Haitian Hit Read online

  They reached the landing, and his escort gave a coded knock. A small hatch opened to reveal a single eye.

  "Who's that?"

  "I've got a VIP here, Larry. Will you open up, for Christ's sake?"

  "Keep your shirt on."

  Bolan heard the latches being thrown, and then the door swung open. Larry was an overweight gorilla dressed in shirt-sleeves, who kept one hand wrapped around the automatic slung beneath his arm.

  "Who's that?" he repeated.

  "You're looking at an Ace, all right? He's here for George."

  "Oh, yeah?" The ape was suddenly respectful, though his eyes retained a hint of dark suspicion. "Well, I guess you'd better take him through then, huh?"

  "Good thinking."

  "Here, you'd better put these on."

  The doorman handed each of them a surgical mask, replacing the box on a small table while they tied the masks in place. They looked like bandits preparing to rob a bank, but Bolan knew the masks were mandatory in a powder factory, where workers faced the hazards of addiction or a lethal overdose from breathing dusty air.

  His escort led him through another door, and they were in the plant itself, with men in lab coats working over Bunsen burners, watching dark solutions boil, or sifting snowy powder. Bolan saw the man in charge, a white-clad figure on the sidelines, following every move that his technicians made. The new arrivals put a crease between his eyes — he was obviously frowning.

  "What's this?"

  "Important business, Mr. Giacorelli. This is Mr., uh, I mean…"

  "Omega," Bolan finished for him, hauling out the ace of spades once more.

  "I see."

  "Well, I don't," Bolan countered. "I expected you'd be packing up by this time."

  "Packing up? I don't know what the hell…"

  "You didn't get the word?"

  "What word?"

  "Goddamn it! Don Bartoli told me he'd speak to you about this thing himself."

  "I haven't heard a thing," George stubbornly insisted.

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "So, what's the problem? Can you fill me in, or what?"

  "A war's the problem, George. That plain enough to suit you? We've got buttons from New York in town, Bartoli's calling Lauderdale for reinforcements, and you were supposed to shut this operation down two hours ago, before somebody catches on and pays a visit. Get my drift?"

  "I hear you. Jesus, you can see what we've got going here. We can't just pull the plug like this, without some warning." George cocked a thumb in the direction of the table. "I've got fifty, sixty pounds of high-grade shit right there, just waiting to be packaged. Are you telling me I have to flush it down the fucking toilet?"

  "You could have packed it out by mule train, if Bartoli would've made that call on time. The way things stand… Hey wait a second! Have you got a suitcase handy?"

  "Yeah, I've got a couple. Why?"

  "Let's try this on for size. You load up what you can, right now, and I take off with all that I can carry. Flush the rest — it won't be much — and lock the place up tight. They bust you after that, the worst that they can do is smash some test tubes."

  "I don't know." George hesitated, thinking hard. "I really ought to check this out."

  "Go on, then, but be quick about it. And while you're at it, don't remind the boss he fucked things up, okay?"

  "You got a point. We really don't have any time to waste."

  George started barking orders at his crew, the lab technicians startled as he ordered them to bag the heroin at once, without preliminary sifting or the customary weigh-in. Any bags would do, as long as they were watertight. The drugs could be repackaged later when they found the time.

  The crew chief rummaged in a closet, dragged out a pair of midsized Samsonites and handed them to Bolan's escort. While the bags were being filled, the Executioner kept glancing at his wristwatch, putting on a show of tension that wasn't entirely feigned.

  "How long we got?" George asked.

  "Who knows? You were supposed to have this place shut down before I got here," Bolan snapped. "For all I know, the bastards are downstairs right now."

  "This fuckup isn't my fault, dammit!"

  "I know that, and Don Bartoli's got to know it. Whether he'll admit it, now… that's something else."

  "I been around too long to let myself get fucked this way."

  "Sometimes we got no choice, you know? We take things as they come."

  "I thought you Aces were above the bullshit."

  "Used to be. These days, you never know."

  "I've been expecting trouble from New York."

  "It didn't take the bastards long."

  One suitcase had been filled and latched; the other took a little longer, since the heroin hadn't been cut or weighed.

  "Forget it!" Bolan snapped. "I'm out of time. The excess goes right now, you understand?"

  "You're looking at a couple million dollars down the crapper," George complained.

  "Let Don Bartoli sweat that out. Next time he'll make the call on time."

  "Okay," George told his crew, "you heard the man."

  Reluctantly the lab men started hauling bowls and trays of heroin in the direction of an open door that led to a dingy rest room. Bolan saw the first load safely flushed before he took the heavy suitcase from his escort.

  "Think about it this way, George. The boss fucked up, and you were here to save the day. You'll be a hero."

  "Yeah? I hope I'm still alive to see it."

  "Watch your ass. You'll be all right."

  He left the crew chief on his own to supervise the flushing of a million dollars down the drain. There was another million, easy, in his suitcase, but the Executioner didn't intend to cash it in. He might find other uses for the powder yet, before he finished his campaign in Port-au-Prince.

  Downstairs the protest march had reached the powder factory. He hesitated on the sidewalk, watching for police and finding only stragglers, intent on following the chanting column.

  "We'll be ready when they get here," Bolan's escort promised.

  "Watch yourself," he growled.

  "I always do."

  "If anybody asks you, tell them that Omega has the stash. You got that?"

  "Sure. No problem."

  "Right."

  Bolan turned and walked away, the suitcase in his left hand, ready with the right to turn and draw if George or anybody else came rushing down the stairs to cut him off. It seemed incredible that he could walk away with more than thirty pounds of heroin so easily, but he had plumbed the Mafia mentality before. The lower ranks were paid to follow orders, not to question the authority of their superiors. In crisis situations, they began to function like machines, responding to the touch of certain switches, going through the motions on command.

  Two blocks ahead, police had set up barricades across the street. The vanguard of the march had nearly reached that point when the Executioner veered off along a side street, moving faster now.

  Behind him, suddenly, he heard the blast of tear-gas guns, the crack of wooden clubs on human skulls.

  * * *

  Michelle Saint-Cyr paced nervously around the tiny bedroom, chewing on a ragged fingernail. Her friends were both at work now and had cautioned her to stay away from windows and refrain from answering the door. The Macoutes would never think to seek her here, and if they did…

  The danger went unspoken, but Michelle had seen the worry in their faces. They were terrified of being singled out and punished; only friendship made them risk their lives on her behalf. It was another burden she would have to bear, along with losing both her father and her brother.

  Cursing under her breath, Michelle searched desperately for something — anything — that she could do to help Petoit and Father Paul, assuming they were still alive. She hadn't seen them at the camp, but then, she had seen nothing clearly after Henri's death. Her jungle trek with Blanski was a waking nightmare, a surrealistic jaunt through hell. Along the way, she must have
named her friends, provided him with an address, but she couldn't remember.

  Damn! If she gave the names away so easily…

  She wouldn't think about arrest. Not now, with memories of violent death still fresh upon her mind. Revenge was all that mattered at the moment, striking back on behalf of her father, her brother, her comrades in arms.

  She was never their comrade, in fact. From the day they arrived in the compound, Michelle and her brother had been so much excess baggage, always in the way. They took up space and ate food the warriors might have used to build their strength for battle. Tolerated on the basis of their father's name, they had contributed precisely nothing to the effort.

  But Michelle was bent on changing that as soon as possible.

  For openers, she had to leave her friends in peace. They weren't members of the rebel movement; it was wrong for her to jeopardize their lives. There were others in the city she could trust to hide her, help her, and direct her to the contacts she would need. An active role this time, and never mind her father's philosophical commitment to nonviolence.

  She had seen enough of death among her friends and loved ones. It was time for Haiti's enemies to share in the experience.

  If Jacques Petoit was still alive, he'd be working overtime to organize his few survivors in the forest. It might take him weeks to mount another raid, and he had no need of a girl to slow him down. Michelle would make her mark in Port-au-Prince, where all her enemies were congregated. Once Petoit had seen what she could do, he might think twice about permitting her to join his band full-time.

  But where to start?

  She rattled off the list of names she had memorized from conversations with her father. Someone would be able to assist her, point her in the right direction. If they couldn't help her personally, they could give her other names, new contacts.

  Suddenly she had it. Marie Dufresne.

  Her father used to speak the name with something close to reverence. Michelle had wondered, sometimes, if Marie might be his lover. Not that a liaison would have shocked her; years had passed since her mother's death, and she was conscious of the yearning that could prey upon a man — or on his daughter. If Marie Dufresne had loved her father, it was all the better for Michelle. In that case, she wouldn't be turned away.

  She thought about her promise, made to Michael Blanski when they separated, hours past. It had been easy then to swear that she wouldn't set foot outside or jeopardize herself in any way. Exhausted and beset by grief, she willingly agreed to wait for him, a prisoner inside this homey cage, until he finished with his enemies and found the time to claim her once again.

  She recognized that he was acting in her own best interests, but it made no difference. His struggle wasn't hers, and he had suffered nothing of her loss. In other circumstances, she had been prepared to use her body as a lure, to win his help — and she was still excited by the thought of the American's touch — but everything had changed with the arrival of the helicopters, raining lethal fire from heaven. Pleasure had no place in her considerations now. Michelle had found a higher calling.

  There was every possibility that it might cost her life, but at the moment, she wasn't afraid. Alone, she bore the Saint-Cyr name, and she couldn't afford to cower in the darkness like a helpless invalid while others did her fighting for her in the streets.

  If Blanski struck a telling blow against the enemy, so much the better, but she wouldn't wait for him in solitude, afraid to show her face outside. She had a job to do, and she could put it off no longer.

  She must find Marie Dufresne.

  11

  Despite his long experience in dealing with police and the Macoutes, Langois was startled when the violence erupted without warning. It was customary for the riot squad to issue ultimatums, granting time for demonstrators to disperse before they unleashed tear gas, waded in with truncheons and electric prods. Langois had no intention of retreating, but his people needed time, however brief, to brace themselves for the attack.

  Instead police along the barricades discharged a cloud of tear gas toward the marching crowd without a word of warning. Father Paul had time to close his eyes and pivot in his tracks before the cloud enveloped him and he began to gag. He'd been gassed before and knew he wouldn't die unless a solid gas projectile knocked him down, but he couldn't avoid the momentary rush of panic that accompanied being blinded in a cloud of choking fumes.

  Around him he could hear the scream and curses of his fellow marchers, answered by the snarling voices of policemen, which were muffled by their gas masks as they surged forward to punish and arrest the dissidents. Langois was disappointed that the march hadn't been able to proceed downtown before they were attacked, but he could still provide a fair diversion for his comrades in the forest.

  "Forward!"

  As he shouted the instruction. Father Paul inhaled a reeking whiff of gas and doubled over, coughing. Someone jostled him in the direction of the barricades, another moving body knocked him back. Langois forced himself to use his burning eyes.

  A line of uniforms and helmets loomed in front of him, the rubber gas masks making the riot officers resemble giant insects. Clubs were falling in a steady cadence, driving women to the earth along with men and boys. He saw a pregnant woman battered to the pavement, and an officer hung back to kick her stomach, twice, before he moved along in search of other targets.

  Father Paul broke to his left, unsteady on his feet as he began to thread his way through stumbling, falling bodies. Here and there the marchers were resisting, fighting back with bricks and bottles, swinging bludgeons of their own. Langois would once have called for them to stop, but now he felt a surge of grim elation that embarrassed him. Somehow, within the past eight hours, he had shifted from the spiritual support of soldiers to participation in their war.

  He prayed that God would understand.

  Above the screams and curses, he could hear a harsh, metallic clanking sound, the rustle of a heavy engine, and he knew the water cannon had arrived. Protected by their armored vehicle, the crew approached to point-blank range, the riot infantry retreating to provide an open field of fire. Langois had nearly reached the curb when it began.

  Within a second and a half the world turned crimson.

  They were firing water mixed with dye, he realized, to mark the dissidents for subsequent arrest. It was a startling effect, as if the cannon had been accidentally connected to a reservoir of blood.

  The stream began its sweep from left to right and overshot Langois the first time. He was scuttling for the cover of an alley when the cannon started spitting rapid pulses toward the crowd, each charge delivering the impact of a giant's fist. Langois was struck beneath one arm and staggered, slipping in the crimson froth around his feet. A second blow fell square between his shoulder blades and slammed him forward on his face, the impact emptying his lungs.

  Police were on him in an instant, with truncheons raining blows across his back and shoulders. They avoided beating him about the head, as if determined he should not lose consciousness.

  He was delivered to an alleyway where other officers, in spotless uniforms, were waiting patiently. He recognized the Tonton Macoutes on sight, and made a feeble effort to escape the clutches of his captors, earning half a dozen solid blows across his back and ribs.

  The taller of the two Macoutes stepped forward, smiling. "Father Paul Langois?" he asked almost respectfully.

  "I am."

  Still smiling, the Macoute drew back one foot and kicked Langois directly in the testicles. The two arresting officers released him simultaneously, and Langois surrendered to the pull of gravity, collapsing in his misery.

  The pain was beyond imagination. It deprived him of the power to speak or reason, left him bringing up the remnants of his breakfast, knees pulled up against his chest. The taste of tear gas was forgotten in a heartbeat. Nothing mattered but the agony that centered on his wounded genitals.

  They let him suffer for a moment more before they sco
oped him up, strong hands beneath his armpits, and began to drag him down the alley. Father Paul could feel the gravel scraping on his shoes, but for the moment he couldn't control his legs. A blessed numbness had begun to settle in below his waist, permitting him to think of something else behind his pain.

  He'd been taken by Macoutes, and swiftly, in the general confusion of the protest. That could only mean that they were waiting for him, watching, confident that he would show himself if he were still alive. It also meant interrogation — torture — and his recent brush with agony gave the priest a preview of his future.

  He'd often thought about the possibility of capture and interrogation by the feared Macoutes, but it had been an abstract exercise, the way green soldiers commonly discuss their plans for action on the eve of combat. Now he realized that being clubbed and gassed in demonstrations was a far cry from dissection at the hands of madmen, knowing there was nothing you could say or do to stop the pain.

  They wouldn't let him go, Langois decided, even if he told them all he knew. He'd been singled out, selected. They would use his punishment as an example to the dissidents who followed him. He didn't have a prayer of leaving custody alive.

  In some way, understanding that his death was certain, Father Paul gained strength. His enemies might break him, given time, but he wouldn't begin by crawling at their feet. Resistance bought more time for the surviving rebels to regroup, reorganize, retaliate.

  Eventually, unless he died, Langois knew he'd tell his captors everything he knew. No man was physically unbreakable, once drugs and cunning torture were employed. The cinema made light of torture, showing heroes who resisted each technique in turn, delivering terse wisecracks on the side, but Father Paul had seen survivors of Macoute interrogations — and the pitiful remains of many who hadn't survived. He knew that he would talk.

  In time.

  Before he reached the waiting van, Langois had found the strength to help support himself on shaky legs. He took it as a sign. In his imagination, the Macoutes seemed disappointed by his relatively swift recovery.