A/N: Chapters have been renumbered to include Chapter 60 in Part One. Therefore, Part Two Chapter One now begins at Chapter 61 in the chapter listing.
PART TWO: Long, Long Journey
"There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us…"
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Part Two - Chapter One (61):
Washington D.C. – August 2000
Tyrone Lambert, the Los Angeles Times journalist who had accompanied Enos Strate to Washington D.C. sat next to him, a laptop straddling his knees, and typed in last minute notes they had discussed on the cab ride from the hotel. Interviews for the series of articles about Human Trafficking in California had been ongoing for several weeks – ever since Enos had been requested to testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Today was August 14, 2000. Enos would always remember it as a Monday because today was Esmé's second birthday. With their return flight back to L.A. booked for later in the afternoon, he hoped against hope they could make it. He'd already been gone through the weekend.
But hearings could take several hours, and he had also been requested to stay the course of all the testimony. Cooter had promised to get him out of there in time to catch the plane if it was at all possible.
So now, he sat in the corridor outside the hearing room with a dozen or so other witnesses wishing he hadn't drunk that last cup of coffee and wondering if he should use the restroom once more before being called.
No stranger to the courtroom, his appearance before a Senate committee today would be crucial to passing legislation that would fund programs and task forces. How he had come to be here had come at a price. The last three years had been both beginnings and endings, with occasions of great joy, great sadness...and inconceivable loss.
