Retribution

by Michael Byars Lewis

  “Won’t you miss this when you go to pilot training? I mean, Louisiana? Tiger Stadium? Mike Anderson’s? The French Quarter?”

  Jason nodded as he swallowed. “Yes. I’ll miss it a lot.”

  She exhaled deeply and pulled out a stool to sit across the island from him.

  “Isn’t there another way to become a pilot?”

  “Huh?”

  “Jason, you know how I feel about this. I’ve never been happy about your desire to join the military. Not that I don’t appreciate our armed services. I just worry about you. It seems so dangerous. Isn’t there a way to fly without being in the military?”

  Jason set his beignet on his plate. "Mom, we've talked about this before. The Air Force provides the best pilot training in the world. But it's not about just being an Air Force pilot. I'm an officer now. I'm doing something. . . something that less than one-tenth of one percent of the population does. I'm a part of something bigger than myself, finally doing something for others. Something that they can't do for themselves. Something they won't do for themselves.

  "I've learned more about myself these past four years than I ever thought possible. I feel like I know who I am for the first time. What I'm supposed to be."

  Alicia smiled at her son, proud of the young man he’d grown to be. She knew he was right. The changes the Air Force made in him over the last four years had all been positive.

  “Is Bethany still coming this morning?”

  “Yeah, we were gonna meet here at noon, so we can all go to lunch. I called her earlier, but she didn’t answer. She’s either in the shower or on her way.”

  Alicia pursed her lips. She wanted to say something, but she knew it wasn’t her place. It wasn’t that she disliked Bethany. They got along fine. It’s just the wedding was . . . premature. They were too young, too naïve.

  “Well, I’m looking forward to it.” Alicia did look forward to it. She had a surprise for them both.

  Philip Ashford trudged through Heathrow International Airport. He slept most of the flight from JFK until visions of his wife's murder woke him with three hours to go. The Seroquel must have worn off. Tears streamed down his face as he fought to push the memory from his mind. The voices of his sons screaming seared into his consciousness, right up until they were hacked to death with a machete.

  Ashford had flagged down a flight attendant and requested a double scotch as his breathing and heartbeat increased. Alcohol calmed him when the visions started to overwhelm him. He downed two more doubles within an hour, and his nerves were finally somewhat calm.

  His flight arrived the same time as five other international flights, and the customs line was endless. The process of clearing customs sucked the life out of him. When he made it through, he waited another hour for his bags to show on the carousel, and forty-five minutes at the car rental agency.

  He climbed into his car and was immediately disoriented. The driver’s seat, of course, was on the right side of the car. And in England, cars drove on the left side of the road. The stress of the different mode of travel woke him up. Or at least made him more alert.

  When he reached the highway to Fairford Royal Air Force Base (RAFB), he began to relax, and for the first time, reflect on the past few months; and on his actions the night before.

  The civil war in Rwanda, which began in 1990, between the Rwandan Government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RFP), reached a cease-fire in 1993. That peace ended on April 6, 1994, almost two months ago.

  When the cease-fire occurred, Philip Ashford recognized the opportunity to return to Rwanda and start building his dream legacy, The Ashford School. It was a K through 12 school to be built on the outskirts of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Ashford, his wife Jenny, and their two teenage boys, Ashford junior and Max, left for Kigali as soon as the boys finished school in early May.

  They had been in-country over a month when trouble started. Ashford was in town on April 6, when it happened. The President of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana, and the President of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira were on an airplane about to land at Kigali. A missile was fired at the aircraft; everyone on board was killed. Because the two presidents were Hutus, the Rwandan government blamed the RFP for the shoot down. They used this excuse to begin a swift and systematic genocide of the Tutsis that lived in Rwanda.

  In Kigali, the elite unit of the army, the Presidential Guard, led the genocide in the capital. With the assistance of local militia and civilians, it was quick and deadly. Roadblocks were set up on all roads that led into and out of the city. Every person had to present their Rwandan I.D. when they reached these checkpoints. The Tutsis were identified and then slaughtered.

  Ashford was terrified for his family’s safety yet was unable to leave the city. For three days, he struggled to find a way to escape and return to the school to save his family.

  On April 9th, the French government authorized their military to begin Operation Amaryllis, the non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) of western citizens—approximately 1,500 of them were in Rwanda. Ashford finally received word his family was on a truck inbound to the city. His interpreter drove him to the checkpoint he was told they would enter.

  It was a surprise when he arrived at the checkpoint. Dead bodies were lined along a fence that had been erected sometime since the killing started. The stench of the rotting corpses was rancid, causing him to vomit when he first reached the area.

  They waited hours for the truck to arrive at the checkpoint. Eventually, the telltale sign of dust billowing on the horizon turned into the military truck that carried refugees. The truck stopped a hundred yards away. Ashford was surprised to see a journalist and cameraman approach the truck. The occupants of the truck were unloaded and lined up in the street. Ashford yelled at his family, but they could not hear him due to the noise around them.

  The reporter stepped forward and pointed to one of the locals. That individual was removed and stood by the cameraman. What happened next burned a picture in Ashford’s soul that could never be erased. Two young Hutus moved down the line, murdering those who had I.D.’s that identified them as Tutsis.

  Ashford could tell from where he stood his wife begged for help. He saw the reporter and cameraman speak to her. While he didn’t know what was said, the body language said everything. A French Army officer stood at the checkpoint as well. Ashford’s wife was on her knees, begging for the life of her children. Her pleading went ignored, and Philip Ashford screamed in agony as he watched his wife and sons slaughtered at the hands of the Hutus.

  He was forced on an airplane out of Kigali the next day, flown to Paris, and then placed on a plane back to New York.

  Shortly after the genocide had started on April 7th, the RFP broke the ceasefire and pushed in-country from the north and east to stop the slaughter. The killing was heavy throughout the country, and within the first six weeks, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were massacred.

  The State Department had been ineffective in achieving any sort of resolution to his family’s murder. They did file a complaint with the French government regarding the unidentified French officer. To their credit, the French were furious. It took weeks for Ashford to finally identify the man.

  Distraught over the murder of his family, Ashford plotted his revenge. The voices in his head encouraged him. Using his contacts from his construction project, he found out the identities of all the people involved. He could not reach the two men who did the actual killing, but he had their names and found their families. His initial thought was he wanted the murderers to feel the pain he felt. Philip Ashford flew back to Rwanda to kill the families of the two men who butchered his wife and children. And he did. He killed fourteen of them in all. He was unsure how he would react when he killed the first one. It turned out . . . uneventful. He wasn’t fazed. Killing the rest after that came easy, almost natural. The voices convinced him that killing others to reach his target was a necessity.

  When he still couldn’t locate the two men, Ashford paid t
he RFP seven million dollars to track them down and kill them. When they showed proof of killing them and I.D.’s verifying who they were, he paid them another seven million.

  Finding the journalists was easy. He had wondered beforehand, how he would react when faced with the men who let his wife and sons be slaughtered in the streets of Kigali.

  Again, it was natural. Instinctive. In the end, it was almost pleasurable. He had the two men watch each other, as he systematically carved them up and bled them out slowly. The tetrodotoxin did its job, the reporter and cameraman had covered their last big story.

  He questioned himself at times. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he reasoned that he had turned into the killers that he despised. The voices rationalized otherwise. He wasn’t a killer; he was a broken man seeking vengeance. Collateral damage in pursuit of his goal would happen. It was the cost of doing business.

  His vision blurred, and he rubbed his eyes, weaving erratically on the road. He gathered himself and breathed heavily. The sky was a dull, gray blanket and confused his body clock on the time of day. As he drove further from London, the traffic thinned, and he relaxed. He stopped along the way to find a ‘Loo’ at a small gas station, isolated in the hills of the countryside. Inside, he relieved himself and washed his hands and face. On the way out, he picked a newspaper; the headline mentioned the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of D-Day.

  “Morning, friend,” the clerk said from behind the counter. “Is everything all right?”

  Ashford ignored the man.

  “Are you doing okay? You look a little worse for wear.”

  “Huh?” Ashford finally looked up. “No, I’m sorry. Uh, good morning.”

  “Oh, you’re a Yank. You here for the celebration?”

  "Huh? Oh—oh, yes, I am."

  “Where you going?”

  “Fairford.”

  “Oh, a pilot, is ya?”

  “No, I’m meeting someone there. For business.”

  “I thought you was here for fun?”

  “I—I am. It’s business. I’m financing a flight.”

  The clerk eyed him with a new admiration. The Brits possess a unique love of aviation. It was airplanes that saved the country during the Battle of Britain in World War Two.

  “Quite a bit, o’ fun going on. Welcome to England, then.”

  Ashford nodded as he placed the newspaper down. There were numerous celebrations planned, but he was only focused on one.

  Alicia glanced at the clock as she cleaned the powdered sugar off the granite countertop. It was almost one o'clock, and Bethany still hadn't shown up. And she never answered the phone. Alicia could tell Jason was worried, and it wasn't about Bethany's safety. Jason sat in his favorite leather chair; his feet propped on the ottoman in front of the television. He wasn't speaking much.

  Ben had managed to wake up but could only stomach one beignet. He sat at the counter with Alicia and nursed his cup of coffee.

  “Thanks so much, Missus C,” Ben said. “This is awesome.”

  “My pleasure, Ben. Are you sure you don’t want to join us for lunch?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve got to head back to Baton Rouge. Got a lot of loose ends to tie up. I leave for pilot training a couple of weeks after the wedding.”

  Alicia shook her head. “I don’t understand why you boys think you need to get married so fast.”

  “You know Missus C, you find the right one, you don’t want to let her go.”

  Across the room, Jason shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Alicia said nothing.

  “Jason,” Ben said, “what time is Bethany supposed to show.”

  "Over an hour ago," he said, staring at the television.

  “Bro, I can tell you’re kind of freaking . . . Don’t fret brother, it’s all good.”

  “What’s all good?”

  “Bro, you don’t have to worry about her. If she were up to something, I’d know it. And I’d tell you in a heartbeat.”

  Perhaps it’s worse than she thought. If Jason and Ben were openly talking about Bethany, they were having problems. Alicia walked into the living room, not to speak, but hoped her presence would lend some comfort. The pictures that flashed on the television caught her attention.

  “Jason, turn that up,” she said.

  The story covered the mysterious explosion of a private jet over the Atlantic Ocean two days ago. The Gulfstream jet had dropped communication with the New York station, and several airliners had reported on the HF frequency they had seen an explosion around that time. The FAA released the names of the people on board earlier this morning. Carmine Romita and Robert Casey were listed as the two primary executives of Century Avionics.

  Alicia trembled as the details emerged, and the cause was still unknown.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  “Y—yes. I—I get this way anytime I hear about aviation accidents. I’m concerned about you.”

  “Don’t worry, our jets have ejection seats.”

  “That’s . . . reassuring,” she said. Her thoughts lingered on the picture of the two executives she had neither seen nor heard from in almost two decades.

  6

  June 3, 1994

  * * *

  Jason walked back into the living room to find his mother cleaning the kitchen. Ben left a few minutes earlier, leaving Jason and his mother alone in the condo. She’d been acting strange ever since the broadcast about the Gulf Stream crash in the ocean. Maybe the thought of him flying jets did worry her. Not as much as Bethany worried him. He began to think his mother was right, perhaps they weren’t ready to be married.

  The time for lunch had come and gone; still no Bethany.

  “Do you want a beer?”

  Odd, mom offering a beer this time of day.

  “Yeah, I think I’d better.”

  His mom pulled a Coors Light out of the fridge and poured it in a frozen mug from the freezer. She always insisted he drink his beer from a glass and not the can.

  They both sat at the counter, and Jason took a long swig from the cold mug.

  “Have I ever mentioned my friend, Bill Wesson?” she said.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Bill is part of a group putting together the D-Day museum proposal for New Orleans. It looks like it’s going to be a reality.”

  “I think I remember you talking about that. What’s his role?”

  “His father was a bombardier during World War Two. He’s always been fascinated by those old planes.”

  “Shouldn’t a museum honoring D-Day be in Washington D.C.? Why New Orleans? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “It absolutely does,” Alicia said. “What image do you think of when you think of D-Day?”

  Jason paused for a moment. He always thought of the John Wayne classic, The Longest Day, when he thought of D-Day. But as far as images, there’s only one.

  “I guess I think of the soldiers crammed in the amphibious landing craft. The one where they’re just about to land on the beach.”

  “That’s right. That’s what most people think of. Did you know those landing craft were built right here in New Orleans?”

  “Really?”

  "Yes. Higgins Industries was owned by Andrew Higgins before the war. His plant had seventy-five people who worked for him, and by 1943, he had seven plants with over twenty-thousand employees. His landing craft helped us win the war. Built by the people of New Orleans."

  “I guess it does kind of make sense to build a museum here,” Jason said.

  “I bring this up because my friend, Bill, owns a B-25 bomber from World War Two.”

  “Cool, that is the only U.S. military airplane named after a person. Is he going to donate it to the museum?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly. It’s a flying airplane.”

  Jason chuckled. “Most of them are, mom.”

  She slapped him on the arm. "You know what I mean. It's an antique, and he still flies it."

  “Yeah, like the Confederate Air Force. The
se guys keep the old warbirds in shape and fly them at airshows all over the country. Some of them will even take the public up for a ride.”

  “Yes, that’s what he does. He gives rides to people all the time. Anyway, I spoke to Bill. He’s going—”

  The door to the condo opened, and a striking blonde entered the foyer.

  “Bethany,” Alicia said. “We were worried about you.” Jason observed her eyebrows narrow as she watched his wife enter the living room. Bethany gave his mother a courtesy nod, then looked at him.

  Jason leaped from the couch. “Hey, I called, and you never answered. Are you all right?” He rushed to her, kissed her, and squeezed her in his arms. She flushed and tried to wrap her arms around him as well.

  “I’m sorry,” Bethany said. “I had to work late last night and overslept. I must have been in the shower when you called.” She pecked Jason on the lips and hugged him hard.

  “I kept calling, but the answering machine never picked up,” Jason said.

  “You are so right. That thing has been screwing up for weeks now.”

  “Bethany dear, we are so glad you finally made it,” Alicia said. “Let’s change our plans to dinner so you can rest.”

  “I’m famished,” Bethany said.

  Jason noticed the hesitation in Bethany's response. "We still haven't had lunch yet. Why don't we go to Mister B's Bistro? They're open all day, and it won't be crowded this time of day."

  “Between lunch and dinner, they’ll only have the bar menu available,” Alicia said.

  “That’s okay,” Jason replied. “That’s all we need, a little gumbo.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Bethany said. “I’ve got to go back to work tonight.”

  “What?” Jason said. He paused, longer than he expected to. He was surprised, disappointed, and hurt. “I thought you had the weekend off? We were going to spend the weekend down here.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. One of the girls quit last night. They needed me to come in.”

  “They couldn’t find anyone else?”