Kingston Carnage

by Gar Wilson

  "You intend to give Jamaica to Haiti?" Penn was stunned by the notion. He began to wonder if Cercueil was really insane.

  "I intend to unite the two countries under a single strong government," the Ton Ton Macoute boss declared. "Haiti has nothing but coffee and sugar and mangoes. Mining operations are poorly handled and use outdated equipment. Manufacturing is crude and backward. That will change when I can share the technology of Jamaica with my homeland. Haiti will become strong when aided by the modern mining, processing and agricultural techniques of this country. After I seize control of Jamaica, Haitians will beg me to save them, too. They will beg the Ton Ton Macoute to return order and discipline to our nation."

  "I see," Penn lied, thinking that was probably what Cercueil wanted to hear. "But why kill these American tourists? Why ail this voodoo crap, mon?"

  "There's more than one reason, Mr. Penn," Cercueil assured him with a broad smile. "It all has to do with turning Jamaica into chaos. Unfortunately for the Americans, they happen to be the most important part of Jamaica's tourist trade. Twenty years ago, we'd have been killing Britons instead. Actually, the plan probably wouldn't work if Jamaica was still a British dependency. Look what happened in the Falkland Islands."

  "You really think you can get away with this?" Penn asked, regretting the question as soon as it slipped out.

  "Absolutely," Cercueil laughed as he rapped the silver skull handle of his swagger stick on the desk. "We've got the power of voodoo behind us. You know something, Mr. Penn? Before we're finished, a lot of people who never believed in voodoo before will have suddenly gained a new respect and fear of our unique religion. Maybe even you will become a true believer after you see what we're going to do in the next phase of our mission."

  "I guess it's possible," Penn answered with a wooden nod. He no longer had any doubt about Cercueil's sanity.

  4

  The man's scream filled the fifth-floor corridors of the Sir Alexander Hotel. Few guests dared to open their doors to see the source of the terrible cry, and no one who heard it would forget the sound soon. The scream seemed to express the utmost fear and horror that any human being could experience.

  Those who actually peered from their rooms saw a grisly scene that could have occurred in a nightmare. Indeed, the witnesses would probably be haunted by recurring images of the terrible sight in their dreams.

  A middle-aged white man, dressed in a white shirt and gray slacks, lay sprawled across the carpet. His skull was split open; blood and brains oozed from his wrecked head. Next to the corpse stood an emaciated figure, a bloodstained machete clenched in his bony black hands. The scrawny assassin was dressed in ragged clothes caked with dirt. Tiny white maggots crawled across his filthy torn shirt.

  The human scarecrow moaned and uttered strange grunting sounds as he gazed down at the dead man, seemingly barely aware of what he was looking at. His eyes rolled upward, the bloodshot whites a stark contrast to the dark, dirt-smeared, skeletal face. Staggering away from the dead man, the loathsome figure walked unsteadily through the corridor, grasping the machete in a frozen two-handed grip.

  Not surprisingly, none of the guests ventured from their rooms. Most were too frightened to do anything but lock their doors and pray. One vomited on the carpet; two others had enough sense to call the front desk and report the homicide.

  An unsuspecting maid, humming a popular calypso melody, emerged from the elevator and pushed her cart of towels and bed sheets into the hallway, then around the corner. She screamed, seeing the terrible figure with the bloodied jungle knife, and stepped back as the killer raised his weapon. From the assassin's mouth came a bestial bellow, and his eyes were wide with irrational fury.

  The maid turned to run. The sharp edge of the machete chopped into the back of her skull. It cleaved bone and sank deep into her brain. Her scream was abruptly terminated. The killer yanked the blade free and shuffled down the corridor.

  "Oh, my God!" a hotel security guard gasped as he opened the door to the stairwell at the fifth floor.

  The guard saw the two bodies and the monstrous killer, who was staggering around the hall like a dazed and disoriented beast. He was quick to sum up the situation. But the guard did not carry a gun, and he was not about to take on a maniac with a machete armed only with his nightstick. So he ducked into the stairwell and bolted down to the lobby.

  "Call the police!" he cried. "For the love of God, hurry!"

  "What is it?" the desk clerk asked as the guard galloped into the lobby, nearly colliding with a party of guests about to sign the register. "What did you find up there?"

  "It..." the guard began, gasping for breath. "It's a...a zombie..."

  * * *

  Phoenix Force arrived at Kingston International Airport to find Colonel Jonathan J. Wells waiting for them. A portly black man with a ready smile and wire-rimmed glasses with thick lenses, the top intelligence officer of the governor-general's council on internal security cheerfully greeted the five new arrivals, waved aside the customs inspectors, and escorted them to the black-and-green tour bus parked outside the airport.

  "I'm certainly glad you chaps made it," Wells declared, his accent revealing Britain's long influence in Jamaica. "There's been talk about the cancellation of flights coming from the U.S. until this dreadful business is settled. Of course, you came in on a Navy copter, so I don't suppose that would have affected you much, anyway. Still, glad you landed here so I could meet you personally."

  "We appreciate that, Colonel," Yakov Katzenelenbogen assured him, loading his luggage into the rear of the bus. "Although we did want to keep a low profile."

  "I know, I know," Wells replied with a deep sigh. "But the governor-general wanted you to come directly to Kingston because this is where most of the trouble seems to be happening. Wants us all to get on it immediately. He can't wait to get everything cleared up, because this awful business is causing all sorts of nasty problems."

  "Those folks who got murdered probably thought it was pretty nasty, too," Gary Manning said dryly, selecting a seat inside the tour bus.

  "If the victims hadn't been white, I doubt your government would have sent you here," the driver muttered sourly.

  "Ethel and Dennis Jackson were an elderly black couple from Detroit," Calvin James retorted. "They got their heads cut off while on vacation here. Does that make you feel any better, man?"

  "I didn't know about the Jacksons," the driver said with a shrug.

  "Oh, this is Sergeant Bristol of the Kingston police," Colonel Wells said, introducing the driver to Phoenix Force. "He was involved in a couple of the investigations in the city."

  "Obviously the Jackson homicides weren't among them," James commented.

  "That's right," Bristol offered. "You Americans never make mistakes, so I'm sure you'll solve this matter in a day or two. If not, you'll find a way to blame your failure on us Jamaicans."

  "That's uncalled-for, Sergeant," Wells told him.

  "Don't worry about it, Colonel," Rafael Encizo assured Wells. "We'll just ignore the sergeant until he has something to say that's worth listening to."

  "What about the fact that another American was murdered at the Sir Alexander Hotel less than an hour ago?" Bristol asked with a coy smile. "Heard it on the police radio while you fellows were busy at the airport."

  "That's bloody cute," David McCarter snapped. "How long did you plan to sit on that information, mate? Or did you just make it up to get us pissed off?"

  "If you're calling me a liar..." Bristol began, his eyes narrowing with anger.

  "Nobody's calling you anything yet," Katz declared. "What details did you hear concerning the murder?"

  "A white male with an American passport and a maid working at the hotel were both killed by a lunatic with a machete," Bristol replied. "Police were called in and shot the killer when he came at them with the knife. Apparently he's dead, too. Guess you'll have to give credit to the Kingston police, after all. Correct?"

  "We don't have anythi
ng against the Kingston police except that they've got you on the force," James answered. He grinned when Bristol glared at him.

  "Can we go straight to the police headquarters?" Katz asked, turning to Colonel Wells. "We'd like to get all the information possible as fast as we can. You'll convince the police to cooperate with us, Colonel?"

  "That shouldn't be a problem," Wells confirmed.

  "You might use your pull with the medical examiner, too," James added. "I want to participate in the autopsies of the two latest victims, and especially the autopsy of the dude the cops wasted."

  "You're a doctor?" Bristol asked, surprised.

  "No, but I watch St. Elsewhere every week," James replied. "Reruns of Quincy, too. Handling a couple autopsies will be a breeze, man."

  "Just a minute," Katz warned. "There's no sense in all of us going to the police yet. We don't have enough information to put too much trust in the police."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Bristol demanded.

  "It means there are crooked cops everywhere," Encizo replied. "There's always a possibility one of your fellow police officers is secretly working with the people we're trying to hunt down. Nothing against you or the Kingston police. But we just can't afford to take chances."

  "So you don't trust us, either?" Bristol asked, tilting his head toward Colonel Wells.

  "We trust you to a degree," Encizo said with a shrug. "If that's not good enough for you, then you'll just have to be patient until we decide we can trust you a bit more."

  "Mr. Johnson and I will see the police," Katz stated, using Calvin James's cover name. "The rest of you can take a cab — make that two cabs to haul all the luggage — and head for the Royal Hamlet Hotel. Secure rooms for all of us, and Johnson and I will meet you there later."

  "You need anything from your gear?" McCarter inquired as he moved to the rear of the bus toward the luggage.

  "Not right now," Katz answered, tugging a pearl-gray glove over the five-fingered steel prosthesis at the end of his right arm. "Mr. Johnson?"

  "The medical examiner will have everything I'll need for the autopsies," James answered. "Might have to use a lab for analysis if we find anything. I don't think I'll need a piece if we're just going to the police for a while."

  "You do have special weapons permits," Colonel Wells reminded them. "The governor-general told me he signed them himself."

  "Yes," Katz replied. "But police officers don't care to have other people running about carrying guns."

  "Part of the cop mentality," Encizo commented. "They like to think they're the only people qualified to use weapons. That's a general statement, I know, but it is largely true."

  "The point is, we want cooperation with the Kingston police," Katz declared. "And we'll be more apt to get it if we don't carry any weapons when we visit their headquarters."

  "Glad I'm not going there," McCarter muttered. The Briton never liked being unarmed. His Browning 9 mm pistol was holstered under his left arm beneath his sport coat.

  "Try to get some rest," Katz advised. "I have a feeling we won't get much time for that later."

  5

  "I'm beginning to wonder if this whole country is going bloody bonkers," David McCarter commented as he joined the other members of Phoenix Force in Gary Manning's hotel room. "You won't believe what I heard on the news report on the radio."

  "Witnesses to the most recent murders claim the killer appeared to be a zombie," Manning replied with a nod. "I heard it, too."

  "Yakov and Calvin can probably tell us more than the local news," Rafael Encizo remarked as he opened an ice chest and removed a bottle of Guinness stout.

  "You got any Coca-Cola in that thing?" McCarter asked; the Briton had acquired a taste for the soft drink during his tour of duty in Vietnam.

  "Naturally," Encizo assured him, gesturing at the ice chest. "Coke Classic. Your favorite."

  "I don't suppose you have any Moosehead?" Manning asked with a sigh.

  "In Jamaica?" Encizo raised his eyebrows. "Have a pint of Guinness. So tell us what you learned from the cops."

  "Not much more than we knew before," Katz confessed. "The police don't have any fascinating secret information that they've been keeping from the press. Frankly, they seem more worried about the potentially disastrous effect of the homicides on the tourist trade than about the murders themselves. It seems every segment of society in Jamaica has an opinion about the murders. A lot of the People's National Party cells are pro-Marxist and against Western democracies in general and America in particular. They don't seem too upset about the murders. A lot of Jamaican Labour Party representatives want to round up every PNP member who's ever been connected with 'radical socialist' notions. Colonel Wells himself seems to think this might not be a bad idea."

  "Could be he's right," McCarter commented, pulling on the tab of his cola can.

  "I disagree," Katz replied, lighting a cigarette. "I think that's a pretty drastic tactic that could result in more social unrest and stir up the sort of violence and riots that plagued Jamaica a couple years ago. Wells thinks the voodoo angle is just a smoke screen. I don't agree with that. Not after what happened at the Sir Alexander Hotel."

  "The zombie killer?" Manning snorted. "Well, Cal, you took part in the autopsy. You figure the guy was a zombie?"

  "Yeah," James answered, fishing in the ice chest for a beer. "You might say he was, in a way."

  "God, you're joking," McCarter scoffed, surprised by his partner's reply.

  "Let me tell you about this dude," James began, popping the lid off a pint of Guinness. "He looked like a walking corpse. Scrawny, bones soft from malnutrition, skin tight as a drum across his frame — and not very healthy skin at that. He was dressed in ragged clothes, smeared with dirt and crawling with maggots. I mean it: real maggots. There must've been a hundred of them stuffed into his shirt pockets. You see something like that and the first thing you'd think of would be a zombie. Right?"

  "What kind of man are you talking about, Cal?" Manning asked, clearly disgusted by the idea of someone wearing live maggots on his shirt. "He must have been crazy."

  "Probably," James agreed with a nod. "But we're not talking about everyday, ordinary, garden-variety crazy. Someone probably selected the guy, turned him into a zombie and conditioned him to kill long before there was ever a definite target..."

  "Wait a minute," McCarter urged. "Before I get too confused, let's clear something up. This zombie of yours wasn't a dead man brought back to life by the dark forces of voodoo or any of that rot, right?"

  "No," James said, slightly amused by the question. "That sucker wasn't really dead until the cops pumped five rounds into him. From the condition of the body, I don't think the poor bastard would have lived more than another week anyway."

  "That 'poor bastard' killed two innocent people," Gary Manning reminded him.

  "I don't think he really realized what he was doing when he killed those people," James explained. "There were numerous needle scars on his arms and on the soles of his feet. Most of the tracks were recent."

  "Drug addict?" Encizo asked.

  "Maybe," James answered. "The dead man's liver was shot to hell, and there is a pretty good chance he had brain damage. Also, there were lots of broken blood vessels in his face and several sores on his back and chest. I'd say he was probably a chronic alcoholic: the lining of his stomach was chewed up pretty bad and looked like he'd been putting rotgut in it for years."

  "Sounds like a skid-row wino," Encizo remarked.

  "I think that's what he was," James confirmed. "He didn't carry any identification, of course, and I don't think anybody would even notice he'd disappeared — except maybe some of his drinking buddies on skid row. Unless they wound up the same way he did."

  "What do you mean?" Manning asked, his skin crawling from listening to James's report.

  "Somebody had done a number on our 'zombie,'" James explained. "There were a number of bruises and contusions around his ribs and kidneys, and the skin
had been burned at his temples, at his armpits, under his nipples and on his testicles. Looked like the sort of burns caused by electrodes used for the purpose of electrical torture."

  "I got a couple burn scars like that myself," Encizo commented. "Mementos of the time I was a guest in Fidel Castro's political prison. I was tortured because they wanted information and my signature on some confessions. Nobody would do that to a poor wino for those reasons."

  "Of course not," Katz agreed. "Evidently that man was tortured as part of a crude and very brutal conditioning process. Poor devil was probably already a wreck from years of alcoholism, broken in spirit and body. Then whoever worked on him used tactics similar to those a vicious trainer would use to condition a brutal attack dog."

  "They also used a lot of drugs on the guy," James added. "They're still trying to analyze traces of narcotics found in the body; so many were used it's hard to tell what they might be. Probably something was administered to break down the guy's willpower. I doubt that would be hard with a skid-row alkie."

  "Jesus," Manning muttered. "In a sense, they really did turn him into a zombie."

  "That brings us to the big question," McCarter said, sipping his Coke. "Who the hell are they?"

  "That's why we're here," Katz remarked. "The real problem is how to find them. Rafael, you've been to Jamaica before. You have any ideas about how we should start looking for the killers?"

  "Madre de Dios," Encizo groaned. "I was here ten years ago, Yakov. I spent about eight months in Jamaica with a group of treasure hunters. We went diving for a Spanish galleon that had supposedly sunk somewhere off Morant Bay. The ship was supposed to be loaded with gold and jewels and all that. Never found a damn thing."

  "But you made some contacts, didn't you?" Katz asked.

  "Not many," Encizo admitted. "Jamaica wasn't much of a fun place at the time. One out of three workers was unemployed. The United States and a number of other democracies had reduced economic aid and trade with Jamaica because Prime Minister Manley, who was in office at the time, was a big fan of Fidel Castro; that sure didn't endear the guy to me, either. Anyway, the economic situation was really bad back then, and it wasn't a good place for Americans to be, because a lot of Jamaicans blamed the U.S. for the mess their country was in."