ECLIPSE (44 page)

Femu nodded. “Yes, sir. I am very sorry.”

Turning his back to Femu, Ngara said dismissively, “No further questions.”

Standing, Pierce remained by the table. “What did they do to you in prison?”

The witness blanched. “Nothing.”

Femu watched Pierce as though expecting him to challenge this. Instead, Pierce asked, “When did you open the bank account mentioned a minute ago?”

Though the witness’s mouth opened, he was momentarily silent. “I can’t remember.”

“This year? Or before that?”

The witness shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Do you remember
where
you opened it?”

“No.”

Pierce nodded. Softly, he asked, “Because you never opened an account?”

The witness hugged himself, as though the courtroom had turned cold. “I did.”

“How much money was in it?”

“I can’t remember.”

Pausing, Pierce let the gallery absorb this. “The man you say supplied this money, what was his name?”

“He didn’t say.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know.” Femu gazed at the ceiling. “Tall, with short hair. Thin.”

“How old did he appear to be?”

“I don’t know.” Femu paused. “Maybe in his thirties?”

Pierce smiled faintly. “Sounds a lot like Mr. Ngara. Would you say they resembled each other?”

From the gallery came a cynical laugh. Briefly, the witness stole a glance at Ngara. “I can’t say,” he mumbled.

“Then let’s go back to your prior testimony. Among other things, you said that a white man flew Colonel Okimbo to the staging area outside Goro. Did you get that from the document you just identified?”

Femu hesitated. “Yes.”

Pierce stepped forward, holding out the complaint. When Femu took it from him, his hand trembled. Calmly, Pierce said, “Show me where.”

Femu fumbled with the pages. In suffocating silence Pierce returned to the defense table, studying Ngara while awaiting Femu’s inevitable answer. In a muffled voice, Femu said, “I can’t find this.”

“That’s because it isn’t there. So how did you know to say a white man came with Okimbo?”

Femu shrugged helplessly. “I guess the stranger told me to say a white man.”

“Did he show you a picture?”

Femu’s face was a portrait of confusion. “I don’t remember.”

“Then how did you know what he looked like?”

For a long moment, Femu simply shook his head, confused. “Objection,” Ngara said. “The witness now says no such man exists.”

Pierce kept staring at Femu. “And yet he identified Van Daan in court. Out of all the
oyibos
in the courtroom, Mr. Femu, how did you pick out the man you said was with Okimbo?”

Femu gave Pierce a pleading look. “You pointed to him.”

“And you recognized him,” Pierce said softly. “How else could you have known Van Daan wasn’t in his office, surrounded by coworkers, when you were in Goro?”

“Is that a question?” Ngara asked sharply.

“Yes.” Pierce turned to him with open disdain. “As you know, it’s also the truth.”

“You will not disparage counsel,” Orta snapped. “Objection sustained.”

Pierce ignored this. “If you falsely identified Van Daan,” he asked Femu, “how could you know he wouldn’t have an airtight alibi?”

The witness held out his hands in entreaty. “I’m confused now.”

“You’re not confused, Mr. Femu. You’re afraid.”

Femu glanced at Okimbo. “No, sir.”

“Yes,” Pierce responded quietly. “You and I can go over your testimony, bit by bit, until you’re forced to admit that your story today is a lie. So why don’t you tell me what Okimbo did to you in prison?”

The witness gaped at him. Pierce felt Bobby grasp his arm.
“Enough.”

Pierce turned, inclining his head to whisper. Bobby’s eyes were suffused with pain. “I know too well what Femu can expect,” Bobby murmured, “You’re signing his death warrant.”

“He’s signing yours,” Pierce snapped. “Femu is dead already.”

“Not by my hands. This man did his best.” Bobby’s voice was low and intense. “Karama has decided my fate. Ngara knows it; so does Orta. Let their victim go.”

Slowly, Pierce exhaled. After a moment, he turned to Orta, “No further questions.”

With a satisfied expression, Orta folded his hands on his stomach. “You may step down, Private Femu.”

Unsteadily, the witness stood. Two Luandian soldiers removed him from the court. Bobby watched him vanish with a look of sympathy and dread. “Your Honor,” Ngara said, “I now wish to oppose Mr. Pierce’s latest motion for recess. It’s clear that the defense, not the prosecution, has offered perjured testimony. The sole witness to this so-called massacre has now refuted his slander; therefore, the events at Goro should have no place in this proceeding.” Ngara’s tone became imperative. “As a predicate to ruling on this recess, the tribunal should strike from the record all testimony regarding Okari’s arrest and bar any further evidence on that subject.”

Helpless, Pierce knew that he was witnessing a legal choreography synchronized before the hearing. “Now for Mr. Pierce’s request,” Ngara continued. “PGL claims to be concerned about the conduct of an employee. But Colonel Okimbo has affirmed that no impropriety occurred. So why does PGL seek delay?” The prosecutor’s voice throbbed with theatrical outrage. “Because PGL has been threatened by a judge in the United States who is pushing the rogue lawsuit used as a template for Private Femu’s perjury. If counsel has anything truthful to offer us, he should do so now.”

Orta nodded his approval. “Have you any response, Mr. Pierce?”

Pierce fought to rein in his anger. “Yes. First, Femu was plainly lying today. Second, Van Daan paid all three witnesses to Mr. Okari’s supposed
guilt. Third, the memoranda from Okimbo to Van Daan show that both men were involved in an operation against Goro planned prior to the lynchings.” Pierce paused, his stare challenging the tribunal. “Unless these are forgeries, the truth is clear. Our request for a handwriting expert is still before the court. How does this tribunal rule?”

Orta looked dyspeptic. “The tribunal will confer in chambers,” he said at length. “After that, we will announce our ruling.”

He banged the gavel. In the tumult that followed, Pierce turned to Marissa. The fear in her eyes was terrible to see.

W
ITHIN TEN MINUTES,
the judges returned.

Nubola looked commanding, Uza sickly; it occurred to Pierce that he had not spoken aloud in court. Sitting between them, Orta read in a monotone from a document that, Pierce felt certain, had been prepared by Ngara before this morning’s session: “Based on Private Femu’s recantation, the tribunal will strike from the record any references to the events relating to the defendant’s arrest, and will entertain no further testimony on that subject. For this reason, we deny Mr. Pierce’s request for a handwriting specialist.

“This leaves the defendant’s request for a recess pending an investigation by PGL. In principal part, that request relies on the assertions regarding Goro we now have ruled irrelevant. Moreover, the credibility of Mr. Van Daan does not relate to that of Colonel Okimbo or Messrs. Joba, Tulu, and Aboh.” After a pause, Orta tried to infuse the written words with indignation. “As for PGL’s intervention, we do not exist to rescue it from the unjust acts of an American court. Nor is this tribunal within the jurisdiction of the United States judicial system. We will tolerate no foreign meddling in these proceedings—especially where, as that judicial system itself recognizes, terrorist threats to national security require special processes. Motion denied.” Looking up, Orta stared at Pierce. “You will confine yourself to refuting the evidence that Mr. Okari ordered the murder of three fellow Luandians.”

Pierce stood. “What evidence? There is none. I have no witness to refute what the prosecution never tried to show: who murdered these oil workers, and that those unknown persons acted on Mr. Okari’s orders—”

“Not so,” Orta interjected. “The testimony of three Asari men establishes a prima facie case that Mr. Okari issued such orders.”

“To
whom,
Your Honor?”

“Perhaps Okari can tell us,” Ngara interjected. “If the defendant wishes to refute this testimony, he can speak for himself.”

“I will,”
Turning, Pierce saw Bobby push himself up. Though the effort seemed to exhaust him, he spoke with passion. “I will not demean myself by answering these charges unless I am free to describe the massacre of my people. If this tribunal does not allow me to do so, it is because your purpose is to bury me along with the truth. I will not join you as a bit player in Karama’s charade—”

Orta banged his gavel. “Sit, or I will find you in contempt of this tribunal.”

“I will gladly sit,” Bobby responded. “But contempt of
this
tribunal is impossible.”

A gasp issued from the gallery. Glowering, Orta told Pierce, “You will control your client or go to jail with him. Okari declines to refute the charges against him. Produce another witness, or be done.”

Glancing at Marissa, Pierce saw Bobby shake his head. Pierce walked over to him. “I won’t allow this,” Bobby said, “and you shouldn’t want it. To call Marissa would jeopardize her further. Whatever becomes of me, I want her to survive.”

There was nothing for Pierce to say. Facing Orta, he said quietly, “We have no other witnesses. Do what you will.”

Raising his head, Orta tried to gather the remnants of his dignity. “We will entertain closing arguments at nine
A.M.
tomorrow,” he intoned. “Then we will render our verdict.”

I
T WAS PAST MIDNIGHT, BUT NO ONE AT THE
O
KARIS’ COMPOUND SLEPT.

In her bedroom, Marissa called and e-mailed media contacts and supporters in America, alerting them to the fateful pronouncement awaiting Bobby in the morning. Working beside Pierce in Bobby’s study, Atiku Bara alerted diplomatic contacts in Europe and among the nations of the British Commonwealth, seeking more visible support for Bobby in the rush of events. Shutting his mind to its hopelessness, Pierce prepared the final argument, logical but impassioned, that he would have given in an American court. Turning off his cell phone, Bara asked Pierce, “What will you say?”

“That he’s innocent. What else is there to say?”

Bara cast a troubled gaze at the carpet. “He should have said so himself.”

“To what end?”

“For the world to hear to hear.” Bara’s eyes met Pierce’s. “For me to hear.”

The tenor of his voice filled Pierce with unease. “What are you saying, Atiku?”

Bara drew a breath. “Lucky Joba wasn’t lying. The phone call he heard Bobby making was to me.”

Pierce sat back, stunned. All he could do was stare at Bara, trying to reintegrate his sense of this man in light of the secret he had carried. “He was just so tired,” Bara murmured. “Worried the youth were slipping away—”

“According to Joba,” Pierce cut in, “Bobby said there must be deaths.”

“To me, he was speaking out of anguish, less for himself than imagining the mind of an Asari youth.” Bara’s tone was soft. “Obviously, I issued no orders. Almost as soon as Bobby said this I could feel his regret. We never spoke of it again.”

“Not even after the lynchings?”

“There was too much for us to talk about. Perhaps he didn’t remember; perhaps he did not wish to.”

Pierce rubbed his eyes. The truth behind his sense that Bara concealed secrets now seemed clear. The burden Bara carried was his fierce loyalty to Bobby; the information he had withheld from Pierce concerned his own doubts. “According to Eric Aboh,” Pierce said, “Bobby told him something similar—if more ambiguous.”

“True. But Eric is jealous and a coward. All it would take is a healthy fear of Okimbo to cause him to enrich his testimony.”

For a moment Pierce was quiet, torn between dread of his question and the need to hear the answer. “Do you think Bobby ordered the killings? Or said anything that might have encouraged them?”

Bara considered his answer. “For all the time I’ve known him, Bobby’s commitment to nonviolence has seemed absolute. In my heart, I still believe this. We’ve proven that the trial is a farce, and that someone else may well have ordered those men hung. Perhaps that is all we could do. But the barest possibility lingers that Karama and his underlings may have framed a guilty man. For Bobby’s sake, and mine, I wish this were not so.”

For me now, as well, Pierce thought. But all he said was “You’ve been a loyal friend, Atiku. You have nothing to regret.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Pierce felt an oppressive fear permeate the courtroom. Soldiers ringed the building; inside, the number of guards had doubled. As if on alert, Okimbo stood instead of sitting, positioned so that the tribunal could not help but see him. The gallery was quiet. Even the judges appeared lifeless: when Orta spoke, inviting closing arguments, his voice was barely audible. Watching, Marissa was so rigidly composed that the effort this must surely require touched Pierce more than tears.

In his closing argument, Ngara was perfunctory, as though he had lost any relish for a drama whose fraudulence was so transparent. After
reviewing the testimony against Bobby, he said, “These murders were the inevitable culmination of seditious rhetoric, secessionist ambition, and civil disobedience against the security and economic interests of the state—crimes in themselves punishable by death.” He pointed to Bobby Okari. “Now this man, so voluble in his insolence, has refused to speak to the evidence. This court has no choice but to find Bobby Okari guilty and sentence him to death.”

Sitting beside Pierce, Bara stared at the table. As Pierce gathered his notes, Bobby touched his arm, his eyes filled with intensity and purpose. “Our final words should come from me.”

There was no reason, Pierce realized, to refuse. Nodding, he stood. “As is his right, Mr. Okari wishes to speak on his own behalf.”

Orta’s features rearranged themselves: his lips pressed, his eyes narrowed, and the furrow in his forehead deepened. Then he mustered a curt nod.

Bobby stood with difficulty, resting his palms on the table for support. His gaze swept the tribunal, first resting on Nubola, then Uza, and finally Orta. Softly, he told them, “I knew that someday we would meet before they ever brought me to this place.