Page 51 of Soul on Fire
“Exactly.”
Phone numbers appeared on his tablet in a list, three, then five, then a dozen cell phones connecting to his tower and rebroadcasting, amplifying his signal again and again. “Read me those numbers our LRA giant called?”
Ikolo read the first one off. Elliot punched in the digits and searched through the hundreds of devices now connected to his fake tower. “It’s not in my network. Go ahead and call it.”
Ikolo pressed to dial and held the phone out. They hunched over the dim screen, it and the tablet now the only light in the forest. Ikolo’s face glowed in the blue light, his damp skin shimmering as it arched over his cheekbones.
A woman answered after three rings. She laid into someone named Edward—the former owner of the phone, they presumed—ripping him a new asshole for ignoring her for so long, that he owed her the money they agreed to, and when was he going to be back—
Elliot waved his hand, telling Ikolo to kill it. Ikolo hung up on her shouts. He read the second number Edward’s phone had called.
He searched. There were thousands of cell phones connected to his tower now, and it took a minute for the tablet to churn through the signals, the data flowing through the box. “Got it. That phone is already making a call.”
“To who?”
“I can’t see the number he dialed. Shit.” Elliot pulled up the signal transmitting through his CellKit and isolated the voice path. “But this is what we can do: we listen in.” A tap, and the signal played through his tablet’s small speakers. The sound was almost deafening in the forest, in the utter silence and stillness. A voice with the force and depth of a lion’s roar answered after two rings.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Thank Allah. I have been worried about you. You are still on your way?”
“I am. But I am starting to feel it. I don’t have much longer.”
“Have faith.Bismillah, you will be protected. You will reach your end with glory.”
“We will only have glory if they come through with their end of their deal. That they made us wait this long and pass their test—”
“If they do not come through with their end of the deal, I will burn them to the ground. They took the sickness with them, and that will be their undoing if they try to double cross us, I promise you that.”
Silence on the line. Elliot held his breath. The sickness, the deal. It was him. It was Majambu.
Theyhadhim.
“Where are you?”the deep voice, the man Majambu had called, asked.
“I’m almost there, but I had to rest. It’s getting harder.”
“Have faith. I believe in you and your mission. You will not succumb before your time. You have a purpose. Hold that in your heart. It will give you strength.”
“I trust you, as always.”
“The meeting is tomorrow. You’ll arrive on time?”
“I will.”
“And you’ll do what they asked? Complete their test?”
“Yes.”Majambu’s voice had dropped to a growl.“They should not have demanded we prove ourselves. We should have shot them both when they refused to deliver what was promised.”
“Then we wouldn’t get what we needed. They may underestimate us now, but in a few days, the world will never underestimate us again.”
Majambu sighed, a short, sharp exhale of breath.
“Remember, we share the same enemy.”
“I’ll get their test done. And then I’ll carry out the true mission.”
