Terminal Justice (5 page)

The picture of A.J. rescuing Timmy from a couple of thugs didn’t surprise David. A.J. seemed the rescuing type.

“I missed you,” Timmy piped in. “You weren’t in the office when I went to get the trash.”

“I’ve been out to meetings, Timmy. I missed you too. Tell you what. Let me take you out for hamburgers tonight, and we’ll stop by the arcade and you can play some games.”

“Superheroes! Can I play Superheroes and drive the race-car game too?”

“If you finish your work, yes.”

“Cool! Yes! Neat!” Timmy was ecstatic. “I’ll get to work right away.” Timmy stepped from the office but immediately bounded back in, hugged A.J., and then bounded back out.

“I don’t think my ribs will ever be the same,” A.J. said rubbing his side. “That boy is about as strong as they get.”

“So I found out,” David replied as he rubbed his shoulder.

“But the strongest thing about Timmy is his heart,” A.J. said. “I’ve never seen anyone who can love so unconditionally and with such … enthusiasm.” Both men laughed.

“So tell me, David,” A.J. said, “how have your first two days at Barringston been? Are you finding everything you need?”

“I think I’m adjusting to corporate life, although I can’t imagine any corporation doing what you folks do here.”

“We are different, but then our work is different. Is Ava helping out?”

David nodded, “Oh, yes. She’s great. In many ways she’s been my guiding light.”

“Good. She’s one of the best. If you need anything, she can get it.” A.J. looked at the manuscripts on David’s desk and then turned to look at the television opposite the desk. He saw his image frozen on the screen. “So what do you think?”

“Think?” David asked. “Think about what?”

“The speeches, of course.”

David hesitated. How frank should he be? He barely knew his new boss. A.J. could be the sensitive type who had trouble accepting constructive criticism. When David was a student in college, he encountered several students who responded so poorly to criticism that they would risk failing the course rather than give a simple five-minute speech.

As if he had read David’s mind, A.J. said: “No need to hesitate, I can take it.”

“It’s not that bad, A.J.,” David said with a chuckle. “Actually you’re a fine speaker with a natural talent. Your timing is good; your voice is clear and not monotone. You display a measure of presence, and your body language is unambiguous.”

“But …” A.J. prompted as he sat down opposite David’s desk.

“But in all the speeches I’ve watched, about eight, I’ve noticed that you’ve left something at home. Passion.”

“Passion?”

“Absolutely. Let me show you.” David picked up the VCR remote and pressed the rewind button. A moment later the image changed to A.J. dressed in a black tuxedo standing behind an oak lectern that was too short for his height. David provided a running commentary while the tape ran.

“First, your voice. It’s good, strong, and well projected. Your body language says you are both confident and sincere. The speech itself is pretty good, and you deliver it well. But there’s no passion. What I see here is someone giving a nice speech about an important topic. What I don’t see is someone who’s devoted his life to the eradication of hunger.”

“I see,” A.J. said, but David noticed he was puzzled.

“Look,” David continued as he leaned over the desk, “it isn’t enough to touch the audience’s mind. With material this important, your words and delivery have to reach
into
each person and squeeze their soul.”

“Squeeze their soul,” A.J. repeated.

“Absolutely,” David began to pace behind his desk. The videotape continued to play unnoticed. “People are intellectual creatures, but they are first and foremost emotional creatures. If you touch their hearts, you touch their minds. The reverse of that isn’t always true.”

“But I don’t want us to be one of those organizations that parade pictures of naked children with bloated bellies.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. Such motivations diminish soon after the pictures are gone. What I’m talking about is letting your inner man out.”

“My inner man?”

“Look, one of the reasons I came to work here was your enthusiasm. When you were telling me about the work that Barringston
Relief did, you were excited, enthusiastic, ebullient, and even effervescent.”

“That’s an awful lot of
E
s, David.”

“Sorry, I tend to alliterate when I get excited.” David took his seat and leaned over the desk. “That enthusiasm convinced me that not only is Barringston Relief unique, but so is A.J. Barringston himself. It’s that sincere enthusiasm that convinces people to believe and to participate. It’s not enough to stand before a group and tell them that thousands are dying daily. We live in a callous age. We see death and destruction every evening on the news, and it no longer moves us. Why? Because we saw it yesterday, and we know we’ll see it tomorrow. Death is no longer novel.”

“I see,” A.J. said contemplatively. “That’s why we can see a news report of a child being shot in a drive-by shooting and not be emotionally moved.”

“Exactly. It’s not that people don’t care, but that they no longer know how to care. They … 
we
have been desensitized to the shocking. What little understanding does get through only causes a sense of frustration and anxiety. But if you can stand before them and show them someone whose whole life has been changed by the belief that something can be done, then they will associate with you.”

“What do you mean associate with me?”

“They will come to see that yours is a zeal they can possess. They will see that people can make a difference. But they have to see you pour out your emotion, exposing your heart to them. If you do that well, then you will become a lens that can focus the problem and the solution in the audience’s mind. They will appreciate that. They will relish that. Knowing that hundreds die every hour is too much to take in, too much to believe. But to see one person totally committed to helping others is something that can be grasped.”

“You don’t think the people will confuse me with some evangelist, do you?”

“Not possible,” David replied shaking his head. “Heartfelt sincerity is as obvious to the audience as insincerity. I’m not proposing that you act out a drama or put on a performance. I’m merely suggesting that you drop that armor of formality you put on before you give a speech and let the real A.J. shine forth.”

“The real A.J.?”

“The A.J. I met in the office a few days ago. The A.J. who is gregarious and filled with passion. The A.J. who knows what needs to be done and how to do it.”

“I’m no different from the next guy. Not really.”

“A.J.,” David said quietly, “you are vastly different from the next guy, and your inability to see that proves the point. I’ve only known you for a few days, but I’ve seen enough and heard enough from the others here to know that you are motivated by the needs of others and not personal advancement.”

“You make me sound like a saint. I can assure you that I have needs and that I do think about them.”

“Of course you do, but do they motivate you? Have they formed your life? Or have the needs of others given you direction?”

A.J. sat silently chewing at his lip and rubbing his chin with his hand. David wondered if he had been too direct, too pointed, and had now offended his new boss.

“I think I see what you mean,” A.J. finally said. “But I worry about my ability to carry it off without seeming … forced.”

“It won’t be forced because you’ll just be being yourself. As far as your ability to pull it off, well, that’s what I’m here for, to write speeches and coach you.”

“Do you really think it will be useful?”

“Useful and fun,” David replied. “It’s honest, open, and convincing. From what I learned from the videotapes on your work here, there is a need to convince people to act.”

A.J. sat up in his chair. “What did you think of it?”

Now it was David’s turn to sit silently. His mind filled with the images he had seen: poverty beyond imagination; debilitating
diseases; young people whom hunger had made old before their time; the heroic efforts of people he did not know struggling to survive and the equally heroic efforts of Barringston staff members, doctors, nurses, language experts, and others giving chunks of their lives to help people in distant lands. The tape had touched David deeply, shaking him to his emotional core. He had known of famine, but he, like so many, had been too busy to pay attention.

“I think,” David said softly, “I think I’m glad to be here helping you do something about the problem.”

Ian Booth’s office couldn’t be called opulent, but then neither could it be called Spartan. It possessed just enough dark wood paneling, just enough art, and carpet just thick enough to be impressive but not gaudy. The office was a reflection of the man: prim, proper, and just right in every way, the way Booth thought an international bank president ought to be. Standing at his window that overlooked the rolling azure Caribbean Sea, he thought of his good fortune. Here he was, president of the Americas Bank, a bank that had grown from humble beginnings twenty years ago to an international operation handling money not only for individuals and businesses, but for countries as well. It was true that occasionally he had to deal with unsavory types, but every successful endeavor has its drawbacks. Besides, some of those unsavory types were weighed down with money and needed his help in placing their currency in safe and untraceable places. It was an important service for which people paid a handsome price.

A knock on the door jarred Booth from his musing. “Enter,” he said in a strong voice made all the more authoritative by his thick British accent.

“Good morning, sir,” George Barr said as he entered. Booth couldn’t help noticing the facial expression of the bank’s senior vice president. Barr was a capable man who seldom got ruffled or lost his temper. He lacked the aristocratic appearance of Booth with his
graying temples, aquiline nose, and obsidian eyes, and who, despite his average height, projected a bigger-than-life persona. Barr was the kind of man that ladies described as roly-poly, an attribute that was heightened by his short stature and a head that had long since been divorced from its hair. Despite his height and lack of sophisticated bearing, he had a sharp mind. There was nothing that he didn’t understand about banking. If there was a problem, Barr was called to facilitate a solution.

“Good morning, George,” Booth said amicably. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you look a little out of sorts. Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

“Last night was fine, sir. It’s this morning that troubles me. I was just informed by one of our internal auditors, who was conducting a routine audit of our special accounts, that something … disastrous has happened.”

“Disastrous?” Booth questioned with an invisible shudder. Such words were distressing to the bank president who could remember the BCCI scandal that rocked all the banks in the Grand Cayman Islands. In 1991 the Panamanian government brought suit against the International Credit and Commerce Bank—generally referred to as BCCI—to recover money it believed it was owed by former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega. It was alleged that BCCI had allowed Noriega to send millions of dollars abroad for safekeeping. One of the defendants was a British banker. The scandal made news in nearly every country of the world. Since Americas Bank provided the same services to its unique clientele, Booth had reason to be afraid.

“Oh, yes, yes. Disastrous indeed,” Barr said emphatically. “We have money missing. We’ve been robbed.”

“Robbed? Someone broke into the bank building?”

“Not physically, sir … electronically. They broke into our computer system and pirated away money.”

“Not possible,” Booth spat. “We have the best protected computer
system created. Someone would have an easier time breaking into the queen mother’s bedroom in Buckingham Palace than into our system.” Despite his bluster, Booth knew that billions of dollars were transferred around the world electronically every day. Sooner or later someone would turn that to his advantage.

Barr shook his head slowly. “Last night someone successfully transferred funds from our bank and placed it somewhere else. We don’t know where; we don’t know how.”

“But the alarms … the fail-safes … the tracking systems …”

“All circumvented, I’m afraid,” Barr said sadly. “Ingenious, really. Quite ingenious.”

Slowly Booth walked to his desk chair and dropped in it. “Do I want to know whose money they’ve taken?”

“It’s not good, sir. They took funds from the largest account of the Silver Dawn.”

Booth groaned. He wanted to swear, to scream obscenities until they echoed down the halls and out the doors to the ocean, but all he could muster was a simple, deep, guttural moan.

“Two hundred million American, sir,” Barr replied to the unasked question.

Booth groaned louder. “The Silver Dawn? Two hundred million dollars?”

“Yes sir.”

Leaning his head back, Booth exhaled loudly. “Of all the accounts, why the Silver Dawn?” The Silver Dawn was the most ruthless of the Irish terrorist groups and was known for its indiscriminate use of car bombs. Scores of civilians had died or been injured by their terrorism. They were not known for kindness or forgiveness. They would want more than their money back; they would want an explanation, an explanation that Booth didn’t have. “We have to get that money back, right away, George. We must do that right away, or my life is worthless. Do you understand, George? Do you understand?”