Code of Conduct

by Brad Thor

  Harvath got out an S and an H before catching himself and saying, “Excrement.”

  “And the second?” Decker asked.

  “Bleach.”

  “Bleach?”

  He nodded. “I think this entire place has been sanitized. Literally from top to bottom. I also think,” he began, but his voice trailed off as something caught his eye.

  “What is it?”

  Harvath motioned for her to back out of the dispensary. He had been bending down near the tiny fridge and saw something beneath the cabinets on the adjacent wall.

  There was a narrow strip of black, plastic trim along the top of the fridge that had begun to peel back on one side. Harvath helped it the rest of the way off.

  Lying down on his stomach, he slid the piece of trim under the cabinets and coaxed out the item from underneath. Once he got it out, he held it up.

  “What is it?” Decker repeated from the doorway. It looked like a giant mint the size of a hockey puck. It was chipped, and a large portion appeared to have been burned.

  “No one ever used these when you were here?”

  “I don’t even know what it is.”

  Harvath sprayed it with luminol. Seconds later it started to glow.

  “It’s a bleach tablet,” he said.

  “Why would that be here?”

  “Drop this in a pie plate and set it on top of a camping stove, and you can gasify it. The fumes go everywhere and will sanitize anything your liquid bleach missed.”

  “Then you’re right. The clinic was sanitized. But by whom? And why? What were they sanitizing?”

  Good questions, none of which Harvath wanted to waste time deciphering right now. His scrubs were soaked through and the sweat was rolling down his face into his eyes. He wanted to finish looking around and get the hell out of here.

  Retreating to the front door, he reenacted what he had seen on the video. Though someone outside had filmed it, he could approximate where the shooters had been standing when they entered and had opened fire.

  In his restrictive biohazard suit, Harvath pantomimed a tactical entry, stepping inside with a rifle and shooting.

  If the shooters had been following the same protocols he was, they might have wanted a few modifications to their weapons. Wearing the layers of gloves, the more refined features of the weapons would be difficult to manipulate. Perhaps they had upgraded to larger trigger guards and beefier charging handles to accommodate their thicker, less dexterous fingers.

  It was also possible that for such a quick, in-and-out assignment where no resistance would have been expected, the men had just made do with whatever weapons they normally carried or had access to. There was no way of knowing for sure.

  What he was able to know for sure came from examining the wall directly opposite the front door.

  Based on the furniture scattered nearby, it had been some sort of clerical or nurse’s station, likely the place patients checked in and then were shown to a row of chairs where they would wait to see one of the clinic’s medical staff.

  He ran his hand up and down the entire wall.

  “What do you see?” Decker asked him.

  “It’s not what I see,” said Harvath. “But what I don’t see. There are no bullet holes. At least not anymore. Look.”

  She bent down and studied the places he pointed to.

  “Whoever this was,” he continued, “they were absolute professionals. They did a full cleanup job. Right down to digging out the bullets and patching and painting the walls.”

  While Decker looked for any records of what might have been going on at the clinic, Harvath examined the walls and floor in the ward and found more evidence of the walls having been repaired.

  He was convinced that whoever it was had come in, killed the staff, and then had murdered all of the patients. He didn’t need to ask where their bodies had been taken. He already knew.

  Decker rejoined him from the back of the clinic and shook her head.

  “I can’t find anything,” she said.

  “I’m not surprised,” he replied. “Don’t worry. We’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here.”

  Decker nodded and they exited the clinic. Harvath went first.

  As was his habit, he took a long, slow look around before signaling that it was safe for her to join him. It was still raining and the moment they stepped out from under the overhang, the rain began streaking down their faceplates.

  Neither of them cared. They were both bordering on heatstroke. All that mattered was getting out of the suits.

  Reentering the jungle, they retraced their steps to where they had positioned the canisters. Harvath had already mixed the solution inside, but he picked up each one and gave it a good shake before pumping their handles up and down.

  It was a maddening process to have to go through when you were this uncomfortable, but because their lives depended on it, they took extra precautions not to rush things. They had made it this far. It was only a little bit further. Now was not the time to be cutting any corners.

  Decker reminded Harvath to take a deep breath. It was thick with humidity, but he did so anyway. She then lifted the wand attached to her canister and began spraying him down.

  He lifted his arms in the air and turned in a slow circle. She stopped to pump the handle and then had him repeat the process. He did the same for her.

  They did it again and again until they had both exhausted two full canisters of the solution. Then came the hard part—doffing the PPE.

  All sorts of horrible diseases had infected untold numbers of medical workers over the years—not because their suits had failed, but because they had failed to properly remove those suits.

  Next to visiting an outbreak, the next most dangerous step involved was slithering out of the suit. The doffing procedure required steely patience and total concentration. Slowly, carefully, Decker walked him through every step.

  Their scrubs and everything else went into the hole he had previously dug and packed with tinder.

  While Decker showered, he doused the pile of gear with some of the kerosene he’d asked the Brits to source for the clinic. As soon as the fire was burning good and hot, it was his turn to shower.

  He stood under the water and used the soap and shampoo to clean himself from top to bottom. His PPE had held and he was confident they had followed all the doffing procedures correctly. He wasn’t a hypochondriac and didn’t need to scrub himself raw.

  He allowed the lukewarm water to trickle over his neck and shoulders. He was glad the clinic part was over. They would have to go back and check the burn pit, but it was pro forma at this point and at least he wouldn’t have to get back in one of those suits. It did indeed feel like he had competed in an Ironman race in one hundred degree heat.

  He reached down for one of the water bottles mixed with Gatorade powder he had left on the edge of the shower, but it wasn’t there.

  Straightening up, he saw Decker. She was standing there, naked, just looking at him with the bottle of Gatorade in her hand. Then, she stepped into the shower.

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  Harvath was exhausted. So was Decker. He wanted to take a closer look at the burn pit, but now wasn’t the time. Not in the dark and the rain. It was time to get back to camp.

  Shouldering their packs, they walked down to the river and returned the way they had come.

  The rain made it difficult to talk, and it was probably for the best. Decker had already made going to the burn pit an issue. She wanted to go with him in the morning. Harvath had no idea what she had seen as a war correspondent, but he had strongly advised her against it. There were certain things that couldn’t be unseen. Once they were seared into your mind, they stayed there forever.

  The additional reason he felt she should sit it out was that she had personal relationsh
ips with the people missing from the clinic. Based on what little he had seen, he knew the pit was going to be brutal.

  Decker, though, had her mind made up. No matter how hard he might try to dissuade her, she intended to join him. There was no use fighting her on it and he let the subject drop.

  When they entered the camp, they found the Brits, along with Jambo, sitting beneath a tarp slung between two trees and one of the Land Cruisers.

  “How’d it go?” Ash asked.

  “Not well,” Harvath replied. “We need to talk.”

  The Brit motioned to the other Land Cruiser.

  Inside, Harvath pulled his poncho off and threw it on the backseat.

  Ash handed him a towel and asked, “What happened?”

  “Someone hit the clinic.”

  “Hit it how?”

  “It looks like a team of shooters came in.”

  The Brit stared at him. “The rebels? FRPI?”

  “Not unless they travel with sanitation teams.”

  “It was sanitized?”

  Harvath nodded. “Right down to digging the slugs out of the wall and patching the holes.”

  “It was a professional hit then.”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  It didn’t make any sense. “It’s a charity clinic,” Ash replied. “Why would anyone waste those kinds of resources on it?”

  Harvath shrugged. “No idea.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “No, you’re not,” the Brit stated. “You’ve been holding out on us since you arrived. I don’t believe for a second that you came to do some sort of assessment. You’re here to compile an after action report.”

  Lying to people was part of Harvath’s job, but he hated doing it. Ash was completely correct. Harvath had been holding out on him. It was just the way things had to be done. At this point, though, he needed the man’s help more than he needed to keep any further secrets from him.

  “Several days ago,” said Harvath, “CARE International received a video. It showed four gunmen entering the Matumaini Clinic and opening fire.”

  “Who sent the video?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Who took the video?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “When was it taken?”

  “We don’t know that either.”

  Ash narrowed his eyes in the semidarkness of the Land Cruiser and tried to read Harvath’s face. “What do you know?”

  “What I just told you.”

  “But you haven’t told me anything except that there were four gunmen. What did they look like? Were they black? White? Purple? How were they dressed?”

  Harvath removed his phone, powered it on, and showed him the footage.

  “Those are bloody biohazard suits.”

  Harvath nodded and waited until Ash had watched the full clip.

  “Play it again,” the Brit said.

  Harvath did as he requested. When the video was over, he took his phone back.

  Ash was not happy. “You and Decker went into the clinic, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t worry,” Harvath said. “We wore protective gear.”

  “What do you mean don’t worry? What the hell is going on here?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “You knew enough to bring protective gear with you,” the Brit said, adding, “That’s why you wanted us to wait here, isn’t it.”

  Harvath nodded.

  “And you never thought any of this was worth sharing?”

  “I was under orders not to.”

  “The hell you were.”

  “I told you. We don’t know what’s going on here either,” Harvath emphasized. “The last thing CARE wants is a scandal.”

  “Scandal? You’ve got a bloody international incident.”

  Try selling that to the U.S. State Department, Harvath thought to himself.

  “Listen, mate, those shooters didn’t go in kitted up like that just to freak out the natives. There was something bad inside that clinic that they were very afraid of.”

  “I agree.”

  “So what was going on there? What would cause an armed team in biohazard suits to just show up?”

  “No one on our side knows. It’s just a basic medical clinic, period. They don’t treat highly communicable diseases.”

  “Apparently, somebody thought they did,” replied Ash. “And it was somebody serious because, according to you, after the wet work was done, they sent in a mop-up team to sterilize the scene.”

  “So let’s narrow that down,” Harvath said.

  “How do I know you’re not carrying whatever was in that clinic?”

  “Because I told you, we wore protective gear.”

  “You’ve told me a lot of things.”

  He was pissed. Harvath would have been too if their positions had been switched.

  “We wore full biohazard suits and followed the strictest decon procedures.”

  “That’s what was in the packs? Not medical supplies.”

  “Correct,” Harvath replied.

  Ash shook his head.

  “About that wet work team—” Harvath continued, but Ash held his hand up, interrupting him.

  “Our fee has just doubled. And if I find out you have held anything else back, I’m going to double it again.”

  “I’ll have to call back to the States to get approval for that.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” Ash stated. “You hired us under false pretenses and watered down the scope. The fee is double, or we pack up and drive you back to Bunia right now. Which is it?”

  Harvath didn’t like having his balls busted, but the man was within his rights. He agreed to the increased fee. Then, he steered him back to his previous question. “Narrow down for me who might have sent in a wet work team and followed it up with cleaners.”

  “Narrow it down? It could have been any foreign intelligence service in the first world, or from the second for that matter. How do you narrow that down?”

  “Let’s start with how many of them are operating in Congo.”

  “If they’re smart, all of them are. Congo’s untapped mineral resources alone are valued at over twenty-four trillion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of the U.S. and Europe combined.”

  “But what nations specifically would you be focused on?” Harvath asked.

  Ash thought about it. “You’ve got everyone from the Australians to the Swiss running a mining operation here. That includes the Chinese and Japanese as well. Even the Moroccans have established a presence.”

  “But whose intelligence service would send out a wet work team?”

  The Brit shook his head. “The question isn’t who, but rather why? As in, why would any foreign intelligence service give two whits about some medical clinic in the middle of nowhere?”

  His point was well taken. It was the same question Harvath had been asking himself since seeing the clinic. But perhaps it wasn’t the question that was wrong. Maybe, it was how he was asking it.

  “Let’s back up and start again,” Harvath stated. “Why would anyone send a wet work team into a medical clinic in the first place?”

  “That seems fairly obvious,” Ash replied. “To make sure that someone, or something, never got out of there. And based on how those shooters were suited up, I’ll bet they were after someone who was infected.”

  Harvath concurred. “So let’s assume for a minute that they were trying to contain something. Why not just quarantine the clinic? Why go in shooting?”

  Ash paused again and thought about the question. Finally, he said, “Because whatever they have, it’s beyond bad.”

  “Even if it were beyond bad,” Harvath replied, “you quarantine the victims and make them as c
omfortable as possible. You don’t kill them.”

  “So what’s the answer then?”

  “I don’t know,” he said as he reached up and ground his thumbs into his temples. This entire clusterfuck of an assignment was turning into one big headache.

  After thinking about it some more, Ash attempted to come at it from another angle.

  “Do you have any clue what they did with the bodies?”

  Harvath nodded. “That’s the next thing we need to discuss.”

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  FRIDAY

  By the time Decker was awake and out of her hammock, Harvath had already gone. He had taken Ash and Mick with him.

  While Jambo and the Brute Squad broke down the camp, Harvath and the two other Brits proceeded to the pit on foot. They wanted to establish a perimeter before calling in the rest of the team.

  The rain had stopped overnight and when the first pale streaks of dawn began to paint the sky, it looked as if it would be a halfway decent morning. Harvath wanted to take it as a good omen, but he knew better than to put his trust in that kind of thing. Rain or shine, this was still Congo.

  Per Ash’s request, they had given the clinic a healthy berth on their hike in. They had stopped to survey it at a distance from the jungle, but only for a moment, and then had pushed on.

  As soon as they neared the pit, they could smell the jet fuel. While it wasn’t as strong as it had been the night before for Harvath, it was still unmistakable.

  They worked their way around the pit and conducted a preliminary reconnaissance in the semidarkness. None of them spoke. They all knew what this place was. You could feel it.

  Ash sent Mick out to the road as a lookout and then called in the rest of the team.

  The sun was just beginning to pierce the trees when the white Land Cruisers rolled up.

  Decker stepped out of LC1 wrapped in a fleece and holding a coffee cup. Her hair was pulled back and tied in a ponytail. She arched her shoulders and lazily looked around as if she had just shown up for a 5K and was searching for the sign-in table.

  Then, the odor of jet fuel found its way into her nose and her demeanor completely changed. Her eyes found Harvath’s as he walked over to her.