“Yes.”
“How’d you like him?”
“I didn’t. Nor did I appoint him Karama’s chief enforcer. So imagine for a moment that you’re our manager in the delta, Trevor Hill. So many of our executives get kidnapped that he’s taken out hostage insurance. But that only gets FREE more excited about kidnapping. So Hill’s people start to develop post-traumatic stress disorder.” Gladstone’s voice became quiet, uninflected. “A kidnapper from FREE raided a compound and killed the daughter of Hill’s closest friend in her front yard. To protect the survivors, her father slammed the iron door to the house, cutting off the shooter’s hand. All the police did was stick it in an evidence drawer. Somewhere in the delta is a murderer with a missing hand.
“So we hired Roos Van Daan. But all Van Daan can do about Asari-land is accede to Okimbo’s demands for money and arms, leaving us to hope—if not expect—that the army will honor PGL’s very explicit policies on human rights.” Gladstone’s tone became sardonic. “When three people were hung from a tree, were we not to call Okimbo? Were we to wait for Okari to do what he did not—condemn the murderers in no uncertain terms? If so, we might as well pack our bags and leave Luandia’s oil to our competitors from Europe and the oh-so-scrupulous Chinese.”
Pierce stared at him fixedly. “You asked Okimbo to ‘restore order.’ If Bobby Okari sues PGL, you can explain to someone else why you thought that meant a decorous inquiry replete with Miranda warnings.”
Gladstone stood, hands jammed in his pockets. “So you came to threaten me.”
“I came to ask you to use your influence, instead of denying that you have any.”
Gladstone walked to the window, gazing out at the garden. “You have no idea what you’re playing with—none. To be held responsible for the acts of this government could drive us from Luandia. Never mind the impact on our share price. Never mind the impact on Luandia: that at the margins, we operate as a check on Karama’s excesses, and that whoever replaces PGL would be far worse. Consider the potential impact on America’s oil supply, or the price your fellow citizens might pay to heat their homes and fill their cars.” His voice rose. “Do you think the American public, or the present administration, would countenance whatever bogus lawsuit you imagine—”
“I don’t think it’s up to them, and I don’t give a damn. That’s what federal judges are for.” Pierce joined Gladstone by the window, looking him in the face. “I assume you’ve been in touch with headquarters. Will they ‘countenance’ you inviting this ‘bogus lawsuit’ by refusing to help prevent an execution that can only make the delta worse? I doubt that. In fact, I imagine they’ve already set PGL’s price for approaching Karama.”
To Pierce’s surprise, the trace of a smile surfaced in Gladstone’s eyes. “For whatever good that would do. But tell Okari this: if he asks you to drop this potential lawsuit, and ends his campaign against PGL, and agrees to leave Luandia, we’ll appeal to the better angels of Karama’s nature—perhaps to provide Okari with safe passage to the country of his choice.”
“That’s quite a lot to ask.”
Gladstone shrugged. “If Okari prefers to take a run at martyrdom, that’s his concern. Mine is to safeguard PGL and its people.”
Holding Gladstone’s eyes, Pierce absorbed the ambiguity of the moment. He did not know how complicit Gladstone was in Okimbo’s crimes; perhaps Gladstone believed Bobby was complicit in the lynching, and even that Pierce might know it. Whatever the case, they both had business to transact. “I’ll tell him,” Pierce answered.
“Then we’re done here, Mr. Pierce. You know the way out.”
Pierce began to leave, then turned back. “I’m curious. Did you bother to vote in the last election?”
Gladstone considered whether to respond. “I tried. But Karama’s soldiers had already closed the polls. So I suppose I must have voted for him.”
“As a Luandian, how did that make you feel?”
Again, Gladstone hesitated. “Unsurprised,” he answered with a trace of weariness. “Whatever else I felt hardly matters. The next day, as before, my job was the same.”
13
AFTER MEETING PIERCE AT THE AIRPORT IN PORT GEORGE, ATIKU Bara drove him directly to the prison as Pierce explained his mission. Sounding dubious, Bara said, “Good luck with him.”
“Assuming I get in.” Pierce reached for the door handle, then turned back. “If you were Bobby, how would you respond to Gladstone’s offer?”
Bara’s brow knit in a complex look of introspection and worry. “By choosing to live,” he answered. “In exile, he can someday return; he can do no good buried in Luandia. Tell him that.”
Nodding, Pierce got out and presented himself to the sentries at the steel gate. In moments, the inscrutable Major Bangida led him past the empty gallows toward the prison. Curtly, he said, “Colonel Okimbo wishes to see you.”
Pierce felt the flesh tingle on the back of his neck. He followed Bangida inside the prison to an office on the ground floor.
Bangida knocked on its door. “Yes,” a deep voice said brusquely, and Bangida let Pierce in.
The man at the desk was massive in every dimension. He examined Pierce in silence, his visible eye conveying an indifference of feeling so profound that Pierce could have been looking into the eye of a bird. The one other man in whom Pierce had seen this quality, a Serbian now condemned to life in prison, had ordered the slaughter of thousands; Pierce, his prosecutor, had wished he could seek the death penalty. Staring back at Okimbo, Pierce envisioned this man slitting the throat of a girl whose usefulness to him was done. “You wish to see Okari,” Okimbo said. “Have you smelled him?”
“Yes,” Pierce said with an edge in his voice. “Have you?”
Okimbo stood abruptly, his large fingers splayed on the desk as he pushed himself up. He stared at Pierce as though ready to close the space between them. “There are those who wish you to speak with Okari. That would seem to require the retention of your tongue.”
At once Pierce felt Michael Gladstone’s unseen hand. “How fortunate.”
Okimbo’s smile was no smile at all. “Should your luck continue, you’ll return to America intact. But Marissa Okari will remain with us. Remember that.”
Anger overcame Pierce’s fear. “Marissa Okari,” he said succinctly, “will remain an American citizen. She’s not as defenseless as a fifteen-year-old girl. You remember that.”
Okimbo’s dark eye became opaque, as though Pierce’s words had driven him to a place beyond human reach. Every instinct in Pierce urged him to escape. Turning, he went out the door, expecting to hear Okimbo behind him. But the only sound besides his footsteps was their echo off the stone walls of the prison.
THE NEXT SOUND Pierce heard was the rattle of chains. Stiffly, Bobby Okari rose from the filth around him, gripping the bars for leverage. “Damon?” he said feebly.
Pierce was filled with pity. “Do you know about Karama’s speech?”
“Yes. They play it for me every night, again and again.”
Pierce placed his hand over Bobby’s. “I don’t have much time. But for whatever it’s worth, Michael Gladstone’s offered to intercede.”
“Karama’s handmaiden.” Bobby shook his head. “Does he require me to go deaf, blind, and dumb?”
“Merely silent. And in some other country.” Though quiet, Pierce’s tone was urgent. “Once in America or England, you can say what you like. Your only alternative, as Gladstone knows, is to hope that my firm and I can somehow get you out of this.”
Bobby’s face hardened. “Gladstone must think a lot of me. And very little.”
“Gladstone claims to doubt your innocence. He wonders, as I do, why you didn’t condemn those lynchings. Nonetheless, he seems to prefer that you not die.”
“As well he might.” Bobby drew himself up. “This is my message to him: help free me, and things will be better for PGL. Help me salvage our land and waters, and things will be better for PGL. But don’t ask me to become a st
ranger to my people.”
Pierce could feel his own pulse. “Even for Marissa?”
“Even so.” Audibly, Bobby inhaled. “You’re afraid for her, as am I. But neither your fear for her nor mine can outweigh what you’ve seen here.”
“I’ve seen many things,” Pierce said tightly. “Including Okimbo.”
Briefly, Bobby’s eyes shut. “Two favors, then. At whatever cost to me, try to keep Marissa safe. But do not tell her of my refusal. It will cause her great pain and accomplish nothing.”
“Not nothing. If they ever let her see you, she might be more persuasive than I’ve been.”
Bobby grasped Pierce’s wrist. “Are you so willing to break a confidence, Damon? Do you wish to come between Marissa and me? That is not the act of a lawyer.”
Caught in his own conflicted feelings, Pierce could not respond. The shadow of a memory surfaced in his mind: that, on meeting Bobby Okari, he had sensed that this man’s life might not be long. But then martyrs, like believers, envision an afterlife. Damon Pierce was neither.
“Give Gladstone my answer,” Bobby told him. “And Marissa my love.”
SITTING ON THEIR patio, Marissa took Pierce’s hands in hers. Her face was drawn, her eyes haunted, as though what she had experienced was beyond the power of time to heal. It struck Pierce that he had never seen her cry.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said gently. “There’s nothing more I can do here. But even in America I may accomplish very little. My law firm may not let me take this case. The courts might not listen if I do. I have no legal right to return here, any more than you have the right to leave. Whatever I might wish, I may never see Luandia again.”
Marissa tried to muster a smile. “Think of all you’d miss.” For a moment, her throat worked, and then she spoke with fresh resolve. “I’ve already made a list for you of people I’d like you to call: human rights groups, media contacts, Luandian exiles, friends. Anyone in America who can help.”
Pierce felt the weight of all he had not told her, and of what might happen once he left. “I’ll do all I can,” he promised.
For a time, she looked at him intently, as if committing his every feature to memory. As though on impulse, she brushed her lips against his. “Then go now,” she said softly. “At least I’ll know you’re safe.”
PART III
The Amber Night
1
IT WAS LIKE AWAKENING IN ANOTHER DIMENSION.
Pierce sat in Larry Kahan’s corner office. Night had fallen; through the tall windows the lights of scattered boats blinked on the darkened bay between the city and the glittering hills of Marin County. The Asian decor around them befitted the managing partner of a fifteen-hundred-lawyer firm whose offices girded the globe, from San Francisco to London to Shanghai to Tokyo. Kahan, whose demeanor Pierce had once described as “Jewish-mandarin,” appraised him with a look of sympathy and skepticism. Pierce was in no mood for either; he had come directly from the airport after twenty-seven hours in transit. “You look like hell,” Kahan told him.
“This couldn’t wait,” Pierce answered. “Any day now Okari may be dead.”
Kahan’s eyes, almond slits in the broad planes of his Slavic face, narrowed further. “Executed by the Luandian government,” he amended. “What do you propose we do about that?”
“Two things. Let me defend Okari before this joke of a tribunal, and file a suit in federal court for the wrongful death of his father—”
“Against whom?” Kahan cut in. “This may not be my area, but I do know that you can’t sue Karama and his regime in an American court for violating international law.”
Pierce looked at him more closely. “Why do I sense, Larry, that someone got to you before me?”
“The chairman of PetroGlobal Oil,” Kahan answered bluntly. “John Colson himself. He claims you threatened the managing director of PGL with a lawsuit this firm hasn’t authorized.”
Pierce’s anxiety quickened with anger. “To get them to use their leverage with Karama—”
“In return for which Okari is unwilling to back off an inch.” The last trace of sympathy vanished from Kahan’s manner. “PGL says that any lawsuit would be slander in the guise of a pleading. Even to me, blaming PGL for the Luandian military’s actions in that village is a reach. What can you allege with any confidence?”
“Several things. PGL pays and equips the Luandian army. PGL asked it to ‘restore order,’ knowing full well that might mean a massacre—”
“Who else were they supposed to call? The Red Cross?”
“The army works for PGL like hired mercenaries.” Pierce’s voice rose in frustration. “Okimbo committed an earlier atrocity in the town of Lana, and PGL damn well knew that. Before this atrocity, its helicopters were used to reconnoiter Goro. The army invaded in PGL’s choppers and boats, and no doubt slaughtered the villagers with guns the company paid for. For all I know PGL’s personnel flew the copters, piloted the boats, and helped plan the operation in advance.”
Kahan shook his head. “For all you know, Damon, PGL knows nothing except that Okimbo hijacked their equipment. What does Gladstone say?”
“Exactly that—as I’m sure you already know. Did you expect him to take credit for a massacre? To state the obvious, Luandia’s not America—”
“And yet you propose suing in an American court. You’re perilously close to asking Kenyon & Walker to put its name on a lawsuit against one of this country’s most powerful corporate citizens without any basis in fact. If some jackal of a plaintiff’s lawyer did that to one of your Wall Street clients, you’d ask the judge to sanction him—”
“Wait a fucking minute,” Pierce said with real heat. “Let’s break this down.
“First, jurisdiction: under the Alien Tort Statute, a foreign national like Bobby Okari can sue an American corporation like PetroGlobal in federal court. Next, substance: the ATS allows suits for violation of international human rights norms under statutes like the Torture Victim Protection Act—which, by the way, covers murder.”
Kahan held up his hand. “According to PetroGlobal’s general counsel, PGL is exempt from suit under something called the Act of State Doctrine—”
“Jesus, Larry—how many phone calls did it take for them to feed you all this bullshit?” Pierce lowered his voice. “I know international law inside and out. On your better days, you also wouldn’t accuse me of wanting this firm to file a bogus suit. PetroGlobal is desperate to save its own ass.”
Leaning back in his chair, Kahan crossed his arms. “So they’re not objective? Neither are you, Damon. By your own admission you’re close to Okari and his wife, and the only leverage you have on Karama is through PGL. Aside from the connections you’ve already mentioned—payments, use of equipment, maybe some awareness of Okimbo’s proclivities—what do you think you’ll find to nail PGL?”
Pierce thought quickly. “Ideally? Direct payments to Okimbo before and after the massacre. Direct involvement in its planning. Direct involvement of PGL employees in the operation itself: reconnaissance, staging, and carrying it out—on Asari Day, Marissa says, she saw a white man’s face when PGL helicopters hovered overhead.” Sitting back in his chair, Pierce spoke more slowly. “Going back in time, I’d want communications between PetroGlobal, Karama, and Okimbo establishing that Okimbo can be considered an agent of PGL. In Luandia nothing gets done without someone getting paid. I’m betting there are documents that breach the supposed wall between PGL and the Luandian government.”
“Even assuming that, PGL knows all the delaying tactics you do. In what decade do you expect their lawyers to hand you the smoking gun?” Kahan’s tone became clipped. “We’re meeting here tonight because Karama can try, sentence, and execute Okari within weeks. In that time, you won’t see a single document from PGL—let alone a single witness. You’d be lucky to get a trial on the tenth anniversary of his death.”
For the first time, Pierce smiled. “That’s why I propose to ask for in-junctive relief an
d accelerated discovery. Within days, not years, I mean to depose Gladstone and PGL’s chief of security in the delta, Roos Van Daan.”
“Injunctive relief,” Kahan repeated with real astonishment. “To prevent what actions, and by whom? You can’t undo a massacre and put Dad’s head back on.”
“True. But I can enjoin PGL from fomenting further acts of violence.”
“For God’s sake—”
Pierce spoke over him: “And from collaborating in a drumhead tribunal that—on its face—violates Okari’s due process rights under international law. Stopping an unlawful execution is certainly grounds for injunctive relief. Executing Bobby without due process is an ‘extrajudicial killing’ under the Torture Victims Protection Act. There’s no unbiased tribunal, right of appeal, or rational process for amnesty, pardon, or commutation of sentence. Even if there were, a trial in thirty days denies him the time for an adequate defense.
“Karama’s created a mutation outside any recognized system of law. It’s a pretext for murder dressed in a black robe. Henry the Eighth’s decapitated wives had more rights than this.”
Kahan shook his head. “No American court has the power to enjoin Karama, or to bar PGL from cooperating in a foreign legal proceeding—especially one arising from the murder of its own employees. Why are any flaws the fault of PGL?”
“Because PGL is completely entwined with Karama. In fact, I’m almost certain that it could stop this trial altogether.”
Kahan pressed his lips together. “What if the evidence shows that Okari planned these murders?”
Pierce shot him a look of incredulity. “What ‘evidence’ would you believe in a tribunal like this? There’s every chance any ‘proof’ against Bobby will be trumped up. And if PGL gets drawn into its fabrication, that’s another violation of due process.
“Look, every rogue regime uses show trials to help perpetrate its crimes. The Nazis did it; the Soviets did it; the Russians and Chinese still do it. And every one of them requires the cooperation of outsiders. Somewhere in the process PGL will get drawn into the sewage.”
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