E. Dark Shadows: A Ryan Weller Thriller Book 4 Paperback

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CHAPTER 3
Fourrier, Haiti

Ryan Weller leaned on his shovel and watched the excavator dredge its bucket through the mud, roots, and water that clogged the old canal before depositing the overburden in the back of a truck. Shirtless like most of the Haitians he was working with, sweat ran down Ryan’s broad, tan back. At six feet tall, he stood a good six inches above his average Haitian contemporary. Ryan wore khaki cargo shorts and desert tan combat boots. To keep his head cool, he’d trimmed his shaggy brown hair back to a stubbly buzz cut. Dragging the back of his hand across his forehead, Ryan flicked the sweat from his skin.
The men around him chatted in Creole, eager to return to their farming. When opened, the canal would provide irrigation to their fields from the Grande Rivière du Nord. He watched the people milling about as the excavator worked. Their jubilant attitude was infectious. Even though many of them suffered from abject poverty, they were a joyous people. The simple things in life seemed to make them the happiest. It was a good life lesson. For the Haitians, getting water for their crops was one of the best things that had happened in a long time.
A month ago, Ryan and his crew on the salvage vessel Peggy Lynn had recovered twenty-five million dollars in gold bars from a sunken freighter. Haitian warlord Joulie Lafitte had provided them with protection, and in exchange, they’d returned half of the gold to her. The gold had been payment for an arms transaction between Joulie’s former fiancé, Toussaint Bajeux, and international arms dealer Jim Kilroy. Both men were now dead, and Joulie was putting her portion of the gold to use by helping the locals rebuild from the damaging hurricanes of Maria and Irma.
Joulie lived in Cap-Haïtien and controlled large portions of the island’s northern peninsula. To date, she had built a facility that converted plastics to fuel oil, rebuilt houses and schools, endowed grants to the local colleges, and planted orchards and scores of trees to help combat deforestation.
She employed hundreds of people to scour the beaches, riverbanks, and city streets to collect plastic trash to feed the fuel oil plant. Men removed sunken vessels from Cap-Haïtien and Fort Liberté Bay before dismantling them on the beaches. She’d ordered derelict homes torn down, the usable material salvaged for future projects, and the debris burned or discarded.
Thousands of vehicles crowded the junkyards around Cap-Haïtien. An obscure Haitian law allowed for the importation of vehicles, regardless of operational status or age. The shippers, often family members in the U.S. or local businessmen, packed the vehicles with everything from canned goods to car parts to bicycles and clothing before sending them to Haiti. For many, it was the cheapest way to transport goods into the country.
The Haitians stripped all the valuable parts from any vehicle that didn’t run before abandoning them in the streets and woods on the outskirts of the city. Joulie hired a towing company to transport the broken vehicles to a crusher she’d set up near the fuel plant. Then, she sold the crushed vehicles and other scrap to a Chinese recycling company, which shipped the metal overseas. Not only was she providing jobs, but Joulie was also making money by cleaning up the country. She put the money into more community projects, like refurbishing this old canal.
Ryan watched as a young boy leaped off a mound of dirt into the muddy water. His parents scolded him as he climbed from the water coated with mud and slime. Despite the reprimand, the kid grinned from ear to ear, and Ryan laughed.
James, another young boy, ran up to Ryan. “Meyse Ryan, mambo Joulie wants to speak with you.”
Ryan smiled at the orphan who’d been his shadow since he’d arrived at the dig site three days ago. “Yeah? What’s she want to talk about?”
James held his hands out, palms up, and shrugged. Then he pointed toward the tent used as for headquarters. “She call on the telephone.”
Ryan clapped him on the shoulder. “All right, chief, let’s go.”
James raced ahead of Ryan, who handed his shovel to one of the other workers and then made his way across the field to the tent.
The boy had taken to sleeping outside Ryan’s tent until Ryan had caught him. James had explained that his parents had died, and he lived with his uncle. Ryan had set up a cot for him in his tent so the boy would be more comfortable. James performed odd jobs for Ryan, including carrying messages between the American and the project foreman, Jonas Ineus. Having learned English in school and by watching television, James also acted as an interpreter when Ryan had trouble understanding the Creole language or the heavy accents. The workers were respectful to Ryan. They knew the nèg blan—white man—had a special relationship with the mambo—vodou priestess—who financed their projects.
Inside the headquarters tent, Jonas pointed at the satellite phone sitting on a desk and left the tent.
Ryan picked up the phone and sat in the canvas chair. Putting it to his ear, he said, “This is Ryan.”
“Hello, mon amour.” My love.
Mambo Joulie’s sultry purr was intoxicating, even over the sat phone. He pictured the mahogany-skinned woman with jet-black hair that fell in waves to her mid-back. Her blue eyes were a genetic anomaly she claimed had been gifted by the loa. The gods had also blessed her with above-average height and a commanding presence, which she cultivated with a hint of ruthless aggression after taking Toussaint’s place. Ryan had seen her be both a caring visionary and a cold-blooded bitch.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Your boss called for you,” Joulie replied.
Ryan grinned. “What can I do for you, boss?”
Joulie giggled. “No, mon amour.” Her tone became more serious. “Your other boss, Greg Olsen.”
Ryan nodded, watching the excavator through the tent flaps. While he wasn’t surprised Greg had called, he hadn’t missed working for DWR either and wasn’t overly eager to return to commercial diving. “What’d he want?”
“He didn’t tell me,” Joulie said. “He just asked that you call him. You left your satellite phone at the Roi Christophe.” The King Christophe Hotel had once been a summer home for Henri Christophe in the 1800s. Now, it was a luxury resort in the heart of “the Cap,” as the locals called their city.
“Yes, I did.” Ryan smirked. He’d left the phone behind on purpose. Despite Haiti’s abject poverty and supposed security risks, Ryan enjoyed helping to implement Joulie’s infrastructure projects. It was a nice break from his normal underwater salvage and troubleshooting gig. If Greg couldn’t reach him, Ryan wouldn’t have to return to work. Changing the subject, he asked, “How’s everything in Port-au-Prince?”
Joulie had gone to the capital to advocate for the people in her district. She sighed. “Not so well. Have you not heard?”
“Heard what?”
“The citizens of Port-au-Prince are rioting in the street and demanding Prime Minister Lafontant and President Moïse step down. To try to balance the budget, President Moïse tried to institute a fifty-percent price increase on diesel and gasoline, higher for kerosene.” She sighed again, sharper this time. “The people are angry because a liter of petrol would cost seven dollars. How can my people afford fuel when they make less than three dollars a day? What started as protests have turned into looting and burning. They’ve put up roadblocks and have killed several people. We’re trapped in the hotel.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m worried but fine,” she replied.
Ryan recognized the weariness in her voice, both from the strain of being trapped and the desperation she felt for her country. “Why are they burning the stores?” he asked. “They’re only hurting themselves.”
“They say they have nothing left, so burning the stores doesn’t change their lives, and in many respects, it doesn’t. But at the same time …” Joulie let out another long sigh. “Those stores provide the goods they need to survive.”
Joulie paused and spoke to someone else, her muffled voice making it impossible for Ryan to hear what she’d said. When she talked to Ryan again, she said, “David Pinchina is coming to get our delegation in his helicopter. Jean-Claude Duval needs to get back to the Cap to help stabilize things there.”
Ryan had met Cap-Haïtien’s mayor and thought he was doing a fair job under Joulie’s tutelage. “Are they rioting there, too?” he asked.
“Yes. The fuel hike would affect the whole country.”
Ryan watched the excavator work, water streaming from each bucket of mud dragged from the canal. Little waterfalls cascaded from holes in the truck bed as it drained and ran back to the canal in rivulets. A line from an old Desert Rose Band song sprang into Ryan’s mind. One step forward and two steps back / nobody gets very far like that. It could be Haiti’s theme song.
Joulie interrupted his thoughts, her frustration palpable over the phone. “I’m afraid our mission to lobby Parliament and the UN for money for a desalinization plant and a waste-water treatment facility has failed.”
“I thought President Moïse’s Change Caravan was trying to address those issues.”
“He was,” Joulie replied. “But as you can see, it hasn’t gone well.”
“I think you should do what we discussed and build a Civilian Conservation Corps like President Roosevelt did during the Great Depression.”
Joulie sighed. They’d been over this before. The idea was that the population would receive technical training, and the country’s infrastructure would receive a much-needed facelift. “I am trying. It isn’t easy to win over the minds in Port-au-Prince. The government is not always cooperative. I thought we might find common ground … maybe after they sort the fuel crisis out.”
“When will you be back?” Ryan asked.
“David is landing the helicopter on the roof in a few minutes. I need to finish packing.”
“I’m glad you have a safe way out of the city.” Ryan sighed as he changed the subject. “Greg probably wants me to do some troubleshooting.”
“I felt the same. The loa will bless you.”
Ryan smiled. Joulie often consulted the many vodou gods of her religion, believing they assisted the God of the Catholic Church. “I’ll call you after I find out what Greg wants.”
“Please do,” Joulie said. “If he wants you to travel, you must arrange alternate transportation off the island. All the airlines have stopped flights in and out because of the riots.”
“Can David fly me out?” Ryan asked.
“I think we can arrange that,” Joulie replied. “We’ll stop to pick you up. It would not be safe for a lone white man to drive through the city.” Muffled shouting erupted in the background. “I must go,” Joulie said. “I will see you soon.”
“Wi, madam.” They said goodbye and disconnected.
Ryan stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. The country had experienced an illusionary feeling of peace after the hurricanes. Underneath the beautiful Caribbean exterior lay a current of resistance and unease. It had been that way since the Spaniards had first arrived on the island, named it Hispaniola, and enslaved its residents.
Ryan reached into a cooler and pulled out a bottle of water. He wondered what the crew of the Peggy Lynn was doing. After they’d received a cash payment from Joulie for the gold salvaged from the sunken freighter, they’d scattered. The Peggy Lynn was in the dry docks in San Juan, Puerto Rico, undergoing a complete refit of her engines and running gear.
Travis Wisnewski, Peggy Lynn’s trained commercial diver, and his girlfriend, Stacey Coleman, had flown back to the States to visit their respective parents and continue to cement their relationship. Don Williams, the boat’s mechanical engineer, had returned to Texas City to spend time with his girlfriend, Ashlee Calvo, a computer technician at DWR. Captain Dennis Law, Peggy Lynn’s owner, and his octogenarian first mate, Emery Ducane, had elected to stay in San Juan to oversee the refit.
Ryan had stayed in Cap-Haïtien with the beautiful warlord. He’d been sharing her bed since he first came to the country to retrieve the gold. Ryan had given her his share of his salvage profits to invest in infrastructure projects with a promised return. Not only was he doing something worthwhile with his money, but he could also keep his earnings and dividends hidden from the prying eyes of government tax collectors.
Although he had doubts now about seeing a return, Ryan was thankful he didn’t need the money. He’d squirreled away over a million dollars after he and his then-partner at DWR, Mango Hulsey, had split a bag of cash they’d taken off a gunrunning ship in the Gulf of Mexico. He considered it hazardous duty pay after having his sailboat shot out from under him and enduring two long days floating in the open ocean before being picked up by a Mexican fishing vessel.
In Haiti, Ryan was acting as a day laborer and construction consultant. He’d grown up working for his father’s construction company, trying to make it his life’s work after a ten-year stint in the U.S. Navy as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. But Ryan had missed the adventurous life he’d led, sailing around the world when he was eighteen then working with the military’s elite bomb squads. When Greg Olsen offered him a position at DWR as their Homeland Security liaison, Ryan had jumped at the chance to get back into the action.
The first mission to hunt down pirates in the Gulf of Mexico had resulted in Ryan seizing the gunrunning ship and killing the leader of the Aztlán Cartel. Jose Luis Orozco, the cartel’s new leader, had placed a two-million-dollar bounty on Ryan’s head. Undeterred, Ryan had tracked down the international gun dealer, Jim Kilroy, who had sold weapons to the Aztlán Cartel.
Instead of putting a halt to Kilroy’s operation, the arms dealer had coerced Ryan and Mango into transporting a shipload of weapons to Toussaint Bajeux in Haiti. During the unloading of the Santo Domingo, a rival warlord had attacked and sank the vessel along with Toussaint’s gold payment. Ryan and Mango had gone down with the ship, swimming to shore using rebreather diving equipment. Ryan’s mission had been unsanctioned by his Homeland handler, which had led to Ryan’s unofficial disassociation with both DWR and Homeland. Mango and his wife had sailed off on their sailboat, and Ryan had hidden in the Florida Keys, teaching scuba diving.
But the gold had called to Ryan, and he’d convinced Captain Dennis Law to use his vessel to help salvage it. Now, Ryan was an independent troubleshooter for DWR and in a complicated relationship with Mambo Joulie Lafitte.
Ryan drained the water in the bottle and tossed it into a nearby recycling bin. He wished he had a cigarette. Two weeks ago, he’d smoked the last of his American Camels and had vowed to quit. Ryan wasn’t sure if he was glad that he had stopped or if he just missed the repetitive action of bringing his hand to his mouth.
He dialed Greg Olsen and put the satellite phone to his ear. When Greg answered, Ryan asked, “How’s life in Puerto Rico?”
“Better than yours, I can tell you that.”
“Is it?”
“Air conditioning and ice-cold beer,” Greg said. “I hear you’re sweating in some old tent in the middle of nowhere while the natives burn down their country.”
“Pretty much,” Ryan said.
“I need you here,” Greg said. “Get your ass to San Juan. We have a job.”
“What’s going on?”
“Someone is stealing cargo containers from the terminals,” Greg said. “Three DWR containers have disappeared in the last two weeks.”
Ryan sat forward, intrigued. “An inside job?”
“I don’t think so. We’re using a local company with a good reputation. How soon can you get here?”
“I’m not sure,” Ryan said. “David Pinchina might have to fly me down. The airlines have stopped all flights in and out of Haiti.”
“We’re scheduled to meet with the shipping company execs on Monday morning. That gives you three days to get here.”
“What day is it?” Ryan asked.
“Friday,” Greg said. “Have you been in the bush that long?”
Ryan chuckled. “No. We’re digging an irrigation canal.”
“Sounds romantic,” Greg replied sarcastically. “Now, get a move on. I’ll see you in a few.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper,” Ryan said, ending the call. With a sigh, he shoved himself out of the chair and left the tent.
James came running up, drenched to the skin. His wet, baggy shorts outlined the thinness of his legs, and his bare chest heaved with excitement. Pointing at the canal and a group of boys sliding down the muddy bank, he exclaimed proudly, “We made a slide.”
Ryan smiled. The boy had a huge grin on his face, like most children worldwide, despite their circumstances. They enjoyed the simple pleasures in life before what Ryan liked to call Adult Worry Syndrome set in. “I’m glad you’re having fun.”
“Wi.” James grinned. “Do you want to jump in?”
Ryan laughed. “No, thanks. I’ve got to get going.”
James stuck out his bottom lip and hung his head.
Ryan squatted beside him. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll be back before they finish this project.”
The boy nodded solemnly. “Can I come with you?”
“Afraid not, buddy. I have to go to Puerto Rico. Did you know they lost all their power after the hurricane?”
James shook his head. How could he know? The boy didn’t have access to newspapers, and what television he did watch consisted of soccer matches.
“They have problems with their food and electricity just like you guys do. I’ll help them for a little bit, and then I’ll be back.”
One of the nearby men yelled at James. Ryan caught a few words, some of them not too kind. The man laughed, and James ran into the woods. Ryan wanted to run after him and tell him everything would be okay, but he didn’t. He couldn’t make such a promise.
Ryan felt guilty as he walked down to where Jonas Ineus stood beside the now silent excavator with a group of men. They stared into the trench as they discussed something in rapid-fire Creole. Ryan motioned the foreman away from the group.
When Jonas joined Ryan, he said, “They are arguing whether to dig another canal to a small village nearby.”
“Tell them to finish dredging the existing canal and then talk about making changes,” Ryan instructed.
“Yes, sir,” Jonas said.
“I have to go to Puerto Rico, but I should be back in two weeks. Joulie expects you to have the canal completed by then.” He’d lied to James. He didn’t know when he’d return to this tiny village, if ever. He was being called back to his life in a world much different from the Haitians’ simple existence.
Jonas bobbed his head. “I will have the project completed by then.”
“Good,” Ryan said. “You know how Mambo Joulie gets when she’s disappointed.”
Jonas’ eyes widened. He did not want her to call the loa down on him. “When will you go?”
“Soon. Joulie is coming to pick me up.”
Jonas moved closer to him and lowered his voice. “I would recommend you stay in your tent until she arrives. The people are rioting against the government’s increase in fuel prices. There is much anger, and men here want to take it out on you because you are white.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” Ryan said.
“This, I know,” Jonas replied. “The rioters only see you as a wealthy white man who represents the evils of the U.N. and the United States, you understand?”
“Yeah, I get it,” Ryan said, glancing around.
“Good. Go quickly, now, to the tent. Remember what I showed you there?”
Ryan nodded. There was a rust-pitted Beretta M9 in a footlocker.
“Keep it handy,” the foreman said.