The Zombie Game (9 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Emergency Room

Hospital Sainte Croix

Léogâne, Haiti

8:00 a.m.

EMMANUEL PARKED A BLOCK
away from the hospital. We told him to wait there. As Jakjak and I walked toward the building, a police cruiser pulled up to the front entrance.

I ducked my head and walked parallel to the hospital, pretending to go to some shops at the far end of the building. I couldn’t enter the hospital with police watching.

“Uh, oh.” I said as uniformed officers exited a side entrance and started walking toward us. I knew they were coming for me.

I kept looking at the pavement and counting the number of steps between us—until they were right in front of us. I stopped and looked up, expecting to be handcuffed. But they kept walking. Beyond us. To the waiting patrol car. I thought I would have a heart attack. Jakjak let out a sigh.

As the police drove away, we walked quickly to a back entrance, where Dr. Christophe Roupe was waiting for us.

“Does anyone else know we’re here?” I asked.

Chris looked at me. “No. I’ve told no one.”

I could only hope he was being honest with me.
Am I g
oing to be captured while in surgery?
I didn’t know, but Jakjak’s life was at stake, so I had no choice.

Chris had the set-up ready. He started the IV and gave antibiotics as I injected the local anesthetic over the bullet holes and the section of depressed rib. I was still trembling from the police encounter and had to take a couple of deep breaths before I could operate.

“This might hurt, but I need you awake.”

Jakjak nodded, but he was trembling like I had been when the police came at us. This time, I knew it was me he was scared of.

I put on a pair of surgical gloves and prepped Jakjak’s chest with Betadine. He winced when I stuck the fourteen-gauge needle in his right chest cavity. But I hit pay dirt. The thin, bloody fluid poured out. I sniffed it. It had the sour smell of infection. That was bad. Within five minutes, I’d sucked out more than a liter of fluid.

I nodded to Chris. He listened to Jakjak’s chest with a stethoscope.

“The right sounds clear,” he said. “The left side’s still bad.”

As I moved to Jakjak’s left side, I took the sterile towel clip from the tray. I paused before beginning. A slip of my instruments or a spear of the broken rib could tear the chest wall lining, which would cause the left lung to suck in the room air and then completely collapse. That would be disastrous.

I took a deep breath. With one hand I felt the depressed rib, and with the other hand I snapped the sharp pincers of my towel clip through the skin and solidly into the most depressed part of the broken rib. Palpating with one hand and pulling upward with the other, I felt the two sections of the rib move. But they wouldn’t snap into place. The anterior section of the rib overrode the posterior. I grasped the clip with both hands and pulled upward.

Jakjak groaned. I paused a second to relax and catch my breath. I tried to lift the rib that the bullets had knocked into his chest cavity. The rib took up critical space needed by the lungs. I put one hand on Jakjak’s chest to keep from lifting him off the table and pulled with the other. The bones were impacted; they would not give way. If I couldn’t make the adjustment, Jakjak’s future looked bleak.

I turned to Chris. “I’ll have to open the wound. Get me a couple of periosteal elevators and some Propofol. You’ll have to knock him out for a couple minutes. If he moves and the bone spikes cut into the chest, his lung will collapse and he’ll die.”

Chris ran to the operating room for the medication and more instruments.

The Duran Home

Léogâne, Haiti

9:02 a.m.

Keyes was seated at Minister Duran’s computer when the closed door burst open.

She was startled but tried not to show it. Smiling, she looked up at an attractive, thin, bleached blonde with smooth skin, blue eyes, prominent cheekbones, a fit and well-proportioned physique, and a rigidly erect posture.

The blonde asked, “Just who are you, my dear? And what are you doing in my house?”

“I’m Helen Hart. I’m helping Dr. James. He’s at the hospital with Dr. Roupe right now. Jakjak said I could use the computer. You must be Mrs. Duran.”

“Good to meet you, Miss Hart,” she said without smiling.

Keyes looked at Mrs. Duran in her stylish blue satin dress and blue suede stilettos. Jakjak had said she was forty-five, but she looked much younger.

Mrs. Duran glared at Keyes. “What exactly are you doing to help Dr. James ... on my husband’s computer?”

Keyes had ad-libbed many times in the past, so she had no difficulty improvising answers that quelled Mrs. Duran’s suspicions without divulging any information.

“So how long will it be before I greet your Dr. James?” Mrs. Duran’s voice was now syrupy sweet.

Keyes responded with no hesitation. “I expect him this afternoon, not ’til at least three o’clock.”

“I’m anxious to see him again.” Mrs. Duran smiled. “I met him once when he was working with my son.” With that, she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Keyes went back to work on the computer. A few minutes later, she heard Mrs. Duran talking quietly on the phone. Noticing a phone in the room, she crept over and carefully lifted the receiver and listened.

“Chief Conrad’s office. How can I help you?”

“This is Mrs. Duran. I need to speak to the chief right away.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

After a few seconds, a man answered. “Hello, Ingrid.”

“Javier, there’s a woman in my house. She says she’s Helen Hart, but she looks like the woman you’re looking for, Elizabeth Keyes,” Mrs. Duran said. “And Dr. James will be at the L
é
ogâne Hospital for the next five hours.”

“I need to handle this myself. Keep her in your house. I’ll bring two men and be there as quickly as I can. My friends in L
é
ogâne will get the doctor.”

As soon as the call ended, Keyes erased all her entries and closed out the computer. She checked the window. It opened easily. She slipped out, closed the window, and ran behind the pool house. She dialed the phone she hoped James still had and sighed with relief when she heard his voice.

“Mrs. Duran is on to us. Stop what you’re doing and pick me up right away.” Keyes quickly looked around. “I’ll be running toward you on the street directly behind the Duran’s. I’ll be hiding, so I’ll find you.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just come. Now. You’ll be arrested if you stay there. And they want me too.”

“But nobody even knows you’re here.”

“Nobody except Mrs. Duran, the police, and by now, probably half of Port-au-Prince. Get your ass outta there now!”

“Okay, I’ll finish the operation and then come get you.”

“Hurry!”

Hospital Sainte Croix

Léogâne, Haiti

9:31 a.m.

Dr. Roupe ran in and placed the sterile instruments on my Mayo stand. “Trouble,” he said. “The police are upstairs and they’re looking for you.”

“Stall them. I need fifteen minutes to do the procedure.”

He nodded and ran out of the ER.

I turned to Jakjak. “The heavy sedation I promised is a no-go without Chris to help. I’ll have to do it with only the local, and it’ll hurt. A lot!”

Jakjak was shaking. “I’ll be alright.”

I drew up more local and did a nerve block of the fractured rib and the ones above and below, prepped him for surgery, and put on fresh gloves. I incised over the rib and used the periosteal elevator to strip the rib of its covering. If I went a millimeter too deep, I’d be in the thoracic cavity and would likely kill Jakjak. I kept looking up at the door, fearful they’d find me before I completed the operation. I put a towel clip on either side of the fracture and pulled the ribs apart as hard as I could. Jakjak cried out in pain.

Without an assistant, the reduction was difficult. I dropped one of the clamps, and I had to put the elevator under the rib and lift while I distracted the towel clip. I saw the bone segments coming up. I strained as hard as I could.

I lifted and pulled to the point of exhaustion, and just as I was about to give up, the ribs popped into place. Sweat ran down my nose.

I looked at my watch. It had taken only six minutes. I wiped my nose with my elbow and quickly closed the skin with staples. Staples were crude and left bad scars, but they were fast. After wrapping an Ace around Jakjak’s chest, I helped him stand up.

I looked at my watch again. Only ten minutes had passed since Keyes call. We just might make it.

I stuffed my pockets with a handful of syringes and needles, alcohol wipes, and a bottle of antibiotic pills and threw some ice in a plastic trash bag. Then, I realized the evidence might get Chris in trouble. So I stuffed all the drapes and instruments as well as the jug of fluid from Jakjak’s chest into a garbage can and wiped blood from the table.

Again, I glanced at my watch. Twelve minutes.

Grabbing Jakjak around the waist to help him walk, we hurried to
the car.

“Emmanuel, there’s going to be trouble. If you don’t want to be involved, get out of the car and run,” I said as I helped Jakjak into the back seat.

“No sir,
Doktè
. Sanfia will kill me if I leave you.”

I hopped into the front passenger seat, and Emmanuel stomped the accelerator. He drove at top speed, following my directions to where we were to pick up Keyes.

As we turned onto the road behind the Duran’s home, unbeknownst to us, the Duran’s limo-sized Jaguar drove into their driveway. Mrs. Duran ran from the house and quickly got in the car’s back seat. The Jag gunned it to the corner and hung a left. I spotted it as it turned onto the street behind the house, heading straight for us. If we passed it, Ingrid would recognize Tomas’ Lexus.

I pointed to her Jag. Emmanuel braked, made a sharp right, and drove in the opposite direction.

But when I looked in the right rear-view mirror, her car was following us. Ahead was a police cruiser, coming our way. I ducked as the police approached … and then sighed with relief as it passed us without flashing its lights. But a few seconds later it slowed, like it was going to turn and follow us, and my heart started racing again.

Then Mrs. Duran’s Jag pulled off the road, and the police car stopped beside her.

“Something’s happening,” I said. “Let’s find Keyes and get the hell out of here.”

Emmanuel turned left, and within a few minutes we were cruising past the elegant houses of Duran’s neighborhood. I kept looking both for the police to return and for Keyes.
Where is she?
We had to get out of there as fast as possible.

Suddenly, somebody banged on the window. I pulled back as Emmanuel slammed on the brakes. It was Keyes.

As she slid into the back seat next to Jakjak, I said, “The police just met Mrs. Duran down the road.”

“Yeah,” Keyes said. “The police are looking for us and this Lexus. Emmanuel, get us the hell outta here. And, then, do you know where I could buy a used car?”

Emmanuel sped off. I kept looking for the police, but they didn’t follow us. Once we seemed to be safe, he said, “I know a place where people sell their cars on the street. They aren’t cheap, but it’s easy.”

We drove into downtown Léogâne, which boasted a handful of shops and lots of street vendors. Several cars lined the street.

“Drive ’til I see a car I can afford,” Keyes said.

About five minutes later, she spotted the car she wanted: a twenty-year-old, pale-blue Fiat sedan with “For Sale” marked with soap on the window. She whispered to Emmanuel before she jumped out and went to the owner, who stood beside the car.

“Two thousand euros for your car.”

“Euros? How much is that?”

“Over 100,000 gourdes.”

He raised his eyebrows and slyly removed the 40,000 gourde sign from the window. “But I need 150,000 just to break even.”

Keyes snapped at him. “Cut the bullshit. I read your sign. I’m giving you 40,000 for the car. The other 60,000 is for driving the fuckin’ Lexus to the hospital and parking it, and not talking about it. You see, I stole the car from a doctor there.”

His eyes opened widely. “The police know the car is stolen, no?”

“They don’t know yet. If you park it back at the hospital, they’ll never know.”

“I must charge you another thousand gourdes for that.”

“Well, let me see what my associate thinks.” She nodded to Emmanuel.

Emmanuel came and stood at Keyes side. Then, he jerked a machete from behind his back and waved it in the man’s face.

Keyes leaned toward the man. “As a bonus, if you do as I say, I’ll let you live.”

The man looked at the machete, then at the large, muscular, imposing Haitian standing next to Keyes. “Yes, yes, that’ll be a sacrifice, but I’m a generous man.”

Keyes grabbed Emmanuel’s hand and shoved the blade up to the car salesman’s face. “You tell anybody, and I’ll come back and cut your fuckin’ head off!”

“Yes, Ma’am. Yes, I understand. I not tell nobody.”

They exchanged keys, and Keyes handed him the money.

As we turned to leave, Emmanuel stepped closer to the man and grabbed his collar. His usually kind face was knotted in a frown, and his eyes were round and filled with the same fire I’d seen in Sanfia’s. His voice was thick, deep, and threatening.
“Trahissez-moi et je capturerai votre âme dans une bouteille et asservirai votre corps depuis mille ans.”

The car salesman turned pale, and his whole body trembled. Tears began to pour from his eyes. As Emmanuel got in the driver’s seat of Keyes new car, the man dropped the money on the ground and sat beside it, crying.

I whispered to Keyes. “What did he say?”

“Betray me, and I’ll capture your soul in a bottle and enslave your body for a thousand years.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Between Léogâne and Port-au-Prince

10:00 a.m.

I LAID JAKJAK DOWN
on the back seat of Keyes’ Fiat and climbed in beside him. I put the bag of ice on his chest. I could tell by his grimace that he was in excruciating pain. But he was breathing better. I felt his forehead. He’d definitely cooled off.

Keyes turned to face us. “Jakjak, Mrs. Duran was talking to someone in the police department. She called him Javier, and he called her Ingrid. Do you know anyone in the police department named Javier? Someone who is on a first-name basis with her?”

“
Wi, Madmwazèl.
That’ll be the police chief in Port-au-Prince, Javier Conrad.”

“Does he always call her by her first name?”

“
Non, Madmwazèl.
Everyone I know, even her friends, call her Mrs. Duran. And nobody, not even Minister Duran, calls the police chief by his first name.”

Keyes looked at me. “It’s the terrorists. Farok told them about us, and they’re going to find us and take us to him. I told you before: They won’t stop looking for us until we’re dead.”

I remembered how frightened Keyes had been of Farok and his ISIS group two months earlier in North Carolina. So frightened, she’d done whatever the terrorists directed her to do in order to avoid the horrible torture she’d seen her friends put through.

“I never should have come.”

“No, we need to face Farok and end this thing once and for all.”

“So what do you propose we do?” she asked.

“Well, we can’t go to the police. And if I go to the US Consulate, they have to report all their actions to the local government, and—”

“And you’re screwed. You killed a couple of guys in Haitian territory. Or that’s the way they see it. You’re Haitian property now. They can do whatever they want to do with you, consulate or not.”

“I’m aware. And believe me, Farok has more than enough money to bribe the police chiefs and even the President.”

“And they’ll keep us from investigating what the hell’s going on in Haiti,” she said grimly.

“Yes,” I said, softly.

Looking away from Keyes, I said, “Where can we hide in Port-au-Prince? A place where the lady can use her computer.”

Jakjak said, “Let’s go to Sanfia’s house. It has—”

“No,” Emmanuel interrupted. “You’re not welcome to return where you spent last night. Sanfia has many places to hide. Some of her people are always in trouble, and she hides them. She already told me where to take you.”

Somewhere in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Noon

I was worried. We’d been on the road too long and seemed to be going in circles.

Finally, I asked, “Emmanuel, where are we going?”

”Sanfia doesn’t want anybody finding her safe houses. She told me to be sure you don’t.”

At long last, Emmanuel drove the Fiat off the barely passable road and several dozen yards across a field. We came to a stop by a strip of trees crossed by an earthquake fissure. I had no idea where we were.

After instructing us to stay in the car, Emmanuel got out and ran up a dirt hill, where he moved two large sheets of metal. He returned to the car and drove it up the pile of dirt and into a hidden cave. He then jumped out again and replaced the coverings.

In the dark space, Emmanuel directed us by flashlight down a steep embankment, through a narrow tunnel, and finally into a cavernous room carved by the quake. The oval-shaped cave was about fifty feet by thirty feet and nearly empty.

“What does Sanfia use this cave for?” I asked.

Emmanuel rubbed his chin. “Ah, Sanfia has many places and many, many uses for all of them,” he said, evading the question. “She doesn’t want you in her house again, but she doesn’t want to abandon you, either. She thought this would be good for your needs now.”

Emmanuel shined his flashlight on two folding card tables and a stack of folding chairs. Behind them was a three-shelf metal bookcase stacked with canned foods. Beside it were a half-dozen twelve-packs of soft drinks.

Directing the flashlight at another crack in the wall about six feet wide and spiking to a height of twenty feet where it met the ceiling of our room, Emmanuel said, “And that is your toilet, Miss Hart.”

He led her to it. As Keyes peered into the empty tunnel, seemingly without an end, she shook her head.

“Lights?” she asked.

“I have a box of flashlights and a couple of cases of batteries here in the cave. I’ll show you where they’re stashed.”

I looked at Jakjak. Though he was breathing much better, he was pale and weak. “Is there somewhere for Jakjak to lie down? He needs rest.”

Emmanuel was ready for this request. He took us to a wall opposite the “toilet” and shined his light on a canvas cot with a foam-rubber mattress on it. I helped Jakjak lie down.

Keyes found a card table and started setting it up. Emmanuel helped her and put a chair beside it. She sat down, opened her MacBook Air, and started working.

“Signal’s too weak. I can’t function here.”

I turned to Emmanuel. “This room won’t work. She needs to be outside somewhere.”

Emmanuel hung his head in thought for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “Follow me.”

He led us through one of the tunnels to a small, dimly lit cave.

“You can use this exit,” he said, pointing to the roof.

We looked up at the light streaming in from an opening fifty feet above our heads. It was treacherous: a straight-up climb and a two-story drop. If any of us fell, we’d be badly hurt.

Emmanuel demonstrated how to scale the wall by finding footholds in the rocks and grasping the edges of projecting stones to pull himself up. Emmanuel was tall, strong, and agile; he bounded up to a ledge near the top in less than a minute. He beckoned for us to come up.

I followed, and Keyes was close behind me. About halfway up, she attempted to pass me. A rock she grabbed pulled out. She reached for another, but missed. I grabbed her hand. But the stone dust didn’t allow a firm grip, and her hand was slipping from mine. I stuck my right foot out behind her and planted it on a rock. She fell backward against my leg and tried to gain a foothold on the rocks. I held on tightly. At last, she grabbed a flat stone and regained control.

“Got it,” she gasped.

I slowly removed my foot from behind her and placed it on a rock.

“Phew.” I took a deep breath. “Don’t be in such a hurry next time, Miss Show-Off.”

Keyes moved more deliberately as we climbed to the plateau where Emmanuel now stood. But it was eight feet from the top. There were sharp boulders projecting above us, with no other place to sit or stand. To go over the jagged rocks at the top would put us not only on a treacherous pile of rocks but also in view of the tent city below. We needed to stay hidden.

“I’m afraid those rocks still block the signal.”

Keyes opened her computer and got comfortable, “If we can’t get any closer to the opening then we’ll have to use my phone as a ‘hotspot.’” Emmanuel, can you get me a stick and a piece of tape?”

“I have the tape,” I said. “But we need some rope to get up and down easier. Have any rope?” I asked Emmanuel.

He nodded and scampered down the rock wall. He quickly returned with a hundred-foot length of heavy, three-quarter-inch rope. “I saw this in the trunk of the miss new car.”

As I removed the tape from my pocket and handed it to Keyes, I grinned and said, “With this, I’m a vicious killer.”

Keyes turned on her iPhone, taped it to the end of the stick, and I climbed the remaining eight feet and pulled myself out of the opening. A solitary tree stood about two feet from the cave entrance. I tied the rope to the tree and pulled on it to make sure it was secure, then erected our makeshift antenna.

I repelled down past the ledge where Keyes was perched.

“Good job!” She smiled. “I like it here in my crow’s nest.”

Keyes was back in business. I left her alone and went to check on Jakjak.

Thirty minutes later, I returned to find her frowning at the computer screen.

“Find anything?” I asked.

“I tracked the number the police chief used to call Mrs. Duran. It’s his direct line at the police station, so I just hacked into the local telephone company. He made a call to a bank in Turkey. And received two calls from the same bank.”

“Why would he call a bank in Turkey?”

“He’s probably using ISIS money to make pay-offs, maybe to bribe the Haitian police to catch us for them.”