My best friend and colleague, Jerome, has finally earned his wings. He’s not my “Assistant” anymore, damn it; he’s now a full-fledged investigator at GIW.
Personally, he and his husband, Gary, have been trying to adopt internationally for some time, and eventually settled on working with an international firm, the World Placement Agency, headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. Run by Sebastian Marchand, Jerome senses that something is amiss after a failed adoption attempt with the organization.
Learning from the best—that’s me, of course—Jerome asks Jim, our commander-in-chief, to allow the team to investigate the World Placement Agency and Sebastian Marchand. To Jerome’s surprise, Jim gives his blessing, and we’re off and running on a new investigation.
Drawn back into the child trafficking underworld that I investigated years before, my team and I discover the trade is still alive and well, operating in world-wide chorus.
– Nelson Mandela –
He peered at the tiny edge of a scalpel, catching a glimpse of his eye’s reflection and smiling at the irony. After another successful procedure, Lufua cleaned his instruments and sent the staff away. In the adjacent surgical suite, there was still work to be done. Other transplant surgeons were busy harvesting other organs.
Those procedures were beyond him, though. Eyes were his obsession.
While pulling off his surgical gown and cap, he considered how many surgeries he’d performed over the years. He’d done more than he could count, and his patients had been cash-only clientele for years. He supposed he must have completed a few thousand over the past two decades, but it was hard to tell in his facilities. Records were scarce, statistics meant nothing to him, and anonymity was paramount to the clients.
Patient EYE12B04. Patient EYE6917AQ.
Each was given an alphanumeric identity, and information about the evaluation, the procedure, and the recovery was protected with vigor. Any worker found violating this confidentiality faced grave punishment and would be required to donate to his work.
Today was more relaxed than most. He performed only one procedure to procure tissue for a German woman in her forties, and the donor was a healthy young boy of twelve years with no disease or defect. A perfect donor, but then again, all his donors were perfect for the clientele, as his selection and donor preparation process were second to none.
Lufua finished showering and then left the clinic, beginning his short walk to the house. He once owned a small farm a few kilometers away but found it too inconvenient. Moving to the premises was the best practical choice because caring for the children’s health was always in his and his organization’s best interest. He might lose a donor for one of his clients if he couldn’t meet an immediate medical need. It was also his job alone to ensure donors were in sound health, and because of his dedication to preparation, today, he’d harvest unblemished corneas for the early afternoon transplant. Moreover, colleagues would reap pristine kidneys and a healthy pink lung from the same perfectly groomed source.
Strolling down the dirt and gravel path, whistling, and watching a white-eared barbet fly from limb to limb, Lufua recalled his conversation with Marchand that morning. He’d been a competent and dependable colleague over the years, but at times, Marchand exasperated him with his rigid methodologies and commanding tone. Lufua had closed the transactions and developed his own following over the years. Sometimes, clients preferred dealing with him and not his colleague, thus cutting out the intermediary.
Such was the circumstance on this occasion, and the timing couldn’t have been more ideal. Three clients from three different countries were flying into Johannesburg, all with different needs and all a match to the same donor. It was as if fate ordained it. In several hours, the contributions of one would meet the needs of three.
Emerging from the break in the tree line behind the house, Lufua noticed a small white microbus taxi pulling a trail of dust as it headed his way. Odd. Visitors never came to the home unannounced anymore, certainly never in a cab; that is, until the past few weeks.
Two men wanted to adopt one of the children, a boy named Rafael, but he had to disappear last night. No matter, now. Marchand would handle the once-hopeful but mourning adoptive parents, and they’d not have a reason to visit here again.
Curious still, he stood in a shadow at the corner of the house and waited to see who was coming to visit. The side door of the taxi slid open, and a large black man stepped out.
Lufua wondered what had gone wrong.
