Terminal Justice

My thanks go to Lisa Bergren and the folks at WaterBrook Press for their support and wise counsel and to my agent, Claudia Cross, for her insights and encouragement. It’s a blessing to be associated with such a professional team.

JUDITH RHODES DREW IN A LONG BREATH OF HOT dusty air and slowly held out her arms. Her heart pounded, her mouth was dry, her eyes watered in fearful anticipation. She nodded once and motioned with her outstretched hands, beckoning, imploring, encouraging. Overhead a blue sky radiated with the heat of an unforgiving sun, and only the droning of the ever-present black flies broke the still air. She nodded and motioned again, watching as the dramatic act of courage unfolded before her.

His name was Namui, a Somali national, and he was returning from the dead. Seated in a fiberglass folding chair, he stared uneasily at Judith. Slowly, apprehensively, he leaned forward, and with a courage that can only be found in the deep reservoirs of the soul, rose to his feet. Judith watched as the emaciated, naked man gently swayed like a sapling in the breeze. His skin was taut and stretched over protruding bones that looked as though they might erupt through the flesh at any moment. His eyes bulged as if in perpetual panic. A small tear of pain trickled down his cheek.

Judith knew the cause of this. She understood fully that hunger had caused this once noble man’s body to begin to cannibalize itself, consuming him from the inside out. Famine-induced hunger tortured him, robbed him of the simple strength to stand and walk. Two weeks ago Namui crawled into the Barringston Relief camp and collapsed in front of Dr. Judith Rhodes’s tent. When she first saw him, confused and straddling death, she assumed that his would be the next body in the mass grave twenty meters outside of
camp. She had been wrong. Rehydration treatment, medication, and, most of all, easily digested meals proved a strong enough lifeline to rescue Namui.

Tentatively, Namui took a step forward, rocked from side to side, then stepped forward again. It took five minutes for him to traverse the ten steps between them.
Ten steps
, Judith thought,
a fine effort
.

“Very good, Namui,” Judith exclaimed, making no effort to hide her joy. “You will be a wonderful example to the others.” That thought saddened Judith. There were indeed others in various stages of lingering death. She had seen it all and wished she had seen none of it. But this was her work, her calling. This was where she had to be.

Taking Namui by the arm, Judith gently led him back to the chair and helped him sit. “I’m going to give you another shot, Namui,” she said in Arabic as she removed a hypodermic needle from a medical bag that rested on a rickety card table nearby. He nodded slowly. It was clear that the small physical effort had exhausted him.

Judith crouched by the chair, and Namui leaned to one side baring a portion of his buttocks. Gently Judith inserted the needle and pressed the hypodermic’s plunger until the clear liquid was gone. She slowly extracted the needle and wiped the injected area with an alcohol-saturated swab. “You sit and rest for a while,” she said gently patting his bony shoulder. “Tomorrow you can try again.”

The deep rumbling of trucks rolled through the thick air. The sound made Judith’s heart skip. Trucks could mean anything from the delivery of supplies to roving bands of bandits. The trucks were being driven hard and fast. Forcing herself to turn around, she saw what she had feared: unmarked vehicles.

Judith’s heart rate climbed as men poured from the twelve trucks that thundered to a stop in the middle of the camp. Leading
the caravan was a dark blue, late model Jeep Cherokee from which a familiar looking man exited.

Ironically she had read a briefing paper on him just the night before. Holding the pages near a gas lantern she had read the file provided by the Barringston research team. The file had included a fuzzy photo of the man. He was round faced with short-cropped hair that had more gray than black. His hairline had marched back from his forehead. His skin was smooth, and his full face revealed his well-balanced diet. The photo made it clear that the only hunger that this man knew was what he saw around him. A small crescent-shaped scar etched in his right cheek verified his identity. There was no doubt in Judith’s mind: This was Mahli, a mysterious warlord whose very name was in doubt.

Judith’s first inclination was to bolt, but there was no place to run and certainly no place to hide. Shouting a warning was useless, for only a handful of the camp’s residents were capable of running; they certainly couldn’t fight.

Mahli stood next to the truck and casually surveyed the camp until his gaze rested on Judith and the skeletal figure sitting next to her. He smiled and casually strolled toward them.

“Do you speak Somali?” Mahli asked in Somali. His voice was high and nasal. Not answering, Judith looked into his eyes and saw there a wickedness.

He grabbed her chin and pulled her face close to his.

“Do you speak Somali?” Judith recoiled at his touch and slowly shook her head. She understood the phrase and maybe a handful of others, but no more.

“Arabic?” he asked. “English?”

“Both.”

“Good.” He said in English, dropping his hand and resting it on a holstered pistol at his waist. “Who are you?”

“Dr. Judith Rhodes,” she replied quietly.

“Doctor?” He laughed. “You should have stayed home and
made yourself rich off the illness of others. Here there is nothing you can do. Who is in charge?”

“I am.” She fidgeted nervously with the hypodermic in her hand.

“You? A woman?” Mahli sneered. “No wonder the West is weak.” Mahli glanced around the camp again. “I want the food and medical supplies,” he said matter-of-factly. “You will help me.”

“We don’t have enough food as it is,” Judith objected loudly.

“We have greater need,” he said calmly.

“Greater need? These people will die without the food and medicine. If you take our supplies, you will be killing them.”

“It is Allah’s will.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“Do you speak for Allah?” she asked with obvious sarcasm. The thought of losing the camp’s supplies had momentarily erased Judith’s caution.

At first Mahli did not respond. He weighed Judith’s insolence and then sighed heavily. “These people do not matter,” he said with a wave of his arm. “These are the …” He paused, searching for the right phrase in English. “Worthless. They will soon fertilize the earth.”

A wave of anger surged inside Judith. She had to stop this but had no idea how.

“We could use a doctor,” he said softly. “Especially a doctor as attractive as you.”

“What would your Allah say?” Her voice shook with renewed fear.

“We are all human and have our needs.”

“I am of more use here,” she said, quavering.

“We have many uses for you.” He reached forward and caressed her cheek.

Judith closed her eyes and tensed.

“Look at me,” Mahli shouted fiercely enough to make her ears ring.

Judith’s eyes snapped open. What she saw chilled her. A hand,
black and cadaverous, had grabbed Mahli by the wrist. She was paralyzed by the phenomenal act of courage. Namui, the man who moments ago had worked himself to near exhaustion walking three meters, was attempting to rescue her from her tormentor. It was a hopeless act, a futile act, and the most gallant act she had ever witnessed.

With a sudden scream of rage, Mahli viciously jerked his hand away from Namui. The sudden force of the movement was too much for the man’s hunger-enervated bones. There was an audible snap, and Namui fell from the chair to the hard ground. Slowly he reached for his broken arm with his other hand. The jagged edge of his radius protruded from the skin. He let out a low and mournful moan that immediately brought Judith to tears. The omnipresent flies swarmed around the fresh, warm blood.

“Namui!” Judith screamed and started for him, but before she could take the two steps necessary to reach him, a hand grabbed her by the hair and viciously snapped her backward.

Judith looked at Mahli in horror. She watched his eyes narrow as he pulled the pistol from its holster. “No,” she cried. Mahli pointed the weapon at the fallen man. Her mind shouted that it was foolish to resist, but Judith had stopped listening to her mind. She now heard only her heart, and her heart compelled her to act. She lunged, not to Namui’s side, but at Mahli. She attacked with a courage forged of fear and love and struck with the only weapon she had at hand: the syringe.

Without thought and with startling speed, Judith swung the syringe at the face of Mahli plunging the needle through his left cheek. The hypodermic pierced the tender flesh and continued into his tongue.

Mahli howled in pain and swung the revolver around, striking Judith in the jaw. Judith heard her mandible crack. She fell to the ground, her hands covering her face. Mahli’s scream brought his men sprinting to his aid, but he waved them off with a quick gesture. Judith watched as Mahli slowly reached up to the syringe and
smoothly withdrew its needle from his face. He studied it for a moment then dropped it to the ground.

Mahli stepped next to the fallen Judith and gazed down at her in fury. She held her jaw, blood trickling from her mouth, dripping to the parched earth. With agonizing deliberateness, Mahli raised the gun and pointed its barrel at Namui. A second later the pistol’s loud report filled the air. The flies buzzed into the air and quickly settled again.

Judith wept. She wept for Namui, whose journey had ended in an act of bravery and whose courage had been stopped by an act of cruelty. She wept for her impotence to stop the inhumanity.

Removing her hands from her face, Judith saw the barrel of Mahli’s gun pointed at her. She said nothing as his finger tightened on the trigger.