by Gar Wilson
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Chased out of their island home, the dreaded Haitian secret police known as the Ton Ton Macoute are ready to make another stab at power in the Caribbean. Their target is Jamaica. The currency of their attack — the lives of American tourists.
Jamaican police at first link the grisly murders to a resurgence of the voodoo art of black magic. But Phoenix Force has seen this MO before. They see a smoke screen, and they are set to blow it away!
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Gar Wilson
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Gar Wilson
Kingston Carnage
Special thanks and acknowledgment to William Fieldhouse for his contribution to this work.
1
The calypso band onstage was dressed in bright red suits and yellow shirts with frilly ruffles. The lead singer improvised words in a nursery-rhyme manner to the tune performed by the other band members. Guitar, flute and steel drum produced a complex combination of music, yet all blended together into a compelling beat.
The song was a pleasant bit of fluff about a man and a woman who find love on a remote island that is "pretty as can be in the Caribbean Sea." Perry and Teresa Hedge were delighted with the calypso music. The lyrics of the song hardly mattered to the young American couple, because everything about Jamaica was colorful and exciting to them.
Perry and Teresa were newlyweds, enjoying a honeymoon and dream vacation. Jamaica had a special appeal for the Hedges because Perry had proposed to Teresa during a commercial as they watched The Deep on television. The movie had become a sentimental favorite for the couple, who associated the romance and adventure of The Deep with the colorful setting of Jamaica in the film. They had decided it would be the ideal spot for an exciting vacation and a truly memorable honeymoon.
Jamaica didn't disappoint them. The Jamaican people seemed bright and friendly, eager to please the young tourists from Connecticut. Coconut-palm trees waved in the breeze as the Hedges gazed out the window of their hotel suite at the beaches. The swaying palms seemed to beckon to them to come forward and see the beautiful Caribbean in all its shimmering glory.
The Hedges went snorkeling off Port Royal. They were amazed by the great schools of tropical fish and small squid. The water was wonderful, as warm as that of a bathtub and as clear as freshly cleaned glass. They collected seashells and odd bits of coral, then lay on the golden beach and basked in the sun, sipping exotic drinks made with fruit juice and rum.
Most of the second day they spent strolling through the streets of Kingston, the capital city of Jamaica. They took a bus tour of St. John's Park and bought an assortment of curios and novelty items for gifts and mementos. Taken with what they saw, they snapped dozens of pictures, and had exhausted six rolls of film by evening.
The Blue Cuckoo, the popular restaurant they had chosen for their evening meal, featured reasonable prices, fine seafood and lots of atmosphere. The calypso band was a perfect complement to the tropical decor of the restaurant. Perry and Teresa were very much in love and happier than they had ever been.
A lot of customers in the Blue Cuckoo noticed the Hedges and later remarked how happy the couple seemed that night. They were good-looking and stood out in a crowd. Perry was six and a half feet tail, lean and athletic, with a rugged face framed by a blond mane of thick, wavy hair. Teresa was barely an inch over five feet, but her slender frame and proportionately long legs created an impression of greater height. Her jet-black hair and fine features revealed her Italian ancestry. More than one person had compared her dark, expressive eyes and full, sensuous lips to those of Sophia Loren.
The Hedges had finished their cocktails and were halfway through their shrimp salads when Perry complained about a pain in his stomach, and in a little while, Teresa began to utter half-choked cries of pain. The manager tried to calm the two Americans while a waiter called for an ambulance. By the time sirens wailed outside the Blue Cuckoo, most of the other customers had left the restaurant. Perry and Teresa had vomited on the floor before the manager could get them to his office. Their bodies were stiff and motionless when they were finally carried out on stretchers.
The ambulance pulled away from the Blue Cuckoo with sirens screaming and lights flashing. A police car suddenly appeared behind the ambulance and escorted it to the hospital, while another squad car came to a halt in front of the restaurant. The manager mopped his brow with a napkin as he apprehensively watched two uniformed figures emerge from the vehicle.
"I am police Sergeant Bristol, sir," a tall, formidable man with skin the color of black coffee announced as he filled the doorway. "Do you own this restaurant?"
"I'm one of the owners," the manager answered reluctantly. "I'm Carlton Fellows. Unfortunately, I was managing the place tonight."
"We got a report that two of your customers seem to have suffered food poisoning," Bristol remarked as he tucked his service cap under an arm and marched into the restaurant. "I assume that's why an ambulance just left from here."
The sergeant strolled into the dining area and glanced about at the empty chairs and vacant tables. The calypso band had been dismissed after the last of the customers departed, but the waiters, clerks and kitchen personnel were lined up like soldiers waiting for inspection. Everyone looked pretty uncomfortable, which was natural under the circumstances, Bristol realized. Nobody liked being questioned by the police, and he would have been somewhat suspicious of any bloke who seemed smug and confident in such a situation.
The restaurant employees were pretty much what he'd expected. The waiters, along with the cooks, were black, the cash-register clerk was a mulatto girl and the dishwashers were Asian mulattoes. Part Asian and part black, they were among the least favored of ethnic groups within Jamaica. Asian mulattoes were generally found in the lowest levels of employment.
The manager, Fellows, was a middle-aged white man, probably a British subject who had remained in Jamaica after the country had received full independence in 1962. Sergeant Bristol didn't like British Jamaicans. Although Bristol was too young to recall the time of the crown colony, he resented the British because they had formerly conducted the slave trade in Jamaica and had continued to govern Jamaica even after granting the country full autonomy in 1953.
Bristol glared at Fellows. The policeman secretly enjoyed his authority over the white man and wanted to see the restaurant owner squirm and sweat. It would be a pleasure to arrest Fellows for criminal negligence, Bristol thought, and if the American tourists had been poisoned by the Briton's food, the police sergeant would indeed get his wish.
"Nothing like this has ever happened before, Officer," Fellows began lamely. "We've always been very careful with food preparations. No one has ever gotten sick..."
"Until now," Bristol remarked dryly. "Did you throw out the food left on the Americans' plates? Don't suppose you'd want it sitting about, eh?"
"We didn't touch it, Sergeant," Fellows answered. "We assumed you'd want it for evidence. That's their food over there on that table."
"It is?" Bristol turned toward the table. He frowned slightly, almost disappointed that Fellows hadn't tossed out the food and couldn't be accused of trying to cover up some heinous error. "Well, we'll have it analyzed. What about the rest of your customers? None of them complained of illness tonight?"
"No," Fellows assured him. "None of the other customers were ill, and many of them also had
the shrimp salad tonight. Of course, I had my waiters get their names and addresses in case any suffer from ill effects after returning home."
"You'd better hope and pray those Americans recover and no one else falls ill from your tainted food, Mr. Fellows," Bristol warned. "And I advise you not to think about leaving the country for a while. Not until this matter is cleared up. I also suggest you contact your lawyers. You'll probably need them before this is over."
"Excuse me, Officer," one of the cooks began as he stepped forward. "I believe you ought to know about somethin' we found in my kitchen tonight."
"Oh?" Bristol smiled, eager to learn their discovery. "Something with the food, sir?"
"No," the cook replied as he turned toward a table to point at an object bundled in a soiled apron. "This has nothin' to do with my cookin', mon. It's somethin' I don't wants to even look at again if I don't has to, Officer."
Sergeant Bristol grunted and walked to the table. He unfolded the cloth and pulled back the apron to uncover two crudely made dolls. One, a masculine figure, wore a white shirt or jacket across the stiff cloth arms projecting from its stick skeleton. Yellow straw extended from the back of the doll's clay head, and two blue buttons had been stuck in place for eyes.
The other doll was clad in a poorly sewn yellow dress. Coarse black hair hung from the feminine figure's clay skull, and dark stones had been placed in the doll's face for eyes. Both dolls had long hat pins thrust through their bellies and thorns driven into the clay between their symbolic eyes.
"What sort of nonsense is this?" Bristol demanded, turning on the restaurant staff with fire in his eyes and fury in his voice. "Did Fellows or this cook come up with this farce?"
"I object to that accusation, Sergeant," Fellows said sharply. "None of us had an opportunity to make those nasty little figurines. At least, none of us could have done it after the couple became ill."
"You're saying these damn dolls were in the kitchen before the Americans sat down to supper?" Bristol frowned. He glanced down at the figures. "Did anyone notice if they were dressed in a manner similar to these dolls?"
"The man wore a white shirt and the woman a yellow summer dress," Fellows confirmed. "He was a blonde and she had black hair. I'd say it's likely whoever planted those dolls in the kitchen had those Americans in mind."
Bristol glared at the manager and his employees in amazement. "You're saying this was attempted murder?"
"It's worse than murder, Mr. Sergeant," the cook declared grimly. "You know what this is as sure as I do, mon. Somebody put a juju on them folks."
"Rubbish," Bristol scoffed, yet he felt a cold ball of fear form in his belly as he glanced once more at the figurines. "Voodoo dolls and witchcraft. It's all nonsense, and you know it."
"I ain't gonna say what is and what isn't when it comes to things I don't understand," the cook replied. "But I knows enough not to laugh at a juju, and I knows devil's work when I sees it."
Bristol wrapped the dolls in the apron and muttered something under his breath. The figurines were evidence, despite the seemingly ridiculous supposition of witchcraft and magic. He handed the bundle to the other policeman and instructed him to lock the dolls in the trunk of the patrol car until further notice. Just then the telephone rang, and Fellows answered it.
"It's for you, Sergeant Bristol," the manager announced, offering the telephone receiver to the officer. "A Lieutenant Smith wishes to speak to you."
"Thank you," the sergeant said, taking the phone and speaking into the mouthpiece. "Bristol here." He listened solemnly and said he understood before he hung up and turned to Fellows.
"Lieutenant Smith is a homicide investigator," Bristol explained, his manner even more grave than before. "He called from the hospital. The two young Americans both died less than ten minutes ago. Smith will be here as soon as possible to begin looking into this matter personally."
"So it is murder," Fellows said, shaking his head.
"Devil's work," Bristol corrected. He didn't smile when he said it.
2
"Eleven Americans dead," Hal Brognola announced as he tossed a bundle of file folders on the conference table. "None of them were politicians, espionage agents, wealthy businessmen or celebrities of any kind. Every one of them was just a plain ordinary tourist, and the only thing they all had in common is that they were on vacation in Jamaica when they got killed."
"I take it we're not talking about a tour bus that had a fatal crash near Kingston," David McCarter remarked, a trace of impatience slipping into his voice.
"We're talking about murder," Brognola replied grimly. "Cold-blooded, systematic murder."
"The victims are just tourists?" Yakov Katzenelenbogen inquired, thoughtfully drumming the steel hooks of the prosthesis at the end of his right arm against the tabletop. "You're sure these people aren't connected with any intelligence organizations or involved in any sort of radical politics?"
"Aaron cross-checked every individual's name through his computers," Brognola answered, striking a wooden match against a stone paperweight as though he were testing it. He let the flame go out while he clenched a fat cigar between his teeth. "The Bear didn't find anything even vaguely suspicious about the backgrounds of any of the victims."
The five men seated around the table in front of Brognola nodded solemnly. "The Bear" was Aaron Kurtzman, the resident computer wizard of Stony Man operations. His computers could tap the data centers of every major intelligence organization, all five branches of the U.S. military and the police departments of more than three hundred major cities. Kurtzman could plug into information banks of the IRS, the Pentagon or Interpol. If the Bear said the Americans murdered in Jamaica had nothing suspicious in their backgrounds, then they must have had histories that read like bit parts in a Disney film.
Kurtzman had been confined to a wheelchair after receiving a bullet in the spine when enemies had launched an assault on Stony Man headquarters. Yet the Bear was still the best computer jockey in the business. The Stony Man crew consisted of only the best people in the fields of expertise needed for the supersecret organization.
Unlike most clandestine outfits, Stony Man was less concerned with gathering intelligence than with taking direct action against special targets. It was a small elite unit commanded by Hal Brognola. The Fed took orders only from the President of the United States. No one else in the federal government even knew Stony Man existed.
Brognola was chief of operations for Stony Man and gave assignments to the special commando teams that were the enforcement arm of the organization. The five men seated at the conference table in the Stony Man War Room comprised Phoenix Force, the most unique and highly professional elite strike force ever created.
Yakov Katzenelenbogen was the unit commander. A middle-aged Israeli colonel who had formerly been a resistance fighter against the Nazis in Europe during the Second World War, Katz's combat experience since then had been remarkable. He had been a guerrilla warrior for the independence of the state of Israel and a battlefield commander during the Six-Day War and in dozens of lesser-known conflicts. He had also served with Mossad, Israel's primary intelligence network, and had worked with most of the major spy outfits of the United States and Western Europe, including the American CIA, the British SIS and the West German BND. Katz was one of the most experienced and highly skilled espionage operatives in history.
David McCarter was an ex-SAS sergeant who had seen action as a "special observer" in Vietnam, in the battle-scarred hills of Oman and on the streets of Northern Ireland. The bold Briton had participated in Operation Nimrod, the spectacular SAS raid on the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980, and he'd been part of a covert "police action" in Hong Kong the following year. The tall, fox-faced Briton was an ace pilot, a champion pistol marksman and an expert in virtually every form of warfare.
Rafael Encizo had been born and raised in Havana, Cuba. His family had been scooped up by Castro's soldiers after the Communist takeover. Most of his loved ones had been
executed. His younger brother and two sisters were taken to a "reeducation center," and only young Rafael escaped. But he returned to Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion force and was captured and held prisoner in El Principe, where he endured near-starvation, beatings and torture without breaking. One day a guard got careless with Encizo. The prisoner broke the jailer's neck and successfully escaped from the political prison. Then he returned to the United States, where he worked as a professional bodyguard, scuba instructor, treasure hunter and insurance investigator before Stony Man enlisted him for Phoenix Force.
Gary Manning was a big man, built like a Canadian lumberjack. Indeed, Manning was Canadian and an accomplished woodsman and hunter. He was also one of the best demolitions experts in the world. Manning had used his skills with a rifle and explosives as an "observer" in Vietnam attached to the 5th Special Forces. He later worked with the West German GSG-9 antiterrorist squad in the 1970s. A human workhorse with an incredible amount of physical and mental endurance. Manning turned to the world of business and soon became chief security adviser and executive vice president of a major North American import-export business. Manning had been on his way to the top when he accepted an invitation to join Phoenix Force.
Calvin James had been drafted into Phoenix Force for a mission that required a man who was both a skilled warrior and an expert chemist. A tall, athletic black who had been raised in a hellhole ghetto on the south side of Chicago, James joined the Navy at the age of seventeen and became a hospital corpsman with the elite Sea, Air and Land team. He served with the SEALs in Vietnam and later attended UCLA on the GI bill to pursue a career in medicine and chemistry.
The tragic and violent deaths of his sister and mother steered James into a major change in career. He turned to law enforcement and joined the San Francisco Police Department. James was a member of a SWAT team when Phoenix Force virtually kidnapped him to try to enlist his aid for a mission. They accomplished the assignment, but Keio Ohara, the original fifth member of Phoenix Force, was killed in action. Calvin James was the natural choice to replace the slain warrior, and he had willingly stayed with Phoenix Force ever since.