ECLIPSE (34 page)

“This tribunal is empowered to take Mr. Okari’s life. Yet there is no appeal from its rulings, or its verdict. Equally fatal, the tribunal is not independent of President Karama: one of its members, Colonel Nubola, is under the president’s direct authority as commander in chief.
All
of its members were selected by the president himself.” Seeing Orta’s look of outrage, Pierce spoke to him directly. “I am aware, Justice Orta, of your distinguished career. So I know that
you
are well aware that this proceeding violates the constitution of Luandia, every human rights agreement
this country has ever signed, and the basic tenets of justice that we, as lawyers, swear to uphold. The only way this court can stop these abuses is to cease to exist.”

The courtroom was completely still. As Pierce sat, Bara looked apprehensive, while Bobby eyed Justice Orta with an expression of be-musement. Orta pursed his lips, his expression conveying anger and humiliation as Ngara rose to speak. “This tribunal,” Ngara said firmly, “is an expression of our national sovereignty in the face of terrorism. What is the lynching of three men, if not an act of terror.” He glanced at Pierce with scorn. “Mr. Pierce comes to us from America, prating about due process. On what platform of moral superiority does he propose to stand? Surely not his government’s.
This
is not a secret court.
We
did not dispatch Bobby Okari to a secret prison in a foreign country.
We
did not consign him to a Guantánamo specifically designed to deprive him of rights written into the U.S. Constitution. When
we,
like America, protect our national security, we do not conceal our methods in shame.” Ngara slammed his fist on the table. “We act here, in the open, for all to see. This tribunal is
our
answer to acts of terrorism. Let Mr. Pierce reform America.”

Pierce looked at Okimbo, watching from the jury box, then snapped to a decision. “A final word, Your Honor. Mr. Ngara argues that you are proceeding ‘in the open.’ He might have added, ‘as virtual captives, surrounded by armed soldiers and supervised by Colonel Okimbo.’ The colonel is my client’s sadistic jailer, the military oppressor of the delta, a central figure in this case, and, as Mr. Okari witnessed, the perpetrator of a brutal massacre. He has no business in this courtroom. He’s here for one reason only: to ensure, through silent intimidation, that this court denies my client’s rights and covers up his own crimes.” Pierce softened his voice again. “There is only one alternative, Your Honor. To adjourn.”

Okimbo stared at Pierce and then, with great deliberation, trained his gaze on Orta. “Mr. Pierce,” the judge said reprovingly, “your security, and that of everyone here, is in the hands of Colonel Okimbo. Not two weeks ago, militiamen raided Port George and Petrol Island. And yet you cite the colonel’s presence to sully our integrity.

“You begin poorly, Mr. Pierce. Is contempt of court among the rights you claim?”

Contempt of
this
court, Pierce wanted to say, would be impossible. Instead, he responded with a calm he did not feel. “If anything I’ve said suggests a lack of respect, Your Honor, let me apologize. My intention was otherwise: by asking this tribunal to uphold Mr. Okari’s rights, I am expressing my respect for those among its members sworn as judges to do so. Please separate any offense I’ve given from your moral and legal obligation to adjourn.”

With deep unhappiness, Orta studied him. Then he turned to his colleagues, asking them to confer. The three men huddled, Orta whispering to the others. Pierce was aware of witnessing a small tragedy. Orta and Uza, surely ashamed of their role, could reclaim their dignity only by adjourning. But such defiance could have great cost to them or their families and little benefit to Okari: Karama would find more compliant judges, and the only lasting consequence would be to the men they replaced. Still, from Pierce’s point of view, any adjournment would buy time, and the embarrassment to Karama might, in some small way, facilitate the efforts to save Bobby. As though immune to what was happening around him, Bobby continued writing.

On the bench, Orta finished whispering. Judge Uza, the jaundiced skin of his face resembling parchment, briefly answered. With apparent vehemence, Colonel Nubola interrupted, and the conference broke up.

Facing the courtroom, Judge Orta spoke without inflection. “The motion is denied. Counsel for Mr. Okari may be assured that this proceeding will be conducted with full awareness of his client’s rights.”

Bobby, Pierce noted, had stopped writing and was peering intently downward; following his gaze, Pierce saw a cockroach crossing the floor between them. “Let him live,” Bobby whispered. “Someone should survive this.”

“The defendant will rise,” Judge Orta intoned.

Bobby looked up. Sighing, he stood, not without difficulty. Though he was pitifully thin, his eyes were bright, his posture straight. “How do you plead?” Orta asked him.

“Does it matter?”

The first sound of his voice, quiet but ironic, induced utter stillness before Orta instructed, “You must answer.”

“Very well.” Picking up his notepad, Bobby read:

“The judge in black clothing

Presiding over murder disguised as farce

His moral decrepitude

And legal ineptitude

Dressing a tyrant in platitudes

Cowardice masked as law.”

Bobby sat abruptly, resuming his look of emotional distance. Angrily, Orta demanded, “Do you wish to remain here? Or shall we conduct this trial without you?”

Apprehensive, Pierce stood. “My client wishes to remain, Your Honor. I ask that you enter his remarks as an elaborate plea of not guilty.”

Orta scrutinized Bobby. “The defendant pleads not guilty,” he pronounced at length, and the trial of Bobby Okari got under way.

I
N THE RECESS BEFORE THE PROSECUTION BEGAN
, P
ATRIC
N
GARA AP
proached Pierce and Bara. “You asked for the names of witnesses. Today’s are Lucky Joba and Moses Tulu.”

Bara and Pierce attempted to look puzzled; it was plain Ngara knew nothing about Sunday Opuba. “Who are they?” Pierce inquired.

“Asari youths,” Ngara answered with a satisfied expression. “They tie Okari to the lynchings.”

Instinctively, Pierce glanced toward Bobby. But his client did not hear; he was standing close to Marissa, their foreheads touching, a portrait of tenderness and restraint. Turning away, Pierce nodded to Ngara and began scribbling.

L
UCKY
J
OBA WAS
a thin, crafty-looking man in his early twenties, with close-cropped hair and a certain twitchiness of manner—as Ngara questioned him, he kept shifting in the witness stand, as though unable to find a comfortable position. Methodically, Ngara extracted his account: that he had waited outside Bobby Okari’s home in Goro, overhearing Bobby on his cell phone as he directed the murder of PGL repair workers. His climactic testimony was an almost verbatim rendition of the story Sunday Opuba had described to Pierce and Marissa. “’We must kill them now,’” he quoted Bobby as saying. “’There are repair crews working near us. It doesn’t matter who you choose as long as it is done.’”

“He’s lying,” Bobby murmured to Pierce. Stone-faced, Bara scribbled
notes; in the jury box, Okimbo rested his folded hands on his belly, his eye half shut, his expression satisfied and complacent.

Standing, Pierce walked toward Lucky Joba, conscious of the troubled expression on Justice Orta’s face. He stopped a few feet from the witness. “When this supposed conversation happened, was anyone else with Bobby?”

Joba shifted in his chair. “I saw no one.”

“What was Bobby wearing?”

Joba crossed his legs. “Why would I remember such a thing?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pierce said carelessly. “Maybe because someone told you to. Let me ask you this: who else did you tell about this conversation?”

Joba glanced at the prosecutor. “Mr. Ngara.”

Pierce smiled a little. “I meant before that.”

Joba gave Okimbo a surreptitious glance. “Colonel Okimbo,” he said at length.

“Where did that meeting occur?”

“At the barracks in Port George.”

Pierce hesitated, then decided to take a chance. “You’d seen the colonel before, hadn’t you?”

Joba looked around himself, seemingly disoriented. “He came to Elu,” he said at last. “To meet with Eric Aboh about peace with the Asari.”

“There was also a white man with Okimbo, correct?”

“Yes.”

“How would you describe him?”

Joba shrugged. “I don’t know. Big, I guess.”

Pierce moved closer. “With gray-blond hair?”

Joba stopped fidgeting. “Yes.”

“Were you present when these men met with Eric Aboh?”

“Objection,” Ngara called out. “Irrelevant. Whether the colonel met with Eric Aboh after the lynchings has nothing to do with who ordered them.”

This, Pierce knew, was the first test of Judge Orta. “Your Honor, the witness’s relationship with Colonel Okimbo, to whom he first told his story, has everything to do with its credibility. My client’s life is at stake. So is the credibility of this proceeding. I ask the court’s indulgence while I establish relevance.”

For Orta to refuse, Pierce knew, would expose him as a puppet. After glancing at Okimbo, Orta instructed Joba, “You will answer.”

“No,” the witness said finally. “I wasn’t present.”

“But you heard that Okimbo and the
oyibo
gave Eric Aboh money, yes?”

Joba hesitated. “Yes.”

Pierce felt another piece fall into place. “Aboh distributed some of that money among the Asari youth, didn’t he.”

“Eric paid us, yes.”

“And told you not to follow Bobby’s leadership.”

“Yes.”

Pierce smiled. With an air of curiosity, he asked, “How much did you make?”

Joba frowned. “I don’t remember. Maybe fifty U.S.”

“A pittance. By the way, did Eric Aboh pay you before or after you supposedly heard Bobby Okari order up a lynching?”

Joba seemed to examine the question for traps. “After.”

“And before Aboh paid you, you hadn’t told anyone at all about overhearing Mr. Okari direct the murder of PGL employees.”

Joba turned to Okimbo, as if for help. With no intervention forthcoming, he answered, “No.”

“Not even Mr. Aboh or any other Asari leader.”

“No.”

Pierce stared at him in disbelief. “Then what made you tell Okimbo rather than a fellow Asari?”

Joba fidgeted with his wristwatch. “I don’t know.”

“Let’s return to the meeting between you, Moses Tulu, and Colonel Okimbo regarding Bobby Okari. Where did it occur?”

“The barracks in Port George. In the colonel’s office.”

“Who initiated the meeting—the colonel or you?”

“I did.”

Pierce skipped a beat. “There was also an
oyibo
with Okimbo this time as well, true?”

Joba’s eyes widened, and he looked toward Okimbo again. “The colonel can’t help you,” Pierce said calmly. “You’ll have to pick an answer.”

“Yes,” Joba snapped with open hostility. “There was an
oyibo.”

“The same man who had come with Okimbo and paid Eric Aboh money?”

“Yes.”

“Is his name Roos Van Daan?”

Joba crossed his arms. “I don’t know his name.”

“But you
do
know that he works for PGL.”

Joba hesitated. “I think so, yes. This is what I heard in Elu.”

“Okay. What happened at this meeting with Okimbo and this white man?”

Joba’s shrug resembled a tic. Cautiously, he said, “I told them what I overheard Bobby saying.”

Half-turning, Pierce glanced at the prosecutor. From the intentness of Ngara’s scrutiny of the witness, Pierce guessed that the involvement of a white man, with its whiff of bribery, was an unhappy surprise. Facing the witness, he asked, “Did the
oyibo
offer to pay
you
for this testimony?”

Joba paused, then said carefully, “Expenses only.”

Pierce smiled. “Fifteen thousand U.S. dollars’ worth of expenses?”

Joba became still, as though impaled by the question. In a muted voice, he said, “I don’t remember.”

“Come off it,” Pierce snapped. “The question is whether, less than a month ago, this white man offered you fifteen thousand dollars in Okimbo’s office. Yes or no.”

“It was expenses for traveling to Port George.”

“Did the round-trip to and from Okimbo’s office cost you fifteen thousand?”

Pierce heard a quiet chuckle, Bobby Okari’s. With an expression of deep unhappiness, Orta looked from Bobby to the witness. “No,” Joba murmured.

“No?” Pierce repeated softly. “And yet the white man has already paid you five thousand U.S. dollars.”

Startled, the witness stared at Pierce, lips slightly parted. “I did not count it.”

Pierce thought swiftly. Ngara would use Moses Tulu to rehabilitate this witness; it would be best to hold back some surprises. “When you get the last ten thousand,” Pierce advised Joba, “count it. I’d hate for this
oyibo
to cheat you.”

O
N REDIRECT
, N
GARA
compelled the witness to affirm his accusation. Pierce contented himself with observing the participants: Ngara seemed
punctilious but dispirited; the two jurists, Orta and Uza, listened with looks of weary skepticism; Okimbo inspected the witness closely, as though contemplating this man’s future. Pierce did not envy Lucky Joba.

The same worry seemed to follow Moses Tulu to the witness stand: he sat with folded hands and hunched shoulders, as though wishing to become smaller. His voice was thin as he echoed Joba’s story: yes, he had been with Joba outside Bobby’s home; yes, he had heard Bobby’s directive; yes, the white man, whose name he did not know, had offered only to pay “expenses.” The last was said with so little conviction that Ngara looked as uncomfortable as his witness. When Pierce rose to cross-examine, the prosecutor eyed him with visible wariness.

Strolling toward the witness, Pierce asked, “After your first meeting with Okimbo and the white man, did you meet with them again?”