Haitian Harbinger

by Lincoln Matt

  “We’ve got it,” Clyde grinned.

  CHAPTER 26

  Ethan

  After sending our men back to Santo Domingo with the witch doctor and his grandson, Holm and I were left to handle the aftermath of the bloody voodoo shop shootout. Just as we watched Alonso, Martínez, the other Dominican men, and Samuel and Junior drive away, my phone started to buzz.

  “Maybe we should head in there,” Holm suggested, pointing back to a nearby building. “We’re sitting ducks standing out here.”

  I nodded and followed him inside as I answered the call. It was Diane.

  “Hi Diane, hold on a minute, will you?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low in case we weren’t alone in the hut.

  But my caution was unfounded. We were alone.

  The small building looked like it was once a beloved home, with a child’s bunk bed set up in the corner and pictures hanging on the wall. But there were dirty dishes and drug paraphernalia everywhere that I could see, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were weapons hidden around the place either.

  Holm and I cased the place just to make sure no one was hiding out somewhere, but it didn’t take long. There was just the combined kitchen, living room, and bedroom area, and a small bathroom off to the side.

  Then, we sat down on a lumpy old couch in the middle of the living room area.

  “Okay, Diane, I’m putting you on speakerphone,” I informed my boss. “Holm’s here, too. We’re alone.”

  “Good,” she said shortly. “You boys sound winded. What’s going on?”

  “Is it really that obvious?” I chuckled, running a hand through my hair nervously. It had been quite a day already.

  “You know I can see right through you,” she teased, and she wasn’t wrong.

  Even when some of us had put in for paid time off not long ago to sneak around on Diane and try to get MBLIS’s funding problem fixed on our own, she knew right away something was up. She just didn’t say anything then because she wanted us to be successful.

  So, Holm and I related the whole story about the witch doctor and the gunfight and the dead guards. It made me depressed, just thinking about it all again.

  “Damn, Marston,” Diane said when we were finished. “You boys just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”

  “This will be another one for the record books, I suppose,” I said, leaning back on the couch with a sigh.

  “Man, I really wish we’d made it to Mike’s bar before we left Miami,” Holm reminisced. “I could use a stiff one right now.”

  “You and me both,” I agreed, nodding.

  “But all those Dominican guys are dead, and you still managed to take out the opposition,” Diane wondered, giving a low whistle that crackled over the phone connection. “Boy, am I glad I didn’t have to fire one of you with those budget cuts.”

  “You and us both,” I repeated with a grin. “So what’s new on your end? Anything?”

  “Something,” she said. “And this should help you some when you try to get to the ship. Though I have to say, as your supervisor, that I don’t recommend you striking out on your own like this. Not that I think for one second that you’re going to heed my advice.”

  “You do know us too well,” Holm grinned.

  “So what’s this new intel? Anything on our victim?” I asked, leaning forward with anticipation.

  “Yes, actually,” Diane said. “I talked to my contact in New Orleans, and he’s been doing some digging. Apparently, Wallace had some associates lined up here, and he was thinking of taking them down to the island to see the product at its source. Names are Daryl Williams and Clifton Beck.”

  “We can pose as them,” I said, jumping on this information. “They haven’t actually been down here yet, have they?”

  “No, not that we’re aware of,” Diane said. “One of them got busted on a minor drug charge, and the other was seen on the streets just last night. So they’re not down there now, at least, and my contact doesn’t think they have been before. Apparently, these guys have been under surveillance for a good while.”

  “So, they’re drug lords in NOLA?” I surmised, raising my eyebrows.

  “Precisely,” Diane confirmed. “And Wallace got in with them somehow, probably by promising them this new drug. He was just known for petty shit before that, nothing much. Some marijuana busts, and then he got into some of the harder stuff. But nothing too high up in the organized crime ranks over there. Just dealing.”

  “So, this was his way in,” Holm said. “Weird way to get in.”

  “Not so weird when you think about it, actually,” Diane said. “There’s a long history of cooperation between organized crime in New Orleans and in Haiti, right along with the cultural connection. This is just a more… drastic step in that long line.”

  “Okay, so how did Wallace connect with these guys in the first place?” I asked, shaking my head in confusion. “The ones in Haiti, I mean.”

  “That’s for you to figure out, Ethan,” Diane said. “I’m just giving you the background. That’s all I know, unfortunately, but you should be able to get in with that much if you play your cards right.”

  “We just pose as Williams and Beck, come to see why their guy cut off contact, and weasel our way in,” I thought aloud.

  “Just one problem with that,” Holm said. “They killed Wallace. Which means they might not like the idea of us just showing up like that.”

  “We’ve got no indication of communication between these two new guys and the cartel?” I clarified.

  “None,” Diane confirmed. “In fact, a confidential informant overheard them talking about whether they should go down there and check up on Wallace a few days back, make sure he was running things smoothly. They were wondering how to get in contact with the Haitians involved.”

  “Perfect,” I said, relieved to hear this. “That’s our way in. These guys have no real loyalty to Wallace. They have no more of an idea of why they killed him than we do. Hell, they don’t even know he’s dead, most likely. So we show up, laugh off the fact that the idiot’s dead, and offer to take over the whole operation for a more than reasonable cut. We run distribution for the cartel in NOLA. They provide the product. Simple as that.”

  “That’s something, I guess,” Holm reasoned with a shrug. “I’m on board, count me in.”

  “And how are you going to explain how you found this ship in the first place?” Diane asked with her usual brand of skepticism.

  “We’ll just say Wallace told us before he left on his last trip,” I suggested.

  “That’s a risky bet,” Diane said warily. “They could very well not have told Wallace where the ship was until he came here the last time. Didn’t one of your witnesses say this is a relatively new base of operations for them? That it used to be this voodoo shop you just wrecked?”

  “This whole thing is a risky bet,” I pointed out. “That’s not a reason to throw it all out the window.”

  “I don’t know, Ethan,” Diane said, and she really sounded worried this time, which was unusual since most of the time, she just put up with our antics. We got results, after all. “This is all starting to rub me the wrong way. Maybe we should pull you out of there.”

  “No,” Holm and I both said quickly, almost in unison.

  “You can’t pull us out, boss,” Holm complained. “You haven’t seen these kids. It’s nuts down here. They were floundering without us, too. They’ll never solve this on their own.”

  “Exactly, and we don’t want this shit coming back to the States,” I added. “And if it’s already there, we want to know about it. We need to know about it.”

  “I’m not saying we should abandon ship entirely,” Diane clarified. “But we could pull you out for now, send in reinforcements, bring in other agencies. This thing is getting out of hand, and I don’t want to lose two good agents because I let it go too far.”

  Dammit. I never should’ve taken this call. As she spoke, Diane sounded more and more convi
nced of this position. But there was no way I was pulling out now, not when we were so close to getting the answers we needed. These were the answers the Dominicans needed, and the innocent Haitians who had all been caught up in this too, for that matter.

  “No,” I repeated sharply. “Diane, I understand that you’re the boss around here. But this is our mission, and we need to see it through. This is time sensitive. If this drug is already in the States, there’s no telling how many American lives could be lost if we waste any more time spinning our wheels when we could be taking action.”

  “Besides, if we escalate this thing, try to involve other agencies, there’s no telling how long this will get backed up,” Holm added, shaking his head. “You saw how slow things got when we just had some little paperwork problems. There’s no telling how crazy things will get if we pull out now and try to involve even more people in this thing.”

  “And that’s time we simply don’t have,” I finished for him.

  “I don’t know…” Diane said, but I could tell that she was itching almost as much as we were to get to the bottom of this. She was still concerned about our safety, though. “It would waste even more time if things go sour, though.”

  “You’ve seen how much bureaucracy slows things up,” I said. “Do you really want to risk that? I know you don’t want to send this case off to someone else, either, or try to share it.”

  “Right, MBLIS gets shafted enough without us actually going and asking the FBI for help,” Holm scoffed. “That would be like the Navy turning their big wartime win over to the Marines!”

  I chuckled at this analogy. It wasn’t wrong.

  “Look, Diane, the fact is that this is our case,” I said. “And we’re not walking away just because we ran into a few bumps along the way.”

  “A few bumps along the way?” she repeated wryly. “Marston, do you really consider losing nearly your entire team the second you step into enemy territory just a bump?”

  “Fair point,” I relented. “But this is our case.”

  I left it stubbornly at that. In truth, Diane may have been right that Holm and I were in over our heads out there all alone. But closing out my missions myself was a point of pride for me, just as I knew it was for everyone at MBLIS. Our scrappy little agency needed every little win it could get.

  Besides, Holm was right. We were running out of time. And the Dominicans didn’t have much of it to spare. Neither did New Orleans if the cartel had its way.

  Diane thought about this for a moment.

  “I still don’t like this, Marston,” she said at long last, and I could almost hear her pursing her lips back in Miami. I could practically see her standing there leaning against her desk with her hands on her hips, too.

  But I knew that I’d already won.

  “I can see there’s no backing you down,” she continued. “You’re going to do this whether I like it or not, so we might as well not waste time fighting about it.”

  “You won’t regret this, Diane,” I assured her.

  “You’re damn right I won’t,” she said. “If you two turn up dead, there’s no way you’re blaming me.”

  “Noted,” I chuckled, though I knew that beneath that fiery exterior was genuine concern for our wellbeing. “We’ll see you all soon back in the office.”

  “You’d better,” she said. “Be careful, Ethan. You too, Robbie. And call me the second you get your asses out of there.”

  With that, she clicked away. Holm and I sat in silence for several moments.

  “Should we really be that worried?” Holm asked at long last, turning to me.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Let’s save that for after we know what we’re dealing with. Until then, there’s no use wasting energy on it. Like time, that’s a valuable resource around here.”

  “So, how do we get down there?” Holm asked. “The officers are all gone, headed back to the city.”

  “Good question,” I murmured. “It would be too dangerous trying to cross the border near the snipers, and it would take hours to walk all the way back the way we came. I thought I saw a car lying around here somewhere. Let’s go see what we can wrangle up.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Ethan

  Holm and I freshened up a bit in the hut and cooked some rice and beans that were lying around in the kitchen. We figured we didn’t know when we’d be able to eat again, and we might as well go into this thing with full stomachs.

  Then we filled up some water bottles to carry around with us. It was hot out there, and again, we didn’t know for sure what the rest of the day had in store for us.

  It was around noon by the time we left the hut. Considering we had left the hotel before the sun had even risen, it felt like a lifetime had passed since that morning. And yet at that same time, it kind of felt like Alejandra and I had only parted moments ago.

  I wondered what had gone on with her since she left for Santo Domingo. Surely, she would have arrived there by now. I hoped that she was already at the hospital with Bonnie and Clyde, getting that cartel rat Ricardo to spill everything he knew about the drug. Most of all, I hoped that she was safe and sound, away from all the violence.

  “Where did you say that car you saw was at, again?” Holm asked, running a hand through his hair as a bead of sweat appeared on his brow. It really was the middle of the day now, and my shirt clung to my skin as the sun beat down on us.

  “I don’t remember,” I sighed. “Back closer to the voodoo shop, I think? It was near one of the other houses.”

  “Well, let’s stick as far away from the border as we can,” Holm suggested warily. “We don’t want another sniper taking his chances on us.”

  “No,” I agreed, my hand instinctively moving in the direction of the gun holstered at my side, hiding beneath my shirt. “We don’t.”

  We walked in an oval shape back to the voodoo shop, taking the long way around the area in the opposite direction from the border. But we didn’t come across so much as another soul, let alone a sniper.

  “Odd that we haven’t run into anyone, isn’t it?” Holm asked when we were nearing the voodoo shop again, leaning into me and speaking quietly just to be sure we wouldn’t draw any attention to ourselves.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Odd. Especially since they were keeping such a close watch on things before.” I remembered how quickly they had been to shoot at me the second I stepped on the Haitian side of the border looking for that wallet at the original crime scene.

  “Maybe it’s just the border they keep such close track of,” Holm suggested, though he didn’t sound convinced of this himself.

  “Maybe,” I murmured, my eyes scanning the surrounding area. It was mostly dirt and small buildings just like the hut we’d taken refuge in earlier. “Or maybe they all rushed out to kill our guys, and reinforcements just haven’t gotten in yet.”

  I thought this to be a more likely scenario. There was no reason for them to see us and let us get away, after all. I had no doubt that any member of the cartel would shoot us on sight. But the absence of others was troubling. It suggested that they were all congregated somewhere else. On this ship, perhaps.

  Finally, we saw that car. It was a broken-down old vehicle, covered in rust and dented every which way. I doubted it would even run, by the look of it, let alone get us to the edge of the island from the middle. But it was better than trying to get there on our feet.

  “That old thing?” Holm asked, arching an eyebrow at it. “Jesus, Ethan, I don’t know about this.”

  “Do you have any better ideas?” I asked him, and he shrugged and followed me inside the nearby hut, whose makeshift driveway the vehicle was parked in by the look of it.

  I pulled out my gun and held it down at my side as I pushed open the unlocked door of the hut, Holm following close behind me in much the same position. Together, we inched around the doorway and into the main living area.

  The hut was set up much like the last one, except there were several sleeping bags distributed
across the floor in the place of the bunk beds and random air mattresses. There were dirty dishes all over the place, and empty wrappers for junk food. There was even what looked like an old pizza box lying on a worn-out old couch.

  It didn’t look like anyone responsible had been here in a while, and I remembered what Emmanuel had told us about the regular people evacuating this border town a few weeks back, ceding their space and livelihoods to the cartel as they took over the area.

  A creaking sound emanated from my left, and I swung my gun up quickly, swiveling my gaze around to face that direction, but there was no one there.

  Holm nudged me and jerked his chin in the direction of what looked to be a small ladder just standing off to the side of the room, where the noise had come from. Slowly, I turned my gaze upward to see that it led up to a small hole in the ceiling, presumably leading to an attic area.

  I took a step toward the ladder, motioning for Holm to cover me from behind, but before I could even register what was happening, a person came tumbling down through the hole, holding a gun pointed right at us.

  The guy just started shooting.

  I immediately ducked down into a plank position on the floor, and Holm followed suit, narrowly avoiding a shot right in the chest area.

  On the floor, which was a grainy texture against my bare skin, I whipped my gun out in front of me and aimed for the guy’s midsection, but hitting his leg instead since I was shooting from an awkward angle. I hit him in the shin, and blood spurted out almost immediately.

  I shot back up on my feet and charged the guy since we were already so close. I grabbed ahold of his gun and tried to wrestle it away from him before he could regain his footing, kicking him in the knee hard in the process to keep him down.

  Holm jumped up right behind me and ran around to the guy’s other side with his gun held high at the man’s head.

  “We’ve got you surrounded,” he barked. “And a gun on your head. Choose your movements carefully, now.”