by Lincoln Matt
“I know I don’t look like much, Mr. Williams, Mr. Beck,” Solomon admitted with a small laugh. “But this is my operation. Or at least it is now. There was a recent change in leadership.”
“A change in leadership?” I repeated. “How so?”
“Well, there was a situation with the son of the Dominican president,” Solomon said quickly. “I won’t bore you with the details. But suffice it to say that we won’t be making any more mistakes like that anytime soon.”
“So you took over after this… mishap,” I gathered.
Solomon nodded and spread out his arms. “And see how far we’ve come? We’ve practically taken over the whole island now. The Haitian government might as well not exist, and the Dominicans are eating each other alive, trying to figure out how to deal with us. We’re on top of the world.”
“Not quite yet,” I said with a small smirk.
“Of course,” Solomon said, nodding with deference to me. “But with your help, we will be. I’m glad you came after your man, to be honest. I was planning on traveling to your city with the next shipment personally to speak with you, figure out if we could make a more direct arrangement now that Abel is out of the picture.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we showed up when we did, then,” I agreed. “Now look here, we’re going to need to know exactly who it was that killed our guy.”
Solomon narrowed his eyes at us again. “I thought you said that you didn’t care for him much yourselves.”
“We didn’t,” I said with a shrug. “But you know how it is. He was one of our own, even if he double-crossed us. So we’re going to need to know who has to answer for the crime.”
Solomon shifted uncomfortably in his cushioned chair. “I’m afraid that was me.”
“You?” I asked, arching a brow at him again. “You took him out personally?”
“An example had to be made,” he said. “When my guys told me what he’d been up to, I went to the border and took him out personally. He tried to get away, run across the border onto the Dominican side. As if their government would’ve treated him any better had they found out what he was up to over here. I shot him. He died. The Dominican border patrol found him almost immediately. There wasn’t any time to take away the body. That was how the Americans got involved. The Dominicans figured out he was one of yours, I assume.”
Holm and I exchanged a look. This was good news. All we had to do was find a way to take Solomon into custody, and this whole case was under MBLIS’s jurisdiction, including everything that went down in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This man had murdered an American citizen, after all.
“Come on, friends,” Solomon said with another nervous laugh, noticing the look that we’d exchanged. “You understand, business is business! We shouldn’t let something as small as this get between us. Abel had to be taken out. We all agree on that. He was turning on all of us. If it wasn’t me that did it, it would’ve been one of you, would it not, when you found out what he was up to?”
Holm and I exchanged another look.
“Okay,” I said at long last. “We’ll let you off this time, as a courtesy between business partners. But you have to tell us everything you know about this drug. Otherwise, we don’t know how comfortable we are selling it in our markets. As you said, our authorities are more on top of this stuff than you are. If we’re found out, we’ll do hard time for a long time, and our whole operation will be run into the ground.”
“I understand your concerns,” Solomon said, sighing with relief. “And I share them! I will tell you everything I know. I’m sorry, I thought that Abel was very clear to you on all this, but clearly, he swindled us all.”
“Alright,” Holm said, leaning forward on the couch. “We’re listening.”
“Very well, very well,” Solomon said. “Well, when I took over the cartel, I knew that we had to make a big splash if we were to recover from the last leadership team’s fuck up. Otherwise, the Dominicans would just continue to crack down on us until some other gang took over in Haiti.”
“And you couldn’t have that, could you?” I chuckled.
“No, of course not,” Solomon said, shaking his head. “You understand better than most, I see. So I start asking around. I had known this old witch doctor for a while, my first wife, she liked to go see him from time to time. I never thought much of it.”
“A witch doctor?” I asked, bursting out laughing. “Like those dumbasses on Bourbon Street back in NOLA? I thought that was just a tourist thing.”
“It is, for the most part,” Solomon said with a small laugh of his own. “But there is some truth to some of the legends, I’ve found. This is one of them.”
“This what?” Holm asked. “The drug?”
“Yes,” Solomon said. “It was once called a ‘Haitian zombie powder’ by an American visitor, I believe.”
“Zombie powder?” Holm repeated. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I think I remember seeing something about that on Scooby-Doo,” I chuckled.
“It doesn’t mean literal zombies, of course,” Solomon was quick to add. “It acts mostly as an anesthetic, except the brain is still active. The body is just not controlled by the individual.”
“But it’s not like other people can control them,” I said. “We’ve seen this thing in action. It’s not mind control or anything like that.”
“Of course, but it is more subtle,” Solomon said. “Those who take the drug are more open to persuasion, and they do not resist when they are made to do things, as I’m sure you’ve seen.”
This made me sick to my stomach. The very idea of this thing circulating in my country made me want to kill this sick little man on the spot. Even if it didn’t kill someone, they might wish they were dead when all was said and done. I knew I would.
“There are other drugs for that, though,” I said. “Why use yours when it can be so dangerous?”
“Fair point,” Solomon said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat again. “But as I’m sure you know, this drug has a far more pronounced effect. Those other options aren’t nearly as good or as effective.”
“This is true,” Holm admitted. “But then there’s the whole skin eating thing.”
“Yes, that is unfortunate,” Solomon sighed. “We’ve tried to get rid of this effect and have had some success with it. We continue to work on it. As I told you, you have received by far the best batches we have.”
“And yet our guy’s girl still turned up dead,” I said. “You understand our hesitance. NOLA’s a weird place. A major city, but also a small town. The mayor’s daughter could end up partying with some of our guys, for all we know. And then where would we be if she ended up like that? Some random junkie who was shacking up with one of our guys, that’s no problem. But someone like that, and that’s a one-way ticket to an FBI investigation.”
“And you’ve already gotten messed up with the FBI at least once already,” Holm pointed out.
This all clearly made Solomon uncomfortable, and he turned his gaze away from us, wringing his hands together as he tried to figure out how to respond.
“Look, I realize that this is still a work in progress,” Solomon admitted. “But the rate of complication in your batch is below five percent, versus the over twenty percent happening now in the Dominican Republic, and nearly forty here in Haiti. I believe, and you have to agree, that given the financial benefit at stake here, a five percent risk is well worth it.”
Holm and I exchanged another look. So the death rate wouldn’t be nearly as bad in the States if what this guy said was true. Though admittedly, that was a big if. Forty percent was almost unfathomable. I felt bad for the Dominicans, of course, but the Haitians had gotten the worst of all this. There was no doubt about that.
“Alright, let’s say we buy that for now,” I said slowly. “Tell us more about the drug so we can decide for ourselves.”
Solomon nodded and was all too eager to continue his tale.
“I had the ol
d witch doctor update the concoction for modern times,” he continued. “It is excellent for many purposes, as I’m sure you’ve seen for yourselves with our first shipment to your city.”
“You’re not lying about that,” Holm chuckled. “If we could just get this, uh… complication out of the way, we’d be making more money than we could ever dream of. And trust me, guys like us can dream of a lot.”
“Oh, I’m well aware,” Solomon said, giving us a genuine smile this time. “So anyway, part of updating it was making it less detectable. If we wanted to introduce a new drug on the market, we wanted it to fly on the radar, if you will, for at least a while, until we got it in robust circulation.”
“So they’d be less likely to be able to stamp it out by that point,” I nodded. “But they’ve definitely noticed, haven’t they? Given the death rate?”
“In Haiti, yes, and now in the Dominican Republic,” Solomon admitted. “But Haiti was the perfect place to test something like this out. The government is in shambles already. By the time they noticed, it was too late. Same with the Dominicans, though it took some tinkering to get the drug to the point where we were comfortable introducing it there. At a five percent death rate, as long as you are careful and introduce the product slowly, our hope is that the American authorities will not be able to keep up.”
Holm and I looked at each other. Perhaps this meant that the man was telling the truth about the death rate for the American batches being so low. He wouldn’t take that kind of risk unless he was relatively confident it would pay off. His efforts in Haiti and the Dominican Republic showed that much. This could be some good news, at least.
“That’s… possible,” I said, pretending to think this over. “I don’t know… Can you tell us why these deaths happen in the first place? The original form of the drug, this ‘zombie powder,’ did it do this, too?”
“Oh no,” Solomon said, shaking his head. “But that recipe didn’t preserve. It lasted only a short amount of time, so it wasn’t fit for wide distribution. And it was more detectable in the body.”
“What do you mean by detectable?” Holm asked.
Solomon gave us a surprised look.
“My, Abel didn’t tell you much of anything, did he?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at us some more. He looked to be growing suspicious again. “How did he convince you to take on distributing the drug if he didn’t tell you how difficult it is to detect? This strikes me as… strangely unintelligent on his part. And he was stupid, but he wasn’t that stupid.”
I gave Holm a frustrated look. “You know what he’s talking about. Remember when we took blood from the dead girl and couldn’t find much of anything?”
“Oh right,” Holm said, shaking his head. “How could I forget? We found all that other shit, so I almost forgot.”
“Right, the coke and the heroine,” I said.
This seemed to make Solomon relax slightly, but he continued to watch us with some wariness.
“Yes, of course,” he said slowly. “That is part of the mixture.”
I wanted to find a way to ask what he meant by this without drawing even more suspicion to ourselves, but before I could think of anything, there was a loud knock at the door.
“Come in,” Solomon said.
And in came the same guards, each propping up James by one armpit. He was still bleeding from where I had shot him, but more concerning was the fact that he was foaming at the mouth.
CHAPTER 31
Ethan
“What the fuck…?” Holm mouthed as James stumbled forward, blood spilling out of his abdomen from the gunshot wound and foam spilling out of his mouth.
“What… what did you do to him?” I asked, stepping back reflexively as James gurgled on the floor and reached out for me.
I realized that he was trying to say something but couldn’t.
Solomon stared at Holm and me with a renewed sense of skepticism.
“You’re not who you say you are, are you?” he said simply. It wasn’t really a question.
I pulled out my gun and pointed it at him. Holm did the same.
“You’re under arrest,” I said. “Resist, and the charges will be escalated.”
“I don’t imagine how they could get any worse, considering everything I’ve told you,” Solomon chuckled, still seated in his cushy chair as James continued to writhe and gargle on the floor. “But then again, it doesn’t matter. You won’t be leaving this ship alive.”
“Like hell, we won’t,” Holm growled.
“Kill them,” Solomon said, waving his hand lazily in the direction of the two guards. “American scum.” He then snapped something in French so his lackeys would better understand him.
Reflexively, I swiveled to face the guards and shot before they had the chance to realize what was happening and pull out their own weapons. Considering that they hadn’t been in the room for a while and didn’t seem to speak much English, they looked more confused than anything else about the situation.
I hit one of them in the shoulder as he moved to duck down. Holm shot at the other one, but missed, hitting the wall of the ship’s cabin. A hole appeared, and some water began to trickle inside.
Both goons had their weapons drawn now and were preparing to return fire.
“Wait, no!” Solomon screamed from his chair, which he’d scooted back against the wall to stay away from the line of fire. “Look!”
He pointed at the wall, and I returned my attention to the hole Holm’s bullet had formed there. I noticed another one next to it. My own shot must’ve gone through the other guard’s shoulder and rammed into the wall, as well. Water was spilling over into the cabin now, though it wasn’t nearly enough to sink the ship.
Solomon screamed something in French at the guards, and they both re-holstered their weapons, though neither appeared all that happy about it.
Then, almost as one, they charged at Holm and me.
I wasn’t particularly interested in destroying this ship either, if we could help it, so I re-holstered my own weapon and motioned for Holm to do the same. This thing was stock full of evidence of the cartel’s wrongdoings, not to mention their trip to Louisiana and possibly information about the drug itself.
As the nearest thug flung himself at me, I swerved and rammed the palm of my hand into his wounded shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain and stumble down onto the ground in front of me.
I pulled out my gun again, meaning to smash it over his head, but just as I was about to do so, I felt his broad fingers wrap around my shin.
He yanked hard on my leg, and I felt a concerning snapping sensation. There was no way he splintered the bone with just that, but he definitely pulled something.
Red hot pain spread up and down my leg, and my eyes began to water again as I fell to my knees. And just like that, all the progress I’d made on the car ride over disappeared, and the world began to spin again around me. My head must’ve jolted a bit too hard as I fell, bringing my concussion symptoms roaring back to life.
The guard was getting back on his feet now, his hulking form looming over me.
Just as he was bringing up his own gun to smash down on my head—which no doubt would’ve caused some serious damage considering my existing injuries—I jostled around on the ground around me and found my own weapon again.
To hell with the ship. Holm and I needed to get the hell out of this mess.
I brought the gun up in front of my face to shield it and pulled the trigger one, two, three times.
The shots rang out, and I braced for the incoming blow, covering my face with my arms, but it never came.
Slowly, I lowered my arms so that I could peak over them. My shots had hit the guy right in the chest, and now he lay across the cabin floor, his blood flowing everywhere.
He must not have seen that I’d located my gun until it was too late for him.
Taking advantage of the moment’s reprieve, I dropped my empty magazine and reloaded my gun with another one from my pocket. I
always had some extra rounds handy, but I noticed I was running low. This was my last one.
So I stooped down and pried the guard’s own gun out of his fingers, pocketing it. He groaned and rolled his head at the sensation but didn’t open his eyes.
I shot him once more in the head to put him out of his misery.
I whipped my head around to see what was going on with Holm and the others. My eyes still watered, and my vision still swam, but I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I had to work with what I had.
Holm was wrestling with the other guard, and they both had pretty nasty head wounds by the look of it. Both of their guns were scattered across the floor in the far corner of the cabin, away from Solomon’s grasp. They must’ve fought over them with neither winning out.
Neither seemed to have noticed what I was up to, so I trained my own gun on the other goon.
“Freeze,” I ordered, not wanting to shoot Holm by accident as he and the goon wrestled around.
I doubted the guy understood my meaning, but he got my tone just fine. He froze and released my partner.
Then I shot him. No need to waste any more time on any of these goons. Better to isolate Solomon and try to get him back to the States for questioning. We needed him alive if we were going to figure out what was going down in New Orleans.
The second goon fell to the ground lifeless, just like the first.
“Thanks,” Holm said, rubbing his sore shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I would’ve lasted against that guy. He could win a pro wrestling match.”
“Yeah, mine, too,” I said, nodding in the direction of the other body. “Not too bright, though. He didn’t pay much attention to what I was doing, just how he wanted to pummel me. That’s how I got him.”
Together, Holm and I turned our attention back to Solomon and James.
The small man was cowering in his chair, staring at us with a strange mixture of annoyance and panic.
James, on the other hand, was lying limp on the floor. For a moment, I thought that he was dead, but then he started to move again.
He propped himself up against the side of the couch where Holm and I had been sitting just moments ago, making as if to stand. But because of his gunshot wound, which was still bleeding lightly, he was unable to do so.