Lost Girls (12 page)

“I was seen putting her body in my truck so I had to notify the Ministry of Justice. I told them she was a drowning victim and that I am taking her to the morgue.”

“That is unusual?”

“I am the senior investigator in major crimes. They will accept it for now.”

“Nationality?”

“She is a white woman with blond hair is all I can say.”

“Where exactly is this safe place you speak of, Inspector?”

“The University of the West Indies Hospital in Kingston has a teaching morgue. I know the administrator. He will keep her locked away from the press. But soon the ministry will want to know about my drowning victim. Can you send somebody?”

“You understand we are not a law enforcement agency, Inspector. We have no police powers. We only share intelligence.”

“I understand who you are, but what of the informant in Bulgaria? Someone has been working this case.”

“The informant in Bulgaria was found dead,” Dantzler said. “The investigation went no further.”

“But the ships that were in harbor at the time, you were going to check on them.”

“And we never found proof.”

“Here is the proof,” Rolly King George shouted. “Do not treat me like a civilian.” He slammed a fist upon the steering wheel.

Dantzler hesitated again, then spoke more softly.

“The Bulgarian informant was killed a month after our summit in Alberta. The nationals think he was fingered by the Russian mob. We looked at the records of ships in port at Burgas at the time and only one freighter sailed west beyond the coast of Africa. It was a Liberian-owned freighter and it was bound for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. By the time we actually located it and got policemen on board, it had been twice sold and was dry-docked in Singapore being refitted to barge coal.”

“There is no evidence. That is what you’re saying.”

“They cut up the hull. If there were even traces of contraband they were long gone before we arrived.”

“What did the ship’s owner say?”

“The ship’s new owners are attorneys. None had ever seen or set foot on the ship. Her manifest listed humanitarian aid and tractor engines.”

“Crew?”

“The records were lost when the ship changed hands, or so we were told. There are no records of the crew.”

“What about satellite images?”

“Everything we could access was pointed at Iran at the time. This was 2007, remember.”

“What do they say in Haiti?”

“The port authority has no record of the ship, nor is there a record of a crew coming ashore.”

“They are bought,” George spat, turning the wheel to avoid a police car that had wedged itself between his truck and the taxi. The traffic was beginning to move once more. “They are bribed.”

“That is our world, Inspector George, but you already know that.”

“What am I to do with the dead girl?” George asked, looking in the rearview mirror. “I don’t have resources to investigate what happens in international waters.”

Dantzler hesitated, then spoke gently.

“We never doubted the Bulgarian’s story was true, Inspector. Colombian cocaine being trafficked east into Bulgaria, Ukrainian women being trafficked west on the same ships. It only makes sense.”

“And Haiti is south of us,” George added.

“Haiti is well known as a hub for South American cocaine and close enough to Brazil to facilitate human trafficking,” Dantzler said. “But we haven’t found anything concrete. We have no intelligence.”

“The tattoo is of Baron Samedi,” George said. “Baron Samedi is the skull wearing a top hat.”

“Yes,” Dantzler said, “a symbol of Haiti. I get the picture, Inspector.”

“It is voodoo,” the inspector said. “Do you have people inside Haiti?”

“Our resources are poor in Haiti to say the least.”

“What about surveillance?”

“The American DEA is quite active in the Caribbean, but their considerable efforts are focused on what is leaving South America, not going toward it.”

George grunted.

“Your plane may belong to one of these traffickers, Inspector George, and it might have been headed for Haiti or it might have been flying over it to the Dominican Republic or to Puerto Rico or Grenada. I do remember you from Alberta, Inspector George”—Dantzler’s voice went uncharacteristically soft, almost kind—“and I did speak with Prime Minister Simpson-Miller. She told me you gave her my respects, thank you. She also told me you are a man of intelligence.”

Dantzler hesitated a moment.

“I want you to stay by the phone, Inspector George, while I make a call. Perhaps there is someone who can assist you.”

An electronic tone sounded. The belt under Sherry Moore’s feet began to decelerate; it was the last of forty minutes, in which she’d run four and a half miles. She grabbed a hand towel from the rail and dabbed her face as the treadmill slowed to a halt. The phone had rung twice in the last thirty minutes. She snatched a bottle of water from a mini fridge and walked across the solarium to a lounge chair and the phone. She picked up the handset and pushed a button for messages.

The first recording was of a disconnect. The second was from a man with a German accent. He left a number with the country code 33—France, she knew. She had friends in Rennes who called frequently.

It was November and snow was just around the corner, normally not Sherry’s favorite time of year, but Sherry considered this a good year, perhaps even a healing year. She had promised herself that as the holidays approached, she would find opportunities in which to enrich her life. What good was shunning four months of every year, after all? It was like throwing a third of one’s life away.

She smiled at the thought of embracing snow, thinking that if her old friend John Payne knew she was in search of the holiday spirit he would have turned over in his grave.

She dialed the number and waited.

She had entered herself in a Thanksgiving 5K in Philadelphia to sponsor the United States Association of Blind Athletes. She’d agreed to address a graduating class at Temple University’s Health Sciences Center, a favor to her confidant Garland Brigham, who taught marine science at the university twice weekly. Since her experience on Denali she’d also considered a weeklong adaptive downhill skiing program for the blind, in Vermont, but that wasn’t until January, so she still had time to test the holiday waters before she committed herself to make a deposit. By far her most outrageous plan was to buy a Christmas CD for her stereo, something by Il Divo, she’d decided. If anything would shock the people who knew her it would be the sound of holiday music emanating from her speakers.

What, no humbug!
her neighbor Garland Brigham would tease.

“Interpol,” a woman answered.

“Sherry Moore,” she said tentatively. “Your number was left on my answering machine?”

“Yes, Miss Moore, you’ll be holding for Mr. Dantzler. Just a moment, please.”

Sherry pushed the record button on her answering device.

A moment later the German gentleman came on. “Thank you for returning my call, Miss Moore. I hope it is not an inconvenience.”

“Not at all,” she said curiously.

“My name is Helmut Dantzler, Miss Moore. We have mutual friends, I understand.”

Friends, Sherry thought. Graham and Brigham? Brigham had not acknowledged that he knew anyone at Interpol, as well.

“I know a man named Graham told me he had contacted Interpol, but I must say I didn’t expect to hear from you.” Sherry said it pleasantly. It was not a riposte. “To hear from you so soon, I mean.”

“Actually, I’m surprised myself,” Dantzler said flatly. “Your story about captive women was intriguing, Miss Moore, but hardly unique. I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to portray the extent and reality of sex trafficking; the stories are universal and beyond horrifying. What got our attention was the tattoo you mentioned on one of these women’s faces. We’d heard a similar story told by a drug informant in Bulgaria, just over a year ago. Women were supposedly being trafficked out of Eastern Europe to South America and the buyer was tattooing their faces with skulls. The informant was dead before we had a chance to interrogate him ourselves. Other details of his claim could not be verified. Then a week ago the story resurfaced.”

Dantzler took a pause. Sherry could imagine him deliberating on the other side of the ocean.

“I am told you are a serious woman, Miss Moore, a woman who understands the nature of our work. Graham tells me I can speak candidly with you. That I can trust you to keep secrets.”

Sherry only listened.

“I said mutual friends in the plural earlier; I understand you are also acquainted with a Madame Esme.”

“Madame Esme?” Sherry repeated, and this time she was really surprised. It was a small world indeed.

“Yes, Miss Moore, and Madame Esme asked me to convey to you that she would have joined our conversation but for a matter most urgent. Unfortunately, the events unfolding no longer permit a delay.”

Sherry was immediately reminded of Esme’s voice, memories of Africa invading her thoughts. Madame Esme was founder and president of World Freedom, a nongovernmental organization that provided humanitarian relief to tens of millions around the globe. Sherry had been called upon by Esme to do work for World Freedom in 2002, when Janjaweed rebels attacked an envoy of UN peacekeepers guarding aid workers bringing food into Darfur. The rebels killed the military escorts and stole the food stores, kidnapping one of World Freedom’s executives, who had just arrived on the continent.

After a week no one had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. No one asked for a ransom and in Darfur it was difficult to tell what leader of what faction of the Janjaweed rebels might be responsible. Time was working against the hostage.

The bodies of rebel soldiers killed in the raid in Darfur were transported to Kenya. World Freedom, being a humanitarian organization, were neutralists in a hostile land, but Madame Esme was anything but. Esme, heir to the Chalmers diamond fortune of South Africa, was one of the richest women in the world. She had friends in very high places and was said to have a penchant for manipulating events as needed.

Sherry had been flown by United Nations military units to Kenya and was escorted—hood over her face—to a makeshift morgue where the rebels’ bodies were being stored. Through the memory of one of the dead soldiers, Sherry was able to describe the leader of the attack, who had been riding a particularly striking horse—a white Arabian decorated with a strand of putrefied human ears around its neck. Armed with this information, the government in Khartoum successfully identified the tribal leader and brokered the release of Madame Esme’s emissary.

“I need not explain that World Freedom’s charter forbids the organization from interfering in criminal acts. I’m sure you’ve heard all this from Madame Esme before, but I must repeat it now.”

“I will keep your secrets,” Sherry said, “and Madame Esme’s as well.” Sherry had to admit she admired the character—embellished or not—that Madame Esme portrayed. She was purportedly able to manipulate whole governments to do her will. Things just seemed to happen when Esme was around. Perhaps it was coincidence or perhaps it was her clever machinations, one never quite knew with Madame Esme.

“What happened a week ago?” Sherry asked.

“One of World Freedom’s aid workers in Haiti befriended a young girl in the village of Tiburon. The girl’s father was trained as an explosives engineer by Reynolds Metals before they pulled out in 2000. When the company left, this man moved his family out of the city and began to do freelance work. There are still a few people with means in Haiti and government construction projects come and go with foreign aid.

“Anyhow, the girl overheard her father telling her mother that he had been in the cellar of a building he was working on and saw women locked in a cell. The girl didn’t know where her father was working, but the village of Tiburon is on the extreme west coast of Haiti, so our assumption is that it was in that region of Haiti. Anyhow, the father tells his wife that the women in the cell had been tattooed with a likeness of Baron Samedi on their faces. Samedi is a religious symbol in Haiti, the keeper of the underworld. He is represented by a grinning skull wearing a top hat.”

“Ahhhh,” Sherry said, deflating in her chair, the images on Denali now occupying her mind.

“Two days later the girl’s father was thrown dead from a car in front of his house. He had been shot in the stomach and a pencil and paper stuffed in his mouth. A poppet was pinned to his chest.”

Sherry heard a phone ring in the background.

Dantzler excused himself and closed a door.

“There are few secrets in Haiti, Miss Moore. Only the rich can afford secrets. The pen and paper left in the man’s mouth were a warning to anyone in the village that the man might have confided in. That especially included his family.”

“The wife knows who he was working for?”

“If she knew she wouldn’t tell the aid worker.”

“But it could have something to do with the drug cartel. The Mendozas?”

“The cartels use many means to disperse their product throughout the world. Countries like Haiti become important because their harbors and airports are open to the traffickers. Haiti’s very own leaders profit from cocaine. There are only so many fingers to plug the holes in the dike and the same is true for human trafficking. The borders of South America are both isolated and vast. We know that many European women end up in Brazil, but no one can control a coast that is twice the distance between New York and Miami. Islanders have been smuggling in the Caribbean for centuries. Cigarette boats and airplanes can easily penetrate the South American borders and meet truck caravans that move the women into Brazil. Haiti provides a hub from which to do that. It nullifies the efforts of legitimate customs inspections in South America’s seaports. All of which is to say it is possible that the Mendozas are involved, yes, but these women you imagine to have seen were probably in Haiti.”

“What about the Haitian police?”

“They came and looked at the body and left. They wrote it off as a drug casualty. The police in Haiti are often both corrupt and self-motivated. If there is nothing in it for them, they will stay out of private matters.”

“So it was Madame Esme who called you.”

“Yes and we in turn contacted a colonel in the national police known to our friends in French intelligence. He is in charge of Haiti’s drug task force and was trained by your DEA. He’s little more than a figurehead in the police department. He provides low-level intelligence to the French, mostly the political climate in the palace, and heads-up for French investments in the country. Other than that he is a self-admitted token to appease the American government. He says the police are entirely ineffectual in stemming the cocaine trafficked through Haiti. He doesn’t even trust his own people.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherry interrupted. “But you said DEA-trained. Haitian police are trained by DEA?”

“Select members of a narcotics interdiction team were trained by DEA in the late twentieth century in exchange for U.S. economic aid. Something like forty million in U.S. aid to reform Haiti’s police organization.”

“Go ahead.”

“The colonel has limited assets, a helicopter and a handful of men, but even one helicopter is more than we can get into Haiti right now. We are appreciative.”

“What exactly is he looking for?”

“Anything that would require an explosives engineer on the site: government or private construction projects, working mines, land being cleared.”

“Do the Mendozas own anything in Haiti?”

“Not by name.”

“You mentioned a poppet. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the term.”

“A doll,” Dantzler said, “a voodoo doll. These are a highly superstitious people, Miss Moore.”

“What does the doll signify?”

“Someone wants the family to believe the dead man’s soul is in jeopardy. It is believed in Haiti that the dead can be turned into zombies to serve new masters for all of eternity. To the descendants of slaves there can be no worse fate. Wizards, or bocors, as they are called, are paid to make magic into images of one’s enemies.”

“What about the paper and pencil in his mouth?”

“We had the aid worker mail them to us. Our lab people found writing on the paper along with DNA of the dead man. The writing wasn’t much more than a name,
Aleksandra
. It was written in Polish.”

“She was one of the girls the dead man saw where he was working,” Sherry said.

“Probably, if the story is true.”

“And a week ago you considered sending me to Haiti, to see if I could get near this dead villager’s body?”

Dantzler laughed. “Absolutely not, Miss Moore. I wouldn’t have thought of calling you a week ago. There is little one can do in Haiti but get hurt, and while the dead man’s story was compelling, your presence would have endangered not only yourself but the wife and little girl and Madame Esme’s aid worker, as well.”

Sherry grunted. “I might have been able to get in and out of the country unnoticed, Mr. Dantzler. Maybe tell you where the dead man had been working. Now the body is buried. The opportunity has passed.”

“To begin with, it is impossible to connect what you believe you saw on Denali with the dead man. We have no proof the Mendozas have interests in western Haiti. Anything might have precipitated the man’s murder, even drugs, as the police there like to believe.” Dantzler paused.

“Miss Moore, I’m only trying to offer you some background here. If I thought sending you into Haiti was prudent I wouldn’t hesitate. For that matter the dead man hasn’t yet been interred. The voudons believe the soul lingers on for nine days. The ninth night of the wake is called the
denye priye;
a ceremony is held to discourage the person’s soul from wandering the earth. Then and only then is he or she buried.”