Haitian Harbinger

by Lincoln Matt

  I launched into an explanation of all that Alejandra, Holm, and I had discovered in our conversation with Ricardo, emphasizing the parts that were most pertinent to the lab techs’ research.

  “And Alejandra will be on her way to meet you sometime this afternoon,” I concluded. “It’ll be good that she’s there to answer any of your questions about what we’ve found. And if you want to, I’m sure you can talk to this Ricardo character yourself.”

  Clyde had been silent throughout most of my monologue on this, unusually silent, actually.

  “Unbelievable,” he breathed at long last when he finally had no option but to say something. “I just don’t believe it.”

  “Well, you’d better start,” I chuckled. “There're no ifs, ands, or buts about it, this thing is real, and it’s happening.”

  “I’ve seen some strange shit in my career. You know that, Marston,” Clyde said, and I could almost hear him shaking his head back in Santo Domingo. “But the supernatural? You’d never have gotten me to believe it.”

  “It’s not supernatural,” I laughed. “It’s just something natural that hasn’t been explained yet. It’s some kind of drug that makes people act like zombies, not actual zombies.”

  “Yeah, but still,” Clyde wondered. “It’s all very strange. And now they’re saying that it might’ve made its way to the States already? Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.”

  “Well, let’s not worry about that just yet,” I said. “We have enough to deal with here on the island. Does anything about what Ricardo said about the drug itself make sense to you? Do you think you could figure out how to ‘put it together’ from what the Dominicans confiscated at the airport bust based on that?”

  “I don’t know,” Clyde said quietly. “I’ll have to look and see. Bonnie’s been working more on that while I’ve been examining the bodies, so I’ll have to bring it to her. We’d considered that the drug was hidden in there somewhere, amongst all those other drugs, but hadn’t gotten very far with trying to identify it.”

  “Maybe you should talk to Ricardo, then,” I said. “I’ll message Alejandra about it. I’ll tell her to go straight to the hospital with him and meet you there. The guards will have to do what she says. She’s the president’s daughter, after all. He said that he’d sold this stuff and sort of knew how to do it, though he said it was more complicated in the configuration they used for the airport bust. Either way, he might be able to help you.”

  “That would be appreciated,” Clyde said. “Though I don’t exactly want to get strangled by a gangbanger.”

  “You won’t be,” I laughed. “Ricardo knows what’s good for him. He’ll cooperate. Otherwise, the cartel will kill him, or the Dominicans will lock him up for life. Plus, you’ll be surrounded by guards.”

  “Fair enough,” Clyde said. “I’ll talk to Bonnie, and we’ll get back to you when we find something. But stay safe, Marston, you don’t want to get mixed up in this shit.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I promised him. “Oh, and Clyde? Is there anything you’d like to apologize for?” I stifled a laugh.

  “Har har,” Clyde said sarcastically. “But yes, you called this one, Marston. But that doesn’t make the idea any less ridiculous, mind you. Life just happens to be stranger than fiction in this one case. Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “Isn’t it always stranger than fiction?” I asked. “At least in our line of work.”

  “You could definitely make that argument,” Clyde laughed before clicking away.

  CHAPTER 21

  Ethan

  It didn’t take long for our guards to get ready and take us to the border. We went in the opposite direction this time, to try to avoid some of the snipers.

  “The border patrol guys told us going around this way is less populated,” the deputy chief explained when Holm and I asked about it. “We’ll have to drive a good distance into Haiti to avoid detection, but it’ll be well worth it to avoid being shot at.”

  “Agreed,” I said, thinking back to the multiple times that had happened the previous day and rubbing my sore shoulder where a bullet had grazed me in the second shootout. I was once again glad that Alejandra was headed safely back to Santo Domingo.

  “So, what’s the plan when we get there?” Martínez asked. “We’ve gotten a briefing on the situation from President García and his cabinet, but we want to hear directly from you.”

  “Right,” I said. “So basically, we’re going to pretend to be lost American tourists who came in through the Dominican side looking for some of those voodoo artifacts we heard about in the States. Can you come act as a translator for us?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Martínez said. “I speak English, Spanish, and French.”

  “Awesome,” Holm said. “So you can come in with us. Maybe not all your friends, though. Have them wait outside. We don’t want to draw suspicion or overwhelm them.”

  Martínez shifted uncomfortably again. “I don’t know how comfortable we are with splitting up the group. Our mission is to stick with you.”

  “Your mission is to help us fulfill our mission,” I reminded him. “That’s why you’re here. To escort us to Haiti and let us do our jobs. And this is how we do our jobs. We make a scene, and the cartel just runs from us and clamps down on us again, and this time we might not get away. We don’t make a scene, and we just might be able to get the information we need and make a break for it, find this ship, or whatever it is, and track down our killer. And this killer drug while we’re at it.”

  “I don’t know about this…” Martínez began, but the same man who had spoken to him earlier interjected in Spanish.

  They went back and forth for a few moments before I intervened.

  “Is there something we’re missing here?” I asked, gesturing between myself and Holm.

  “This is Captain Alonso,” Martínez said, introducing the man, who looked to be about thirty and was a stereotypical gruff military type with a short buzz-cut and lines on his face that were beyond his age.

  “I disagree with Chief Martínez,” Alonso said, speaking near-perfect English, to my surprise. “I am saying that he and his men are from the city and the eastern part of our country. They don’t understand as much what it’s like out here as the border patrol and the military do. Your suggestions as to how to handle this are better suited to the area.”

  “Fair enough,” Martínez agreed with a huff. “We’ll do it your way.”

  “Hold up, if the military knows better, what are they doing out here?” Holm asked, gesturing in Martínez and the other formerly blue-uniformed men as he spoke. They all wore street clothes now.

  “This is a good question,” Alonso said, giving Martínez a pointed look. The other man looked more uncomfortable than he had throughout this entire conversation.

  “President García wants us to be his eyes and ears on this mission,” Martínez explained. “And he wants this handled within a closely knit circle as much as possible.”

  “He wants to win reelection, you mean,” Alonso shot back.

  “Hold on, hold on,” I said, holding up my hands to silence them. “No need to get hostile. Everyone wants this resolved as quickly as possible. We just have different ideas about how to do it. That doesn’t make anyone that bad guy. The cartel, they’re the bad guys, and let’s not forget it.”

  “You are right, of course,” Alonso relented. “We have just had some issues trying to deal with this before you came.”

  “I’m aware,” I said, remembering the heated argument Holm and I had witnessed between the chief of police and one of President García’s other cabinet members on the subject when we first arrived in the Dominican Republic.

  “We just need to work together, set all that aside now,” Holm said. “That shouldn’t be too hard. We all have the same goal, right?”

  “Yes, of course,” Martínez agreed. “We’ll do it your way. You’re in charge.”

  Eventually, we arrived at the same Haitian borde
r town Ricardo and Emmanuel had come from. The way there, we mostly took winding back roads and didn’t see anyone else.

  Emmanuel had told us the general location of the voodoo shop, and we explained it all to Alonso.

  “I think I have an idea of where that is,” he said, and together we all got out of the car and walked in that direction.

  The scenery was kind of depressing. It was a beautiful area, with sand on the ground and mountains off in the distance, but the surrounding buildings look like they were one breeze from tumbling down, and the people looked like they were one drink from liver disease.

  We passed some Haitians as we walked, and I kept my hand close to my side, where my gun was hidden, as we did so. They watched us closely, knowing from the look of us that we weren’t Haitian. But Holm and I weren’t Dominican either, and no one bothered us.

  Finally, we arrived at a small white brick building, shaped like a box. There were a few windows, and I could see voodoo dolls and other strange paraphernalia through the large front windows.

  “This is it,” I murmured to Holm.

  “Looks like it,” he agreed. Then, turning to the rest of the group, “Okay, this is where we break up. Martínez, you come with us. The rest of you stay out here.”

  “Alonso, why don’t you join us, too,” I suggested, motioning in the direction of the military man. “Do you speak French?”

  “Some,” he said. “But I’m not fluent in it.”

  “Good enough,” I said, beckoning for the men to follow me back behind what looked to be an abandoned hut, away from where anyone could see us. “Okay, everyone, remember the plan? We’re Ethan and Robbie from Florida. We just got laid off from our jobs and decided to hop down here because why not? We’re looking for a good time to get away from it all, and we don’t really care about safety or much else right now because we don’t have any jobs to go back to.”

  “We met you guys in Santo Domingo, blowing off steam,” Holm continued, looking to Martínez and Alonso. “Said we’d heard stories about Haiti and wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. You both said it was dangerous over here, but we said that’s even better. You agreed to come with us.”

  “You’re big partiers,” I added. “You jumped on board with us, looking for a good time with some Americans.”

  “Noted,” Martínez said coolly.

  “We hate those types down here,” Alonso clarified with an eye-roll. “They’re more common than you’d think.”

  “We’re counting on that,” I said. “The rest of you wait out here, spread around. If anyone asks, you’re with us, and you’re just looking to restock on your supply of blow or whatever else. Sound believable enough to you?”

  A couple of the men gave their assent in Spanish after Alonso translated.

  “Alright,” I said to Holm, Martínez, and Alonso. “Let’s head inside.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Ethan

  Together, the four of us headed up to the small, box-like building and headed inside. Martínez and Alonso both looked wary, but I figured that was in keeping with our story. Native Dominicans who knew more about the situation were bound to be more freaked out by being over here than a couple of bullheaded Americans with some time to kill.

  The shop was small but condensed enough that it seemed bigger than it was. There were makeshift walls all over the place, splitting it up and making it so that more items could be displayed. It seemed to me like there wasn’t an inch of the place that wasn’t covered in some kind of voodoo paraphernalia.

  There were voodoo dolls and commemorative knick-knacks with logos on them. There were little skeletons, and a couple of big skeletons hanging around, too. One of their arms got caught on Holm, and the poor guy nearly jumped out of his skin, throwing it off him and patting himself down like he was afraid it had left something behind. I chuckled at this.

  As far as I could see, there wasn’t anyone else in the shop. But I couldn’t be sure since there was just so much stuff and so many walls packed in there that it was hard to see straight.

  Finally, a front area against the back wall appeared that looked to be a cash register for customers to check out. There was a young Haitian man, probably no older than twenty-two, cowering behind it and staring up at us with wide eyes.

  “Hey,” I said, grabbing a small voodoo doll off the shelf next to me and approaching the man. “Do these things really work?”

  Martínez translated my question into French, and Holm looked at me aghast, like he was shocked that I would deign to touch one of those things. I rolled my eyes at him. Maybe zombies were real, in a manner of speaking, but this was still just an old wives’ tale.

  The young man stammered something to me in French.

  “He says it will work if you really want it to, but that will come for an extra price,” Martínez translated.

  “Ah,” I said. “Well, good for you that I have money to spend, and a bone to pick with my boss. Well, ex-boss.” I pulled out my wallet and flashed it at him. “Do you perform the spell, or should I wait for someone else?”

  Before Martínez had a chance to translate, the young man stammered a response in English. “Who… who are you?” he asked.

  “You speak English?” I asked, surprised.

  “Help with American tourists,” he said.

  “Ah, you get a lot of us around here?” Holm asked.

  “You are tourists?” the young man asked, and I noticed that his hands were shaking as he clutched the countertop next to the cash register. “We get them sometimes, used to see many more. Not so much lately.”

  “What else would we be?” Holm asked. “Well, they’re not, but we are.” He gestured in the Dominicans’ direction.

  “We accompany them here,” Alonso explained with a convincing shrug. “They’re willing to pay, know how to have a good time.”

  “You don’t get a lot of tourists now?” I asked with a sly grin. “This one told us about all your troubles, and we thought we’d see what all the fuss was about. We’re not afraid of a little blow, right Holm?”

  Holm laughed along with me. “Not anymore. What else are we gonna do down here?”

  “What about my boss?” I asked the boy, wagging the voodoo doll in the air in front of him. “I’d love to see him rot because of one of these things.”

  “I… I will see what I can do,” he said nervously. “I do not do spell… I just deal with customers since I speak all the languages. My grandfather, he does the rest. I… I try not to get mixed up in such things if I can help it.”

  I exchanged a look with Holm. This grandfather sounded a lot like the old witch doctor Emmanuel had been so afraid of.

  “We’ll be waiting,” I said impatiently, wanting to sound like I imagined an annoying American tourist would.

  The young man scrambled into the back.

  “He seemed suspicious of us,” Martínez murmured under his breath.

  “Why wouldn’t he be?” Alonso asked. “I doubt they’re getting many tourists right now.”

  I opened my mouth to say something in response, but just then, the young man came back out with the witch doctor.

  I had to bite my lower lip to stop myself from laughing. I could hardly believe that this was the man Emmanuel found so frightening. He was short and frail, with thin bones and a stooped gait. He needed a walking stick to walk, and his hair was just a small collection of white wisps atop his head. He looked to be around a hundred years old.

  “Hello,” I said, smiling kindly at him. “My name is Ethan. I was hoping that you could cast a spell on this for me.”

  I held up the small voodoo doll in the air and shook it again. The old man looked between me and the doll and back again a couple of times before giving me a grin. Except it wasn’t really a grin because he didn’t have any teeth.

  A little unnerved, I reached out and handed it to him. He took it as Martínez translated what I had said into French.

  The man said something back, also in French. Hi
s voice was as small and frail as he was.

  “He says his grandson says you want to get back at your boss for something,” Martínez translated.

  “Yes, he fired me,” I said. “Both of us, actually. We were just wondering if you had a spell to get back at him.” I gestured between myself and Holm.

  The young man translated my words into French instead of Martínez. When he was finished, the witch doctor laughed. Or at least I thought he laughed. It was a strange, wheezing sound.

  “He says you’ve come a long way just for something like that,” the grandson translated. “He’s wondering where you came from and why you’re here.”

  “We’re here to take a look around,” I laughed. “We heard you had some weird stuff in here and wanted to check it out. Besides, we’ve been told it’s too dangerous over here, and we wanted to prove them wrong.”

  I elbowed Holm in the ribs playfully for emphasis and made a show of tripping over my own feet like I was inebriated. Holm followed suit. Playing the drunk American card might just work.

  “Yeah, we’re not scared of a bunch of drug dealers,” Holm laughed, intentionally slurring his words. “We’ve got plenty of those back home in Miami.”

  “You are stupid then,” the young man said, shaking his head in disgust at us. “Though that isn’t exactly surprising. You’re going to get yourselves killed. Is that what you want?”

  “We told you, we’re not afraid of a bunch of idiot drug dealers,” I said, leaning forward on the front counter as if I needed it to stay standing. “We don’t care about any of that. Speaking of which, do you know of any way we can get in on some of that action?”

  I gave the kid a goofy grin of my own, teeth and all, and laughed again.

  “Don’t they have enough drugs for you back on the Dominican side?” the kid asked.

  “What, aren’t we supposed to be your best customers, Americans looking for voodoo shit?” Holm asked. “Watch out, or you just might scare us away, and our money.”

  “You’d be better off running away,” the kid snapped.