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

by Mosimann, James E.

  Monday, August 27

  In Dillon, South Carolina, Jeannine Ryan sat at the kitchen table, hunched over her laptop. Beside her was a stack of papers from Bill Hamm’s briefcase. She looked up as Bill entered the kitchen.

  “Bill, you’re walking on your own. You look better.”

  “I buzzed for my nurse, but she wouldn’t come.”

  Jeannine handed him a glass of water and two capsules.

  “I’m here now, and here are your antibiotics.”

  “But I feel good.”

  “Forget it. You’re a sick puppy. You had bacterial pneumonia from near drowning. You have three more days of these. You can’t stop, no matter how you feel. Swallow them.”

  Bill threw his head back and downed the pills. Jeannine looked at his face and arms.

  “Your cuts are healing OK, and the bruises are fading, not bad.”

  She added.

  “And hopefully the IV’s at the hospital flushed that damned Sodium thiopental out of your system. Now maybe you’ll answer questions about the briefcase. How about it?”

  Bill went to the fridge and poured himself a glass of orange juice.

  “All right, but have you heard from Wayne. Where is he?”

  “Not a word. I don’t know where he is.”

  The sound of a motor in the driveway interrupted the conversation.

  Bill took Jeannine’s shotgun from the corner and stood by the window.

  A moment later a knock sounded on the kitchen door.

  He held the shotgun ready and nodded to Jeannine. She peeked through the slit in the half-curtain.

  A man stood on the stoop.

  She turned back to Bill and grinned.

  “Relax, it’s Wayne!”

  She swung the door wide.

  “Wayne, come on in. We were just wondering about you.”

  She smothered him in a huge hug.

  ***

  In South Carolina, Hugh Byrd congratulated himself. He was a damned good investigator. Once again he had outwitted his foes. The blip on the screen of his laptop was stationary.

  Wayne Johnson had arrived at his destination. The blip, Wayne’s car, had stopped moving.

  Hugh frowned. Truly he deserved a better adversary. This had been too easy.

  When Hugh had visited Wayne Johnson at the house on Topsail, the latter had said nothing of Ryan’s whereabouts. Johnson had thought himself clever in not revealing anything about Ryan or Hamm. The idiot. He was unaware that Hugh had attached a location-monitoring device to the car parked outside.

  The poor sap had led Hugh straight to his target.

  Hugh congratulated himself. He was right. Ryan had headed south and not north.

  South Carolina! Very clever Ms. Ryan, but not clever enough!

  Hugh stopped his car. He must plan carefully, even a partially disabled Hamm was more dangerous than Wayne Johnson. But he could not delay, it was not wise to give Hamm more time to recover.

  Hugh glanced at his laptop. The blip that was Johnson’s car had not budged. Good!

  ***

  At their “safe” house in Dillon, South Carolina, Jeannine Ryan, Bill Hamm and Wayne Johnson gathered around the kitchen table. Papers from the briefcase were spread over the surface. Jeannine, put one of them in front of Bill.

  The graph was of data that she and Wayne had found were faked.

  “Bill, Wayne and I know that these data are fake. They show that after some sort of ‘event’ the Strontium-90 levels are high at 42 miles from the source. What does all this mean?”

  Bill frowned.

  “In France there are about 60 nuclear reactors to generate electricity. All of their electricity is from nuclear power. Some Frenchmen are against nuclear energy. The government plans to phase out the older reactors, one half of the total, in ten years or more, but there are extreme elements that want to get rid of all the reactors. These fake data pretend that the Strontium-90 levels are worse than they really are.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “So the RadGuard report is a lie. They used fake data to bolster their argument. Now let me see the real graph.”

  Jeannine put another graph in front of Bill. This time the Strontium-90 levels dropped rapidly and were near zero at 42 miles.

  Bill whistled.

  “Damn. That’s a much bigger drop.”

  Wayne jumped in.

  “It is. That explains the fake graph in the report. RadGuard made the environmental contamination from a nuclear plant look a lot worse than it is.”

  He hesitated, then continued.

  “But so what? A little political skullduggery in France doesn’t warrant a vicious attack on you, or on Jeannine and me. The other papers must be important too. Those thugs tried to kill us to get them.

  A cloud blocked the sun and shadowed the window. Bill looked from Wayne to Jeannine to the window and back.

  “You’re right, Wayne. There’s a lot more.”

  But Bill was tired. He settled back in his chair and spoke slowly.

  “The CIA assigned me to a ‘broom closet’ in the Torbee Building in Manassas to get me out of the way. It was a ‘nothing’ assignment, but I discovered that Torbee’s Chief of Security, Hugh Byrd, was allied with a corrupt group inside the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. Through Byrd they funnel classified information from the NSA to Guerry Electronic Systems in Chantilly, Virginia. GES is a subsidiary of a French company, Systèmes Électroniques Globals Alphonse Guerry or SÉGAG. A French woman, Denise Guerry, is the CEO of GES. She is the granddaughter of Alphonse, and her uncle, Roland Guerry, controls SÉGAG.”

  He took a deep breath. Jeannine touched his shoulder.

  “Bill, take it easy. Take your time.”

  “All right. The corrupt group inside the NSA has found a way to decrypt RSA-encrypted communications between several European governments. Moreover, they have copied their computer security tokens that give them access to their secure networks. Hugh Byrd is the group’s liaison for GES and SÉGAG.”

  Jeannine jumped in.

  “Bill, what you say is impossible. Not even the NSA can break RSA encryption. That would mean the NSA has factored many large integer semi primes. It’s impossible, no way!”

  Bill waved his hand at the papers on the table.

  “These documents prove otherwise.”

  Wayne broke in.

  “Jeannine, wait. What Bill says may be right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that special software is needed to generate the random primes that multiplied produce the semiprime, right?”

  “Yes, but extended precision plus a good random number generator will do, and anybody can have access to those. Any government can generate their own random primes, and test them too.”

  “True, but they would want validated routines, and a superior well-tested random number generator, with thoroughly debugged code to test for primality.”

  “So?”

  “So suppose the NSA had a way to secretly hack and tamper with the validated routines of whoever was offering them. They might be able to insert traps in the code to catch the large primes before they are multiplied to make a semiprime. That way the problem of integer factorization is avoided, and keys are easily found. A dedicated group at the NSA, with lots of smarts, time, and supercomputers at their disposable, could compromise the ‘validated’ software of others and trap and steal the primes as they are generated.”

  “Stealing the primes certainly avoids the mathematical problem, but?”

  Wayne shook his head.

  “No ‘buts.’ While mathematically it may not be possible to ‘attack’ and decrypt a good RSA algorithm, human flaws can always compromise its use in practice.”

  Bill stood up.

  “You guys let me finish. A major client of SÉGAG and GES is a group of conspirators in France who want to return Rwanda to the same Hutu cabal that caused the genocide in 1994. Thanks to the decrypted communiqués, the cons
pirators know that several major nations, including their own France, would welcome the return of Rwanda to the Francophone circle of African nations.”

  He took a breath.

  “I don’t know how the decryption is done, but the conspirators are well-informed and flourishing. And a group of Hutus here in this country is planning an event that will tip international opinion to their cause.”

  Jeannine spoke.

  “But Bill, what kind of event? Do you mean nuclear?”

  “I doubt that, but whatever it is, we have to stop them!”

  Neither she nor Wayne could answer.

  ***

  Hugh Byrd braked his car and checked the laptop. The blip had not moved. Wayne Johnson’s car was here, but it was not visible. Hugh studied the house. It was set back from the street. Doubtless, the car was parked in the back.

  Hugh drove around the corner. The back yards had no fences, just broad expanses of coarse grass and azalea bushes, topped by stately pines. Hugh moved easily from tree to tree. Ahead was the Honda that Johnson had rented in Wilmington.

  Hugh smiled. He would recover the papers and eliminate Hamm, Ryan and Johnson all at once.

  He slipped out his Glock, chambered a round, and thumbed the safety off.

  ***

  As Hugh prepared to move in, the back door to the house swung wide and a shapely young brunette in tight jeans and a tighter tee-shirt bounced out. Who?

  “Jake, I’m going to get a six-pack. Watch Bobby for me.”

  Jake appeared at the door.

  “Julie, make it Budweiser, will you? But whose Honda is that? Where’s the Ford?”

  “It’s in the shop. I rented this from Avis this afternoon. I’m working at the club tonight, I need it.”

  Hugh Byrd withdrew behind a pine and leaned his forehead against the bark. Damn!

  Evidently Johnson had returned the rental Honda with the tag to Avis in Myrtle Beach where this “Julie” had rented it.

  Johnson, you lucky idiot, I’ll get you for this!

  He looked at his watch. The rental office was closed. Tomorrow he would visit Avis to find out what Johnson was driving. He would stay in Myrtle Beach tonight.

  ***

  In Dillon, Jeannine covered Bill Hamm with a blanket and left him asleep on the sofa. She returned to the kitchen where Wayne waited.

  “Jeannine, I’m sorry the FBI impounded your Subaru.”

  “Forget the Subaru. I’m glad you’re here and that you’re OK, but what about your Buick? Do you need it?”

  “No. After they impounded the Subaru in Wilmington, I rented a Honda to go back to Topsail and secure my house. I started to come here to meet you, but I was too cramped in the Honda. I dropped it off in Myrtle Beach and rented a Buick.”

  He smiled.

  “Bottom line, you keep using my Buick. I’ll use my rental.”

  “Wayne, how can I ever thank you for all you are doing? Can you forgive me for getting you into this mess?”

  “I’m just glad to be of use, but you look beat. Go upstairs and get some sleep. I’ll take the chair and keep watch on Bill.”

  He retrieved the shotgun from the corner, and sat.

  Jeannine was too exhausted to argue. She stumbled towards the stairs.

  ***

  ******

  Chapter 17

  Tuesday, August 28

  In the FBI Resident Agency in Wilmington, North Carolina, Stew Marks and Jack Marino sipped coffee. Stew was quiet. His boss at the Joint Terrorism Task Force in DC was distinctly displeased with “Agent Marks” - First, because of Stew’s long absence from his desk at the JTTF, and second, because Marks had not produced either the fugitive, William Hamm, or his apparent collaborator, Dr. Ryan.

  Jack broke the silence. His words did little to comfort Stew.

  “You didn’t think that the Ryan woman would try to claim her car from the impoundment lot, did you, Stew?”

  Stew threw a pained look at his partner.

  “Technically, she’s not a fugitive like Hamm. So why not?”

  Stew still harbored the hope that somehow the attractive redhead was the evil Hamm’s unwitting dupe.

  Jack divined those thoughts.

  “Face it, partner, Ryan got Hamm out of the hospital. She’s with Hamm now. The only way she can be innocent in all this is for Hamm to be innocent too. And Hamm is a rat. Remember how he contradicted my testimony about the Unity Pavilion.”

  He kept on.

  “Stew, you don’t know the woman. What’s wrong with you? You’re a trained agent. Focus, damn it, focus!”

  Stew thought for a moment and switched topics.

  “Jack, I think Hugh Byrd is bad news. I’m pretty sure that he and Tom Holder tried to kill Ryan at the beach house. I’ll bet Holder was shot. Byrd said he had an accident, no way.”

  “Are you that sure? Why?”

  “My damn gut has been screaming at me. That great room was wrecked by a shooter with an M16. He emptied an entire 30-round magazine. You’ve met Holder. He’s an overkill kind of guy. It was him all right, and he’s Byrd’s man all the way.”

  “So?”

  “So, Byrd has access to military M16’s, like were used in the assault. And we haven’t seen that creep Holder since. I’ll bet that was his blood on the deck? What more do you want?”

  Jack thought a moment. Proof would be nice.

  Stew continued.

  “And when we entered that DNA into the data base, it was blocked. No access. Whatever group those two jerks belong to knows how to cover their official butt.”

  “All right Stew, suppose you are right, and Byrd and Holder are bad guys. How does that affect our mission to find Hamm.”

  “Think, Jack, think. Byrd found Johnson and Ryan at the beach house before we did. He’s always been one step ahead of us. He has resources that we do not. Maybe if we follow Byrd he will lead us to Hamm.”

  “Our guys say Byrd is at a motel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.”

  “He must think Hamm is there. We need a car.”

  “We can get one from the pool.”

  Stew and Jack left the agent’s lounge.

  ***

  In Florence, South Carolina, Angelique Uwimana stepped out of her bedroom. She went to the couch where Paul Mutabazi slept and shook his shoulders.

  “Paul, wake up. You must leave now. I have to go to class.”

  “Can’t I stay here?”

  “No, Henri is meeting me here later to go eat. You wouldn’t want him to see you.”

  At the mention of Henri Duval, Paul sat up awake and swung his legs over the edge of the couch.

  “There’s some coffee on the counter. Grab a cup and get dressed. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

  “Angelique, like I told you last night, Hakizimana is alive. He is not dead. He had Smets killed. Smets told me before he died.”

  “Smets told you that to scare you. Troops of the Front Patriotique Rwandais killed Hakizimana in 1994 as he was fleeing Rwanda. It was in the papers and photos too.”

  “Smets was dying. His story makes sense. He said that the French helped both him and Hakizimana to escape the FPR and hide among the refugees in Goma. Not only Hakizimana, but a number of other leaders of the Interahamwe genocide.”

  “Yes but, everyone knows the leaders of the genocide were in Goma. They set up their own rule there.”

  “But Smets warned me that now Hakizimana and other Hutu killers live here, in South Carolina. And yesterday, I saw Hakizimana outside my motel. He and two others I didn’t know.”

  Angelique frowned.

  “Paul, you couldn’t have seen Hakizimana. He’s dead. Besides, after all these years who knows what he would look like”

  A shadow of doubt dulled Paul’s eyes.

  “I saw his photo once.”

  Angelique stood still. This was America. Hakizimana was dead and that meant that Smets was an evil liar, dying or not.

  But Paul was frightened, and Smets had been hacked
to death. Henri Duval had seen it. The killing was real.

  “All right Paul, I’ll take you to a friend of mine, Milton. He’s a grad student in computer science like me. I’m sure he’ll let you stay in his apartment tonight.”

  Angelique went to the door.

  “But hurry, I have to be at the university in thirty minutes.”

  ***

  In Chantilly, Virginia, Denise Guerry looked out the wide window of her office at Guerry Electronic Systems. From the sixth floor she had an expansive view of Route 28 and other tall buildings that housed various high tech enterprises. The traffic on Route 28 was light, the morning rush hour had ended some thirty minutes earlier. She punched a number on her cell.

  “Henri, where are you?”

  “In Florence, near Carolina Technical University.”

  “So you’re visiting that sweet innocent Tutsi. Poor Henri, you need a real woman not a little girl.”

  Henri twisted in silence. Denise continued.

  “Where is Byrd? Why haven’t you found him?”

  Again Henri chose silence.

  At that, Denise threw her phone on the desk. It bounced off and slid out of sight.

  Damn you Angelique, leave Henri alone. I need him.

  ***

  Denise stared out the window. The traffic on Route 28 had slowed due to the wet road. The gray scene matched her mood.

  The fallen phone buzzed from under the desk. She stooped to retrieve it.

  “Henri?”

  But it was her cousin at SÉGAG in Paris.

  “It’s your favorite cousin, Jacques. Forget Henri.”

  “Jacques, what do you want?”

  “The RadGuard report succeeded. Plant 47 was shut down and its reactor has been completely dismantled. The rods have been made into radioactive missile modules as per your specs. The modules were shipped last week from le Havre.”

  “Jacques, that’s old news. Get to the point. Why are you calling?”

  “My father wants the papers back. He’s mad at my beautiful Denise.”