“We’re not going to push it. That’s enough for the moment. Do you feel well enough to talk?”
Bill rested his arms on the table. He nodded “Yes.”
“Then tell me, why the briefcase? And what in the hell have you gotten us into?”
***
Jeannine poured herself a fresh cup of coffee, sat opposite Bill, and waited. He spoke.
“Are we safe here?”
“I hope so. This house belonged to Rose Morton, Mary Dean’s mother. It belongs to Rob Wilson and Mary now. I called them in Columbia. He and Mary thought this would be a good place to hide while you get well. We should be OK for several days, at least. No one knows we know them.”
“All right, but how did you find me, and how did you get me here?”
“I got your note with the key and waited like you told me. When you didn’t show, I went to the post office in Manassas and picked up your briefcase. That was five days ago. The day before that the FBI had come to my house. They said you were a spy, and accused me of being the same. After I got the briefcase, I decided I should find a place to think, away from the Feds. So I called Wayne Johnson at his house on Topsail Island. He said I could come there.”
She stood from the table and paced.
“But some thug followed me to North Carolina. He must have waited at the post office.”
“What was he driving?”
“A Ford Excursion.”
“That would be Tom Holder. He is a thug. What did you do?”
“Wayne called a marine friend who put me up at Camp Geiger. Then Wayne got me to Topsail. We weren’t followed by the thug or the FBI.”
Jeannine stopped pacing.
“Bill, what the hell is going on?”
“Tell me how you found me first.”
“When I got to Topsail, Wayne and I went over the papers in the briefcase. I have lots of questions for you about Strontium-90, and cryptographic keys, but anyway, two days ago we got word of a ‘John Doe’ some kids had pulled out of the Intracoastal Waterway. Wayne went to the hospital in Jacksonville. It was you.”
She took a deep breath.
“When he got back to Topsail, some hood with an automatic weapon shot up Wayne’s living room. We hit the floor and I bagged him with a shotgun, but he got away. Wayne and I made a run for it to Camp Geiger.”
“You weren’t hurt?”
“I took a splinter in my thigh, but it’s mostly OK now. Anyway, the next day Wayne and I picked you up at the hospital as ‘Walter Harmon,’ and here we are in Dillon.”
“Where is Wayne?”
“I don’t know. I hope he’s OK. The FBI was looking for my Subaru, so we switched cars. I have his Buick hidden out back. Now it’s your turn. What is this about?”
But his eyes already were halfway closed. She took his arm.
“You’re done in. I’ll get you back to the couch. You can tell me everything later.”
She guided him to the sofa. In minutes his eyes were shut and his breathing regular. She would have to wait for Bill to explain what he had taken from the Torbee Building.
Her thoughts turned back to Wayne.
Wayne, where are you? Are you OK?
***
In Wilmington, after no charges were filed against him, Wayne Johnson rented a car and returned to Topsail Island.
He stood amid the wreckage of his living room. The ocean view was gone, blocked by the sheets of 4-by-8 plywood that shielded the gap left by the shattered glass doors. The interior was depressing. White slabs of drywall dangled from exposed studs, while splintered chairs and broken lamps, shoveled into a heap against the far wall, offered no relief to the drab scene.
Wayne loaded a heavy-gauge plastic bag with rubble and dragged it to the top of the stairs. The 42 gallon “contractors” sack, pierced from within by pointed fragments, snagged on the top step. In disgust, Wayne kicked the heavy sack down the stairwell. It slammed into the wall and disappeared around the corner at the bottom landing.
“Hey, watch it. Hold your fire.”
Wayne did not recognize the voice.
“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”
An arm extended around the corner of the landing. It held a shiny badge.
“United States Government, Agent Hugh Byrd. I’d like to talk with you.”
From the top of the stairs Wayne could not see letters, only a design with the spread wings of an eagle.
“If you’re FBI, you can go to hell. Get off my property.”
“I’m not FBI, but I know all about that jerk Stewart Marks and the hard time he gave you. I know they impounded your Subaru in Wilmington. Your arrest was bogus, they had nothing to charge you with. Marks is a disgrace and he’s a cheapo. He should have reimbursed you for the rental car. I don’t like him. Let me come up.”
Wayne hesitated, but a smiling Hugh Byrd already had mounted the third step. Wayne relented.
“All right, but I have work to do. You have to help me if you want to talk.”
“You bet. Happy to!”
At the head of the stairs, Hugh Byrd surveyed the stricken living room and chuckled.
“Mr. Johnson, this is terrible! Who did this to you?”
***
******
Chapter 15
Monday, August 27
Paul Mutabazi arrived in Florence, South Carolina, shortly before dawn. He chose a motel just off Interstate 95, but he could not sleep. He sat staring out the window.
Dr. Smets was dead!
Even in his dying moments, Smets had spewed venom at an unfair world. He had vented his hatred on Paul as the latter stood over him. And Smets’ words, true or not, had sliced Paul’s soul. Those words had left Paul sick and empty. Hutu extremists, former members of the Interahamwe were once more on the move. The genociders were alive and well, here in the Carolinas!
He had come to Florence to warn Angelique Uwimana about them. He pulled a paper out of his wallet.
Where is her number?
But he was too exhausted. He pulled the curtains shut across the window and lay on the bed. His lips quivered.
Not again! No. Not again!
Maybe rest a few minutes? Just a few.
His eyes closed. He half-dozed, but the memories were real.
***
The boy was eleven and alone. His parents had not come home for two days. At the noise behind him, he turned to see Mr. Mukuru, a Tutsi neighbor and friend of his father. Mr. Mukuru spoke.
“Come with me, Paul. We must go to the soccer field.”
“But my mother and father aren’t back yet?”
“They want you to come with me.”
The boy fell silent, but only for a moment.”
“Where is Angelique?”
Mr. Mukuru attempted a smile.
“She will be safe at her school in Kigali. I sent her there.”
The cries and yells from the bottom of the hill grew louder as another house burst into flames.
“But you and I must go now. The government troops are at the soccer field. They will protect us.”
Mr. Mukuru took the boy’s hand and they climbed the hill to the field where other Tutsis had gathered. Mr. Mukuru pointed to the soldiers that lined all sides of the field.
“See, the soldiers are here. Now we are safe.”
The boy followed Mr. Mukuru into the milling crowd.
Minutes later, a military car appeared at the crest of the hill. The Tutsis stood motionless at its approach. The soldiers stood at attention.
An officer stepped out of the vehicle.
Something was wrong!
Instinctively, Mr. Mukuru drew the boy back towards the center of the throng.
The commander waved a command to his men and the explosions started.
Grenades, many of them, lobbed from all sides!
Shrapnel from the multiple blasts cut down pockets of Tutsis from the panicked crowd. Some froze, unable to react. Others turned in random directions to flee th
e onslaught. More explosions followed and formerly isolated pockets of the fallen coalesced into large areas of moaning and twisting bodies.
Those Tutsis still able to run surged to the perimeter in a blind wave, only to be swept away by coordinated bursts of automatic fire from the encircling troops.
But the boy was unaware of that last surge. Shielded by Mr. Mukuru’s fragment-pierced body, he lay unconscious and unmoving in the middle of the fallen. Likewise he was not aware of the soldiers moving through the field, silencing the survivors with single, well-placed, shots.
His first awareness was of the sound of the trucks’ motors as the government troops departed. But then he heard new terrifying sounds, the cries of triumph from the Hutu gangs who prowled the field with clubs and pangas to finish the work of the troops. He kept his eyes closed, and mercifully, passed out once more.
Finally, he awoke. The silence was eerie. He lay still, eyes shut tight, too scared to move. Were the killers still here?
Thirty minutes and more the silence persisted. The boy squeezed from under Mr. Mukuru’s body. The last conscious act of Angelique’s father had been to fall on the boy to shield him from the executioners.
He stood. In the moonlight, nothing was real. The sports field had become a cemetery of a sort, but one without graves, only bodies, Tutsi bodies.
Tears formed. He wished them all dead; the soldiers, the Interahamwe, all of them.
Some day he, Paul Mutabazi, would avenge his parents and Mr. Mukuru, and maybe the others too!
At the sound of an approaching motor, he picked his way over the fallen forms to the edge of the field and disappeared into the bush.
He wanted justice, but first he must survive.
***
In Florence, South Carolina, Angelique Uwimana sipped her morning coffee and studied the screen of her laptop. Today she was to present a seminar, “Decoding RSA Encryption.”
She was typing when the phone rang. She reached for it. The voice was familiar, but slurred as if the speaker were half awake.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Paul Mutabazi. Sorry, I drove through the night. I need to see you. Is the Frenchman with you?”
“Of course not. I’m Catholic, I wouldn’t do that. He left last evening.”
“OK, OK, I’m sorry. No offense meant, but I need help.”
“What kind of help. Dr. Smets is dead, Henri told me.”
“You told Henri about me?”
“You know I wouldn’t do that, but Henri found the body. He says Smets was killed by a Tutsi for revenge. He thinks I had a part in it. Paul, how could you? You shouldn’t have killed him. And you chopped him with a Panga?”
“Angelique.”
“No, it’s murder. You’re no better than the Interahamwe.”
“You can’t mean that. No one can forgive those murderers, least of all, you.”
She recoiled.
Can I really forgive them?
Maybe Paul was right. She lowered her voice.
“All right, I’m sorry, but we must let go of our hatred. It will only destroy us.”
“Angelique, I didn’t kill Smets. I wanted to, but I didn’t. He was dying when I found him.”
His voice shook.
“Smets told me things before he died. They thought he had betrayed them, so they killed him. They were afraid he would talk.”
“Them? They? Who do you mean?”
“I can’t say on the phone. Can I stay with you? Only for a day or so. Please.”
“Paul, what is this all about?”
“Wait, someone just drove into the motel parking. I know that face. I have to go!”
***
At the farm in Pender County, North Carolina, Henri Duval surveyed the work of Denise Guerry’s “clean-up” crew. The crew was gone, as was Gilles Smets’ body, never to be found by law enforcement. He would be another “missing person” whose lack of known relatives provided no incentive for further enquiry.
The field where Smets had died now was mowed and baled, so that walking was easy. Interestingly, the crew had replaced the doctor’s body with the carcass of a white-tailed deer, so that the presence of vultures had a ready, and innocent, explanation.
But Henri was worried for reasons other than Gilles Smets. Angelique clearly knew more about his death than she had revealed.
And something else concerned Henri. Smets had died from a vicious assault, and such a killer would not have intentionally spared anyone who threatened him. Yet, Henri was convinced that whoever had shot at him had intentionally missed, risking detection rather than kill. And a hunting rifle was hardly the weapon of an assassin!
Henri went to the front of the house and examined the surface of the rusted tractor. The bullet’s scrape proved Henri’s hypothesis. The shot was way too wide. Henri had crouched at the other end. The shooter had aimed to scare Henri off, not to kill him.
His next discovery was unexpected. A large holly tree stood near the edge of the cleared front yard, near where Henri himself had first stood to spy on the house. Something fluttered from one of its branches.
As he neared the holly, he saw that it was a piece of gray cloth, apparently snagged from the shirt of someone who, like Henri, had approached the farm surreptitiously through the shelter of the woods. He recalled the spiny holly leaves that had raked his back during his approach.
But the person who had shot at Henri had not come through the woods. He had driven to the house in that pickup truck.
From the large holly, Henri followed a trail of broken and crisply clipped branches to the lane where he had parked earlier. He studied the depressed weeds. His was not the only set of tracks. Someone had parked on the lane before Henri.
Of course, the clipped branches! A bush knife!
The shooter was not the killer. The killer or killers had been at the farm before either Henri, Hugh Byrd, or the shooter.
But how would anyone know of Smets’ whereabouts?
Only Denise Guerry?
But Smets? Of course! Denise wanted me to kill Byrd. She did not care about Smets!
***
Henri called Denise at the Chantilly office.
“Denise, I need the truth. You used me. You sent someone to kill Gilles Smets?”
“Cher Henri, why would you think that? Did your precious Angelique and her Tutsi friend, Paul Mutabazi, tell you that?”
“Mutabazi? What does he have to do with Smets’ death?”
“Evidently your little Angelique does not trust you. Paul Mutabazi visited her. I know he was looking for Smets.”
Henri was silent. Was Mutabazi the mysterious shooter?
Denise took the offensive.
“But Henri, you spared Byrd. How could you? I trusted you. I thought you liked me. I count on your protection.”
“If you want Byrd dead, do it yourself. I’m not an assassin.”
“Henri dear, I never thought you were. But Byrd is dangerous, he frightens me. Don’t you want to protect me.”
Henri did not believe that anything or anyone could frighten Denise Guerry. He changed the subject.
“Denise, Mutabazi did not kill Smets. It was someone else. Maybe not even a Tutsi, maybe some Hutu.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Someone else knew about the farm. They went there to kill Smets. They chopped him, Interahamwe-style.”
“Cher Henri, don’t trouble yourself with that. I know you want to help me. Just keep Byrd away from me, that’s all.”
She hung up.
***
In talking to Henri, Denise had not let him know that she was as stunned as he at Smets’ death.
Now, her mind was in turmoil.
Yes, Paul Mutabazi had called her about Smets, but she had told him nothing. Paul had located the farm on his own. And from the report of her “cleanup crew,” it was clear that Maximilien Gutera had been at the farm.
Gutera had ordered the killing!
And he had not con
sulted GES before taking action. That was a bad sign. Had SÉGAG lost control of the Hutu leader?
In only minutes an encrypted message was on its way to her uncle in Paris.
***
In Florence, South Carolina, Angelique Uwimana’s talk, “Decoding RSA Encryption,” generated many questions and favorable comments. She was about to sit down when a man in a dark suit rose and faced her. Clearly he was not from the university. His tone was serious.
“Ms. Uwimana, if your integer factorization algorithm will work in polynomial time, you are throwing into question all current applications of RSA encryption. Is that correct?”
“My algorithm is only partly tested, and some of my results require verification. But if my calculation of polynomial time is correct and the algorithm holds, the answer is ‘Yes.’”
“Ms. Uwimana, let us suppose that the U. S. government is already using a similar algorithm to decrypt communications between other governments and multinational firms. Do you have any specific knowledge of such an algorithm? Is it possible that your algorithm is based on it. Are you aware of the consequences for disclosing government secrets?
Angelique set her lips.
“Of course, I would have no information about any such government activity. What you describe would be classified far beyond the reach of a graduate student like myself. And no, my algorithm is entirely my own work.”
The moderator rose from his chair.
“Our time is up. I’m sure Ms. Uwimana will be happy to answer any further questions privately. Thank you for coming.”
Angelique gathered her papers from the podium, stepped to the door, and walked out into the hallway. A man, his shirt awry, approached her. Paul Mutabazi!
“Angelique, they’re here. In Florence. The ‘Genocide Hutus.’ And that killer, Charles Hakizimana, is with them!”
***
******
Chapter 16
The Carolina Coup: Another Rwandan Genocide? (The Jeannine Ryan Series Book 4) Page 11
