CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Growing up in Gisenyi, a war-torn village outside the capital of Rwanda, Adisah Boomul understood tumult, suffering and ignorance.
Violence acted as a daily occurrence long before mayhem brought his nation fame. Being born in a corrupt land motivated Adisah to work harder, study more, focus on getting out. Being Tutsi, the effort could have saved his life.
He’d been living in America when the Batswani refugees rebelled against their government. Men gathered to chant, march, protest their limited food, porous shelters, and inhumane treatment. They were gunned down with rifle fire, sparking a revolution. For years, the entire population lived at risk of militant bombings and the equally volatile military sweeps.
The insurgency ended in 1993, when President Junvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front signed a power-sharing agreement. Months later, rebels shot down an airplane carrying President Habyarimana and Burundian President Ntaryamira. This instigated the greatest genocide in the continents history.
The Hutu, a majority underclass distinguished by darker skin and short stature, attempted to eradicate their Tutsi neighbor using door-to-door sweeps, mob raids, and military assistance.
In 1994, during a largely ignored, three-month stampede of murder, mutilation, and rape, the Hutu’s killed, overwhelming with machete, more than eight hundred thousand of their fellow citizens. He thanked God, near daily, he avoided that mayhem.
His father’s position on the counsel and his mother having full-time employment as a nurse allowed him to be home-schooled. On the three days a week when both his mother and father worked, Adisah accompanied her during each twelve hour shift.
The awe of the Hospice ward sent him into the field of electronics. He still remembered his amazement at learning that the wheezing, buzzing, and chiming machines all around him kept people alive. The reality that small boxes of electricity sustained organic life sent shockwaves of possibilities through his young mind.
A lifetime later, he opened the Lobby to the infirmed the world over, created a haven for those who suffered.
The current gunfire outside the Atrium, and the people hustling and fretting around him, transported the elderly Adisah back to the walks along dirt streets with his mother. Back then, it seemed the simple act of holding her hand blotted out all horrors.
A new-age Christian, she believed everything men created, or would create, came as a gift from God. Adisah wondered how she’d view a machine that trapped souls, instigated mass suicides, and social outrage. He assumed her initial frown would curl into a grin. She identified positives in everything; always predicted beneficial side-effects, considered each morning progress.
“What should we do?” Dalton’s deep voice pulled Adisah from thoughts of his mother.
He squinted and looked up at his loyal friend. He knew Dalton, along with most of his staff, viewed him as invincible, but he felt his age. Discomfort accompanied the simplest movements. Sleep either eluded him, or took hold at inappropriate times. His sight was dwindling; incontinence lie on the horizon.
Currently, he rested on a maroon sofa in the center of a serenely decorated room. Seven years ago, this section of the Atrium bustled with clients eager to enter the secretive Lobby.
Gone were the glossy tiles and company walls. Now, the same stinkwood flooring he had in his La Berce condo decorated the floor. A koi fish pond and a cascading waterfall created the main attraction to the community center.
Kids of all ages huddled around that pond, tossed food to the fish. When a gun cracked especially close, drawing a scream, and everyone’s attention, one of the mothers pointed out a certain fish, another oohed at a splash. The distraction worked for the young, but the level of anxiety climbed with the person’s age, climaxing with wide-eyed adults, who suspected, all too clearly, that despite the immense security, Eridu had been overrun.
Dalton positioned himself in front of his employer. “Some of the people are sneaking up to the access rooms. I don’t have to tell you their objectives.” He sought out the pond, “People want to know your thoughts.”
THWACK, glass shards tinkled upon the stinkwood. A bullet had punched through the protective glass on the front wall.
Adisah glanced at where the projectile had entered. The aim had either been errant, or meant as a warning.
The invaders fully surrounded the old Atrium an hour ago. Demands from a bullhorn started thirty minutes after that.
The squawk on the bullhorn. “We ain’t gonna wait all day.”
“Let those who want to enter the Lobby go,” Adisah said as he kept his gaze on the ray of sunlight passing through the bullet hole. It epitomized the view of life he’d adopted from his mother. Every act, no matter how horrible, forwarded humanity toward a more positive future. Evil never prevailed. Everything, to differentiating degrees, ushered goodness. This pattern long ago revealed God’s existence to him.
Though nowhere near the cost of the pain and suffering, even the holocaust created a light. It unified a fractured people, alerted the world to the detriments of apathy, and defeating the Nazi’s filled the Allies with a generational pride.
On the opposite end, guilt reshaped German philosophy. They learned to stand up against injustice, regardless of personal consequences.
Adisah knew, when the next human atrocity that edged toward the magnitude of the holocaust arose, the German people would oppose it to their last citizen.
Dalton leaned closer, spoke in whisper, “Some parents are taking their children up there.”
“That’s their right,” Adisah said. He then searched Dalton’s distraught face. “Are you seeking my permission to join them?”
Dalton bolted upright, “Of course not. I don’t leave your side, you know that.”
The firearm at Dalton’s hip smelled of cordite. Second degree burns charred his left hand. Adisah heard men talking about how Dalton emptied a rifle, expended two of the pistol clips, and killed several of the intruders as he guided a small group from La Berce, first in a convoy, then on foot.
Another member of his security team approached, pulled Dalton aside, and whispered in his ear.
“Go in peace, brother,” Dalton said. “He understands your worry. Wishes you well.”
The dark-skinned man who had whispered at Dalton stared at Adisah a moment, sorrow evident on his features. He moved to a crowd, spread a message that drew many glances, then the group hurried to the elevators.
Adisah would pray for them. Evidence abounded that the invaders lacked an interest in prisoners. They arrived for a duck hunt.
A squawk. The bullhorn. “Come out with your hands up, slowly, and no one will be hurt.”
Adisah wanted to believe them, yet he always trusted his eyes over another person’s mouth. That saying had applied to judging each person for themselves, based on their merits, regardless of their past. He imagined it applied to this situation, but saw few alternate options.
An argument existed that Adisah, through his dream to help those suffering, instigated this round of horror. Imagining the wonder that would follow a global strife of this depth kept him from wallowing in shame.
“We have an active phone line,” a man yelled from behind Adisah, near the desk.
“Get us some damn help,” Dalton barked. “The contact numbers are next to the phone.”
“I can’t get an outside line.” The man shook his head in frustration. “But we have an incoming call.”
“Answer it,” Adisah said. To Dalton, he motioned to the front door. “Tell them to stay calm. We have women and children inside. I will speak with them if that is their wish.”
Dalton pointed to a tall, wiry man with cornrows and pantomimed to his undershirt. “Go wave that in the doorway.”
The man removed both of his shirts, placed the outer one back on and held the white undershirt above his head as he crept toward the front door.
Adisah extended his arm in a plea for Dalton’s assistance in standing. Once given, he shuffled to the phone.
The man with the cornrows opened the door, exited with the white shirt held high.
Adisah waited for a rifle report. Hearing none presented a good sign. The man yelled their impending concession. The bullhorn reminded them, “They ain’t got all day.”
Everyone’s eyes stayed glued on Adisah. Many considered him an icon, the most accomplished African American in recent history, easily the wealthiest.
Behind the desk, he stared at the blinking phone line, and then to the people around him. “I am sorry to have placed you all in harm’s way,” he said. “I cannot promise to know the intentions of the men outside. But I enter negotiations seeking your fair treatment. If you wish to join those that went upstairs, I will not find fault in your decision. We all walk our own path. Each one leads to a brighter future.”
A few of his staff gathered their loved ones into small huddles, chatted privately. A few more shuffled down the main hall toward the elevator, nodding terse smiles or keeping their heads down and feet moving as they passed. Many more stayed, and for reasons Adisah wouldn’t attempt to articulate, he considered that a good thing. Examining the faces of the remaining people, he lifted the receiver.
He listened for a moment and then agreed. Listened, agreed. Listened, agreed. Disconnected.
Adisah spoke softly to Dalton, “You must understand, any mercy bestowed upon us is a blessing. Our only option is to trust their word.”
“We have options,” Dalton said. “We send the women and children to the rear of the building and we make a stand. There are twelve highly trained-”
“Yes, I understand your thinking. However, they have assured me that if I surrender. They will harm no one. And I have agreed. Doing this ends this part, allows us to begin another; bringing us closer to a return of harmony for the young ones.”
“Don’t go,” Dalton dropped his head. “I’d rather die than see you mistreated.”
“We must think of the others.” Adisah nodded at the frightened crowd. “Our actions will decide their fate.”
Dalton surveyed the group, swallowed. “How can you trust them?”
Adisah edged around the corner of the desk. “I am a wealthy man. They will demand things, I will give them, and all of this will blow over.” He rested a hand on Dalton’s enormous triceps. “I am to come out alone.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Now, now, my big friend. Your size will scare off the lot of them.”
Dalton lowered his head and spoke deliberately. “It would be my life’s honor to accompany you.”
Taking in the man’s stone features, Adisah sighed. “Very well, Dalton Lewis. Let us become captives.”
Dalton shared their intentions with the room.
The remaining people formed a procession of sorts toward the door. Each gave thanks, shared encouragement, tried to hide their concerns.
Adisah placated them with smiles and brief nods. With the door halfway open, Dalton paused. Adisah took a final look at the people he’d shared utopia with for nearly a decade. Sadness entwined his spirits, but even Eden had its downfall, and look at all the wonderful things that followed. One final smile, he stepped into the daylight.
The afternoon sun floated at the perfect spot to blind, to hide the majority of the parking lot. What he discerned beneath the golden rays shocked. Armed men pointed weapons at them from various positions: prone, kneeling, and standing. A concert crowd worth of killers.
The squawk. “Very carefully throw down your weapon.”
Using two fingers, Dalton extracted his sidearm, placed it on the ground. Once there, he raised his arms then kicked the pistol well out of lunging range.
Adisah felt centered, but his legs wobbled. The exertion from holding his arms above his head threatened to collapse him.
Glancing at Dalton, he wondered what they would do to him afterward.
A force collapsed Adisah’s chest as a boom reached his ears. He crumpled to the ground as if he’d been a robot whose power source had suddenly been severed.
Like many of the stories he’d heard, time slowed, movement stopped, but the key detail omitted from descriptions of being shot in the chest with a high-powered rifle: the overall calm. His form decorated the concrete, but he, Adisah Boomul, spiraled toward a point, gaining strength and clarity as he twirled. Whether to an end that culminated in blackness, or a warp to a new essence, he couldn’t be sure. As if in answer to his question, a woman’s hand stretched to him from the darkness. He smelled menthol gel; heard the whine and hiss of a distant nebulizer; the beep of a cardiograph; and though his face and body didn’t react, he beamed as he reached for the offered hand.
The fact that the fingers he extended were those of a young boy didn’t surprise him.
A distant knowledge of someone hollering, without a sound, made it to his senses. Adisah felt the energy of Dalton’s shocked rage, but knew the man would overcome this loss. God was good, and every action, no matter how misguided, made the future a better place.