The Carolina Coup: Another Rwandan Genocide? (The Jeannine Ryan Series Book 4) (33 page)

Stew Marks was driving on Highway 17A, near the I-26 interchange for Summerville, South Carolina, when Jack Marino called.

“Stew, the highway patrol reports two dead bodies and a wrecked Audi on I-95, north of I-26.  Where are you?”

“I’m almost to Summerville.  Where are you?”

“I’m on I-26 near I-95.  I’ll be at the scene in fifteen minutes.  Take I-26 towards I-95 if you want to meet me there. We could check it out together.”

“Who are the dead guys?”

“An African, Pierre Sehene, with a student visa.  He’s not in the FBI’s Gutera file.  The other guy was white.  His name was Hyde, James Hyde.  He worked for the Port Authority.”

A red light flashed in Stew’s mind.
The Port Authority?

“Jack, was a truck involved?  Any sign of a big rig?”

“There had to be another vehicle.  The Audi was rear-ended, but I don’t know if it was a truck?  What we do know is that these two guys were shot up badly, like almost cut in two.

Now Stew’s mind raced. 
Automatic weapons and an African “student?”

“On which lane of I-26 was this?”

“South bound, towards North Charleston.  Why?”

North Charleston, the terminal!

“Jack, I’m on my way now.  I’ll see you there.”

Stew Marks took the ramp to I-26 and sped northwest.

In Georgetown, South Carolina, Jeannine and Angelique arrived at the hospital.

Bill’s car was parked, double-blinking, at the Emergency Entrance, but he was not in sight.

Jeannine left Angelique in the car with the motor running and ran inside.  She spotted Bill by the Surgery Suite.  She stopped breathless.

“How’s Denise?”

“The wound opened up.  She’s lost a lot of blood.  They want to operate right away.  They’re prepping her for surgery.  It’s here on ‘One.’  The surgeon said I could see her once she is prepped.”

“Bill, that could take time.  I’ll move your car for you.”

As he handed her the keys, his hand shook.

Bill’s car still blocked the Emergency Room entrance.  She jumped in and drove to the parking area.  She returned to move her own car, but something was awry.  Her motor continued to idle, but the passenger seat was vacant.

Angelique was gone.

Jeannine and Angelique were not the only persons to follow Bill and Denise to the Georgetown Memorial Hospital.  Henri Duval had kept them all in sight.

He parked in the visitor parking, and entered by a side door.  After a few enquiries, he passed Emergency and found Surgery. It occupied a suite on the first floor.

Henri stopped at a door marked “
Staff Only
” and slipped inside.  A white lab coat, its pocket bulging from a stethoscope, hung on the wall.  He slipped it on and hurried out into the hallway.  He put his Browning into the free pocket.  Now each pocket had a significant bulge.

He peered into the waiting room.  Bill Hamm was talking to a nurse.  He listened.  Denise was being prepped for surgery.

Henri retraced his steps to a door labeled “
No Admittance
,” the access to the preparation area.  An inconspicuous switch was mounted on the wall to his right.  He pressed it and the double doors parted and swung outward.

He gripped the browning in his pocket and started to enter, but heard steps behind him.

He turned to see Angelique, breathing hard.

“Henri, what are you doing?  That’s the surgical area.  You’re not allowed.”

Then she noticed the stethoscope in his pocket.

“You are no doctor.  Why are you pretending?”

Then she understood.

“Denise Guerry is in there.  What were you going to do?”

She spotted the bulge in his right pocket.  His gun
!

“My God, Henri.  No!  You can’t.  You wouldn’t!”

She grabbed his arm.

“Come with me.  You can’t do this.”

He stared at her.

“Henri, where is your car.  We must leave.”

She yanked him away from the door and towards the exit.

“Now!”

On I-26, Jack Marino studied the mashed weeds and broken scrub pines near the bodies of Pierre Sehene and James Hyde.  A swathe of crushed bushes and ripped earth showed that a large vehicle had skidded sideways off the road.  A big rig, as Stew had surmised.

At Jack’s feet was a twisted heap of uprooted Asters.  Frustrated, he kicked the purplish mass skywards, but it was Stew Marks he wanted to kick.  Stew’s infatuation with the Ryan woman had destroyed his judgment. When this “Hamm” case was over, Jack would get a new partner.

Such were Jack’s thoughts when his temporary partner, Sam Smith, approached.

“Jack, we just got a call from the Resident Agency in Charleston.  They received a call from the Georgetown Police.  The hospital there has a woman with a gunshot wound.  And the guy with her is ‘Walter Harmon’ aka ‘Bill Hamm.’”

“Ryan must have been shot.  Sam, call the Georgetown PD.  Tell them to hold Hamm until I get there.”

He added.

“And call Stew Marks.   Tell him we couldn’t wait.”

Jack signaled the FBI techs to carry on with the bodies and the wrecked Audi.  Then he and Sam left for Georgetown.

So Ryan got herself shot.  Good!  Hamm, you damned spook, you screwed me once, but I’ve got you now.

At the hospital in Georgetown, Jeannine took the elevator to the fifth floor.  She found Bill in the surgery waiting room.  He stood up as she approached.

“The surgeon assures me that Denise won’t lose the arm, but there may be nerve damage.  The surgery will take two hours, with an hour in recovery.  She’ll be here overnight, at the least.”

“Bill, Angelique is gone.  She wasn’t in the car.”

No reaction.  He had lines in his face.  He was beat.

“Bill, have you eaten anything today?”

“Some coffee, that’s all.  I was going to eat when that couple brought Denise back to our room.”

Jeannine noted the possessive “our,” but chose to ignore it.

“You need to go to the cafeteria now.  There’ll be no news about Denise for hours.”

She dragged him from the waiting room and pushed him ahead of her.  As they turned the corner, she looked back.  Two policemen had arrived at the door to the waiting room.

“Bill, the police are here.  We must go.”

“I have to see how Denise does.  You can’t mind that.”

“This isn’t about me, Bill.  Denise has a gunshot wound.  The police have been notified.  They’ll arrest you.  Get in the elevator.”

A policeman rounded the corner of the hallway just as Jeannine hit the button for “One.”

Through closed doors she heard the shout.

“You!  You in the elevator, wait!”

Arrived on the first floor, she looked back.  No policeman was in sight.

She led Bill outside.

Henri and Angelique were blocks away from the hospital, when Angelique sat at attention.  She could wait no longer.

“Tell me, Henri, did SÉGAG tell you to kill Denise Guerry?

“Angelique, you have to understand.”

“Understand that you would kill someone to save your own life?  No, I don’t
have to
understand, and I don’t.”

Her tone hardened.

“SÉGAG wants Maximilien Gutera to rule Rwanda.  Another genocide!  And you do what they tell you?”

“It was only one job, and it was to protect you too. Denise wanted you dead.”

“Denise is sorry for what she did.  She told me.”

“And you believe her?  You are naive.”

“Maybe, but I trust God, and I know he can change us.  What you saw in my country, the rapes, the killings, made you bitter.  I saw more and was more bitter and hate-filled than you.  God took that away.  I want justice for the Interahamwe, but the hate and bitterness are gone.  He changed me.  He can change Denise and you too.”

“But, Angelique.”

“No.  You pretended to be a doctor to get into the surgery area.  A doctor of death, not life.  If I had not found you, Denise would be dead and you would have her blood on your hands.  God did not want that.  He sent me to stop you.”

Henri could not reply.  Angelique drooped, exhausted.

“I’m tired.  I want my normal life back.  I want to go back to the university.  Take me to Florence.  I have a thesis to finish.”

Henri remained silent.  Eyes straight ahead, he turned onto Route 521 and headed inland towards I-95, and Florence.

Has she forgotten that Gutera and his thugs are in Florence?

Moments later, Angelique leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Henri, forgive me.  I should not have said all those things.  You believed you were protecting me.  Thank you.”

He stopped on the shoulder and kissed her.  She drew back.

“Henri, you must forgive Denise for my sake.  She is sorry.”

She beat his arm with her fist.

“And never again tell me how desirable she is!”

Bill and Jeannine were a block away from the Georgetown Memorial Hospital, when several police cars, sirens blaring and lights revolving, arrived.  Jeannine spoke.

“That’s more than a casual search.  The FBI must have ID’d you.  We just got away in time.”

Bill did not respond.  Jeannine frowned.

He’s worried for Denise.

Jeannine decided to head to North Charleston.

At the North Charleston terminal, Superintendant Ralph Morris sat at his desk.  Tired as he was from his all night vigil, he dared not leave.  He looked at his watch.  It was past eleven, and the guards at the gate had yet to notify him of James Hyde’s arrival.  Where was he?

Morris wanted that container.  The
Étoile d’Afrique
would not depart without it.

He fidgeted with the papers on his desk.

Damn it, Hyde, hurry.  You’ll get your bonus anyway, just get that container here.

He rose from his desk and began to pace.

On I-26, Maximilien Gutera stepped out of the gray Audi onto the shoulder of the highway.  He stared at his motionless rig and waved his arms in desperation at the driver.

“Senteli, you fool.  Why have you stopped?  There is nothing here but pine woods.  What are you doing?”

Claude Senteli stepped down from the cab of the container truck and examined the driver-side fuel tank.  Fuel dribbled from multiple holes near the bottom of the cylinder.  He turned to his chief and pointed.

“Whoever shot Pierre and that driver, hit the fuel tank.  It’s almost empty.  This truck is going nowhere.”

“Idiot, there’s a tank on the other side.  Surely, it was not hit.”

“It was empty when we started.  Hamm must have siphoned the fuel out.  He did not want this truck to move.”

Maximilien huffed in exasperation.

“You make no sense.  He would have emptied this side too.”

Claude leaned over the tank.

“He couldn’t.  This tank has a device that stops siphoning.”

He turned back to Maximilien.

“We can unhook this truck and leave it here.  Call Superintendant Morris to send us another cab to hook up to this trailer.  We can still be at the terminal this afternoon.  The ship will wait for us.”

Normally, Claude would never have dared to address his chief with a command, but there was no time to waste.  Besides he was tired of Maximilien’s imperious attitude.

Maximilien grunted.  He would deal with the insolent Claude after they sailed for Mombasa.  For now, he complied and drew his cell phone from its pocket.

In seconds, superintendant Morris was on the line.  Maximilien shouted into the phone.

“You’re the superintendant.  Get me another truck.  Now!”

Claude Senteli got to work while Maximilien Gutera spewed further frustration at superintendant Morris.  Time was precious.

Fortunately, Claude was no stranger to trucking.

He circled the rig and checked the parking brakes on the trailer and cab.  Then he tugged the safety handle to release the jaws of the truck’s “fifth wheel” and free the trailer’s kingpin.  He succeeded but his hand came away coated with grease.

He wiped it as best he could and cranked the landing legs down to the ground.  Then he mounted the catwalk to detach the coiled “Suzies,” electric and air connections, from the trailer. That done, he released the truck’s air suspension to lower the fifth wheel clear of the kingpin.

There was just enough fuel in the perforated tank for Claude to start the truck and guide it down a slight slope out of the way of the trailer with the container.

Done!

Claude stood back.  The trailer was ready for coupling as soon as the new truck arrived.

He turned back only to face an angry Maximilien, his face distorted in an ominous scowl.  Evidently, the chief did not like to be surpassed by an underling in any capacity, even knowing how to uncouple a trailer.

Oddly, Claude was not afraid.  He spoke.

“The trailer is ready for coupling as soon as Morris’s truck arrives.”

Gutera suppressed his anger.  There would be time for that later.  He nodded to Claude, and sat in the gray Audi to wait.

His bodyguard stood by the car, an AK-47 hanging loose at his side.

At the North Charleston terminal, Superintendant Morris stood up from his desk.  How had that madman Gutera gained possession of the truck?  And where was James Hyde, the driver?

Gutera had been unwilling to give Morris any information concerning James.   But Morris could guess.

James Hyde was dead.

And he was equally sure that any driver he sent with a truck to aid the madman, would end up like James, dead.

Morris could not send another man to his death. 
Damn you Gutera!

No amount of kickbacks and bribes was worth another life!

The superintendant was a large man who had come up through the ranks.  Though now a manager, he identified with his workers rather than his superiors.  The evident death of James Hyde, his young worker, angered him.  He drew a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver from the side draw and stuffed it in his belt at the rear.

He was still afraid of Gutera, but no longer terrified into inaction. He called the garage to requisition a truck.  He would drive it himself.

Fifteen minutes later he was on Remount Road headed towards the I-26 interchange.

When Stew Marks arrived at the site on I-26 where the bodies of Pierre Sehene and James Hyde had been found, both the bodies and Jack Marino were gone.  After confirming that a big rig had been involved in the collision with the black Audi, Stew headed back southeast towards Summerville.

Rounding a curve, he spotted an uncoupled flatbed trailer on the shoulder to his right.  On it was a
Kenya-Carolina
container, and parked next to it to it was a gray Audi.  A tall black man peered from behind the car, apparently scanning the passing traffic.

A Rwandan?  And Maximilien’s rockets?

Stew continued southeast without stopping.  Shortly, he found a breach in the median used by police to wait for speeders.  He crossed and headed back west towards the trailer.  He would use the numerous pines on the median as shelter from which to observe whatever was going down.

Opposite the trailer, he parked on the shoulder to his right and dashed across the westbound lanes to the median.  There he crouched behind thick shrubby pines.  The Audi was there, but the black man guarding it was gone.  Stew watched, as a second man (Claude Senteli) approached, opened the trunk and drew out a large object.

A grenade launcher!

Mouth open, Stew watched as the man clicked a Rocket-Propelled Grenade in the launcher and aimed it across the highway at the tree that sheltered Stew.

Stew ducked.

Tortured seconds passed before Stew heard a shout from across the highway.

“Claude, don’t shoot.  Put that launcher away.  Now!”

Stew could never forget that voice.  Maximilien Gutera, his interrogator.

Claude obeyed.  He detached the grenade from the launcher and shoved both items into the trunk.  He turned, hands empty, as a police car, red-light twirling, arrived.

A state trooper, hand on holstered weapon, stepped out and walked to where Maximilien and Claude stood.  The trooper addressed Maximilien.

“Is there a problem, Sir?  Is that your trailer?”

Before Maximilien could answer, a Port Authority truck with nothing in tow arrived.  Stew watched as a man stepped down from the cab.

“Officer, I’m superintendant Morris from the North Charleston terminal.  That’s my container on the trailer.  They ran out of fuel, that’s all.  These men were watching it for me.  I’m here to take it to the terminal. I’ve a ship waiting.”

He moved to Maximilien.

“Thank you, Sir, for your help.”

With no further words, Morris climbed back into his cab.

Smoothly, he backed up so that the notch of his fifth wheel was under the trailer’s kingpin.  He engaged the air suspension to raise the wheel, and backed a few inches more to set the safety jaws about the pin.

Morris signaled Claude to winch the landing legs up while he connected the cables for air and electricity to the trailer.

Maximilien did not speak.  The state trooper watched in silence as superintendant Morris mounted the cab and prepared to drive off with the trailer and container.

Stew knew he had to intervene.

Stew slipped the Beretta’s safety off and started to rise.

But a metal barrel pressed into his back, pushing him to the ground on top of his gun.

Who?  The bodyguard!

He had not been in sight when Stew had returned.

Why doesn’t he shoot?  Of course!  He’s waiting for the trooper to leave.

The gun pressed harder against Stew’s spine.

From across the highway, Stew heard Maximilien shout.

“Claude, get in that truck.  Go with Superintendant Morris.  Do not let him go by himself.”

Moments later, both truck doors slammed, and the truck roared off.

The pressure on Stew’s spine did not lessen.

Maximilien Gutera watched as the trailer with his rockets disappeared down the highway.  He looked back, to see the state trooper leaning over the fuel tank of the truck that was left behind.

“Sir, did you see this tank.  These are bullet holes.  Someone shot up this truck.”

Maximilien frowned.  The trooper continued.

“Someone tried to hijack that trailer.  What do you know about that?  Was that driver really from the Port Authority?”

Maximilien stayed silent.

“Sir, help me.  Answer my questions.”

The trooper’s face turned red.  He drew his Glock.

“Sir, are you carrying a weapon?”

Maximilien panicked.  He shouted across the highway to his bodyguard on the median.  In fear, he reverted to a mix of the languages of his youth, Kinyarwanda and French.

Ngwino umfashe! 
Help me! 
Lui tirer dessus!
  Shoot him!”

The bodyguard shifted his AK-47 from Stew’s back, and fired.

“BrBrup, ..., BrBrup.”

“Crack.”

The trooper’s Glock discharged into the ground as he fell.

Instantly the bodyguard turned back to Stew, but the latter had rolled to his side and freed the Beretta from under his body.

“Crack, Crack.”

The bodyguard was pushed backwards.

“Crack!”

Stew’s last shot pierced the heart.  The bodyguard toppled backwards, dead.

From across the road, Stew heard the sound of a motor.  He jumped to his feet in time to see Maximilien Gutera at the wheel as the gray Audi sped away.

Left behind among the weeds on the shoulder was the crumpled form of the state trooper.  A second highway patrol car had stopped behind the first.  The trooper’s backup had arrived too late.

Stew withdrew through the pines and crossed the opposite lanes to his car.

In the Intensive Care Unit at the Georgetown Memorial Hospital, Denise Guerry stirred.

Bill?  Where?

The nurse checked her vitals as Denise drifted off again.

A baby was vomiting from radiation poisoning.  Nearby, an African woman lay moaning and retching by the shore of a lake.  Non!

Denise shook all over.  The nurse covered her with a blanket.