Lost Girls

by George D. Shuman

21

  LYON, FRANCE

  The setting sun’s light caught the face of Louis XIV, sitting horse-top in Place Bellecour. A tall rigid man carrying a leather satchel crossed the square, joining an American wearing a sports coat over a polo shirt.

  “Graham, it’s good to see you again.” Dantzler extended a hand. “How was Saint-Exupéry Airport?”

  “More like Tel Aviv every day,” Graham said. “I miss the innocent days when there were no machine guns in terminals. You heard about Mogadishu?”

  “A thousand dead and counting,” Dantzler said.

  “The European Commission should be concerning themselves about complicity in war crimes, or perhaps they think they are immune,” Graham said. “The security adviser told their representative in Kenya the Ethiopians were violating the Rome statute.”

  “And the Red Cross is reporting the worst fighting in fifteen years. How do they keep doing this?” Dantzler waved a hand through the air. “Funding war criminals as peacekeepers. Doesn’t anyone feel stupid down there?”

  He stopped and squinted at the dying sun. “A warrant officer named Aleksandra Goralski was on assignment for the Polish National Police when she went missing in the Baltic harbor of Gdansk six months ago.”

  “Routine assignment?”

  “Not at all. She was with the Polish Central Investigation Bureau looking into a corruption allegation about a customs commissioner.”

  “Jesus,” Graham whispered. “That could be it. Do you have enough handwriting to work with?”

  “Three words isn’t much, but they’re looking at it now. She has plenty of known handwriting from the police department they can compare it with.”

  “What can I do?”

  “We’ve identified the ships that were in port when Warrant Officer Goralski went missing. I was hoping you could take a run at them.”

  “You’re thinking if DEA might connect one of the ships to the Mendoza cartel?”

  “DEA, ICE, FBI, I don’t care who it comes from,” Dantzler said. “What about Bishop and Moore?”

  “They’re in the Dominican Republic, crossing into Haiti tomorrow at noon by bus.”

  “Do you see problems?”

  “They’re going to Haiti, aren’t they?”

  “What’s the scenario?”

  “Tourists bound for Tiburon harbor. It’s a well-photographed location, quite beautiful, I’m told. They’ll be in Pétionville outside of Port-au-Prince around six thirty P.M., which puts them in Tiburon by midnight, seven P.M. our time. You’ll be back in Washington then?”

  “I’m on the red-eye,” the CIA man said.

  Dantzler nodded. “I wasn’t comfortable with them traveling alone, so I asked our contact, Colonel Deaken with the Haitian National Police, to meet them. He wasn’t happy about Carol Bishop entering Haiti. He said it would cost him his job if he was connected to her.”

  “He must have considered the possibility that Jill Bishop was in Haiti.”

  “I’m sure the entire Haitian government did, but they weren’t about to invite the FBI in for a look around while Bush is scolding Préval for getting into bed with Castro and Chávez. I’m sure the Bishop girl is still a hot topic in the palace.”

  “But he agreed?”

  “As long as his name doesn’t come up in any investigations. He’ll meet them tomorrow evening in Pétionville and drive them to Tiburon himself. They should return before noon the next morning.”

  “Did you tell him how Jill Bishop was found—about the airplane, I mean?”

  “He doesn’t need to know.”

  “Well, I feel better, I must admit. It wouldn’t do you or me any good if something were to happen to Carol Bishop in Haiti.”

  “The airplane that Jill Bishop came out of, nothing new?”

  Graham shook his head, reaching for a handkerchief from his back pocket and blowing his nose. “I looked at the surveillance photos again, plenty of runways and DC-3s in the jungles, but nothing we haven’t seen before. You know what air traffic control is like there.”

  “What if Moore pulls a rabbit out of the hat and they find a castle. What are we going to do then?”

  “I don’t know,” Graham said, “but you’ve seen Carol Bishop on CNN. She pulls no punches. If they find anything she will not let us sit on it, not for a moment.”

  “Maybe we made a mistake calling in Sherry Moore.”

  “We” meant “he,” Graham knew; Dantzler was the one trying to appease Admiral Brigham. How could he have known that Sherry Moore would insist on going to Haiti from Jamaica? She was just as headstrong as Bishop. The two of them together were the virtual powder keg ready to blow. “Too late for that, Helmut, admonish me later.”

  “You said you were looking for possible links to the Mendoza cartel.”

  Dantzler stopped and set his valise on a wall, opened it, and took out a thick legal envelope. He removed a file folder and began to read. “Patrick Dupont’s great-grandfather made a fortune off rubber plantations in Haiti during the Second World War. The son was educated in the States and moved to Rio de Janeiro with his mother after a divorce. The old man left them a small fortune, enough to open successful nightclubs in Ipanema, and this was long before the tourist boom of the sixties. The son still owns the original clubs—they were gold mines then and now—but he’s also laid claim to a significant percentage of Brazil’s private clubs, sex tourism destinations. I don’t need to tell you Rio de Janeiro’s rank in human trafficking.”

  “Dupont still has ties to Haiti?”

  Dantzler nodded. “Properties. A villa in Pétionville, an estate west of Jéremie. We can’t put him with Mendoza, but he has traveled to Haiti a few times this year.”

  “Who else?” Graham asked.

  “ICE agents found two Canadian women in a crack house in Calakmul, Mexico, last year.” He replaced the envelope and took out another, shook out the documents. “The women were kidnapped while backpacking in 2002. Typical story, rape, heroin addiction, they were forced to prostitute in brothels in the Yucatán Peninsula. They were found when Mexican nationals shot up the house looking for a kidnapping fugitive. Each of the girls had a red chili pepper tattooed on her breast. It designated them property of Angel Ochoa, the methamphetamine kingpin in Belize.”

  “Haiti’s connection?”

  “Ochoa networks meth through a company in Les Cayes that purports to export native art. So do a lot of other South American dealers. He’s got a house there and a hangar for his Beechcraft.”

  Dantzler opened another file from the envelope.

  “Former Tonton Macoute commander, suspected drug and small arms courier, named Jean Bedard.”

  “Tonton Macoutes,” Graham repeated. “Papa Doc’s secret police.”

  “Very bad man,” Dantzler said. “Bedard has a glass eye. Remember the Bulgarian informant mentioned a one-eyed man in Burgas?”

  “Go on,” Graham said.

  “Bedard’s primary residence is in Colombia, near Barranquilla and Mendoza’s estate, though he still has property in Haiti. He made tens of millions during the Duvalier years. His legitimate business is coffee and produce, but he’s all over DEA’s intel files on cocaine trafficking.”

  Dantzler handed Graham the envelope and closed the valise. “All right.” Graham sighed, tucking the envelope under his arm. “I’ll see what I can do with them. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.” Dantzler nodded. “Let’s hope we all get through tomorrow.”

  22

  CONTESTUS

  HAITI

  The room was dark and heavy with cigar smoke. Brocaded drapes tied with golden sashes framed a vista of sun-scorched foothills. Bedard looked out over the Mornes, then down at the guards by the helicopter on the lawn of the compound. His neck was heavily bandaged and he’d picked up the habit of touching his throat each time he talked.

  The chairs were tooled mahogany, covered with calfskin from Argentina and inlaid with gold. The Polish girl, Aleksandra, sat behind h
im on a leather divan. She was naked, hunched over, eyes barely open. Her hair and body were clean but black and blue, broken blood vessels nearly hiding the grinning death’s-head tattoo on her cheek. She turned her head to look up at him, eyes hollow, glassy pupils large as dimes.

  Bedard looked at her battered face and then pushed an intercom button by his knee.

  “Yes, Commandeur?” The woman spoke in French.

  “My bodyguard will be joining me for dinner.”

  “Oui,” the woman said obediently.

  Bedard looked down upon the shadows of the mansion’s many spires.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Commandeur?”

  Aleksandra turned her head to squint at the man entering the room. She grinned foolishly, her mouth partially open, gums black and bloody. When she closed it again her lips shriveled around her mouth. She looked down at her naked body, shaking her head from side to side.

  “What did you learn?” Bedard asked, putting two fingers across his Adam’s apple. His voice was hoarse and low. He had been worrying about the FBI coming to Haiti ever since Jill Bishop was found at sea. Worried that once her body was identified, the Americans would convince Haiti’s president to allow FBI investigators on the island.

  “Interpol wants the colonel to escort two women to the village of Tiburon. They are both Americans.”

  Bedard’s eyes widened. “FBI?”

  Matteo the bodyguard shrugged. “I don’t think so. Colonel Deaken says he is supposed to escort them to Tiburon harbor and back. The visit sounded unofficial, he said, but one of the women is Carol Bishop.”

  Bedard closed his eye, touching his throat lightly. “So they know.”

  “It would seem, Commandeur.”

  “Why Tiburon?”

  “They want to visit the dead man Pioche.”

  “Which means they also know he was here.” Bedard pounded the windowsill.

  “If they knew, Commandeur, the body wouldn’t matter to them.”

  Bedard nodded. “Perhaps they are looking for evidence. Something from the body, or maybe they want to question the widow. They are looking for something to lead them here. Who is the other woman?”

  “Her name is Sherry Moore.”

  “She will be a forensics person, an FBI scientist,” Bedard said. “When will they be here?”

  “Late tomorrow night.”

  “Tell the colonel to do as they ask. We will meet them in Tiburon and remind the colonel that his wife and daughters are still our guests, if he needs further persuasion.”

  There was a knock at the door before it opened. A servant carried a tray to a table and placed the tray on the white linen. Food was dished, wine was poured, candles were lit, and the servant was gone.

  Bedard walked to the dining table and picked up a glass of wine.

  “Our last ship is approaching the Caicos Islands from Ukraine. It will meet a Colombian fishing trawler and transfer the women at sea.”

  “And then?”

  “She will dock in Port-au-Prince, the hulls will be scorched and the ship and her papers will be turned over to a captain from Venezuela. Funds for the remaining nine vessels will be transferred to a Cayman account.”

  Bedard looked around the room, taking it all in. He would not miss Contestus. No more than he would miss the land he was born in. He had no regrets. Bedard had been a man for his time, a man for Papa Doc Duvalier’s time. His edict, as simple as the dictator’s political agenda, was to use the power of superstition and terror against the people. Plunder the nation’s wealth, shock dissenters into obedience. He had been judge, jury, and executioner all wrapped up in one.

  Now Papa Doc and Thiago Mendoza were in their graves. There was nothing left of Haiti for him.

  Bedard walked to the divan, leaned over, and gestured to the girl. Aleksandra flinched, then looked up, trying to focus. She managed to use the coffee table to support her upper body and crawl off the couch to her knees.

  “Eat,” he told his bodyguard. He lifted his glass and drank from it, wine dribbling down his chin, staining the white bandage a bloody red.

  “I’ll join you in a minute.”

  SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

  The air conditioner was malfunctioning in the old Airbus A310. Hacking coughs ensured that a percentage of the ninety-odd passengers onboard were going to come down with a virus. Then everyone’s luggage was held at Las Américas International in the Dominican Republic at the insistence of a drug-sniffing dog.

  When Sherry arrived at the Renaissance she knew immediately why Carol Bishop had chosen it. The public areas were busy. Marble walls echoed the mélange of languages from all over the world. There were Germans, Japanese, French, and Swiss. They moved in waves between the smells of eateries and perfume shops, casinos and spas. There was a rush of energy in the resort, bell captains calling out to cabs and pushing noisy luggage carts, car doors being opened and closed.

  People who came to places like the Renaissance wanted nothing but to drink and gamble the week away. They wanted nothing of the world’s bad news, and the hotel staff was trained to insulate them from it. No one would give them a second look in a place like the Renaissance. If it was supposed to be hiding, it was hiding before someone’s very eyes.

  Sherry parted with Carol at her tenth-floor room.

  She showered and lay down on the bed, thinking how she’d let Brigham down. She knew of course he didn’t approve of her going into Haiti and was only somewhat mollified when he learned the police colonel would be meeting and escorting them across the country. Brigham was the only person in the world whom Sherry would allow to dote over her, and that was because it was far more about pleasing him than her. Now she felt as though she’d abandoned him after talking him into coming along with her in the first place. Brigham had classes tomorrow. He would have to make special arrangements to have them covered. If only he was capable of relaxing and having fun.

  Sherry smiled.

  Fun…What a strange thing to think, but Sherry had never associated the word with Garland Brigham. They just didn’t seem to quite go together. Brigham could be said to be content or even delighted, but never to be having fun.

  Her thoughts led her to wonder what Brigham’s former life in the navy was like. He’d retired only months before she moved into the house next to him, a stone behemoth on the shore of the Delaware River. He had obviously distinguished himself in the navy—you didn’t make admiral quietly—but how she had no idea. She knew almost nothing of his life before retirement. It was difficult to imagine another side of him, a boy who drilled and bunked with other men and women, then a man in charge of whole navy fleets. He must have made friends who were important to him over the years, more than just his monthly breakfast club that he referred to as his old man’s club.

  When he invited her to the rare holiday party at the university, she would always find him in the library or out on the patio with a cigar, just about anywhere he could avoid the crowd. He might have commanded fleets but he was hardly what anyone might refer to as a mover and shaker. He was far too subtle for that. So then how had this quiet man ascended the ranks without being noticed?

  She was nervous about going into Haiti. For all she had tried to make it sound harmless, she understood the gravity of the situation. Carol Bishop might not be so rational. Carol, who was driven entirely by thoughts of her daughter’s last days, would have stormed the very building her daughter had been held hostage in if she had a clue as to where it was. Sherry’s motivation to enter Haiti was more about the guilt she’d have to live with if she didn’t. It would have been too easy to walk away. To let Interpol use Jill Bishop’s body to try and find its own way into Haiti. Except that no one was going to do that. Not anytime soon. Certainly not in time to save lives.

  It was ninety-two degrees when Sherry and Carol Bishop boarded a bus bound for Haiti. Sherry, in a rare reversal of character, made it obvious that she was blind, using her cane and Carol’s arm way t
oo much. Sherry wore a visor that was pulled low to conceal her forehead, and her long chestnut hair was braided into two unflattering pigtails. Carol Bishop wore a shapeless dress, with pockets, maps, and a cheap drugstore camera visible to anyone who looked. She had applied gobs of white zinc to her nose and cheeks, and her face was all but covered with a floppy straw hat. They looked the part of tourists, stumbling blindly wherever their passports took them, oblivious to any dangers around them.

  The bus barely stopped for a minute at the border crossing; one policeman made a show of studying the driver’s manifest while another yelled “Papers!” as he walked up and down the aisle. Papers were waved in the air, the two policemen got off the bus, and then they were moving again. Nothing was going to stop them now, Sherry thought. They were really going to do this.

  Six hours later they were approaching the capital city. Haiti had the atmosphere of a country on the verge of civil war, alleys teeming with paupers, mobs roaming the sidewalks and streets.

  They departed the bus and found Les Bonnes Nouvelles, a boutique hotel on Rigaud Street in Pétionville. Inside, Carol led them to a smoky pub with a dozen antique tables.

  The room was nearly full. There would be doctors and volunteer aid workers, teachers and engineers. There would be reporters and diplomats and no doubt arms dealers and drug smugglers and cash couriers, and greedy politicians.

  Carol scanned the room for anyone overly interested in them, but found no one. Not the well-to-do Africans with their whiskeys and Cuban cigars, not the white-haired grandma with her cigarette and plastic bag on the table in front of her. Not the sleek young Italians with their first-year-intern smiles. Not the smarmy middle-aged American wearing a Panama hat or the trio of Europeans with long cigarettes, one of them pressing his briefcase against the table leg with a shoe to ensure it never moved.

  A man entered the bar through the lobby door of the hotel. He was dark-complexioned, in his mid-thirties, dressed casually in designer jeans and jeans jacket over a Miami Dolphins T-shirt. He looked around the room, then at their table in the corner. The man started making his way toward them.