5 The French Revolution not only overthrew the monarchy but the powers of the Catholic Church, whom the revolutionaries viewed as much an oppressor of the people as the king and nobility. The official policy of the French government even today is regarded by many as anticlerical.
6 Despite such language, Napoleon did little to further the cause of Corsican independence. The island is still French today.
7 A royalist uprising in Paris almost disrupted the National Convention. Napoleon, who had recently been promoted to general but was out of favor, was the closest officer available. He dispersed the royalists with what he would later describe as “a whiff of grapeshot,” killing about a hundred of them. Most scholars attribute his rapid rise to this incident.
CHAPTER ONE
Petionville, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
November of last year
Chin Diem, undersecretary for foreign relations of the People’s Republic of China, admired the view. Spread out below the mansion’s picture window was the city, its lights cradled below the mountain like a handful of jewels. Fortunately, far below. Far enough that the stench of open sewers, uncollected garbage and burning charcoal that had assaulted his nose upon his arrival could not reach him. Neither could the flies and mosquitoes that seemed the country’s most populous fauna. Up here the residences were multimillion-dollar mansions on multiacre lots. Their owners shopped regularly in Paris or Milan. The residents of Petionville owned over 90 percent of what little wealth Haiti possessed. And that had come largely from offshore, untraceable investments originally funded mostly from foreign aid, money that had seen the beginnings of schools, the foundations of hospitals, projects never finished as funding trickled into well-connected pockets.
There was no din of hucksters up here, selling everything from carved figures with grotesquely enlarged penises to fly-ridden food to black market-discounted gourdes, the national currency, which proclaimed itself to equal twenty-five cents American but was actually without value outside the country.
The night and distance also blotted out the movement. Port-au-Prince was a city in constant action. No Haitian, from naked children to shirtless men to skirt-wearing women, young or old, was ever still. Not unless they were squatting beside the ubiquitous charcoal fires on which they prepared every meal on the filthy, noisy streets in front of rickety shacks or apartments.
Or, perhaps, were dead.
But Chin Diem had not come to this diminutive country for socioeconomic observations. His government jet had intentionally arrived after dark, when the prying eyes of what few foreign news correspondents remained in this poverty-ridden corner of the Caribbean would be unable to see who was disembarking. A Mercedes with darkly tinted windows had met him on the tarmac and he had been whisked here rather than to the alabaster capitol building in downtown Port-au-Prince. Had anyone been curious enough to check the aircraft’s number against flight plans, a process made ridiculously easy by the Internet, they would have ascertained the aircraft, registered to a Swiss company, had departed Geneva, its previous stop.
Nothing more.
Secrecy was imperative if his visit to this humid, stinking place was to be successful. Secrecy and a great deal of diplomacy, for he was dealing with a madman, a leader of a country, every bit as volatile, egotistic and unpredictable as that lunatic China could barely control in North Korea. Fortunately, though, Tashmal duPaar, another in the dreary and endless procession of Haiti’s “presidents for life,” lacked power outside his tropical domain. He had but a small army and no nuclear weapons. In short, he lacked what Diem was prepared to provide.
It was not particularly remarkable that duPaar had managed to seize power from the duly elected president. He had been the senior officer of the country’s military. As such, he simply marched a dozen men armed with outdated but deadly U.S. Army-surplus rifles into the capitol building and dismissed the president, his cabinet and the sitting parliament. It had been an all-too-familiar move in Haiti and one of which the rest of the world, particularly America, had grown weary. Demands that the United Nations peacekeeping force withdraw were complied with in an eager expeditiousness that bespoke the futility with which the international community viewed the country. A condemning resolution ricocheted around the halls of the UN, the world’s most useless debating society. The former Haitian ambassador to the United States, along with his UN counterpart, had sought sanctuary rather than return home, and the matter had died a short and unproductive death. Countries that exported little other than their own citizens tended to attract little attention. As for the people of Haiti, they were far more concerned about the next meal than the next politician to occupy this sumptuous home above Port-au-Prince.
Diem’s thoughts scattered as an Uzi-carrying bodyguard entered the room, followed by a small black man in a uniform literally sagging with the weight of medals-duPaar.
Diem turned from the window and bowed deeply. “Mr. President.”
The president for life acknowledged him with a wave of the hand before sliding behind a mammoth, gilt-edged Boulle partners desk that made him look even smaller. “Good evening, Mr. Secretary.”
Since duPaar spoke no Chinese and the Chinese diplomat certainly knew no Creole, the blend of mangled French and West African dialects that is the language of Haiti, the men would converse in English.
Diem nodded toward the armed guard. “My understanding was that this meeting would include only us.”
DuPaar shrugged. “My enemies will do anything to get at me, even a suicidal attempt. The man is deaf. He will hear nothing to repeat.”
Chin Diem refrained from pointing out that even his casual appraisal of the presidential palace on arrival had revealed security befitting the leader of a country under siege. Nothing less than an armored or airborne division could penetrate the walls, gun emplacements and security cameras he had seen. He assumed there was a lot he had not seen, too. Instead, he indicated a French wing chair, one of a pair upholstered in blue silk that was showing both stains and its age. He raised an eyebrow in a question.
“Yes, yes, of course. Please sit.”
Chin did so, reaching into a pocket inside his black silk suit.
Instantly, he was looking down the muzzle of the guard’s Uzi. Gingerly, he removed his hand, holding a pack of American Marlboros. “May I?”
In reply, duPaar opened a desk drawer and produced an ashtray with the words Fontainebleau Hotel Miami Beach on two sides. He smiled slyly as he slid it across the desk’s inlay top. “As you can see, I, like you, have traveled widely.”
Once again, Diem said nothing as he busied himself with lighting a cigarette.
Then, nodding to a painting behind duPaar’s head, he asked, “That is a Bazile, is it not?”
For the first time the president for life smiled, showing teeth the color of old ivory. “You know Bazile?”
“I know of several of your country’s painters. Bazile reveals himself by his use of several shades of green, more green than all other colors combined.”
DuPaar produced a cigar from somewhere, bit off the end and spit out the tip. He spoke between puffs as he applied a wooden match. “The green mirrors the lushness of the country.”
Not if the pictures of Port-au-Prince’s neighboring countryside Chin had seen were accurate. The surrounding mountains were eroded dirt, the trees having been long ago stripped away to make charcoal. “I see.”
DuPaar leaned back in his chair, his feet on the desk. Chin noticed his short legs barely reached. “Well? You did not come this distance to speak of artists.”