Page 24 of Soul on Fire
“He’s right, Elliot,” he said, his voice softer than it had been.
Which meant, get it done under any and all circumstances. Everything else—everythingelse—was secondary to this mission. It was a no-holds-barred order.
His jaw worked, molars scraping hard enough to scream in his ears. “What’s her name?”
Haig frowned.
“The woman who escaped. What’s her name?”
“What does it matter?” Haig shook his head, confused.
“Without her, you wouldn’t know anything. I think it matters.”
Haig had to look it up, scrolling through the reports before he found it. “Antoinette,” he snapped. “That’s her name. Now, you need to get your team ready. You’re going back to the Congo.”
* * *
Chapter Ten
UN Refugee Camp outside Sake
The Congo
He could tasteit in the air when he woke up: fear.
Not just fear. Terror. Anticipation. Dread. The sour-slick taint of apprehension, waiting for the inevitable.
Shouts woke Ikolo, and for a moment, he’d thoughtthis was it. The violence themzungushad evacuated in fear of was happening. The rebels were attacking. He’d rolled off his mat and reached for his rifle, always stowed over his head.
His hands met dirt and a half empty water bottle, and he remembered: he didn’t live that life anymore.
Being back in the Congo was like trying to step inside his own shadow, live as an echo of himself. Everything was different and everything was the same. Here he was, back in eastern Congo and back in Kivu. Back on the machete’s edge of a slaughter.
He scrambled to his feet, throwing on his shirt as he ran out of his tent. The two nurses who’d stayed with him, Ndaya and Disanka, huddled together at their tent, frightened gazes peering into the darkness in the direction of the shouts, beyond the hospital’s perimeter and down into the valley toward the camp.
“Go back inside.” He tried to sound reassuring. “Stay out of sight. Get your things, just in case.” They all had a bag packed, ready to flee. If this was it, they would take the patients and sneak out the back of the hospital, run to Goma, try to get help from the UN.
They nodded and disappeared. The lantern inside their tent turned down and then winked out.
Night had fallen, spreading darkness like butter over Kivu, thick and damp and sticky. To the north, there was darkness and the forest. To the south, the UN base with their generators humming behind their fences. In between the two lay the refugee camp in a depression of volcanic rock carved out by the last eruption of Nyiragongo.
Night is when they strike. When they always strike.
He held his breath as he neared the top of the hill overlooking the camp.
Instead of slaughter and a savage attack, he spotted movement, shadows silhouetted against starlight and the wavering smoke from the camp, weaving their way along the ridge ringing the camp. He’d heard the cries of fear and alarm from those who could see the shadows in the dark.
Every moment was a question with no answer. Would the future come? Or would everything end with these shadows in the night? Ikolo watched the shapes move, dart away from the smoke that betrayed their movement and down the volcanic slope. Rocks slid, bouncing down the exposed hillside.
A hand clapped over his mouth and yanked him back, dragged him of the ridge and back inside his hospital. He was pulled down until he was kneeling beside the hospital’s guttering fire. There were only embers burning now, just enough to see the arms that held him were wrapped in black: black uniforms, black tactical gloves, black military watch.
Lips brushed his ear. “Usipige kelele,” a man whispered in Swahili.Don’t shout. “Hatutaki kukuumiza.” We don’t want to hurt you.
“Wewe ni nani?”Who are you?
Men made of darkness, so huge they blocked the night sky, appeared around him, taking up a guard perimeter on the ridge inside his hospital. Their faces were dark, painted in stripes of black and olive green.
The voice spoke again softly, lips moving against his skin. “Tunatafuta mtu.”We are looking for someone.“Daktari Ikolo Ngondu. Yeye yuko hapa?”He’s here?
