Dust Up: A Thriller (26 page)

But I had an idea of someone who maybe could.

Before I could go on, Miriam turned to Regi. “Surely you can use the health ministry to get the word out? This is a health crisis.”

“Dissette, my boss, he’s in on it. Or at least afraid of it. I need to go around him.”

“Yes,” I said. “We need to tell Cardon about all this. About Gaden and Saint Benezet. About Ducroix and what he’s up to. And if we’re not too late, he can stop the coup and tell the world about all this. But we also need to block the release of Soyagene-X. There’s only one thing I can think of that can stop a massive multinational corporation like Energene—and that’s an even bigger one.” They both looked up at me. “We need to tell Archie Pearce he’s about to get fucked.”

As I said it, something out the window made me pause. The police were slowly advancing on the protestors, and the student with the megaphone was pointing at them. I couldn’t have heard what he was saying even if it were in English, but I could hear his voice rising in pitch and volume. And urgency.

There was a noise like a thick branch snapping, and for an instant, everything was quiet and still.

“Oh shit,” I said.

“What is it?” Miriam asked.

Regi stepped up beside me.

The megaphone fell to the ground. So did the student who’d been holding it, twisting as he hit the pavement. I saw a brief flash of red on his white T-shirt. Then chaos erupted as the police charged, and the students began running in all directions.

66

“We need to go,” I said, scooping up the papers. “Grab everything. Anything we need, anything important.”

Out the window, the police were chasing the students, many of whom were running toward the lab building, toward us. The far side of the plaza was almost empty except for the lone student lying on the ground, surrounded by a growing pool of red.

Regi stood there a second longer, his eyes smoldering. He turned to me as if he needed someone to witness his rage.

I clapped him on the shoulder. “We need to go.”

He nodded, an icy calm descending over him as he crossed to one of the cabinets. He pulled out a large plastic tote filled with boxes of test tubes, beakers, and other supplies. He took off the lid and flipped it over, gently spilling the contents out onto the floor. Then he went around the room, methodically collecting sample bottles, trays, and the bags of soy and corn.

As he did this, Miriam stared out the window in horror, mesmerized by the sight of the battle down below, the body on the ground. Canisters of tear gas arced through the air, leaving trails behind them, bouncing in the midst of the scrambling protestors.

By the time she turned away from the window, Regi was snapping the lid back onto the tote.

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice flat.

As we hurried out into the hallway, there was a distant bang and a crash as the front doors of the building slammed open. Miriam jumped at the sound and froze in her tracks. I took the tote from Regi and nodded toward her. He put his arm around her and coaxed her toward the steps.

Sounds of commotion and panic echoed up the stairs as we descended. When we were almost at the bottom, a pair of students burst through the door, their eyes wide with fear.

They stopped and stared at us, probably wondering if we were friend or foe. I figured we could fit two more in the car, and I was about to tell them to come with us, but they dashed around us and ran up the stairs.

None of us said a word. We just hurried down the last few steps to the rear exit.

I pushed the door open. The car was ten feet away. It was a pleasant sunny day.

We stepped outside, and for a moment, everything was calm and peaceful, as if the mayhem we’d seen from the window out in front hadn’t actually happened. Then two students rounded the side of the building, running full speed and coughing violently. Their eyes were bright red and their faces streaming wet.

They hopped the little fence at the back of the parking lot and kept running without slowing down, into the sparse brush behind the university.

I turned to Regi. “Give me the keys.”

He paused, but I nodded and beckoned with my fingers. He fished them out of his pocket and tossed them to me.

I put the tote in the trunk, and we got in. I took a deep breath and drove off slowly, toward the side entrance where we had come in. To our left, through the fog of tear gas, we could see police in masks chasing down protestors and beating them with truncheons.

Miriam put her hand over her mouth. Regi’s eyes narrowed.

I wanted to get us away as quickly as possible, but I kept my foot light on the gas, twenty miles an hour. A couple of the police looked over at us, but then they went back to what they were doing. When we reached the exit, I turned and drove past the police vehicles, keeping it slow but ready to stomp on the gas at any moment. Only a few police remained back with the vehicles. One of them stepped out onto the side of the road, not quite in front of us. He leaned forward squinting, fingering his rifle. I just kept driving, and I guess we looked different enough from the students, because he waved us by impatiently, like he wanted us out of the way.

I gave it some gas, then a little more, watching in my rearview as they receded behind us.

When we were a hundred yards away, Miriam turned in her seat and looked out the back window.

She shook her head, her face regaining some of the same bleak resignation I’d seen earlier. “They’re going to kill us all,” she said. “And then they’re going to do whatever else they want.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “But we need to get you someplace safe.” I turned to Regi. “And you have to get word to President Cardon. We have to let him know what’s happening.”

“I’ve been trying. I can’t get through to him.”

We were driving back through Limonade. Police were everywhere.

“You have to try harder. By the looks of it, Ducroix might already be making his move.”

He took out his phone and called Chantale again. This time, his voice was sharp, hard. Each time Chantale spoke, he would reply with a sharp “No!” continuing on more insistently than before. They went back and forth four or five times, and then suddenly he stopped. “Allo? Allo? Chantale?” He put the phone down, stunned. “She hung up on me.”

“Where are they?”

“She said he was in Plaisance.”

“Where is that?”

“It’s not too far, maybe an hour. I used to go there in the summer as a child. That’s how I know Cardon. But she wouldn’t say where in Plaisance he was or why he was there. And she wouldn’t even agree to give him my message. She didn’t sound right.”

“We might have to just go there and find him. Is Plaisance a big city? A little village? Would he be hard to find there?”

He shook his head. “It’s a quarter of the size of Cap-Haïtien, not big but not so small, either. Still, he is the president, so unless he is hiding, we should be able to find him. I don’t know if he will agree to see me.”

“You’re going to have to insist. Can Miriam stay at your place while we’re gone?”

He looked at her. “Of course.”

“I don’t need to stay hidden,” she protested. “I’m in this at least as much as you two.”

We were just entering Cap-Haïtien when Regi’s phone rang. He scrambled to get it out of his pocket and answer it, “Allo?… Allo, Chantale,” a tiny bit of relief softening his face. It didn’t last long. As the conversation went briefly back and forth, the life drained from his face. He thanked her quietly and let the phone fall away from his face.

“That was Chantale. Her personal phone. She thinks Cardon is in hiding. Ducroix and his men are searching for him.”

“What does that mean?” Miriam asked. “Are we too late? Has there already been a coup?”

He looked at me. “I don’t know. If they don’t have him, they haven’t arrested him. He is still the president. But if he is out of the capital, they might just say he has been deposed.”

“The trade vote is tomorrow, right?” I said. “Surely they wouldn’t stage a coup right beforehand. The vote would have no legitimacy.”

Regi thought for a moment. “It would be brazen. But I don’t know if they wouldn’t still try it.”

I drove faster. “We need to get the word out about all this. We need to tell the world about Energene’s plan, and about Ducroix, not just the coup but about Gaden and Saint Benezet. And we need to get word about it to Cardon, as well. It will have more impact coming from him. Maybe enough to get the international community involved. That might be enough to stop it.”

As we pulled up in front of his house, Regi snapped his fingers. “I think I know where he is.”

67

“There are ruins of an old fort in the mountains not far from Plaisance, near where Cardon used to live. We often went there in the summer, and he would go on and on about the thick walls, the elaborate secret tunnels, how the position was so defensible a small force could hold off a much larger one. Even as an adult, he has mentioned it. If he and his guard were nearby and under siege, I bet that’s where he would go.” He looked at us both. “I must go there immediately. And I should go alone. I know the area well, and you will just draw attention.”

I gestured to the Jeep parked up the street. “There’s a rifle in the Jeep, and a pistol. You should take one of them with you.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know what to do with them. But it’s getting dangerous around here, so you should keep them close.” He gave me a set of keys. “More important, you should stay out of sight. Take Miriam to Elena’s—there’s room for both of you. And stay indoors.”

“We need to get word out,” Miriam said.

“We’ll get the word out,” I told her as we got out of the car. “But first we need to get off the street. I’m just going to grab the guns from the Jeep.”

Guns complicated things, usually more than expected, but Regi was right—it was getting dangerous. I ran up the street to the Jeep, and as I was reaching for the gun under the seat, I heard vehicles approaching. Something about the sound made me pause, made me stay low and dip my head down. Two white police SUVs came around the corner, fast.

Regi and Miriam stepped backward, toward the house, but it was too late. The SUVs pulled up on either side of them. Each had a large red shield insignia on the side, a cheetah underneath the scales of justice and the letters DCPJ. Around the border were the words
DIRECTION CENTRALE DE LA POLICE JUDICIAIRE
. The Judicial Police. Two pairs of officers jumped out. They were heavily armed but wore crisp white shirts instead of fatigues.

Regi lifted one hand slightly in my direction, patting the air without looking at me, urging me to stay put. Miriam’s eyes went wide, and she turned to look at me imploringly.

As the police walked up to them, the tallest one took out a piece of paper, presumably an arrest warrant, and began reading in Kreyol. Regi replied in a calm tone. The cop ignored him, turning to Miriam instead. This time, I heard him: “
Ou se
Miriam Hartwell?”

Regi translated for her—“Are you Miriam Hartwell?”—and she nodded, glancing back at me, worried. I crouched even lower as two officers stepped around behind her and one of them took out handcuffs. Regi stepped in between them, protesting. He held up his government ID, puffing out his chest, and for a moment, it seemed like it might be working. The tall guy with the paper stepped back, and the one with the handcuffs paused. Then the tall one shook his head and held up the second page of the document, which had a photo, presumably of Miriam. He resumed reading. The other one cuffed Miriam, and when Regi protested again, they shoved him out of the way.

Miriam shook as they led her to one of the vehicles. Regi put his hand on her shoulder, speaking into her ear, translating or just reassuring her. As they placed her inside one of the vehicles, she glanced one last time in my direction.

I had the handgun in my hand, but there was nothing I could do. The situation was all wrong. They were too far from me, too close to her, and I couldn’t just start shooting police who were executing a legitimate warrant.

As they closed the door, she called out, “Regi?”

“Don’t worry, Miriam,” he called back. “We’ll get you out, okay?”

She gave him a brave nod, then the door closed.

I’d been so busy and distracted by events in Haiti, I hadn’t had time to think of Mike Warren, but I felt a surge of anger and disgust. Even from thousands of miles away, he still managed to fuck things up.

The tall cop stepped back in front of Regi, towering over him, and said, “
Èske w konnen ki kote
Doyle Carrick
?”

I don’t know what it meant, but I recognized my name, and I knew they were looking for me. Regi shook his head.

For a moment, the cops just stood there, then they got into their vehicles and rumbled down the street.

When they turned the corner, I emerged from my hiding place.

Regi didn’t move, just stared after them, his eyes burning with anger and frustration.

As Miriam’s terrified voice echoed in my mind, I thought about Nola and tried not to picture her in a similar situation. My stomach clenched tighter.

Regi’s head finally swiveled in my direction, and we approached each other, meeting in the middle of the street.

“What did they say?” I asked.

“They had a warrant for her arrest. An extradition request from the United States. For murder.” He looked up at me. “There was nothing I could do. There was nothing you could do, either.”

I knew he was right.

“They asked about you, too,” he said.

“I heard my name.”

“You need to be careful while I’m gone.”

I nodded.

“We’ll get her out,” he said. “I know people at DCPJ. I’ll call them. The Judicial Police is more independent, not so much under Ducroix’s control. If she’s really wanted for extradition, she’ll be okay. They’ll take good care of her if they’re sending her back to the States.”

“Even in the middle of a coup?”

His confidence faltered, but he said, “Yes. Even the bad guys want to stay on the Americans’ good side. She might be safer with them than on the street.”