She finally turned to La Croix. He was smiling again, almost apologetically. “We have a colorful history and many fanciful legends,” he told her, “all woven into a rich and beguiling tapestry.”
“Yeah, so I’ve been reading.”
She didn’t feel like talking, and looked out the window at the careworn neighborhood as they picked up speed and continued toward the palace. The caravan’s dust muted the harsh reality of the neighborhood to a soft focus.
La Croix smoothly resumed their conversation right where she dropped it. “You may know that centuries ago, when the French occupied this island, things were very bleak,” he said.
She turned back to him with a weak smile. He was the perfect gentleman. They had been riding for the last few minutes in silence, ever since they saw the roasted man. La Croix correctly sensed that she wasn’t in the mood for a chat, but he decided that it was better to distract her than to let her wrestle in silence with what she had witnessed.
“The slaves were mistreated,” he told her. “The French showed us no mercy. They did many unacceptable things. Zamba Boukman dedicated his life to gathering the slaves together.”
“To revolt?” she asked him, and he nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “But it didn’t go smoothly, I’m afraid. The French scheduled him for execution. Legend says it was then that Zamba made his unholy bargain.”
La Croix told her how Zamba had been locked in a cage, beaten and bloody, and was about to be executed at dawn by Napoleon’s men. He prayed hard that night to the Haitian goddess Anacaona. Finally a ball of light appeared in his cage. But it wasn’t Anacaona who had come to answer his prayers; it was the Devil himself who materialized before him.
Zamba had captured Lucifer’s attention because he was born of a loa and raised by a voodoo priest, and it was through Zamba that Satan realized he could finally establish his church on earth. Satan’s first blow was to turn Adam and Eve to sin; his second blow was to make an entire country worship him. Proof of the legend, the believers said, was that President Aristide, an expelled Catholic priest, finally sanctioned voodoo as a legitimate religion in Haiti. Voodoo priests could now perform legal marriages and baptisms anywhere in the country. The loa was out of the bottle.
Traditional Catholics were mortified, but it was too late; the die had been cast. Zamba was alive, and it was only a matter of time before Lucifer’s third blow was to strike. Soon he would reign over all of mankind, with the faithful Zamba Boukman at his side.
Her lips curled into a dry smile. It was a hell of a yarn, but it was clear that La Croix didn’t share her amusement for fairy tales.
“He made a pact with Lucifer,” La Croix told her. “His immortal soul for the lives of the slaves, and freedom for all of Haiti. According to legend, the deal that Zamba made is embodied in the necklace. It is his burden, his yoke. The Haitians are forever free, while he is forever a slave.”
Mas was thoroughly entertained by the scary story, but La Croix wasn’t quite so buoyant. She smiled to lighten the mood. “That’s quite a bedtime story,” she said. “I’ll bet you guys scare that pants off the kiddies with that one, huh?”
La Croix took a moment, and then he smiled back at her. “Of course!” He assured her, laughing it off. “Of course we do...”
He could tell that for all her intelligence, the woman had dismissed the entire story without so much as a second thought. Not a wise thing to do in Haiti, he reminded himself, though he continued to chuckle for his guest.
“So what happens if this guy Zamba loses his necklace?” she asked him.
His laugh faded, but he managed an expression of mock concern. “Oh, I would never want to find out, mademoiselle!”
His humor didn’t go over as smoothly as he hoped, and there was an uncomfortable silence. Mas sensed that she had somehow lost the rhythm of their banter. But then he laughed again, and she joined him, secretly relieved.
Their driver had been watching them in his rearview mirror during their entire conversation, and spoke English well enough to follow every detail. He didn’t find anything amusing about it at all. Such flippancy was dangerous.
They sped through the neighborhood as the sun slipped behind a giant Carmex lip balm billboard. Although it was humid, Mas’s lips felt dry. She slipped her hand in her pocket and took out her balm, but it dropped to the floor and rolled under her seat.
The Haitian flag snapped in the breeze over the center dome of the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince, spotlighted for all to see. Blood red and royal blue, with an intricate coat of arms, it featured a tall palm tree in the center as a symbol of independence. As they came around the curve and slowed, Mas got her first good look at the building. It was a truly magnificent structure, built in the high French style, a gesture to the nation’s cultural roots.
They were right on time, Mas thought. Their meeting was at 5 p.m. and it was about ten till. As they approached the main gate, she glanced out her window while La Croix wrapped up a quick thumbnail sketch of the palace for her. He was explaining that the White House, as it was locally known, had a turbulent history to match that of the nation. It was actually the second building to occupy the site. A bomb damaged the first one in 1912, in the assassination of President Leconte. This new palace was built soon afterward, during the U.S. occupation that began during the First World War and lasted into the 1930s.
La Croix told her that this new building had suffered its fair share of misery, too. Haitian troops stormed up the front steps more than once; a bomb was dropped on the roof by a renegade Haitian Air Force pilot; less than twenty years ago, a Duvalier loyalist was dragged outside and down the front steps after an attempted coup d’état. The incident didn’t end well for him. Haiti had a long litany of trouble and woe, he told her, and so did its seat of power.
The lead vehicle turned into the open entry gates, zooming past the guards who stood at stiff attention. La Croix leaned back in his seat to wrap up his spiel.
“Since the coup,” he told her, “there has been even more devilry. Your Marines paid us another visit in ’94 to help Aristide hold onto power, and then a few years later your CIA ‘escorted’ him out of the country. For his own good, of course.”
“Of course,” she quipped back.
“So you see, mademoiselle,” La Croix finished in a playful, teasing voice, “the National Palace is quite used to Americans coming to call regardless of the circumstances, at all hours of the day or night.”
Mas just grinned, and caught a glimpse of one of the palace guards as they breezed through the gate. He was careful not to catch her eye, but he could clearly see the attractive American woman sitting in the backseat. They all knew she was coming; the lead car had radioed ahead.
La Croix would stay behind with the caravan, he explained to her as they rolled up the long curved driveway. The troopers would escort her inside, where another member of the President’s staff would be waiting to meet her. She would have to leave her weapon and luggage with the troopers, but other than that one precaution, she would be extended the utmost courtesy. They wouldn’t wand her at the door, or have her step through the metal detector.
She realized that La Croix would undoubtedly go through her carry-on while she was upstairs, but her briefcase was locked and she knew he couldn’t pick it. The lock and hinges were designed and built by the CIA. A good friend at Langley had them installed as a birthday present. So there, she thought with a private grin. Stay behind and root through my things, and see how far you get, buster.
Mas just smiled at him as their caravan slowed to a crawl before the front steps of the White House. He was smooth; she gave him that. But like most men, he was thoroughly transparent. She reached for her seat belt latch as she glanced at her watch.
It was 4:53 p.m., local time.