The Bonaparte Secret lr-6 Page 9

  Again, the thumping on the table and raised voice. “Saint Mark? Of course it may be Saint Mark. It did, after all, come from his tomb. It was your idea that the occupant of that tomb was someone else!”

  Diem made a mental note to find the person in the Foreign Office who had made that determination. If he (or she) were lucky, they would end their career in what had been Tibet. If not lucky, in prison.

  “Mr. President, I understand a mistake has been made. I can assure you my government will do everything in its power…”

  Again, the menacing lowering of the voice. “And I can assure you that not one additional Chinese worker, not one more Chinese soldier, will set foot in Haiti until your promise is fulfilled. It was by my show of good faith there are any here now. I should have waited until your part of the bargain was complete. Do you understand me?”

  “Perfectly, Mr. President. But the, er, material already…?”

  “They can and will be removed!”

  Without another word, duPaar stood, immediately flanked by the two uniformed bodyguards. He turned and stalked from the restaurant. It had definitely been one of the most bizarre evenings of Diem’s diplomatic life. But then, Diem had been spared dealings with North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, who certainly had a number of things in common with Haiti’s leader. Both lived sumptuously while their people starved. Both imagined they were well loved. They shared another trait: lunacy.

  Port-au-Prince International Airport

  (Formerly Francois Duvalier International Airport)

  Thirty minutes later

  Jerome Place had the specially modified cell phone hidden under the mangoes. Even at this hour at night, no one questioned the man in the ragged clothes who was wandering the airport’s perimeter road in an effort to sell his produce. Many such vendors had no homes, lived wherever they fell asleep.

  Not Jerome. Six years ago, he had joined twenty-some other people in a voyage to America on a craft consisting of little more than boards tied across worn-out truck inner tubes and propelled by oars and a ragged sail. Few, if any, could swim.

  The first day, before they even reached the Turks and Caicos Islands, two women and one of their infants had gone overboard. There had been nothing anyone could do as they sunk below the foaming waves. By the time the makeshift craft had reached the southern Bahamas, the slot between Great Exuma and Long Island, the fresh water had run out. The survivors argued: was it better to put ashore and be sent home by the Bahamian government or continue and risk death by thirst? A vote was taken.

  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 co
urtroom 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. He checked his watch. A few minutes after 3:00.

  A limousine appeared and its driver dashed from his seat to open a rear door.

  “Can we drop you somewhere?” the reverend asked as his driver helped Mrs. Groom into the car.

  Lang shook his head. “Thanks, but no. Remember, no press conferences, no words to anyone regarding this case.”

  “I understand” were the last words the Reverend Bishop Groom spoke before he also disappeared into the interior of the limo.

  It was one of those Atlanta winter days that promised, often falsely, an early spring. Knowing that the next week could as easily produce one of the region’s ice storms, Lang had decided to walk the approximate mile from his office to the federal building. He could return with a detour of only a few blocks if he went easterly along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive past the county courthouse to the church. He reached for his cell phone before deciding the walk would do him good whether or not Francis was in or out tending his flock.

  As had become habit in the last few days, he stopped, this time to put his briefcase down and rest a shoe on a parked car’s bumper while he pretended to tie it. The gesture gave him an opportunity to check his surroundings. As far as he could tell, everyone he could see was either coming from or going to the building behind him. None of them looked Asian. Of course, there were any number of places on the viaduct where an unseen observer would have a view of the “railroad gulch,” as the area was locally if less than poetically known.

  The buildings in this part of town were predominantly occupied by fast-food franchises, discount electronics shops and down-at-the-heels clothing stores. There was a welcome dearth of the beggars, bums and self-appointed “guides” that populated the greener pastures of the hotel and office districts. By and large, Lang had the sidewalks to himself.

  He passed the Fulton County Administrative Building, a modern tower that had been designed to hold an oasis of flowing water and stately palm trees in its lobby. The twenty-foot trees had been installed at great expense, only to die both because no one had bothered to consult the county arborist as to the proper care and planting of the root system, and leakage of the pond around which they had been planted. Additionally, the clock in the modernistic tower displayed a perpetual 3:45 and inclement weather outside the building meant an archipelago of buckets inside to catch the offerings of a leaky roof. After the finger-pointing and accusations died down, the county’s elected leaders admitted the cost of construction of the building had so far exceeded budget that there remained no funds to fix the problems other than removing the dead tress and filling in the pool.

  Lang crossed Pryor Street, walked along the northern side of the county-court complex and waited for the light to change so he might cross Central Avenue. The church was on the far corner. By now, Lang was surrounded by briefcase-toting lawyers, jurors discharged for the day, uniformed deputies and such other personnel as had business at the courthouse. He saw one or two Asian-looking men and women, none of whom paid him any attention.

  Across the street, Lang passed the main entrance, opting for a side door into the complex that he knew led to the church’s offices. He walked down a short hallway plastered with children’s crayon drawings and a bulletin board heavy with notes and messages Lang suspected no one read.

  At the end of the corridor a young black woman, her hair in cornrows, smiled up at him from the screen of her computer’s monitor. “Yes?”

  “Father Francis, is he in?”

  She nodded, reaching for the phone. “Who shall I say is here?”

  “His favorite heretic.”

  Her eyes narrowed, thinking she was being ridiculed. The door behind her opened and Father Francis stared out in obvious surprise.

  “Praise be to heaven! The apostate has come to salvation!”

  “More likely for a cup of coffee,” Lang said.

  The priest nodded to the young woman. “Tawanna, would you be so kind…? One black, one sweetener only.”

  Lang settled into one of two wooden chairs facing the priest’s desk. “Any particular reason you have such uncomfortable furniture?”

  Francis sat behind a desk cluttered with books and papers, the sort of thing Lang would have expected to see had he been calling on a professor of English at one of the local colleges. “You’d have to ask whoever at the diocese provided them. My guess is that the furniture was perceived as a bargain.” He picked up a printed bulletin, scanned it and returned it to the pile already in front of him. “What can I do for you today? I’m betting it has nothing to do with your spiritual side… if you have one.”

  There was a gentle tap on the door just as it opened. Tawanna pushed it wide with a hip, a steaming mug in each hand. She set them down on what little empty space the desktop had and left without speaking.

  “Thanks!” Francis called afer her, handing one mug to Lang. “Now, you were saying…?”

  Lang tested the brew before taking a full swallow. “The other day at lunch you made a remark about Saint Mark’s bones not being what was taken from his tomb in Venice. If not his, whose?”

  Francis leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk and making a steeple of his fingers. “You want the short answer or the long one?”

  “I get a choice?”

  Francis untwined his fingers to pick up his coffee. “In the mid-first century, Saint Mark served as bishop of Alexandria, then the second-largest city in the
Roman Empire. He was so efficient at converting the Egyptians to Christianity, the priests of the old gods stirred up a mob that dragged him out and killed him. They intended to burn his body, thereby depriving him of the afterlife in which they believed. Legend has it a miraculous storm intervened, dousing the flames that had only partially consumed the saint’s remains. Somehow the Christians retrieved the body and buried it in their church by the sea. Subsequently the Church of Saint Mark the Evangelist was erected on the site.

  “By 828 Egypt was under the rule of the Turks, Muslims. In the city of Alexandria, Christian churches were being looted, torn down for building material or converted to mosques. Fearing for the relics of their city’s patron saint, two Venetian traders stole the bones, hid them under a layer of pork to discourage Turkish customs officials from examining the basket in which they were hidden and brought them to Venice.”

  Lang put his mug down on the corner of the desk. “I know. The event is memorialized in mosaics in the basilica in Venice. But so far, you haven’t explained why the bones there aren’t Saint Mark’s.”

  “Gutta cavat lapidem, consumitur anulus usu.”

  Lang shifted his weight in an unsuccessful attempt to make the chair more comfortable. “I’m aware a drop hollows out stone and a ring wears away by use. The Roman proverb counsels patience, not endurance. If a church in Alexandria was built over the partially incinerated remains of Saint Mark and those bones were subsequently stolen and moved to Venice, why would they not still be there?”

  Francis held up a finger. “Perhaps because they were never there in the first place. By the time the Venetians took whatever it was they stole, the church had long been destroyed. They claimed to have found the relics amid ruins of what they supposed had been the church, since the rubble was located by what had been known variously as Saint Mark’s Gate or the Pepper Gate, the entrance into the ancient part of the city from what is now Cairo. A number of ancient travelers had described the church as being located just inside this gate as late as the mid-seventh century.”