The Best Laid Plans (8 page)

It took him almost half an hour to get her dressed and to remove all traces of her from his apartment. He opened the door a crack to make sure that the hallway was empty, then picked her up, put her over his shoulder, and carried her downstairs and put her in the car. It was almost midnight, and the streets were deserted. It was beginning to rain. He drove to Juniper Hill Park, and when he was sure that no one was in sight, he lifted Miriam out of the car and gently laid her down on a park bench. He hated to leave her there, but he had no choice None. His whole future was at stake.

There was a public phone booth a few feet away. He hurried over to it and dialed 911.

Jan was waiting up for Oliver when he returned home. "It's after midnight," she said. "What took you ?" "I'm sorry, darling. We got into a long, boring discussion on the budget, and well, everyone had a different opinion." "You look pale," Jan said. "You must be exhausted." "I am a little tired," he admitted.

She smiled suggestively. "Let's go to bed." He kissed her on the forehead. "I've really got to get some sleep, Jan. That meeting knocked me out."

The story was on the front page of the State Journal the following morning:

GOVERNOR'S SECRETARY FOUND UNCONSCIOUS IN PARK.

At two o'clock this morning, police found the unconscious woman, Miriam Friedland, lying on the bench in the rain and immediately called for an ambulance. She was taken to Memorial Hospital, where her condition is said to be critical.

As Oliver was reading the story, Peter came hurrying into his office, carrying a copy of the newspaper.

"Have you seen this?"

"Yes. It's it's terrible. The press has been calling all morning."

"What do you suppose happened?" Tager asked.

Oliver shook his head. "I don't know. I just talked to the hospital She's in a coma. They're trying to learn what caused it. The hospital is going to let me know as soon as they find out."

Tager looked at Oliver. "I hope she's going to be all right."

Leslie Chambers missed seeing the newspaper stories. She was in Brazil, buying a television station.

Qfi The telephone call from the hospital came the following day. "Governor, we've just finished the laboratory tests. She's ingested a substance called methylenedioxymethamphetamine, commonly known as Ecstasy. She took it in liquid form, which is even more lethal."

"What's her condition?"

"I'm afraid it's critical. She's in a coma. She could wake up or " He hesitated. "It could go the other way."

"Please keep me informed."

"Of course. You must be very concerned, Governor."

"I am."

Oliver Russell was in a conference when a secretary buzzed. "Excuse me, Governor. There's a telephone call for you." "I told you no interruptions, Heather." "It's Senator Davis on line three." "Oh.

Oliver turned to the men in the room. "We'll finish this later, gentlemen. If you'll excuse me ..." He watched them leave the room, and when the door closed behind them, he picked up the telephone "Todd?" "Oliver, what's this about a secretary of yours found drugged on a park bench?" "Yes," Oliver said. "It's a terrible thing, Todd I " "How terrible?" Senator Davis demanded.

"What do you mean?" "You know damn well what I mean." "Todd, you don't think I I swear I don't know anything about what happened." "I hope not." The senator's voice was grim. "You know how fast gossip gets around in Washington, Oliver. It's the smallest town in America We don't want anything negative linked to you. We're getting ready to make our move. I'd be very, very upset if you did anything stupid.

"I promise you, I'm clean." "Just make sure you keep it that way.

"Of course I will. I " The line went dead. Oliver sat there thinking I'll have to be more careful. I can't let anything stop me now. He glanced at his watch, then reached for the remote control that turned on the television set. The news was on. On the screen was a picture of a besieged street, with snipers shooting at random from buildings The sound of mortar fire could be heard in the background. An attractive young female reporter, dressed in battle fatigues and holding a microphone, was saying, "The new treaty is supposed to take effect at midnight tonight, but regardless of whether it holds, it can never bring back the peaceful villages in this war-torn country or restore the lives of the innocents who have been swept up in the ruthless reign of terror." The scene shifted to a close-up of Dana Evans, a passionate, lovely young woman in a flak jacket and combat boots. "The people here are hungry and tired. They ask for only one thing peace. Will it come? Only time will tell. This is Dana Evans reporting from Sarajevo for WTE, Washington Tribune Enterprises.

The scene dissolved into a commercial. Dana Evans was a foreign correspondent for the Washington Tribune Enterprises Broadcasting System. She reported the news every day, and Oliver tried not to miss her broadcasts. She was one of the best reporters on the air. She's a great-looking woman, Oliver thought, not for the first time. Why the hell would someone that young and attractive want to be in the middle of a shooting war?

Seven.

Dana Evans was an army brat, the daughter of a colonel who traveled from base to base as an armaments instructor. By the time Dana was eleven years old, she had lived in five American cities and in four foreign countries. She had moved with her father and mother to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, Fort Benning in Georgia, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, and Fort Mon-mouth in New Jersey She had gone to schools for officers' children at Camp Zama in Japan, Chiemsee in Germany, Camp Darby in Italy, and Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico. Dana was an only child, and her friends were the army personnel and their families who were stationed at the various postings. She was precocious, cheerful, and outgoing, but her mother worried about the fact that Dana was not having a normal childhood.

"I know that moving every six months must be terribly hard on you, darling," her mother said.

Dana looked at her mother, puzzled. "Why?"

Whenever Dana's father was assigned to a new post, Dana was thrilled "We're going to move again!" she would exclaim.

Unfortunately, although Dana enjoyed the constant moving, her mother hated it.

When Dana was thirteen, her mother said, "I can't live like a gypsy any longer. I want a divorce."

Dana was horrified when she heard the news. Not about the divorce so much, but by the fact that she would no longer be able to travel around the world with her father.

"Where am I going to live?" Dana asked her mother.

"In Claremont, California. I grew up there. It's a beautiful little town. You'll love it."

Dana's mother had been right about Claremont's being a beautiful little town. She was wrong about Dana's loving it. Claremont was at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, with a population of about thirty-three thousand. Its streets were lined with lovely trees and it had the feel of a quaint college community. Dana hated it. The change from being a world traveler to settling down in a small town brought on a severe case of culture shock.

"Are we going to live here forever?" Dana asked gloomily.

"Why, darling?"

"Because it's too small for me. I need a bigger town."

On Dana's first day at school, she came home depressed. "What's the matter? Don't you like your school?" Dana sighed. "It's all right, but it's full of kids." Dana's mother laughed. "They'll get over that, and so will you."

Dana went on to Claremont High School and became a reporter for the Woljpacket, the school newspaper. She found that she enjoyed newspaper work, but she desperately missed traveling.

"When I grow up," Dana said, "I'm going to go all over the world again."

When Dana was eighteen, she enrolled in Claremont McKenna College, majored in journalism, and became a reporter for the college newspaper, the Forum. The following year, she was made editor of the paper.

Students were constantly coming to her for favors. "Our sorority is having a dance next week, Dana. Would you mention it in the paper ..

?"

"The debating club is having a meeting Tuesday...." "Could you review the play the drama club is putting on...?"

"We need to raise funds for the new library...."

It was endless, but Dana enjoyed it enormously. She was in a position to help people, and she liked that. In her senior year, Dana decided that she wanted a newspaper career.

"I'll be able to interview important people all over the world," Dana told her mother. "It will be like helping to make history."

Growing up, whenever young Dana looked in a mirror, she became depressed. Too short, too thin, too flat. Every other girl was awesomely beautiful. It was some kind of California law. I'm an ugly duckling in a land of swans, she thought. She made it a point to avoid looking in mirrors. If Dana had looked, she would have realized that at the age of fourteen, her body was beginning to blossom. At the age of sixteen, she had become very attractive. When she was seventeen, boys began seriously to pursue her. There was something about her eager, heart-shaped face, large inquisitive eyes, and husky laugh that was both adorable and a challenge.

Dana had known since she was twelve how she wanted to lose her virginity. It would be on a beautiful, moon-lit night on some faraway tropical island, with the waves gently lapping against the shore. There would be soft music playing in the background. A handsome, sophisticated stranger would approach her and look deeply into her eyes, into her soul, and he would take her in his arms without a word and suavely carry her to a nearby palm tree. They would get undressed and make love and the music in the background would swell to a climax.

She actually lost her virginity in the back of an old Chevrolet, after a school dance, to a skinny eighteen-year-old redhead named Richard Dobbins, who worked on the Forum with her. He gave Dana his ring and a month later, moved to Milwaukee with his parents. Dana never heard from him again.

The month before she was graduated from college with a B. A. in journalism, Dana went down to the local newspaper, the Claremont Examiner, to see about a job as a reporter. A man in the personnel office looked over her resume. "So you were the editor of the Forum, eh?" Dana smiled modestly. "That's right." "Okay. You're in luck We're a little short-handed right now. We'll give you a try." Dana was thrilled. She had already made a list of the countries she wanted to cover: Russia ... China ... Africa.... "I know I can't start as a foreign correspondent," Dana said, "but as soon as " "Right. You'll be working here as a gofer. You'll see that the editors have coffee in the morning. They like it strong, by the way. And you'll run copy down to the printing presses."

Dana stared at him in shock. "I can't "

He leaned forward, frowning. "You can't what?"

"I can't tell you how glad I am to have this job."

The reporters all complimented Dana on her coffee, and she became the best runner the paper had ever had. She was at work early every day and made friends with everyone. She was always eager to help out. She knew that was the way to get ahead.

The problem was that at the end of six months, Dana was still a gofer She went to see Bill Crowell, the managing editor.

"I really think I'm ready," Dana said earnestly. "If you give me an assignment, I'll "

He did not even look up. "There's no opening yet. My coffee's cold."

It isn't fair, Dana thought. They won't even give me a chance. Dana had heard a line that she firmly believed in. "If something can stop you, you might as well let it." Well, nothing's going to stop me, Dana thought. Nothing. But how am I going to get started?

One morning, as Dana was walking through the deserted Teletype room, carrying cups of hot coffee, a police scanner print out was coming over the wires. Curious, Dana walked over and read it:

ASSOCIATED PRESS CLARE MONT CALIFORNIA. IN CLARE MONT THIS MORNING, THERE WAS AN ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING. A SIX-YEAR-OLD BOY WAS PICKED UP BY

A STRANGER AND .. .

Dana read the rest of the story, wide-eyed. She took a deep breath, ripped the story from the teletype, and put it in her pocket. No one else had seen it.

Dana hurried into Bill Crowell's office, breathless. "Mr. Crowell, someone tried to kidnap a little boy in Claremont this morning. He offered to take him on a pony ride. The boy wanted some candy first, and the kidnapper took him to a candy store, where the owner recognized the boy. The owner called the police and the kidnapper fled."

Bill Crowell was excited. "There was nothing on the wires. How did you hear about this?"

"I I happened to be in the store, and they were talking about it and "

"I'll get a reporter over there right away."

"Why don't you let me cover it?" Dana said quickly. "The owner of the candy store knows me. He'll talk to me."

He studied Dana a moment and said reluctantly, "All right."

Dana interviewed the owner of the candy store, and her story appeared on the front page of the Claremont Examiner the next day and was well received.

"That wasn't a bad job," Bill Crowell told her. "Not bad at all."

"Thank you."

It was almost a week before Dana found herself alone again in the teletype room. There was a story coming in on the wire from the Associated Press: