Page 57 of Soul on Fire
The city appeared out of the jungle, a half-illuminated cluster of rotting concrete buildings and tin shacks, fires banked in pits and barrels on the side of the packed dirt road, and palm oil lights casting a dark, oily glaze over the city intersections. A kilometer in, the dirt turned to tarmac, uneven and broken on the sides and cracked down the center. Shops lined with bright Chinese plastic goods cluttered the sides of the roads in between cellular service shops selling additional minutes and cigarettes, and empty, abandoned buildings with caved-in roofs.
The CIA station was a narrow four-story building of crumbling cinderblocks with filthy windows in barred frames. The buildings around it were the same, though some had fallen into complete shambles, the front walls and roofs caved in and debris strewn on the open floors.
A white man waited outside the station, hidden in the shadows and smoking a cigarette. Elliot picked out the red embers a block away and slowed carefully, eyeing him up.
He looked chiseled from ice, a steel-hard man with calculating eyes that swept over him and Ikolo and their bike in one pass, added him up and passed judgement in an instant. His expression was distant, his eyes narrowed. He sucked down his cigarette and blew smoke from his nostrils. “You’re late.”
He didn’t offer his hand to shake, and neither did Elliot. “This is the Congo,” he said. “You ever been out on the roads?”
The man smiled, cold and thin as a razor. “You’ve been here five minutes. You ditch your team and go on a jungle run with a local and you think that makes you an expert?”
Elliot’s blood burned red hot. “We have tracked the target far better than you guys did, or even could. You all were sucking your thumbs and boo-hooing while we were out there doing the hard work.”
The man’s smile tightened, and he took another drag from his cigarette. “We?”
A fist closed around Elliot’s heart. “Doctor Ngondu has been an invaluable assistance. He deserves your respect. And your gratitude.”
“I know who he is.” Another drag, and then the man dropped the cigarette and stamped it out. “They’re waiting for you inside.”
He led them through a gated entrance and down a narrow hallway, then through another barred door built into the concrete frame of the house, a special CIA addition.
Inside, three other white officers sat around a wilting table, each pecking at a laptop and staring at the screen. A blue-white glow made their pales faces seem ghostly, like there were just three heads floating in the dark room. Only a few kerosene lanterns gave the room a weak, sickly glow, two in the corners and one on another table sagging with radio equipment and weapons.
A woman popped up, her short hair mussed and standing on end, sweat beading off her brow and upper lip. Her hair was blonde and flecked with gray, and her eyes were blue and weary. She looked like Elliot felt: wiped out and overheated.
“I’m Carla,” she said, holding out her hand. “You’re the guy who decided to chase a rebel through the forest, huh?”
“That’s me.”
“Crazy bastard. We’ll debrief you on your journey after this is over. You’ve met Carter—” she nodded to the guy who’d led them in—“and this is Jim and Riley. Our cover is as a science expedition studying the hydrology of the Congo River. Most of the city is bored with us by now and we’re left alone.” She reached back and grabbed two laminated IDs. “You’re the new specialists who arrived late this evening.”
He fingered the plastic, his most recent service photo superimposed on a cheerful-lookingGlobal Water Advocacy Grouplogo, his name and a fake serial number beneath. Ikolo’s was the same, but somehow the CIA had found a photo of him in six hours and prepared an ID card in Kisangani. Unlike Elliot, he was beaming in his photo. His face was angled slightly, enough that, if Elliot really studied the picture, he could tell it was scraped from the internet. Some online picture the CIA had found, Ikolo cut away from someone he knew and having a good time.
Jealousy stabbed him, slid into his guts and twisted hard. There was so much he didn’t know about Ikolo, but so much he wanted to, no, needed to know.
He wanted to see that smile, though. He wanted to see it every day.
The mission has priority.“What’s your status? Are you closing in on him?”
“Not yet.” Carla sighed. “There are too many ways into Kisangani to watch them all. I’ve got Jim and Riley scanning the flight manifests from the airstrip and running that against the video feed we’ve got set up outside the ‘strip. Half the flights coming in and out are Chinese and Russian smugglers. They’re unregistered, but we’re keeping an eye on things. In the morning, we’ll check out all the suspicious arrivals. Our sources in the city are keeping their ears open, too. We’ve got eyes on the river in case he comes up by pirogue. We’re also still scanning for the cell number you gave us, but our guy must have turned it off. We haven’t picked up anything.”
“If he’s even headed for Kisangani,” Carter said, leaning his shoulder into the far wall. His face stayed out of the lantern’s light and was hidden in shadow. “This intel is spotty as hell. It’s completely unreliable. A story from a dying woman and a refugee doctor’s word that says this man is our target.” Carter pushed off the wall and crossed the room. He glared at Ikolo, studying him. “How much did you ask for? What was the price for the intel? You’ve got us jumping through our assholes, Doctor, and it’s all based onyour wordthat you saw him. So how much were you promised for your observation?”
Elliot put both hands on Carter’s chest and shoved him back, throwing his whole body weight into the push. Carter stumbled, his arms wheeling, and he fell back against the table covered in weapons and radios. A suppressor rolled to the floor and a radio handset dangled off the edge, swinging from its curled cord.
Carter started back toward Elliot, fists clenched—
“Enough!” Carla snapped. “We operate as if the intel is solid until it’s proven not! That’s the policy, Carter!”
“I was promised nothing.” Ikolo stood beside Elliot and held his head high, staring at Carter.
“You were one of Peter’s sources,” Carter shouted. “He was working you and he got sick inyourfucking hospital! He’sdeadbecause of you!”
“He’s dead because of himself. He violated procedure—”
Snarling, Carter stormed away, slipping through a darkened doorway and slamming a creaking metal door behind him.
Jim and Riley stared at their screens, fingers mashing keys as they scrawled through records. They never looked up.
