Page 6 of Soul on Fire
When he grabbed the backpack’s strap, he jerked, hauling the buyer so close he could see the scars on his cheeks from a pimple-filled adolescence. “But you hadbetterbe in Kisangani or we will hunt you down. We will kill you before we kill another American.”
“We will be there. Our goals are the same. We need to see that you can carry out a smaller mission before taking on the largest attack the world has ever seen. If you can do this, it will be well worth your time.”
Idrissa stared. “Go. The sun will rise soon. You must be gone before then.”
The buyers nodded, and they hefted the double-insulated body bags onto the back of a truck parked on the dark track, a ribbon of midnight carved through the thick forest. “Inshallah, we’ll meet in Kisangani,” the buyer said.
“Inshallah.” Idrissa closed his fist over his heart. “Allahu akbar.”
“Allahu akbar.” Doors slammed, and the truck engine turned over, stuttered, and then they were off, lurching through the forest with only a single flashlight shining through the windshield guiding their way.
“Idrissa!” Majambu hissed. He rushed to Idrissa’s side, his rifle low and ready, finger still taking up the slack in the trigger. He spun, circling as he stared at the ground and peered into the bush. “The woman! She’s gone!”
“She earned her freedom. She’s a walking corpse anyway. Let her die in the forest alone. It will save our camp from her sickness.”
Majambu didn’t move. He stared at the forest, the tangled roots edging into the black of night and the twisted vines wrapped in shadow. But he shouldered his rifle, sighing, and accepted the backpack from Idrissa.
“One week to Kisangani. You must leave soon.”
“I will have to go south, and you know there’s only one way through.”
* * *
Chapter Four
USSDallas
Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa
“Highline, Midtown.”
Lieutenant Elliot Davis keyed his throat mic. “Highline, over.”
“We’re tracking a fast boat coming out of Rassini, South Somalia. It’s pulling out from the Bajuni Islands now and heading south. No transponder and they’re not responding to hails,” Captain Watkins of the USSDallas, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile destroyer—an Aegis ship, the eyes and ears of the Navy—said over the radio in his ear.
“It’s a known pirate hot spot, ma’am.” He had a team of four SEALs in the RHIB, the rigid hull inflatable boat his team used on their anti-piracy maritime interdiction operations off the east coast of Africa and the Somali Sea.
Most of Elliot’s company was deployed in NAG, the North Arabian Gulf, but he and a splinter team were detailed to the Anti-Piracy Task Force off East Africa. Pirates had restarted their gun running into Africa, along with trying to seize cargo ships and hostages. Two tankers were attacked the day before, but theDallashad fired warning shots that scared the pirates off before they’d had a chance to board.
Elliot and his team hadn’t launched a VBSS—visit, board, search, seizure—mission in over a week. He was itching to go. His men were, too. They’d been ready all morning, their boarding gear locked and loaded: black BDUs, knee pads, fast rope gloves, and ballistic armor strapped on tight beneath their climbing harnesses secured for boarding, and forty pounds of weapons and ammunition. The equatorial sun was swelteringly hot, oceans of sweat making waves beneath their uniforms and all the gear, even in the shade of theDallas’slaunch bay.
They were near desperate to act. “Want us to take a look?”
“Roger that, Highline. I want a three-sixty eval and inspection. Attempt to make contact and determine if hostile. Do not board if hostile.”
“That takes the fun out of it,” Jumper, one of his men, grumbled. Jumper sagged dramatically, holding his rifle across his arms and braced in his elbows. Water lapped at the hull, tucked up the ramp inside the launch bay of theDallas.
“What’s the plan, Midtown?”
“We need to talk to these guys. We need to know why there’s been so large an increase in operations recently, and who is bringing more guns into Africa.”
Translation: Captain Watkins wanted prisoners.
Which meant pacifying the ship and taking the pirates alive.
Not always the easiest of tasks.
“Roger that, ma’am.”
