Page 30 of Soul on Fire
They rolled, flattening themselves down as best they could, and watched the sky. Fireballs arced over their heads, flying toward the UN, the camp, and them. They started falling—
Falling too close. “Move!” Elliot bellowed. “Go, go!”
They ran deeper into the bush as the mortars slammed into the edge of the camp, blasted craters and blew apart tents. Fire raced down the crowded alleys, jumping from tent to tent. The screams turned shrill, terror enveloping the valley.
Elliot caught Ikolo’s glare. Fire burned bright in the darkness of Ikolo’s pupils. His face was clenched, expression hard, eyes narrowed.They’re all going to die. Every one of them. He’s going to die, too.
Admiral Kline had pulled him aside before they lifted off theKearsargeearlier that night. “Lieutenant, these are the rules of engagement: you areonlyallowed to engage if you aredirectlyfired upon. You are under ordersnotto initiate contact with any foreign fighters or rebel factions. Congo is the UN’s jurisdiction. Do you understand me?”
This wasn’t direct fire. Mortars were, by definition, indirect fire. The ADF didn’t even know they were there.
They couldn’t fight back. It wasn’t allowed.
Behind the camp, the UN base was burning to the ground. Still, the UN troops hurled rounds of artillery at the tree line,blam-blamblasts that shook his bones.
Gunfire joined the madness, long sprays of bullets coming from the west. “Contact!” Hood called over the radio. “Unknown shooters firing along the western tree line!”
“At us or at the rebels?” he shouted.
“All I know is it’s not at us!”
It’s a God damn shooting gallery and a three-front warzone. “Doctor, how far were we from Majambu? How close were we to his sector?”
“Not far. Only one more sector, but he must be gone by now.”
He must be gone by now.Elliot surveyed the rebel-held tree line and the camp, the damage to the UN base. Refugees fled south, escaping the only direction there wasn’t fire and terror.
The RPGs and mortars weren’t targeting the people. “The refugees aren’t the targets.”
“What?” Ikolo protested. “They—”
“They’re hitting the UN and the outskirts of the camp. None of the strikes hit anywhere near sector thirty-nine, and they’re not hitting the southern roads. This attack is a diversion, and someone is getting out of here and heading south. Cole, Hood, move south, take up position, and watch every person coming out of that sector. Find him! Jumper, Doc, move forward, find cover, and lay into those fuckers.” His team merged with the darkness as they slithered away.
“I have to get back to my patients,” Ikolo hissed.
“It isn’t safe—”
Whirring roared from the sky, thethump-thump-thumprumble in his bones Elliot knew by heart, rolling down Nyiragongo and into the valley. He searched the sky, looking for lights. “We got choppers incoming,” he radioed his team. “Jumper! Doc! Watch your six!”
Floodlights from three Cobra gunships lit the camp, the valley, and the tree line as the choppers screamed in from the east around Nyiragongo. Each chopper had the Kenyan flag painted on its side.
Bullets whizzed over their heads, chewed into the earth and spat dirt in geysers as ADF fighters attacked the helos and the Kenyans roared through almost a thousand rounds of ammunition from their triple-barreled Gatling gun in response, pummeling the tree line where the fighters hid.
Elliot and Ikolo belly crawled through the brush, keeping as low as they could while a now four-front war raged around them.
Elliot’s radio crackled. Cole. “L-T, we’ve spotted Majambu. Looks like he’s looting another tent.”
“Can you get to him?”
“Negative, L-T, not with all this traffic.”Bullets whizzed over the radio, aplinkand azingthat was too close to Cole for comfort.“We can take him out, though.”
“Negative, hold fast. We need him alive for interrogation. Keep your eyes locked on. We’ll follow him out of this mess.”
They chirped their radiosaffirmative.
Elliot’s radio spat static and crackled, whistled high, and settled again. He faintly heard Admiral Kline, but he sounded too far away, as if the signal was being jammed. “Black Mamba, this is Beachside Actual. Evac, now. The East African Standby Force is moving in at the request of the UN and they’re cleared hot.”
“They’re already here!” Elliot shouted. An RPG leaped from the forest, streaking toward the Kenyan helicopter. He saw it in slow motion, the arc of fire, the smoking contrail, the rainbow blaze as it slammed into the helo’s nose and exploded.
