Mr. Clarinet

Paul took out his gun and put a round in Veja's head. Then he dragged another soldier, screaming and pleading and crying, out of the shattered group. Paul slapped the man's face with a huge, bloody paw.

"You stay here and watch your friends. Just like you did when they raped the girl," he said and turned him around to face his comrades. He then shouted at the two guards who were watching Saggar. They shoved him over to his men.

"You are animal—monster!" Saggar yelled out at Paul. "You vill be punished for this."

Paul stepped away and whistled. The rocks began to fly.

The first volley came from the girl's family, who'd moved into position, opposite the rapists. They threw large rocks at them, over-and underarm, and fired smaller ones by catapult. All found their targets—heads were opened, brows were split, eyes were put out.

The rapists tried to run backwards but they met an immediate hail of rocks flying out of the darkness, hurled and shot at them by unseen hands. One soldier was knocked out, another dropped to the floor and pulled his legs up in fetal position.

The rocks flew into heads and faces and knees and chests. Max saw a man killed when one catapulted rock struck his cheek and spun him right into the path of another, high-velocity stone that caved his temple in and rammed skull bone into his brain.

Saggar was on all fours, scrambling around, feeling his way along the ground, blood covering his face from a gash in his forehead, one eye buried under a mound of swollen skin.

None of the rapists were left standing when the Le Fen family moved in, sticks and machetes in hand, Verité leading the way, helped along by her father. The other rock-throwers came out of the darkness and together they formed a circle around the fallen men.

Moments later, the sounds of beating and pounding and stabbing and slashing came from the circle. Max heard a few cries of pain, but it all seemed minor after Veja's screams that were still clearly echoing around his head.

The crowd worked on the bodies, letting out their hatred, sucking up as much raw vengeance as they could before their muscles gave out and tiredness got the better of them.

When they staggered away, they left behind a pulped vermilion mass, a gleaming, viscous lake of retribution.

A guard went around and put nominal bullets in the skulls that were still intact.

Paul looked at the driver.

"Now—you—I want you to go back to your barracks in Port-au-Prince and tell everyone what happened. Start with your friends and colleagues, then tell your commanding officer. Tell them I was responsible. Vincent Paul. You understand?"

The man nodded, his teeth chattering.

"And when you tell them what happened, tell them this from me—if any of you ever rape or harm any of our women and children in any way, we will kill you—like that," he said, pointing at the tangle of body parts. "And if any of you come looking for revenge, rounding up our people, we will all rise up and massacre each and every one of you. And that isn't a threat, it's a promise. Now go."

The driver started walking away, very slowly, head down, slouching, steps uncertain, as though they were the first he'd taken in a long while and half-expected his legs to give way. He put a good few meters between himself and the scene, and then he broke into a run and disappeared into the night like a man on fire who's spotted water.

Paul went to be with the family.

Max couldn't move. He was numb with shock and disgust, his mind paralyzed by conflict. He hated all rapists and, in theory, up to the moment it had happened, he had agreed with Paul's actions.

True, what the soldiers had done was evil, and their official "punishment" had been a joke, an insult to the victim, but justice hadn't been served by Paul's act. The girl hadn't got her life and innocence back, just the satisfaction of knowing that the rapists had been punished, that they'd suffered before dying. But what good would that do her next year, and the year after? What good was it doing her now?

Sure, the punishment Paul had meted out would be a deterrent—in Haiti—but once the UN troops moved on they'd do it somewhere else, in another land they'd been dispatched to "to keep the peace" in.

A better, more responsible way, would have been for Paul to have talked to the press, stirred up a major stink about the rape, and forced the UN to prosecute its troops and make it plain that such conduct was unacceptable.

But then Max thought of Sandra and asked himself what would he have done in Paul's place. Taken them in and waited a year for some judge to maybe sentence them to fifteen to life if the evidence stood up? No, of course not. He would have castrated the motherfuckers with his bare hands too.

What was he thinking, exactly? Paul was right. What did Paul give a fuck what the UN did elsewhere? This was his homeland and these were his people. That's as far as he saw.

Fair play. Fuck 'em.

Max sneaked away back to his car and drove off.