Terminal Justice Read online

  Stepping past them, David approached the reclining woman. She lay on her right side, her head resting on her outstretched arm. She lay still, unaware of David’s approach. Squatting down beside her David said, “Excuse me.”

  The woman didn’t respond. She was young, perhaps in her early twenties, and her sunken cheeks and thin arms gave testimony to weeks of malnutrition. “Excuse me,” David said again, but still no response. He reached out and gently touched her frail arm. The woman rolled over onto her back, not by her own movement but because of David’s gentle touch. A swarm of flies took to the air. The sight of the woman caused David to bolt upright and gasp. The woman stared at him through one partially opened eye that could no longer see. Her body was rigid, and the pernicious effects of rigor mortis had set in, causing her to sneer through the constricted muscles of her face. She was dead, something her children understood long before David.

  He stared in disbelief at the corpse before him and felt his senses shutting down. A few moments ago every one of his senses had reached levels of new awareness; now they were rapidly closing in an attempt to preserve sanity and to lessen the emotional shock that raced through every fiber of his body and every avenue of his mind. The crying of the boys faded into silence; the light of the day dimmed; the air became heavy and unbreathable. David closed his eyes, but not before seeing scores of flies settle on the body again.

  “David?” A distant and dim voice said. “Are you all right?”

  David felt no need to respond; he remained motionless, silent, and kept his eyes tightly shut.

  “David!” The voice said louder, and then the words took on an authoritarian tone. “Open your eyes, David. Open them right now and look at me.”

  He felt his body being shaken. “Now, David!” It was A.J.’s voice. He knew that voice, he trusted that voice, so David opened his eyes, but instead of looking at the man in front of him, he let his eyes drift back to the woman’s corpse. “No, David, I said look at me.”

  The sounds were returning: the crying, the speaking, the buzzing of flies. David looked up at the tall man in front of him and blinked several times. Tears were beginning to run from his eyes, unexpected tears that streamed down his face. He blinked again, clearing the moisture from his eyes, and saw A.J., concern deeply etched into his face, looking back. David stared into his eyes and saw strength and power and resolve, all coated in a blanket of tears.

  “Are you with me, David?” he asked firmly.

  David nodded weakly. “I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot. I … I don’t know what my problem is.”

  “Nonsense,” A.J. said, physically turning David around and walking away from the dead woman. “It’s to be expected. This is your first trip and your first contact with this kind of death. I remember my first time clearly: I threw up several times. At least you held on to your breakfast.”

  “The day is not over yet,” David replied weakly. He felt hot and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “I thought she was sleeping. I wanted to help the kids. I had no idea …”

  “You’re an admirable man, David,” A.J. patted him on the back. “You showed some wonderful qualities in that little act.”

  “I don’t feel very admirable.”

  They stopped by the two children. The youngest had stopped crying now that he was surrounded by people. “You got involved. Most people just hang back, but you took steps. Sure you got a shock, but next time you’ll be prepared.” The others had joined them by the row of tents. A.J. continued, loud enough for everyone to hear. “People die here, David. A great many people die, but a great many live. This is not a place of death. Death occurs here, to be sure, but this is a camp of life. These two children, thanks to the heroic efforts of their mother, will continue to live. It’s important that you focus on that, David. We grieve for the dead, but we fight for the living. That’s why we’re here.”

  “So you don’t think I’m a complete idiot?” David asked meekly. He looked at Kristen, who was covering her mouth with her hand.

  “Not in the least,” A.J. pronounced. “Men of your quality are rare. I’m glad to have you along.” Reaching down, A.J. lifted up the youngest boy and held him in one arm. Then he held his hand out to the boy with the ball, who stood to his feet. “Now let’s see if we can find Dr. James Goodwin, the camp’s leader.”

  The sun was dropping behind the highland mountains and staining the sky with gold that turned to pink that in turn deepened to red. David, Kristen, and Dr. Goodwin strolled down the lane that was formed by the rows of tents on either side. A.J., Sheila, and Peter were still in Goodwin’s tent, resting and reviewing the doctor’s notes.

  “I wanted to talk to you apart from the group,” Goodwin said with a slight but noticeable Irish brogue. “I felt the need to apologize to you.”

  “What on earth for?” David asked.

  “For the incident with the young lady … the deceased. We normally don’t allow the dead to lie around like that. We’re still checking, but it seems she had just arrived and died where you found her. We were unaware of her arrival. Still, I feel badly.”

  “No apology is necessary,” David replied quietly.

  “We work hard here. Our battle is unending, our resources limited, and our help sparse, but we fight the good fight, and we make a difference.”

  “I can see that,” David said. Then he asked, “Is this a large camp compared to others?”

  “Small, actually. We expect that it will get larger as time goes on, but we’re not nearly the size as those in the more arid regions like the Ogaden in the east or the Welo district north of here. We do the same work, but they do more of it.”

  “How long have you been here?” Kristen asked.

  “In Ethiopia? About two years. I started with a group called Doctors Without Borders, but later joined Barringston Relief. I wanted to do this work full time, and A.J. welcomed me.”

  “How long do you plan to stay?” David inquired.

  Goodwin paused before answering. He looked around at the pitiful city of tents and its emaciated populace. “Until there is no more work to do. I’ll probably die here. This is my home now. My work is here, my research is here, my heart is here.”

  “Research?”

  “Oh yes,” Goodwin said proudly. “One of the reasons I joined Barringston is to research the effects of hunger and hunger-related diseases. Some of what we learn here is used in other lands, and not only among the hungry but among those with diseases that affect the body like hunger.”

  “Don’t you ever despair?” Kristen asked directly. “Don’t you ever feel like giving up?”

  Goodwin laughed, “Daily. Some look at me with pity saying, ‘What a shame he has to give up so much.’ But what have I given up? Traffic? High malpractice insurance? These people have given me more than I could ever hope for. They are a proud and noble people. They know how to stand strong, and they also know how to love.” As if on cue, a small group of children ranging in age from five to ten rushed toward Goodwin shouting, “Doctari, Doctari.” They surrounded him and hugged him, the smallest clinging to his legs. He spoke to them in Amharic and reached into his pants pocket to extract small round candies.

  “How many people are in this camp?” David asked.

  “Around four hundred. Tomorrow it will be more. The next day, more still.” Goodwin pointed to a tent. A man and two children sat in front of it eating a rice-and-bean mixture from a battered wooden bowl. “Do you see that man? We almost lost him. He arrived two weeks ago, barely able to walk. He was carrying his youngest son on his back. I don’t know how he did it, but he did. We immediately administered vitamin shots and rehydration packets. We brought him and the boys food three times a day, but he wouldn’t eat. Instead, he hid the food so his sons could have food later. He was hoarding in case we ran out of supplies. It took me three days to convince him to eat. At first I had to threaten to take the food away from his children. We would never do that, of course, but I had to precipitate an emotional crisis
in the man to force him to eat. Now he helps us deliver food to the others.”

  “Amazing,” Kristen uttered. “You would think that I would know all this, but I had no idea beyond what I read in the reports.”

  It was clear to David that he had no idea of the magnitude of need or how personal the grip of hunger was. He found himself inundated with guilt and remorse. “You know,” he confessed, “I used to think that I had problems, that my life was difficult. You know—bills, lack of appreciation at work, a wife who left me—but now I see that I have never truly had a problem in my life. Inconveniences, yes, but never a real problem.”

  The remainder of the day was long and grueling. David and the others were more than observers in the camp, they were workers, each performing a needed function. Late that evening two covered, one-ton trucks roared into camp loaded with bags of rice, sorghum, beans, and other commodities. David was surprised to see a huge quantity of carrots. Dr. Goodwin informed him that many Ethiopians suffer from xerophthalmia—night blindness—due to a lack of vitamin A. David had noticed that the eyes of many of the adults were milky and lackluster. Each person received vitamin shots upon arriving in camp, but medication often ran out. The carrots not only provided the much-needed vitamin, they also served as a food supply. “Carrots are new to many of the people,” Goodwin had said, “but they soon learn to love them. They say they’re batam teruno—very good.”

  The trucks were unloaded, and meals were prepared and distributed to long lines of hungry Ethiopians. Those too weak to stand in line were brought food. David walked the camp with A.J. to help distribute meals. In some cases adults and children were too weak to hold their bowls or to spoon the lifesaving sustenance to their mouths. Tears welled in David’s eyes as he watched A.J. Barringston, millionaire son of a billionaire industrialist, cradle an elderly man’s head and slowly raise a spoonful of food to his mouth. Soon David was doing the same. He found the job as fulfilling as anything he had ever done in his life. Yet other tasks had to be done: Thirteen people had died that day, five children and eight adults, and their bodies had to be removed from camp. Each corpse was wrapped in a white sheet and loaded onto a truck and taken to a designated burial area. The awful irony weighed heavily on David: People had traveled at great physical expense only to die in the midst of help and nourishment.

  After their walk through camp, David and Kristen sat on fiberglass folding chairs outside Dr. Goodwin’s tent. A.J., Sheila, and Peter were still in the tent discussing the camp’s future needs. Goodwin had joined them.

  “You look exhausted,” Kristen said.

  “I feel exhausted,” David replied. Rubbing his eyes he looked skyward. The large summer moon was floating high in the sky and casting its ivory light down on the camp. “Our moon is back.”

  “You were right when you said it was difficult to believe that the same moon that shone down on our prosperity also looked down on their poverty.” Kristen shifted in her chair and stretched to loosen the kinks in her tired body. “This has been a day I will never forget.”

  “Amen to that,” David said wearily. “I don’t know how Goodwin and his staff do this every day. It must exact a horrible emotional toll. But then again …”

  “Then again what?”

  “The work does bring huge satisfaction, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” Kristen replied. “To be truthful, I’m too tired to feel much of anything, except for admiration.”

  “I know what you mean. That A.J. is something. The way he jumped right in unloading the truck, hand-feeding some of the worse cases, and even carrying the bodies of the dead out. And he’s still working. I’ve never before met anyone like A.J.”

  “I think there are many like him; they just don’t know it,” Kristen said seriously. “You say you’ve never met anyone else like A.J., but I have. You have the same passion, David. You just don’t know it yet.”

  “Oh, no,” David disagreed. “You saw my strength when we first got to camp. I almost lost it when I saw that dead woman and her two crying children nearby. It was almost more than I could bear.”

  “Anyone would have reacted the same way,” replied Kristen emphatically. “You heard A.J.; he reacted the same way. And as I recall, you didn’t lose it. On the contrary, you unloaded the trucks, moved the bodies, fed the invalids right along with A.J. I saw it in you today, David. I saw the power to make a difference. I saw the genuine concern, not pity, nor revulsion, but heart-deep concern. Most people are so overwhelmed by what they see that they can do nothing, but you jumped right in there, right up to your elbows.”

  “You can’t compare me to A.J., he’s a great man. I’ve achieved many things in my life, but nothing like he has. I’ll be lucky to get through this without freezing up again.”

  “Once again you’re being too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break. Look around you, this is a walk through the edge of hell. No one can prepare himself for the impact that such a scene can make on the psyche.”

  “Still—” David began.

  “Still nothing,” Kristen interrupted. “You have more going for you than any other man I’ve ever met, but you keep weighing yourself down with personal doubts and insecurity. You’re like a butterfly that’s too afraid to leave the cocoon.” She paused before speaking again, and when she did, she did so quietly, almost reverently, “I wonder what lies deep inside the man named David O’Neal. I wonder what’s locked away inside his mind and soul. But most of all I wonder what it is he fears?”

  “Fears?

  “What would you call it? You yourself have admitted to being insecure. That was your confession not mine. How would you be different if you weren’t constantly second-guessing yourself?”

  David didn’t answer at first. Kristen’s words were striking home and striking hard. Her words came not with anger or even frustration, but with genuine concern that arose from something she deeply believed. He wondered if she was correct in her assessment of him. Maybe he had been too hard on himself. Maybe he did allow insecurity to anchor him in the past, allowing him to move into the future after only Herculean efforts on his part and on the part of others. And if she was right, what could he do about it? He had been taught in seminary psychology classes that that kind of mental programming couldn’t be changed overnight, and he had seen it for himself in the hundreds of people who had turned to him for help. In many ways, Kristen was doing for him what he had attempted to do for those in church—incite him to make good and godly changes in his life.

  “Are you all right, David?” Kristen asked softly. “Maybe I was out of line. Sometimes my mouth begins to work without the full benefit of my brain. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  Is that what I feel? David asked himself. Hurt? No, not hurt. Not emotional pain, but something. He looked into the clear night sky and gazed at the moon once more, then he turned to face Kristen who sat next to him. She was close enough that he could see the moonlight bounce gaily off her moist eyes; he could smell her distinctive scent. He looked into her eyes, fell into the beautiful deep-blue orbs. He let his eyes trace the lines of her face and take in each feature, light eyebrows, delicate nose, smooth cream skin, full lips. His gaze stopped on her lips, and he remembered that moment in front of the hotel in Addis Ababa when those lips, soft, pliant, warm, and welcoming, touched his. Perhaps, David thought, it is time for me to emerge from the cocoon.

  He leaned forward slowly, fearful that she would pull away. Anticipation churned within him. His heart beat faster, and his breathing quickened. He was at the threshold of closeness, close enough to feel the life on her skin, yet too far away to touch. It was the magnificent moment when hope is less than a half-breath away from actuality. He wanted to stop right there, to hover in that ethereal plane of expectancy.

  Then guilt, like some monster from the deep, broke the surface of his consciousness. The guilt did not come alone: It brought fear. What if they were seen? What if this attraction was only the fruit of exotic places and difficult cir
cumstances? What would happen if it didn’t work out and she rejected him? Could he deal with it? Was this proper and appropriate behavior? He sensed the questions, felt them more than thought them. It took less than a second for the fear, doubt, and guilt to fully emerge and begin forcing the cocoon shut.

  But an image came to mind, an image of the beautiful monarch butterflies that he used to catch as a child in the back canyons where he grew up. He saw the butterflies in his mind as clearly as he had seen them when he was a boy. He felt the infinitesimally light touch of their legs on his finger where they would sometimes land. He remembered studying their elegance and their radiant orange-and-black markings. Monarchs didn’t come around San Diego as much as they once did. Perhaps it was because of the city’s remarkable growth, the rise of pollution, and the decline of raw, open land. Or perhaps they were having trouble breaking out of their cocoons.

  The last thought propelled David forward. He closed the slight distance between their lips, and the kiss that started as seed in his mind blossomed into the fruit of pleasure, joy, satisfaction, and excitement—powerful, dynamic excitement. The ocean serpents of fear, guilt, and doubt sank below the waves of David’s mind as the tender sweetness of the embrace grew. If it would have been possible, David would have spent the remainder of his life in that mystical moment. His cocoon crumbled into dust.

  16

  “SHALL I GO FIRST?” STEPHANIE COOPER SAID INTO the phone as she shuffled through the papers on her desk.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Woody Summers replied. “Ladies first, I always say.”

  “How quaint,” Stephanie said sarcastically. “Here’s what I came up with. Now understand that this material is difficult to verify, and it wouldn’t hold up in court. For that matter, it wouldn’t get us a search warrant from any judge. Nonetheless, here it is. Like you, I started with who would want to electronically pirate satellite picture files from our computer databases? This turned out to be more difficult to answer than I first believed. If the satellite photos were of military bases, troop movements, or even shipping activity, we might think it was a terrorist group or a foreign government. But since the material stolen had to do with Third-World countries with no military or economic value, the question became convoluted. Why would anyone want pictures of Somalia or Ethiopia?”