Dehydration won over repatriation.
The third night three people died and two more simply were not present at dawn.
They were in the tongue of the ocean, that deep Atlantic trench off the eastern shore of Andros, when the high winds of a squall broke the makeshift craft apart. Fortunately for those few who had managed to somehow stay afloat, a cutter from the United States Navy Experimental Base on southern Andros happened to be in the area and fished the seven survivors from the water more dead than alive.
Refugees picked up at sea were routinely returned to their port of origin, particularly those obviously headed for illegal entry into the United States.
Not Jerome.
To his surprise, he was separated from his comrades and packed onto a helicopter that landed on a military base he guessed was somewhere in Florida. He also guessed, correctly, that this was because he was the only survivor who could both speak and read English, a language he had studied hard during the few years he had been allowed to attend the small Catholic school in his native village before his father determined work in the little family plot was more important.
Jerome’s new friends, the Americans, fitted him with new clothes, fed him and tutored him in basic computer skills, something Jerome doubted he could use in a country too poor to buy such equipment should he return home. He need not have worried. Two weeks later, he was in Port-au-Prince, equipped with a digital camera with night- vision lens, a small computer with a solar recharging unit and a thousand dollars American, more cash than a Haitian peasant would see in several lifetimes.
And promise of more. All he had to do was find a reason to hang around the airport, take and transmit pictures of arriving foreign passengers.
That was what he was doing tonight, taking and sending a series of digital photos of the man who had arrived after dark and was now returning to the aircraft. A few phone calls from people with whom Jerome had shared his wealth had alerted him to the dinner in Petionville and the fact that this man had failed to deliver something to the president for life, information he had just passed along to the Americans. Jerome had no idea who he was or why the Americans were willing to pay for pictures of him or information as to his activities in Haiti. He could not have cared less. The money was good, but better yet, his American friends had promised him he could eventually come to the United States, bringing little Jerome, his two-year-old son, and Louisa, the child’s mother.
Life would be good. People who worked hard in the United States became rich, and Jerome was certainly willing…
His euphoria over his good fortune had deafened him. He paid no attention to the sound of the automobile pulling up behind him. He suddenly heard the sound of a car door opening and closing.
Turning, his heart dropped into his stomach. In the lights from the airport, he could see two men approaching him. Limned by the glare of the airfield, he could not see their faces but he could tell both wore the aviator-style sunglasses that were the badge of President duPaar’s Secret State Security Police. The Duvaliers’ Tonton Macoute had been abolished when young Baby Doc abdicated to France in the early 1980s, but their replacement was just as feared. People who spoke unfavorably of their president for life, or who were suspected of doing so, still disappeared without a trace.
Jerome looked over his shoulder, considering making a run for it. No chance. The road circling the airport was fenced on both sides. He was not going to outrun the car whose engine was idling.
The two men approached without speaking, their silence alone menacing.
“Good evening,” Jerome said in Creole. “Perhaps you gentlemen would like to take some fresh mangoes home?”
Still, neither man spoke. Instead, one grabbed Jerome by the shirt collar, throwing him to the ground, while the other dumped the fruit from the cart. Jerome’s bowels constricted in terror as the man in sunglasses held up both camera and computer.
Still wordless, the man who had tossed Jerome to the ground produced a pistol of some sort and placed it next to Jerome’s head, motioning him to stand. The gun pressing against his temple, Jerome was marched to the car and shoved inside.
As the car drove away, Jerome’s fear was tinted with sadness that neither he, Louisa or little Jerome would ever have a chance to become wealthy in America.
Richard Russell Federal Building
75 Spring Street, Atlanta
The next afternoon
The Reverend Bishop Groom had been delighted at the half-million-dollar bail, an amount he could raise without the assistance of a bondsman. Lang guessed the equity in the preacher’s palatial home in the foothills of the northern Georgia mountains would more than cover the sum set by the federal magistrate.
Arriving at the elevators outside the courtroom, the usual cadre of television and press personalities surrounded Lang, the reverend and the long-suffering woman who was his wife. Lang had never actually heard her speak, but she held her husband’s hand, smiling dutifully at the TV cameras. In an age of trial by media, appearances counted.
“When will the case go to trial?”
“Is there any chance of a plea bargain?”
“Reverend, has attendance fallen off at your church?”
Lang sensed the reverend was about to reply and stepped in front of him, preempting the camera’s lens. Letting the accused make an unrehearsed statement to a voracious press was often a prelude to additional questions and disaster. “As those of you who were in the courtroom know, trial is set for early June. We intend to be ready to rebut all charges.”
The standard, vanilla bravado.
A woman with blinding white teeth and a shag pageboy too blonde to be believable shoved a microphone into the reverend’s face. “There are a number of women in your church who claim you had sex with them. What is your response?”
Lang swatted the microphone away like an annoying insect. “As far as we know, the government has made no such allegations.” He none too gently pushed his client toward an open elevator. “That’s all the comments we have.”
As the door hissed shut, the reverend dropped his wife’s hand, stuffing his own in his pocket. “I don’t understand why you insist I not talk to the press. I speak to thousands of people both on the air and in person every week.”
“True, but you control the sound bites. The media is in the entertainment, not the news, business. If editing a statement makes a story more interesting than what the person actually said, provides a better story line, how far are you willing to trust Eye Witness News at Six?”
The reverend had no response.
At basement level, Lang exited the building two stories below a viaduct spanning what had once been neighboring rail stations. Where dozens of railroads had converged to make Atlanta the transportation hub of the South, parking lots now flourished. Long before Lang had come to the city, the Southern Railway’s fanciful Moorish marvel, the Terminal Station, had been replaced by the unimaginative federal building he had just left. Lang had seen the pictures of the old building with its pair of unmatched minarets poking into a skyline that no longer existed.
Atlanta had a passion for the new over the old, a choice that had destroyed more landmarks than the railroad station. Lang supposed the trend had begun with Sherman, known locally as a Yankee a little too careless with fire or the first proponent of urban renewal.
In fact, Lang knew of a single building that had survived the 1864 burning: the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Francis’s church. The story, perhaps apocryphal, was that Sherman had ordered the city put to the torch, including its churches. A company of New Yorkers, recent Irish immigrants, had arrived to do the job when the current priest by the name of O’Day had appeared on the steps to deliver a graphic depiction of the fate of the souls of anyone who dared desecrate his church. Fearing hellfire more than the ire of their officers, the men in blue slunk away to falsely report the completion of their mission.
Lang always smiled at the tale, but this time it reminded him of the priest’s remarks about Saint Mark’s tomb.
