“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.
CHAPTER 4
The moment Harvath popped the Land Cruiser’s door open and climbed out, the soldiers began shouting at him to get back in. Keeping a smile on his face, he ignored their commands. Instead, he moved toward them.
The medical bag was slung over one shoulder and in his arms he cradled an assortment of supplies. Nodding toward the soldier with the bandaged hand, he offered to change his dressing in exchange for being allowed to step off the road and relieve himself afterward.
One soldier in particular raised his rifle as if he was about to strike Harvath, but the man with the bandaged hand told him to stop. He needed his dressing changed, badly.
Harvath stepped into the beams cast by the Land Cruiser’s headlights and motioned the man to him. Once he was there, Harvath convinced two more to join him and assist. Slinging their rifles, they accepted the supplies and did what Harvath asked.
Even lightly touching the man’s bandaged hand caused him to wince. He was in considerable pain. Harvath could see that the wound was oozing. It was infected.
As he carefully unwound the bandage, he asked the young man how he had been injured. The soldier, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, explained that his hand had slipped while using his machete. Congolese rebels could be horrific butchers. Harvath didn’t want to know the details.
The wound was a week old, and another soldier had dressed it for him. The bandage hadn’t been changed. As soon as Harvath had it unwound, the stench alone told him the man’s hand was a lost cause.
“Is it very bad?” the young soldier asked in French.
Holding the man by the wrist, Harvath rotated the hand from side to side. “We need more light,” he said, moving the soldier farther away from the group. Gesturing with his head, he encouraged the other two to move with them. They did.
Once he had them where he needed them, he pretended to examine the wound once more and then told the man’s compatriots what he needed them to do. Explaining that they had limited disinfectant, he told one man he would need to pour it over the top of the wound while the other man held a clean dressing underneath to catch the liquid as it poured down. They would then wring the bandage out over the wound to give it a second cleansing.
As men who led lives of unfathomable paucity, reusing the liquid made complete sense to them. In order to keep their attention focused on the wound and off of him, Harvath further instructed them to watch for any indication that the discharge was changing color.
Harvath had his patient, as well as his two assistants, squat down so they could all work better via the Land Cruiser’s headlights.
One of the men became agitated when he saw him reach into his medical bag and demanded to know what he was doing. Harvath held out then penlight and showed it to him. Satisfied, the rebel returned his focus to his colleague’s wound.
Taking one last look around and fixing everyone’s position in his mind, Harvath instructed the man with the disinfectant to very slowly start pouring it over the wound and reminded the man holding the dressing underneath to make sure he caught every last drop.
Standing up straight, he moved the penlight to his left hand and held it where Ash and Mick would be the only ones able to see it. Then, sliding his right hand into the medical bag, he wrapped it around the butt of his weapon and took a deep breath. Exhaling, he depressed the light’s tail cap, giving out two quick flashes as he began to count backward from ten.