Age of Voodoo (17 page)

“Papa Couleuvre, as he prefers to be known,” said Buckler. “It’s his official title, or stage name, alter ego, whatever.”

“Yeah, him. How are he and Seidelmann collaborating? What can a voodoo priest bring to a project to create super-soldiers?”

“The answer is, no one’s sure, not even the Pentagon. Seidelmann’s notes are vague on the subject. What we do know is that Seidelmann’s own area of expertise is pharmaceuticals and their use in boosting the human metabolism in order to improve performance. Up until recently he was developing drugs tailored to enable soldiers to function for extended periods under duress. Now, air force pilots have been known to pop amphetamines from time to time to counteract fatigue during long flights, and infantrymen on watch shifts too. But we’re talking something far more sophisticated—cocktails of steroid, stimulant, analgesic and sedative, balanced just right so you’re operating at peak efficiency and not hampered by fear or pain.”

“To me that sounds plain crazy,” said Sampson. “Fear is the soldier’s friend. It kicks your ass when you’re under fire and keeps you frosty when you’re out on patrol. Cut out fear and you’re cutting out part of our basic survival mechanism.”

“Agreed,” said Buckler. “But the brass don’t think that way. They like the idea of human robots who can go for hours, even days on end, without stopping, unemotional, unflappable. Men who are half GI, half Terminator. That’s why they’ve been chucking money at Seidelmann by the fistful. This super-soldier project of his is just the latest in a long line of schemes he’s come up with, and is probably the most ambitious and looniest yet.”

“But what is it?” said Lex. “What have he and—Papa Couleuvre, yes?—what have they been cooking up together?”

“If you want my opinion,” said Buckler, “based on the evidence to hand... it’s zombies.”

FIFTEEN

ZUVEMBIE

“Y
EAH, RIGHT,
”
SAID
Lex.

“I’m totally serious,” said Buckler.

“I know, and I’m totally sceptical.”

“Still?” Buckler adopted a patient expression. “Okay, so what is it you think of when you think of zombies?”

“Hordes of the undead roaming the land. Eating people. Groaning a lot. Looking all green and decayed. I’ve seen the movies.”

“And it’s fair to say that such creatures do crop up from time to time. We had to put a bunch of them down in Pátzcuaro in the Mexican Western Central Highlands, year before last.”

“Fuck, yeah,” said Tartaglione. “It was October thirty-first, Halloween, el Dia de los Muertos. There was an outbreak at a smalltown cemetery, corpses busting out of their graves and lurching through the streets. Nearby pesticide factory had been polluting the groundwater for over a decade, dumping raw waste product in the aquifers rather than processing it properly, organophosphates and some other genetically engineered shit. It seeped into the cemetery soil, somehow brought the dead back to life, and man, were they in a feisty mood. All these Mexicans in costumes chowing down on candy skulls, and a bunch of reanimated corpses in their midst trying to chow down on
their
skulls.”

“Head shot,” said Sampson, making a pistol out of his fingers and aiming at the bridge of Lex’s nose. “
Ka-pow
. Destroy the brain stem. It’s the only way.”

“Local media reported it as a Halloween stunt gone wrong,” said Tartaglione. “Some of the revellers got drunk and took the role-playing a little too far.”

“Plausible, too,” said Sampson. “Nobody does Halloween like Mexicans do Halloween. Everyone downing tequila until they could hardly see straight, let alone tell the difference between a real zombie and a guy in a suit. Firecrackers going off everywhere, so many that our gunshots were barely noticed. We could have done the op wearing pink tutus and carrying a sign saying ZOMBIES THIS WAY, and probably no one would’ve turned a hair.”

“That’s one kind of zombie,” said Buckler. “But there’s another. The old-school kind. Which is what I think may be on the loose at Anger Reef.”

“The old-school kind,” said Lex, making a connection. “The voodoo kind.”

“Indeed. The zuvembie. The living dead man raised from the grave by a voodoo priest to do his bidding.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all? ‘Oh’?” Buckler was surprised. “You’re not going to call me on that one? You can accept zombies in a voodoo context?”

“As we’ve just been discussing, voodoo can rely on all sorts of psychological effects,” said Lex. “It’s a belief system, and its power can be put down, at least in part, to expectation and cultural conditioning. Sampson’s friend’s friend got hit by misfortune after misfortune and naturally blamed it on his woman placing a curse on him, because it seemed conceivable, if not the only plausible explanation. By the same token, couldn’t someone with influence in voodoo circles promote the idea that creating a zombie—sorry, a zuvembie—is possible?”

“Go on.”

“Well, I’m just saying that if a voodoo practitioner can persuade people he’s able to raise the dead, they’ll accept it as fact forever after. He could fake it with the aid of an accomplice pretending to be a reanimated corpse, or he could dupe someone suggestible, an easily swayed acolyte, into believing they’re a reanimated corpse. Both achieve much the same result, making him look scary and powerful and cementing his reputation.”

“Nice logic,” said Buckler, “and there’s some truth in it. Ethnologists have shown that people have been deceived into thinking they’re zombified through the use of hallucinogens and ritual. A bokor—and this is the sort of thing a bokor will do, as opposed to a houngan—plies his victim with a drug that causes partial paralysis, amnesia and loss of will. It’ll be a powder or a potion consisting of substances like tetrodotoxin, the venom from the puffer fish, and datura, a poisonous plant commonly known as angel’s trumpet or moonflower, all brewed together with crushed-up dead baby skull and other equally delicious ingredients like toad and lizard parts. He makes the guy undergo a symbolic burial, sticking him in a coffin for days, maybe underground with a limited air supply, until this poor sap—bewildered, drug-addled, half-suffocated, possibly even brain-damaged—is convinced he must be dead. Then the bokor digs him up, ‘revives’ him, and now he’s got someone who assumes he’s nothing more than a soulless shell and will therefore do whatever he’s told. Long as the bokor keeps him doped up and stupefied, he has himself a loyal, dull-witted slave. That’s a zuvembie, or at least that’s one way of accounting for the zuvembie lore that exists in the voodoo tradition. It’s said that this was how they used to keep slaves on Haitian sugar plantations docile and obedient—they zombified them. And yes, I have been doing my homework.”

“And this is what Seidelmann and Papa Couleuvre have been up to? Making their own form of zuvembie?”

“It’s a working hypothesis, one that fits the data. Remember the head-cam footage? Those figures taking bullets and still coming? Seidelmann’s process, whatever it is, has advanced to the human guinea pig phase. Only the experiment hasn’t perhaps worked out quite the way he and Papa Couleuvre were hoping.”

Lex said, “The mission, then, is to infiltrate the installation at Anger Reef, take down any and all of these zuvembies, if that’s what they are, ascertain whether there are staff members and marines still alive, extract them, exfiltrate, go home.”

“In a nutshell.”

“Well...” Lex slapped his thighs with finality. “Consider me briefed and in full possession of the facts. Unless there’s anything else I should know?”

“No,” Buckler said. “That’s it. Everything.”

“Then when do we start?”

“‘We’? You want in on the op itself?”

“Here’s how I see it,” said Lex. “You’ve already got Wilberforce flying you to and from Anger Reef. That’s one civilian asset you’re exploiting who’s also a friend of mine. Now, I’m betting you’re going to insist on dragging Albertine along with you too, since there’s a mad, bad bokor waiting for you at the other end and probably zuvembies too. Am I wrong?”

Buckler’s expression told him he was not.

“You want someone with practical voodoo skills, on the ground, immediately accessible,” Lex went on, “in case the zuvembies prove hard to handle using conventional means. You want someone to fulfil the same role as that shaman in Siberia who enabled you to get close to the werebear.”

“Goddamn werebear,” muttered Sampson, with a disgruntled shake of the head.

Tartaglione gave his hand a sniff and wrinkled his nose. “I’ve had three showers since and I can still smell that rancid crap that guy made us put on. Don’t know if it’s ever going to wash off.”

“You’re going to coerce Albertine into coming with you whether I like it or not,” Lex continued, speaking solely to Buckler. “It’s even occurred to you that you might have to remove me from the equation somehow, if I object too strenuously. Don’t worry, I don’t take it personally. A leader has to think through all the variables in order to ensure mission success. There’s a chance I could make life awkward for you, so disposing of me has to be at least somewhere on the to-do list. Now, right here in this room, would be as good a time and place as any. Three of you, one of me, a discreet, unarmed takedown. I’m not saying it would work, but you could try.”

“You always this mistrustful, ace?” said Buckler.

“It’s served me well in the past. It’s certainly a little
convenient
that your two shooters happened to turn up when they did. You knew I was coming back here. You knew I was unhappy about your plans for my friend and his cousin. Sampson and Tartaglione aren’t just ‘moral support,’ are they? They’re backup, an insurance policy in the event that I don’t play along. But, really, truly, I don’t want to get into a fight. Whatever the outcome, even if you people win, at least one of you is going to end up hospitalised or worse, I can promise that. And then you’d be short-handed and the mission would be compromised and might even have to be scratched, which would be a pity. So this is what I’m offering—and it’s not up for discussion. I come with you too. You take Albertine and Wilberforce, you get me as well. Think of it as a bargain package, like at the supermarket. Buy two, get a third for free.”

“Dove, listen...”

Lex rose to his feet. “What part of ‘not up for discussion’ do you not understand, Lieutenant Buckler? Wilberforce’s plane is an eight-seater, so there’s room for me on board. You must be aware that I can handle myself in a firefight and have worked alongside American combat units before. You’re heading into a hostile environment with two complete amateurs in tow, and chances are you’ll be so busy watching your own backs you won’t be able to watch theirs. Civilians are a liability, as we all know. That’s where I come in. You may have a problem with it, but if you do, tough. It’s a done deal.”

Tartaglione and Sampson looked to their team leader to see how he would respond. Buckler pensively fingered his moustache, gaze fixed on Lex. Here was a man who appeared to wear his authority lightly but preferred not to have it challenged.

For a moment—just a moment—Buckler’s eyes hardened.

Then he relented. A grin came, one that was a fraction too broad.

“All right, buddy,” he said. “Fine. You’re in. Guess it won’t hurt to have an extra warm body. And you’re right, someone looking out for your pals is a good idea. We might not have the leisure to do that ourselves. Welcome to Team Thirteen, Lex Dove.”

Lex shook Buckler’s proffered hand, and Buckler squeezed, crushing knuckles. Sampson clapped Lex on the back hard. Tartaglione ruffled his hair with a scrubbing motion.

These actions were not unpainful, and Lex was under no illusion that that was deliberate.