Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
Ash was a seasoned traveler. In the first twelve years of his life he had visited quite a bit of the world: Russia, Hong Kong, Austria, France, Great Britain, Egypt, South Africa… and these were only the places he remembered. Their accommodations had, more often than not, been modest, mildly put. Ash had seen his fair share of rundown motels, decrepit apartment houses and outright slums, although Philippa had always tried to stay away from those as much as possible. But every now and then, in cases of emergency…
None of his previous experiences, however, could have prepared Ash for the onslaught of poverty and sheer destitution that he met in Haiti. He had done some reading on the country. Even before the earthquake of 2010 it had been the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. But afterwards… the earthquake had killed 300.000 people and left 1.5 million homeless… of which 400.000 continued to live in camps to this very day.
After the earthquake the cholera came… it killed another approximately 8000 people and infected almost 700.000. It was still raging… Still 2500 people each week fell sick anew… The UN had launched a campaign to eradicate the disease within the next ten years… which was rather kind, considering that a sick UN peacemaker most likely had brought it into the country in the first place. At least they were trying to clean up their mess.
Help organizations had done a lot of good in Haiti… and a lot of bad. It was a sad fact that a huge percentage of the money that went to NGOs ended up being spent for transportation and accommodation of the various aid workers that were flown in. And another significant percentage ended up evaporating in projects that had no permanence and no durability… they brought short-term relief but, like teardrops in the ocean, in the long rung they just disappeared.
By now many people vehemently criticized the international help organizations, argued that the country was probably better off without any outside interference. With so many things that had gone wrong, who could blame them? The Marshall Pucci Foundation had worked long and hard to restore trust with the Haitians. They used native workers, put a lot of emphasis on supporting educational projects that aimed to provide people with skills rather than material resources that sooner or later would be used up again.
The disappearing money was putting the sensitive relationship between the branch office in Port-au-Prince and HQ in London at risk. Some members of the board were voicing the opinion that a couple of experienced supervisors from their permanent staff should take matters in their hands. Great, more foreigners telling the Haitians what to do, implying that they were not able to manage things on their own. Connie hated the idea and Ilsa agreed with her. They needed to solve the matter before the voices grew louder and found sympathetic ears.
"This is… whoa…" Ash unconsciously clawed at his car seat as a battered jeep barely missed first their cab and then veered of the road completely, narrowly missing the tattered tents of several small street merchants on what had probably once been the sidewalk. The taxi driver seemed to have chauffeured them straight into a bubbling cauldron of buses, taptaps, bikes, pedestrians… Portail Leogane, a giant crossroads where the stoplights didn't work and thus hundreds of all sorts of vehicles tried to get from one side to the other at the same time. The road was full of wide cracks and huge potholes, filled with brackish water – earthquake damage, still not repaired.
Ash really hoped they would be able to help. He silently vowed to do everything in his power to make things at least a little better.
That heroic determination lasted exactly until he found out what his part of the job was going to be.
"Are you kidding me?"
"This job is a paper trail case", Chance said, showing his son the small damp room with mold on the walls, a rickety desk, NO COMPUTER and tons and tons of files. The branch office's bookwork… of the past year.
"And so we've got to follow the paper trail. You're going to handle the … paper … side of it, we're going to look into the trail part." He smiled at his son.
"This is idiotic." Ash let his eyes wander around the room. No air conditioning. Not even a fan.
"It's not all explosions and car chases, dude", Guerrero said, fighting his urge to grin because more years ago than he cared to remember he had had pretty much the same conversation with a cocky blond teenage punk, brilliant mind, a façade armored with lots of attitude and a tendency to insane stunts. The face Ash was making now was so much a throwback to the past, he needed to remind himself not to accidentally call the boy "Junior".
"In this line of work patience, diligence and lots and lots of paperwork make up a huge part of the job", Winston chimed in. "We want you to look for any incongruences, any suspicious repetitions of payments or odd bills."
"This will take ages!" Ash lightly kicked against one of the heaps of files on the floor. It swayed, swayed some more, toppled over… a stream of loose sheets flooded the floor.
"And now it'll take even longer", Chance said, nodding at the others, signaling that it was time to go. This time around they were not trying to blend in; there was no threat they needed to flush out by painting a bull's eye on a client's back. They'd simply do some classic investigative work – go through the files, question people, take a look at their backgrounds….
At least they had someone for the really boring part.
"And don't forget – you're not going anywhere alone." Chance winked at his son before opening the door for his friends. Together they exited the room.