She was in shock. That was the only charitable explanation he could think of. Their encounter with the rebels would have been traumatizing for any civilian, even a doctor who had previously been a war correspondent. Add to that the fact that she had already shown up for duty worried about the staff from the Matumaini Clinic, and you had a more than perfect recipe for psychological disaster.
“You’ve just been through a pretty intense—” Harvath began.
“Don’t you dare patronize me,” she spat.
“No one is patronizing you.”
“The hell you aren’t.”
Harvath needed to shut this down. “Dr. Decker, I’m willing to cut you a little slack after what happened, but—”
“But what?” she demanded, cutting him off again.
“Either you start pulling your act together, or I’m going to arrange to send you back.”
That seemed to get her attention.
Harvath watched her for a couple of seconds. He had known some emotional women in his day, but he had always thought it was demeaning to blame everything on emotion. People and arguments were usually more nuanced than that.
There was, though, some convoluted chip that Decker carried on her shoulder. He had no idea where it came from, and he didn’t want to know. That was for her shrink or, God help him, her boyfriend to figure out.
All Harvath cared about was whether or not she’d take orders, and whether or not he could count on her to see the rest of this operation through. He didn’t like manipulating people, but Decker had positioned herself in such a manner that he had no problem doing whatever he needed to do. But before that, he wanted to make a couple more things crystal clear.
“After everything that happened this morning, we’re very lucky that nobody died.”
She looked at him, her eyes smoldering with incredulity. “Nobody died? Nobody?”
Harvath corrected himself. “We’re very lucky that none of us died.”
“So they don’t matter.”
“The rebels?”
“Yes, the men back there that you killed, murdered in cold blood.”
Good Lord, thought Harvath. “All of those men were armed combatants.”
“Who you shot before they could even get a chance to shoot you!”
What the… This woman was nuts. “You know that’s the idea, right? To shoot them before they can shoot me?”
In Harvath’s short time on this earth he had heard some incredibly stupid and incredibly offensive things, but that one was very near the top of his list. “Do you think I enjoyed shooting those men?”
“I don’t know,” Decker replied. “You tell me. You sure seemed pretty good at it.”
“I’m good at it, Dr. Decker, in the same way I’m sure you’re good at what you do. Because that’s my job.”
She had a triumphant expression on her face, as if she had just caught him in the lie to end all lies. “Except my job is to save lives.”
“Mine too.”
“But—” she began.
“But I’ve still killed people?” he asked, interrupting her this time.
Decker nodded.
“I have, and I would do it again because some lives are more valuable than others.”
Once more the look of triumph flashed across her face, but Harvath shut it right down.
“Not every life is worth saving, Dr. Decker. In fact, some aren’t even worth fighting for.”
“All lives matter,” she countered.
“The life of a Hitler? A Stalin? A Mao? A bin Laden?”
“The men we encountered this morning were not a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Bin Laden,” she replied.
“No, but they tied you up and gagged you just the same, right?”
Decker dismissed his question as if it were beneath her. Her ideology was more dangerous than Harvath had originally feared. Not only had she been willing to jump out of the Land Cruiser and go blindly into the jungle with anyone who asked, but she also appeared to lack the capability to feel any shame or responsibility for what had happened because of it.
He was about ready to write her off for good when she made an interesting admission and asked him a question very few had ever asked.
“I don’t get you,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I assume you’re a spy, or a soldier, or something.”
“Or something,” Harvath admitted.
She looked at him long and hard, as if the answer to her next question would have to already be written on his face for her to believe it.
“Why do you do it?” she asked. “Any of it?”
It wasn’t a funny question, but Harvath laughed again anyway.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” he said.
“Try me.”
She had said try me, not trust me. There were many explanations Harvath could have given her for why he had chosen the path he was on.
One was his desire to please his deceased father who had seldom been there for him because the man was always away chasing his own adventures. Another had to do with a desire to push himself further and challenge himself more. Yet another had to do with the fact that he was just plain addicted to the lifestyle and thought so highly of his ability that he had come to believe that he was the only person who could get the hard assignments done.
There was another part to why he did what he did. It had started when he was much younger and lived next door to a developmentally impaired boy who was regularly picked on. He had inserted himself as the boy’s protector, which resulted in him getting into a lot of fights. He got into a lot of trouble, but he also became a good fighter.
Though he wanted to believe that what he was doing was noble, and it was, there was also a certain degree of selfishness to it. The boys he fought with were usually bigger than he was and there was often more than one of them. Nevertheless, he beat them time and again until no one challenged or made fun of his “friend.”
It wasn’t until he was older that he realized the gusto with which he had punched out any kid who made fun of the developmentally impaired boy came from a deeper place inside himself. What he did for that boy is what he wished his father had been around to do for himself and his mother. He was protecting him.
He also came to realize that what he had voluntarily chosen to do for his neighbor, his Navy SEAL father had also voluntarily chosen to do for others. There would always be people who needed the protection of others. True nobility came in offering that protection freely. Once he came to fully accept that idea, his path in life became pretty clear.
Looking at Decker he said, “We talk a lot back home about the American Dream. Without someone willing to protect it, it can’t exist.”
“You’re right,” she replied. “I don’t believe you.”
So much for building rapport, Harvath thought. Not that he was surprised. He could tell that they had much different worldviews.
“Your belief in why I do what I do notwithstanding, I need to know whether or not I can count on you moving forward,” he said.
“That depends.”
“Sorry, I need a yes or no answer. No contingencies, no qualifiers. Either you agree to do what I say, or you’re not going back out with us.”
Decker was quiet for several moments. “I really thought those soldiers were Congolese military. I wouldn’t have gone with them had I known they weren’t.”
Harvath didn’t know what to make of her statement. It almost sounded like an apology. Regardless, it showed she was capable of insight, which went a big way toward fixing the problem.