Seconds felt like minutes. Drops of water thudded onto him as well as on the broad leaves of the plants all around him. It sounded like rain hitting a canvas awning. It made it difficult to hear anything else.
As best he could tell, there were two voices, both men, and they were coming closer. He slowly began to apply pressure to his trigger.
By the time they were close enough to be intelligible, they were almost on top of him. Whatever language they were speaking, he didn’t recognize it.
They were walking in single file and appeared to be alone. There was no one else on the path.
Harvath discharged his weapon and a muffled spit accompanied each of the two rounds as they ripped through moist air and found their targets.
The lifeless bodies collapsed onto the wet vegetation, each with a dime-sized hole near the bridge of their nose. Any sound made by the clatter of their equipment was gobbled up by the cacophony of the jungle.
Stripping them of their weapons, he then dragged them far enough off the path that they wouldn’t be noticed until daylight, which unfortunately was fast approaching.
Stepping back onto the path, he pushed on. Soon enough, he found what he was looking for.
The sentry was forty meters out. He dispatched him the same way he had the others and moved the body. There were no other defenses he could see between him and the small encampment.
Circling around to the west, he counted three canvas tents. There were no fires. It was a “cold” camp. They obviously didn’t want to attract any notice.
For several moments, he did nothing but listen, trying to figure out which of the tents Decker might be in. The drops began falling harder and he realized that it was now raining. From somewhere, there was a rumble of thunder. If he was lucky, the storm might hold back the daylight and help keep the rebels in their tents.
There was no logic to picking which one to check first. She could have been in any one of them. He decided to work from right to left.
Just as he was about to step out of the bush, something caught his eye. Trip wire.
Backing away, he traced it to its source. It was a crude, but deadly antipersonnel device that had been fashioned by running a length of paracord to the pin of a hand grenade, which itself had been secured to a tree trunk.
Without any chemlights left, there was no way to mark it. Carefully, he stepped over the cord and slipped into the camp.
The rain was coming down hard enough to mask the sound of his movement even to his own ears. He could only imagine it sounded twice as loud for anyone inside the tents.
He approached the first one and listened as the rain beat upon the canvas. He couldn’t hear anything.
Creeping around to the front, he parted the fly and peered inside. There were six soldiers, all asleep, their AKs propped up next to them. Two of his worst fears had been confirmed.
The first was that they had encountered something bigger than just a handful of rebels extorting money from passing motorists. The second was what he had said back on the road — that whoever the patient was, he appeared to be someone who couldn’t go to a regular hospital.
The next tent contained supplies. There was a smattering of heavier weapons, what looked like an RPG crate, some ammunition, food, and water.
With two tents down, he only had one to go. Already, he was mentally composing his evacuation route out of the camp, back to the path, and down to the road. He and Decker would need to be extra cautious as they slipped out of the camp, making sure they didn’t hit any trip wires along the way.
Coming up to the third tent, he stopped once more and listened, but the pounding rain made it impossible to hear anything else.
He took a deep breath and, readying his weapon, pulled back the fly. Two men inside were lacing up their boots while another two were sleeping. The men lacing up their boots looked up immediately.
Shooting with night vision goggles on was extremely difficult, especially when you had to move fast.
Harvath’s first shot went low and through the man’s throat. After drilling his colleague in the head, he came back and finished him, along with the other two who still lay sleeping.
There was no sign of Jessica Decker or the rebel who had led her away from the road.
CHAPTER 6
Where the hell was she? Harvath tried to think as he dissolved back into the trees and inserted a fresh magazine into his weapon. If the soldier hadn’t brought her to the campsite, where else would he have taken her? Deeper into the jungle? But why? To rape her? To kill her?
That couldn’t be it. They needed a doctor and had been prepared to take him, until Decker had upended everything. So where were they? Where was the patient? Why weren’t they in the camp?
He racked his brain. Why wouldn’t you keep someone who was wounded in the camp? Why create a whole separate position that needed to be reinforced and protected? Was the patient in such agony that he prevented his comrades from sleeping? Was that why he had been separated off? Or was it something else?
Why would you need to give someone his or her own space? To isolate them?
A chill swept over him. He wanted to blame the rain, but he knew better. All this time, he had figured the patient was suffering from wounds sustained in combat. But what if that wasn’t it at all? What if he was sick?
That thought sent another chill down Harvath’s spine. Sick in Congo could mean a lot of things, none of it good. He needed to find Decker, and they needed to get the hell out of here.
Retracing his steps, he stepped back over the trip wire and circled the camp in a counterclockwise motion. Had he not been on the lookout for more trip wires, he never would have noticed a narrow path that had been trampled farther back into the jungle. He took it and moved as quickly, quietly, and carefully as he could. Less than two minutes later, he found it. The isolation ward.
A lone tent had been set up in a small clearing recently hacked out of the bush. Light spilled from inside. As he neared, he could hear voices. He could also hear vomiting.
One word kept going through his mind. It started with f and rhymed with truck. He didn’t want to get any closer than he already was, but he had no choice. Decker had put all of them in a terrible position.
Raising his night vision goggles, he gave his eyes a moment to adjust. In a perfect world, he would have picked a safe spot, set the back of the tent on fire, and waited to shoot anyone other than Decker who ran out. But it wasn’t a perfect world and he couldn’t afford to alert the other rebels.
He thought about using a snake, but he didn’t have the time, and he especially didn’t have the desire, to go catch one. He could only imagine the field day Murphy would have with that one. This was one of those things he would just have to do the hard way.
Moving to the front of the tent, Harvath tightened his grip on his weapon and reached for the flap.
But no sooner had he begun to pull it back, than a hand reached out and grabbed hold of his wrist.
Harvath drove his arm down, pulling the figure off balance. As the man’s head came into view, Harvath saw that he was wearing a piece of cloth fashioned into a makeshift surgical mask. Leveling his pistol, he shot him in the head and pushed the man into the tent.
Instantly, his mind took in the entire scene. A second similarly masked rebel was reaching for his rifle. A third couldn’t get to his rifle, but had picked up a machete. Harvath shot them both and kept advancing on his objective.
Standing above a cot, holding an IV bag over the ill patient — a man with a long scar across his forehead — was a fourth rebel. He was a large man who didn’t show an ounce of fear. Instead, he shot Harvath I’m going to kill you eyes and looked ready to shout the alarm.