Blue Darker Than Black

by Mike Jenne

  Wolcott took a long draw on his cigarette, exhaled a heavy pall of smoke, and said, “Wait, pard. You keep saying our man on the ground like you only have one sole hombre out there in Indian country. Please tell me that ain’t the case.”

  “It is, sir. This was planned as a Class Four austere site with two men, but the second man was hurt on a training jump at Eglin last week. We were short-handed, and Haiti was a low priority site, so General Fels elected not to send anyone else down there because he was confident our man could handle any contingency.”

  “Hmmph,” sniffed Wolcott. “I s’pose Isaac and I will chat after the dust settles. Continue.”

  “The RRF advance team will go in tonight. In the meantime, we’re coordinating with the Navy to shift an intelligence-gathering vessel from Cuba, to monitor radio traffic in this area. In addition to the aircraft that flew over last night, we’ll have a U-2 overfly around noon to pinpoint the crash … uh, landing site, sir. Once it’s positively identified, we’ll put the RRF on it.”

  “Noon? You can’t move any faster than that, pard?”

  “The U-2 will be flying out of Davis-Monthan, sir, in Arizona. Besides, in those mountains, the sun angle at noon will be a lot better for overhead reconnaissance and photography.”

  “Okay, pard, what else?”

  “Sir, with your permission, we want to authorize our advance man in Haiti to execute a hasty search to see what he can find out before the first string players get into the game.”

  “So we have two men and a multi-million-dollar spacecraft somewhere in the mountains of Haiti, and we really ain’t sure if they’re dead, alive, or seriously injured, and you’re tellin’ me that we’re going to turn over the whole goldanged search effort to one guy on the ground?”

  The major nodded. “Sir, Three-Six was always intended to be a clandestine operation. Until we receive presidential authorization to ratchet up an overt search operation, and the State Department notifies the Haitian government, it has to remain clandestine. We have to tread very lightly. Our operational ceiling for aircraft is ten thousand feet, so until that U-2 gets on station, our advance man has the best set of eyes in the country.”

  “So, pard, you need my permission for him to start poking around?”

  The major nodded.

  “Done. Now let me ask you something. I don’t have much time to follow the news very closely, but if I recall my current events, Haiti is just plumb ate up with voodoo and crazy people, and the dictator is that nutcase, uh, Puppy Doc Something. Right?”

  “Papa Doc Duvalier, sir. But Papa Doc is anything but a nutcase. He’s a dictator, true, but he’s very smart and very ruthless. The last thing we want is a confrontation down there, especially in the same neighborhood with Cuba.”

  “What happens if our two boys end up in the hands of the Haitian military?” asked Wolcott.

  “That would not be good,” asserted the major.

  “Clearly,” noted Wolcott. “So how about your hombre down there right now? Can he handle this situation until the cavalry arrives? And what’s his name?”

  Smiling, the major answered, “He can. His name’s Matthew Henson. And he’s our best.”

  Morne Bossa, Haiti

  5:55 a.m., Friday, March 13, 1970

  As he waited for his scheduled radio contact, Henson poured his blue enamelware cup full of coffee and took a sip. Of the few things he had grown to enjoy in this strange country, he had really taken a liking to their uniquely potent coffee.

  Hours ago, he had been ordered to stay put and wait for further instructions. Now, after a long and sleepless night, he wanted to get out in the countryside and do something. Of course, he also suspected that helicopters had already swooped in to rescue the crew. All that would be left would be the grunt work of picking up the remaining pieces, such as ensuring that the “vehicle,” whatever it was, was adequately secured and quietly transported out of the country.

  As the second hand swept the top of the clock’s face, the shortwave immediately came to life. The message—sent three times in Morse code—was terse but precise and to the point. Henson was to receive a special recovery team tonight and was directed to assist them in any manner that they requested. More to the point, the message indicated that two US personnel had crash-landed near Dondon. They were currently unaccounted for, and Henson was directed to begin a hasty search to locate them or at least determine their circumstances.

  Tapping the Morse key fastened to his leg, Henson acknowledged the message, switched off the radio, zeroed the dials, and gulped down the rest of his strong coffee. He stuffed his binoculars, a Panama straw hat, some maps, a canteen, a first aid kit, a short bolo machete, and a few other key items into a shoulder bag and then went outside to gas up his motorcycle. Minutes later, Henson donned his mirrored sunglasses and kick-started the old Motoguzzi to life. While he wasn’t intimately familiar with the steep country near Dondon, he knew the area well enough to know that stumbling around the mountains would be futile. He needed assistance, and although it would require incurring some risk, he set his mind to do what had to be done. Gunning the engine, he shifted into gear and roared off in the direction of Cap-Haïtien.

  6:25 a.m.

  Dawn was breaking as Carson emerged from the undergrowth and onto a narrow roadway composed of loose dirt and coarse gravel. Consulting the rising sun for his bearings, he saw that they should head to the right, roughly north, which would take them towards Cap-Haïtien. In the distance, a rooster crowed, heralding the new day.

  If the pair of machete-wielding goons prevented them from safely approaching their vehicle, he thought that they could eventually pick their way to the CRZ site where they should have landed last night. They would have to be careful, putting into practice all the evasion skills that they had learned in the SERE course at Aux One-Oh. Carson suspected that they might have to wait until nightfall before they risked travelling. He also was beginning to realize that he might be forced to make Ourecky as comfortable as possible, hide him, and then go for help.

  Terribly thirsty, he knew that finding water was a high priority. He also suspected that recon aircraft would be flying overhead soon, if not already, attempting to locate the crash site. He wanted to find an open area nearby, possibly a meadow, and lay out signal letters with whatever materials he could scrounge. Just a few simple signals would inform the recon aircraft that they were alive, required immediate medical attention, and were on foot headed to the north. Now he was grateful that Ourecky had compelled him to pay attention during their SERE training.

  As he went back into the woods to gather his companion, he heard an odd sound from the top of the hill; muted by the dense woods, it sounded like metal rhythmically striking metal, like someone pounding in nails with a heavy claw hammer.

  Whiffing the humid air, he gagged. Besides their reeking body odors, he detected the distinct smell of burnt hair; rubbing his face with his uninjured hand, he realized that his moustache and three-day growth of beard had been singed away.

  As he helped Ourecky to his feet, shadowy figures swarmed from the lush vegetation on the opposite side of the road, and he was confronted by a surly mob of Haitians bearing machetes and sticks. They had probably been lying in wait, listening to Carson and Ourecky crashing through the woods in the dark.

  Even as he trembled in pain and exhaustion, Carson was confident that he could outrun the mob by himself, but there was no way that he would abandon Ourecky to face their wrath alone. He lowered his friend to the ground and then crouched over Ourecky’s prostrate form as he brought his guard up. I might be outnumbered, he thought, but I’m not going down without a good fight.

  The mob encircled them; as they drew closer, Carson could see that most of the black men looked terrified, even as they menacingly waved their machetes and clubs. In their ragged flight suits, black with soot, scorched and bloody, Carson imagined that he and Ourecky were probably were a grisly sight to behold.

  There was no way to know w
hat was in store, but whoever these men were, they certainly weren’t the neighborhood Welcome Wagon offering cordial greetings. As Carson fended off the attackers to his front, a man lunged from behind and whacked the back of his head with a large stick. Stunned, Carson crumpled to the ground next to Ourecky. Just before he blacked out, he heard a single voice, distinctly authoritative in its tone, shouting what were clearly instructions to the others. And then Carson and his consciousness parted company.

  15

  LOUP-GAROU

  Cap-Haïtien Airport, Haiti

  6:45 a.m., Friday, March 13, 1970

  The airport seemed deserted when Henson arrived. He was concerned that Taylor might be away on one of his frequent jaunts to Port-au-Prince. He cruised on to the south end of the airport property and parked his motorcycle beside Taylor’s place. The ramshackle structure of plywood and corrugated steel was divided into a shop area and adjoining living quarters. On the side of the building, hand-painted blue letters declared “Missionary Air Services.”

  He was relieved to discover Taylor’s Maule M-4 in a grassy area on the far side of the big shed. The sturdy little aircraft was parked with care, so that the two landing gear tires and small tail wheel were positioned precisely on small squares of gravel. A faded canvas tarp was draped over the windshield, apparently to stave off crazing and other damage from prolonged exposure to the tropical sun. Two rangy-looking brown dogs hunkered under the fuselage, menacingly growling at Henson as he approached.

  Henson removed his sunglasses and knocked on the plywood door. A fetching young Haitian woman cracked open the door and peered out. Scarcely out of her teens, she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, but didn’t seem the least bit bashful about her nakedness. “Kisa, blan? Sa ki fè ou vle a?” she asked, stifling a yawn. “What, white man? What do you want?”

  “Mesye Taylor, souple.” Henson fished Taylor’s card from his wallet and held it out to her.

  Smiling coyly, she opened the door slightly wider. Henson couldn’t tell if it was so she could examine the card or to offer him a less obstructed view of her lithe body. “Li dòmi. Retounen nan pita,” she said. “He is asleep. Come back later.”

  Henson heard Taylor’s voice within the shed. “Lydie! Ki yes sa?” he implored. “Who is it?”

  “Blan,” she replied, handing back the business card.

  “Mete rad. Fè kafe,” ordered Taylor, coming to the door and nudging her to the side. “Get dressed and make us coffee.”

  “Am I interrupting something?” asked Henson.

  “No. That’s Lydie. She cooks, cleans up and does laundry. And other things.”

  “Other things? Obviously,” replied Henson. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure, man. Come in. Henson, right?”

  Henson nodded. “Yeah. I need to rent your airplane.” It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark interior. The single room was surprisingly tidy, with a well-swept concrete floor and simple furnishings. Lydie disappeared behind a gauzy curtain that concealed a sleeping area.

  “Hire my plane? Sure. The going rate is twenty bucks an hour, plus fuel,” replied Taylor. He took a clipboard from a rusty nail hammered in a wall post. “The Methodists are swapping out a medical team in Gonaives, so that’ll keep me busy the first part of the week, but I can probably slip you into the schedule on Thursday. How’s that sound? Thursday morning?”

  “Today. Now.”

  “Nope. No can do, babe. Today’s my maintenance day, and I don’t fly on the weekends.” Taylor wore only white boxer shorts. A sizeable portion of his abdomen and chest was covered by shiny pink scar tissue, apparently a souvenir of a fiery crash. He gestured for Henson to take a seat at a small table, and then bellowed: “Kafe, Lydie! Kafe! Jodia! Jodia, souple!”

  “I need to fly today,” stated Henson, swatting a mosquito.

  “Today? Why the rush?”

  “I can explain, but I’ll have to reveal some trade secrets in the process. Can you keep a lid on it? I’m willing to pay extra.”

  “Oh, so you’re worried about tipping off the competition? You know, Henson, I’ve heard that there were some other mining operations poking around in the mountains. Now this makes sense. Anyway, man, I’ve flown for people who have much bigger secrets than you, so yeah, I can keep my mouth shut. So where do you need to go? And why the rush?”

  Henson tugged a topographic map from his shoulder bag and spread it out on the table. With his index finger, he traced a broad oval on the map, delineating an area in the mountains between Grande-Rivière-du-Nord and Milot, and explained, “I need to do some aerial scouting. Just so you know, I’m required to send my company a daily summary of weather conditions. When they found out we had a big thunderstorm last night, they told me to look for some particular mineral deposits here. The rain would have exposed them. They want me to get in the air as quickly as possible this morning, to take advantage of the low sun angle.”

  Taylor’s eyebrows rose as he smiled. “You claimed you were searching for bauxite. I’m guessing that you’re on a quest for something a little more valuable than ore for aluminum.”

  “That’s very astute of you,” replied Henson, grinning. The two men studied the map for several minutes, with Taylor recommending search patterns to efficiently assess the area.

  Interrupting them, Lydie brought two cups of coffee on a serving tray. She now wore a man’s white T-shirt as a dress, and her short-cropped hair was covered by a blue kerchief. She handed Henson a ceramic mug, accompanied by a lascivious gaze that made him extremely uncomfortable. “Sik, blan?” she asked, offering a bowl brimming over with raw sugar. He nodded, and she dumped a spoonful of the coarse brown crystals in his cup.

  “So let’s talk money,” said Taylor, holding out his mug so that Lydie could add sugar. He frowned at her blatant flirting; with a subtle nod, he banished her to the cooking area at the opposite corner of the room. “So you insist on going up now? A hundred bucks an hour, plus fuel. And an extra hundred bucks buys my silence. Permanently.”

  Ever frugal, Henson mentally inventoried his wallet. Technically, since his Apex contract specified that he could keep any surplus funds remaining after the recovery site’s initial logistical coordination was complete, a task that had been completed weeks ago, all of the money in his wallet was his; consequently, he would be underwriting this portion of the rescue operation out of his own pocket.

  Now, he was operating in an uncomfortable gray area, because he would be shelling out his own money without any guarantee that he would be reimbursed. Then he recalled the frantic voice on the radio last night, remembered that there were two guys out there who needed his help, and reconciled himself to do what had to be done.

  “A hundred bucks an hour plus a hundred bucks for you not to talk to the competition?” asked Henson. “That’s a bit steep, isn’t it?”

  Taylor chuckled. “You forgot fuel. And my amnesia doesn’t come cheap, but you can rest assured that when I forget something, it’s damned sure forgotten.”

  “Okay. It’s a deal. When can we go?”

  “Let me finish my coffee. Want a biscuit? Molasses?”

  Henson smiled and nodded. “Sounds yummy. What’s breakfast going to set me back, you scoundrel? Another hundred bucks?”

  “For you? On the house, soul brother.” Taylor noisily slurped his coffee, looked over his shoulder, and said, “Lydie, biskwit e melas pou de, souple.”

  7:47 a.m.

  Following a fastidious pre-flight inspection, bolstered by coffee and molasses-sopped biscuits, they were airborne. Henson had convinced Taylor to remove the right door. With his feet dangling in the cool slipstream, he sat on the aircraft’s aluminum floor with a seatbelt looped around his waist. Taylor held the Maule at roughly a thousand feet, periodically adjusting their altitude to remain clear of rising ground, flying a grid search with back-and-forth parallel legs.

  Using the Citadelle fortress and the Cap-Haïtien Airport as reference points, Henson kept his map
oriented to the terrain scrolling slowly below. Scanning the landscape, Henson periodically feigned interest in various rock outcroppings and asked Taylor to circle as he marked the locations on his map and studied them through his binoculars. As they passed over roads and villages, curious Haitians looked up and waved; Henson casually waved back.

  Roughly thirty minutes into the flight, Henson’s heart beat faster. According to his analysis of the terrain, they were passing over the area where the pilots likely came to Earth. As the Maule buzzed about five hundred feet over a ridgeline, Henson saw an odd burned area in what appeared to be a harvested field. He consulted his map; the oval of scorched ground was almost exactly where the pilot had last reported his position. He didn’t want to inadvertently call Taylor’s attention to the location, but the pilot clearly noticed his interest.

  “Lightning strike,” noted Taylor authoritatively, yelling over his right shoulder. “That’s why it’s burned down there. I’m no mining expert, but if I was searching for ore deposits, that’s exactly what I would be looking for. You gotta figure that the metal would draw the lightning.”

  “Well, if you ever decide to give up flying and swindling missionaries,” bellowed Henson, “you’ve got a future in minerals exploration. Hey, is that a crop growing down there?”

  “Kann. Sugarcane. Do you want me to wheel it around for a closer look?”

  “Yeah,” answered Henson, almost casually. “Why not? Give me one circle on it.” As Taylor banked the plane into a right-hand pivot turn, Henson studied the scene intently. As much as he wanted to capture every single aspect into his memory, he also did not want the pilot to realize the vital importance of the discovery.

  Initially, he focused rapt attention on the black oval. Directly in the middle of the charred blotch, he saw an even darker spot; staring through his binoculars, he saw that it was an object of some sort, possibly an aircraft. And then he spotted two figures—apparently two men—in the vicinity of the object; Henson gasped and his heart pounded furiously when he realized that the pair were moving, apparently examining the crash and removing items from the object.