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

by Mosimann, James E.

  Angelique looked into her coffee cup.

  “The doctorate is important to me. I can’t believe that Dr. Ryan is dangerous. She helped me before, and she’s a professional, a scientist. I have to meet her.”

  Henri fell silent. Dr. Ryan might be trustworthy, but Denise and Maximilien were not.

  He stared at the Kudu horns. Angelique followed different rules. How she had survived thus far mystified him. He had seen the genocide first hand. Despite the thoroughness of the Interahamwe, she was alive and thriving.

  When he was a boy in Sousceyrac, his mother had trusted God. He had never understood that, but her love for Henri had been real. He did not understand Angelique either. She too lived as if God were real. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she should meet Dr. Ryan this evening?

  His stomach knotted. No matter, right or wrong, he knew.

  Whatever he said, Angelique would be at the coffee shop to meet Dr. Ryan.

  ***

  In North Charleston, at the yard of Kenya-Carolina Apex Distributors, Maximilien Gutera watched as company workers drove the final screws into the frame of his fourth crate.

  When the crate was closed, the foreman rested his lithium power tool on a stand and stood back to inspect his work.

  There were four crates, each contained three solid-fuel rockets with their explosive-packed components already attached. A detached ceramic nose, the “radome,” lay alongside each rocket. The radomes housed Sullivan’s guidance modules, like those that had proved themselves in the test at Topsail Beach.

  The ceramic radome could be attached to its rocket only after the radioactive module was secured to the explosive component. These final steps would take place after the Étoile d’Afrique docked in Mombasa. German technicians, mercenaries, were to extract the radioactive modules from their heavily-shielded container and then complete the final assembly.

  Satisfied, the foreman turned to Maximilien.

  “Sir, the crates are secure. All four will fit into one container.”

  “They will be immobilized?”

  “Yes Sir, the fittings have already been mounted. Once they are locked, your crates will not budge.”

  The foreman waved to a forklift operator who hoisted the first crate onto a bed of rollers in the container where several workers pushed it to the rear and locked it in place.

  Maximilien stepped into the manager’s trailer.

  “Is all paper work ready? My container must be at the terminal at North Charleston today before it closes at 18:00. The Étoile d’Afrique will arrive this evening. I want this container loaded on board as soon as the terminal opens tomorrow at 07:00. I have already arranged details with the superintendant at the terminal.”

  The manager, who would receive the second half of a most generous bribe only when the container was loaded on the ship, waved his hand casually. He had no intention of botching such a lucrative transaction.

  “There will be no problem. The container will arrive at the terminal before six. And Sir, if you have future shipments, please contact me. It has been a pleasure to serve you.”

  Maximilien smiled. He stepped to the door and saw the last crate disappear into the container. He gave the manager’s hand a single shake and walked to his Audi.

  All twelve rockets would be aboard the Étoile d’Afrique tomorrow morning! She could sail that afternoon and meet the La Lutte on Saturday.

  No one can stop me now, least of all, you, Denise Guerry.

  No weak woman would ever have power over him again. And woe to Denise should they meet!

  ***

  The early morning sun shone on the pines of the Francis Marion National Forest. On the outskirts of Huger, South Carolina, Eric Nyonzima rested his crutches by the pay phone.

  He dialed Pierre Sehene’s number in Florence. Pierre’s wife, Agathe Muteteli, answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Agathe?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “Eric, Eric Nyonzima.”

  “Pierre is not here!”

  She slammed the phone on its cradle, but missed and it fell on the table. As she retrieved it, she heard Eric’s voice.

  “No wait, don’t hang up. Please. It’s you I need to talk to.”

  “You killed Laurette! What do you want of me?”

  “I didn’t kill your sister.”

  “But you stood by and watched. You didn’t stop them. And she was a Hutu. All she did was try to protect Nadine. Eric, you are a murderer. You and all your friends!”

  Her condemnation lit his memory.

  Time stood still. He saw the bloody dismembered body of Laurette lying among the weeds, within sight of her front door. Nearby, Pascal danced and waved a bloody panga in a demand for Eric’s approval. Eric sweated. He lifted his arm to block the sun, and Pascal, from his eyes.

  At that vivid recollection, Eric sweated anew under the Carolina sun. He sobbed into the phone.

  “Agathe, you are right. And I am so sorry. How could you ever forgive me. I swear to you by God, I was wrong, horribly wrong. May God help me.”

  Agathe was silent. Out of fear, her father had excused the killing of Laurette, his own daughter. She recalled his words and her response.

  “Agathe, Laurette should never have hidden Nadine. All Tutsi are the enemy. They are snakes who would kill us, kill you. Be strong.”

  “But Laurette was my sister. And Papa, she was your daughter!”

  The memory brought tears to Agathe. She struggled to speak.

  “Eric, we were teenagers. Whether I can forgive you or not does not matter. God will have to do that.”

  Eric’s mumbling was indecipherable.

  “Eric, stop sobbing and tell me why you called?”

  He regained his composure. There was a restaurant across the street from the phone. He described it to her. If she agreed to help him, they could meet there.

  They spoke for several more minutes. Then the conversation was over.

  Eric leaned against the wall and sighed. Agathe had agreed to help him escape Maximilien. She would bring her car and meet him at the restaurant.

  After two kind acts, Angelique sparing him and Agathe’s promised help, his world was upside down.

  Maybe God was real, but why would He forgive me?

  Help!

  ***

  In Summerville, South Carolina, not far from North Charleston, Bill Hamm stepped from the GES pickup truck. He compressed the sandwich wrappers and bag into a crumpled sphere and tossed it into the garbage container from ten feet away. Swish! He smiled.

  In the passenger seat, Denise Guerry hung up her phone.

  Bill spoke through her window.

  “All right. What did your ‘Oncle Charles’ say?”

  “You know Paris is six hours ahead of us.”

  Bill had served years in Europe as a covert operative for the CIA. He knew time zones. His voice rose.

  “Stop stalling. What did he say?”

  “First dump this for me. It’s gross.”

  She lowered the window and handed Bill a soggy mix of bread, pale compacted meat and drooping lettuce.

  Bill stepped away and threw the mix into the plastic-lined container.

  “Damn it Denise, you have to eat.”

  “But surely not that.”

  “Forget it. What did your uncle say?”

  “He was not happy with me. He and his associates were at a late lunch and could not be interrupted. He will call me after.”

  “Damn it, Gutera is going to contaminate hundreds of square miles of the eastern Congo, and your uncle won’t interrupt a luncheon. Call him back.”

  She stopped posturing and pleaded.

  “Bill, try to understand. He’s the patriarch. He won’t take my call. All I can do is wait for him to call me back.”

  Angry, Bill strode to the driver’s side of the car and got in.

  Forget the French addiction to food.

  He fastened his seat belt and spoke to the windshield.


  “I’m going to the library. I need a computer to check the listings of the Port Authority.”

  He drove off without waiting for an answer.

  Denise knew to stay silent.

  ***

  At the public library in Summerville, South Carolina, Bill Hamm sat and studied the computer screen while Denise Guerry, her blouse pinned over, wandered through the stacks nearby.

  The web site for the Port of Charleston appeared on his display. He clicked the list of vessels expected in the next thirty days.

  That’s odd. The Étoile d’Afrique is no longer listed to arrive on Saturday. What’s the delay?

  He scrolled through the later arrivals. The Étoile d’Afrique was not listed.

  Puzzled, Bill clicked back to the previous pages, hopeful that something “bad” had happened to the vessel.

  Damn!

  He stared at the screen in disbelief.

  The Étoile d’Afrique was to arrive at 22:00 this very evening. And worse, the ship was to depart tomorrow afternoon at 15:00, not on Monday as previously planned.

  He was out of time!

  ***

  In a motel in North Charleston, Maximilien Gutera relaxed. His stay in the United States would soon be over. The change in arrival for his ship was accomplished.

  He sat back in a cushioned chair, sipped his brandy and. puffed on his Cuban cigar. The room was “Non-Smoking,” but the rules for commoners did not apply to a leader of his stature. He chuckled.

  Then he frowned. There was still an unresolved problem.

  Angelique Uwimana.

  The image of the beautiful Tutsi haunted him. But her escape from his men in Florence could not spoil his mood. He chuckled again and puffed once more, but stopped.

  Or could it?

  He frowned and called Professor Hurley at Carolina Technical University in Florence.

  “Professor Hurley, Maximilien Gutera, here. I still have money put aside for Miss Uwimana’s Research award. I was hoping to meet with you and her.”

  After a few minutes of conversation, Maximilien Gutera hung up and chuckled yet again. The professor was naïve. Angelique was to meet Ryan in Charleston this afternoon.

  When Angelique arrived at the café in the old city this afternoon, his men would be waiting!

  Maximilien exhaled and watched as a thin ephemeral circle of smoke wafted upwards, lost form, and disappeared. He leaned back.

  He shut his eyes.

  After he was done with Angelique, she too would disappear.

  But first he would enjoy her. It would be good, very good!

  ***

  ******

  Chapter 38

  Thursday, September 6

  It was nearly noon in Huger, South Carolina, when Agathe Muteteli stopped the Toyota Corolla in front of the roadside restaurant. Through the window, she saw Eric Nyonzima seated at a booth. She beeped twice. Seconds later Eric appeared at the door and waved her inside.

  She stepped out of the car and went in. He was in the booth by the door. She sat opposite and waited for him to speak.

  “Agathe, you’re a lifesaver. Thank you for coming, but where is Pierre?”

  “Pierre! I thought you knew. He left me. He’s joined Maximilien Gutera and his thugs.”

  Eric winced.

  “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell him I called, did you?”

  “I haven’t spoken with him since he left a week ago.”

  “Agathe, I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged.

  “Maximilien is the devil. Pierre has chosen to serve the devil.”

  She frowned and stared at Eric.

  “And you, Eric? Whom do you serve?”

  A familiar image flashed through his mind.

  A bloody dismembered body lay among the weeds, My God, Laurette!

  He wanted to throw up. He hid his face in his hands and choked.

  “Agathe, I am so sorry about Laurette. You are right. We were devils. We weren’t human.”

  “My sister called you her boy friend.”

  He choked anew, unable to speak. She continued.

  “Eric, you were a boy then. What have you done as a man? Why do you want to leave Maximilien?”

  “Why? Because if he finds me, he’ll kill me, and because of Angelique Uwimana, do you know her?”

  “The Tutsi? She and Pierre were in a graduate algebra class together. I met her.”

  “She saved my life. She talked about God.”

  Eric spoke fast. He recounted how, at Gutera’s command, he had tried to kill the Frenchman, Duval, but suffered a broken leg instead. How he and Gutera’s men would have raped and killed Uwimana in her apartment had they found her! How later, Duval had trapped him in Charleston. How in the lonely pine woods, Angelique had stopped the Frenchman from killing him. How she had spoken to him of God’s love and forgiveness.

  At the end of his revelations, Agathe reached and touched his arm.

  “Eric, we all are wounded. We watched our Tutsi neighbors, Hutu too, die horribly. We stood silent while you and your gangs killed and raped our friends and neighbors, while you looted and pillaged their homes.”

  She searched his eyes.

  “Eric, I have no answers, but God does. You must ask Him to forgive you. He is your only hope, our only hope.”

  Agathe sighed. She leaned back and stretched. Then she stood up.

  “Eric, it was a long drive from Florence. I have to go to the bathroom. When I come back, we’ll see where you want to go. You need to leave the East Coast. Think about where.”

  Agathe was trim, and energetic. Eric watched her stride to the rear of the dining area and pass through double doors to the Rest Rooms.

  He waited in the booth and shut his eyes.

  Chopped arms and legs among the bloody weeds, Laurette!

  He covered his head with his hands.

  ***

  In the rest room, Agathe stood in front of the mirror. She rubbed her hands together as she hummed a simple refrain that took sufficient seconds to ensure thorough cleansing.

  She moved to the electric drier and held her hands under the blower. The noisy fan drowned out the sounds from the dining area.

  The whirring stopped and Agathe stepped out the door to a cacophony of screams and shouts.

  Near the door several men stood together. She followed their eyes to the first booth.

  Eric lay slumped there, the back of his head pressed against the blood-smeared window. Blood oozed from a single hole in his temple.

  Disjointed sentences reached her ears.

  “A black man shot him. With a Glock, just like the cops carry.”

  “The guy just sat there in the booth, looking up. He didn’t care if they killed him.”

  “I know guns. I tell you it wasn’t a Glock.”

  “It was a Glock, and They left in an Audi, a gray one.”

  “Did you see the tag number?”

  “They left too quick.”

  Agathe wanted to throw up. She ducked through the kitchen and slipped out the rear door to her Toyota.

  The long arm of Maximilien had found Eric!

  ***

  Agathe Muteteli drove north on Route 52. A half hour passed before her head cleared. She arranged her thoughts.

  Prior to his phone call, she had not heard that Eric was in the United States. She had not spoken to him since the nightmare in Rwanda when they were both young.

  A single phone call! How did they find us that quickly?

  The truth appeared with awful clarity. Her husband, Pierre Sehene, was with Gutera all the way. He had let them bug her phone. The bastards!

  Agathe rarely used profanity, but she was distressed, and not only because of their spying.

  Suppose Pierre repented and desired her once more, wanted to return to her, to start anew their life together? They would have no chance.

  No one could quit Maximilien Gutera. He would have Pierre killed, like Eric.

  Life with Pierre was lost, and th
ey had come so close to realizing their dreams, in only a few more months he would have graduated!

  Agathe sobbed.

  She jammed her foot on the accelerator.

  ***

  In Wilmington, North Carolina, Stew Marks sat up in his hospital bed. He heard the phone buzz, reached his good arm to the side, and grabbed the instrument. The caller was Jack Marino.

  “How’s the shoulder Stew? And the bruises?”

  “My left arm is dead, my eye is bandaged, and I ache all over. Otherwise, I’m fine. What’s up?”

  “I’m on my way to South Carolina. A man was murdered in Huger, a town north of Charleston. I should say ‘executed,’ an African named Eric Nyonzima. The Columbia office had a file on him. He was one of Maximilien Gutera’s men.”

  Jack continued.

  “Maybe that Ryan woman told you right. There could be a Hutu plot going down, along with a weapons shipment from Charleston to Africa.”

  “Jack, do you know where Jeannine is?”

  “We know she left Topsail, that’s all. Maybe she’s OK, but that doesn’t help your man, Hamm. The rat’s with the Guerry woman. He’s guilty as hell. Look, gotta go.”

  “Jack, thanks for the info.”

  In seconds, Stew Marks was on his feet. He went to the closet for his pants. He struggled to put them on with one hand.

  No more hospital!

  He was going south.

  ***

  Before Stew Marks finished dressing, his phone buzzed again. This time the caller was a surprise.

  “Stew, this is Jeannine Ryan, are you all right?”

  “Who gave you this number?”

  “Nobody, I called the resident agency in Wilmington. They said you were injured and on sick leave. They wouldn’t say more. This is the third hospital I’ve called.”

  “I had a brush with Maximilien Gutera. He won. Your pal Hamm rescued me, he and that woman, Denise Guerry.”

  “Denise Guerry? She was with Bill?”