. Simon and Eddie took guard duty while Mick helped carry the rest of the supplies out to the shed. He had already been told not to speak.
In his mind, Harvath walked through how best to choreograph the next step. The operation had come together so fast, and with so little actionable intelligence, it was difficult to decide what the right move was.
By now, Hendrik’s men knew something had happened. They were well trained and would move quickly. They would start by canvassing the neighborhood. And while Harvath and his team had done all they could to minimize the potential risk of any witnesses, he had to assume that someone had seen something. Eventually Hendrik’s men were going to begin piecing things together. The weakest link in Harvath’s plan would then become the airport.
Once Hendrik’s men figured out that his abductors had been white, and thereby likely foreigners, they would be all over it. At the very least, they would post a man there. And depending on their pull with MONUSCO, they might be able to ramp up security screening or even shut it down.
Harvath didn’t want to find out. He needed to move fast, stay ahead of them. That was why Jan Hendrik would only get one opportunity to cooperate. If he refused, Harvath would have no choice but to crank things all the way up and rip off the knob.
CHAPTER 26
* * *
When time was on your side, interrogations could take as long as you wanted. They could play out over hours, days, or even weeks. With long-term detainees, interrogations could stretch months or even years. It all depended on how quickly you needed the information and what lengths you were willing to go to get it.
When time was a key factor, Harvath’s definition of what was acceptable broadened dramatically. He nodded, and Asher flipped on the blinding halogen lights that had been set up on stands. Walking over to Hendrik, he pulled the bag from his head.
The man squinted and tried to get a good look at Harvath, but the lights were too bright. All he saw standing in front of him was a silhouette.
“Mr. Hendrik,” Harvath began. “I am well aware of your background and your training, so I won’t insult you by trying to build some sort of rapport. You have information I want, and I am in a hurry.
“If you cooperate, this’ll be over fast. If you don’t cooperate, this will still be over fast, but it’ll be much more painful for you. I’ll give you one chance to answer my questions. If you lie to me, or if I feel you are being evasive, all bets are off. Understand that I will go to any lengths necessary to extract from you the information I need. Is that clear?”
“Who are you?” Hendrik demanded.
Harvath gave the man an open-handed slap across the side of his face.
“That was for being evasive. You don’t ask the questions. I do.”
The South African spat a gob of blood onto the floor, squinted at him and replied, “You’re American.”
This time, Harvath hit him in the same spot, but with his fist. The blow was so hard, it rocked him to the point of almost tipping over in his chair.
“Fuck you,” said Hendrik once he had recovered.
Harvath was done playing games.
Striking him again, he demanded, “Why were you at the Matumaini Clinic?”
“Fuck you,” the man repeated.
Harvath put the bag back over his head and nodded to Ash and Mick. The two men circled around behind the South African’s chair, grabbed hold of it and tipped it backward. As soon as they did, Harvath began pouring water through the fabric over his face.
Hendrik’s body tensed, and he began to thrash wildly. Harvath stopped pouring the water and the Brits leaned him upright.
“Why were you at the Matumaini Clinic, Jan?”
Hendrik coughed and spat up water as he tried to catch his breath. Harvath gave him several more seconds and when he didn’t answer, he nodded for the Brits to tip him over again, and he once more began pouring the water.
Exhausting his first pitcher, Harvath reached for a second. Hendrik thrashed even harder than before.
The tactic was inelegant but simple. He took no pleasure in it. It was simply a tool in the toolbox. All Hendrik had to do was cooperate, and it would be over.
“Why were you at the Matumaini Clinic?” Harvath asked as he eased up on the water.
The South African sputtered and hacked from beneath his hood, trying to clear the water from his airway.
“Whoever pays you, Jan, isn’t paying you enough to go through this. Tell me why you were there, and I’ll make it stop.”
Hendrik managed a third, “Fuck you.”
It went on and on. The floor was puddled with water and Harvath’s shoes, as well as his trousers, were soaked. When pitcher number two was empty, he started in on number three.
The South African was one tough son of a bitch, but no one could hold out indefinitely. Everyone broke under waterboarding. It was only a matter of time. Hendrik was about to reach his breaking point.
“Humanitarian,” he gurgled from beneath his drenched hood as he coughed and vomited up water.
Harvath motioned for the chair to be righted and waited for the man to catch his breath. Once he had, Harvath asked, “What did you say?”
Even when the hardest of men cracked, what they said had to be treated as suspect until independently confirmed. Sometimes things came pouring out in an obscure torrent. What they said could be true, could be the effect of psychological torment, or it could be complete and total bullshit.
Harvath motioned Ash and Mick back behind the lights. Once they were there, he pulled off Hendrik’s hood.
“Listen to me,” he said. “If you lie to me, you’re going back under the water. Do you understand?”
Hendrik shook his head from side to side, confused. Harvath slapped him and reached for another pitcher.
“It was a humanitarian operation,” he said feebly, trying to focus.
“A humanitarian operation?” Harvath said. “You wipe out a clinic and cremate an entire village and call that a humanitarian operation?”
“It needed to be contained. More would have died.”
“What needed to be contained?”
“The infection.”
“What infection
?”
Hendrik didn’t reply and so Harvath slapped him again.
“One of the patients got out,” the South African stammered.
“From the Matumaini Clinic? What are you talking about?”
Hendrik failed to answer, so Harvath picked his hood back up and began to put it back over his head.
“Not Matumaini,” he said as the hood came down. “Ngoa.”
Harvath pulled it back up. “What’s Ngoa?”
“A village. There’s a WHO facility there. A lab.”
“A World Health Organization lab?”
The man nodded.
“What were they working on?”
“I don’t know,” Hendrik replied.
The answer came a little too quickly for Harvath’s liking. There was also the flash of a microexpression that told him the South African was lying.
Fixing his gaze on Hendrik, he said, “You’re lying to me. What happens when you lie?”
“I am not lying,” he pleaded as Harvath roughly pulled the hood down over his head and waved the Brits back over.
Harvath picked the pitcher back up as Ash and Mick tilted the chair backward.
“Hemorrhagic fever!” the man yelled. “They were experimenting with African Hemorrhagic Fever!”
“Like Ebola?”
“Worse.”
“How much worse?” Harvath demanded.
Hendrik refused to respond, so Harvath started pouring water again over his nose and mouth.
“They found a way to weaponize it!”
Harvath poured again. “Tell me how.”
“Airborne!” the South African confessed, shaking his head back and forth, trying to make the water stop. “They found a way to make it airborne!”
CHAPTER 27
* * *
SHENANDOAH VALLEY, VIRGINIA
Clifton—the luxury, four hundred and eleven acre estate and farm, an hour outside Washington, D.C.—had belonged to George Washington’s cousin, Warner Washington. Pierre Damien loved it as much for its history as he did for its exquisite Classical Revival manor house and the panoramic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
George Washington had spent extensive time on the property and when Damien walked the grounds, he liked to imagine himself walking in the footsteps of history. Damien wondered, if Washington were alive today, would he see the world the same way. Would Washington realize that in a modern era such as this, certain viewpoints and philosophies of government had run their course? Wouldn’t such a noble man realize that individual, selfish pursuits only served to harm mankind, not advance it? And as a farmer, a true man of the soil, certainly Washington would recognize the responsibilities that all human beings had to the planet.
Taking a deep breath of crisp fall air, Damien breathed in the scent of nature. The colors along the distant mountains were extraordinary. There was no better place to be in autumn. Of all the properties he owned, even his private Cay in the Bahamas, Clifton was his favorite. It was why he had wanted to bring Helena here. That, and there were final preparations to be made. Tonight would be the organization’s last dinner for some time.
The tiny Thomas Malthus Society didn’t have a web site or a mailing address. Its membership was one of most closely guarded secrets in D.C.
The society was based on the teachings of the eighteenth-century cleric and scholar, Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus—particularly his An Essay on the Principle of Population.
Influential in the fields of political economy and demography, Malthus believed that a Utopian society could never be achieved as long as the world’s population was allowed to continue to grow unchecked. The only way to protect the earth and improve the existence of mankind was to have less of mankind—something he believed Mother Nature would eventually deliver in the form of widespread famine and disease.
The anticipated population reduction event was popularly, and rather dramatically, known as the “Malthusian catastrophe.” It had yet to happen, but there were those who not only believed it necessary but who were eager to help usher it forward. They simply referred to it as “the event.” Some of those people lived and worked in Washington, D.C.
By custom, the dinner’s ingredients were locally sourced. Tonight, all of it came from Clifton. There would be fresh herbs, lettuce, radishes, sorrel, chives, and garlic, as well as farm-raised lamb shoulder and duck breast, foie gras emulsion, and goat’s milk and sheep’s milk cheeses.
The pièce de résistance was dessert. George Washington was an ice cream fanatic. In his honor, Damien served fresh, hand-cranked strawberry ice cream from an actual Washington family recipe.
There were organic wine pairings, an incredible vintage port, and the most delicious, fresh-roasted, certified free-trade coffee any of the guests had ever tasted.
The dinner party was a huge hit—as the guests had known it would be. Damien was a man of both astounding wealth and impeccable taste. It was the society’s best dinner of the year.
The conversation, as usual, revolved around domestic and international affairs, but also included science, mathematics, literature, the arts, and culture. These were incredibly erudite men and women. The depth and breadth of their intelligence was equaled only by their power—and that’s why Damien had selected them.
He knew a thing or two about power, small truths that others often failed to realize. Heads of agencies and their immediate underlings would come and go, subject to election cycles and political approval. The same was true of politicians. Their influence was only worth so much.
The truly powerful were those deepest inside the government. Like the Wizard of Oz, they were the ones behind the curtain. They were the ones who knew which ropes to pull. Their hands were on the very levers of power.
They could not only raise or lower the sets but also brighten or dim the house lights. They weren’t just inside the machine as middle managers, they were the machine. They knew the game. They knew the system. They had been masters of it for years.
Theirs was a modern Rome, Rome on the Potomac—an empire in miniature—a land in and unto itself.
New Rome knew no economic vicissitudes. There were no vacant storefronts, no depressed housing prices, or reductions in take-home pay.
Taxes, fees, fines, and lines of credit that stretched to the stars and back made sure that the treasury was awash in coin. Things in New Rome were positively booming. The future was bright indeed.
That didn’t mean, though, that the empire was secure. As its fortunes grew, it seemed to come under a more regular and more prolonged assault by the country class.
“Country class” had replaced “fly-over country” as the new contumelious term used to describe the great unwashed living outside D.C. or the nation’s other Megalopoli.
Through social media, a handful of sympathetic news organizations, and grassroots activism, the country class waged incessant guerrilla warfare, demanding that the New Rome be put on a diet and scaled dramatically back.
As far as the New Romans were concerned, it was an odd, stupid little war waged by odd, stupid little people. They were most definitely in the minority. All of the polling showed it. Instead of shoving their faces full of McDonald’s drive-thru and watching reality TV like the rest of the country-class Hobbits, they were strangely obsessed with what was happening in Washington and how things should be changed.
If they were so eager to dictate how it should be done in Washington, why were they sitting on their asses in Tennessee and Texas, Idaho and Indiana? Why weren’t they trundling their fat little children onto buses and coming to D.C. to help lend a hand? The answer was simple—because it was beyond them.
They had no idea how government worked, much less how important government workers were to its continued function. Without Federal employees, it all stopped—all of it. Fees at National Parks didn’t get collected, school lunch
regulations didn’t get enforced, borders were left unprotected, and that was only the beginning. The inmates wanted to run the asylum. There was no way that could ever be allowed to happen.
Anything that grows is, by definition, alive. Washington, D.C. was no exception.
As a living organism, the Federal Government’s number one job was self-preservation. Any threat to its existence had to be dealt with.
When the country class came with its pathetic rhetorical torches and meddling electoral pitchforks, New Rome was ready.
It fought back with tools no one had ever seen coming. New Rome weaponized its own Federal agencies. The Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—they all swatted away each and every attack.
The country class could storm the battlements over and over. They didn’t stand a chance. Not only could you not fight City Hall, you couldn’t survive a fight with the Federal Government. New Rome could take every single thing you have and put you in prison. It wasn’t even a fair fight. (It wasn’t supposed to be.)
New Rome would do what it took to win, and it would do so every single time. Its responsibility to its own survival was bigger than any responsibility to its clueless constituents. If they really cared about Washington, they’d be paying much closer attention. But they didn’t, and so, New Rome proceeded accordingly.
The phenomenon was fascinating to Damien. Listening to the conversations around the table, he had been captivated. These were not evil people. They were actually incredibly compassionate, clear-eyed, and focused. In short, they got it.
They grasped not only what was at stake, but more importantly, what needed to be done. These were reasonable people.