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.
Some people might have thought that he was being compassionate, concerned for her feelings. The truth, though, was that his mental programming, the logical progression of thoughts that he had forced upon himself since he was seven years old, required him to consider the best interests of the people he dealt with. In Iraq, that had led him to become an extremely efficient soldier, so that his enemies did not suffer unnecessarily. In this case, it meant that he felt he should lessen her grief as much as he could.
Noah decided to end his appeals. By doing so, he would clear the way for his own execution, which would relieve Lieutenant Mathers of her duties as his attorney and allow her to begin the grieving process while he was still alive, which he had read could sometimes make it easier to bear.