Code Name: Camelot (Noah Wolf #1)(14)
“Sergeant Foster,” she said excitedly. “I’ve been trying to get word to you for two weeks now that I got myself transferred back to the states. I’m actually in Missouri, at Fort Leonard Wood, but since I’m still officially assigned to your case I can come to visit you anytime you need me to. Sit down, sit down!”
She hurried around to her side of the table and took her chair, while Noah sat down in his own.
“So, how are you doing?” Mathers asked. “Anybody mistreating you in here? Any threats, beatings, anything like that?”
Noah shook his head. “No, nothing at all,” he said. “I’m doing well. I get to read, work out, rest when I want to. This whole death row thing isn’t all that bad, to be honest. Well, except for the fact that it comes to an unhappy ending.”
Mathers rolled her eyes. “Do you ever take anything seriously? Listen, I’ve been working on the appeal, and I finally managed to get hold of your psychological records. The problem is that they don’t show you having any serious troubling issues. This histrionic blunted affect disorder that it talks about, that’s considered a high-functioning mental condition that doesn’t prevent you from acting rationally, and even makes rational decision-making easier, because you naturally think in logical sequences.”
Noah shrugged and grinned. “Sure, as long as I’ve got somebody to copy. Rational? I wonder if there’s an accurate definition for that word. My real concern is that maybe I’m too rational, rather than irrational. To me, seeing what I saw when I got to the lieutenant and the platoon that day, I took what I considered to be rational action. I put a stop to the situation. Seems to me it’s the rest of the world acting irrationally, by trying to eliminate me from the gene pool.”
Mathers sighed, and shook her head. “I know, and I agree completely, but that doesn’t help our appeal. If the judge would actually read what this says about you, he’d know that it’s almost impossible for you to act in any manner other than rationally. That should be enough, at least, to commute your sentence to life.”
They talked it over for a couple of hours, but every idea that Lieutenant Mathers put forth was shot down by Noah’s logic. There simply didn’t seem to be a feasible way to convince the court that Noah deserved to live, after he’d already been sentenced to death. Noah did his best to comfort his attorney, who was taking it all a lot harder than he was.
“Aren’t you scared?” Mathers asked him. “Aren’t you worried about the fact that they want to take you into that room, strap you down and inject chemicals in you that will make you go to sleep forever?”
Noah’s eyebrows went up. “Why should that scare me? You know, my grandfather is a minister, and many years ago he led me through the process of becoming a Christian. If my grandfather is right, then death is only going to be a doorway from this world into Heaven. And if he’s wrong, then it’s simply going to be the end of my consciousness. I won’t feel anything, I won’t know that I’m dead, I will just come to an end. There won’t be any pain, there won’t be any sensations at all, because there won’t be any me. So you tell me, what is there to fear in death?”
The lieutenant’s eyes were wide. “What is there to fear? Maybe nothing, for you, but what about the people you leave behind? What about the people who will hurt and grieve because you’re gone? Aren’t there people out there who depend on you?”
“No, not really,” Noah said. “I have very few friends, and my grandparents are the only family I have left. They claim to be happy to hear from me now and then, but they don’t want to be close because I scare them. Being a minister, my grandfather simply can’t understand someone who doesn’t have the capacity to love inside him, so to him, I must seem like some sort of demon. Whatever the case, I’m pretty much alone in this world, and while those few friends might think it’s sad that I’m gone, we’re not so close that it would bother them for more than a couple of hours.”
Mathers shook her head. “Sergeant Foster,” she said, “it will bother me. I know, down deep inside my heart, I know that you are innocent of the things you were convicted of doing. I know that, while some people might think your psychological issues make you a problem, the truth is that you are probably one of the finest men I’ve ever met, so if these monsters manage to do what they want to do, and take you down the hall and execute you, then you can be certain that there will be at least one person out here who will mourn your passing.” Mathers wiped furiously at her eyes, at the tears that were leaking out of them. She began gathering her notes. “Anyway—I’ll be back in about two weeks, and hopefully I’ll have some more ideas. If it’s possible at all, I’m going to find a way to keep you alive.”
Noah looked at her, and smiled. “Something I need you to understand,” he said. “Just because I don’t fear death, I don’t want you to think that I welcome it. I still have a survival instinct, so if you come up with something that will work, then trust me, I’m all for it. Good luck, Lieutenant Mathers, for both our sakes.”
Noah knocked on the door, and the guard escorted him back to his room. When he got there, he sat down and thought about Lieutenant Mathers and her determination to stop his execution. While a part of him hoped she would succeed, another part was fairly sure that she would not, and he realized that when that final day arrived and he took that last walk down the hall, it would be she who truly suffered, rather than himself.