Dust Up: A Thriller (23 page)

Regi said, “Let me handle this.”

I was about to tell him that, in my experience, stealing a police vehicle and stranding an officer might require more than a little bureaucratic finesse. But the officers didn’t come any closer. They just stood there with their hands raised, preventing us from going any farther. Another police vehicle went by, followed by two black SUVs with tinted windows, both sporting Darkstar stickers in back. Another police SUV came behind them, and another.

“It’s a goddamned motorcade,” I muttered. Just my luck to get stuck behind a motorcade out in the remote hills of Haiti.

“They’re coming from Labadee.”

I looked back the way we had come, searching for any sign of the guy we’d carjacked. Things could go south in a hurry if he showed up and told his buddies about how we’d stolen his Jeep.

Luckily, there was no sign of him. As I turned back around, a massive Hummer limousine slowed and stopped directly in front of us. One of the rear windows slid down, and a face leaned forward.

Archie Pearce. He looked right at me, making eye contact, a vague scowl on his face. Sitting across from him, seemingly unaware of my presence, was Bradley Bourden, the head of Energene.

Pearce didn’t break eye contact; he just raised the window as the car eased forward.

“What was that about?” Regi asked as the motorcade drove on.

“That’s Archie Pearce, the head of Stoma. I had a run-in with him last spring. Frankly, I’m surprised he recognized me. Last time I saw him, I caused him a substantial inconvenience, but he made it clear he considered me as consequential as a flea.”

“That’s a powerful man to have as an enemy.”

“Don’t I know it. The other guy was Bradley Bourden, the head of Energene. I don’t think he likes me, either.”

Regi smiled again. “I must say I like your taste in enemies.”

A couple more vehicles drove by, then the motorcade was over. The two cops got back in their vehicle and followed the others.

I took a last look behind us, then I fell in behind them.

58

I hung as far back as I could, following the motorcade from a safe distance as the road wound down the mountain toward Cap-Haïtien. I was beginning to wonder if they were going to precede us the whole way back, just to aggravate us, but then they slowed to a stop.

Two police vehicles pulled off to the right and waited while everyone else turned left.

I resumed driving slowly, and we passed the entrance to a courtyard flanked by two stone-faced bodyguards. I could see Archie Pearce, slightly stooped but still towering over everyone else. Bradley Bourden seemed tiny next to him. The two CEOs had an entourage of half a dozen men, among them Royce and Divock. They were being greeted by two Haitians. One of them was Ducroix, the interior minister. I recognized him from Marcel’s restaurant. He was wearing the same dark aviator shades and military uniform. The other was tall and handsome, wearing an expensive suit and smiling broadly to show off his impressive white teeth.

“Who’s the other guy with Ducroix?” I asked Regi.

“I believe that’s Vincent Adrien, Cardon’s trade minister. Strange that Ducroix is here with them.”

“They all seem very friendly.” They were shaking hands, smiling and laughing politely. Ducroix held out his arm, gesturing for everyone to go inside. As they turned to follow him, I noticed an odd interaction between Bourden and Pearce, a conspiratorial glance that devolved into utter disdain as soon as each looked away from the other.

The police out front were giving us a hard stare, and I sped off before they could scrutinize the Jeep.

“What do you think that’s about?” I asked Regi as we continued down the mountain. “Why would Pearce and Bourden be meeting with Ducroix?”

“There have been protests against them. And the stolen Soyagene,” he said quietly. “But I don’t like it. I don’t trust Ducroix.” A furrow formed in the center of his forehead.

Cap-Haïtien spread out in front of us, a handful of dark wisps rising ominously into the sky. I turned to Regi, and he met my gaze with a worried shrug. The furrow deepened.

As we entered the city, an armored police vehicle sped down the road ahead, and a few blocks past it, another one. It struck me that Ducroix was hyping the threat from rebel factions on the one hand, but instead of monitoring the situation on the ground, he was meeting with bigwigs from Energene and Stoma.

Driving through the city, we passed a few more police vehicles and piles of burning tires surrounded by young men who seemed more bored than anything else.

When we reached the Ministry of Health building, a dozen police vehicles were lined up out front, and a cluster of tents had sprung up in the open lot beside it. Officers milled around by the entrance.

Regi held up his hand and said, “Hold on.” I was already braking. I did not like the looks of this.

He took out his phone and placed a call. “Dissette,” he said to whoever answered. He looked away as a voice came on the other end, and they spoke back and forth in Kreyol, his eyes returning to mine as he ended the call.

“That was Dissette. I told him I thought Ducroix was up to something and that he might have lied about the Ebola outbreaks in Saint Benezet and Gaden, that those people might have been killed—murdered—under false pretenses.”

“What did he say?”

“He said those were very serious accusations and that I should come in to the office to discuss them.” He looked out the windshield at the police assembling on the front steps. “I asked him if the police were there.” He turned to look at me. “He said they were not.”

As he said it, a heavyset older man came out the front door in a hurried shamble and approached the officer in charge.

“That’s Dissette,” Regi said, looking down and covering his face with his hand. “We should go.”

I turned the Jeep around and drove down the nearest side street. “Where to?” I asked.

He paused, thinking. “Make a left. We will test the samples at the university, but first we need to stop at my house.”

“We need to get rid of this Jeep.”

“Elena has a car. She will let me borrow it.”

As he directed me through the city, we saw more police and clusters of protestors, more energetic than before. I couldn’t read the signs, but many of them had drawings of cornstalks or seedlings.

“They’re protesting the proposed trade agreement,” Regi says, translating the signs. “‘Seed Sovereignty Now’ and ‘Long live local seeds!’”

“What’s that one say?” I pointed at a sign that read
SOVE AYITI DE KOLERA AK EBOLA
.

Regi cleared his throat. “Save Haiti from cholera and Ebola.”

The protests were peaceful, but the police seemed to be preparing for something more. Regi’s frown deepened with every police post we passed.

As we approached his house, I slowed to a stop. A police vehicle was parked on the sidewalk midway between Regi’s house and his sister’s inn.

“You see that?” I asked.

Regi nodded. “I do.”

We sat there and stared. “You think they’re in your house or my room at the inn?”

“I don’t know.”

It turned out it wasn’t either. A pair of police in dress uniforms exited Elena’s front door, got into their vehicle, and drove away. As soon as they turned the corner, we went inside.

She was sitting in a kitchen chair with her hands folded in her lap, her face pinched.

“Elena!” Regi said, running over to her.

She looked up at him, her face blank. She whispered something to him in Kreyol. They went back and forth, quiet but urgent.

“Is she okay?” I asked quietly when they’d stopped.

“I am fine,” she said, looking up with an apologetic smile.

“She and Marcel are to cook for the police camped in front of the government services building,” Regi said. “She said they have to make enough for thirty men every day. Rice and beans for lunch and
mayi moulin
, cornmeal and stew, for dinner.”

“Are they paying her?” I asked.

She looked at me and nodded, her eyebrows inching up in surprise.

“They are,” Regi said. “And they are supplying them the food to cook.”

“It is not bad,” Elena said.

Regi looked unconvinced. “Did they go in Doyle’s room?”

She shook her head. “No.”

He nodded slowly, then said a few words in Kreyol.

She reached into her apron pocket and handed him a set of car keys.

Regi kissed her on the cheek and took them.

59

From the outside, Regi’s house was similar to Elena’s—unadorned stucco with a single window and a door with a small step. Inside, it was clean and simple with wood floors and hand-carved wood furniture.

I was surprised by the
Star Wars
memorabilia on the bookshelves, by the picture of Regi shaking hands with Wyclef Jean, and by Miriam Hartwell standing in the corner, pointing a gun at us as we walked in.

She looked like hell—dirty and sunburned and squeezing the gun so tightly in her hands I was afraid it would crumple like tinfoil if it didn’t go off. She seemed unable to lower it at first, as if she’d been holding it so long, she’d forgotten how. Then she dropped it and ran to Regi, burying her face against his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, crumbling into tears.

“Thank God you’re okay,” he said, stroking her hair. “We’ve been so worried about you. I’m so sorry about Ron. So sorry for what you’ve been through.”

When she calmed down, she pulled back from him. “I’m okay,” she said, maybe a little prematurely. Then she turned and put a hand on my arm. “I didn’t expect to see you. Thanks for your help, again.”

“Sable?”

Her eyes welled up anew, and she shook her head. “He didn’t make it.”

“What happened?”

She shook her head. “He was shot as we took off.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“It looked bad, but he said he was okay. He seemed okay for a while. He got us here, but just barely.” She laughed briefly through her tears at the memory of it. “That crazy plane. He put it down in this tiny little clearing. He said we were going to an airstrip, a place called Phaeton, but then he just … he said he wasn’t going to make it. He said it calmly, and we were going down in this tiny field. I couldn’t believe he was doing it. Then I couldn’t believe he did it. Then I couldn’t believe he was gone.” She looked up at me, her eyes streaming. “I think he died before the plane actually touched down.”

She took another stab at gathering herself. “Anyway, I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I just started walking, until I found a road. I felt terrible leaving him behind, but I didn’t know what else to do.” She looked down and her voice went quiet. “I barely knew him, but he saved my life.”

She cleared her throat and continued. “When I got to the road, I asked some people the way to Cap-Haïtien. After a couple hours, it started getting dark. There were police all over. I don’t know which was scarier, them or the groups of young men eying me up, sometimes following me. I had Sable’s phone, but it was locked. I found a clump of bushes in an empty field.”

“That’s where you spent the night?” Regi asked.

She nodded. “It was scary. I don’t think I slept more than a few minutes at a time. As soon as it started getting light out, I started walking again. I don’t know what it’s usually like here, but even at dawn, police were everywhere again. What’s going on?”

Regi’s eyes went distant for a moment, then he winced.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Portia is dead,” he said. He managed two full seconds before the horror of it overcame him and he dissolved into tears.

“What?” She put her arm around him. “What happened?”

He just shook his head, unable to talk.

Watching the two of them comforting each other over their losses made me that much more determined not to suffer a similar fate, or to cause Nola to. But it also reinforced my determination to stop the bastards responsible for it.

I thought about all those bodies in Gaden and the ones in Saint Benezet. Gone without a trace. So many lives lost, so many survivors scarred by sorrow, never to be whole again.

The question of how Portia had died hung in the room, unanswered. Regi wasn’t ready to tell her yet.

“I brought your files to show Regi,” I said.

Her eyes showed the tiniest flicker of hope as she turned to Regi. “Did you see them?”

He shook his head.

“The police confiscated them from me. We just got them back.” I pulled the bag out and showed her. “A little worse for wear.”

She unbuttoned the top of her blouse. “I have them, as well,” she said, pulling out a sheaf of paper. The pages were crumpled and yellowed, looking almost as rough around the edges as she did.

She gave them to Regi, and he started leafing through them.

“These are better,” he said quietly.

“There’s more to tell you,” I said. “But we need to get going.”

“Going where?” Miriam asked.

“We have some samples we need to test. We are going to the university.”

“Not your lab?”

Regi shook his head. “The facilities are better at the school. Besides, these are interesting times at work.”

60

We took Elena’s dented Mitsubishi and left the Jeep parked around the corner—the weapons and the keys stashed under the seats with Officer Turnier’s wool cap. Miriam sank down low in the back to avoid being seen. Regi drove, weaving between the cars and trucks and bicycles and pedestrians, his voice oddly detached as he told Miriam what had been going on.

“Ebola?” she exclaimed, sitting up when he told her about Saint Benezet. “That’s ridiculous. There were no signs of Ebola when we were there. And there hasn’t been Ebola in Haiti. Did people test positive?”

He shook his head. “The Interior Ministry sealed the village,” he said quietly. “They claimed authority, and Dissette let them.” He wiped his eyes as he drove. “They said there were no survivors.”

“There’s always survivors,” she said, barely a whisper, as if she could see where this was going.

Regi cleared his throat and got himself under control. “They said there were none. And in order to eliminate the possibility of an epidemic, they incinerated the village.”