Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

  Seated across from her, Soulavier watched the fields and towns whisk by. “Alas, the world is peaceful lately,” he said. “Your government does not do much business with Cap Haïtien or Santo Domingo anymore. Colonel Sir is most unhappy about this.”

  “You still have tourism and your petroleum and farms,” Mary said.

  Soulavier lifted his hands, rubbed thumb and three fingers together on one palm signifying money and clapped the other hand over it as if to smother. “Petroleum—easier to make from your garbage mines,” he said. “Every country on Earth can grow enough food. Tourism has suffered. We have been called many nasty words. It makes us sad.” He sighed and shrugged as if to cast off the unpleasant subject, smiled again. “We still have the beauty. And we have ourselves. If our children do not go off to die for others, then that is well, too.”

  No mention was made of the manufacture and export of hellcrowns. Perhaps Soulavier had nothing to do with that. She rather hoped that he didn’t.

  The train passed through long tunnels and emerged onto a low desert shadowed by curve armed saguaro cactus and islands of dust colored bushes barely visible in the light from the train windows. Stars stood out stark and steady above the mountains. They passed into another tunnel.

  “We have the variety of a continent,” Soulavier said wistfully. “You ask perhaps, who could come here and still have an evil temper?”

  Mary nodded; the central puzzle of Hispaniolan history.

  “I have studied our leaders. They start out good men, but within a few years, or sometimes as little as a few weeks, something changes in them. They begin to get angry. They fear strange forces. Like zealous old gods, they torture us and murder. In the end, before they die or are exiled, they are like little children…They are contrite and puzzled by what has happened to them. They smile into the camera eyes, ‘How could I have done this? I am a good man. It was not me. It was somebody else.’“

  Mary was astonished to find such candor, but Soulavier continued: “All this before Colonel Sir. He has been here thirty years, as long as Papa Doc last century, with none of Papa Doc’s abiding cruelty. We owe much to Colonel Sir.”

  Honest and sincere; Soulavier did not seem capable of hiding his true feelings. But they were certainly being hidden. He must know what she knew; the secret to Colonel Sir’s stability. Hispaniola had been graced with twenty years of extraordinary prosperity and comparatively gentle self government. If there was a possessing demon of pain and death on Hispaniola, Colonel Sir had subdued its effects on the island’s inhabitants by shipping its influence elsewhere.

  “But I am not here to sell our island to you, am I?” Soulavier said with a chuckle. “Your business is official and has little to do with us. You are here to find a murderer. Straightforward work. Perhaps later you can return to Hispaniola to see us as we truly are, to relax and enjoy yourself.”

  Beyond the tunnel gleamed the lights of Port-au-Prince, caught between the dark Caribbean and the mountains.

  “Ah,” Soulavier said, twisting to look across the aisle and out the opposite windows. Mary noted this motion; not the studied grace of a diplomat but of a quick unselfconscious athlete or street urchin. “We are here.”

  As the train slowed, coasting the last few kilometers into the depot, Soulavier pointed out the major tourist hotels government buildings museums, all solid early twenty first century glass walled stone and steel and concrete. Clean and well lighted. Just before the depot they hummed through a broad quarter called the Vieux Carré that preserved preColonel Sir architecture—ingenious wood and cracked concrete with tile and corrugated tin roofing. In the Vieux Carré the buildings were studiously shabby and seldom more than a single story.

  Soulavier preceded her onto the covered platform and for the first time she had direct contact with the air of Hispaniola. It was warm and balmy and blew gently through the station carrying the scent of flowers and cooking. Trailed by the arbeiters they walked past stainless steel carts where vendors sold fried fish and boiled crab, peanut butter seasoned with peppers, cold Hispaniolan beer. The train station contained only a few dozen tourists and the vendors avidly competed for their dollars. Soulavier’s presence kept them away from Mary. “Alas,” Soulavier said, indicating the dearth of tourists with widespread arms. “Now they say nasty words about us.”

  A government limousine waited for them, parked in a white strip. Gasoline and electric taxis and gaily decorated taptaps had been pushed aside and parked at decent intervals on both sides, their drivers lounging, eating, reading. Three men and two women in red shirts and denims danced around the cart of a beverage vendor, flickering their hands gaily at Soulavier and Mary. Soulavier bowed to the dancers, smiling apologetically as if to say, “Alas, I cannot dance, I am at serious work.”

  The limousine was no more than ten years old and automatic. It drove them at a stately pace through the streets to the quartiers diplomatiques. Soulavier had become quite subdued. They approached a brick walled compound and passed through a gate guarded by soldiers in black uniforms and chrome helmets. The soldiers watched them with narrow eyed suspicious dignity. The car did not stop.

  Within the walls lay a pleasant neighborhood of simple uniformly colored bungalows with prominent front porches and trellises covered by everblooming bougainvillea. The car stopped before one such bungalow and swung its door open. Soulavier leaned forward, suddenly assumed a puzzled expression and said, “Inspector Choy, I am arranging for a meeting with Colonel Sir himself. Tomorrow, perhaps late. You will start with our police in the morning, but you will have lunch or dinner with Colonel Sir.”

  Mary was surprised by the offer. But then Colonel Sir had approved her entry in the first place and would naturally be curious about his friend’s fate…Or at least would wish to put on such a front.

  “I’d be honored,” she said. She got out of the limousine and saw a man and a woman in dark gray livery standing at the base of the bungalow steps. They smiled congenially. Soulavier introduced them: Jean-Claude and Roselle.

  “I realize Americans are not used to servants,” he said, “but all diplomats and officials from outside have them.” Jean-Claude and Roselle bowed.

  “We are well paid, Mademoiselle,” Roselle said. “Do not be embarrassed.”

  “Until tomorrow,” Soulavier said. He returned to the limousine.

  “Your luggage is already inside,” Jean-Claude informed her. “There is a shower or a fine bathtub available, and there is pure apple vinegar, should you wish to use it.” Mary regarded the man blankly for a moment, taken aback by this intimate knowledge of her needs.

  “Your design is very beautiful, Inspector Choy,” Roselle said.

  “Thank you.”

  “We especially approve of your skin color,” Jean-Claude added, eyes twinkling.

  The bungalow’s interior was well furnished with solid mahogany, obviously handcrafted; the joins were not perfect, but the carvings and hand polish were magnificent. “Excuse me,” Mary said. “How did you know about the vinegar?”

  “I have a brother-in-law in Cuba,” Jean-Claude said. “He does transform surgery for Chinese and Russian tourists. He has spoken often of your skintype.”

  “Oh,” Mary said. “Thanks.”

  Roselle led her to the bedroom. A canopy bed with mosquito netting and a wonderful multicolored quilt of embroidered animals and dancers waited against one wall, quilt and covers pulled down. “You will not need the netting. We have only friendly mosquitoes in Port-au-Prince. But it is quaint, no?” Roselle said.

  Her clothing had been hung in an aromatic teak armoire. Mary bristled internally at the thought her luggage had been gone through without permission, but she smiled at Roselle. “It’s lovely,” she said.

  “Your dinner awaits in the dining room. We will serve you if you wish, but if you find personal service discomforting, we can arrange for robots to bring in your meal,” Jean-Claude explained. “If you use robots, however, we will not be paid as much.” He half wink
ed. “Please relax and do not feel inhibited. This is our job and we are professionals.”

  How many times had they addressed diplomats or company officials thus? The attractions of Hispaniola were obvious. These people seemed more than sincere; they seemed truly friendly, as Soulavier had been friendly. There might be nothing more than this to the hanging up of her clothes.

  “Will Mademoiselle need anything else before dinner?”

  Mary declined. “I’ll get cleaned up and then I’ll eat.”

  “Mademoiselle would enjoy company, perhaps?” Roselle suggested. “University student, farmer, fisherman? Friendly and guaranteed souls of discretion.”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “We will have dinner set out for you within the half hour,” Jean-Claude said. “Time for you to shower and refresh from your journey.” They withdrew.

  Mary picked up the hairbrush from the dresser and inspected it. It did not appear to have been tampered with. She returned it to its place beside the comb and makeup box. Hereafter she would keep it with her whenever she left the house.

  She took a deep breath and removed her slate from its protective purse. Keying in a security string, she then pressed two additional keys. The slate displayed a rough schematic of the room she was in and then—working from field strengths of electrical lines and equipment placed throughout the house—a clear floorplan of the house itself. Beneath the schematic, the slate said, There are no easily detectable listening devices within this building. That meant little; the vibrations of the house itself could be analyzed from outside and voices filtered from the background noise. She still had no overt reason to suspect she would be monitored; but call it instinct.

  She removed one of two bracelets from her arm and laid it on the bed. If anyone entered the bedroom while she was within a kilometer of the house the second bracelet would alert her. She undressed and walked into the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. All fixtures were white porcelain in the rounded style of the early twentieth century, sparkling clean bulbous and awkwardly elegant. The shower stall was tiled with patterns of flowers on the walls and swimming fish on the floor; the glass doors were etched with longlegged birds perhaps herons or egrets; she was no expert on birds.

  She told the water in the shower to emerge at twenty eight degrees Celsius but the fixture did not respond. Chagrined, she twisted the handles manually, briefly almost scalded herself, bent to reexamine the two white ceramic caps marked C and F and decided that C certainly did not stand for “cold.” F might mean “frigid,” but the water was merely tepid. She made a note to inquire of the slate what the French words for hot and cold were.

  Once she had mastered the shower she enjoyed a few minutes sluicing herself and emerged to find Roselle standing in the bathroom with a huge white terry cloth towel, smiling broadly.

  “Mademoiselle is truly beautiful,” she observed.

  The bracelet had given Mary no warning whatsoever.

  “Thank you,” she said coolly. She had little doubt of her status now. With wonderful obliqueness she had been put in her place; elegant old-world comfort and no slack in her leash whatsoever. Sangfroid. That was what F meant. Froid. Cold.

  Colonel Sir left no doubt as to who was in charge. However comfortable the house seemed and however friendly the servants, there would be no true rest until she returned home and that might not be for days.

  Dressed in a casual midsuit she followed Roselle in to dinner and sat alone at a table that would have comfortably seated six. Jean-Claude brought out bowls of broiled fish and vegetables, all natural and not nano-made, a bowl of sweet looking dark yellow sauce, white wine with Colonel Sir’s own label (Ti Guinée 2045) and a pitcher of water. No courses; no ostentation. Just dinner. That suited her mood perfectly. She wondered if the pair were mind readers. The fish was wonderfully flavorful, flaky and moist; the sauce was mildly sweet and much more. Fiery, savory, delicious.

  She finished and thanked the pair yet again. As they cleared the table Jean-Claude told her Colonel Sir was delivering a speech on the L’Ouverture net. “There is a screen in the living room, Mademoiselle.”

  “You’ll tell me when my companions arrive?” she asked.

  “Indeed yes.”

  She sat down before the small screen. A portable remote the size of her slate controlled the lights and other appliances. She viewed a tiny tutorial on the remote for a moment then entered the keypad control sequence to turn on the screen, which automatically tuned to the island’s vid net, named after Haitian hero Toussaint L’Ouverture.

  Idyllic scenes of this evening’s sunset were being broadcast to soothing strains of Elgar; sun falling low over cactus forest and ocean dipping beyond the Cul-de-Sac plain and Port-au-Prince, twilight in a mahogany grove, cruise ships moored off Santo Domingo, the Santo Domingo oceanport with perhaps her own scramjet dropping slowly to a landing.

  The music rose over one final spectacular view of Jean Christophe’s La Ferriere, ironically named after a blacksmith’s bag: the immense fortress built to repel the French, filled with blacksmith’s scrap iron—ancient cannon that had never fired a shot.

  What was it the exile had said two nights before, Christmas Eve…That William Raphkind should have killed himself with a silver bullet as Christophe had, over two centuries ago. A silver bullet fired from a golden pistol to kill a supernatural being.

  Raphkind had killed himself with poison.

  A male announcer appeared in cameo over the virgin fortress. “Good evening, mesdames et messieurs. Colonel Sir John Yardley, President of Hispaniola, has scheduled this time for a public address. The President speaks before the parliament and the National Council in the Court of Columbus in Cap Haïtien.”

  Mary settled back, drowsy with food. She heard Roselle singing softly in the kitchen in Creole.

  Colonel Sir John Yardley appeared in closeup, tight full head of ashen hair, long tanned face quite wrinkled but still sharp featured and handsome, full lips held in a self assured half smile. He nodded to the unseen council and members of the island parliament and without formalities began.

  “My friends, our situation this week is no better than last. Reserves in banks domestic and foreign have fallen. Our credit is refused in twelve nations now including the United States and Brazil, heretofore among our strongest allies. We continue to tighten our belts and fortunately, Hispaniola has been prosperous for long enough and we have enough reserves that we do not suffer.” Yardley retained a distinct British accent, but after thirty years it was tempered by the precise singing diction of the islands.

  “But what lies in the future? In the past our children wandered around the globe seeking education, and now we accept students who travel here to be educated. Our island has come of age and we are mature enough to face hardship. But what of our anger at being slighted yet again? Hispaniola is well aware of the winds of history. Never has any spot on Earth suffered so much at the hands of outsiders. The natives who first dwelled here in Paradise were killed not just by Europeans, but by other Indians, the Carib, who in turn were massacred by Europeans…And then Africans were brought here by the French, and they were slaughtered, and they turned around and slaughtered their masters, and were slaughtered yet more; and then blacks slaughtered each other and mulattoes slaughtered blacks and blacks slaughtered mulattoes. Into this century the slaughters continued as we labored under travesties of Napoleonic codes and laws that condoned misery and starvation and the rule of incompetents.

  “Dictators and democratic governments, more dictators, more governments. We have faced far worse times than these, have we not? And now we are cast out again, though our sons and daughters have bled and died fighting their wars, though we wine and dine them and give them refuge from their cities and overdevelopment…”

  Mary listened to the droning words, wondering what was so dynamic about this man. His speech seemed to go nowhere. Jean-Claude brought her an aperitif which she politely refused. “I’m sleepy enough as is,” she said.
r />   Mercifully the speech lasted only fifteen minutes, reaching no apparent conclusion, trailing off into platitudes about the corruption of the outside world and its continuing mistreatment of Hispaniola. Colonel Sir was blowing off steam and keeping up appearances. One message was clear enough; Colonel Sir and therefore all of Hispaniola was angry and resentful about their growing outcast status.

  When the speech was over the vid almost immediately resumed with a flatscreen cartoon of the adventures of a skullfaced man in long pants, black coat and tails. Mary recognized Baron Samedi, Gégé Nago, the trickster loa of death and cemeteries.

  Baron Samedi leaped into a river to go Under the Water, sou dleau, to the land of the dead and the gods of old Haiti. Colonel Sir had used vodoun to his advantage—as had many other rulers on the island before him—and then had slowly converted the countless loa into comic book and cartoon heroes, defusing the faith’s power for younger generations. Under the Water, Baron Samedi conversed with Erzulie, the beautiful loa of love, and with Damballa, a rainbow-colored snake.

  She turned the screen off, retired to the bedroom and found there on the nightstand a bound volume of Colonel Sir’s speeches and writings. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mary thumbed through this book, picked up her slate and called up other research, trying to fight away the drowsiness. On her slate a map of the Gulf of Gonave showed a shape like an unhinged jaw waiting to swallow Gonave Island and whatever else came too close.

  After an hour of reading and waiting she went into the kitchen and found Roselle sitting quietly knitting. Roselle looked up, eyes warm and welcoming. “Yes, Mademoiselle?”

  “My companions’ flight should have arrived by now.”

  “Jean-Claude checked on them a few minutes ago. He said the airliners are delayed.”

  “Did he say why?”