Once the team had exfiltrated the Ngoa facility and retreated into the jungle, President Porter opened the floor for discussion.
“Now what?” he asked, excusing himself for having to remove a handkerchief from his pocket and blow his nose. “Anyone have any ideas?”
Harvath cleared his throat and looked at Colonel White. “How much of my debrief from Congo did you read?”
“The whole thing.”
He looked over at General McCollum, who nodded and said, “I did as well.”
He knew Lydia Ryan and Bob McGee, as well as the President, had read theirs, so that meant everyone in the room was up to speed. He also knew that they had been made aware of the patients who had bled out in Chicago, Houston, and Detroit. It had been one of the reasons Colonel White had moved to push up the Ngoa operation.
Harvath filled them in on what they had learned about the patients and their travel histories. He then laid out his theory about the Hajj and how the virus might have been introduced.
“What kind of protocol do we even have for something like this?” President Porter asked, fishing his handkerchief back out.
“It’s Federal, not military,” McCollum responded.
“CDC, NIH, FEMA,” White added, “all coordinated from DHS.”
Out of an abundance of caution, White had not been told that right now, all of those organizations were suspect, and were being purposefully cut out of the loop by the White House.
“Let’s say something happened,” CIA Director McGee replied, fixing his eyes on White, “and DHS was unable to get spun up in time, how would you want to see things unfold?”
“Why wouldn’t DHS, or more importantly FEMA or CDC or NIH be able to respond in a timely manner?” she asked.
“Just answer my question.”
“Is this a drill?”
“No,” the President replied. “This isn’t a drill. Please answer.”
“We’d want to know as much about this strain of African Hemorrhagic Fever as possible. We’d need samples. We’d need them from any newly diagnosed patients here, but if this thing did start in Congo, I’d like to get samples from there too.
“Ideally, I’d want the samples taken at the Matumaini Clinic from patient zero. I’d want anything you could get from that sick rebel commander, as well as samples from that Matumaini Clinic worker and his son who transported patient zero’s samples and was there when the rebel commander was exposed. That’s just for starters.”
President Porter looked at Harvath. “On the Congo end of things, how doable is that list?”
“Provided the rebels are where we left them, I could give the STAR team coordinates and they could go in to get samples from the commander’s corpse. We left him in the jungle, though, so his bones might be picked clean by now.”
“We’ll take that chance,” said Colonel White.
“And the rest of it?” Porter asked.
“When we left Bunia with Dr. Decker, Leonce and Pepsy said they intended to stay there. There was nothing left for them in their village.”
“Could we find them?”
“I have someone who could track them down,” said Harvath, thinking of Jambo.
“Which just leaves us with recovering the patient zero samples from the WHO offices in Kinshasa,” stated White. “Do you have somebody who could do that?”
Jessica Decker was back in Kinshasa, but he didn’t believe for a minute that she would cooperate, much less that she could pull it off on her own.
Needless to say, he did know someone, and he nodded.
“We have an experienced team in-country we can use,” Harvath replied.
“Extremis?” Carlton asked, referring to Ash and the three other SAS men.
He nodded once more.
“But do they know how to handle samples?” White inquired. “How to package them for transport? Will they even know how to locate them in the Kinshasa office?”
All good questions, the answers to which were no. Ash and his men, as far he knew, didn’t have applicable experience in handling highly lethal pathogens. He shook his head.
“Colonel,” Porter said. “How soon can you get someone from the STAR team to Kinshasa to supervise?”
“I can task one of them immediately, but it’ll all come down to transport.”
“And Extremis?” the President asked, looking at Harvath.
“Same answer.”
“What about samples from the U.S. patients?” said Lydia Ryan.
“Normally, I’d say that wouldn’t be a problem,” White replied. “We have a good working relationship with the CDC. With something like this, they’d want as much help as they can get. But we began this discussion with Director McGee asking me what USAMRIID would do if the CDC couldn’t respond.”
McGee looked at the President, then at her. “Ask the CDC for the samples, just as you normally would in a situation like this. If you get any pushback, let us know and we’ll take care of it.”
“If this is some kind of terrorist attack,” she stated, “why are we not telling them?”
“There are additional National Security issues involved,” McCollum replied as he closed his briefing book. He had been read in on the full scope of the situation before White had arrived and that was all he said.
White was a highly skilled scientist, but she was also a soldier and a professional who respected the chain of command. “Understood,” she responded.
After thanking General McCollum and Colonel White for their attendance, the President excused them from the Situation Room. He then turned to the remaining attendees and asked for a domestic update.
Carlton and McGee gave the President a quick rundown, hitting the high points and answering the handful of questions that were raised. The longer they sat in the Situation Room, the worse the Commander in Chief looked.
“Are you feeling okay, Mr. President?” Carlton finally asked.
“I’m fine,” Porter replied, coughing briefly to clear his chest. “What about those letters MC that Damien wrote in relation to their plan for the United States? Have we figured that out yet?”
“No, sir,” McGee said. “We’re still working on that.”
“Well, work faster. I want another update in two hours. And by update, I mean progress. Is that understood?”
Around the conference table, everyone nodded and replied, “Yes, Mr. President.”
As the President stood, the rest of the room stood, and Harvath pressed his luck. “Mr. President, one last thing, if I may, sir?”
Porter didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
“Sir,” Harvath continued. “I know when it was originally presented, you tabled any talk of taking Damien into custody.”
“You mean rendering him,” the President clarified.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know why I tabled it?”
“I think I have an idea, sir.”
“Well allow me to clarify it for you,” Porter retorted. “Pierre Damien is an American citizen currently on U.S. soil. He is also a citizen of Canada, which is an important American ally. Damien is also a diplomat, an Under-Secretary-General with the United Nations no less. He’s a wealthy and powerful man with a lot of wealthy and powerful friends.”
“I understand, sir, it’s just—”
The President cut him off. “Don’t interrupt me.”
Never before had Harvath been chastised by Porter. He regretted interrupting him immediately.
“Any corners you may have to cut from time to time downrange, or things you may have do in the name of expediency, become considerably more complicated when the recipient of those measures is an American citizen. Place that citizen on U.S. soil, and the complication factor skyrockets so high that God himself couldn’t even reach it.”