The Best Laid Plans

The Best Laid Plans Page 15

She was being dragged, naked, out of her cell into a cold, dark courtyard. She struggled wildly against the two men holding her, but she was no match for them. There were six soldiers with rifles outside, waiting for her as she was carried, screaming, to a wooden post hammered into the ground. Colonel Gordan Divjak watched his men tie her to the post.

"You can't do this to me! I'm not a spy!" she yelled. But she could not make her voice heard above the sounds of mortar fire in the near distance.

Colonel Divjak stepped away from her and nodded toward the firing squad. "Ready, aim - "

"Stop that screaming!"

Rough hands were shaking her. Dana opened her eyes, her heart pounding. She was lying on the cot in her small, dark cell. Colonel Divjak was standing over her.

Dana sat up, panicky, trying to blink away the nightmare. "What - what are you going to do to me?"

Colonel Divjak said coldly, "If there were justice, you would be shot. Unfortunately, I have been given orders to release you."

Dana's heart skipped a beat.

"You will be put on the first plane out of here." Colonel Divjak looked into her eyes and said, "Don't ever come back."

It had taken all the pressure that the State Department and the president could muster to get Dana Evans released. When Peter Tager heard about the arrest, he had gone in to see the president.

"I just got a call from the State Department. Dana Evans has been arrested on charges of espionage. They're threatening to execute her."

"Jesus! That's terrible. We can't let that happen.

"Right. I'd like permission to use your name."

"You've got it. Do whatever has to be done."

"I'll work with the State Department. If we can pull this off, maybe the Tribune will go a little easier on you."

Oliver shook his head. "I wouldn't count on it. Let's just get her the hell out of there."

Dozens of frantic telephone calls later, with pressure from the Oval Office, the secretary of state, and the secretary-general of the United Nations, Dana's captors reluctantly agreed to release her.

When the news came, Peter Tager hurried in to tell Oliver. "She's free. She's on her way home."

"Great."

He thought about Dana Evans on his way to a meeting that morning. I'm glad we were able to save her.

He had no idea that that action was going to cost him his life.

When Dana's plane landed at Dulles International Airport, Matt Baker and two dozen reporters from newspapers and television and radio stations were waiting to greet her.

Dana looked at the crowd in disbelief. "What's - ?"

"This way, Dana. Smile!"

"How were you treated? Was there any brutality?"

"How does it feel to be back home?"

"Let's have a picture."

"Do you have any plans to go back?"

They were all talking at once. Dana stood there, overwhelmed.

Matt Baker hustled Dana into a waiting limousine, and they sped away.

"What's - what's going on?" Dana asked.

"You're a celebrity."

She shook her head. "I don't need this, Matt." She closed her eyes for a moment. "Thanks for getting me out."

"You can thank the president and Peter Tager. They pushed all the buttons. You also have Leshe Stewart to thank."

When Matt told Leshe the news, she had said, "Those bastards! They can't do that to the Tribune. I want you to see that they free her. Pull every string you can and get her out of there."

Dana looked out the window of the limousine. People were walking along the street, talking and laughing. There was no sound of gunfire or mortar shells. It was eerie.

"Our real estate editor found an apartment for you. I'm taking you there now. I want you to have some time off - as much as you like. When you're ready, we'll put you back to work." He took a closer look at Dana. "Are you feeling all right? If you want to see a doctor, I'll arrange - "

"I'm fine. Our bureau took me to a doctor in Paris."

The apartment was on Calvert Street, an attractively furnished place with one bedroom, living room, kitchen, bath, and small study.

"Will this do?" Matt asked.

"This is perfect. Thank you, Matt."

"I've had the refrigerator stocked for you. You'll probably want to go shopping for clothes tomorrow, after you get some rest. Charge everything to the paper."

"Thanks, Matt. Thank you for everything."

"You're going to be debriefed later. I'll set it up for you."

She was on a bridge, listening to the gunfire and watching bloated bodies float by, and she woke up, sobbing. It had been so real. It was a dream, but it was happening. At that moment, innocent victims - men, women, and children - were being senselessly and brutally slaughtered. She thought of Professor Staka's words. "This war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is beyond understanding." What was incredible to her was that the rest of the world didn't seem to care. She was afraid to go back to sleep, afraid of the nightmares that filled her brain. She got up and walked over to the window and looked out at the city. It was quiet - no guns, no people running down the street, screaming. It seemed unnatural. She wondered how Kemal was, and whether she would ever see him again. He's probably forgotten me by now.

Dana spent part of the morning shopping for clothes. Wherever she went, people stopped to stare at her. She heard whispers: "That's Dana Evans!" The sales clerks all recognized her. She was famous. She hated it.

Dana had had no breakfast and no lunch. She was hungry, but she was unable to eat. She was too tense. It was as though she were waiting for some disaster to strike. When she walked down the street, she avoided the eyes of strangers. She was suspicious of everyone. She kept listening for the sound of gunfire. I can't go on like this, Dana thought.

At noon, she walked into Matt Baker's office.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be on vacation."

"I need to go back to work, Matt."

He looked at her and thought about the young girl who had come to him a few years earlier. "I'm here for a job. Of course, I already have a job here. It's more like a transfer, isn't it?...I can start right away...." And she had more than fulfilled her promise. If I ever had a daughter...

"Your boss wants to meet you," Matt told Dana.

They headed for Leslie Stewart's office.

The two women stood there appraising each other. "Welcome back, Dana."

"Thank you."

"Sit down." Dana and Matt took chairs opposite Leslie's desk.

"I want to thank you for getting me out of there," Dana said.

"It must have been hell. I'm sorry." Leslie looked at Matt. "What are we going to do with her now, Matt?"

He looked at Dana. "We're about to reassign our White House correspondent. Would you like the job?" It was one of the most prestigious television assignments in the country.

Dana's face lit up. "Yes. I would."

Leslie nodded. "You've got it."

Dana rose. "Well - thank you, again."

"Good luck."

Dana and Matt left the office. "Let's get you settled," Matt said. He walked her over to the television building, where the whole staff was waiting to greet her. It took Dana fifteen minutes to work her way through the crowd of well-wishers.

"Meet your new White House correspondent," Matt said to Philip Cole.

"That's great. I'll show you to your office."

"Have you had lunch yet?" Matt asked Dana.

"No, I - "

"Why don't we get a bite to eat?"

The executive dining room was on the fifth floor, a spacious, airy room with two dozen tables. Matt led Dana to a table in the corner, and they sat down.

"Miss Stewart seemed very nice," Dana said.

Matt started to say something. "Yeah. Let's order."

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't had lunch?"

"No."

"Did you have breakfast?"

"No."

"Dana - when did you eat last?"

She shook her head. "I don't remember. It's not important."

"Wrong. I can't have our new White House correspondent starving herself to death."

The waiter came over to the table. "Are you ready to order, Mr. Baker?"

"Yes." He scanned the menu. "We'll start you off light. Miss Evans will have a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich." He looked over at Dana. "Pastry or ice cream?"

"Noth - "

"Pie a la mode. And I'll have a roast beef sandwich."

"Yes, sir."

Dana looked around. "All this seems so unreal. Life is what's happening over there, Matt. It's horrible. No one here cares."

"Don't say that. Of course we care. But we can't run the world, and we can't control it. We do the best we can."

"It's not good enough," Dana said fiercely.

"Dana..." He stopped. She was far away, listening to distant sounds that he could not hear, seeing grisly sights that he could not see. They sat in silence until the waiter arrived with their food.

"Here we are."

"Matt, I'm not really hung - "

"You're going to eat," Matt commanded.

Jeff Connors was making his way over to the table. "Hi, Matt."

"Jeff."

Jeff Connors looked at Dana. "Hello."

Matt said, "Dana, this is Jeff Connors. He's the Tribune's sports editor."

Dana nodded.

"I'm a big fan of yours, Miss Evans. I'm glad you got out safely."

Dana nodded again.

Matt said, "Would you like to join us, Jeff?"

"Love to." He took a chair and said to Dana, "I tried never to miss any of your broadcasts. I thought they were brilliant."

Dana mumbled, "Thank you."

"Jeff here is one of our great athletes. He's in the Baseball Hall of Fame."

Another small nod.

"If you happen to be free," Jeff said, "on Friday, the Orioles are playing the Yankees in Baltimore. It's - "

Dana turned to look at him for the first time. "That sounds really exciting. The object of the game is to hit the ball and then run around the field while the other side tries to stop you?"

He looked at her warily. "Well - "

Dana got to her feet, her voice trembling. "I've seen people running around a field - but they were running for their lives because someone was shooting at them and killing them!" She was near hysteria. "It wasn't a game, and it - it wasn't about a stupid baseball."

The other people in the room were turning to stare at her.

"You can go to hell," Dana sobbed. And she fled from the room.

Jeff turned to Matt. "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to - "

"It wasn't your fault. She hasn't come home yet. And God knows she's entitled to a bad case of nerves."

Dana hurried into her office and slammed the door. She went to her desk and sat down, fighting hysteria. Oh, God. I've made a complete fool of myself. They'll fire me, and I deserve it. Why did I attack that man? How could I have done anything so awful? I don't belong here. I don't belong anywhere anymore. She sat there with her head on the desk, sobbing.

A few minutes later, the door opened and someone came in. Dana looked up. It was Jeff Connors, carrying a tray with a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich and a slice of pie a la mode.

"You forgot your lunch," Jeff said mildly.

Dana wiped away her tears, mortified. "I - I want to apologize. I'm so sorry. I had no right to - "

"You had every right," he said quietly. "Anyway, who needs to watch a dumb old baseball game?" Jeff put the tray on the desk. "May I join you for lunch?" He sat down.

"I'm not hungry. Thank you."

He sighed. "You're putting me in a very difficult position, Miss Evans. Matt says you have to eat. You don't want to get me fired, do you?"

Dana managed a smile. "No." She picked up half of the sandwich and took a small bite.

"Bigger."

Dana took another small bite.

"Bigger."

She looked up at him. "You're really going to make me eat this, aren't you?"

"You bet I am." He watched her take a larger bite of the sandwich. "That's better. By the way, if you're not doing anything Friday night, I don't know if I mentioned it, but there's a game between the Orioles and the Yankees. Would you like to go?"

She looked at him and nodded. "Yes."

At three o'clock that afternoon, when Dana walked into the White House entrance, the guard said, "Mr. Tager would like to see you, Miss Evans. I'll have someone take you to his office."

A few minutes later, one of the guides led Dana down a long corridor to Peter Tager's office. He was waiting for her.

"Mr. Tager..."

"I didn't expect to see you so soon, Miss Evans. Won't your station give you any time off?"

"I didn't want any," Dana said. "I - I need to work."

"Please sit down." She sat across from him. "Can I offer you anything?"

"No, thanks. I just had lunch." She smiled to herself at the recollection of Jeff Connors. "Mr. Tager, I want to thank you and President Russell so much for rescuing me." She hesitated. "I know the Tribune hasn't been too kind to the president, and I - "

Peter Tager raised a hand. "This was something above politics. There was no chance that the president was going to let them get away with this. You know the story of Helen of Troy?"

"Yes."

He smiled. "Well, we might have started a war over you. You're a very important person."

"I don't feel very important."

"I want you to know how pleased both the president and I are that you've been assigned to cover the White House."

"Thank you."

He paused for a moment. "It's unfortunate that the Tribune doesn't like President Russell, and there's nothing you can do about it. But in spite of that, on a very personal level, if there's anything the president or I can do to help...we both have an enormous regard for you."

"Thank you. I appreciate that."

The door opened and Oliver walked in. Dana and Peter Tager stood up.

"Sit down," Oliver said. He walked over to Dana. "Welcome home."

"Thank you, Mr. President," Dana said. "And I do mean - thank you."

Oliver smiled. "If you can't save someone's life, what's the point of being president? I want to be frank with you, Miss Evans. None of us here is a fan of your newspaper. All of us are your fans."

"Thank you."

"Peter is going to give you a tour of the White House. If you have any problems, we're here to help you."

"You're very kind."

"If you don't mind, I want you to meet with Mr. Werner, the secretary of state. I'd like to have him get a firsthand briefing from you on the situation in Herzegovina."

"I'd be happy to do that," Dana said.

There were a dozen men seated in the secretary of state's private conference room, listening to Dana describe her experiences.

"Most of the buildings in Sarajevo have been damaged or destroyed... There's no electricity, and the people there who still have cars unhook the car batteries at night to run their television sets...

"The streets of the city are obstructed by the wreckage of bombed automobiles, carts, and bicycles. The main form of transportation is walking...

"When there's a storm, people catch the water from the street gutters and put it into buckets...

"There's no respect for the Red Cross or for the journalists there. More than forty correspondents have been killed covering the Bosnian war, and dozens have been wounded... Whether the present revolt against Slobodan Milosevic is successful or not, the feeling is that because of the popular uprising, his regime has been badly damaged..."

The meeting went on for two hours. For Dana it was both traumatic and cathartic, because as she described what happened, she found herself living the terrible scenes all over again; and at the same time, she found it a relief to be able to talk about it. When she was finished, she felt drained.

The secretary of state said, "I want to thank you, Miss Evans. This has been very informative." He smiled. "I'm glad you got back here safely."

"So am I, Mr. Secretary."

Friday night, Dana was seated next to Jeff Connors in the press box at Camden Yards, watching the baseball game. And for the first time since she had returned, she was able to think about something other than the war. As Dana watched the players on the field, she listened to the announcer reporting the game.

"...it's the bottom of the sixth inning and Nelson is pitching. Alomar hits a line drive down the left-field line for a double. Palmeiro is approaching the plate. The count is two and one. Nelson throws a fastball down the middle and Palmeiro is going for it. What a hit! It looks like it's going to clear the right-field wall. It's over! Palmeiro is rounding the bases with a two-run homer that puts the Orioles in the lead..."

At the seventh-inning stretch, Jeff stood up and looked at Dana. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

Dana looked at him and nodded. "Yes."

Back in D.C. after the game, they had supper at Bistro Twenty Fifteen.

"I want to apologize again for the way I behaved the other day," Dana said. "It's just that I've been living in a world where - " She stopped, not sure how to phrase it. "Where everything is a matter of life and death. Everything. It's awful. Because unless someone stops the war, those people have no hope."

Jeff said gently, "Dana, you can't put your life on hold because of what's happening over there. You have to begin living again. Here."

"I know. It's just...not easy."

"Of course it isn't. I'd like to help you. Would you let me?"

Dana looked at him for a long time. "Please."

The next day, Dana had a luncheon date with Jeff Connors.

"Can you pick me up?" he asked. He gave her the address.

"Right." Dana wondered what Jeff was doing there. It was in a very troubled inner-city neighborhood. When Dana arrived, she found the answer.

Jeff was surrounded by two teams of baseball players, ranging in age from nine to thirteen, dressed in a creative variety of baseball uniforms. Dana parked at the curb to watch.

"And remember," Jeff was saying, "don't rush. When the pitcher throws the ball, imagine that it's coming at you very slowly, so that you have plenty of time to hit it. Feel your bat smacking the ball. Let your mind help guide your hands so - "

Jeff looked over and saw Dana. He waved. "All right, fellows. That's it for now."

One of the boys asked, "Is that your girl, Jeff?"

"Only if I'm lucky." Jeff smiled. "See you later." He walked over to Dana's car.

"That's quite a ball club," Dana said.

"They're good boys. I coach them once a week."

She smiled. "I like that." And she wondered how Kemal was and what he was doing.

As the days went on, Dana found herself coming to like Jeff Connors more and more. He was sensitive, intelligent, and amusing. She enjoyed being with him. Slowly, the horrible memories of Sarajevo were beginning to fade. The morning came when she woke up without having had nightmares.

When she told Jeff about it, he took her hand and said, "That's my girl."

And Dana wondered whether she should read a deeper meaning into it.

There was a hand-printed letter waiting for Dana at the office. It read: "miss evans, don't worry about me. i'm happy, i am not lonely, i don't miss anybody, and i am going to send you back the clothes you bought me because i don't need them, i have my own clothes, goodbye." It was signed "kemal."

The letter was postmarked Paris, and the letter-head read "Xavier's Home for Boys." Dana read the letter twice and then picked up the phone. It took her four hours to reach Kemal.

She heard his voice, a tentative "Hello..."

"Kemal, this is Dana Evans." There was no response. "I got your letter." Silence. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad you're so happy, and that you're having such a good time." She waited a moment, then went on, "I wish I were as happy as you are. Do you know why I'm not? Because I miss you. I think about you a lot."

"No, you don't," Kemal said. "You don't care about me."

"You're wrong. How would you like to come to Washington and live with me?"

There was a long silence. "Do you - do you mean that?"

"You bet I do. Would you like that?"

"I - " He began to cry.

"Would you, Kemal?"

"Yes - yes, ma'am."

"I'll make the arrangements."

"Miss Evans?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

Dana and Jeff Connors were walking in West Potomac Park. "I think I'm going to have a roommate," Dana said. "He should be here in the next few weeks."

Jeff looked at her in surprise. "He?"

Dana found herself pleased at his reaction. "Yes. His name is Kemal. He's twelve years old." She told him the story.

"He sounds like a great kid."

"He is. He's been through hell, Jeff. I want to help him forget."

He looked at Dana and said, "I'd like to help, too."

That night they made love for the first time.