Lang grinned. Miles Berkly, scion of one of Alabama’s wealthiest families, prepped at Groton-or was it St. Paul’s?-and then on to Princeton. Educated, cultured and totally without false modesty. He wore suits that would have cost a month’s pay had he purchased them on his salary. He had been Lang’s best friend at the Agency. Fortunately for Lang, a combination of political connections and a brilliant record had saved Miles from the post-Cold War cuts. From time to time Lang had needed favors that would have been unavailable to someone without access to the Agency’s resources.
“I need a favor.”
A theatrical sigh. “And I had hoped you were calling to tell me Gurt had regained her senses and left you, that she was available again. She hot as ever?”
“Eat your heart out, Miles. I’ve got a bit of a problem I hope you can help me with.”
“That’s me. Good deed a day.”
Lang picked up the disk. “I’ve got a disk with a running sequence of a man who broke into our house. I’d like to e-mail it to you and have you run it through the Agency’s face-recognition program.”
A dry chuckle. “You need to talk to the Fibbies. They’re the ones who keep files on your average American burglars, robbers, congressmen and other members of the criminal element.”
“I think this guy is more than that.”
“Divine inspiration or you have something to base that on?”
Lang turned the disk over in his hand. “If you have the time, I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“No need. I’ll take your word for it. You know that specific technology isn’t exactly open to the public. I could get in deep shit for using it for a non-Agency purpose.”
“That mean you can’t do it?”
“No, it means you owe me big time. Here’s the e-mail address.. .”
Petionville, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
The next evening
The restaurant was deserted. White-linen-topped tables surrounded a pool like mounds of snow around a mountain lake. Plates were in place, silverware arranged as though for some ghostly banquet. The evening’s gentle breeze ruffled the surface of the blue water to the cadence of the songs of tree frogs. It was hard to believe that only a few miles away, all downhill, the city was a muggy cesspool with nighttime temperatures in the high eighties and no movement of the torpid air.
Undersecretary Chin Diem knew: he had exited the private jet and broken into a sweat before he reached the bottom of the staircase and the air-conditioned Mercedes. He had been surprised when the car delivered him not to the presidential palace but to this place-Bistro La Lantern, according to the sign in front. His questions had brought uncomprehending stares from the driver and the other man in the front seat. At least he thought they were staring. It was hard to tell, when both wore reflective sunglasses that concealed the upper part of their faces.
Diem distrusted people who wore sunglasses at night like American movie stars.
Distrust or not, though, here he was beside a pool, looking at the city below without any idea why. All he knew was that he had received an urgent note from Haiti’s ambassador to the People’s Republic demanding in most undiplomatic language his immediate return to Haiti. Perhaps the president for life had yet another demand. He sighed.
Something streaked the surface of the water like a fish striking prey. But there were no fish. He could see the bottom of the pool and there was nothing in there but water. He was still puzzling over the occurrence when it happened again.
The wind?
No.
Quite impossible. He had felt no sudden gust that would slash the surface as though something had been ripped through it. For reasons he could not have explained, he looked over his shoulder, seeing no one but the two men who had brought him here.
He shivered but not from the warm breeze. He hated this place. Not only the sewer that was Port-au-Prince, but this largely barren area, stripped of the lush vegetation indigenous to these latitudes. The constant sound of drums at night, the voodoo of natives who worshipped gods, loa, that were an equal mixture of Christian saints and African spirits, gave him the creeps even though he had been reared to believe in no power higher than the state.
The water’s surface parted again, this time with an audible ripple.
Diem stood just in time to see a tiny shape, all but indistinguishable against the night, as it flitted away. A bat! The little creature was drinking from the pool in midflight. Diem gritted his teeth. He hated rodents, winged or otherwise.
His revulsion was quickly forgotten at the sound of footsteps. Another man behind mirrored sunglasses, this one perhaps the supposedly deaf bodyguard he had seen on his last trip, followed by two men in uniform with holsters on their belts.
Behind them, President for Life Tashmal duPaar, in what Diem guessed was dress uniform. More like Gilbert and Sullivan, complete with a galaxy of medals. He strode to the table as though marching to his own coronation.
As Diem stood, duPaar waved a hand, indicating the restaurant. “A good choice, is it not? Beautiful view, pleasant surroundings. And the food!” He touched his lips.
“I’m sure, Mr. President. But there are no other customers…”
“Aha!” DuPaar waved a dismissive hand. “Of course there are no other customers! I had the place cleared. Few are worthy of dining with the president of Haiti, and besides, other customers present security issues.”
“Ah, of course.”
As the two men were about to sit down, a figure dashed out of darkness to take the back of duPaar’s chair. A man, a Haitian of indeterminate age, seated duPaar and said something in what Diem guessed was Creole.
“The owner. He says it is a privilege to have me dine here tonight,” the president for life translated before replying in the same tongue. “I have ordered us a cocktail, as the Americans say, a taste of Barbancourt, our world-famous rum.”
Diem drank little, even less when on business, but like so many diplomats, he had learned how to take the tiniest of sips, enough to be able to comment on, say, a fine wine, but far too little to reach any stage of inebriation.
When duPaar had thrown down his second glass of the amber liquid, two beer bottles appeared. Though bearing the same label, one was green, the other brown. One long necked, the other not. One was certainly, or had been, a Budweiser. Haitian brewers, it seemed, recycled the bottles of their peers in other countries.
“Good Haitian beer,” duPaar announced. “Unlike some here in Petionville who drink the finest of French wines, I am a man of the common people, drink what they drink. One of the reasons they love me so. Besides, beer will go better with the dinner I have ordered prepared.”
The undersecretary saw no reason to mention the fact that few of those “common people” in the city below could afford to spend more than the national average annual income in an establishment like this, nor would he inquire why such security was necessary for a man so beloved.
The proprietor and another man placed platters before each man.
“ Lambi with rice,” duPaar announced. “Small, er, conchs dried in the sun and cooked with a spicy sauce. It goes well with beer, does it not?”
It would have gone better with CO 2 out of a fire extinguisher. The small, experimental bite Diem had taken singed his tongue and was now consuming his entire mouth. He was afraid to swallow for fear he would incinerate his intestines and stomach. Szechuan Chinese food was hot but a mere summer zephyr compared to the inferno he was experiencing.
He grabbed the beer bottle and emptied half of it at a gulp.
“As I said, the beer goes with the food, do you not agree?”
Diem was using his linen napkin to stanch the tears running down his cheeks. In his diplomatic career, he had been subjected to cuisine including hummingbird tongues, raw monkey brains and fried insects, but he had never suffered anything so painful.