lead. His bent, crooked legs seemed to present no impediment to his riding. In fact, he looked more comfortable than Lang felt.
Leaning over to place his mouth next to her ear, he said, “Someone is following us.”
“Following?” she repeated. “It is the only path through the forest. Anyone coming this way would use it.”
“But why would they come this way at all?” Lang argued. “I imagine everyone around here has been up to the old fort as many times as they might wish.”
“And you intend to do what?”
Lang slid from his horse, handing the reins to Gurt. “I intend to see who’s shadowing us. Go about another hundred yards and wait for me.”
“Lang…”
Before she could voice an objection, he had used a hanging vine to climb into the dense leaves of an ironwood tree. She shook her head slowly and led his horse away.
Lang did not have long to wait. Gurt had just vanished into the twilight of the natural canopy of vegetation when two horsemen appeared. They both were dressed in khaki uniforms, and both had sidearms in covered holsters. Despite the meager light, both wore reflective sunglasses. They passed within five feet of Lang. He watched them go, then dropped to the trail and followed. With the steep grade, the horses’ pace was easily one he could match.
He had been trailing them only a couple of minutes when the junglelike growth stopped as abruptly as the opening of a stage curtain. The two horsemen were silhouetted against a gray background that ebbed and flowed like running water. It took Lang a second to realize that he was at an altitude that touched the clouds.
A whiff of a breeze and the gray parted, revealing a sight he would not soon forget. Where the dense vegetation ended, it opened onto the open vista of a rocky meadow ending in a peak. Perched like a ship on an ocean wave, a massive stone structure stuck its bow into a sea of swirling mist. Lang had seen many forts, but never one with a shiplike prow. The object of fortification was not only to protect but provide a platform for heavy artillery, weaponry that could be concentrated on the enemy’s positions. Here, the pointed bow achieved the opposite effect, diffusing rather than concentrating fire. But it made little difference, Lang could see. The fortress sat on a bluff with a straight drop-off on three sides. The only approach was the narrow path no more than two feet wide that crowned the slope up to the Citadelle’s gate. A misstep would result in a fall of a thousand feet or more.
He could see Gurt and Paul waiting along this path, their horses nibbling at what little vegetation poked through the rocky surface. Then they disappeared in swirling gray cloud. By the time Lang could see Gurt and Paul again, the two horsemen he was following had reached them. Paul was engaged in an animated conversation. A few yards farther along toward the massive structure, two more men in uniform were approaching on horseback from the fort.
The two new arrivals reached the group at the same time as Lang. The discussion stopped and everyone turned to look at him, the only person not mounted.
“Tell them I had to answer the call of nature,” Lang said to Paul, swinging back onto the little horse.
Although he was unable to understand the words, Lang could tell Paul was unhappy at what the men were telling him. The tone was getting angry and the gestures increasingly aggressive.
“What are they saying?” Gurt asked.
Paul took a deep breath. “Say we cannot enter Citadelle. Is dangerous, floors and walls not safe. We must go back. These men have orders not to allow anyone inside.”
“The place has been there for nearly two hundred years,” Lang argued, “and it’s just now unsafe?”
“Go!” One of the men was pointing in the direction of Milo, perhaps exhausting his entire English vocabulary.
Lang took a long last look at the amazing structure perched on its lofty height. He could see guns of different sizes bristling through ports. The walls of stone rose well over a hundred feet and were smooth even though they had withstood the elements for nearly two centuries.
“Go now!”
The man knew more English than Lang had anticipated.
It was obvious no amount of argument was going to change the minds of these uniforms. Gurt reached into her purse and produced a twenty-dollar bill. In these latitudes, dead American presidents frequently spoke with more authority than mere orders.
The response was silent stares from four pairs of sunglasses.
Lang pulled the reins to his left. The little horse took dainty, careful steps to turn around on the narrow path. The animal was not only as small as a burro but just as surefooted.
“No point in arguing,” he said sourly. “Let’s go.”
In single file, they reentered the coolness of the tropical forest. It was not until they were almost back to Milo that the trail permitted two riders side by side.
Gurt reined her horse in to let Lang catch up to her. “You do not plan to see this marvelous place, this Citadelle?”
Lang’s response was a grunt. “First the woman at the hotel has never heard of the biggest attraction in Haiti, perhaps the whole Caribbean, and then we find at least four armed cops, militia, whatever, guarding the place to keep away the tourists for which the country is starving. I’d say there’s something there more important than tourist dollars, something someone doesn’t want seen.”
Gurt smiled knowingly. “I suppose we have shopping to do, as Paul suggested.”
“Indeed we do.”
Cap Haitien
20:29 that evening
For dinner, Lang and Gurt had shared a pot of tenaka soup, vegetables done in an oxtail broth. She had the poulet kreyol, he the griot, a highly spiced pork, all washed down with icy bottles of Prestige, Haiti’s beer, served in different-sized and different-shaped bottles clearly recognizable from their former lives as containing Budweiser, St. Pauli Girl, Coors and a number of other brands stamped on the bottom of the glass, a model of recycling but more a tribute to the Haitian mentality of wasting nothing. The meal was served at the hotel’s open-air restaurant beside the pool. Lang had warned Gurt to forgo the salad on the theory that in third world countries, that which isn’t bottled, cooked or canned can lead to irresistible impulses to inspect plumbing facilities.
Even if there are none immediately available.
Retreating to the lobby, another open room furnished in native carved mahogany, Lang treated himself to a Cuban cigar, a Montecristo #2. It had been his favorite smoke before Manfred’s arrival in his life had resulted in the secondhand-smoke treaty with Gurt, who had given up her beloved Marlboros.
“Do you not wish Cognac with that?” Gurt queried.
“Wish it?” Lang puffed contentedly. “You bet! But drink one? Not with what we have planned for the evening.”
Gurt lowered her voice even though the room was otherwise empty. “We have everything we need?”
Lang contemplated the glowing ash of his cigar tip. “We checked before dinner, remember?”
Gurt stood, giving Lang a seductive look. “I think I will take a nap. Perhaps you will join me?”
Lang eyed his cigar, barely half-smoked. “Perhaps you will wait a little?”
She twisted her hips suggestively. “Poor Lang. He must choose between two of his delights.”
“Haven’t you heard? The president of the United States has forbidden torture.”
Gurt parted her lips to run her tongue along them. “We are not in the United States.”
Lang brightened. “Which means there is no such thing as a ‘no smoking’ hotel room.” He stood. “Lead on, my lady! My cigar and I follow!”
She preceded him across a small but attentively landscaped courtyard, down stairs lit by gaslights, and stood in front of the door. Even in the poor light he could see her stiffen.
She turned and took the few steps required to stand beside him. “Someone is in our room.”
Lang’s joy of anticipation evaporated faster than early-morning dew in July. “You’re sure?”
“The tall tale…”
“Telltale, the little strip of tape under the doorknob.”
