Extreme Measures (1991)

by Michael Palmer

  "Evil and pain," he said. "The houngan brought evil and pain."

  Anna patted the man's hand.

  "What he brought," she said, "was the coup poudre."

  "The magical powder," Eric said.

  "Exactly." Anna looked impressed with his knowledge. "Death powder, mystical powder; take your pick. In Haiti, the coup poudre is the sword of the houngans. There are government courts and officials, but the houngans are the real judges, and a living death is their only punishment."

  "Go on."

  "This rogue priest, this Mr. Dunn, is known only to the group of thugs with whom he has surrounded himself. He is a criminal in every sense of the word--a mobster. It is rumored that in Haiti he was one of the Tonton Macoutes, Francois Duvalier's secret police. He preys on people's weaknesses and superstitions. He extorts money from our businesses and sells narcotics to our children. Two years ago, after several attempts to enlist the aid of the police, my uncle attempted to organize the merchants to fight back. One of Dunn's collection men was beaten up. Another was robbed of his stash of drugs before he could sell them. Word came from Mr. Dunn that my uncle was to be made an example--that he had been marked for living death. His family tried to protect him, but several of Dunn's men came with guns and took him away. Uncle, are you able to tell this doctor what happened next?"

  Eric turned to the old man. "Please try," he urged.

  "I received the coup poudre from the Evil One himself," Titus said, weakly clearing phlegm from his throat. "Across my mouth and under my arms." He demonstrated by drawing his hand across the areas.

  Eric remembered reading in several sources that absorption of tetrodotoxin was nearly as rapid and complete through the skin as through the gastrointestinal system.

  "Did you see the man's face?" he asked.

  "It was the face of hell."

  Eric looked to Anna, who shrugged and shook her head.

  "Perhaps a mask," she said. "Go on, Uncle."

  "They tied me down, but soon they cut me free. There was no need to bind me, for I could no longer move."

  "You remember all of this?"

  "Some things he remembers clearly. Some not at all," Anna explained. "What we do know is that two days later, this man who now sits before you was found lying on a cot in this very room, cold and quite dead. His eyes were taped shut. A note by his body warned against moving him or calling for medical help. Over the following two days, though he was watched constantly, not once did anyone see him take so much as a single breath."

  "My wife mourned over me," Titus said hoarsely. "I could hear her and feel her hand when she brushed it over my face."

  "You were awake?" Eric asked.

  "I was."

  Eric saw himself staring down at Laura's brother as he pronounced the man dead, and felt a painful queasiness churn in his gut.

  "After those two days, Dunn's men came again," Anna said. "And once again they dragged my uncle away. A day later he was found wandering down an alleyway near here, retarded in mind and body and quite incapable of caring for himself. When he could tell us, he claimed that his captors had forced some sort of powder into his mouth, and then injected something into his arm. Finally they beat him with their fists and set him free. His senses have returned somewhat over these years, but he remains a man without a soul, and no one outside his family will have anything to do with him."

  "That's very sad," Eric murmured, "and very terrifying." He had not the least doubt that what he was hearing was true. He gazed across at the broken old man, and then reached out and held one bony hand in his. "I am very sorry for what has befallen you, sir," he said. "And I am very grateful that you would share your story with me."

  "As you might guess," Anna said, "my uncle served the houngan's purpose well. The beast has met little resistance since then. The merchants pay, and the children buy his drugs. And we have no more idea who he is now than we did when he first appeared on the scene."

  At once fascinated and fearful, Eric tried to create a scenario whereby Scott Enders and Loretta Leone would have been intentionally poisoned. Both were street people. Perhaps they had seen something, or learned of something, that threatened the priest and his operation.

  "Anna, is there anything I can do?" he asked. "Anything at all?"

  "Perhaps," she said, after thinking over his request. "Perhaps there is. Dunn's payment demands have been increasing steadily. Once again there is a small group who is willing to stand up to him, if they can. I am part of that group, Eric. We have begun meeting secretly to try and form a plan, but we are still frightened--very frightened. Dunn is as ruthless and sadistic as a man can be. He has many spies and informants, and may already know us. But we do not know him. We have no one to strike at, and no support from outside our community. And worst of all, he has the terror of the coup poudre.

  "Talk to people, Eric. See if you can get some of your doctor friends or, better still, someone in the Police Department interested in this." She wrote a number down and handed it to him. "Please be careful, and do not return to this store without calling me."

  Eric glanced at his watch. It was twenty of eleven.

  "I need to think about all this, Anna," he said. "Then I'll call you."

  "Whatever you decide to do or not do will be understood," she promised. "Uncle, you can go upstairs now."

  They waited until Titus Memmilard had shuffled off, and then they left his shop. Sproul Court was deserted and totally silent, save for the faint rumble of traffic from the thoroughfare several blocks away.

  "Do you need a ride anywhere?" Eric asked.

  "No, thanks. I don't live too far from here, and I need the air."

  "That was a terrifying story your uncle just told."

  "I hope you believe it."

  "How could I not?"

  "And I hope you will find a way to help us. I sensed in the library that you were the sort of man who might. That is the real reason I chose to share this with you."

  Anna looked at him in a way that made his mouth go dry.

  "I'll call you," he managed. "At least I can promise you--"

  Eric's words were cut short by a hand clasped tightly over his mouth from behind. His head was pulled back and a long, razorlike stiletto was set against his throat. At virtually the same instant, a tall black man pulled Anna back by the hair and slipped the broad blade of a hunting knife beneath her chin.

  "Not a word," he ordered. "Not a fucking word or you're both dead."

  Eric's heart, driven by a sudden flood of adrenaline, began pounding mercilessly. The powerful hand across his mouth pulled even more tightly. Eric felt his lip split. Then he felt the dagger break skin.

  "Please," he rasped.

  "Shut up!"

  Eric sensed blood beginning to trickle down his chest. He tried to look over at Anna, but the hand held him too tightly. Then, without lowering their knives, the two men half-dragged, half-shoved them several doors down the street to the only storefront on the block that was boarded up.

  "So," the man holding Anna said in a rich Island accent, "word has it that you are interested in challenging the power of the spirits and their priest, and the coup poudre. Well, my beautiful friend, perhaps you are about to get that chance."

  In response to a tap from the man's boot, the solid wooden door opened, and Eric and Anna Delacroix were shoved rudely onto the floor inside.

  Not in his worst nightmares had Eric conjured a situation more terrifying than the hell he was living through this night. He and Anna Delacroix were gagged, their arms and ankles lashed to their chairs in a room heavy with incense and glowing with the flickering light of several dozen candles. Two decapitated chickens, hanging from a rafter, dripped blood onto the floor between their feet, forcing them to keep their knees spread apart to avoid being soiled. Around the dingy room hung bones--some of them human-sized--fluid-filled glass jars containing the bodies of toads and snakes, and carelessly tied bunches of what appeared to be dried weeds and wild flowers. On two si
des of the room, surrounded by candles, were bizarre altars, each featuring a cluster of a dozen or more cheap plastic or ceramic figurines--statuettes of women and cowboys, clowns and madonnas, cupids and dogs. Resting on a dish at the center of each cluster was the head of a recently slaughtered chicken.

  The two men who had captured them at knifepoint had changed into loose blood-red robes, smeared white greasepaint around their eyes, and now knelt across from each other, hammering out rhythms on broad hand-hewn drums. Every two minutes or so, they paused to smoke what smelled like hashish from a dual-throated hookah.

  With the gag pulled tightly between his teeth, Eric had to struggle just to breathe. His torn lower lip was throbbing, as was his right elbow, which had slammed against the floor when he was thrown down. Beside him, Anna Delacroix stared stoically ahead, unwilling to give the men the pleasure of seeing her fear. Initially, after the two of them had been secured to their chairs, the men had teased her--touching her face and breasts and making lewd remarks. After a time, though, her silent, contemptuous glare seemed to spoil their sport.

  Ten minutes had elapsed since they were tied down. The two men, for all their gestures and threats, had done little else, and seemed to be biding their time--waiting for something or someone. Suddenly, without any obvious signal, they stopped pounding on their drums. The taller one stood before them.

  "The Holy One, the Voice of the Spirits, approaches," he said. "I shall remove the bonds around your mouths, but only if you promise that not a word will be spoken by either of you unless asked for by the Holy One. Do I have that promise?"

  Eric nodded, but Anna continued to stare straight ahead.

  "Do I?" the man yelled at her.

  Still she would not respond. Eric's gag was removed, hers left in place. He ran his tongue over the slice in his lip. He tested the tightness of the clothesline that was pinning his arms to the chair. Without help, he knew there was not a chance of freeing himself, not in a thousand years. He began calming himself, forcing himself to concentrate on the situation. It was a process he had used hundreds of times in the E.R. over the years, but there he was always in control. The pounding in his ears and the spasms in his belly refused to abate.

  He glanced over at Anna. She remained quiet, but below the fetters on her wrists, her fists were tight and bloodless. Despite his promise of silence, Eric could not contain his fear.

  "Please," he said. "Please listen to me."

  The tall man stood, poised to replace Eric's gag. Then he stopped as the door to the back room opened and a man stepped out. Actually, Eric realized, it was impossible to know for certain the new arrival's gender or, for that matter, his race. He wore a flowing, hooded white robe, gloves, and an intensely frightening full-faced mask with a death's-head painted on it.

  But even more terrifying than the priest's appearance was the large ceramic bowl cradled in his left arm. Using a heavy wooden pestle, he continued to grind down something in the bowl as he glided to a chair facing them and sat. Eric knew what that bowl contained.

  "Please," Eric said rapidly. "You've got this all wrong. Please listen to me."

  The tall man looked to the priest for guidance as to whether he should replace the gag. Almost imperceptibly, the death's-head turned once each way. The priest continued grinding.

  "L-look," Eric said, "I'm a doctor. She's a student, a college student. We're just trying to learn, not to harm anyone. You must believe that."

  The tall man glanced at the priest. Then he faced the two captives and said with unsettling pleasantness, "And learn you shall."

  He crouched by his drum, and the pounding began once again, the counterpoint building in loudness and tempo. Candlelight shimmered off the smiling white-and-black death mask as the priest stood, still working the pestle through the powder in the bowl.

  "Please!" Eric screamed, trying to be heard over the crescendo of the drums. "Please don't do this!"

  He looked over at Anna. The angry scorn in her eyes had now given way to undisguised terror.

  "No!" he screamed as the priest approached her.

  Eric watched as a gloved hand dipped into the bowl and withdrew a mound of moistened chalky-gray powder. Anna began to squirm in her chair, her eyes widening. Then, as the hand neared her cheek, she began thrashing her head wildly about. The drums intensified until it seemed as if the room were exploding.

  "Nooo!" Eric shrieked as the hand laid a broad swatch of powder across one of Anna's cheeks. "Please, no!"

  The moment the coup poudre touched her cheek, the drums abruptly ceased. Anna stopped moving. The room was silent and still. It was as if with the brush of the first grain, she had resigned herself to having been poisoned. Eric wondered if perhaps she knew, as he did, that struggling now would only speed the absorption of the tetrodotoxin. Once again the hand dipped, this time slowly painting Anna's other cheek.

  The priest turned away, and for the briefest moment, Eric thought he was to be spared. Then, like the rumble of distant thunder, the drums began to build once again. The leering death's-head turned back to him. The gloved hand extended slowly, three fingers coated with powder. Eric snapped his head from one side to the other, screaming at the priest to stop, to understand. He hurled his chair over backward, then twisted onto his side. And when he could move in no other way, he slammed his head against the floor. Mindless of his struggling, the priest bent over and swabbed the gritty poison across first one cheek and then the other.

  "Please don't do this," Eric moaned again and again as his chair was pulled upright. "Please don't ..."

  The priest knelt and ceremoniously dipped one finger into the pool of blood by Eric's feet.

  "There ... will ... be ... no ... return ... for ... you ... from ... this ... trip," the tall man said, punctuating each word with a drumbeat.

  The death's-head priest pressed a disk of blood onto the center of Eric's forehead, and then Anna's. Then, without ever having said a word, he shuffled from the room.

  Totally helpless and drained, Eric tried once again to regain his composure. This time he focused on what he had learned of tetrodotoxin and the ways of reducing or reversing its toxicity. Depending on the dose they absorbed, they still had an hour or two before the effects of the drug began, and as much as a day before they would be helpless. If they could get free, they might have a chance.

  Get calm, he begged himself. If you ever needed to be alert and focus in, you need to now. If you don't, you're going to die.

  He turned to Anna, but before he could speak, a broad band of adhesive tape was pulled tightly across his mouth. Then the cloth that had been used as his gag was pulled over his eyes and tied firmly. For perhaps twenty minutes or half an hour he sat that way. The only sound he heard was Anna's labored breathing. Are we alone? Have we been left to die?

  Carefully, he began once again to test the bonds on his arms.

  "Don't bother, man," the tall man said from nearby. "You're out of here now."

  With that, Eric's hands were cut free and retied behind his back. Then his ankle ropes were severed and he was pulled roughly to his feet.

  "Nod goodbye to your foxy friend, Mr. Doctor. We're not too interested in what happens to you anymore. But we've got some high ol' times in store for her. Yes, sir, some high ol' times."

  The two men dragged him out the back way, tied his ankles together again, checked to be sure his pockets were empty, and then shoved him onto the metal floor of a van that smelled as if it had been used for hauling rotten fish. For the next half-hour or more, they drove. Initially, Eric tried to make some sense of the turns and straightaways, but he quickly gave up.

  At last the truck jounced onto what seemed to be a dirt road and stopped, its engine still running. Eric was pulled from the back and thrown to the ground. The bonds on his ankles were cut, but his gag and blindfold were left on, and his hands left tied behind his back.

  "Just stand right there, man. Listen carefully, and don't move. There's, a nice sharp knife lying on the
ground about four feet away from you. I won't tell you where. Wait until you can't hear this truck engine no more, and then go for it. We could use that knife to cut your throat, Mr. Bigshot Doctor, but we're not going to. You know why? Because, man, we really don't give a shit about you. We've got the one we want. She's business. You're sport. And whether you make it or you don't, the disbelievers will get the message we want to send."

  Eric heard the two men laughing as they jumped into the van. It sprayed sand and gravel on him as it roared away. Moments later, the night was silent as a tomb.

  Working blind, Eric spent what seemed an eternity finding the small folding knife, and longer still positioning it to saw through the clothesline binding his wrists. During the process he cut himself at least half a dozen times. Finally he shook his arms free. He ripped the blindfold from his eyes and the tape from his mouth, and used them to stem some of the bleeding from his hands and wrists. He was on a dark, wooded dirt road, with no sign of a house in any direction. The cool early-morning air smelled and tasted like country.

  Eric felt himself still on the edge of panic, but he was steadied a bit by the realization that at least he was no longer helpless. If the only drug on his face was tetrodotoxin, someone somewhere had to know of a way to blunt or negate its effect. The key for him now was clear thinking and aggressive action.

  He knew that a paved road was not far off, and he was fairly sure of the direction the van had taken. Unwilling to increase his circulation too much by running, he strode quickly that way. In less than five minutes he was walking down a deserted, two-lane country highway. He sensed that he was north of the city, but it was only a guess.

  Through some trees, around a curve in the road, he could make out a dim light and a structure of some sort. He cut across the woods and found himself standing beside a small Mobil station, which was darkened for the night but obviously in current use. There was no sign on the building that gave even a clue as to where he was. Eric scanned the narrow highway but saw no other buildings. He peered through the large plate-glass window, looking for a phone. There, on the cluttered metal desk, he spied something he needed even more at that moment--an envelope.