But Scot Harvath had a bad habit of telling himself things he knew weren’t true.
CHAPTER 2
H
arvath’s security team was made up of four Brits—all former SAS members. They had been with a private contracting company in Kenya called Ridgeback. There was too much money and too much action in Congo, though, so they left to form their own venture.
They called their four-man company Extremis. Harvath had never met any of them before, but they had come highly recommended. He had linked up with Patrick Asher and Mike Michaelson in Lubumbashi, where they loaded their gear onto the plane CARE had arranged for them.
Asher, or “Ash” as his men referred to him, was the team leader. He was in his early forties and reminded Harvath in a way of the Old Man. He was cordial, but all business. No jokes, no small talk, just straight to the point. His graying hair and dark eyes gave him an added air of intensity.
Michaelson, on the other hand, was different. Known by his teammates as “Mick,” he was a short, muscular man in his thirties with a shaved head, and a neck like a tree trunk. Everything amused him. Within the first ten minutes of their having met, he had slapped Harvath on the back at least three times.
After loading their equipment, they flew north to Bunia, the provincial capital of Ituri. Waiting for them, were the other two members of the team, Simon Bruce and Evan “Eddie” Edwards.
On the flight up, Mick had referred to Simon and Eddie as the “Brute Squad.” Meeting them, Harvath understood why.
They were large men, both in their thirties, well over six feet tall and half a block wide. Unlike their clean-shaven compatriots from Lubumbashi, they sported facial hair. But not just any kind of facial hair.
Simon had the biggest, reddest beard Harvath had ever seen. He looked like a lumberjack on steroids. Eddie sported a meticulous, jet-black Van Dyke that made him look like he had just stepped out of a Captain Morgan ad. Congo was already living up to its Wild, Wild West reputation.
Accompanying Simon and Eddie was their fixer, a skinny, young Congolese man they had nicknamed “Jambo,” which meant hello in Swahili. Because his real name was practically impossible for anyone to pronounce and because of the manic enthusiasm with which he greeted people, the Jambo nickname had stuck.
Two white Toyota Land Cruisers stood idling on the tarmac. One was outfitted for carrying passengers, the other for hauling cargo. Both had been tricked out with off-road packages that included lift kits, snorkels, winches, and mud tires.
Like the fixer Ash had paid off in Lubumbashi, Jambo had made sure no Bunia airport personnel would interfere with them while they offloaded their gear into the vehicles.
As the team transferred everything over, Harvath handed Ash the car door magnets Beaman had provided. They proclaimed, in black and red letters on a white background, that the vehicles were on official humanitarian business from CARE International. They even included little red crosses.
There were stickers as well that showed AK-47s with
X
s through them, and these were placed in the vehicle windows as well. Once the gear was packed inside, tied down to the roof racks, and ready to roll, they left the airport and headed into the capital.
Jambo had secured rooms for them at the best place in town, the two-star Bunia Hotel.
To its credit, it had high walls, a secure gate, beer, and a pool table. By eastern Congo standards, it was the height of luxury. The kitchen even turned out halfway decent Chinese and Indian food, something Harvath hadn’t expected.
Even though the hotel’s motor court was enclosed, Jambo had hired two of his relatives to spend the night with the vehicles.
After checking in and moving the most sensitive of their gear to their rooms, the team reconvened in the lobby. Their first round of beers had just been served when the final member of the operation walked into the lobby.
She was a tall blonde in a tight green T-shirt and even tighter gray REI hiking pants. A pair of Oakley sunglasses hung around her neck and dangled between her breasts. Her arms were buff and she sported a healthy tan. Freckles formed an imperfect bridge over a perfect nose. Her eyes, even in the half-light of the lobby, were a piercing gimlet-green.
Unshouldering her pack, she had dropped it next to the pool table and introduced herself around to the team. Brash and unafraid, right from the jump.
Before becoming a physician, Dr. Jessica Decker had been a war correspondent. She knew all too well what men were capable of doing to each other. Having seen enough suffering, particularly in Congo, she had decided she wanted to do more than just write about it. That’s why she left journalism and had gone into medical school.
She had been working with CARE for less than a year when she was asked to open the Matumaini Clinic on their behalf. She went on to carry out three subsequent missions there. She knew the area and its people better than anyone else.
She was in the middle of opening one of CARE’s two new clinics—a facility outside Kinshasa—when everything was put on hold.
Beaman had thought she could be helpful in the current situation and the Old Man had agreed. It had been two to one, and Harvath was overruled. Decker, Carlton had decided, wouldn’t only be coming along, but she could also be part of their cover.
Not even Ash and his team knew the full extent of what was going on. As far as they knew, they had been hired to accompany a load of medical supplies and two members of CARE International to a clinic in the Ituri Province. It was dangerous territory and the middleman for CARE claimed they had been robbed twice before en route. CARE wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again.
Ash had guaranteed that his team would do everything they could to
make sure that didn’t happen. He felt relatively confident this would be a sure thing. Then Harvath had stepped off the plane in Lubumbashi.
The American had “operator” written all over him. Ash could tell right away that there was more to this assignment than he and his team had been told. Quietly, he passed the word to each of his men to be on their guard. When the woman arrived, the complication factor escalated.
She was incredibly attractive, too attractive for Congo—a rough place where people prized commodities above all else and would pay or do anything to get what they wanted. She didn’t belong here, yet she had walked in like she owned the place. Already she was playing with them.
The shirt that showed off her chest, the tight pants that hugged her ass, the careful application of makeup—just enough to make it look like she wasn’t wearing any makeup at all—it all came together and spelled trouble. Ash was beginning to wonder if taking this assignment had been a mistake.
Harvath didn’t know what to think of Jessica Decker either. The woman who entered the hotel was certainly not what he had expected. Beaman had forwarded a CARE newsletter to him with a bland photo taken in the field. It certainly hadn’t prepared him for what she looked like in real life. Not that it would have mattered, much. The fact that she was here was just a reminder that he didn’t have a say in the matter.
After introducing herself around, she had walked over to the bar to order. Harvath fought the urge to watch her, and he watched the security team instead. Ash’s men looked like a pack of wild dogs ready to go to war over a pork chop.
There weren’t a lot of western women in Congo and certainly not many, if any at all, who looked like Jessica Decker.
If Harvath knew that, she had to too, which meant she knew exactly what she was doing. That was fine by him. Some SEALs were notorious for their extracurricular adventures overseas. Why should it be any different for a woman? He knew all too well how hard it could be to maintain a relationship when you spent so much time away from home.
Whatever she did with her personal time was her business. As long as it didn’t become a distraction, Harvath planned to ignore the whole issue.
They ate a good meal, played some more pool, and established a rendezvous time for the morning. Harvath was the first to excuse himself.
He had several emails to respond to, and wanted to take a shower before turning in.
He bought two bottles of Primus beer at the bar to go, said goodnight to everyone, and returned to his room.
When Harvath walked into the motor court at four a.m. that Thursday morning, Ash and his men were already there loading and inspecting the vehicles. It was cool, only in the low 50s, and had rained heavily during the night. The dirt road outside the hotel had already turned to red mud.
As Harvath placed his bag inside the Land Cruiser, designated as
LC1
, Dr. Decker appeared beside him. Reaching out, he accepted her pack and placed it inside as well. She smiled and thanking him added, “Is there any coffee anywhere?”
“Coffee, coffee. Yes, yes,” said Jambo as he stepped out of the hotel with two large thermoses. “Breakfast too,” he stated, nodding toward a staffer following behind with a hot tray of eggs, rice, and cheese wrapped in naan bread, nuked in the microwave and then wrapped in foil for the ride. Harvath helped himself to two.
After the vehicle inspections were complete and all the equipment loaded, Ash give the order to mount up. Once the gates were opened, they splashed out into the road and headed north.
Of the hundred thousand miles of mapped roads in Congo, less than two percent were actually paved. Of those paved roads, only half were in good condition. In short, travelling anywhere in Congo was an incredible pain in the ass. That went double once you got outside any of its larger towns. The few grass airstrips that existed required constant maintenance, and almost all of those that had been carved from the jungles had been abandoned over the years. Missionaries came and left. Nature always reclaimed what was rightfully hers.
In a poverty-stricken country of seventy million, with a landmass the size of the American Midwest, everyone was on the make. This was especially true in the lawless eastern part of Congo, where various rebel factions controlled almost everything. With the average wage about a dollar a day and an AK-47 selling for fifty dollars, locals got creative fast. That “creativity” only added to the stress of traversing Congo by car.
Ash radioed the Brute Squad in the Land Cruiser behind them carry
ing Jambo and the cargo, “LC1 to LC2. Tollbooth coming up. Fifty meters. Everybody stay calm.”
All it took was a log, a rope, or a long enough piece of chain and anyone could establish a “tollbooth” in this part of the country. They were normally staffed by rebel forces, crooked police, or legit military looking to augment their meager incomes. Some of the impromptu tollbooths were said to pull in $700,000 or more a year. It was a racket, to be sure, and the men who ran them ruled the roads with an iron fist.
In order to make sure that no one assaulted these setups, or tried to blow through without paying, they hid ambush teams farther up the road. Depending on the terrain, sometimes the team was one hundred meters ahead; sometimes it was a couple of miles. It was the perfect insurance policy. You might make it past the tollbooth without paying, but you had no idea where the ambush team would be. Not only would the ambush team take your life, they would also use your corpse and that of your fellow passengers as an advertisement to others who might think they could avoid paying their fair share.
Ash had briefed Harvath and Dr. Decker about his position on the tolls as they rolled out of Bunia. While he hated paying off thugs, a hundred dollars for two vehicles was just the cost of doing business in Congo.
Despite the coffee and piss-poor roads, Jessica Decker had spent most of the ride sleeping on her rolled up fleece, pressed against the window. It was a skill likely developed from having experienced multiple war zones and learning to grab sleep whenever you could get it. The key was in knowing when to wake up. As the vehicles came to a stop, she did exactly that.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Toll,” Mick said from the front seat. “Don’t worry. Go back to sleep.”
Ash mumbled something under his breath.
“What is it?” Harvath asked.
“Looks like Congolese regulars,” he said. “We’ll drop a few bills into the collection plate and be on our way.”
As the men up front rolled down their windows, Harvath hoped they were right. But there was something about this setup, something he couldn’t put his finger on, that gave him a very bad feeling.
CHAPTER 3
T
he first soldier who approached their Land Cruiser appeared nervous, distraught. He clutched his AK-47 in both hands. “
Médecins
?” he asked, gesturing with his weapon.
Doctors?
French was the official language of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“
Oui,
” Harvath answered from behind Asher. “
Médecins.
” His grade school had been run by an order of French nuns. Next to sports, French had been one of the few things he had excelled at.
“
Allez
,” the soldier ordered, grabbing the handle and jerking open Harvath’s door. “
Descendez
.”
Get out
.
“Everyone stays in the vehicles,” Asher commanded.
“No,” the soldier said in broken English. “Doctor now.”
Before anyone could react, Jessica Decker had opened her door and was stepping out.
“Stop,” Harvath ordered her, but it was too late.
“
I’m
the doctor,” Decker stated.
The soldier looked back at Harvath.
“Vous n’êtes pas le médecin?” You’re not the doctor?
“Moi, je suis—”
Decker interrupted Harvath. “I told you,” she said, as she grabbed a medical kit from her pack, “I’m the doctor.”
The soldier slammed Harvath’s door shut and started walking around to the other side.
“Dr. Decker, I want you back in this vehicle right
now
,” Ash instructed through Mick’s window.
Ash and Mick were both wearing “bone phones,” earpieces connected to radios hidden under their shirts that transmitted speech through bone conduction technology. Eddie and Simon must have asked for a situation report because Harvath heard Mick say, “Figuring that out now. Stand by.”
“Someone needs a doctor,” Decker stated with an air of haughtiness. “That’s what I do.”
“And what I do is keep people safe,” Ash replied. “Whoever this someone is, they can wait five more minutes while we negotiate this. You’re not going anywhere.”
“These are soldiers from the Congolese army.”
“We don’t know that. Now get back in the vehicle.”
Decker ignored him and walked forward.
He was about to reiterate his order when he heard the door behind him open up and Harvath stepped out.
Immediately, the other soldiers raised their weapons.
The lead soldier spun and angrily pointed his AK at Harvath. “
Que faites-vous?
” he demanded.
What are you doing?
“Everybody relax,” Decker said as she put her hands out, appealing for calm. She glared at Harvath.
It was a good question. What the hell was he doing?
From inside the Land Cruisers, the Brits were thinking the same thing.
“Je suis l’assistant du médecin,”
Harvath stated, donning a headlamp he had retrieved from his bag.
I am the doctor’s assistant
. He turned the lamp on and swung his head from side to side—blinding several of the soldiers with its intense glare. They threw their arms up to shield their eyes and cursed at him.
“Si nous avons besoin de l’assistant d’un médecin, nous vous appellerons.” If we need a doctor’s assistant,
the lead soldier barked,
we’ll call you. “Retournez dans votre véhicule.” Get back in your vehicle.
With that, the man grabbed Jessica Decker by the arm and steered her toward the jungle.
Facing a row of angry men with AK-47s, Harvath did the only thing he could do at the moment. Reluctantly, he climbed back into the Land Cruiser.
“She’s insane,” Ash stated.
Harvath had already developed his own opinion about Decker, but now wasn’t the time to discuss it. “Look at their shoes,” he said.
The SAS men did as he suggested.
“None of their boots match. Two of them are wearing tennis shoes.”
Ash cursed under his breath. “The uniforms may be from the Congolese army, but these guys definitely aren’t.”
“So who are they?” Mick wondered.
Harvath nodded at the two rebels closest to them. “Both of them, as well as the guy Dr. Decker just walked off with have the same tattoo. Looks like a cobra.”
“Shit,” Ash replied. “Rebels. FRPI.”
There were so many rebel groups in Congo, it was hard to tell the players without a scorecard. Harvath had uploaded a list of them to his phone before leaving and had tried to study up as much as he could on the flight over.
“Free Republic of—” he attempted before Mick interrupted him.
“Front for Patriotic Resistance of Ituri,” he said, looking at the uniformed men. “Based out of Bunia. I’ve never heard any reports of them being along this road, much less posing as Congolese regulars. They must be desperate for cash.”
They were desperate for something,
Harvath thought. “How bad is this group?”
“The FRPI? Pretty bad. Rape, mass murder, drugs. You name it. But the tattoo is the problem. These guys are a unit of shock troops. Kind of like a republican guard. They do everything from protecting high-ranking FRPI leadership, to terrorizing civilians.”
“Which probably explains why they’re out here with an injured patient and not back at the hospital in Bunia. This is not going to end well.”
“We don’t know that,” Mick offered.
“Listen, these rebels just hit the jackpot. They not only now have a doctor, they have a very attractive
female
doctor. They’re not going to give her back. That goes double if whoever needs the medical care is a high-ranking rebel with a price on his head.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Mick asked with his eyes focused on the rebels.
“What if I’m not?” said Harvath.
“Then they’re going to want to get rid of us,” Ash stated.
“We’re already outgunned. All they’d have to do is bury our bodies and torch the trucks. Wouldn’t be the first time it had happened in Congo, right?”
“No, particularly not where the FRPI is concerned.”
“So the longer we sit here,” Harvath continued. “The worse our odds get. At some point soon, an order is going to come over that radio and they’re going to open fire on us. We need to get off the
X
right now. What kind of weapons do we have?”
“
Torch the trucks. Get off the X. What kind of weapons do we have
. . . Who the hell are you?” Mick demanded as he turned around to face him.
“I’m the client.”
Ash studied Harvath in the rearview mirror, and Harvath met his gaze. Alpha dogs always recognized another Alpha when they saw one. He was no ordinary client. They had known that from the moment they first met him.
Harvath couldn’t keep them completely in the dark. If they were going to get out of this alive, they were going to have to work together. He would have to give them something.
“CARE sent me to assess the situation,” he said. “They want to open two more facilities in Congo.”
“What kind of assessment?”
“Security.”
“And your background?”
“SEAL Team Two and then DEVGRU.”
Ash continued to hold Harvath’s gaze. Finally, he said, “You look it.”
Harvath didn’t know what the remark was supposed to mean. Before he could reply, Ash said, “We’ve got two Glock 17s up front with us and there’s a shotgun under your seat.”
“Can I get to it without flipping it up?”
“No. Besides, it’s too loud. There’s no telling how many more of them are up the road or out in the jungle. It would just draw them in.”
“And the Glocks won’t?” Harvath asked.
Ash nodded to Mick, who pointed over Harvath’s shoulder and said,
“There’s a box of car parts behind you. Inside are two inline fuel filters. They’ve been modified with a thread adaptor to screw onto the Glocks.”
Homemade suppressors.
Smart.
“What else do you have?”
“The Brute Squad have Glocks, as well as rifles,” Ash replied.
“What kind of rifles?”
“AKs, like our friends outside.”
“Can you slip me your Glocks without them noticing?”
Mick turned his shaved head back around and focused on the soldiers. Slowly, he began to work his pistol between the seat and the center console. Ash then did the same.
Careful not to draw any attention, Harvath reached behind his seat and felt for the box of car parts. Once he found it, he removed the two filters. He also grabbed the extra medical bag.
“What are you thinking?” Ash asked.
Harvath began screwing the makeshift suppressors onto each of the Glocks. “See the third soldier on the left?” he said. “The one with the dirty bandage around his left hand? That dressing probably hasn’t been changed in a while, if at all. I think that’s our best chance to get me close to them.”
“And?”
“I get him into your headlights to examine his hand. If I can, I enlist two of his comrades to help, give them stuff to hold and keep them busy. When I give you the signal, you flip on your high beams, I pull one of the Glocks, and we go hot. Anything driver’s side is mine.”
“And Mick takes out the rest.”
Harvath nodded.
“What about the others? We have no idea how many more are out there.”
“We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.”
Ash thought about it for a second. “What do you want to use for your signal?”
Harvath slid Mick’s pistol back to him. Removing some items from the medical bag, so he could stash the remaining suppressed Glock, he took out a penlight. Cupping his hand around it to hide the beam, he checked to make sure it worked.
“When you see me pull out the penlight, watch for two quick flashes. Once that happens, wait ten seconds and then hit your high beams and come out firing.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” said Harvath.
Ash quietly radioed the plan to the Brute Squad. Once they had acknowledged, he looked at Harvath in the rearview mirror and nodded.
It was time to roll.