Hoch said, “Give me a minute to contact them and see what I can do. I’ll call you right back.”
Bolino pleaded, “Okay, but understand this guy’s serious, and says I’ll die in five minutes if you don’t convince him they’ve stopped!”
Hoch churned the information he had just heard and made his decision. No way was he going to stop the Lieutenant and Danby from recovering the chip.
He un-holstered his weapon, checked the magazine, pulled the slider to load a round to the firing chamber, ensured the safety was on, and re-holstered it.
He reached for his phone to call Lt. James and explain what was up but he stopped. Wait! I better not contact the lieutenant by phone. It’s obvious that who ever this bozo is at Bolino’s quarters, he has been eavesdropping on calls made by either Kim or Lt. James. How else would he know that they were operating on Rafael to remove the chip? The bozo might still be listening in to hear when the operation stops.
He wrote a short note and left it on the doctor’s coffee table. It tersely explained the current situation and that the intruder was holding Bolino hostage to get them to stop the chip recovery.
He left the doctor talking with Lt. James and trotted out her front door. Bolino’s residence was only about one hundred meters from where he now stood. He briskly moved to the edge of Bolino’s unit that had no exterior views, and silently worked his way to right side of Bolino’s front door.
He listened intently but heard no sounds from within. Was he too late? Had the maniac already executed Bolino?
Hoch took out his gun, and flipped off the safety. He took a deep breath and turned the knob on the door. It was not locked. He silently opened the door a few centimeters and stopped. There was still no sound, and no movement from within the residence. He pushed open the door and entered living quarters.
A quick scan of the living space showed no one. He moved quickly and quietly to the closed bedroom door. He stopped and listened. Again, there was no sound, no hint of life. He tried the doorknob but it was locked from the inside. Hoch gathered his courage and using his shoulder slammed through the locked door. He staggered as he struggled to maintain his balance when the door gave way and he fell inside.
Nothing moved. No one awaited him. He looked down and saw Bolino’s body lying on the floor next to the bed. He was on his back with one arm at his side and the other arm partially under his bed. Damn, I’m too late. The SOB killed him! Hoch thought as he knelt down to check Bolino’s life signs. He placed his fingers over Bolino’s carotid artery and felt for a pulse. The pulse was surprisingly strong. Bolino was still alive!
Hoch was slow to react to the movement from under the edge of the bed. A TASER hit his side and he instantly froze from the muscle contractions it caused. The TASER sparked and hissed for about ten seconds, until its battery charge was exhausted. After four seconds, Hoch became completely disoriented and dropped to the floor here he would remain for several minutes.
The Boss rose and looked at Hoch. “Too bad.” he thought as he took Hoch’s gun from his frozen hand. He turned the gun, pointed it at Hoch’s chest and pulled the trigger three times.
Hoch’s chest seemed to explode into a landscape of three bloody craters. Hoch breathed with a rattling sound. He was near death.
“Now, I gotta have the Director recover his senses, and report to Lt. James and Danby that Hoch had a gun battle with the maniac that was holding him hostage. The plan’s going as slick as bacon grease on fingers!” he thought as he reached for the man’s body on the floor.
49
The Procedure
What could he use to cut Rafael open? They couldn’t be stymied this close to the goal! the Lieutenant thought.
Suddenly, it hit him. He yelled to Kim, “Go out to the cart and get me that shard of crystal blade you bagged at the lab crash site.”
She sprinted out and was back quickly, carrying the ten-centimeter piece of broken crystal. Handing it to the Lieutenant, she stepped back. Lt. James reported to the doctor that he had a sharp knife and was ready to begin.
“Wait!” Kim said excitedly as she grabbed the Lieutenant’s arm. “You’re going to need a piece of cloth or something to wrap around one end of that crystal to protect your hand and hold it like a knife.”
He tore off a part of his shirt and quickly wrapped it around an end of his makeshift blade. He gripped it by the flat top of the blade’s shank.
The doctor began her instruction, “We’re trying to locate the stomach, which is in the upper abdomen just below his lower left rib cage. The stomach is attached to the small intestines, so we will use those intestines to find the stomach. First, take your blade and make a deep cut straight down the middle of the abdomen all the way from the rib cage to the pelvis.”
Kim inhaled sharply as the Lieutenant made the incision.
The doctor continued, “Below the skin is fat and muscle. After cutting through them you should enter a cavity or space, the abdominal cavity. You need to open up the fibrous membrane surrounding the cavity. Stick two fingers into the cavity, separate them, and lift up. This will tighten and raise the fibrous membrane so you can cut it open all the way from the rib cage to the pelvis. Now, you should be able to see the liver in the upper abdomen and the intestines beneath and towards the feet. Kim, you have to pull the skin down on each side of the body so the Lieutenant can see what he’s doing. You may have to hold the liver back as well.”
Kim protested, “I can’t. It’s disgusting.”
The doctor replied, “You have to if you want to get the chip.”
Kim took a deep breath and did as instructed feeling the slippery, rubbery skin in her bare hands as she pulled back the skin.
The doctor asked, “Lieutenant, can you see the intestines?”
“I think so, Doc. Do they look like a coil of snakes?”
“Yes. Now pick up a portion of the intestines and poke a hole through the yellow fatty tissue attached to them. Then pull on the intestines and continue to cut off the fatty membrane as you pull. This will loosen up the intestines. Continue pulling and cutting, but don’t cut through the intestine. Just free it from the fatty membrane. Now, as you pull out the intestines, you will either be working up towards the stomach or down towards the colon. It’s a fifty-fifty chance. We need to be working towards his head. Just pay attention, and start in the other direction if think you’re heading too far towards his feet.”
After working awhile, the Lieutenant sighed and said, “Okay. It seems like I came to a dead end.”
“That’s good. That means you’re in the right area. The fatty membrane has ended. We’re close. The final part of the intestine is secured in place.”
“So where’s the stomach?”
“It’s still hidden a bit from view. Now that we’ve removed most of the small intestines from the body, you should see another slightly larger snake-like intestine still in place.”
“Yeah, there’s more intestine left inside.”
“There should be one segment running across the body from side to side. It should be dangling over the place where the small intestines used to be.”
“I see it.”
“That is part of the colon. Grab it. The stomach is attached to this colon segment. Pull the colon towards the feet of the body. There will be another yellow fatty membrane. It goes between this colon segment and the stomach. As you pull, you should be able to see the edge of the stomach. It won’t be yellow, but tan-red, similar in color to the intestines.”
“Here it is, I think. It’s like a slightly dilated pouch, a little smaller than a soccer ball. It kind of looks like one of those whoopee cushions.”
”That’s it! Now free up the stomach from the yellow membranes. Then cut through both of its narrowed ends, the esophagus end and the intestine end.
The lieutenant worked in silence for what seemed an eternity. In real time, it was only thirty seconds when he exclaimed, “I got it!”
He lifted the stomach out of Raphael
and held it up.
While Lt. James had worked, Kim had searched for a makeshift container for the stomach and it’s contents. She found a plastic gallon jug of liquid shower soap in the closet’s stores and a large soupspoon in the emergency closet’s small galley. Kim poured the soap down the galley drain. She used the blade of the knife-like crystal shard and easily sliced the jug in half. She discarded the top half and placed the bottom half on the floor next to the Lieutenant.
They laid the stomach in the jug and Lt. James sliced it open the entire length of the organ. The smell was mild. They both had expected to have trouble breathing, but found there was little odor from the opened stomach.
Turning the stomach over, he dumped the contents in the jug. Using the soupspoon, the lieutenant stirred the dumped contents, and then he saw the shine of the foil wrapper.
He reached down and picked up the small packet. He opened the wrapper and saw the computer chip. It appeared to be intact.
Kim keyed her phone and connected to Layne at the station’s control center. “Layne, we have the chip! We’re finishing up right now and will be in the cart, on our way to you. We’ll be there in three or four minutes!” Layne acknowledged her call and promised to contact Brad and Adam to let them know the good news. With that, Kim disconnected the call.
While Kim was on the phone, the Lieutenant placed the now deflated stomach and intestines back into Rafael’s abdominal cavity. He folded the flaps of skin back in place and stood up, tired from his labors.
They ran from the closet and clamored into the cart. Lt. James made a sharp turn at full throttle and the cart leapt forward. Kim held the precious computer chip tightly in her hand as the Lieutenant drove the cart at its top speed toward the control center.
50
Dominican Republic Awaits
The Dominican Republic government, after communications with the United States’ Hurricane Center in Miami, declared a Hurricane Warning. Storm Killer’s erroneous targeting continued to feed Edna. Edna was projected to move westward and parallel the Haitian coast, with the eye of the storm only twenty to thirty kilometers offshore.
If the storm kept to its predicted path, the northern coast area of the Dominican Republic would be in Edna’s southeastern quadrant. It would receive the brunt of the strongest part of the storm. The storm surge from the west side of the storm was projected to be between ten- to fifteen-meters high. Almost all of the Haitian north coast would be inundated with water as far as five miles inland.
While the desperately poor and ineffective government had no way of implementing large-scale evacuations, it did issue orders for all inhabitants of the northern coast of the country to move inland. It was left to each individual to decide whether to evacuate or try and ride out the storm in the flimsy structures they called homes.
In the seaside city of Puerto Plata, Adélaïde and Gérard Simeon were two such people trying to decide what to do.
They were Haitian descendants living in the Dominican Republic. They had been married for fifteen years. They had married when Adélaïde found out she was pregnant with Bernadette, the couple’s flirtatious fifteen-year-old daughter.
Gérard walked to the kitchen window and yelled for his son, who was playing soccer in the street with his school friends. “Grégoire! Come in! Hurry now!” He turned back to finish his conversation with Adélaïde about the hurricane warning. His eyes fell on the kitchen and dining room of their home. He felt anxiety as he thought about their home and the potential damage this monster storm could bring.
The home was comfortable and clean. By Haitian standards, the home was one of an upper-class family. Adélaïde always wanted to stay in their home during hurricanes. She felt that she should protect their property and personal belongings. He was more rational and always demanded they leave for safer places when storms posed a danger to him and his family. Their possessions could always be replaced over time; his wife, daughter, and young son’s lives were not replaceable.
Grégoire, the Simeon’s seven-year-old son, ran down the trash-covered street toward the two discarded truck tires salvaged to mark his team’s goal. As his four-boy team’s best attacker, he was running at full-speed with the three defenders chasing after him. Only their goalie stood between him and a point! He stopped short and set up his instep drive kick. The ball soared in a low arc toward the makeshift goal, curving away from the goalie. The goalie threw his body toward the ball and almost succeeded in touching it with his outstretched fingertips as it sailed passed him.
Score! The young Grégoire danced on his toes with his arms raised in triumph like his favorite professional soccer player always did when he scored. He stopped when he heard his father’s voice calling for him to come home. “Yes, Papa, I’m coming!” the young boy yelled back to his father.
The boy’s teammates clustered around him and clapped his back and howled in victory. After about five seconds of victory celebration, as with all small boys, they lost interest and began looking for something new to do. Grégoire waved over his shoulder to his friends as he ran home. “Adieu, see you tomorrow!”
Grégoire knew something was wrong when he walked in the door and saw his parents’ faces. They were concerned about something. His father looked scared. His mother looked like she was ready to cry.
The little boy thought he had done something wrong to cause his parents such obvious grief, “Mama, Papa, did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?”
His mother reached down and picked him up and hugged him close to her bosom. “No, my dear Grégoire! You’ve done nothing wrong. We are just concerned because a very bad storm is coming.”
She continued to hold him close and he felt like his breath was being forced from his body. Like many seven-year-old boys, he didn’t like showing affection for his mother because he felt embarrassed when she did things like this. But today, he allowed it as he thought, At least my friends aren’t here to see this mama’s boy!
Finally, Grégoire pleaded, “Mama, let me down. I have to go potty.”
She released him and he ran toward the toilet. While he did have the need to go, he really just wanted to get some distance between him and his mother before she did something else to embarrass him.
Just as he closed the door to the bathroom, he heard his mother ask his father, “Shall we stay here, or shall we go?” He didn’t hear his father’s reply.
Gérard looked at Adélaïde and said, “We should go to Mount Isabel before the winds start. Just as we have in other major hurricanes.”
Mount Isabel was undoubtedly Puerto Plata's most impressive geographic feature, at 2,600-feet high; it was a popular attraction for tourists and locals alike. A statue of Christ, similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro, adorned the mountain. A seven-minute cable car ride, up the nearly vertical slope, provided access to the statue and a small masonry visitor’s center.
“I’ll call Jacques and find out when they plan to shut down the cable car,” Gérard continued. Jacques, his cousin, was one of the local cable car operators. “He might be able to make one last run to take family members to the top. We’ll take food and water and shelter in the visitor’s center.” Gérard’s uncle owned the visitor’s center. He was sure his uncle would allow blood relatives to use the center as a storm shelter.
He went on, “If all else fails, we can drive the car to the top.”
This made Adélaïde shiver. She’d ridden with her husband to the top once right after they were married, and swore she would never do it again if given the choice. The ride had been a hair-raising experience in good weather. She didn’t want to think about trying it in bad weather. Ever!
At that moment, the front door burst open. With much talking and giggling, Bernadette arrived home in the company of her two neighborhood girl friends. She laughed as her friend, Sara, told her about Henri’s look of love for Bernadette. Bernadette found this amusing because Henri was the school bully, who would lose an IQ contest to a tree stump. Nothing about Henry appealed
to Bernadette. He was crude and mean. Bernadette wanted much more than that from her boyfriends. Or should I say, lovers, instead of boyfriends? Bernadette pondered to herself.
She cut her eyes toward her father. I wonder what Papa would say if he knew I was having sex with two of my boyfriends? He would probably burst a blood vessel! Somehow, Sara had found a supply of birth-control pills. She had supplied them both with the pills for well over a year.
She giggled at the thought and ran off to her room with her two friends.
Her father looked as his daughter and her friends disappeared into her room. “She is getting to be a handful. I hope she gives us no trouble when the storm comes,” he said to Adélaïde.
She looked at the closed bedroom door and said, “Yes, no trouble from her for we have enough coming from Edna.”
In the Haitian-barrio section of the city, Yvon Latortue, returned home from her job as a nurse at the local hospital. She had to get dinner ready for her three children. She smiled as she looked at the three of them sitting at the table doing their homework.
Yvon was strict with her precious children. They had to complete their homework before dinner, or if too much homework was assigned, they had to finish it before any television would be allowed. Her strictness seemed to have little impact on Henri.
Henri, her oldest, was a challenging boy. He was always in trouble in school. He was always fighting, bullying, and terrifying the smaller, weaker students. He seemed to be smitten by Bernadette, the Simeon’s daughter. Yvon had met them several times at school activities, but they were in a higher social stratum than her family was. She thought, Henri doesn’t have a chance with that girl. Nor do I really want him to, based on the rumors around town! That Simeon girl is a tramp!
Jean and Jacques, her two younger children were picking at each other at the table. Jean yelled, “Mama, make him stop! He’s messing up my homework.” Jacques just smiled and continued pulling at Jean’s notebook.
Storm Killer Page 16
