A Far Justice Read Free

time and flew down the highway, dropping its death. More planes came later. I tried to run away but couldn’t hide in the desert. I dug a hole but they found me.”
    “Come,” Aly said, taking charge and bringing Gus back to the present.
    “Have a nice day,” the man said as they walked away.
    “You mustn’t let it upset you,” Aly said. “They all claim to be victims to get money from the state. He has told the lie so often he believes it himself.”
    Gus stared straight ahead. “He was there.”
    Paris, France
    Henri Scullanois sat at his desk in Le salon de la rotonde, his office in the Quai d’Orsay, the high temple of French foreign policy. His face was expressionless but he was pleased with the thick, elegantly bound document on his desk. The title said it all.
    An Investigation into
    United States War Crimes In Iraq,
    March 19, 2003 to January 20, 2009
    The name was underneath the title in smaller type.
    Denise Du Milan
    Prosecutor
    International Criminal Court
    France’s investment in the United Nation’s International Criminal Court in the Hague had finally paid dividends, and Denise Du Milan, the court’s newly appointed prosecutor, had accomplished a near miracle. Somehow, she had triggered an investigation and overcame the inherent prejudices of the court’s Pre-Trial Division. The presiding judge hated women, another judge detested the French, and the third disliked people in general. But she had made a compelling case for the “reasonable basis” required by the Rome Statute that had created the International Criminal Court. He sensed the hand of Denise’s husband, Chrestien Du Milan, at work in the background, busily pulling strings and calling in past favors.
    He considered Chrestien Du Milan a fool, a dilettante who still played the old-fashioned game of sex and politics. But as Scullanois’s wife, Renée, had cautioned, Chrestien Du Milan was a force in French politics that could not be ignored and that a political liaison was in order. That was her shorthand way of telling Scullanois she was sleeping with Du Milan. His intercom buzzed. “Minister,” his secretary said, “Madam Prosecutor Du Milan is here.”
    “Please show her right in,” Scullanois said. He stood in front of his desk and the historical grandeur of the room engulfed him. Sunlight streamed through the large bay windows at his back, backlighting the Minister of Foreign Affairs with a halo. His secretary escorted Denise Du Milan through the massive double doors and quickly withdrew. As always, Scullanois tried to stand more erect when he saw Denise. She was tall and thin with a wild mane of dark auburn hair gathered at the back of her neck. At thirty-six, she was considered one of the most beautiful women in France and fashion magazines were acutely interested in whatever she was wearing. It was an expense Chrestien Du Milan gladly bore.
    They ritually bussed each other’s cheeks, and Scullanois motioned to the two exquisite antique chairs by the bay windows “The court’s approval of your petition for investigation has astounded us all. And someday, you must tell me how you deal with the Dutch. They are so, ah, so boringly bored.”
    She gave him a ravishing smile. “The Dutch can be a bit provincial. Thank God the court is more cosmopolitan. Fortunately, everyone on the court fully understands the need to bring the Americans to justice, especially after the wretched Iraqi affair.”
    Scullanois carefully considered his next words and relied on Renée’s advice. “I have tried to seek a common ground and return them to the community of nations, but I have not been successful. They are so full of themselves – and dismissive of all others as they blunder through the world. They cannot ignore us as if we were small, willful children.”
    Denise arched an eyebrow. Chrestien had said the same thing the evening before, and although she hadn’t asked, she suspected that he had been with Scullanois’s wife. The