The Zombie Game

by Glenn Shepard

  The truck sped away and drove right into a deep rut, knocking the cover off the bodies. The truck stopped and one of the passengers jumped out and ran to the back of the truck. There was no time to escape. Jakjak took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and lay stiff beside the bodies.

  The man pulled the cover back over the heads of the corpses. Jakjak began to sweat profusely as the man used the barrel of his rifle to tuck the canvas under his left side. Jakjak’s heart pounded in his chest. Blood oozed from his bullet wounds. If he weren’t already dead, this man would finish the job.

  Suddenly the driver honked the horn. The man ran back to the cab of the truck. As badly as he wanted to look and see where they were taking the bodies, he remained perfectly still.

  After a bumpy twenty-minute ride, the truck stopped. Jakjak jumped out and hid beside the road. He watched as the men unloaded the bodies, took them to a dock, and threw them into an open, twenty-four-foot-long lateen sailboat. The truck drove away, and the three men on the boat pushed away from the dock as the sail caught a gust of wind.

  Jakjak prayed, but saw no vision to direct him. The Vodoun spirits gave him no direction, but he had a feeling of power. He was a zombie, so his strength must be supernatural, even though he couldn’t roll the stone door in the cave. He stretched his hands out in front of him and faked a staggered gait. Then he stopped and laughed at himself. I’m not much of a zombie. I don’t even walk like one.

  Holding his shoulders high, he walked along the streets toward the Ministry of Finance offices. He walked like he’d always walked, and it felt natural.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Beneath the National Palace

  Port-au-Prince, Haiti

  1:30 p.m.

  Julien Duran stood to stretch his stiff legs and in doing so bumped against the cell door. To his amazement, it swung open. Julien slowly walked out, cautiously looking for the guard who would shove him back in and bolt the door. But there was no one.

  He walked down the hall. There, in the open, was another bottle of wine. In the dim light he didn’t look for the label. He uncorked it and put it to his lips. It was a good wine. He gulped down half the bottle before stopping.

  He looked down the hallway littered with rock debris. The stone blocking the exit had been rolled aside. He could see another light thirty feet away. He walked to it. Rubble blocked the hall, but there was another opening to the right. Julien wandered down hallway after hallway, climbing over earthquake debris, until he saw a light. A light outside the tunnel. He stumbled to the end and threw his arms wide, “I’m free.”

  He needed a phone. The only sign of civilization he saw was a tent city. He ran to it. In the first makeshift home, four children slept with a man standing guard over them.

  “Please give me your phone. I am the Minister of Finance—”

  “Yah, right.” The man put his hands on his hips and glared. “You’ll wake up my baby, you fool. Go away.”

  Julien ran from tent to tent, asking for a phone and receiving the same welcome.

  Finally, three teenagers approached him. “Alright, mister. Give us your money.” They exposed no gun or knife, but Duran was no match for the three young men.

  He reached into his empty pockets to gesture compliance. To his surprise, he found a wad of money in his interior coat pocket. He glanced at the cash: crisp, new one-hundred-dollar bills. But who put it there? And why? Was someone trying to help me ... or set me up? he wondered.

  He discretely removed one bill and shoved the rest back in his pocket. He turned to the youths. “I’ll give you a one hundred dollars for your phone. And I won’t even report your robbery attempt to the police.”

  “We’ll take the money. But no phone.” One of the boys reached out to snatch the one-hundred-dollar bill, but Duran pulled it back.

  The would-be-robbers couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen years old. And they were small, probably malnourished.

  There was a broken two-by-four laying on the path. Duran picked it up and pulled it back to swing. “Take one step toward me, and I’ll kill all of you.”

  They looked at each other, and then at the one-hundred-dollar bill in Duran’s hand. The tallest boy gestured to a tent. The other two ran, snatched the phone from the hand of a screaming middle-aged woman, and ran back waving the phone triumphantly.

  Ministry of Finance

  Port-au-Prince, Haiti

  1:45 p.m.

  Tomas Duran again pulled up the Haiti Relief Aid Fund on his father’s computer. He gasped when he saw the figures. Another two billion dollars had been transferred from the account since he’d checked it that morning. A total of three billion dollars was gone, the entirety of the Haitian Relief Fund. He looked for a deposit of the half-billion dollars that Charles Roche had promised. But there was no record of any deposit by Roche.

  His cell phone buzzed, startling him. He didn’t know the number on the caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Tomas. It’s me.”

  “Dad! Are you all right? Where are you? Where have you been? What’s going on with the Haiti Relief—”

  “I was kidnapped and just escaped,” Julien interrupted. “I’m okay. But I need you to pick me up. Now. Before they find me. I’m on Rue Lamarne, just behind the National Assembly.”

  Tomas ran to his Lexus and drove the four blocks to the designated location. Upon seeing his father, tears filled his eyes. He pulled over, and his father quickly got into the Lexus. They embraced, both men crying. As they raced back to the Finance Ministry building, they filled each other in on the events of the past few days.

  Immediately upon entering his office, Julien picked up the phone. “I’d better inform the president before all our money is taken.”

  “Dad, you’d better look at this first,” Tomas said as he turned the computer monitor toward his father.

  “Oh my God. It’s all gone.’’

  Julien dialed the office of President Longpre and spoke directly to the nation’s leader.

  After listening to the long story, the President spoke. “Stay right where you are. The police chief is on his way over.”

  Ministry of Finance

  Port-au-Prince, Haiti

  2:00 p.m.

  Julien and Tomas Duran were surprised to see President Longpre accompanying Chief Javier Conrad and four officers. The visitors frowned as they took their seats in the conference room. Longpre nodded to the police chief.

  Conrad spoke: “Mr. Duran, I have bad news for you. I’ve searched all the hospitals and clinics in the area, and your man, Jakjak, has not been treated in any of them. The mortuaries also have no record of him. If he, indeed, had the serious gunshot wounds you described, he would have been at one or the other.

  “Further, my men have probed deeply into the recesses under the National Palace and found no evidence that anybody has been incarcerated there for the past twenty years.

  “Finally, regarding the money you reported missing from Haiti’s National Treasury, we checked that, too. It’s all there, in the treasury, the same amount as before you said this Charles Roche and his allies visited you on Monday.”

  “But I just saw the Relief Aid Fund. It was almost all gone,” Julien said.

  Tomas leaned forward in his chair and spoke rapidly in a high-pitched voice. “One billion went missing on Monday, another billion yesterday, and another billion overnight. Three billion dollars are gone, gentlemen, leaving only a half billion in the fund. And it all went to Disaster Inc., a fund our government ministers cannot track.”

  “Show them the books,” Julien instructed his son.

  Tomas’ pulled up the account on the computer. “See?”

  The police chief pointed to the screen. “As I said, the money is all there. And there is no record of any money being withdrawn for months.”

  Tomas’ eyes opened wide as
he looked at the figures on the screen. They had all been changed!

  “Except for this,” the President interjected as he handed a print-out to Minister Duran.

  Julien’s face clouded with confusion as he looked at the paper. “This shows that $150,000 was transferred from the relief fund to my personal account.” He looked at President Longpre. “Who authorized this?”

  The police chief removed another paper from his jacket pocket. “According to the signature on this, you did.”

  Duran took the document. He had, indeed, signed it, with the scrawling pen of his non-dominant right hand. His voice trembled. “But I’d never take money from my government. You know that’s true.”

  The President shook his head. “All I make of this is some poppycock story to conceal your theft of money that belongs to Haiti. Your claim of imprisonment? False! Your stories about Jakjak, Roche, Baccus, and the man with the whip, Lugar? Fabrication! And where are Mr. Cheval and Mr. Gabriel? Their bodies are nowhere in the government office or in the jail you talk about. Lies! All lies! You tell me lies to cover up your theft of government money.”

  Julien Duran pulled up his pants legs to show the cuts from Lugar’s whip, but no one even lowered their eyes to see.

  Tomas stood and ran to Longpre’s side. “I saw Cheval’s dead body. Shot in the eye. He was wearing my father’s white suit. The message with him said they’d kill my dad if I called the police or moved Cheval’s body.”

  “You and your son will be imprisoned until your trials,” Longpre said. He nodded to Conrad, who approached Julien Duran with handcuffs.

  As Conrad was putting on the cuffs, he noticed the bulge in Duran’s coat pocket. He reached in and pulled out a stack of un-circulated currency. He placed it on the table. “There must be $10,000 here. Where did you get all this? From the National Treasury?”

  “I found that in my pocket after I escaped. The money’s not mine.”

  “Bullshit!” Conrad said as he snapped the cuffs in place.

  “But I’ve done nothing wrong. This is a set-up,” Duran objected. “And of what do you accuse Tomas?”

  “Of transferring $150,000 of relief aid funds to his personal account,” President Longpre said as he threw another document on the table. “Like father, like son. You’re both dirty thieves!”

  Penthouse Apartment

  Movenpick Hotel

  Aden, Yemen

  2:00 p.m.

  Omar Farok paced the floor, wringing his hands as he waited for the signal to come. His position as the leader of ISIS was on the line. So was his life. Aslanov and Muhammad Junco had pledged to kill him if he didn’t hand over the money for the merchandise as he’d promised. ISIS’ private bank in Turkey, the Habib Bankasi Internacionalé, was alerted to Farok’s needs, and a vice president had remained there after hours to handle the critical transactions for Farok.

  Finally, a message appeared on the computer screen. The sweat from Farok’s brow dripped as he leaned over to read it. First to appear was the SWIFT code identifying his bank in Ankara: ATKFTUA. Then, the figure: $3 billion. Finally, the recipient: Aslanov.

  A second message quickly followed. The same bank code: ATKFTUA. The same amount: $3 billion. This time, a depositor: the Defense Ministry of Iran.

  The third and final message came next. Same bank code: ATKFTUA. Same amount: $3 billion. Recipient: the Haiti Relief Aid Fund.

  The three transactions were made only minutes apart. Farok breathed a sigh of relief. His shell game had worked!

  He sat down at his desk and quickly sent a secured text to his inside contacts at the office of the Defense Minister of Iran:

  First payment received and dispersed. Send final payment for material ordered.

  Farok wiped the sweat from his forehead. He was off the hook for the Kazakh’s money, and with Iran’s next installment, he could finance ISIS. He leaned back in his chair and smiled. My financial genius will ensure my place in history alongside the world’s greatest figures.

  Outside the Ministry of Finance

  Port-au-Prince, Haiti

  2:15 p.m.

  Jakjak stood in the shadows, watching the front door of the Finance Ministry offices.

  Thirty minutes earlier, as he walked toward the building, tired and winded from his long trek back from the beach, he’d stopped for a moment to rest. That is when he’d seen Police Chief Conrad, four officers, and President Longpre enter the building. Sensing trouble, he’d ducked into the doorway of an abandoned store across the street to watch and wait.

  Now, fear gripped his throat as he saw Julien and Tomas Duran being led away in handcuffs.

  Jakjak looked up to the heavens and folded his hands in front of his face. “Please, Iwa, don’t let nothin’ bad happen to Minis Duran and Doktè Tomas.”

  He paused for a moment. “Would you have me follow Minister Duran to the jail?”

  He listened, but there was no reply.

  Jakjak was scared. He didn’t know what to do. Are there other police in the office waiting to arrest me?

  He went to a quiet alley and sat with his back against a building, waiting for direction from the spirits.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

  2:15 p.m.

  CLAUDE STOPPED HIS MOTOR bike a block from Julien Duran’s office. I got off and called Tomas using the fisherman’s smart phone. But he didn’t answer. I called his home number. Again, no answer. I was reluctant to give the phone back to Claude until I’d contacted Tomas. I held up a one-hundred-dollar bill in one hand and the phone in the other. The old man looked back and forth between the two items and snatched the money.

  I dressed quickly in the clothing I’d bought from old Claude: faded orange cotton pants cut off below the knees, a red cloth tie-belt, a loose-fitting faded-green guayabera shirt, and a baseball cap with the Haitian flag. I pulled down the hat to partially cover my face and walked toward Minister Duran’s office. Tomas had warned me to stay out of sight. I found an alley in which I could hide, but still see the Finance Ministry building. I called Tomas again.

  I redialed Tomas’ number. Again, no one answered. Just as the call went to voice message, someone grabbed my arm. I raised my fist, but before I could hit him, the man fell back onto his knees and held his chest with both hands. He was breathing heavily.

  “Mesye Doktè. It’s me, Jakjak,” the Haitian man said. “Don’t you remember?”

  I’d met him only briefly three weeks earlier, but I did remember him. “Of course, Jakjak. Sorry. What happened to you?”

  He stood with difficulty, obviously in pain. “A gang of men have taken Minister Duran prisoner. They are trying to crack into the Haiti Relief Fund and take the money.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I just escaped from the jail under the National Palace. I was going to Minis Duran’s office to see if he’d escaped, too, when I seen him and Doktè Duran in handcuffs. They was with Presidenti Longpre and Police Chief Conrad. I was scared and don’t know what to do, so I hid and tried to figure where I could go that I wouldn’t get arrested. Then, you came along.”

  From the moment I met Jakjak, I loved the way he spoke. His language was sing-song, and whatever he said sounded mellifluous. He had broad, coarse features and spoke with complex hand movements that were almost as beautiful as his accent.

  Now, though, it was his breathing that got my attention. It was labored, like he had pneumonia or was having a heart attack. I took his wrist to check his pulse.

  Jakjak pulled his hand from my grasp and stepped away. “Don’t get too close to me. I think I’m a zombie.”

  “What? You’re definitely not a zombie.”

  He frowned and opened his shirt. “See? Here’s where I was shot. The bullet went in my heart. You believe what you want, and I’ll believe what I know.”

/>   I started to look at his wounds, but he pushed me away and said, “Please. We have no time. They’ll probably arrest both of us if they see us. Let’s get away from here.”

  I followed Jakjak as he circled the building. He had to stop every hundred yards or so to catch his breath. There was an area about two blocks away from the palace that had been badly damaged by the quake. It was the size of two city blocks and little had been done to fix anything. The land was buckled with a crevasse between three steep, seismic ridges.

  Jakjak ducked behind one of the ridges and entered a dark cave. I followed him through a winding corridor littered with massive stones, and then Jakjak stopped.

  “Mesye Doktè, I was held before they dumped me with the dead. I was really dead before Bondye made me a zombie.”

  Out of respect for his religion, I didn’t reply.

  “Mesye Doktè, you a good man, but you don’t know nothin’ about my religion.”

  “Maybe, but I do know a lot about modern medicine.”

  I leaned forward and looked at his chest. The half-inch entry wounds were surrounded by powder burns. I put my finger on the wound and palpated deep under the skin. I felt the shattered bone spikes of the sternum. Then I smiled. “And the bullet’s still there. It didn’t hit your heart at all.”

  Jakjak put his finger beside mine. “Yes. I can feel it. But what ’bout the other one? There’s no bullet there.”

  I looked at the other wound, three inches to the left of the sternum, and pressed deeply.

  “Ow! That hurt!”

  A five-inch segment of a rib was depressed two inches. I felt sharp edges on the ends and the center of the broken bone. “Fractured ribs always hurt badly. The bullet hit and broke the rib and then ricocheted off it. Probably went out under your arm.” I examined the shirt and coat. “There it is: a third bullet hole in your clothes, where the bullet came out.”