“Drop your gun!” the rebel ordered. “Drop your gun! I kill the woman! I kill her!”
Decker’s face was twisted in a mask of fear. Her eyes riveted on Harvath, silently imploring him not to let her die.
“If you kill her, I am going to kill you. Do you understand me?”
“Drop your gun! I kill her! I kill her now!” the soldier yelled.
Harvath adjusted his weapon, trying to get the best sight picture possible. “I am going to count to ten. If you do not let her go, I am going to kill you.”
“Please,” Decker cried.
“Stop moving,” Harvath warned her.
“I kill her!”
Harvath ignored him. “One. Two. Thr—”
Mick’s suppressed round entered the rebel’s skull just behind his left ear. It was like throwing a circuit breaker. Instant blackout. The man was dead before his body hit the ground.
Decker, who hadn’t seen the Brit step out of the shadows behind her and take the shot, had no idea what had happened. All she knew was that the man had been there, his body pressed hard against hers, and then he was gone.
When she turned and saw the man standing there, wearing night vision goggles and the same voice-activated bone microphone in his ear as Harvath, she put it together. Even if she had known what to say, she wasn’t able to speak. Shock was quickly overtaking her.
Bullets from the rebels approaching from up the path were now popping and zinging all around them. Vegetation was being shredded.
“Time to move,” Harvath ordered.
Mick handed him the soldier’s AK-47 and kept the one with the duct-taped double magazine. “You go,” he shouted. “I’ll lay down suppression.”
Harvath flashed him the thumbs-up and got Decker moving as fast as he could back to the road.
Five meters before the path ended, he knocked her to the ground and covered her body with his.
The booming of a heavy, crew-served weapon was discernable even above the AK fire happening behind them. It sounded like a .50-caliber machine gun, and it was coming from out on the road.
At first, Harvath thought that the rebels had called in the weapon to shoot at him. Then he heard Ash and the Brute Squad over the radio report that they were pinned down and taking serious fire from it.
Rolling off of Decker, he held the AK-47 up and asked, “Do you know how to use this?”
She stared blankly at him for a moment before nodding.
“Good.” He helped her sit up, her back against a tree, facing the direction from which they had just come. “If you see anyone other than Mick come down that trail, you shoot them. Do you understand?”
When she nodded again, he double-checked to make sure a round was chambered, handed the weapon to her, and took off for the road.
The shooting from the fifty cal was coming in short bursts with long pauses in between. It sounded like the gunner was trying to conserve ammo, or was having some sort of trouble. Whether it was a mechanical issue, or he couldn’t pinpoint his targets, Harvath didn’t care. He planned on using the pauses to his advantage.
At the end of the path, he looked out toward the road and saw it — an improvised fighting vehicle, more commonly referred to as a “technical.” This one was a shitty, camouflage-green pickup truck with a .50-caliber mounted in the bed and spare fuel cans on the tailgate. Two other rebels stood in back with the gunner and there were two more in the cab. They were parked in about the same spot LC1 had been when the rebels had originally stopped them.
The gunner let loose with another barrage of fire and Harvath could immediately see why they were stationary and not advancing on the Land Cruisers.
At this range, their weapon was not only highly accurate and deadly, but it put them outside the reach of anything Ash and his men could unleash back in their direction. It was a very one-sided fight. Harvath intended to change that.
Crouching down, he made ready. As soon as they began firing again, he sprang and ran toward the road.
There were few things in life where “close enough” could be deemed a success. One was horseshoes. Another was hand grenades. Pulling the pin, Harvath sent his in a high, soaring arc. He would have been happy to have had it land anywhere near the truck. This one, though, was perfect and landed right in the bed.
It landed with a clank and then failed to detonate. This time, Harvath didn’t just think the word that rhymed with truck, he said it.
All three rebels standing in the bed turned in unison, two of them with AK-47s in their hands. The first thing they noticed was Harvath standing in the middle of the road. They then looked down at their feet and saw the grenade. That was when it finally detonated.
The entire truck, along with its rebel occupants and cases of ammunition, exploded in a massive fireball.
Pieces and parts were sent in every direction. Before some of them had even landed, Harvath could hear Ash and the Brute Squad cheering over the radio.
As the rain sizzled on the flaming wreckage, Harvath ran back into the jungle for Decker. Mick was already there with her. Only three remaining rebels had come down the path, and he had killed them.
He offered to accompany Harvath back to the encampment to see if there were any more, but Harvath waved him off. They had killed everyone who had seen the truck and the name of the organization. There was no point in pushing their luck any further. The best course of action would be to put distance between them and what had happened. Lots of it.
Helping Decker to her feet, Harvath slung the AK over his shoulder and walked with her back to the road. Mick followed, keeping an eye on their six, just to make sure no one snuck up on them from behind.
When the time was right, Harvath was going to have it out with Decker. But right now, he just wanted to get in the Land Cruiser and get going. They were all exhausted and soaked to the bone. He would have given a month’s salary for a hot shower, a few bottles of beer, and a bed.
But those modest luxuries were still hours away. And hours could feel like a lifetime in a place like Congo, especially when the most dangerous part of the assignment was still in front of them.
CHAPTER 8
Pierre Damien sat on the terrace of his luxury Quai du Mont-Blanc apartment and took in the view. The lake was particularly beautiful at this time of year. In a matter of moments, the sky could shift from sapphire blue to steel gray. Where the lake emptied into the Rhône, one of the city’s most famous landmarks, the Jet d’Eau blasted a massive column of water nearly five hundred feet into the air. It was forceful, phallic. It represented the virility he felt, even in his sixties.
Life had been good to him. The world had been good to him. And he intended to return the favor.
Swathed in a silk Gucci bathrobe and leather slippers, he sipped espresso as he pondered which of the five newspapers laid out on the delicate table to pick up first. They can wait, he decided. There was something about this morning that he couldn’t put his finger on. Something he wanted to savor just a little bit longer.
Closing his eyes, he felt the cool wind that was moving in over the lake. He heard the traffic down below, smelled the faint hint of a cigarette from some unseen neighbor on some unseen terrace who had stepped outside to partake in a smoke.
The odor offended him. Not simply because of its pungency, but because of the intrusion it represented. He despised smoking. It was a filthy, selfish habit that intruded, uninvited, into the lives of everyone else. Smokers tossed their discarded butts onto sidewalks and into streets with impunity as if society had bestowed upon them some special dispensation that elevated them to a unique class allowed to litter at will. Disgusting.