"Enough."
The chosen four seemed grateful for Michelle's intercession. They fell back into line, massaging bruises and aches and pains. Bolan stood before them, unscathed and scarcely winded. He was obviously ready for another demonstration, if they cared to continue.
None did.
"The single object of hand-to-hand engagement is survival," he informed the troops, allowing time for adequate translation. "Close encounters are your last resort, but if you have to fight, remember that survival takes priority. There are no other rules, no code of conduct. Winners walk away; losers die."
He drew a knife. "I need another volunteer."
Michelle translated as Bolan taught them how to slit a throat and find a vital point beneath an adversary's ribs. She watched and passed his words along as the American described a narrow opening between the skull and spine — described by Chinese martial artists as the "wind gate" — where a blade could be inserted to the brain. Throughout his dissertation, the warrior's attitude was solemn and reserved, as if he found no joy in teaching others how to kill.
The session lasted for an hour, broken by the midday meal. Michelle caught Bolan's eye before his eye audience dispersed, and for the first time he allowed himself to smile.
"I'm sorry you got drafted into this," he said.
"I'm not."
"It can't be very pleasant for…"
"A woman?"
"Well…"
"I can assure you, I've seen my share of killing. I'm not a hothouse flower to be guarded from the world outside."
"I heard about your father."
"It was his decision to oppose the junta, and he knew the risks involved."
"You plan to follow in his footsteps?"
"Possibly."
"There's more to life than dying."
"Some of us have nothing more to lose."
"I've been there."
"Yes," she replied, examining his eyes, "I think you have."
"It isn't always easy, but you can get out."
"And you?"
He smiled again. "I'm hungry. Lunch?"
* * *
Étienne Dupree was tired of being lectured. For the past three-quarters of an hour he'd listened to the fat Macoutes, and now the curly haired American was taking up his time, reminding Étienne and his companions of their debt to Mother Haiti. It was a lot of dung, and everybody knew it.
In his twenty-seven years, Etienne Dupree had watched the country go to hell — a fair accomplishment considering the state in which it had begun. With literacy hovering at roughly twelve percent, the average worker earning less than three hundred American dollars per year — when jobs were available — ignorance and need were the Haitian standards of living, Étienne still went to Mass on Sunday, out of habit, and he still attended voodoo ceremonies on specific holy days, but he'd lost his faith in sundry gods. If anyone was going to assist Étienne Dupree, the young man knew that it would be himself.
And that was where the curly haired American fit in.
The man was a gambler, one of those involved in building Liberté in order to bring the tourists back. There had been problems with the rebels, and the gamblers needed help that the Macoutes apparently couldn't provide. It obviously galled the men in uniform to stand and listen while this foreigner appealed to peasants for assistance, and thought of their discomfort brought a smile to Étienne's face.
The problem, simply stated by this man named Esposito, was that no one had been able to locate the rebel base camp. From their jungle lair, the peasant troops were free to strike at will, attacking convoys, sniping at the army, sabotaging large machinery around the Liberté construction site. It was a game to Étienne, who watched it from a distance, but the curly haired American was deadly serious.
He had agreed to pay in cash for information leading to the destruction of the rebels.
Always short of money, Étienne Dupree had learned that everything in life was labeled with a price. A man with money in his hand could purchase love or its equivalent as readily as he could purchase food, a pair of shoes, a fat cigar. Emotions and convictions were for sale.
And so was loyalty.
Etienne had friends among the rebels, young men he had known from childhood. They had once invited him to join them in the forest, but he had declined. A soldier's life was grim enough; the life of a guerrilla was barbaric. Still he had refrained from giving up their secrets, naming names.
It was the first time anyone had ever offered cash for what he knew. But now, he saw it would not be enough.
Étienne knew names, but if he gave them up, the Macoutes would take his friends into custody and question them, elicit information under torture, free of charge, Étienne would lose his friends, he might be branded as a traitor and his pockets would be empty all the same. It simply wouldn't do.
Another angle of attack was plainly necessary, and he tuned out Esposito's lecture while he concentrated on the makings of a plan. The rebels had invited him to join them once; they might again, providing he wasn't too obvious in his pursuit of invitations. Once he learned the site of their encampment…
No. Too risky. As the only new man on the scene, he'd be instantly suspected when the junta staged its raid. No matter how the net was cast, some rebels always seemed to slip away, and those, their friends or relatives, would make a point of tracking down Étienne, exacting their revenge for his betrayal.
There would have to be a better way. He racked his brain, a headache building up behind his eyes, and suddenly he had the answer. If he couldn't join the rebels, he'd do the next best thing. Their man in Port-au-Prince, according to the loose-lipped friends of Étienne Dupree, was a Main Street barber named Toussaint. Étienne had never met the man, but he was said to have a taste for rum. If Étienne should meet him in a tavern, quite by accident, and mention names of several friends they shared in common…
He smiled and could almost feel the money in his pocket.
* * *
"And do you hate the gamblers so much?"
Bolan shook his head. "I don't care one way or another if some tourist wants to lose his shirt. That's his decision and he'll have to live with the results. I'm interested in what goes on behind the gaming tables, in the offices and counting rooms where profits disappear and unreported income winds up in some politician's hand, or paying off a drug deal."
"Haiti is no stranger to corruption."
"Maybe not. That doesn't mean you need a fresh supply of jackals from the States."
"You make a strange policeman."
Bolan's smile surprised her. "Sorry, this is strictly unofficial. I've got no more weight to throw around than you or any of your friends."
"I think, perhaps, you throw it differently."
"It's all a matter of experience. You hang around a war zone long enough, you're bound to pick up certain tricks along the way."
"You have done more than 'hang around, I think."
"I've been around the block with people like Bartoli and his crew. You want to talk about corruption, these guys wrote the book. If they get one foot in the door, your house is gone before you know it."
"Can you stop them?"
"I can slow them down. We haven't found a cure yet, but you can treat the symptoms where you find them."
"My father was a man of peace," she said. "It cost his life."
"I've been there," Bolan told her. "Once upon a time I thought that hate was all I needed to survive. If I could hang on long enough to kill this guy or that one, it would be enough. It wasn't."
"How did you dispose of it, this hatred?"
"I decided it was better to support a cause than simply stand in opposition."
"And your cause?"
"It varies. Some days I get by on just surviving. Other times I like to think we've scored a point or two against the savages."
"These savages you speak of, they are everywhere?"
"I haven't noticed any shortage lately."
She frowned. "I w
ish to make a stand and score my points against the savages."
"You'll get your chance," he replied.
"Sometimes I doubt it. Jacques and Father Paul believe Henri and I must be protected from the world, like perfect angels."
"They're concerned about your welfare."
"But I'm not an angel. Truly."
Bolan met her gaze for several seconds, and Michelle could feel a blush stealing across her cheeks. He saw it, too, and broke the contact, concentrating on his plate of rice and beans.
"Don't push yourself too fast," he cautioned. "War has all the glamour and excitement of an auto accident. If I were you…"
"What would you do," she challenged, "if you were me?"
"I'd finish lunch," he answered, "and think about the war tomorrow."
She caught his eyes and held them.
"Would you? Honestly?"
"It's dangerous to give advice," he said. "I'm swearing off."
"I'll take the risk."
Bolan shook his head. "I won't."
Michelle had learned that pouting was a waste of time and energy. Instead she concentrated on her food with one part of her mind, the rest already plotting her strategy. Before he left them, she would have Mike Blanski's help.
She planned to make the American an offer he couldn't refuse.
6
Two days after Bolan's arrival at the camp, Jacques Petoit gave orders that he could move around outside the perimeter without an escort. Bolan took advantage of the call to stretch his legs before the evening meal. He struck off to the west, following the contour of the landscape and allowing the forest to show him its secrets.
Being diverted from his private schedule wore on Bolan's nerves, but he took solace from the knowledge that his temporary disappearance would confuse the enemy and keep Bartoli guessing. If the convoy raid was blamed on rebel troops, so much the better. No one would be looking for the Executioner when he returned to bring down the curtain on Liberté.
The training sessions with Petoit's commandos had been rigorous, but he didn't really mind. The ragtag troops were zealous students, overcoming barriers of language in their eagerness to learn the killing craft. He felt no guilt about preparing Haitian peasants for a run against their government. In theory, Bolan tried to separate his politics and private feelings from his war against the savages, but when it came to life or death decisions, living day by day, he found the split impractical. A soldier living on the edge couldn't divorce his feelings from the actions he initiated in the field. A robot might be useful when it came to cleaning house, but it was no damned good at all for cleaning up society.
It had been years since Bolan first set foot in Haiti, following the trail of mafiosi who were pushing a project called the Caribbean Carousel. Quick Tony Lavagni was the front man on that deal, Sir Edward Stuart the architect, and Bolan had dealt with them both.
In the meantime there had been some changes. Papa Doc Duvalier was dead. His son, Jean-Claude, had fumbled with the reigns of power for a while before his own incompetence eventually drove him into exile. Chaos and repression had been grappling for primacy before the junta lent a hand and came down heavily behind the time-honored tradition of a police state. The secret police had received a face-lift, along with a new lease on life, and Haiti was going nowhere fast… until the Mafia expressed a renewed interest in the troubled island.
Bolan's war against the Syndicate had been mostly on the back burner of late, with all the other targets vying for an Executioner's attention, but he kept an eye on Mob activities and moved, when necessary, to prevent the wise guys from expanding, spreading out their tentacles around the globe. Corruption might be status quo in Haiti, but the fact was that the Mafia could only make things worse, eliminating any pretext of a nation trying to improve its lot. With Mob endorsement, members of the junta would be in for life, and any shot at freedom for the people of that hostaged island would be lost, perhaps forever.
Bolan knew his contribution to the course of Haitian history might be compared to spitting on a forest fire, but he could still do something. If the Syndicate was broken here, if he succeeded only in retarding progress of their plans, then it would be a victory.
He reached a flowing stream and flipped a mental coin, deciding he would travel southward for another fifteen minutes, tops, before he started back to camp. He loved the forest, but there would be ample opportunity for him to see it later, when he led the rebels on their first nocturnal exercise that evening. All of them were natives. They could name the local plants and animals in a flash, but they were greenhorns when it came to war. So far their battle with the junta had been daylight hit-and-run, an occasional assassination and some bombs touched off in Port-au-Prince. They hadn't waged a stiff campaign against the enemy on hostile ground, and Bolan thought it just might come to (hat in time. The junta would be moving mountains to discover where its enemies were hiding, and Bartoli's clan would raise the ante. Sooner or later, inevitably, the rebels would have to think in terms of self-defense, as well as sporadic offense.
The stream broadened up ahead, and Bolan heard the music of a waterfall. He moved in that direction, hesitating at the first sound of a human voice.
A woman's voice.
Michelle.
* * *
The big American had come as a surprise to Father Paul Langois. The priest took pardonable pride in his adaptability to changing circumstances and the rigors of a life in hiding, but the shifting tide of battle had conspired to test his faith in recent weeks. The Tonton Macoutes were everywhere, it seemed, prepared to counter every thrust the rebels made against the new regime. Men were dying daily in the cause, and now, the first patrol that had returned intact since spring brought back a stranger.
An American warrior.
Serving combat troops didn't come easy to Langois. A pacifist at heart, he'd been driven slowly and inexorably toward the violent fringe by his exposure to the brutal actions of his government. How many of his own parishioners had he seen tortured, executed on suspicion of disloyalty? Dozens? Hundreds? Somewhere in the middle of it all, Langois had come to terms with death and bloodshed, finally acknowledging that some men were, in fact, all bad. Some souls had witnessed so much degradation, joined in so much bloodshed, that they stood beyond salvation's reach, forever lost.
Langois had recognized his failure as a priest and as a man, considering his options. Tempted as he was, he couldn't bring himself to kill, but he'd done the next best thing, providing absolution for the men who carried arms, at last surrendering his church, his very life, to join them in their exile. Many of them still believed in voodoo on the side and placed their faith in darker gods on special nights, but when they stood in fear of death a simple ceremony often eased their minds.
The tall American was something else again. Instead of peace, he brought them cautious optimism, made the peasant soldiers feel as if they had a chance. His first appearance was an omen, coming in the midst of an engagement where the rebels had emerged victorious, their first full-fledged success in months. Through his example and instruction, members of the rebel army might acquire survival skills to see them through the coming troubles. If even one life could be spared…
But the American remained a riddle to Langois. His motives — or the motives he espoused — were similar to those that drove the rebels on, but was he everything he seemed to be? In recent months America had offered vague concessions to the junta, anxious to recruit another friend in the Caribbean at almost any cost. If those in charge were anti-Communist, their crimes against the people might be overlooked, forgotten. And if those in charge were pro-American, then their opponents must be enemies by definition.
In his younger days, Langois had taken pride in trusting every man he met, until the new acquaintance had ample time to demonstrate his folly. Recently the priest had learned to take a rather different approach, mistrusting everyone until their worth was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. Mike Blanski was a new acquaintance, and
aside from killing two or three Macoutes, he'd done nothing yet to prove himself. For all the priest knew, he might have been…
Been what?
A list of options came to mind. The CIA was charged with keeping track of foreign enemies — that is to say, the groups that stand in opposition to selected «friends» of the United States. Beyond the obvious there was military intelligence, the NSA, or any one of several private groups involved with lethal games of cloak and dagger. Worst of all, the stranger might be working for the junta, posing as an ally to subvert the movement from within.
Langois realized that he was being paranoid, but it was a survival mechanism he couldn't ignore. Suspicion was a daily fact of life in Haiti; those who shrugged it off were flirting with disaster, even death.
He scanned the compound, looking for the American, remembering that Blanski had received permission to examine the surrounding forest. He was working out the details of another training exercise… or was he?
It would be too late to catch him now. The priest, for all the time that he had spent in hiding, wouldn't make a jungle scout. If Blanski had a contact waiting in the jungle, he'd never know.
The best Langois could do was watch and wait. It was the warrior's second day in camp; if everything went smoothly, he'd spend another day among the rebels, leaving on the morning after next. If anything went wrong…
Langois wasn't a killer, but he made a solemn promise to himself. If Blanski showed a sign of turning traitor, bringing down the army or Macoutes upon them, he would personally finish the American. It was the least that he could do, in light of all his other failures.
* * *
Étienne Dupree was trying to remember when the world turned upside down. His mind kept drifting in and out of focus, shifting back and forth from fantasy to grim reality while Étienne set out to catalog and quantify his pains.
Haitian Hit Page 6