Deep rumble of laughter. He thrust his head into the hole, so the light was masked, and turned the flashlight on his face.
“I’m Duppy, blanc. You the man Swan tell us about? The Sam Fletcher man?”
I nodded. “I’m Fletcher.”
I didn’t give myself away. I’ve had too much practice for that. But the moment I saw that broad, shining black face, that expanse of white gap-toothed smile, I knew who Duppy was. We had his picture in the AXE files. Every AXE man spends a lot of time going through those files and memorizing and I do my homework as well as any.
The picture showed him as a younger man, and with hair — his head was shaven now — but it was the same man.
His real name was Diaz Ortega and he was a Cuban. He had once held a high rank in Cuban Intelligence, when he and Che Guevara had been buddy-buddy. Now Che was dead and Ortega would have been dead too if he hadn’t run for it in time. Castro had found out that Ortega was really KGB, working for the Kremlin, keeping an eye on the Cubans.
The black man extended a massive hand down to me. “Come on, blanc. Fletcher. We got no time to lose, man.”
I ignored the hand and said that I had things to do first. I had to make Sea Witch fast, string fenders so she wouldn’t rub a hole in her planking, and get our gear ashore. I would be along presently.
We were whispering in the dark. “I got men to do all that, Fletcher. We got no time for it.”
“I’ll take time,” I said. “And I’ll do it. I don’t want anybody coming aboard. Swan doesn’t either. She must have told you that?”
“Where Swan?”
“Right here, Duppy! How are you, you big monster?”
Lyda squeezed past me, reaching for my hand and pressing it as she did so. Her lips brushed my ear as she breathed: “Let me handle him.”
I gave her an assist up through the trapdoor in the dock. They whispered and I heard the sound of a kiss. Duppy growled deep in his throat, like an animal, and I caught some of it.
“This Fletcher man… boss already… who he think… I…”
Discord already. Not a happy omen. I shook it away and made Sea Witch fast. I hung out the fenders. Then I remembered and cursed myself and went back to rig the lines again because I hadn’t allowed for the fall of the tide. We had come in at high tide, purposely, and I damned near goofed it I told myself to get with it, Carter, and take things as they came. One at a time. Don’t rush matters. Sooner or later I would find out what Diaz Ortega, a Kremlin man, was doing in Haiti trying to promote the Black Swan’s invasion.
Until then I had to keep my mouth shut and play my cards close to my vest and stay alive. I had to get Romera Valdez out or kill him. I had to check on the missiles and atomic warheads Papa Doc was supposed to have. I had to watch Lyda Bonaventure and see that she didn’t stage an invasion. I had to — oh, the hell with it, I thought as I collected all the gear and lugged it up to the fly bridge. One of Hawk’s coarse jokes, when he is overwhelmed with work, is that he is “as busy as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking!”
One thing I decided as I crawled up through the trap door. When, and if, I got back I was sure as hell going to ask for a raise. I don’t mind work, and I don’t mind danger, but of late it had been getting a little much.
I pulled the gear up through the trapdoor and flung it on the deck. I made out the moving shadows of men around me and there was a lot of whispering. No sign of Lyda and Duppy.
One of the shadows spoke to me. “Swan and Duppy go to shore, blanc. Say you come now.”
It had begun to rain, the wind blowing a fine mist into my face. The shadows around me were silent and I heard drums working far inland. One of the shadows was fitting the trap door into place. Two other figures, dimly seen, picked up the packs and musette bags and walked off down the old dock. I for owed them.
Beside me a voice said, “Watch for holes, blanc. Dock very old and rotten. This for sure a break leg place.”
I was lugging Lyda’s machine gun as well as my own. I slogged along, silent, dogged by the shadow. I tried to repress thoughts about Diaz Ortega. In time. First things first.
The man beside me said, low voiced, “Swan say no invasion this time, blanc. How is this come? We ready for invade for long time now, hang Papa Doc to tall tree. How come this, blanc?”
I said that I didn’t know either. I worked for Swan and I took orders the same as anyone else. Ask Swan, not me.
I heard him spit. Then he made a sucking, sighing sound and said, “I think we wait too long. Something big going on now for sure, blanc. Lots of troops and Tonton Macoute around now. They shoot a lot of people, hang some, and burn many huts and villages. I hear tell all people got to get off land for many miles. You know why that, blanc?”
I said I didn’t know. I didn’t either, but I could make an educated guess. If Papa Doc was clearing the land for miles around then he had a good use for that land. He wanted it for something. Something urgent.
Like a missile range?
Chapter 8
The thin drizzle petered out with the dawn and the sun came up huge and red over the Bishop’s Cap, a blunt peak scarred by the ruins of The Citadel. I was propped on my elbows in dense scrub, studying the scene with powerful binoculars. I didn’t waste much time on the Citadel, that massive eyrie built by King H&nri Christophe, the black Napoleon, against the real Napoleon who never came. That was old history. Right now we were sitting in a hotbox where new history was being made.
We were halfway up a mountain on a scrubby ledge. At the foot of the slope, up which we had come so recently with frantic, panting haste, a narrow stone and dirt road skirted the base of the mountains. We had barely made our cover before daylight, and then only because Duppy had set a blistering and merciless pace.
“We get caught in the open,” he said, “we dead men. That bastard P.P. got his own helicopter patrol.”
Now, in conaealment, I watched one of the helicopters fluttering low over a patrol jeep on the narrow road. Talking by radio. The ‘copter was German, one of the new 105s, with five seats and a cargo compartment. As I studied it I thought that maybe P.P. himself was in it. Hawk’s notes had indicated that Trevelyn was a man who trusted no one, and liked to oversee things himself.
There was plenty to oversee. A mile down the road a small village was burning. Except for a French-looking church built of stone, the shacks and huts were all of crude timber and palm thatch, natural tinder, and flames and smoke drifted upward in a thick column to be caught and — twisted westward by the wind.
Tonton Macoute, dressed in civilian clothes and all heavily armed, were escorting a straggling column of people away from the village. They looked like refugees in a war movie, except that they were all blacks and they were not laden with many possessions. The bogymen hadn’t given them much time to get moving.
I swept my glasses back to the village square and adjusted the focus. There was a well in the square and, near it, a single great tree. From one long thick limb of the tree dangled four bodies — three men and a woman. They hung inert, limp, heads twisted cruelly to one side. Objectors. They must have argued with the Tonton Macoute.
I caught the odor and feel of Lyda as she wriggled up beside me. She took the binoculars from me and adjusted them, then stared at the village for a long time. I watched her ripe mouth go taut and lines form on her smooth face as she scowled.
“That dirty son of a bitch,” she said. “That bastard! He’ll pay for this. Oh, he’ll pay!”
The helicopter left the jeep and tilted away, beating for altitude. I snuggled deeper into the thick brush and watched Lyda.