Dust Up: A Thriller

by Jon McGoran

  “Some of them do. I don’t.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s devastated.”

  “How is she physically?”

  “Last I saw her, she was fine. Why?”

  “I worry about her.” There was a break in the traffic, and we crossed. “Please, tell me what happened.”

  I started from the beginning, with Ron banging on my front door, his murder. Baudet looked back toward the police station. “You saw him die?”

  I nodded and told him about Miriam fleeing the scene, becoming a suspect and a fugitive, how she later approached me on the street, took me back to her motel hideaway. We turned down a cross street, a bit less crowded and hectic.

  “Why did they come to you?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question. Ron suspected Energene was up to something bad. They’re powerful and connected, and he didn’t know who he could trust. I’m just a cop, but I’ve been involved in a few cases with these biotech companies, crazy stuff, outside my jurisdiction. Stuff I stumbled across and was too stupid to leave alone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Because of my involvement in those other cases, he thought he could come to me. After he was … gone … Miriam felt even more scared and alone. She had no one else to turn to, not even Ron. And it seems she was right to be afraid.”

  He stopped on the narrow sidewalk and stared at me. “You think someone from Energene killed Ron?”

  “Maybe.” We started walking again, and I told him about the gunmen arriving at the motel, the shoot-out. I told him about Sable and coming down to Florida, what happened there with the gunmen showing up again, Sable and that crazy plane of his, the Helio Courier, and him being shot.

  He stopped again. “Woy!” he said, under his breath. This time, he stopped for several seconds. “Where is Miriam now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they just flew someplace safe, but she said she wanted to tell you what she had found, give you copies of Ron’s documents, that you’d be able to interpret them. I was pretty sure she’d be coming here. Those are the same documents that your police stole from me, along with my phone. Part of the reason I came here was to make sure you got them.”

  “Did you look at them?”

  I nodded.

  “What are they?”

  “Shipping documents, memos, lab reports. Some were marked secret. I couldn’t understand a lot of it. I don’t know if Miriam did, either. I think she’s hoping you would.”

  He sighed. “I’ll see what I can do about getting them back.”

  I nodded. “I don’t know for sure that Sable was hit, or if so, how bad. I had hoped Miriam would be here with you. That’s the other reason I came here. To make sure she was okay.”

  He paused to watch as a military transport drove by, POLICE on the side of it in big red letters. A black SUV with tinted windows and a heavy-duty reinforced bumper crossed the other way. I knew it was some kind of private security, and as it passed, I saw a small decal on the side, a black four-pointed star against a charcoal-gray background. Darkstar corporate military contractors.

  “I haven’t heard from her,” he said as he took out his phone. He thumbed through a couple of screens and placed a call. “I have a friend at the airport. If they are flying here, that’s where they’d come in.”

  “That plane they were in, the Helio Courier, it doesn’t need an airport. It could land anywhere. And don’t use her name. She and Sable took great pains to keep her name out of everything.”

  Before Baudet could reply, the call was answered, and his face transformed. “Jean-Pierre, bonjou!” he said with a smile that looked more like a wince. “Mwen se Regi Baudet.”

  The conversation was brief, and it included the painfully enunciated phrase Helio Courier.

  Baudet shook his head as he put away his phone. “He couldn’t talk. There was some sort of commotion going on. But they have not had any planes like that coming in. He said he would have a list printed up for me of any such arrivals at Haiti’s other airports today. I can go pick it up now. Do you want to come along?”

  I didn’t relish the thought of returning to the airport having so recently escaped it, but it wasn’t like I had anywhere else I could go. He raised a key fob and unlocked a dark-green Suzuki SUV across the street. He took two steps toward it, then looked back at me. “Are you coming?”

  40

  Baudet drove more aggressively than I would have expected, but compared to the other vehicles on the road, he was like an old lady. At one point, a psychedelically decorated minibus almost T-boned us as we went through an intersection.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Baudet swerved around it. “Tap-tap. Kind of a private bus.”

  I looked back at it and saw it aggressively pass two police vehicles at once, even though it was jam-packed with riders.

  I’d never been to Haiti before, but the police presence on the streets seemed unusual. Tense times indeed. The creases in Baudet’s face seemed to deepen with each military or police vehicle we passed. There were a lot of private security vehicles, as well, and I spotted several more with those Darkstar logos. Even covered with dust they were conspicuously shiny and new.

  “A lot of military,” I said as we swerved around a personnel carrier parked in the middle of the road. “Is everything okay?”

  He laughed grimly. “Everything is rarely okay in Haiti. And it’s not the military, it’s the police. Haiti has no military.”

  “No military?”

  He shook his head. “They were involved in too many coups. We don’t have much in the way of external threats. Or at least not military ones. But yes, our interior minister has been warning of narco terrorist activity and possible political instability.” He studied me, as if trying to decide what he could tell me. “Frankly, I don’t see it, but in Haiti, who knows? Maybe he’s right. He’s our top cop.” He gave me a wry half-smile. “Cops should be trusted, right?”

  I laughed at that. “Some of them. Are they expecting trouble?”

  “There are many kinds of trouble. Some real, some imaginary. Sometimes the narco gangs fight among themselves, trying to expand into other sectors.” He nodded to a commotion up ahead, a cluster of protestors waving signs and chanting. “Sometimes the people protest, the peasant groups, making sure they are heard, that their concerns are on the table.”

  “Peasant groups?”

  “Small farmers.”

  “You call them peasants?” It seemed antiquated, maybe a little offensive.

  “They call themselves peasants. It’s an international movement. They are reclaiming the word.”

  “What do they want?”

  He shrugged. “Mostly land, to keep control of it. To be able to do things the way they want to do them instead of the way the United States and the UN tell them, the way the big corporations want.”

  “Big corporations like Stoma and Energene?”

  He nodded. “Among others.”

  “I thought the way the farmers had been doing things hadn’t been working out so well. Especially with the drought and all.”

  He shrugged. “Some would agree with you. Others would say the old ways have never been given the support the new ways get, because the old ways don’t make rich people richer the way the new ways do. They say the new ways aren’t about making it easier to grow food; they’re about making it easier to grow food on a big industrial scale. It’s not so much about old and new as about small and big.” He looked at me and shrugged again. “Between you and me, they may have a point. But there are concerns they may disrupt things, try to seize the spotlight. Especially during the trade summit at Labadee.”

  “What trade summit is that?”

  “CASCATA. The Caribbean and South and Central American Trade Association. They’re having a big meeting in Labadee, a private resort not far from here. The tourism bureau and one of the cruise lines just built a new hotel there. They want to show it off. CASCATA is voting
on a big trade package, including new rules on biotech imports—maybe less, maybe more. The peasant groups are very concerned. So are the biotech companies, Stoma and Energene and the others.”

  “Speaking of Energene, back at the police station, I saw two of their security agents, guys I met back at their corporate offices in Philadelphia. Royce and Divock. Do you know them?”

  He shook his head. “They have a lot of personnel down here these days.”

  “These two keep popping up. Miriam said she saw them around Saint Benezet. Then they were in Philadelphia looking into Ron’s murder. They said they thought he was some kind of corporate spy. When I was arrested just now, they were in the police station. They seemed very friendly with the cop in charge, Lieutenant Simon.”

  Baudet ground his jaw for a moment, then shrugged, like it didn’t mean anything to him. “Those types are friendly with everyone who can help them and who will take their money.”

  “You think Simon is corrupt?”

  “Corrupt?” He laughed, a deep hearty laugh. “It would not be unheard of.” His face seemed lighter, as if he’d needed the laugh. As if maybe it had been a while, and it might be a while again.

  “Are they down here because of the Soyagene theft?”

  “I don’t know much about the Soyagene theft. I think they’re just down here.”

  “Miriam said that when she and Ron were working on the Soyagene rollout, a shipment of Soyagene was hijacked, around the same time the people in Saint Benezet got sick, and not too far away. She saw the Energene security agents working nearby and thought maybe the two were related.”

  He turned to look at me intently but waited for me to continue.

  “She said your test results suggested the villagers were suffering from some kind of allergic reaction. Miriam thinks it was a reaction to Energene’s new soybeans, the Soyagene that was stolen, and that Energene was trying to hide the fact that their product was so allergenic. That’s part of why she’s so scared, why she thinks they’re after her. If they have to pull the Soyagene from the market, it’ll cost them millions.”

  He nodded, suddenly seeming both sad and haunted. “When I saw the histamine levels, I tested for specific allergens, and when I found out the Soyagene had been stolen, I included that among them, but there was no reaction at all. I sent Ron the results. Yes, the people at Saint Benezet had bought black market Soyagene before the first outbreak, but just that one time. They hadn’t eaten any before the second outbreak.” He paused. “I did get a positive reaction to Stoma Corporation’s GMO corn, the Stoma-Grow, and in Saint Benezet the villagers said they had recently been consuming that. But Stoma-Grow is probably the most common food crop in the world, and this is the first I’ve heard of anything like this. It wouldn’t be the first time genetically modified corn has had unanticipated allergenic issues, but so suddenly, so locally, and so intensely?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think Ron and Miriam are wrong about the Soyagene. I wish they were right.”

  “They seemed pretty sure Soyagene was involved.” I realized I had been thinking about who I could give those files to and not enough about what I would tell them when I did. Ron had believed something was in there, and Miriam believed it too, but unless we knew what it was, no one was going to take any of it seriously. It would all be dismissed as vague suspicions and unfounded accusations. “We need to get those files back from the police. Then maybe we can see why.”

  “We’ll get them back.” He looked straight ahead, avoiding my gaze as we turned toward the entrance to the airport. “But there is another reason why I know that whatever happened at Saint Benezet was not an allergic reaction to Soyagene.”

  41

  Before I could ask him what he meant, he gasped. Police were everywhere. There was a traffic stop at the entrance to the airport.

  “Mezanmiroo!” Baudet muttered. “What the hell is this?”

  “Do you think it could be Sable and Miriam? A crash or an unauthorized landing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I still don’t have a passport or anything. And as brief as it was, I’ve had my fill of your government’s hospitality. Not looking forward to another stay any time soon.”

  “There should be no problem,” he said. “You’re with me. They won’t ask for your passport unless you are boarding a flight.”

  These police were not like Baptiste, with his crisp uniform and his wry smile. These guys looked like soldiers, and they looked like they meant business. Several cars ahead of us, I could see they were checking IDs at the gate.

  I told Baudet about how I arrived at the airport the first time.

  He stared at me with his mouth open. “Are you insane, man? You’re lucky they didn’t shoot you.”

  “Well, I got away with it, for a while at least. But I don’t know for sure that nobody saw me. Or captured me on video. It’s probably best if I don’t come inside.”

  He let out a deep sigh and pulled over to the side of the road.

  “Wait here,” he said as he got out of the car with his hands raised over his head. “Bonjou!” he called out.

  The closest officer swiveled his upper body around, so his M16 was now leveled at Baudet’s midsection.

  The officer barked something in Kreyol. Baudet smiled even wider, hands still up, replying in Kreyol, but in a soothing, friendly tone. He slowly pulled out his wallet and held up his government ID.

  I could easily imagine that gun going off, Baudet on the ground bleeding, dying. Looking up with eyes as dead as Ron Hartwell’s. I had already developed a fondness for the guy, but before I could shake off the image, my mind was picturing what I would do if he was indeed cut down. Unfortunately, I saw myself bolting from the car, shot in the back, and doing my own rendition of Ron Hartwell’s dead stare.

  The officer lowered his rifle and examined Baudet’s ID, his lips moving as he read it. His chin jutted out, and he spoke briefly, his eyes sullen.

  Baudet smiled again and said a few more words. The cop sighed and waved him toward the guard hut. Baudet walked over and picked up a red plastic phone, glancing over at me for a moment before someone apparently picked up on the other end and they started speaking.

  While he went back and forth with whoever was on the other end, the other cars inched forward past me. I felt very white and very conspicuous sitting in the passenger seat, parked too far from the curb.

  At one point, Baudet was standing with his back to me as he spoke, and he turned, his eyes on me like laser beams as he shook his head. Finally, he hung up and came back toward the car. He thanked the young cop, I guess for not shooting us, then he got in.

  “Any word on Miriam or Sable?”

  “No.” He gave me a withering look as he turned the car around. “The airport is on lockdown. Passengers only. The list was not waiting for me, but I spoke to Jean-Pierre, and he said as far as he could determine, there had been no Helio Couriers or unauthorized or suspicious landings at any Haitian airport in the last forty-eight hours, and no crashes they are aware of.” He waved his hands at the cars backed up and waiting. “All this? Extra security because at this time of heightened concerns some crazy blan was seen running across the airport grounds.”

  “Blan?”

  “White guy.”

  “Oh. Just as well I waited here, then, huh?”

  “Do you do things like that often?”

  I stayed quiet, and he rolled his eyes with an exaggerated sigh.

  “Portia said she thought you were trouble.”

  42

  As we drove away from the airport, I kept an eye on the rearview mirror, waiting for the guards to come after us because someone had seen me or recognized me. But they didn’t, and I felt great relief as the airport was obscured by the dust rising up from the road behind us.

  I turned to Baudet. “What did you mean when you said there was another reason whatever ha
ppened at Saint Benezet couldn’t have been an allergic reaction to Soyagene?”

  His foot eased off the accelerator as he turned to study my face. “Ron and Miriam thought they could trust you. Can I?”

  “To do what?”

  “To keep a secret.”

  “Sure.”

  “This has been declared a state secret. I could go to jail for telling you.”

  I waited.

  He lowered his voice. “Something else hit Saint Benezet. A calamity.” He lowered it to a whisper. “Ebola.”

  “Ebola?” I said, struggling to keep my voice down even though we were alone in the car.

  He nodded solemnly.

  “There’s Ebola in Haiti?”

  “Just this one outbreak. Apparently a very bad strain. There were no survivors. But it was totally contained. No more cases, and now it is over.”

  “Jesus. I’m so sorry. How many deaths?”

  “Thirty-four. Luckily, Saint Benezet was a tiny village and very isolated. It was a particularly virulent strain. The Interior Ministry, the police, they discovered it and took control immediately. They sealed off the village and sent in their medics, but it was too late to help anyone. All they could do was comfort the sick and … contain the outbreak.”

  “Contain it how?”

  “Fire,” he said, staring straight ahead as we drove back into the main part of Cap-Haïtien. “After the villagers all died, the police incinerated the village … Saint Benezet no longer exists.”

  “They burned it down? Jesus, is that what you’re supposed to do?”

  We stopped at an intersection, and he went quiet for a moment, letting the traffic cross in front of us. “It’s not what I would have done, no. They said there were no survivors…” He looked up at me with haunted eyes. “It is possible they overreacted. But I understand.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, sadly. A motorcycle came up behind us, honking. It swerved around us and shot through the intersection without slowing down. “Do you know Haiti had been free of cholera for 150 years until just a few years ago?”