It was Sunday, yeah, Sunday, when we had stopped at a small village. Thomas and I had three Republic citizens who’d worked for news organizations in the past as guides. As well as a photographer and two thugs who were armed to the teeth and had been mercenaries in the past until Crown bought their loyalty with enough money to make them rich men in most parts of Africa.
There was a block building built sometime back in the 80s and the people of the village still used it for meetings and anything communal. Thomas had started talking to four of the oldest residents of the village and although they were nervous, when they were finally certain we weren’t mercenaries or spies, they told us a little bit about ‘The Saint.’
As I’d thought, that story of flowers springing up where she walked was bullshit. In the first place, she didn’t walk anywhere. She was in a wheelchair and usually was carried by two to four of her followers. But the people who thought she was a female Goddess made a point of planting flowers wherever she passed, and telling everyone else they had bloomed by themselves.
Of course, the old men who told us this insisted that while the flowers were planted, they grew wildly in profusion, in a way that couldn’t be explained by the rules of nature. So, they told us she was a Saint and where she walked, miracles followed, even if the miracles had to have a little human help.
We were in the middle of talking and smoking a few fragrant herbs that made everybody a little mellow when the room got real silent. I looked toward the front and there were four men there. Kids really. I think a couple were teens and the other two looked to be in their 20s. They were all carrying Kalashnikovs. They had the hardware aimed at us, and our two thugs breathed very slowly and kept their hands away from their weapons.
Two of the village elders stood up and bowed in a gesture of respect and started talking, keeping their heads down. I could tell the mercenary who looked to be the oldest – he was wearing some kind of military jacket and insignia that might have been real or bought at an Army Navy store – was the head man. His head was shaved bald and there were some kind of tribal tattoos on his skull.
Thomas tapped me on the arm and gave me the heads-down gesture, whispering that you never looked soldiers straight in the eye. It was a sign of disrespect. I kept my head down but a moment later I felt Thomas standing up and moving away from me. I heard him talking in what must have either been the local tribal dialect or some kind of lingua franca the local tribes used. The soldiers – or the head man – answered back and they spoke for a minute.
Then Thomas called to me and told me to bring my knapsack up with me. I very carefully got up and picked up the knapsack with one hand and carried it hanging down with me. The head man said something and I looked in his general direction, but not directly into his eyes.
‘They are saying they think we’re spies,’ Thomas said. ‘I showed them my paperwork from Crown and I think he can read, but it’s a little dry. Then I told him you were a famous author here to write a book about the struggles of the people for control of their natural treasures and that you would make him famous around the world. I don’t know that he’s ever had his picture taken so that’s a pretty heady concept.’
The head man said something and Thomas said, ‘Take out your book. Show him your picture on the back.’
I gave him it him, carefully, and pointed to my picture on the back. It was ‘Horseman, Ride on By.’ He smiled when he saw the cowboy on the cover. I guess the Old West has conquered the world.
That seemed to break some of the ice and Thomas went into our supplies for a few video games, some DVDs, some boxes of Godiva Chocolate and two boxes of Cuban cigars. Plus two bottles of cheap Scotch. There was a little more talking, and I thought we’d managed to slide by.
They were getting ready to leave, when the leader glanced over at our guides He said something to one of his men and they laughed. I noticed everyone else tense up. His man pointed his rifle at Juliana, part of a husband-wife team. Juliana wasn’t bad looking. A little heavy, but she had a nice body for a woman in her late 40s. She wore heavy bulky shirts and long dresses the didn’t show her legs at all. Her husband Roberto started to stand up and one of our bodyguards put his hand on his shoulder and held him in his seat.
Thomas put himself between them and held out another box of cigars, but the head man shook his head and point at Juliana again. She looked from him to Thomas and then to her husband. And I knew what was happening. The three soldiers behind the leader had their rifles trained on our two bodyguards. Thomas made a gesture and one of the body guards brought his pistol down on the back of Roberto’s head. He groaned and slumped down in his chair and the bodyguard held him, pinning his arms.
Thomas his hands up, palms out, in a gesture of appeasement and backward toward the table where we’d been sitting, keeping his eyes off the leader’s face.
‘Back up’ he whispered to me, ‘with your hands out like this. Keep smiling.’
We backed up to our chairs and sat. We looked up to see two of the soldiers with their Kalashnikovs still pointed at us, stand on either side of Juliana. One reached around her to cup her breast and then squeeze. They all laughed. The leader came up behind her and said something.
She took a deep breath and looked at her husband, who was still out. Then she looked at Thomas and lastly she looked at me. I will remember that look on the last day of my life. She turned and walked out with them. She wasn’t coerced, dragged, beaten. She walked out freely.
After a few minutes we heard jeeps driving out of the village. Roberto had begun to come to and suddenly he screamed and stood up, throwing off the bodyguard’s grip and diving toward the front door. Thomas caught him and threw him to the dirt floor. The two bodyguards bound him and gagged him as he fought. But finally he lay in the dirt crying.
Thomas read my expression and said, ‘If he had gone after her, they probably would have come back and killed us all’.
‘We have guns and men who know how to use them. I can handle one myself if needed. This time they wouldn’t catch us by surprise.’
‘There are more than four of them, and even if we killed them all, we’d be targets after only a week here. We’d never have a chance of finding The Saint.”
‘And that is so important. More important than Juliana?’
Thomas was younger than me, but at that moment he seemed very old.
‘What happened to Juliana was terrible. I was her friend too. And I’ll have to face Roberto later. But there’s nothing unusual about what just happened. Except that it happened to our friend. This happens every day. The majority of women are raped, some of them many times. There are bastards from rape all over this country. It’s a tactic to demoralize the natives, but it’s also part of the benefits package for fighters. They have free rein to rape any woman – any woman- they take a fancy to.
‘It’s been going on for years and it will keep going on. The reason it goes on is that there is no law and no order and that is because no one knows the terrible things that are done here, if not with the complicity of major governments, then their benign neglect. And the only thing that will ever stop it is public revulsion in the democracies like the U.S. and European Powers and their pressure on the Russians and Chinese. So yes, we have to find The Saint and make her the poster child for everything terrible that’s being done here.’
We followed the soldiers the next day to where they had camped. We found Juliana’s naked, scorched body on the remains of a camp fire. They had gang raped her, tossed her into a fire when they finished with her and shot her in the head, probably when she made too much noise screaming.
We buried her in a quiet grove near a stream, buried deep enough with rocks that we hoped her body wouldn’t be dug up by animals. And then we left her there.
I have found out since then that Thomas has brought down several governments and eliminated some terrible human trafficking rings around the world. He is good at what he does. But as I said, I could not do it. I still see Juliana’s fac
e in my dreams sometimes.
We made camp 20 miles away in a small clearing. They had kept Roberto bound hand and foot. When we pulled our jeep and supply truck into the clearing, our guards took him out and let him sit by our camp fire as we prepared coffee and black market K-rations, which are now the official menu for most armies in the field anywhere in the world.
Roberto had not said a word since he woke up and found Juliana gone. And no one had let him touch a weapon. They freed him to eat and drink his coffee but kept him under close observation. He still had not said a word.
I left the group and walked to the outskirts of the firelight. The area is populated well enough that big cats, other animals that can kill men, have pretty well moved out, but there are still wild dogs and hyenas and a few of the deadliest snakes in the world, as well as crocodiles and rogue bandits. So I kept a .45 on my hip and a 12 gauge shotgun in my hand as I stood looking out into the shadows.
Thomas came up behind me making enough noise that he didn’t surprise me.
‘I told you that you would see terrible things. Things you will never be able to forget. But you have a talent. You can write a book that will make others see what you’ve seen, and feel what you’ve felt. I’m good at grabbing people’s attention, but you’re going to shove this in their faces and make it impossible for them to forget what’s going on here.’
‘Your confidence in me is flattering….but…’
‘But Juliana is dead and nothing will bring her back, right?’
I turned from the shadows and looked in his old eyes.
‘Not only that. Nobody will ever pay for her murder. There will never be any closure for Roberto. The bastards who did this will go on raping and murdering and maybe live to ripe old ages. Even if we arouse public sentiment around the world, these bastards will get away with raping and murdering Juliana for no other reason – than that they could. I hate to live knowing that. I mean, I know intellectually that it happens, but this was different. I was THERE. I looked into her eyes as they took her away. I had a weapon and I did nothing.’
He came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
‘When I was a kid in school, middle school in Ohio, our English teacher had us spend a few months reading poetry. I found one I couldn’t recite word for word, but I’ll never forget what it said. It said that with three songs, an empire could be born, and a poet with three songs could bring it down. What it meant is that words are the most important things in the world. Dictators and thugs never believe that, but it’s true. They die and are forgotten and writers and poets and philosophers die and leave the world changed.’
Footsteps behind us turned us around and we saw one of the guards accompanying Roberto.
He approached Thomas and lifted his hands. They were tied together.
‘Let me go, Mr. Hightower.’
‘Roberto, we will, I promise, but let us get away from this area and give yourself sometime to-‘
‘Time won’t change anything. Juliana and I were married for 20 years, together for 25. She was a good woman. And I will avenge her.’
Thomas just shook his head.
‘How? By shooting one or two soldiers. They may kill you before that happens and you might not get close to the men who did this.’
They all did it. It doesn’t matter who I kill, or how many, I will do this. I’ll move away from this area and try to do it where I won’t be associated with you and your group. But, unless you’re prepared to kill me or keep me prisoner for the rest of your time here and that will cause problems when we run into soldiers, just give me my freedom and let me go to do what I must do.’
Even in the darkness I could see tears running down his weather-beaten cheeks. Thomas surprised me by walking to him and reaching up to wipe the tears away with his thumbs.
‘Roberto, did you hear me talking with Mr. Abbott as you approached?’
When he nodded, Thomas placed his hands on the shorter man’s shoulders.
‘I am not lying or bragging when I say that I have brought down regimes as evil as these men. In South America, in East Asia and parts of Africa. I have – or had – a world-wide audience. I have contacts in intelligence agencies in a dozen countries. I know where bodies are buried and I’ve kept track of the favors owed me.
‘I haven’t done this in a while. For years I’ve been – distracted – by personal issues, licking my own wounds and forgetting there was a world out there with far worse wounds. But, I make you a promise, Roberto. On my honor.
‘This evil will not stand. I will bring them down, with help from Mr. Abbott. Other governments, other forces that will be more – merciful and fair –will destroy the men who have preyed on your country for so long. And when the day happens, and some of these bastards who survive will be brought to justice here or in the Hague, their punishment, the firing squads, will be in Juliana’s name. And a statue will be built in the grove where she’s buried marking her death as the first step in bringing a new day.’
He put his hands on either side of Roberto’s face as if they were lovers.
‘I want you to stay alive for that day, Roberto. I want you to live to see the statue raised in Juliana’s memory. I want you to live to look in the eyes of the bastards who think they run the world before their lives are snuffed out and I want you to whisper Juliana’s name as the rifles roar. I promise you that day will come.’
‘How can you-‘
‘I can promise you that, Roberto, because I will make it happen. It is the only thing I will be living for. I should have been in places like this long ago, but I forgot how bad the world can be. Stay with me.’
We left that place in the morning and have been traveling, getting closer I think to the truth of where and What the Saint of the Flowers is. We have escaped death a dozen times, to the point that I don’t even think much about it anymore. I have been taking notes and working on rough drafts of chapters each night on the laptop Crown provided.
I sent them the manuscript of the rough draft and notes I’ve completed today and I am sending it to you as an attachment as well. If you would, hold onto them. I’ll try to send more. But I want at least several versions outside. In case something happens to me. Another writer can always be found to put it together, but they won’t know what it was like here on the ground.
I’m sorry Debbie that this will probably make you worry all the more about me, but I wanted to be honest with you if somehow there are no more messages. I know you had your doubts about my taking this assignment, and I’ve shared them many times over the last month.
But I have to tell you, I have no regrets and if the worst should happen, I want you to know I’m glad I came. I have never felt more alive in my life, and I have never done anything I feel more proud of than helping Thomas Hightower in this effort.
I have to tell you, as well, that I think of you often. You have made my recent days in Jacksonville – pleasant – to say the least. I am glad that you and Kelly and other women in Jacksonville will never have to live in the world that Juliana and her sisters do. I am glad for laws and police and courts and men like Bill Maitland. When you see him, tell him I said hello.
And finally, Debbie, I thank you for your friendship and hope you will remember me. Clint Abbott.”
She finished her work somehow, although her mind was far away. When she left she drove to her parents’ house and when told that Kelly was in her room talking to friends on the telephone, checking her Facebook page on her laptop and doing homework, she brushed by her astounded mother and opened Kelly’s room without knocking.
As Kelly slid off the bed amid phones and books and computers, Debbie grabbed her in her arms and held her tight for a moment. She let her go and stepped back.
“Is everything all right, Mom? Is Dad okay?”
She reached out with one trembling hand to trace the curve of her daughters’ cheek and said, “Everything’s fine, Baby. Everything is great.”
That night, after checking on BJ,
she lay alone in her bed staring at Clint’s portrait on the back of “Horseman, Ride On By,” thinking of Juliana and before sleep said a prayer for friends in peril far away.
November 11, 2005
Thursday, 4 P.M. EST – 9 P.M. Paris
“Bill.”
“Aline?”
“I’m sorry to be calling you during work. I’m sorry to be calling you for any reason. I’ve done enough harm to you. I told myself I would not hurt you again. I hope you have…are you alright?”
“I’m alright. You can always call me, Aline. You didn’t tear my heart out. You just went back to your husband and son. How could I blame you for that? That said, you sound upset. What’s the matter?”
“Everything is wrong.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Can you speak freely? Is Philippe around?”
“No. He’s out, but I am calling from a public phone near our home. I can’t call from my cell. He is tracing my calls. And I am sure he’s having me followed.”
I heard the unspoken in her voice.
“How bad is it, really?”
“I’m beginning to think we will not get through this.”
“How did this happen? I thought you said you would be able to-“
“I thought so too. We’ve always lived with the understanding that as long as we’re discreet and do nothing to embarrass the other, our lives away from each other do not exist.”
I listened to a voice from 3000 miles away and felt a tug that I didn’t want to feel. She had walked away from me to go back to Philippe and her son. And I had made myself accept it. It was the right thing. I had moved on to a tentative new relationship with Myra and had begun to make some sort of peace with Debbie. I had felt like my life after eight months was finally beginning to settle.
“But this time has been different. I was honest with him. I told him what had happened, that none of it was planned. We did not even know that you and he were friends until it was too late. And I ended it – our time together - to come back to him because my marriage was more important than any attraction I might feel to another man. It wasn’t just Andre that drew me back but Philippe. I do love him. Maybe differently than I did 10 years ago. But I love him.”
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