An Open Heart (39 page)

“Issa also had a message for you.”

“I thought He did not speak to you.”

“He didn’t, but He showed me something, and I feel I am to tell it to you.”

“What it is?”

“I saw the minister of health, a man named John Okombo.”

“I know him.”

“Warn him,” Mohamed said. “I saw him giving a speech, and he was shot.”

“What about me? Wasn’t there a message for me?”

Mohamed shook his head. “Only what I have said. Will you warn him?”

Jace mumbled a response, but did not share his true feelings.
Maybe I would be better off if Minister Okombo were dead.

42

Lisa Sprague leaned toward the waitress across the small table at the Strawberry Street Café. “I’ll have the quiche.”

Heather smiled. “Just salad bar for me.”

The waitress, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University, sported three earrings in her left ear. She pointed at an old porcelain bathtub that housed the salad. “Feel free to get your salad anytime.”

Heather waited until the waitress retreated toward the kitchen. “So what have you found out?”

“A little.” Lisa shrugged. “I interviewed the hotel manager down at the Jefferson. His timeline is a bit off from the one Ryan Meadows gave you.”

“How so?”

“Mr. Baker said he escorted Jace to Anita Franks’s suite after eleven. You said Ryan Meadows said ten.”

“I thought his timing was off,” Heather responded. “I remember because Jace and I had been to the theater that evening and we didn’t even get out until after ten.”

“Mr. Meadows must have been confused.”

Heather nodded and stayed quiet. She thought about canceling her order for salad. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

“There is something else,” Lisa added, twirling her blonde hair and lifting it behind her ear. “I talked to a friend at the ME’s office.” She slid a piece of paper across the table. “Anita’s sexual partner was a secretor.”

“So…”

“So we need to know Jace’s blood type to know if he is ruled in or out.”

Heather studied the paper. “I’ll contact Gabby. Maybe she’ll know. Jace hasn’t been responding to my emails.”

Lisa nodded and sipped her water.

Heather kept her voice quiet. “I remember the night of the accident like it was yesterday. Jace and I had a real blowout.”

Lisa kept quiet and Heather kept talking.

“Jace got a text as we were exiting the theater. The movie was romantic, and I wanted him home with me.” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “I could tell by the way he acted that the text was from
her.
He wouldn’t let me see it. He said he needed to swing by the office and would be late.

“I grabbed his phone and turned my back to him. We were in a crowd in front of the theater, so he couldn’t make a scene. I read the text.” She imitated Anita’s feminine voice. “I need to see you tonight. I need help. Call me.”

“What happened next?”

“He exploded. He grabbed my elbow and forcibly walked me away from the crowd. It’s the first time he ever laid a hand on me like that. Jace was always so gentle.” Heather’s voice thickened. “He wrenched the phone from my hand and blamed
me.
He said I didn’t trust him. It was patient-related, and he would be home soon. I looked at him and told him not to bother. Why keep acting out a lie?”

Heather stopped talking while the hostess passed with a young couple. They were twenty-somethings and seemed totally absorbed with each other.

“I don’t curse, Lisa. But that night, I watched Jace stomp off toward his car and I sat in mine and just pounded the steering wheel and let it fly. I didn’t even know I knew how to say those words, but I managed. And you know what? They tasted like they belonged there. I was just so bitter.”

“Did he come home?”

“It was the night of his accident. I’m not sure he even remembers our fight.” She paused, folding and refolding her napkin. “I went home and packed. I was leaving. I couldn’t stay with him another day. I had my keys in my hand, Lisa. I was on my way out the door when my phone rang. It was the hospital. ‘Your husband’s been in an accident.’” Heather’s voice choked and she halted.

Lisa reached for her hand. “You couldn’t have known, Heather.”

“You know what’s horrible?” She paused and stared past her friend. “When they told me he’d been in an accident, my first thought was,
I hope he dies.”

Lisa squeezed Heather’s arm. “That’s normal. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you’re going to feel the love all the time, especially after a rocky time.”

Heather shook her head slowly. “I never left him. After the accident, I felt so bad for him that I decided to stay a few more weeks. Then he started talking about leaving for Africa, and I knew that would be it. At that point I was too hurt to want him to stay. I asked him not to come back.”

“So much for that, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

Lisa squinted. “You don’t know?”

Heather shook her head.

“Jace is coming home. He’s flying to London tomorrow, then on to Dulles the next day.”

“He’s coming home?”

Lisa nodded. “Ryan Meadows tipped me off. He said the police will be waiting for him at the airport. They’re going to arrest him, Heather.”

Heather covered her mouth. “For what?”

Lisa leaned forward again. “For an attack on Anita Franks. Maybe they know something we don’t, but the governor is supposedly behind this. He wants Jace in custody.”

That evening, as Jace approached his house, he noticed the front door was already open. He looked for his guards, unsure whether they would be around before dark.

He slowed and placed his hand against the front door. “Hello?”

As soon as he stepped inside, someone appeared in the doorway behind him, a tall uniformed man. Jace turned toward the sound.

“Dr. Rawlings, we were expecting you.”

Jace backed into his kitchen. “Who are you? What do you want?”

In the living room, his guards sat on a small couch, at the will of three other men, all uniformed, muscular, and carrying automatic weapons.

Jace looked right and left. “What’s going on?”

“We need you to come with us.”

“Where? Who are you?”

“We are men with the job of keeping you safe. You are in danger here. We need to take you to a secure location.”

Jace shook his head. “I don’t feel unsafe.” He paused, looking at their weapons. “Your guns make me feel unsafe.”

“Get your things. We’re leaving now.”

“Have you talked to my medical director? I’ve got responsibilities. I’m on call.”

An older man stepped forward. “Shut up and pack a bag.”

Jace pointed at his guards, the police officers that the MP had arranged to watch his place at night. “These men can guard me. I need to stay here for my work.”

“We cannot ensure your safety here any longer.”

“Who is behind this? Who are you working for?”

A muscular young man with a large gap in his lower teeth grinned. “We are under orders from the minister of health.”

That jolted Jace’s memory. “Is the minister of health giving a speech any time soon?”

“Get packing. What is that to you?”

“I need to speak to Minister Okombo.”

“Move, Dr. Rawlings. We need you to move.”

Jace stood his ground. “I need to get a message to Minister Okombo.”

One of the men came out of Jace’s bedroom. “I packed your things,” he said, throwing a suitcase onto the floor.

“Someone is going to shoot Minister Okombo during a speech. You have to warn him.”

“Shut up.” Jace felt a sharp sting on the back of his head. He stumbled forward, watching in horror as one of the new men moved behind the guards sitting on the couch and quickly slit the throat of the first guard and shoved him sprawling to the floor. The second guard leapt to his feet, only to be clubbed by the attacker with the butt of the automatic weapon. The guard staggered, and the man slit the guard’s throat just as he had the first one.

Jace made a break for the door, but was tackled onto the kitchen floor, slamming his head against a chair as he fell. He felt searing pain and then … nothing.

In the hospital casualty ward, Dr. Paul Mwaka worked through his own call load. He’d done a spinal tap on a young man with cryptococcal meningitis and HIV, performed a C-section, and was now examining an old man with severe abdominal pain. He didn’t mind the heavy load. Many of his colleagues from medical school had accepted internships at the large government hospital in Nairobi. But even in Kenyatta, their experience wasn’t as hands-on as his was in Kijabe. He knew in Nairobi he would not have been able to first assist on an open-heart case as he had that morning. He still couldn’t believe it. Dr. Rawlings had taught all the way through the case, showing him detailed anatomy and instructing him on technique.

He looked at the old man’s face as he felt his abdomen and asked him in the Kikuyu language, “Are you having pain here?”

Paul felt his own heart quicken as he slid his hand over the patient’s upper abdomen. There, feeling as if it was just beneath the skin, something pushed back against his hand. The intern paused. No, something was beating, pulsating. Paul probed gently, outlining a pulsatile mass. He’d not felt anything like it before, but was sure it was a swelling of the aorta known as an aneurysm. If this was responsible for the patient’s pain, it was a clue that the aneurysm was about to rupture or perhaps already beginning to rupture. He may only have a short time before the old man bled out.

He walked away from the stretcher and talked quietly to the nurse. “Could you start an IV on the patient in bed two?”

Purity, an experienced nurse, nodded.

“No,” Dr. Mwaka responded. “Start two IVs. Large gauge, one in each arm. I’m going to call Dr. Rawlings.”

He picked up the phone, dialed, and let the phone ring ten times.

After that, he asked the operator to page.

He walked to the HDU, thinking Dr. Rawlings might be visiting the open-heart patient.

But Dr. Rawlings wasn’t there.

He walked back through casualty.

“Dr. Mwaka,” Purity called, “the old man’s blood pressure is falling. Only eighty systolic.”

“Okay,” he said. “Don’t try to get it too high. The patient will bleed. I’m going to run up to Dr. Rawlings’s house. Maybe he has his headphones on or something.”

Paul felt certain the patient was close to death. He needed to find the surgeon stat. He ran up the hill, thankful for a clear night.

Strange. There are no guards outside his house.

He knocked, and then banged on the door, calling for the doctor. “Daktari Rawlings!”

Finally, in frustration, he tried the door. It wasn’t latched; it slid open. He stepped into the kitchen, calling “Daktari!”

He gasped. On the kitchen floor were two bodies, both male. Both African. And both in a sea of blood. He knelt to take a pulse but pulled away before touching them. Both throats were sliced and their eyes were open, their chests unmoving.

Paul began to yell for help. He stumbled out of the house and ran down the hill, screaming for the security officer in the little guard station beside the hospital entrance.

At the guard station, he pointed back up the hill. “Just there,” he gasped. “There’s been a slaughter!”

43

Jace opened his eyes. He was in the back of an old car traveling somewhere fast. How long had he been out? The sky was dark, and he’d gone home just before sunset, so it had to have been at least thirty minutes. He studied his surroundings. He was unrestrained, but didn’t move as there was a large African man on the bench seat beside him, carrying an automatic weapon, like something Jace had seen on cop shows in America. The man didn’t seem to know that Jace was awake. He stared out the window at passing trees in a thick forest.
Are we on the highway yet?
There were two men in the front seat, arguing loudly in Kiswahili, saying something about a payment.

If Jace was to take advantage of the element of surprise, he’d have to do something quickly before they knew he was conscious. Could he jump from the vehicle? No, they were traveling too fast. He closed his eyes, in case his captors looked at him—then risked a quick glance at the weapon. The man held it loosely, unsuspecting.