Terminal Justice Page 20

  Camp life no longer seemed harsh to David. They had shelter, water, and an open latrine. Everything else was superfluous to the business of basic survival. David involved himself in every aspect of camp life. He served up dishes of cornmeal and rice-and-beans. At times he was called upon to spoon-feed those too weak to feed themselves, gently holding their heads up to drink water or chew soft food. He followed the doctor or nurse from tent to tent, area to area and aided in whatever way he could. Daily he helped remove the corpses of those who had fought valiantly but had been crushed by the overpowering weight of hunger.

  David sighed heavily, closed his eyes, and stilled his mind to all thoughts, allowing the evening breeze to caress his perspiration-coated face. His muscles were sore from lifting bags of food and lifeless bodies; his face, neck, and arms were stung from a deep sunburn; his eyes felt gritty, his lips were cracked and dry; and sleep beckoned him to a few hours of oblivion. Despite his physical condition, he had never felt more alive or productive.

  “Is it just me or are fewer people arriving in camp?” Kristen asked softly, not wanting to break the welcome hush of evening.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Peter said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s hard to tell.”

  “I’ve noticed the same thing,” Amy Person said. Amy was the camp director, a registered nurse with an advanced degree in health and nutrition. She was a sturdy woman in her early fifties with wavy black hair heavily streaked with gray. “It’s puzzling. It’s not likely that we are running out of people.”

  “Maybe it’s just a fluke,” A.J. said casually. He was crouched down in a folding chair, staring up at the night sky pregnant with stars. “It will probably return to normal tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps,” Amy said, “but it’s odd. Not only that, a few people had to be coaxed into eating. They acted like the food was rotten or tainted.”

  “What are you thinking about, A.J.?” Kristen changed the subject.

  “A billion billion stars,” he replied dreamily. “So far away, every star so very far away, yet we can still see them. They give us their light at night and ask nothing in return. They hang like tiny drops of water suspended in space, or like strange little eyes watching all that we do.”

  “You wax philosophical,” David offered. “You are a man not only of action, but of thoughts as deep as the ocean.”

  “Now who’s waxing philosophical?” A.J. asked with a laugh. “How are you dealing with all of this? You still okay?”

  “I’m sunburned, sore, and dead tired. I’ve never felt better.”

  “He’s a worker,” Amy said. “Sure you don’t want to leave him here when you leave?”

  “Not a chance,” A.J. said. “He’s got work to do back in San Diego. He’s going to make sure that people continue to give to the cause so that we can keep things flowing. That’s just as important. If he doesn’t do his job, you can’t do yours.”

  “It was worth asking,” Amy replied. “Fresh workers are so hard to get—” Amy stopped short when she heard footsteps behind her. Turning she saw three men walking abreast, purposefully toward the small circle sitting around the gas lantern. Unable to identify the trio because of the lantern’s glare, A.J. sprung to his feet and tensed, an action that was quickly duplicated by Sheila.

  “A.J.,” a familiar voice said. “It’s Roger.”

  David watched as the alert tension quickly drained from A.J.’s and Sheila’s bodies. “Roger, I’m glad you could make it. Step into the light; let me get you some water.” As the three men crossed the threshold from darkness into light, David saw that he recognized two of the men: as the two workers with Child Touch Ministries who had accompanied the Barringston group for the first half of their journey. The third man was a stranger to him.

  “Let me make the introductions,” A.J. said jovially. “Amy, this is Leonard Wu and his coworker Gerald Raines, both of Child Touch Ministries. They traveled to Addis Ababa with us. And this is Roger Walczynske, my trusted and longtime friend. He does on-site research for us and has been spending these few last days in Somalia.” Amy shook hands with Wu and Raines as Roger did the same with the others.

  “We haven’t seen you since the airport,” David said, a little confused. “How did you get way down here?”

  Wu answered, “Our office changed our itinerary. We spent a few days in Addis Ababa and then flew to Mogadishu in Somalia. We have a few orphanages and a small medical center there. While we were there we bumped into Roger. When he told us that he was headed here, we asked if we could join him.”

  “It’s no good traveling out here alone,” Raines added. “We need to stick together you know.”

  “I need to speak to you when you can spare the time,” Roger said to A.J. Their eyes locked in silent communication.

  “Sure,” A.J. said glibly. “I was thinking of strolling down to the latrine. It’s a lousy location, but we can talk on the way.”

  The two men did not speak until they were out of earshot of the rest of the group. “You look positively grim, Roger. I take it that the news is not good.”

  “Mahli is still out of reach,” Roger started slowly. “Their security isn’t sophisticated, but the sheer number of guards makes it impossible to get close enough to do anything.” A.J. reached out and touched Roger on the shoulder, communicating his support and understanding. Roger inhaled deeply. “That man has to die, A.J. He positively, absolutely has to die the most painful death possible and his carcass left for the hyenas.”

  “He will, Roger,” A.J. said quietly. “He most certainly will.” Turning back to the group, A.J. shouted for Sheila to join them. “I want Sheila to go with you, Leonard, and Gerald. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense forever.”

  “Won’t you need her?”

  “I’ll be fine,” A.J. said tersely. “It’s more important that she go with you. You’re going to need another pair of eyes and hands. Mahli’s too slimy to catch single-handedly.”

  “I’m sorry, A.J.” Roger was downcast. “Mahli returns to the compound periodically, but it’s hard to know when. I’ve followed him back and forth several times, but there’s never an opportunity. Wu and Raines have been a big help with the surveillance. They have also been able to verify that it was Mahli at the Judith Rhodes camp. The satellite photos place his car there, but …”

  “No need to apologize,” A.J. replied. “Patience is what’s required here. There’s no sense in getting yourself killed. How’s Aden holding up?”

  “I sent him home when Raines and Wu showed up. He was never comfortable with all this. He’s not cut out for this kind of work.”

  “I’m not surprised. Still, he has been helpful to us.” When Sheila joined them, A.J. said, “I’ll be taking the crew back to Addis Ababa tomorrow. We start back home in the morning, Sheila. I want you to go with Roger—”

  “But—” she began to protest.

  “No buts,” A.J. said firmly. “I’ll be fine. I need you to put an end to Mahli. Now here’s what I want you to do …”

  17

  “I, FOR ONE, AM LOOKING FORWARD TO A REAL BED,” Kristen said as she slumped in her chair. “My back wasn’t made for canvas cots.”

  “It doesn’t take long to appreciate the small things in life, does it?” David took a sip of dark bitter coffee and glanced around the hotel’s café. “This place looks far more lavish now than when we left.”

  The two sat in a silence shrouded with weariness. Despite the fatigue brought on by their arduously slow journey back to Addis Ababa, both were too wired to sleep.

  “You look positively contemplative,” Kristen said as she looked at the changed man in front of her. He had, like her, only been in Africa a short time, yet he looked stronger, his skin was darkened by the sun, and he carried himself with more confidence. “What’s floating around in that mind of yours?”

  David chuckled and rubbed a freshly shaven chin, a chin that had until that day sported a thick covering of black stubble. “Fog mostly. I was just thinking ab
out that Roger fellow; he sure came and went quickly.”

  “Sometimes things happen fast.”

  “But he left right after his meeting with A.J. I would think he would have spent the night and rested up some. He sure seemed in a hurry.”

  “And …,” Kristen prompted.

  “I don’t know,” David rubbed his eyes. “He definitely had something on his mind. Something was bothering him.”

  “You could tell all that in the few short minutes you were with him?”

  “That and his body language when he and A.J. walked away.”

  “You can tell that much about a person by their body language?”

  “Sometimes,” David replied. “It’s more of an art than a science. The anthropologist Desmond Morris once said that body language is more truthful than words. Our physical actions constantly give clues about our thoughts and emotions. You can’t read someone’s mind, but you can learn a few things about that person.”

  “Such as?”

  “Okay. Do you see that couple over there eating lunch?” David nodded to a middle-aged couple sitting about thirty feet away. Kristen nodded. “Where do you think they’re from? I mean, which part of the world?”

  Kristen looked at them for a short time and then said, “I have no idea. They’re white, so they could be from the United States, Europe, South Africa, Russia, just about anywhere. There’s really no way to tell.”

  “You’re right, there’s no way to tell exactly, but I can tell that he is from Europe and that she is from America, probably the Midwest.”

  “I don’t buy this for a moment,” Kristen said skeptically. “You haven’t heard them speak, so you can’t tell by their accent. I don’t see how you can be so sure—unless you peeked at their passports.”

  “Not at all,” David said beaming. “What is the man eating?”

  Kristen looked backed over at the couple. “Pie. Probably apple pie. Why?”

  “Which way is the pie pointed?”

  “Pointed? You mean the front of the pie? The part away from the crust?” David nodded. “To the side, I guess. He’s eating the pie from the side.”

  “When you eat pie, what direction does it point?”

  “I’ve never thought about it. It points at me.”

  “There you go. Americans point their piece of pie at them and begin eating from the front of the triangle to the crust. Europeans turn their pie so that it points to the side and begin eating the pie at its side. Now notice the woman. She’s not done with her main course. Watch how she cuts her food.” Kristen did her best to study the woman without appearing to stare. “What do you see?”

  “She holds the fork in her left hand and her knife in the right. She cuts the food, sets the knife down, and transfers the fork to her right hand to eat.”

  “That means that she is most likely from America, or at least her parents were. Transferring the fork from hand to hand is typically American.”

  “How do I know you’re right?” Kristen grinned mischievously. “You could be making all this up.”

  “Simple,” David replied. “Ask them.”

  “You don’t think I will, do you?” Kristen slid from her place in the booth and approached the couple. David watched as the couple eyed her suspiciously at first, then smiled. A moment later she was back in her seat with a slight pouting expression on her face. At first she said nothing.

  “Well?”

  “All right, Doctor O’Neal,” she said, playfully emphasizing his title. “He’s from Manchester, England, and she grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas. Next you’re going to be telling me that you can discern their driver’s license numbers.”

  “No, and that’s the whole point. All a student of body language can do is make broad generalities about the person being observed. In court situations, attorneys are trained to watch for a change in a witness’s blinking pattern. A person who blinks normally and then changes to a rapid pattern is very likely lying, as is someone who keeps touching his or her nose or mouth. The sharp-eyed attorney sees this and presses the point all the harder. He can’t prove the witness is lying, but he can make adjustments in his questioning.

  “That’s my whole point with Roger and, I might add, Gerald and Leonard. I can’t tell you what they’re thinking, but I can tell you that they were agitated, maybe even frustrated. About what, I couldn’t hazard a guess.”

  “Got your curiosity stirred up, David?”

  “Something is definitely up. Shortly after his meeting with Roger, Sheila, and the two from Child Touch Ministries, A.J. announced that Sheila would be returning to Somalia with Roger. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “No, not really. Sheila has been with A.J. a long time. She’s a capable person.”

  “I’m sure she is, but the suddenness of it all, makes me wonder.”

  “Maybe it’s Somalia. It’s not a nice place right now, and A.J. said that things were unsettled. Maybe there’s some trouble at one of the camps.”

  David was somber. “It seems that every corner of the world has some problem, some tremendous need.”

  Kristen nodded. “That’s why A.J. takes some of his key executives on these trips. Outside the comfortable offices of Barringston Tower it doesn’t take long to see how difficult the work is and who the real heroes are.”

  “They are indeed heroes. The people I’ve met working in these camps have changed my life and my world-view. I know that I’m going home in a matter of days and will be sleeping on my bed, but they will still be out here doing the hard work.”

  “And the noble work.”

  “And the noble work,” David agreed. “I wish everyone could see what we’ve seen. Maybe things would be different. Maybe more people would become involved.”

  “That’s our job, isn’t it? Making sure the word gets out. You do it through the speeches you write, and I through public relations. It’s important for you to know that you are doing hero’s work as well. True, you and I are not out here every day, but what we do helps make it possible for others to be here day in and day out.”

  David wearily nodded his assent. “You’re probably right, and I’m too tired to go on,” he said in exhaustion. “All of this is catching up to me. If I don’t get a nap soon, I’ll end up sleeping under the table.”

  “We can’t have that, now can we?” Kristen rose from her seat. “Take me home, James, and don’t spare the elevator.”

  David laughed, rose from his seat, and escorted Kristen from the café.

  18

  THE IRONY OF THE MOMENT FORCED A SMILE TO Roger’s lips. He gazed down at the sprawling, walled compound and watched as Mahli’s guards scampered into the courtyard raising their AK-47s, AK-80s, and RPGs at the helicopter that hovered eight hundred feet overhead. Roger felt no concern, no apprehension that a score of deadly weapons were pointed at him. He knew they wouldn’t fire, he had seen to that. The men in the courtyard would take a steady bead on the helicopter, but they wouldn’t dare squeeze a trigger—not as long as the man, a man they all recognized, hung precariously out the open door of the craft, his mouth taped shut, his hands tied with nylon cord behind his back, and a rope around his waist tethering him to a metal brace under one of the helicopter’s seats.

  Roger diverted his gaze from the ground with its animated host pointing up to the terrified passenger. How different he was now. When they first met he was pugnacious, crude, and aggressive, baring his teeth like a mongrel dog and spitting his words out with bile-laced hatred. Now Roger imagined that he could hear the man whimper in terror, attempting to plead for mercy through the wide duct tape that held his lips immobile. He felt no pity for the man, for he knew that he was responsible for the death of many people. Roger had no pity, no remorse. Instead, he felt alive, really alive. He could feel his blood course through his veins and sense the pounding of his heart even over the thudding of the rotors above him.

  It had been far easier to capture Mukatu than he would have thought possible, a task for which he would
like to have taken full credit, but the basic idea had come from A.J.

  Frustrated at the conditions that had held success just out of reach, he had decided to strike back at the man who had cruelly and senselessly killed Dr. Judith Rhodes. Analysis of the satellite photographs pirated from the CIA’s computers had been useful. They had hoped to be able to trace Mahli’s activities from the camp to his hiding place.

  The photos also proved helpful in an unexpected way. Each file had contained at least a dozen digitally enhanced photos of Somalia, especially Mogadishu and the surrounding regions. Reading the photos, which had been delivered to Roger by Wu and Raines, proved difficult. He had seen such photos many times during his stint in the army, but he had never been called upon to interpret the data. That had always been done by experts who pored over the photos with a fine-tooth comb. Roger could make out certain landmarks, but little more.

  The combined expertise of Raines and Wu proved beneficial. Like Roger, they had been career military men who had become disillusioned with the American military structure. Also like Roger, they chose to work for those who could pay well, and A.J. paid them very well. Raines and Wu, both highly trained intelligence experts, had spent hours sitting in their hotel rooms analyzing the satellite images. The images were exceptionally clear with high resolution, having been taken on several of Somalia’s many unclouded summer days. In the pictures individual vehicles could easily be made out. The space-borne cameras could have provided even greater detail, even to the point of reading license plates, had they been set to do so. But since no U.S. troops were active in the area, the cameras had been set to take images of larger areas.