by Jon McGoran
There was plenty more, as well. I thought about Miriam and wondered once again what had become of her. It was still possible she had landed back in Florida or somewhere else, but hope had been slipping away with each passing hour, and especially after what we had just seen, I had to acknowledge the likelihood that she had been reunited with her husband. I felt rage flaring up in me and shame that I had let this happen to her. She had come to me for help, for protection. Now she was dead. But if I was to keep Regi from losing it over the slaughter of the woman he loved, I couldn’t let myself lose it over the death of a woman I barely knew.
Regi took out his phone and tried to place a call. “No signal,” he said. “We’ll test the samples at my lab at the university, where I tested the others.”
“And whatever we find, we have to get word out. Through the media or the Internet; maybe through Mikel. About Saint Benezet and Gaden too. Who do we tell about that here?”
“I must tell Dissette right away,” he said, a hint of a sad smile tugging at his mouth. “He is an old fool and a coward. He won’t do anything, but I have to tell him, anyway. Then I must tell President Cardon. There is no one else to tell.”
57
We made better progress once we found a small dirt road, but the sun was high and beating down hard. As we came over a rocky hill, a cell phone tower rose incongruously out of the scrubby trees. I powered up my iPhone but there were no new messages.
Regi took out his phone and placed a call. He spoke in Kreyol, a dead monotone marred only by a growing sense of exasperation. He shook his head as he lowered his phone. “Dissette is not to be disturbed,” he spat. “They say he is in a meeting. More likely taking a nap.”
He took a deep breath and placed another call. He was on hold for a moment, then he said, “Chantale!” with a forced cheerfulness. He continued on, this time keeping his voice even and controlled, polished almost. When he finished, the smile disappeared, as if the effort to support it had exhausted him. “My friend Chantale is in the president’s scheduling office. I left a message with her asking him to call me,” he said when he was done. “I said it was urgent, but I don’t know if he’ll call.”
Next, he called Jean-Pierre at the airport. There was still no sign of Miriam and Sable. He lifted the phone one more time, holding it in front of him. “Portia has a sister,” he said distantly. “Studying in Cuba. I must tell her…” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “But not now.”
We were hiking at a brisk pace, but I think we shared a growing sense of frustration, stuck on foot in the middle of nowhere while we knew something terrible was going down.
I pulled out the plastic bag and looked through the pages as we walked, hoping something would jump out at me. But the terrain was rough. It was hard to get much out of it.
Regi looked over and put out his hand. I handed him the bag, and he started looking through the documents, as well.
“This is useless,” he said, squinting and holding a page up in the sunlight. “These are barely legible.” As the baking sun dried them out, they got better, but not much.
The road widened, and I heard a vehicle approaching. I tapped Regi on the shoulder, and we clambered into the brush on the side of the road. I stuffed the pages back into the bag and the bag into my shirt.
A Jeep appeared around the curve, slowing as it approached. For a moment, I worried the driver might have seen us. When he pulled off the road and stopped, I recognized him as one of the soldiers from the roadblock. Regi recognized him, too. His eyes flashed with anger.
The driver jumped out and ran into the bushes, leaving an old M16 leaning against the dash. His holster was empty.
As he began peeing against a small tree, I felt Regi tensing up next to me. I put my hand on Regi’s arm and shook my head. The guy could still have another sidearm, and even if we killed him, the gunfire would bring his friends. Plus, Regi wasn’t a killer. I doubted his soul could handle becoming one, and I hoped he never had to find out.
A thief, though, that wouldn’t be so bad.
The Jeep’s engine was running. I pointed at it and whispered in Regi’s ear, “Let’s take it.”
I saw a ghost of a smile, and he nodded.
“Quickly.” I sprinted out of the bushes and down onto the road. Regi was right behind me. I jumped into the driver’s seat and Regi got in the other side.
As soon as I put the Jeep in gear, the guy peeing in the bushes turned and saw us. “Hey!” he called out, grabbing at his empty holster as we drove off. “Hey!”
By the time his pants were done up and he had run out on to the road, we were fifty yards away.
Regi smiled briefly, looking back at the soldier, who ran halfheartedly after us. But the smile faded as he turned to face front, and by the time the soldier had disappeared around the curve, Regi’s face was stony and grim.
Even in the Jeep, the going was slow, and when the road straightened out, I looked back, worried the guy we’d stolen it from could be gaining on us. Just before the road curved again, he appeared—150 yards back, moving at a cross between a jog and a shuffle. Regi turned to look back as the guy called out weakly and collapsed to his knees.
We left him behind the next curve, but I drove faster, anyway, trying to put more distance between us. I was relieved that he had appeared unarmed, and I found his .45 with a full clip under the seat, along with an unopened bag of fried plantains and a green wool watch cap with OFFICER TURNIER written on the inside in black permanent marker.
I showed Regi the hat and handed him the bag of chips. “Thanks, Officer Turnier.”
His mouth twitched in a hint of a smile. He started to wave off the chips but then changed his mind.
“I wonder who’ll be angrier at Officer Turnier,” I said, “the police for losing his Jeep or his mother for losing his hat.”
Regi opened the bag and took a handful of chips and then passed the bag to me.
The road we were on ended up ahead at an intersection with a larger, more defined road.
Regi said, “We should make a right up here, to get us back to Cap-Haïtien. Left will take us toward Labadee.”
I nodded, slowing to make the turn. But as we approached the intersection, my heart sank. Another police vehicle pulled across the road right in front of us. Both officers got out and held up their hands for us to stop.
Regi said, “Let me handle this.”
I was about to tell him that, in my experience, stealing a police vehicle and stranding an officer might require more than a little bureaucratic finesse. But the officers didn’t come any closer. They just stood there with their hands raised, preventing us from going any farther. Another police vehicle went by, followed by two black SUVs with tinted windows, both sporting Darkstar stickers in back. Another police SUV came behind them, and another.
“It’s a goddamned motorcade,” I muttered. Just my luck to get stuck behind a motorcade out in the remote hills of Haiti.
“They’re coming from Labadee.”
I looked back the way we had come, searching for any sign of the guy we’d carjacked. Things could go south in a hurry if he showed up and told his buddies about how we’d stolen his Jeep.
Luckily, there was no sign of him. As I turned back around, a massive Hummer limousine slowed and stopped directly in front of us. One of the rear windows slid down, and a face leaned forward.
Archie Pearce. He looked right at me, making eye contact, a vague scowl on his face. Sitting across from him, seemingly unaware of my presence, was Bradley Bourden, the head of Energene.
Pearce didn’t break eye contact; he just raised the window as the car eased forward.
“What was that about?” Regi asked as the motorcade drove on.
“That’s Archie Pearce, the head of Stoma. I had a run-in with him last spring. Frankly, I’m surprised he recognized me. Last time I saw him, I caused him a substantial inconvenience, but he made it clear he considered me as consequential as a flea.”
“That’s
a powerful man to have as an enemy.”
“Don’t I know it. The other guy was Bradley Bourden, the head of Energene. I don’t think he likes me, either.”
Regi smiled again. “I must say I like your taste in enemies.”
A couple more vehicles drove by, then the motorcade was over. The two cops got back in their vehicle and followed the others.
I took a last look behind us, then I fell in behind them.
58
I hung as far back as I could, following the motorcade from a safe distance as the road wound down the mountain toward Cap-Haïtien. I was beginning to wonder if they were going to precede us the whole way back, just to aggravate us, but then they slowed to a stop.
Two police vehicles pulled off to the right and waited while everyone else turned left.
I resumed driving slowly, and we passed the entrance to a courtyard flanked by two stone-faced bodyguards. I could see Archie Pearce, slightly stooped but still towering over everyone else. Bradley Bourden seemed tiny next to him. The two CEOs had an entourage of half a dozen men, among them Royce and Divock. They were being greeted by two Haitians. One of them was Ducroix, the interior minister. I recognized him from Marcel’s restaurant. He was wearing the same dark aviator shades and military uniform. The other was tall and handsome, wearing an expensive suit and smiling broadly to show off his impressive white teeth.
“Who’s the other guy with Ducroix?” I asked Regi.
“I believe that’s Vincent Adrien, Cardon’s trade minister. Strange that Ducroix is here with them.”
“They all seem very friendly.” They were shaking hands, smiling and laughing politely. Ducroix held out his arm, gesturing for everyone to go inside. As they turned to follow him, I noticed an odd interaction between Bourden and Pearce, a conspiratorial glance that devolved into utter disdain as soon as each looked away from the other.
The police out front were giving us a hard stare, and I sped off before they could scrutinize the Jeep.
“What do you think that’s about?” I asked Regi as we continued down the mountain. “Why would Pearce and Bourden be meeting with Ducroix?”
“There have been protests against them. And the stolen Soyagene,” he said quietly. “But I don’t like it. I don’t trust Ducroix.” A furrow formed in the center of his forehead.
Cap-Haïtien spread out in front of us, a handful of dark wisps rising ominously into the sky. I turned to Regi, and he met my gaze with a worried shrug. The furrow deepened.
As we entered the city, an armored police vehicle sped down the road ahead, and a few blocks past it, another one. It struck me that Ducroix was hyping the threat from rebel factions on the one hand, but instead of monitoring the situation on the ground, he was meeting with bigwigs from Energene and Stoma.
Driving through the city, we passed a few more police vehicles and piles of burning tires surrounded by young men who seemed more bored than anything else.
When we reached the Ministry of Health building, a dozen police vehicles were lined up out front, and a cluster of tents had sprung up in the open lot beside it. Officers milled around by the entrance.
Regi held up his hand and said, “Hold on.” I was already braking. I did not like the looks of this.
He took out his phone and placed a call. “Dissette,” he said to whoever answered. He looked away as a voice came on the other end, and they spoke back and forth in Kreyol, his eyes returning to mine as he ended the call.
“That was Dissette. I told him I thought Ducroix was up to something and that he might have lied about the Ebola outbreaks in Saint Benezet and Gaden, that those people might have been killed—murdered—under false pretenses.”
“What did he say?”
“He said those were very serious accusations and that I should come in to the office to discuss them.” He looked out the windshield at the police assembling on the front steps. “I asked him if the police were there.” He turned to look at me. “He said they were not.”
As he said it, a heavyset older man came out the front door in a hurried shamble and approached the officer in charge.
“That’s Dissette,” Regi said, looking down and covering his face with his hand. “We should go.”
I turned the Jeep around and drove down the nearest side street. “Where to?” I asked.
He paused, thinking. “Make a left. We will test the samples at the university, but first we need to stop at my house.”
“We need to get rid of this Jeep.”
“Elena has a car. She will let me borrow it.”
As he directed me through the city, we saw more police and clusters of protestors, more energetic than before. I couldn’t read the signs, but many of them had drawings of cornstalks or seedlings.
“They’re protesting the proposed trade agreement,” Regi says, translating the signs. “‘Seed Sovereignty Now’ and ‘Long live local seeds!’”
“What’s that one say?” I pointed at a sign that read SOVE AYITI DE KOLERA AK EBOLA.
Regi cleared his throat. “Save Haiti from cholera and Ebola.”
The protests were peaceful, but the police seemed to be preparing for something more. Regi’s frown deepened with every police post we passed.
As we approached his house, I slowed to a stop. A police vehicle was parked on the sidewalk midway between Regi’s house and his sister’s inn.
“You see that?” I asked.
Regi nodded. “I do.”
We sat there and stared. “You think they’re in your house or my room at the inn?”
“I don’t know.”
It turned out it wasn’t either. A pair of police in dress uniforms exited Elena’s front door, got into their vehicle, and drove away. As soon as they turned the corner, we went inside.
She was sitting in a kitchen chair with her hands folded in her lap, her face pinched.
“Elena!” Regi said, running over to her.
She looked up at him, her face blank. She whispered something to him in Kreyol. They went back and forth, quiet but urgent.
“Is she okay?” I asked quietly when they’d stopped.
“I am fine,” she said, looking up with an apologetic smile.
“She and Marcel are to cook for the police camped in front of the government services building,” Regi said. “She said they have to make enough for thirty men every day. Rice and beans for lunch and mayi moulin, cornmeal and stew, for dinner.”
“Are they paying her?” I asked.
She looked at me and nodded, her eyebrows inching up in surprise.
“They are,” Regi said. “And they are supplying them the food to cook.”
“It is not bad,” Elena said.
Regi looked unconvinced. “Did they go in Doyle’s room?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He nodded slowly, then said a few words in Kreyol.
She reached into her apron pocket and handed him a set of car keys.
Regi kissed her on the cheek and took them.
59
From the outside, Regi’s house was similar to Elena’s—unadorned stucco with a single window and a door with a small step. Inside, it was clean and simple with wood floors and hand-carved wood furniture.
I was surprised by the Star Wars memorabilia on the bookshelves, by the picture of Regi shaking hands with Wyclef Jean, and by Miriam Hartwell standing in the corner, pointing a gun at us as we walked in.
She looked like hell—dirty and sunburned and squeezing the gun so tightly in her hands I was afraid it would crumple like tinfoil if it didn’t go off. She seemed unable to lower it at first, as if she’d been holding it so long, she’d forgotten how. Then she dropped it and ran to Regi, burying her face against his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, crumbling into tears.
“Thank God you’re okay,” he said, stroking her hair. “We’ve been so worried about you. I’m so sorry about Ron. So sorry for what you’ve been through.”
When she calmed down, she pulled
back from him. “I’m okay,” she said, maybe a little prematurely. Then she turned and put a hand on my arm. “I didn’t expect to see you. Thanks for your help, again.”
“Sable?”
Her eyes welled up anew, and she shook her head. “He didn’t make it.”
“What happened?”
She shook her head. “He was shot as we took off.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“It looked bad, but he said he was okay. He seemed okay for a while. He got us here, but just barely.” She laughed briefly through her tears at the memory of it. “That crazy plane. He put it down in this tiny little clearing. He said we were going to an airstrip, a place called Phaeton, but then he just … he said he wasn’t going to make it. He said it calmly, and we were going down in this tiny field. I couldn’t believe he was doing it. Then I couldn’t believe he did it. Then I couldn’t believe he was gone.” She looked up at me, her eyes streaming. “I think he died before the plane actually touched down.”
She took another stab at gathering herself. “Anyway, I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I just started walking, until I found a road. I felt terrible leaving him behind, but I didn’t know what else to do.” She looked down and her voice went quiet. “I barely knew him, but he saved my life.”
She cleared her throat and continued. “When I got to the road, I asked some people the way to Cap-Haïtien. After a couple hours, it started getting dark. There were police all over. I don’t know which was scarier, them or the groups of young men eying me up, sometimes following me. I had Sable’s phone, but it was locked. I found a clump of bushes in an empty field.”
“That’s where you spent the night?” Regi asked.
She nodded. “It was scary. I don’t think I slept more than a few minutes at a time. As soon as it started getting light out, I started walking again. I don’t know what it’s usually like here, but even at dawn, police were everywhere again. What’s going on?”
Regi’s eyes went distant for a moment, then he winced.