Dust Up: A Thriller (Doyle Carrick)

by Jon McGoran

  It was an impressive operation.

  I turned to Toma. “You should get some sleep.”

  He shook his head. I probably wouldn’t have, either. And I probably would have left me sleeping the way he had done too. I felt guilty about it, but there wasn’t much to be done. I offered him the binoculars back, but he shook his head and closed his eyes, resting them at least.

  “Let’s change places, in case your change your mind.” He gave me an annoyed look, but then he let out a massive yawn and nodded his acquiescence.

  I got in behind the wheel, and he got in the passenger side. In seconds, his breath was whistling through his nose in a precursor to snoring.

  I watched as Marcel and Elena replenished the pots three times. After twenty-five minutes, the line finally started to dwindle. When it was almost down to nothing, the officers returned. I nudged Toma and handed him the binoculars. “Ducroix?”

  He blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes to focus, then he looked through the binoculars. “That’s him.”

  “He’s back for seconds.”

  Toma kept the binoculars, and I let him. That was his aunt down there.

  “Ducroix is talking to them,” he reported. “I don’t know what they’re saying … Now they’re walking away. There’s no one left in line … That’s it, then. I think they’re done.”

  He handed me back the binoculars. Marcel and Elena were already breaking things down, rinsing out the pots with hot water from the truck, dumping it onto the ground, loading things into the van.

  Behind them, the soldiers milled about in a different fashion than before. They were preparing for something. The first couple of tents started coming down, methodically dismantled. Vehicles were lining up.

  I felt a momentary panic. What if the reaction didn’t happen in time? Maybe it took longer than I’d thought. Maybe I was still going to develop symptoms. What if it didn’t happen at all? What if we were wrong and the reason I wasn’t sick wasn’t because I’d avoided ingesting any of it but because the stuff wasn’t toxic, after all?

  They had been serving for half an hour, at least. That meant a thirty-minute difference between when the first soldiers ate the porridge and the last ones.

  Marcel and Elena seemed just about ready to go when a trio of soldiers walked up, the one in the middle hailing them. Something about their demeanor made me nervous. They seemed angry.

  “There might be trouble.”

  “What?” Toma asked, reaching for the binoculars. I swatted his hands away. “Hold on.”

  Marcel shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He spoke for a moment, pointing back up the road they had driven in on, then shrugged again.

  The soldier in front held up his finger, and he and his comrades turned and walked away, back to the large tent in the middle of the camp.

  Marcel and Elena stood there obediently for a moment, their hands folded in front of them like chastised schoolchildren. They bent their heads toward each other, like they were whispering to each other. Then they turned and ran to the van. They got in and drove off in a hurry.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got trouble.”

  81

  Barreling down the hill as fast as I dared, I explained to Toma what I’d seen. “Hurry up then,” he said. “Step on it.”

  His face was twisted with worry, and I was glad I was driving, because he would have been going faster, and the road was so bumpy and twisted we’d almost rolled over twice as it was. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and I was driving without headlights.

  The road straightened as we approached the bottom, enough that we could see Marcel’s beat-up van flash by a hundred yards in front of us. We were closing on them fast, and Toma was still urging me to go faster, but I knew that if we were catching up with them, whoever was behind them would be too.

  “Hold on,” I said to Toma, and as he did, I hit the brakes and screeched onto the road, facing back toward the camp, instead of following Marcel and Elena.

  “What are you doing?” Toma demanded.

  I gunned the engine, into the narrow pass, then slammed on the brakes, fishtailing so the single lane was completely blocked. I could see headlights coming up the hill toward us, and as soon as we came to a stop, I could hear a vehicle approaching.

  “Get out,” I told Toma. “Take the rifle, get behind those rocks. If they look like they’re going to kill me, take them out if you think you can. Otherwise, just stay back. And if things don’t go well, hightail it back to Cap-Haïtien and make sure Marcel and Elena are okay.”

  He nodded and ran off with the rifle.

  I left the headlights on and opened the hood.

  The engine sound grew louder, and seconds later, a Jeep just like ours flew over the rise, headlights blazing, skidding to a stop at an parallel angle to my Jeep.

  There were three police in it. The two who weren’t driving stood and began shouting at me in Kreyol, pointing at my Jeep and at the road that it was blocking.

  I held up my hands and smiled, trying to look confused. “Whoa, whoa,” I said. “Slow down. I can’t understand you. No speaka ze Kreyol, comprende?”

  The driver got out and marched toward me, his sidearm raised and pointed at my head. “Move,” he said. “Out of the way.” I got the impression this was most of the English he knew, but he racked the slide on his gun—the international language.

  I raised my hands and smiled, trying to look a little bit scared but not quite as scared as I actually was. “Sorry,” I said. “It conked out on me. I’m with Darkstar, I’m on my way to see Ducroix.”

  He lowered his gun at that. “Ducroix?”

  I nodded. “Yes,” pointing toward the camp they had just left. “Can you take me to see him?”

  I realized almost instantly that might not have been the best tactic, asking them to bring me into the enemy’s camp, but at that point, I was just trying to give Marcel and Elena as much time to get away as possible.

  He seemed to be thinking about it, like maybe someone coming to see Ducroix was more important than the cooks.

  Then one of the other soldiers stepped forward, mumbling.

  The others watched him as he walked up to the Jeep, peered inside it, and then walked in a circle around it. When he was done, he said something to the others, then put his face right in mine. “My Jeep.” He poked his finger in my chest. “You stole!”

  I hadn’t gotten a great look at him when we’d stolen the Jeep, but it definitely could have been the same guy. Then I saw his name tag: Turnier. The name that was on the wool cap we’d found.

  His eyes burned with anger. Between losing his hat and his Jeep, he’d probably been in some pretty deep shit.

  I stepped back, put my hand on my chest, and said, “I’m with Darkstar. If you think they stole your Jeep, you can take it up with them, but we own lots of Jeeps. I think you’re mistaken.”

  The driver laughed and said something in Kreyol. The other one laughed even louder. I smiled along with them, all friends.

  But Turnier was having none of it. “No!” he shouted. “No!” He stomped in a little circle as he pointed at me and the Jeep. Then he stopped and dashed straight toward me, past me, reaching into the Jeep, under the driver’s seat, pulling out his cap.

  He turned and held it up to the others, showing them his name written inside. They all stopped smiling. Then he turned to me, his face practically touching mine, his scratchy breath loud in my ear, and he said, “Mine.”

  Off to the side, I sensed motion, and I glanced over to see Toma, just peeking around the rocks, the rifle barrel aiming at Turnier. I wondered what kind of skills Toma had with a rifle.

  Things were about to go south in a bad way. I shook my head.

  Turnier took out his gun, and I was starting to rethink what I wanted Toma to do. He pointed the gun at me, speaking in rapid Kreyol to the others, making some kind of a joke. He started laughing. It sounded forced at first, but then he got into it for real. The others laughe
d along with him, uncomfortably. His laugh continued to grow, and soon he was laughing so hard he started coughing, but he couldn’t stop laughing. Then he wasn’t laughing anymore, just coughing. He eyes bugged out a bit, surprised, then worried, then scared. The other two ran to him, patting him on the back, asking if he was okay.

  One of them started coughing, as well. Then so did the other. In seconds, all three of them were on the ground, wheezing, grabbing their throats, their weapons lying on the road next to them.

  Toma popped his head up and looked over at me.

  “I guess it worked,” I said. In the back of my mind, I felt a wave of relief. If I still hadn’t had a reaction to being coated in the stuff, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to.

  Toma walked over and looked down at them, frightened by the sight of them rolling around on the ground.

  I took their weapons and cuffed them with their own handcuffs. As I was straightening up, the sky beyond them suddenly flashed orange, and I heard a strange but familiar rhythmic sound. I grabbed the binoculars out of the Jeep and ran to the top of the rise.

  Toma came up beside me, and I handed him the binoculars. He stared for a moment, then crossed himself and muttered something that sounded like a prayer.

  Half a mile below us, the encampment was a mess. Half the tents had fallen down. Soldiers were writhing on the ground. One of the trucks was slowly rolling across the camp in flames, apparently having passed over a campfire.

  The helicopter was trying to take off, hovering a few feet up in the air and wobbling unevenly. It started to slowly turn, then listed to one side. For a moment, it looked like it was going to take off in that direction, but then the rotors bit into the dirt, snapping and shattering and sending pieces flying off into the night. It came down on its side, the rotors shearing themselves down to nothing before the engine stalled out and died.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  82

  As we hurried back to our Jeep, we had to step over the soldiers lying handcuffed on the road. They weren’t having fun, but they seemed to have stabilized. Their breathing was loud and labored, but it seemed steady enough.

  I reached into their Jeep and took the keys from the ignition. It was blocking the pass as effectively as our Jeep had been.

  “What about them?” Toma asked.

  I was touched by his concern.

  “They’ll be okay,” I said with unjustified confidence. Miriam had said the symptoms could be life threatening but mostly for children or old people. In a few hours, these guys would probably be breathing fine and once again looking to kill us.

  Meanwhile, I got into our Jeep and started it up. Toma got in beside me, and we took off.

  We drove in a stunned, exhausted silence. The sky was getting brighter in the east, and in the momentary quiet, I was just starting to think past the immediate crisis. I didn’t know what was going to happen with the coup, with the CASCATA vote, or even with Bourden’s plans with the Soyagene-X. Maybe things would turn out okay, and maybe they wouldn’t, but I had done what I could.

  That left me thinking about other things.

  Nola. I took out my phone to call her, but of course it was still dead. I told myself she was fine, that she had probably seen my calls and was now frantically trying to call me back.

  I turned to Toma. “Any calls?”

  He looked at his phone and shook his head. “My phone’s dead, too.”

  I thought about Miriam. Regi had reassured me that she’d be safe pending her extradition, that she wouldn’t just disappear into some Haitian hellhole of a prison. But she was still going to be extradited. Unless I could clear her, she could end up disappearing into some American hellhole of a prison.

  However things played out in Haiti or around the world, it was time for me to get home. To be with Nola, to make sure she was okay, to get back to our life together. And to work on clearing Miriam Hartwell of the bogus murder charges, so she could get on with mourning Ron and living her life.

  I was thinking about those charges, thinking about Ron Hartwell and how I had ended up here, when I heard the sound of engines getting closer. I looked around, trying to find the source. Toma did too.

  The sound was growing unmistakably louder, and it wasn’t one vehicle—it was many. I pictured a convoy of Ducroix’s men, murderously angry, closing in on us. There was no sign of anyone behind us, but I couldn’t tell where they were. I put my foot down, compelled to get the hell out of there. In the growing predawn light, our headlights seemed to be fading, but the road in front of us was suddenly brightly lit.

  I hit the brakes as an armored personnel carrier erupted from a tiny dirt road to our left. There was another one behind it.

  I threw the Jeep into reverse, thinking we were dead, that Ducroix’s men had found us. We’d be disappeared, murdered horribly and never found.

  But the vehicles continued on in front of us, headed the same direction we had been. A string of SUVs came next, and one of them slowed as it turned onto the road. It pulled off to the side, then its reverse lights came on, and it backed up directly toward us.

  83

  Sitting next to me, Toma tightened his grip on the rifle.

  “Easy now,” I said. The convoy was still moving, showing no inclination to harass us or chase us or shoot us. I didn’t want to change their minds about that.

  The SUV’s rear door opened, and Regi Baudet stepped out. For a moment, I thought maybe Ducroix’s men had captured him, and now he was escaping. But they weren’t Ducroix’s men at all. They were the Presidential Guard.

  Cardon had escaped.

  Regi ran up to us, smiling wide. “You’re okay! Good job, you two!” He clamped a hand on Toma’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. He was looking at him totally differently from the day before. He seemed proud.

  “Where’s Cardon?” I asked. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine.” He hooked his thumb at the line of vehicles. “He was two cars in front of us. What about Marcel and Elena?”

  “They’re fine,” Toma told him, obviously proud, as well. “They did it. Fed the whole camp. We watched all of it. Ducroix’s men seemed to realize something was up, but Marcel and Elena got out of there.”

  “One of Cardon’s scouts saw the whole thing.” Regi nodded. “The entire force is incapacitated.”

  I told him what had happened with the squad that had been pursuing Marcel and Elena, then the mayhem we had seen at the encampment.

  He nodded, looking grave for a moment. “It’s a serious business, this stuff.”

  “What will happen to them?” I asked.

  “We’ll send medics back for them. They’ll be treated, probably released. Ducroix will be arrested. Some others will be detained. They’ll be okay.”

  “What about you?” Toma asked. “Where are you going?”

  He grinned. “I am going with them back to Port-au-Prince. Cardon has made me acting health minister, so I’ll be quite busy.” He looked at me. “But I’ll find out where Miriam is, and I’ll make sure she is protected.” He paused and smiled again. “I must go. I’ll call Elena later. And you both, too. Be safe!”

  We watched as he got back into the SUV and merged with the rest of the convoy, which was still barreling onto the road in front of us.

  “He’s a big shot, my uncle,” Toma said. “We’re all proud of him, you know? I mean, we already were.”

  “You did good,” I told him. “He’s proud of you, too.”

  He opened his mouth to scoff at the notion, but I think it hit him that it might be true. He turned to look back out the window.

  We watched in silence for the next few minutes as the convoy rumbled past. By the time the last vehicle disappeared down the road in front of us, it was almost fully light out.

  We followed them for ten minutes. When we reached the highway, they went south, and we went north.

  The sun was up as we entered the small town of Limbe, and suddenly, so were the townspe
ople. As we drove down the dusty highway, people began to emerge from almost every building—the tiny wooden shacks, the concrete ones with the metal roofs, the walled-in compounds—all of them. And amid all the dust and poverty, the people were immaculate, dressed in finery, groomed to perfection, all of them looking fresh and shiny and happy and beautiful. Young people and old, entire families walking together, teenagers forming groups, walking arm in arm. For a moment, I thought maybe they were celebrating the defeat of Ducroix’s coup.

  “Going to church,” Toma said.

  It was Sunday morning.

  By the time we got to Cap-Haïtien, forty minutes later, the streets were bustling with early morning energy.

  We, on the other hand, were not. We were dragging.

  We had decided on the drive home we would go to Elena’s place to figure out what was next.

  I don’t know if it had anything to do with the events of the night before or if it was just too early on a Sunday morning, but the streets were empty of protestors, police, or Darkstar forces.

  Toma had fallen asleep just as we entered the city, but I knew my way now. Just as we were approaching the inn, he started to snore. I pulled over and tapped him on the knee.

  He awoke with a start. “What?”

  “We’re here.”

  * * *

  As soon as we walked in the front door, Elena came bustling out of the kitchen carrying a tray with tea and cookies. There were two mugs on it.

  I was impressed—and appalled—that after all she’d been through and after having been up all night working, she was already working again. Working still, more likely.

  I raised my hand to take one of the cups, and I was about to tell her she shouldn’t have, but she swerved and walked around me.

  “I have guests,” she mumbled. It may have been my imagination, but I caught a distinct impression that there was an implied “real guests,” as in, not just some friends of Regi.

  Well, good for her, I thought, stifling a yawn as I watched her carry the tray past us and into the front room, wondering who these paying guests were.