The Seeds of Fiction by Richard Greene, Bernard Diederich Read Free Book Online Page A

across the room, a cynical smile on his face, his likeness pierced by a single bullet. Dominique’s bullet-riddled corpse lay propped in the corner next to a door. Near him Captain Walker lay dead, shot through the right ear, a pack of Lucky Strikes balanced on his neck. Dany Jones lay half sitting, a small, clean bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.
    Payne was still alive. He was wrapped up in a mattress, his complexion pale from the loss of blood from his leg wound. When the soldiers ran in he pleaded for his life and called out, ‘Journalist, journalist!’ But the soldiers cut him down with a burst of gunfire.
    Perpignan, Hickey and Kersten managed to escape. Perpignan and Hickey ran across the street, through the grounds of the military hospital and over a back fence. Hickey was spotted by a soldier and shot through the head. Perpignan ran into the yard of a house and forced the houseboy to hide him in the chicken coop, but when the boy heard the mob outside he became frightened and ran. Perpignan shot him down with a burst from his Thompson submachine-gun, giving away his hiding place. The mob closed in. He was shot and stabbed. His clothes were torn and his naked body was dragged through the streets and into the Palace, where it left a trail of blood over the marble floors and stairs as it was hauled before Duvalier.
    The mob also caught up with Kersten behind the barracks, where they hacked him to death with machetes and paraded his body through the streets.
    â€˜I can’t believe it. Eight men,’ Graham said when I finished telling him the story. ‘They really thought they could do it.’
    â€˜It always seems to be that way,’ I said.
    Graham made reference of the invasion in
The Comedians
when Philipot visits Brown who is swimming in the pool. The two men speak, wonderingwhat Jones is up to. Philipot tells Brown about the invasion. ‘I told him how seven men once captured the army barracks because they had tommy-guns.’
    â€˜I’m sure that helped Papa Doc more than anyone can imagine,’ said Graham.
    â€˜That’s when he started his Volunteers of National Security.’
    â€˜His militia?’
    I nodded. ‘The National Assembly passed laws. There was a curfew, everything. It gave him the excuse to build his terror network.’
    â€˜And there were the usual repercussions, I’m sure.’
    â€˜Oh yes. And he didn’t have to hide it. He positioned a new Palace military staff that was loyal only to him. He made changes in the military. A few foreigners were expelled.’
    â€˜They played right into his plans. It happens every time. It’s like the Bay of Pigs. It did more for Castro than anyone else.’
    â€˜You know,’ I said after a while, ‘the problem with Haiti is that no one seems to care. That invasion made headlines because there were five Americans involved, but Papa Doc is committing horrible crimes every day. It just doesn’t make the papers.’
    â€˜Who would believe that the Cold War would ever come to the Caribbean.’ Graham was pensive, then he added, ‘The US would support the devil if he was anti-Communist.’
    â€˜Fascism may flow —’
    â€˜Washington is paranoid,’ Graham interrupted. ‘They’re obsessed with Fidel. They don’t want another Cuba. Papa Doc knows how to play the anti-Communist card.’
    â€˜If they knew what’s going on,’ I said.
    â€˜Believe me, they know.’
    â€˜I wish Haiti would get more attention in the press. Very little truth comes out of the country, and when it does it doesn’t get much play. There was Hector Riobé. I think he was in his mid-twenties. His father had been picked up by the Macoutes at a roadblock in Carrefour the day of the attempted kidnapping. They took his car, money and land. They executed him the same day but later told the family that he was still alive and needed money in prison.