The Ngoa facility was composed of similar one-story buildings clustered around a sizable clearing hacked out of the jungle. Unlike Matumaini, though, Ngoa had layers of perimeter security. The first was a tall, chain-link fence capped with razor wire.
Harvath, the President, and everyone else watched from the safety of the Situation Room as a STAR team member cut through the fence. The rest of the team stood in the open clearing behind him, exposed.
Though they were armed, they were suited up in full biohazard gear, which meant that their ability to detect and react to threats was severely impaired. In other words, they were sitting ducks.
It put everyone on edge, but particularly Harvath, who knew exactly what it felt like to be in their boots at that moment. If they were spotted, it was game over.
The Team in the MacDill TOC seemed to be reading Harvath’s thoughts and called for SITREPs from the two sniper teams that had been sent ahead to provide overwatch. Each team reported back that the coast was clear.
Once an opening had been cut into the fence, the operator with the cutters tucked them in his pack, transitioned back to his weapon, and held the curtain of chain-link open for everyone else to pass through.
The operator with the handheld mine detector got back on point and led the team forward.
As he had done when leading them out of the jungle, he swept the device back and forth, careful to keep his eyes peeled for trip wires or other improvised triggers. This was Congo, and Ngoa wouldn’t be the first time they had encountered antipersonnel devices. The other members kept in tight formation behind.
The second ring of perimeter security was a concrete wall about ten feet high. Along the top, set into the cement, were shards of glass from broken wine and beer bottles. Though inelegant, the message was clear — this facility was not open to unauthorized visitors.
The team made their way to a set of large gates secured by a padlock and chain. The operator with the bolt cutters stepped forward and after another SITREP from the snipers, the team was authorized to make entry.
Once the chain was cut, the STAR team members swept into the compound in perfect coordination, their weapons up and at the ready.
With all of the video feeds coming into the Situation Room, it was like trying to drink from a fire hose. Harvath kept his attention focused on the satellite imagery, only occasionally glancing at one of the helmet cams when he needed a better idea of what the team was seeing.
Their primary target was the largest and most central building in the compound. Based on analysis of the reconnaissance imagery, it was deemed to be the most likely location of the laboratory.
Harvath checked his watch. The STAR team had to be burning up in those suits. They had covered much more ground than he and Decker had getting to their objective, plus the temperature was higher because it was broad daylight. They weren’t going to be good for much longer.
Arriving at the main building, the bulk of the team formed a stack, or as it was sometimes called, a Conga line, while several other members took up defensive positions outside.
When everyone was in place, the team leader announced they were ready to make entry. Colonel White nodded to General McCollum who relayed permission to the MacDill TOC.
With a final sweep of the structure by satellite and the sniper teams once more radioing their all clear, a voice came over the speakers in the Situation Room.
“Raptor Actual,” it said, “this is Raptor Main. You’re good to go.”
“Roger that, Raptor Main,” the voice from Congo replied. “Raptor is good to go.”
With that, the STAR team leader made sure his team was ready. Then, counting down from three, they breached the building and rushed inside.
CHAPTER 37
Harvath had no idea how the patient who had escaped the Ngoa facility had gotten out. With a ten-foot-high wall and a razor-wire fence, it wouldn’t have been easy. Did he stow away in a vehicle? Did he have help? Did he simply walk out the back gate when no one was looking? There was no way to know.
What Harvath did know was that as the crow flew, a healthy person could walk from the Ngoa facility to the Matumaini Clinic in a day. This guy, though, hadn’t been healthy. He was on death’s doorstep the minute he arrived at Matumaini. Did he steal a bicycle? Did a Good Samaritan come across him and help deliver him to the clinic?
That was probably an even more important question than how he got to the clinic. Anyone he came in contact with would have been exposed to the virus. Had Hendrik and his men reverse-engineered his route? They had murdered everyone at Matumaini as well as at the adjacent village to prevent the disease from spreading; what about anyone else he had come in contact with along the way?
Harvath made a mental note to make sure the question got transmitted to Vella and his interrogation team at the Solarium site in Malta.
Drawing his attention back to the video feeds, Harvath listened to a chorus of “Clear! Clear!” ringing out as the STAR team secured room after room of the Ngoa facility’s main building. All of them were empty.
Not only were they devoid of people, but they had been stripped clean of furniture, equipment, computers, everything. The only things left were the paint and light fixtures.
Like Matumaini, Harvath figured it had been bleach bombed as well. In fact, as this was alleged to be ground zero for the new, highly communicable strain of African Hemorrhagic Fever, they had probably taken bleach bombing to a completely new level.
Based on the building’s layout, there appeared to be two patient wings — likely one for men and one for women — communal bathrooms, showers, and a series of examination rooms. This wasn’t where any actual experiments on the virus would have been conducted.
On the far side of the compound, they discovered the lab — or at least what was left of it. The structure had been burned to the ground. All that remained was the charred hulk of some sort of walk-in freezer.
“That can’t be a Level 4 lab,” Colonel White said. “It’s too small.”
Level 4 was the highest, CDC-spec’d biocontainment safety level possible. It was reserved for the most dangerous and severely lethal pathogens researchers might come in contact with.
Harvath saw something on one of the team member’s helmet cams and asked McCollum to have MacDill back the man up and return to where he had just been.
“What do you see?” the General asked.
“Those depressions in the ground,” he replied, before looking over at Colonel White and asking, “What if the lab was mobile?”
“As in a trailer? Like the Iraqis allegedly had?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know how the hell you’d move one on the roads in Congo,” she stated, putting the word roads in air quotes. “And God help you if it flipped over.”
“But it could be done.”
“Positive pressure suits, a segregated air supply, showers, a UV light room — building a mobile Level 4 would be a ton of work, not to mention a ton of money.”
Something told Harvath expense wasn’t something Damien and the Plenary Panel worried about. “But it could be done,” he repeated.
“Seeing as how we’ve dropped some pretty high-tech shipping container expeditionary labs into war zones, anything is possible.”
The STAR team was reaching the threshold of how long they could stay in the suits before heatstroke began to set in. They needed to break off and get to the decontamination showers they had set up back in the jungle.
Harvath had seen enough. The Ngoa facility was a bust. When Colonel White looked around the room and asked if anyone needed to see anything else, everyone shook their head. General McCollum notified the MacDill TOC that the STAR team could come off station and proceed to decon.