“There was also a young woman there. She was shaking like a leaf, looking down at the man who had told me that he had seen David,” Susan continued. “He wasn’t moving and there was a big knife sticking out of his lower back. My dress was in tatters and I was mostly naked, but this man carried me a block or two and up several flights of stairs to the apartment that they lived in.”
“I was in a lot of pain. I had hurt my right hip and couldn’t even stand or move my leg. Even worse, the man who had saved me had been cut by one of the men’s knives. He had a gash almost 18″ long on his upper, inner thigh, and he was bleeding. I had been trained as a nurse when I was young, so I instructed the young woman in how to staunch the bleeding with towels and pressure. When she had his bleeding more or less under control, she called for friends of theirs who brought a doctor who stitched up the knife wound.”
“We learned the next day that two people had been found dead in that lane; the man who had tried to rape me — his neck was broken — and the man who had led me into the lane — the knife had penetrated his kidney and killed him. The third man got away, but he had a badly mangled arm from his tussle with the man who saved me.”
“Do these people have names?” Judge Crenshaw asked.
“Your Honor, they do,” Mr. Smithers replied, “but for reasons that will become abundantly clear, I request that we be allowed to continue to refer to them without names.”
“I object,” Mr. Jordan said.
“Under what grounds?” Judge Crenshaw asked.
“My client has the right to face his accuser,” Mr. Jordan replied.
“And so he is,” Judge Crenshaw said. “She’s right in front of him. Objection overruled. Please continued.”
“I was very frightened,” Susan continued. “I was also hurt. I could barely hobble and I had no clothes. I was in a strange country with two total strangers who had risked their lives to save me and had gotten hurt in the process. And I was worried about my David. I had the worst feeling about things. For the next week or so, the three of us stayed in that apartment, never going out. Their friends would shop for us and bring us food and news. They had almost caught the third man, the one who had held my arms while the other one tried to rape me, but in trying to get away, he had fallen into the Rio Negro and had been eaten by the piranhas and the caimans.”
“What happened after that?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“My… hero, that’s what I’ll call him, suggested that I leave Manaus, leave Brazil,” Susan explained. “He reasoned, and I agreed, that if someone had gone to all the trouble to kill everyone in the research facility and had sent a team of three people to kill me, that it was likely that they’d try again when they didn’t hear anything from their murder squad.”
“And did you have any idea who might be behind all of this?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“I knew who was behind it,” Susan replied sadly. “My saviors both heard the man who had led me into that lane say ‘just hurry up and then kill her, and get me that braid. That’s our proof for Quinn.'”
“This is total bullshit!” Quinn screamed, his face red, his eyes bulging in his head as he jumped to his feet. “Imaginary people, imaginary conspiracy. This is BULLSHIT!”
“Objection, Your Honor, hearsay,” Mr. Jordan said.
“Mr. Quinn, if you cannot control yourself, I will have you removed from these proceedings and we will continue without you,” Judge Crenshaw said sternly. “Mr. Jordan, this is not a trial. Your objection is noted. I will keep in mind that what Mrs. Kumms has just said is hearsay at this point.”
“Your Honor,” Mr. Smithers said. “I assure you that I will present evidence to disabuse anyone of an accusation of unsubstantiated hearsay.”
“Please continued,” Judge Crenshaw said.
“What happened next, Mrs. Kumms?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“Well, my hero arranged a private jet charter to leave Manaus,” Susan replied. “With a group of his friends to protect me, I went to my hotel to collect my things and check out. I also went across the street to get some money from the bank. We flew to the Cayman Islands, staying a week on Grand Cayman and a week on Cayman Brac. It was when we were on Cayman Brac that we learned that they had identified the remains found in the fire and that David had been one of them. We also learned that they had all been bound with their hands behinds their backs and their ankles tied, then shot in the head as they lay on their faces. The fire was set to cover the crime.”
“Your Honor,” Mr. Jordan said.
“Yes, Mr. Jordan?” Judge Crenshaw asked, looking at him.
“Nothing, Your Honor,” Mr. Jordan replied.
“Please continue,” Judge Crenshaw said.
“My hero thought that with the sure knowledge that David was dead, that Quinn would move heaven and earth to find me, as I was now the only loose end,” Susan said.
“Your Honor, I object,” Mr. Jordan said. “This is nothing but speculation and hyperbole.”
“And I repeat, Mr. Jordan, that this is not a trial,” Judge Crenshaw said. “I am perfectly capable of filtering out that which should be filtered, or do question my competence or impartiality?”
“Of course not, Your Honor,” Mr. Jordan replied, chagrinned.
“Please continue,” Judge Crenshaw said.
“So we left the Caymans and flew to Bora Bora in Tahiti,” Susan continued.
“How did you get there, Mrs. Kumms?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“We chartered another private jet,” Susan replied. “When we got there, my hero spoke with the head of security and explained that a dangerous and angry husband was chasing us. In return for a donation to his favorite charity, he agreed to keep an eye and ear open for anyone inquiring about us.”
“And did anyone inquire after you, Mrs. Kumms?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“After we’d been there for two weeks, we were staying at a private resort on a private island, the head of security came to our island to tell us that there had been an inquiry made. He also had an airport security photo of him, but none of us recognized him. The security chief told us that he could limit the man’s ability to do anything for a day or so, so we arranged another charter and left,” Susan explained.
“And where did you go then?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“We went to Oman,” Susan replied, then laughed. “I’d never even heard of the place.”
“And what happened in Oman?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“We were introduced to Sheikh Hakeem,” Susan replied. “He agreed to offer us sanctuary with his tribe. We spent the next month with them traveling down the coast, stopping here and there for some days before moving on. We were camped outside of Salalah when one of the sheikh’s people spotted the man from Bora Bora in Salalah. We had given the sheikh the airport photo from Bora Bora that we had been given. The sheikh’s people brought him to the sheikh in his tent. Questioning him, the sheikh learned that he had a partner and everything else the man ever knew. The sheikh’s men then brought the partner to the sheikh and he questioned him. Eventually the man admitted that he had been promised $5 million to kill me and that my braid was the proof needed to get paid.”
“This Sheikh Hakeem must be an impressive man to be able to learn so much by questioning what you describe as two killers,” Mr. Smithers said.
“Other than my hero and my David, I’ve never met a more impressive or honorable man in my life,” Susan said. “Or effective,” she added, now looking directly at Quinn, who quailed back in his seat at the anger emanating from her eyes. “They were each brought to him rolled up in an oriental carpet. When they unrolled the first one, the man from Bora Bora, his name was Chet Nichols, by the way, his ankles were zip-tied together, as were his hands behind his back. The sheikh warned him that he was going to be asked questions and that he should answer with alacrity and honesty, otherwise he was going to experience pain. When he didn’t respond at all to the first question, one of the sheikh’s men cut off one of his ears and threw in on the ground in front of his face where he lay hog tied. He lost both ears and three fingers off of one hand. They were about to cut his cock and balls off when he started telling them what they wanted to know.”