by Steve Perry
There were no aircraft landing sites on the Island of Death, as he understood it, but there was a packed-dirt strip along the river at Marigot near the southern Haitian coast that was long enough for a large plane to land. That was where he was going.
Yamada’s plane would get them there, and a boat from there would put them on Zile Muri-yo long before the two men, whom his man Louis had determined were American and British archaeologists. This confirmed his suspicions. They had come looking for the same thing as he. Well, perhaps not precisely such, but the result would be the same. That they had come meant they either knew where it was or had some way to find it, and the Japanese had learned long ago that if you could follow a bee to its hive, it would save you much work in collecting honey . . .
When he and Suzuki arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport, the plane, a Boeing 247, was already warming up its twin engines. The craft was loaded, since Yamada had known he would be needing it sooner or later. Plenty of room for his men, since it could easily carry ten passengers, along with a three-man crew and several hundred pounds of supplies. The flight would take only a few minutes, and they would be well ahead of Jones and McHale and their local contact.
The sword had been drawn, the edge glistened in the hot sunlight, and now it was time to address the cutting . . .
Gruber said, “And what do you have for me, Henri?”
The little brown man appeared to consider the question as he sipped from his glass. “Nothing today, monsieur, I am afraid.”
“Ah, well. So it goes. Listen, Henri, I have left my wallet in my car, behind the market there. Come with me and I shall pay you for this week.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
Henri finished his drink and stood.
The car, bought locally, was an old but well-maintained Ford, parked in the quiet alley behind the market. Nobody was around.
Gruber double-checked to make certain they were unobserved. He opened the passenger door, reached under the seat, and came out with an American .45 pistol. Of course, he preferred the Luger, which was a much better-made weapon, sleek, perfectly machined, and using the smaller and more elegant 9mm round. Even the Mauser HSc pocket pistol in 7.65mm issued to doctors was much better, but it would not do to be found here with a German sidearm. There was the tiny hideaway single-shot Swiss pistol in his pant pocket, but the Swiss were neutral . . .
Henri’s senses were not so fogged by the rum that he didn’t know what he saw.
“Monsieur? What is this?”
“It’s a Colt, I believe. Very nasty. A real manstopper.” He pointed the gun at Henri.
“But—why menace me this way?”
“Because I don’t care for liars. You saw the Chinese scholar today, only a few minutes ago. And yet you did not mention it.”
“But—but—there was no need! I had nothing to tell him!”
“I don’t believe you. I am certain you did have something to tell him. I’ve had men watching you, my friend. You are being devious. I will know why, or you will not be drinking any more rum, you understand?” He waved the gun. “If I think you are lying again, I will shoot you dead, right here and now.”
Henri didn’t go pale, but he certainly began to sweat. “It—it slipped my mind. Nothing of importance, monsieur, I swear!”
“Let me decide that.”
“The two men. Dr. Jones and McHale, they—”
“Doctor Jones?”
“They—they are, how do you say? Archéologues?”
Archaeologists? Damn! This was unexpected and bad news.
“And you told this to the Chinaman?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“What else?”
“Nothing! Only that they had engaged a local woman and that they had left town today, driving south in an automobile, through the mountains.”
“Gott im Himmel!”
“Monsieur?”
“All right, Henri, I believe you. I am going to let you live. Go on now, before I change my mind!”
Henri relaxed and turned away—
Gruber shot him in the back of the head.
The noise was quite loud, it made his ears ring, but could be mistaken for a truck backfiring, and pinpointing the location would be difficult if anybody bothered to wonder. Most of the locals here wouldn’t turn a head to look at an erupting volcano if it might interrupt them dozing, eating, or drinking. Yes, the heat and all, but still, they made sloths look energetic. Haiti-time, they said when they were late for a meeting. It meant they got there when they got there. Clocks and watches were wasted here.
Haiti-time. Uncivilized beyond measure.
Quickly he climbed into his car and started the engine. He had to get to the airport and rent a plane. It would not do that Yamada was ahead of him. He also had to send a coded wire. He would need help, and there was a group of dedicated German soldiers in the Dominican Republic standing by, waiting for his order. They could meet him in Marigot in a matter of a couple of hours, perhaps less.
Even so, he was behind, and he hated it. It would not do.
As for Henri? He simply could not have been left alive to tell tales. Gruber wasn’t planning to return to this city or country ever again if he could help it, but, better that there weren’t any loose ends. He doubted if anybody really cared about the death of a ne’er-do-well like the late Henri anyhow . . .
With any luck, in a week or two he would be on his way home, and in charge of a project that would give Germany the victory in this war. If he never saw a tropical country again, it would be fine by him.
SIX
Terre Rouge, Haiti
“WE ARE GOING to cross a couple of bloody miles of the Caribbean in that?”
Marie looked at Mac. “Unless you would rather swim?”
“No, I won’t be swimming in these waters, thank you.”
Indy could see what Mac saw. The “that” in question was a boat, but it looked neither sturdy nor large enough to carry four people. Not much longer than the shark that had chased them ashore, the thing was open-topped, its wood lacking much in the way of paint or varnish. The outboard motor on the back looked like it would have been more at home on a sewing machine.
Indy shook his head. Yeah, it was bad, but he had been in worse.
“My cousin André has been fishing these waters for fifteen years in this bateau. It will get us there—unless a storm comes along.”
Indy grinned. Well. There was one more thing to worry about, wasn’t there? This was the Caribbean, after all. Wouldn’t that be fun? The sky was free of clouds at the moment, but the tropics were volatile when it came to the weather.
“It will only take a few minutes. You can see the island from here, look.”
Indy had already spotted the place, a green blob on the sea less than two miles out.
He looked at Mac.
“In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“I suppose.” To Marie, he said, “What about supplies? We can’t carry much in that.”
“There is a store on the island. We can get what we need there.”
Indy shrugged. “Fine. Let’s go.”
“In a bit. André and I must first offer a small sacrifice to assure our safe journey.”
“Sacrifice? Aren’t you a Catholic?”
“Among other things, yes. It is traditional when André takes the boat out to sea to ask for a blessing.”
“God has pretty good ears, I expect He can hear you as well from here.”
She smiled. “We have our ways, Indy. Surely a man of your experience understands?”
Indy sighed. “Yeah, I suppose. Go, do what you need. Mac and I’ll wait here, make sure the boat is shipshape.”
Marie and her cousin André approached Alain and spoke to him. Her brother waved at Indy and Mac and headed back for the Chevrolet.
“Lad seems to be in a bit of a hurry. Must have left the water running back home.”
“Might as well have a look at this tub,” Indy said. “We don’t want to see a s
nout sticking up through the bottom halfway there.”
Mac laughed. “That’s my line, isn’t it?”
As they headed toward the water’s edge, Indy caught a movement in the trees to the left of the fisherman’s house.
Mac caught the look. “Something?”
“I thought I saw somebody there, in the woods, watching us.”
Mac glanced that way. “I don’t see anyone.”
Indy shook his head. “Gone, now. All I got was a glimpse. A face. Not real healthy looking.”
“Maybe a trick of the light,” Mac said.
“Maybe.” But his impression was that it was somebody sneaking around, and there was something odd about them . . .
Well. He’d check it out, but they wouldn’t be here that long. Maybe on the way back.
Zile Muri-yo
When Boukman spoke, it was with the voice of Baron LaCroix—called here Lakwa—of the Guédé, the Spirits of the Dead. To grant Boukman power, the Guédé demanded much of their horse—though the rider was inside rather than without, and they rode him hard. Often after such a ride, Boukman was too tired to move for hours, sore for days. Lakwa was not as fierce as Cimetière, the Guardian of the Cemeteries, and neither was as hard on him as Samadi’s wife, Maman Brigitte, who liked to drink hot pepper sauce and curse long and loud, burning his belly, roiling his bowels, and turning his voice into a hoarse whisper.
He shared his body with Lakwa now, and the voice coming from his lips was that of the loa:
“Kill the black rooster and bathe in the blood! The dark of the moon comes, and thus the Risen will flourish!”
There were half a dozen zombi servants gathered around Boukman in the small clearing. These were the True Risen, not the Children of the Potion, and their powers were much greater. No thirst, no hunger, they were bothered not by the heat of day nor the insects at night; their hearts did not beat, nor their souls yearn, for their souls were passed on, leaving them empty, existing only to serve the bokor who commanded them.
They took much power to raise and hold, the true ones. At his peak, too many years ago, he had been able to keep two score animated, and those able to travel the length and breadth of Hispaniola even while he himself slept. These days? Half that many were all he could manage, and when he was really tired some of them dropped and lay still. Age wanted to rob him of everything, and fighting it cost more and more power each year. Despite being weaker, the Children of the Potion were so much easier to make and control than the True Risen. Administering a drug was easier than bringing someone back from the dead . . .
There was a change blowing, he could feel the herald winds brushing against his lips, could taste the coming of it . . .
Abruptly the baron left him, and he felt himself sag as the loa’s spirit flew away.
The Risen stood silently, waiting.
“Go,” he said. “Watch. Learn. Come back and report.”
The half a dozen dead—five men and one woman—shambled wordlessly toward the forest.
Boukman already knew the white men were on their way here. One of his servants had seen them by the sea on the mainland, and he knew they were coming. He did not know why yet, but that knowledge drew nearer. He would uncover it soon.
For now? He needed to rest. He was exhausted.
The hut on the edge of the clearing beckoned. It was rude—walls, a roof, a straw mattress on a new bamboo floor already half eaten by mites—but it would serve. It would keep off the rain when it fell, shade him from the sun. Nothing alive, no bug, no animal, no man would bother him as he slept and regained his strength. Later, one of the Children of the Potion would come with food, and to attend to his other needs. He was old, but having a young, pretty, and pleasingly plump woman come to bathe his face, rub his body with scented oils, and do anything else he might deem necessary—anything at all? That was part of his power, albeit only the smallest part.
There was an old saying on the islands: If your daughters are pretty or your sons handsome, best hide them away, lest Boukman claim them for his own . . .
He grinned. It was true—he liked them attractive. Many of the young and beautiful had died suddenly, for no apparent reason, and come back to serve as Boukman’s slaves. That was the way of things when you were a bokor. You took what—and who—you wanted.
Later, after he was rested, he would be ready to deal with the white men and whatever it was they had been sent to bring him.
In the dream, Boukman was running, and his steps were slow, as if his bare feet were sunk deep in a thick mire. As hard as he tried, he could only manage a pace akin to a slow walk.
Something was behind him, unseen, and it was coming for him.
Though he could not see it, he knew it was a monster beyond measure, a thing of such vile composition that to behold it would curdle your blood. To be touched by it would be infinitely worse, a horror beyond any a sane man could imagine. Gibbering madness for ten times ten million years.
In the dream, Boukman was seventeen again, a man, but not one of enough strength to stop the terror chasing him. His machete was made of rubber, his gun held only cotton bullets, and his powers were small. What use was a love potion against the thing that wanted his soul? How could he possibly survive?
Even though he knew it was a dream, he felt the fear.
And the answer, he knew, was that as he stood, he could not.
But: There was hope, a faint ray that shined down supernally from the heavens. There was a way. A way to become more than he was, and it was in front of him, just . . . there, ahead . . .
Like the monster behind him, what lay before was unseen, and he could not fathom what it was, only that it was his salvation. If he could get to it before the thing chasing him, if he could steep himself in whatever it was, he would have the power to stop it, to defeat it, and to become more than a man—more than any man had been or would ever be . . .
He pushed himself to move faster, his lungs laboring, his muscles aching, his heart pounding close to its bursting point—
—to no avail. He was a fly in hardening amber, wading through glue, and the evil behind him kept gaining. He felt it well over him, a malignant black wave about to crash down and engulf his soul—
Boukman awoke with a start, sitting up with a yell stillborn on his lips, sweat soaking the thin sheet upon which he lay.
The Dream. Come to warn him. Come to tell him there was something for him to find that would help, as it always did when he heeded it. Attention must be paid, and if it was done properly, it would reward him.
It had to be Marie and her white men—her imen blan. Nothing else was new.
He would have to examine it as a boy did an ant under a magnifying glass. And he would have to take care that he did not focus the sun’s light into a burning ray that would destroy the insect before he learned its secrets . . .
SEVEN
MARIE HAD BEEN right about the place being a jungle. There was a strip of beach, a few palm trees, and then a wall of rain forest that looked like, well, a wall. Most of Haiti had been logged, Indy knew; the Spanish, the French, the natives, whoever, had cut down trees to build houses, ships, churches, even sidewalks. But this looked to be old growth, towering trees little bothered by axes or saws. Odd. You’d think somebody would be in there harvesting this valuable timber like gangbusters.
Marie spoke to her cousin, and this time Indy was pretty sure he caught a couple of the Creole words, one of which meant “home.”
“He’s leaving us here?” Indy asked.
It was an unnecessary question, since André had already walked his boat around and pointed it nose-out toward the mainland. As they watched, he waded it out, rode it over the first waves, which weren’t much, and then hopped in and cranked the engine. He turned and waved good-bye.
The trip over had been fine. The water had been calm, the little two-cycle motor ran merrily along, putt-putting and burbling to itself, the burnt smell of gasoline-and-oil mix mostly blown away by a slight cros
s-breeze. That it was not the greatest boat in the world didn’t lessen Indy’s desire to have it stay close at hand.
“He will be back in a few days. There are other boats on the island if we need them. Come. The store is this way, only a kilometer or so, and slightly inland.”
Indy didn’t think that any kind of permanent structure would do well only “slightly inland,” given the storms that raked this part of the Caribbean every year or two. He’d been in typhoons, and the hurricanes in this hemisphere were every bit as nasty as the typhoons in the Pacific. Winds at 130 or 140 miles an hour, tidal surge going halfway across the island? That would make living here risky, and the summer brought the storms . . .
Mac stood looking at the jungle.
“Something?”
“Well, I don’t see anything but greenery, but it feels as if somebody just walked across my grave. Rather a creepy sensation.”
Mac stuck his hand into his jacket pocket, and Indy knew he was checking to make certain his gun was still there. Indy carried an English revolver, a Webley, a big, clunky, hard-hitting old piece. Mac had a thing for Italian weapons, and he favored a Beretta, a little .32 semi-automatic, the like of which he had been carrying since the early 1930s. He preferred the extra rounds, he said, eight in the magazine and one in the pipe, for a total of nine. Indy argued that the little 7.65mm round was anemic—you needed to shoot somebody two or three times to get the same effect as the Webley .455—but Mac was obstinate about such things.
A lot of folks had their talismans . . .
One of the first things they had done when they’d reached a town after the plane crashed was buy a little can of oil to deal with their guns’ immersion in the sea. Salt water was bad for blued steel.
Mac’s pistol was better than no gun, though, and a lot of guys had been killed with Berettas. Not for much longer, though. The Italians were on the run, and he’d be surprised if they stayed in the war until the end of the year.
