Dust Up: A Thriller

by Jon McGoran

  “Driving back from Port-au-Prince,” he said. “Two guns on motorcycles.” He looked pointedly at me. “Two blan on motorcycles.”

  “Two white guys?” I asked.

  He nodded slowly.

  Regi cleared his throat. “Do you know if he stole—”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Toussaint stole the food shipments.”

  Regi shook his head. “You stole aid shipments?”

  “Not me—Toussaint. And it wasn’t aid shipments! It was just sitting there. They weren’t distributing it. They weren’t doing nothing with it.” He shrugged. “People got to eat. Gangsters got to make money.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “He sold it. Saint Benezet, yes, maybe somewhere else, but I don’t know.”

  51

  Driving back to Regi’s office, we were both quiet, lost in dark thoughts. I didn’t know if Regi was thinking the same thing I was, but judging from the look on his face, it wasn’t too far off.

  I’d seen powerful people do terrible things for money. My stomach soured as my brain circled a horrible suspicion that it was desperately trying to avoid.

  Toussaint had stolen the Soyagene, and someone had killed him. Ron had found evidence suggesting something wrong with the Soyagene, and someone had killed Ron, had tried to kill Miriam. The stolen soy was sold at Saint Benezet, and then something mysterious happened. Something that didn’t add up. The police said it was Ebola, but Regi and Miriam hadn’t seen any signs of Ebola. The samples hadn’t tested positive for Ebola. No one else had contracted it. Portia had serious doubts.

  It seemed to me, Regi had accepted that it was Ebola because he couldn’t believe anyone would lie about something like that.

  He looked at me and opened his mouth as if to speak but didn’t. I didn’t want to voice my suspicions out loud, either. But as we pulled up in front of a government office building, I turned to him. “We need to talk.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “Let me check in with my office first, with Portia. Then I’ll call Jean-Pierre at the airport, see if there’s any word on Miriam.”

  “I’ll see if there’s anything new to report at FAA. Might be time to call the Coast Guard.” I’d been hoping maybe they’d landed short somewhere, that Sable was on the mend and Miriam was making her way to Cap-Haïtien. I had to concede that was highly unlikely now. I was also thinking it was time to try to reach out to Mikel.

  Regi got out of the car. “You coming in, or you waiting here?”

  “I’ll wait here,” I said. “I need to make some calls.”

  He nodded and walked up the steps.

  I leaned against the car and called Nola on Laura’s phone.

  “Doyle!” Nola said, answering on the first ring. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I told her, smiling at the sound of her voice despite the grim thoughts filling my mind. “Are you okay?”

  “Just worried about you. Are you coming home?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Miriam hasn’t turned up yet, so we’re going to get the search started up. Did you send that package?”

  “I’m leaving right now.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to try to call him, as well, but send it whatever way is fastest, okay? It’s important that it gets there as soon as possible.”

  “I’m taking it myself.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Saturday, Doyle. His office wouldn’t get it until Monday morning. This is urgent, so I’m bringing it myself. To his apartment.”

  “His apartment?”

  “I Googled it. It’s on West 58th Street. Apparently, when an apartment sells for thirty million dollars, it’s newsworthy.”

  “Thirty million?”

  “I know, right? And part of what made it newsworthy was that it’s considered humble for a man like Mikel.”

  “Jesus. Well look, be careful. I still don’t know exactly what’s in those files, but I know it’s pretty explosive. Maybe Danny could do it.”

  “I’m just driving to Manhattan. It’s fine. And I don’t want to get Danny and Laura any more involved. You’re the one down in Haiti without a passport. You be careful, too.”

  “I will. You keep in touch, all right?”

  “You too.”

  “And thanks. Is Danny there?”

  “Yeah, hold on and I’ll get him,” she said.

  A few seconds later, Danny came on the phone. “Hey.”

  “Hey. There’s still no sign of Miriam Hartwell or this Sable guy. Wondering if you could call FAA again, see if they have any news.”

  “Sure.”

  “And it might be time to alert the Coast Guard, as well.”

  “I can do that. You said the plane was a Helio Courier with two people on board flying out of Everglades City, right? And you think the plane had been shot, and possibly the pilot.”

  “That’s right—”

  Suddenly, Danny was gone, and Nola was back on the phone. “They shot the plane? Jesus, Doyle, these people are shooting at planes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I didn’t want you getting upset.”

  “I am upset. Shooting at planes? What kind of maniac shoots at planes?!”

  I almost reminded her that I had once, but instead, I just said, “I know. It’s messed up.”

  “Doyle, you need to come home to me.”

  “I will,” I told her. “I’ll come home soon.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “Do what you need to do,” she said quietly. “Then come home safe.”

  “Okay.”

  Just as I got off the phone, Regi burst through the door to the Health Ministry and came down the steps two at a time.

  “You okay?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  “I need to go,” he said, rushing around to the driver’s side. “There’s been another outbreak of respiratory distress syndrome, another village.” He looked up at me, his face stricken. “Portia went to check it out.”

  52

  We sped through the city in silence. We had said we were going to talk, and we hadn’t yet, but the things I wanted to say did not bode well for Portia, especially if Saint Benezet was any indication.

  As we climbed into the hills outside Cap-Haïtien, Regi said, “We are going to a tiny village called Gaden, no bigger than Saint Benezet, and not far from there.” He looked at me, concern etched deep on his face. “It is just on the other side of Toussaint’s place in the hills.” He held up three fingers, and ticked them off. “Saint Benezet, Toussaint, Gaden, in a line. Very close.”

  “You think Toussaint might have sold the rest of the shipment to Gaden?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe so.”

  The roads again deteriorated as we climbed into the hills, but instead of slowing down, Regi drove even faster, bouncing and jostling over massive bumps and potholes. I wondered if the vehicle would survive that level of abuse. The tiny shacks on either side became fewer and fewer as the road became little more than a dirt path. They disappeared completely, and I was wondering if we were lost when we rounded a hill and saw a roadblock up ahead. An armored vehicle was parked across the dirt road. The men standing around it wore black T-shirts with POLICE in bold white letters, but otherwise, they looked more like soldiers, wearing camouflage pants and combat boots, each carrying an Uzi.

  Regi muttered something to himself. He tapped the brakes but didn’t stop.

  The officers approached us, one pointing his weapon at the car, the other one waving us off and shaking his head.

  “Vire, vire!” he shouted at us, making a twirling motion with his hand, like we should turn around and go back.

  “Nou pwal Gaden,” Regi called out as the officer approached the car.

  “Non,” he said, shaking his head and pointing back the way we had come. “Vire, vire.”

  Regi held up his Ministry of Health identification. “Mwen se Regi Baudet.”

  The officer shoo
k his head and leaned in through the car window, smelling strongly of sweat and rum. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. He put his face right in Regi’s and said slowly, “E-bo-la.”

  Regi gasped, but I couldn’t tell if it was shock or he was simply pulling enough air into his lungs for the frantic barrage of Kreyol that streamed out of his mouth next. The cop was startled, stepping back from the force of it. Then he got angry, maybe embarrassed by his own reaction. He snarled and racked the slide, pointing the gun at Regi—and collaterally at me too—and replying with another stream of Kreyol.

  Regi put the car in reverse, swerving and bouncing off the path and onto the scrubby grass as he turned the car around. The cop continued to yell at us as we drove off, his partner laughing at the entire exchange.

  Once we had rounded the hill, Regi slowed down and looked over at me. “He says we cannot go into the village because there is Ebola. But Portia is in there.”

  “You’re with the Ministry of Health. Isn’t this a health crisis? If there’s really Ebola, shouldn’t you be in charge?”

  “We should, yes, but we have no real power. If the National Police say they’re in charge, they’re in charge. They’ve got much more authority. And guns, as you’ve seen. If there’s something like Ebola, they can say it is a national security issue and take over on those grounds.”

  “But there is no Ebola, is there?”

  He sighed and ground his teeth. “I don’t know.”

  “There isn’t. It’s bullshit. And there wasn’t in Saint Benezet, either. Was there?”

  “When I went to Benezet, a soldier met me at the perimeter and told me it was Ebola. I said, ‘It can’t be Ebola,’ and he put his gun against my head, and he said, ‘You don’t think we know Ebola when we see it?’ He wasn’t like that guy. He wasn’t a drunken thug. He looked terrified. Terrified enough that I believed him.”

  “But you never diagnosed it, did you? You never saw anything to suggest it. Neither did Ron and Miriam. Tell me if I’m wrong, but as far as I can tell, the only indication of Ebola was the statement from the police.” I hooked my thumb back at the roadblock. “From them.”

  “Maybe it was coincidence,” he said. “Maybe they had something else, the allergy or whatever, and then they got the Ebola.”

  “And then the same coincidence happened here? What are the chances of that?”

  He took his foot off the gas and turned to look at me as we jostled down the hill.

  “Have you ever heard of Ebola wiping out an entire village?” I asked. “One hundred percent fatal?”

  He moved his head the slightest bit from side to side.

  “Miriam thought whatever was going on at Saint Benezet was a reaction to the Soyagene, right? And Ron thought he’d found proof that Energene knew it and they were covering it up. Maybe the Ebola is a cover story, to help them dispose of the evidence of whatever it was they had done. Maybe Saint Benezet, the people who lived there, maybe they were the evidence.”

  His head whipped around at me, his face horrified at what I was saying out loud, then even more horrified as he looked back toward Gaden. “Portia,” he said, turning back to me. “What do we do?”

  A part of me kicked myself as I heard my own voice saying, “We need to go in there and see for ourselves.”

  53

  It had taken us forty minutes to get from Regi’s office at the Ministry of Health to the roadblock at Gaden. We made it back in twenty.

  On the way, I called international directory assistance and got the number for the Mikel Group in New York, the main switchboard.

  “I’d like to talk to Gregory Mikel,” I said to the woman who answered.

  “I see,” she said, politely patronizing but not laughing out loud. “That would be our corporate headquarters, and it is Saturday. But I can transfer you if you’d like.” I could barely hear her over the sound of the car lurching over a particularly bad stretch of road.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  I was transferred three more times, reminded of what day it was three more times. Each receptionist took me slightly more seriously than the last, but despite their poise and professionalism, I could tell none of them thought there was the remotest possibility that I would ever speak to Mikel.

  To be honest, I didn’t think so, either. But I had to try.

  The fourth receptionist asked me what this was in reference to. I gave her my name and the number of my new cell phone. “If you could tell Mr. Mikel that Sable is hurt and Miriam Hartwell is missing and could he please call me back ASAP.”

  She didn’t miss a beat, pleasantly informing me that she would deliver that message as soon as possible but that it was Saturday and, of course, Mr. Mikel was a very busy man.

  By the time I got off the phone, we were just pulling up outside the Ministry of Health offices. A grim resolve had settled over Regi.

  I followed him inside. The guard at the front desk smiled and greeted him, as did the handful of other workers we passed. Regi barely acknowledged them as we walked briskly through the building.

  We stopped at a door with his name on it, and he opened it to reveal a tiny room, sparse except for a cluttered desk and a window overlooking the street.

  On his desk was a small bundle with a rubber band around it and a scrap of paper with REGI BAUDET written on it. My phone, the one that had been confiscated, together with a plastic bag. He removed the rubber band and let the note drop to his desk. He handed me the plastic bag and the phone.

  “Are these yours?”

  “The phone’s mine,” I said, taking them both. Inside the plastic bag were the files, filthy and wet with what I hoped was coffee. They looked like they had been rescued from the trash. “This looks like the files. I don’t know what good they’ll be now.”

  Regi nodded and frowned as he unlocked one of his desk drawers and took out a single key on a green plastic fob. I powered up the phone as I followed him back the way we had come. The phone didn’t log missed calls when it was turned off. The only voice mails were from work. There were four of them. I powered it back off without checking them.

  Regi stopped halfway down the hallway and opened a tiny storage room. He started pulling stuff off the half-empty racks and stacking it in my arms: biohazard suits, visors, gloves, tape, several items I didn’t recognize.

  When he was done, it seemed like we had taken half of what was in there, but it still wasn’t a whole lot.

  He got a trash bag from somewhere, and we dropped all the protective gear inside. Then he grabbed a couple of gallon jugs of chlorine off a shelf and handed them to me.

  As we walked back through the offices, the coworkers who had greeted Regi on the way in kept their distance, as if somehow they knew what was in the bag and where we were headed. As we approached the door, one of the women called out softly, “Bòn chans, Regi.” Good luck.

  He turned and nodded to each of them, like he was thanking them for their concern and for their service, acknowledging that he might not be returning.

  I was struck by his bravery. Then I remembered I was going with him, and it scared the hell out of me.

  He turned and walked out the door, and I followed.

  As we drove back the way we had just come, I opened the plastic bag and pulled out several of the pages.

  Regi glanced over. “Is it all there?”

  “Hard to say.” I could recognize some of the documents from reading them on the plane, but much of it was barely legible now. “I’ll have to spread them out, see if I can clean them up. Dry them out.”

  Between the state of the road and the state of the documents, I hadn’t managed to glean anything before we took a right half a mile before where we’d encountered the roadblock. We left the dirt road for whatever you call a road that doesn’t quite earn the name “dirt road,” and even trying to read became impossible.

  I put the pages back into the plastic bag and tucked it into my shirt.

  “This will get us close enough to walk,” Regi s
aid.

  The road faded away to nothing in a few spots, just dirt and rocks going through dirt and rocks, but Regi kept going as the dry grass returned on either side of us and what little road there was became visible again. We were heading around to the other side of the hilltop from the roadblock. After a quarter mile, we stopped. To our left was a raised ridge maybe twelve feet high. On top of it was a stand of small trees. To the right, the land sloped gently down. In the distance, I could see the ocean.

  It was a beautiful view, and I was struck by the thought of how many places in the world a view like that would cost a million dollars.

  Regi raised the hatch on the back of the vehicle and started laying out the gear. “Have you ever worn this stuff?”

  I shook my head. Apart from a few terror drills, all my experiences with this type of gear had involved faceless people inside it protecting themselves from whatever I was doused with. All things equal, I’d rather be on the inside, but I wasn’t crazy about it either way.

  “They are hot and uncomfortable and hard to move around in. But you must resist the urge to scratch or do anything to breach the containment, do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. We’ll suit up here except for the gloves and headgear, and when we reach Gaden, we’ll put those on, okay?”

  Regi walked me through each step of the process. With each layer, I could feel my body temperature rising, the sweat streaming off me, trickling down to my legs. The plastic bag of documents inside my shirt felt like it was glued to my skin. Ten minutes later, we had everything on except for the gloves, hoods, and goggles. Regi put those in a trash bag and handed me one of the jugs of chlorine.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and we set off up the ridge. “Careful not to tear your suit.”

  I gave him a look I was glad he didn’t see and reminded myself that this had been my idea.

  Once we got up the ridge, the going was easier. The terrain was level, but the undergrowth was dense. The suits seemed pretty durable, but I was paranoid about getting snagged on thorns or twigs. I kept telling myself there was no Ebola, but it didn’t entirely sink in.