Cody's Army: Hellfire in Haiti

by Jim Case

Genres: Action & Adventure; Literary Fiction; War & Military

Synopsis

Cody, Hawkeye and Caine are up against a thousand men as they rescue Rufe from an ex-Green Beret training terrorists in the Haitian highlands. And Cody knows they had better rescue Rufe soon, before he's tortured to death by a demented man who lives to kill.

Release date: September 26, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 162

Sample

Rufe Murphy slept with his hand on his gun. The weapon, a Colt Commander .45 caliber, was cocked and unlocked, its muzzle pointed
away from the thigh that concealed it. Murphy sat on a bare mattress with his long legs outstretched, his back propped against
a comer of the tiny cubicle of a room. It was not the best time or the best place for a snooze, but Murphy knew his own limits
of strength and endurance. He kept track of them the way a distance runner logs lap times. Awake for seventy-two hours straight,
he was at the critical point. If he went on without sleep, his reaction speed would progressively deteriorate, as would his
ability to think clearly. Closing his eyes was a risk, but the risk had to be taken.


It was a no-dream, hair-trigger sleep. The mountainous black man had programmed himself. At the sound of a footstep on the
dirt floor, the automatic pistol would be up in a blur, his eyes open wide, seeking targets over the weapon’s combat sights.


When the attack came, there was no footstep.

The blanket that served as the cubicle’s door slipped aside half an inch. At chest height, unseen hands poked a long narrow
tube into the room. Its end was flared into a fan-shaped nozzle. It advanced from the doorway a full six feet, then stopped
with its opening directly under Murphy’s nose.


The rasping odor of ammonia and formaldehyde jarred him awake. Too late. Before he could turn aside, a gust of air blasted
him full in the face, driving a teaspoon of fine powder up his nose and down his throat. Murphy jerked as if punched, banging
the back of his head against the unplastered sheetrock wall. The taste, the stink of death strangled him as he fought for
breath. Gagging, choking, the inside of his head on fire, he lurched to his feet. His eyes streamed; for an instant he could
see nothing. The Colt Commander hung useless in his grip.


Then he fisted the tears away and lunged for the blanket, ripping it to the floor. The dimly lit hallway beyond was empty.
Reggae music and laughter drifted down the corridor from the bar. He leaped across the hallway, bursting through the bead
curtain of the nearest cubicle, weapon-first. In the soft lamplight, on a bare mattress, two interlocked black bodies stopped
their sweaty writhing. The naked man rolled off the woman, eyes wide with fright. He wasn’t looking at the gun’s yawning muzzle;
he was staring in horror at Murphy’s face. “Allez! Allez!” he cried, waving his arms. When Murphy made no move to leave, the naked man dove for his clothes, grabbing a T-shirt. He
did not pull it on; he covered his nose and mouth with it.


The prostitute likewise shielded her face with a hand towel.

“Blasted idiots!” Murphy snarled at them. He pivoted and charged back out into the corridor. He checked every cubicle on his
way to the bar; all were empty. The bar, however, was full. The gleeful mob of black men and women stopped dancing, stopped
drinking, stopped laughing when he entered. Smiles turned to expressions of terror.


“Where is Hyacinthe?!” Murphy demanded.

There was no reply.

He stepped forward, the Colt out front and rock steady.

“Coup de poudre! Coup de poudre!” someone shouted.


The crowd backed away, handkerchiefs, hands over noses and mouths. Those nearest the doorway to the street quickly slipped
out.


“Where is the mambo bitch?!” Murphy bellowed, aiming the pistol at the barman’s bald brown head. The barman ignored the gun
and, apron clutched to his face, turned and fled.


Murphy lowered his weapon as the bar emptied. The gun was no threat to the fleeing Haitians; there were worse things than
being dead. In the spotted, cracked mirror over the bar he caught a glimpse of his own reflection. Under his nose was a smear
of ochre.


Coup de poudre.


Magic powder.

He cleared his scorched throat and spat bright blood in the dirt. At the tips of his fingers there was a distinct tingling
sensation. He rubbed his hand on his fatigue pants, trying to shake the feeling of numbness. It persisted. And his toes started
to feel the same way, as if they had been exposed to frost or extreme heat, nerve ends overloaded, deadened. He leaned against
the bar, heart racing, chest heaving. There was a spreading heaviness in his lungs; it was becoming harder and harder for
him to breathe.


“Damn!” he growled, slamming his massive fist down on the bartop, making the deserted glasses and rum bottles jump. If there
had been any doubt in his mind, that doubt was now gone. Rufe Murphy knew he had been poisoned. He knew whose fault it was,
too. His own. Drunk with the scent, the taste of Hyacinthe, the feel of her hot mahogany skin, he had let the little head
rule the big head—and finally managed to get himself killed. He felt no self-pity—as a soldier this was a moment he had prepared
himself for. His concern was for his comrades-in-arms—Cody, Hawkins, and Caine. He couldn’t die yet. Not before he warned
them. He fought back the growing weakness in his limbs and forced himself to walk. Crippled by the deadly chemicals at work
inside him, Murphy staggered, half dragging himself back to his cubicle.


As soon as he got there, a wave of nausea dropped him to his knees and he vomited blood on the dirt. There were razor blades
embedded in his throat. He had to leave a message. A message for Cody and the others. They had to know who they were up against.
He had to do it quickly, before the poison took full effect. He tried to regain his feet and could not. The torpor in his
arms and legs was too much for him. Tears of frustration rolled down his ebony cheeks. He had to leave a message that would
be found by Cody and no one else. “Move, dammit!” he told himself. He clawed at the thin mattress, twisting up its edge, leaning
his shoulder against it to pin it to the wall. He jabbed fingers already dead into the puddle of his blood on the floor and
scrawled two words on the underside of the mattress. Eyes shut tight, he held the mattress back, gasping for air, letting
the blood soak into the fabric. Then he let the mattress drop and crawled on top of it.


Murphy leaned against the wall, legs outstretched. His breathing was shallow, a thin whistle in his throat, his body drenched
with sweat, arms and legs now cold, wooden. Even his lips felt numb. As he tried to prepare for the end that was fast closing
in, Rufe Murphy began to panic. It was one thing to be ready to die in battle, to accept the quick, merciful end offered by
a fragment of steel shrapnel or a jacketed slug; it was another altogether to die like this, of slow, creeping paralysis that
would soon leave him completely helpless in the hands of his enemies. He wanted more than anything to deny them their fun,
to go out clean. The choice made, Murphy tried to raise the cocked Commander to his chin. Four pounds of pressure on the trigger
would snap the firing pin. And end it.


He could not raise his arm from his side.

His body began slipping down the wall. He could not stop it. He slumped flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. In the
dim light cast into the room from the hall, he saw everything so clearly: the rust-stained ribs of the corrugated tin roof,
the spider webs, the bare electric bulb hanging by a frayed cord from a crossbeam. And he could hear, too. The night sounds,
the drone of insects, the rhythmic thudding of music from another nearby bar, the growl of the passing auto traffic.


And footsteps.

Footsteps in the hallway outside his room. Voices whispering back and forth. He tried to shout, to tell the bastards to come
and finish the job, but found he could not open his mouth, let alone speak. Rufe Murphy, a living spirit trapped in a body
dead as a block of ice, screamed inside his skull, screamed outrage, and no one heard.


With the Haitian dawn came Caribbean heat. It blast-furnaced through the hotel room’s sliding glass balcony doors. Three big,
broad-shouldered men sat in grim silence on armchairs and couch, staring at their boot tops. It had been a long sleepless
night for John Cody, Hawkeye Hawkins, and Richard Caine. The way things looked, it was going to be an even longer day.


Cody scowled at the wall clock. A quarter to six. Decision time. He rose without a word and walked out onto the balcony. He
leaned against the railing and stared down on Port-au-Prince. A sprawling muddle of a city squatting on a sun-baked tropical
plain. A city where cardboard-walled shantytowns and gleaming government high rises stood side by side, injustice and corruption
shamelessly displayed. Cody looked beyond the jumble of tin and tile rooftops. Brown haze from wood fires and diesel exhaust
tinged a placid blue bay and steep, distant mountains with sulphurous yellow. Haiti was a hellhole, pure and simple. But in
a rapidly shrinking world where freedom and democracy stood under constant siege there could be no write-offs, no expendable
pieces of turf, no matter how overpopulated, polluted, diseased. The battle was toe-to-toe for every inch of contested ground.
Haiti, the hellhole, was worth John Cody’s blood, his life if necessary. He and his four-man antiterrorist army had come to
the Caribbean island to do what they did best—hard strike. To conduct a surgical military operation that would tip the teetering
scales toward freedom. But even the best-laid plans of seasoned professionals do not always work out.


From the sliding door, Caine spoke to Cody’s back. “Bloody hell, man, we’ve got to do something! We can’t wait around here
just sitting on our hands.”


Cody turned from the balcony railing. Hawkeye had joined Caine in the doorway.

“What’s it gonna be, Sarge?” the Texan asked, a hard edge cutting through his slow, easy drawl.

Cody understood their impatience. He, too, had been bristling with it for hours. Rufe Murphy, the fourth member of his army,
was in trouble. Bad trouble. And Cody, hamstrung by the critical importance of the operation, could not order an immediate
rescue assault. Not while there was still the slightest chance Murphy would reestablish contact, that the mission might succeed
as planned. It was clear by now that the mission had been blown. What they had on their hands was a messy, conceivably impossible
salvage job.


“Rufe is eight hours late for check-in,” Cody said. “We all know he would’ve made the call by now if he was OK. That leaves
just two possibilities, both of which stink. He could have already bought the ranch. Or he’s being held prisoner. Either way,
it’s certain he’s been uncovered and the game plan for this mission is out the window.”


“Sod the bleeding mission! Our chap may not be dead. And even if he is, I say four of us came here and four of us are going
to leave.”


“The teabag is right, Sarge. We’re not going home without Rufe,” Hawkeye told him.

It was the response Cody had expected. The one he wanted to hear. He couldn’t order them to go in with him to get Murphy out.
Not the way things stood. Their transportation and main armament—a military helicopter—was useless in Port-au-Prince. They
no longer had current intelligence. They only had a vague idea of the nature and strength of the opposition. In other words,
it was a suicide operation. Which called for volunteers. “Then we’re all agreed,” he said. “I suggest we gear up and get the
hell out of here.”


“Right-o!” the Englishman said, giving the thumbs-up sign.

Beside him, Hawkins looked very much relieved.

Cody brushed past them, returning to the hotel room. On the king-size beds, a treasure trove of state-of-the-art weaponry
had already been laid out. Grenades. Commando knives. Handguns. Assault rifles. Submachine guns. And lots of ammunition.


“Everybody wears Kevlar and steel,” Cody said as he pulled on a Threat Level IIA bulletproof vest.

Hawkeye looked dubious. “We’ll melt in this damned humidity under those contraptions,” he protested. “Shoot, Sarge, they’ll
just slow us down.”


“That’s an order, Hawkins,” Cody told him. “You know what that shantytown is like. A maze of sheet metal and cardboard. No
real streets, just narrow, winding paths between shacks. We got no maps, no guide, no cover. We don’t know who to trust. Or
if we’re expected. Things could heat up without warning. We’re going to need every ounce of protection we can get.”


Hawkins looked at Caine, who was already putting on his vest.

“I’m not doing this for myself,” Caine assured him, tightening the Velcro straps. He slipped a steel trauma plate into the
flap that protected his groin area. “I’m doing it for future generations of Caines.”


Hawkins snorted as he picked up his own vest. “Who do you think you’re foolin’, teabag? You don’t need a plate that big.”

Cody grinned. The war of words had resumed. It was good to hear the two of them going at it again, going at it the way only
old friends can. Things were back in the groove. He shrugged into his black ballistic nylon shoulder holster, then slid the
Parkerized Colt Commander .45 from its sheath under his left armpit. He depressed the magazine-release button. The combat
clip dropped smooth as butter into his palm. With a thumbnail he counted seven big hollowpoints and slapped the magazine back
in place. After reholstering the weapon, he checked the spare Colt clips tucked into pouches on the shoulder harness. All
were fully loaded.


“We’ll take the Minis,” he said, reaching over the array of CAR-15s and FN-Paras on the bed for the compact version of the
Israeli UZI. With its metal stock folded, it was three-quarters the length of the standard UZI, much better suited to concealment
under clothing. Though almost a kilo less in weight, it still retained a 9mm hardpunch and thirty-two-round capacity. The
lighter weight and shorter length made for faster target acquisition in the tight confines of urban combat. Cody and the others
dispensed with the need to wear a second holster by using detachable neck lanyards that clipped to the back of the Mini’s
receiver and kept the little SMG at roughly belt level.


Loaded down with weapons, ammo, and fragmentation, flash and smoke grenades, the trio pulled on concealing outer garments.
Caine buttoned up a battered London Fog trenchcoat, Hawkins donned a Texas Ranger baseball team warm-up jacket, and Cody put
on a loose-fitting nylon windbreaker.


“We don’t look much like tourists,” Hawkeye said, sizing up his partners.

“A tad overdressed to be part of the beach crowd,” Caine agreed, whipping out a handkerchief and mopping the sweat from his
upper lip.


“That can’t be helped,” Cody told them. “Think of how much attention we’d attract without the coats.”

“We’d never get a taxi, that’s for damn sure,” Hawkeye said, smirking.

Out on the street in front of the hotel, they had no trouble connecting with a cab. It was a tight fit in the back seat. By
the time they got the door shut and windows rolled down, all of them were sweating.


Cody spoke to the back of the driver’s head. “We want to go to the Bellefleur district, the Simbi Bar.” The cabby looked at
him in the rearview, first shocked, then amused. Bellefleur was not the kind of place white tourists visited. At least not
those in their right minds. It was evidently a joke the cabby wanted to savor; he made no move to get his heap rolling.


Caine leaned over the seat. “Drive!” he said, pointing a finger straight ahead.

The cabby slammed the taxi into gear and, with a squeal of tires, they shot out into a sea of traffic.

Cody closed his mind to the discomfort of the back seat and their maddeningly slow progress through streets packed mostly
with people and animal carts, and ramshackle, gaily multicolored buses packed to bursting and belching gray clouds of exhaust.
Weapons or no, Kevlar or no, he knew three blancs had a snowball’s chance in hell of penetrating the secrets of Bellefleur shanty town. That was why Murphy had gone in undercover
in the first place. A black man at least had a hope of getting the job done and getting out alive. Rufe Murphy knew how to
take care of himself. He was a combat pilot par excellence. Not just a flyboy, either. On terra firma, he could slug it out with the best of them, fists, knives, or guns. And when he slugged
it out he didn’t go down easy; he didn’t go down, period. Cody knew the others were thinking the same thing. That Rufe had
to be dead. It was the only way to put the guy out of action. If he was dead, the mission was worse than back at square one.
They were playing in the red. Which was no way to win a war. Or even the skirmish they had planned.


To the east, beyond the overcrowded plain, beyond the haze-shrouded mountains Cody could see as they bumped along the pothole-riddled
road, were even more mountains. Nestled somewhere in among them was a secret basecamp. In that basecamp, members of the deposed
Duvalier regime’s Tontons Macoutes were reforming into a counterrevolutionary army. The Macoutes, or Volontaires pour la Sdcurite
Nationale (VSN), had been created by Papa Doc Duvalier because he did not trust the existing army and police to back his authority.
Though officially disbanded and ordered to turn in their weapons when the new government took power, eyewitnesses claimed
to have seen thousands of Macoutes fleeing to the east and the border with the Dominican Republic. According to official reports,
more than ten thousand rifles disappeared at roughly the same time.


What could an army of that size do in a country of 5 milli. . .