Page 18 of Soul on Fire
“The bakery is three stalls down.”
“I hear they make great sourdough.”
She quirked her lips. CIA had set up a challenge and code word response, meaningless to any eavesdroppers, but something no one could fake or stumble upon. Bakery was the station’s challenge. Sourdough—not available in East Africa—was the response.
“I’m Ashley. I run this place.” She worked the lock, slid the gate open, and beckoned him in. “You alone?”
“No ma’am. My team is holding a perimeter and is ready to escort you and your people out. Is everyone ready?”
“We are. There’s just one problem.”
Elliot sighed inside. “What’s the problem?”
Ashley guided him deep into the shop, past the false front of newspapers and ratty journalist desks with old computers the size of microwaves perched on top. Photos of the refugee camps were tacked to the wall next to a map of the Congo and another map of Goma. A journalists’ office, to all wandering eyes.
Behind a locked steel door, the rest of the CIA team waited, along with the hive of Agency equipment. The room looked like the aftermath of a police raid, turned upside down and destroyed. Broken-down computer towers and barrels of ashes from their burned documents, CDs, maps, and pictures lined one wall. A stack of hard drives waited on the center table next to a radio, bottled water, and a pile of PowerBars. Three men and two women sat at the table, dressed like Ashley and with a backpack at their feet. The women picked at their fingers. One of the men, a rangy, lanky, black-haired man, chewed a pencil like he hadn’t had a cigarette in days.
“It’s one of my team,” Ashley said, leading Elliot past the others to the darkest corner, where Elliot could barely make out the outline of a body lying on a cot. The body was wrapped in blankets, but shivered. Soft moaning came from the bundle.
Ashley stopped him, her arm across his stomach like a barricade. “Don’t get too close.”
“What happened?”
“Peter was up in the refugee camps at the hospitals. He was trying to find out more about the rebels from the villagers who had fled the rebels. We’d put up motion cameras in the forest, and we’d gotten a few pictures. We thought some of the refugees could identify who we found.” She sighed, her hands falling to her hips. “He found someone,” she said softly, “and he paid the price.”
“What’s he got?”
Her eyes met his in the crazy light of the backroom. A single unshaded lamp burned in the corner. Her head cast a shadow on the wall that looked like the volcano they’d humped past, a dark mountain rising forever.
Ashley’s eyes pinched, spidery lines feathering across her face. Her lips thinned, and she rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead. “Ebola,” she breathed. “He’s got Ebola.”
* * *
“And you didn’t thinkthis was mission critical information? Information that my team needed to know before we launched a full NEO?” Elliot wanted to bellow, but in the dawn rustle of the city, he was reduced to hissing.
He’d grabbed Ashley’s arm and hauled her out the back, spun her in the alley and got in her face. CIA officer or not, Station Chief or not, she’d withheld vital information, possibly compromising his entire team. She’d endangered his men. “What about the others? Any of the rest of you infected?”
“No.” She shook his hand off her arm. “He knew as soon as he got back from the camps. He quarantined himself. He’s been in a mask and gloves since he got back.”
“Has he bled anywhere? Shit anywhere? Coughed on any one of you?”
“No! We’refine, Lieutenant!”
Down the alley, Jumper shifted, coming out of the shadows with a silent question. Was he needed?
Elliot turned away from Ashley, pacing as he felt for his throat mic hidden beneath his bandana. “Beachside, this is Black Mamba.”
A sailor manning the radio on theKearsargein the Combat Direction Center answered. “Black Mamba, go ahead.”
“Get me Beachside Actual.”
Silence. Static. And then, Kline’s voice over the radio. “Beachside Actual, go ahead Black Mamba.”
“I know why they were in such a fucking hurry.”
“Say again, Black Mamba?”
“One down with E-H-F, Beachside. Situation critical.” Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever.
