Day Three

by Patricia Spencer

  Enough. She gave herself a mental shake. She had work to do. She didn’t need these feelings.

  The road to hell was lined with feelings.

  She cleared her throat. “What do you want, Ellsworth?” Her question came out intimately, like a private thought inadvertently expressed.

  His ears turned bright red. Given his eyes had been poring over her as if he knew exactly what he wanted, it may not have been the best choice of words.

  “Excuse me?”

  She brisked-up her voice. “Why are you here in this place, at this time? What makes a forty-something suit decide to leave the safety of nature shows and mingle with the grunts? If you were the field type, you would have done it right out of J-School, not waited ’til now. So what makes this story so compelling? What are you after?”

  The barrage bushwhacked Daniel. The woman had accelerated from mute observation to acute exploration in a thousandth of a second. Was that how her brain worked? Did she always sit, detached-looking, while a million questions raced through her head?

  In the instant the question crossed his mind, he knew the answer, and he understood the relationship between her work and her personality. This was what she did—stand apart, watch intently, not affect the outcome of the unfolding events until she decided the moment was right. Then she tore into it with her lens, examined the details, established the relationship between the constituent parts. And she did it frankly, honestly, unconstrained by tact or social niceties.

  He could see why she didn’t chat. Chatting was wasted frames. This was motor drive, each frame in focus, each shot aimed at a target. And characteristically, despite the apparent extroversion, she revealed nothing about herself beyond what could be inferred by her choice of subject.

  “I want to know what you want,” she continued. “Not deliverables. Concept. Ideas. Story. Goals. Is this an exploration of something you don’t understand? Or an expression of something you do? Was there an image or an event that triggered this idea for you? What other materials have you got? Stock footage? Interviews? Research? Who do you want to reach with this, and why?”

  She was a bulldog, he realized, and she’d just taken hold of him.

  “I want to know what brings you here,” she continued. “This isn’t you.”

  “Oh?” He leaned back, elbows high, and laced his fingers behind his head, aiming for insouciance he didn’t feel. Drag the wing, he thought. It was none of her business that he was doing this for Aya. “What do you think is me?”

  She sat back and dropped her palms on her thighs, as if resigned to his need to do this. “You’re a desk jockey, Ellsworth. An executive. Not a digger, not a newsman. Not one of your awards has been for news, has it? Current issues, sure—but urbane, intellectual. Nothing so rude or gritty as hard news.”

  “First I’m a suit. Now I’m a desk jockey?” he said. “Do you always call people names?”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Nothing in my contract says I can’t.”

  He chuckled, dropped his forehead into the palm of his hand, and wordlessly shook his head. She was still pissed off.

  “You aren’t answering.”

  He lifted his head again. “Sam Chisolm thinks we could turn in a prize-winner on this.”

  She flinched at the mention of a prize. “Well, now I know Chisolm’s motive,” she said. “What’s yours? And stop prevaricating. You can’t hide shit behind that honest face of yours.”

  It was true. Prizes didn’t mean much to him any more. And, no, he wasn’t a newsman. He’d never had the stomach for hard news like Aya had. He didn’t have it in him to call the bereaved and ask how they were feeling, never had the effrontery to pry into people’s personal affairs as Brenna was doing now.

  She waited.

  In the interest of politeness, he answered. “My wife was working on this project before she passed away.”

  Her lips puckered thoughtfully. “Everyone dies in the middle of something,” she said. “Why not leave it be?”

  Direct hit. The newshound smelled the hidden story.

  Instead of answering, he began responding to her earlier questions about concept and story and goals, which hung above them like planes in a holding pattern. Astute as she was, she noticed his evasion. To his surprise, however, she dropped the issue of Aya.

  While a gray dawn grudgingly bleached the horizon across the tarmac, and the waiting area came slowly to life around them, he allowed her to probe him about the assignment. She poked at it from every possible angle—philosophical, moral, intellectual, practical—trying to gauge his relationship to the subject.

  Once she slowed, she was the consummate interviewer, establishing basic premises, making no assumptions, covering her topic point by point. He saw her lose herself in thought for moments at a time, then come back with a whole new generation of questions that took his previous replies to their next level of complexity. Even without notes in which to moor their conversation, she pulled his scattered replies back to related core concepts, relentlessly fashioning order from the chaos of his tired brain. More than once, he saw her coil, ready to disagree. But she made him pause until she quelled her own response and opened herself to his. She closed her eyes when she did that, and cocked an ear in his direction, her concentration giving him the distinct sense that she was willing him inside herself, performing some sort of inner translation.

  She asked, often, how he pictured things, what visual images came to his mind when he thought about the story. Photography wasn’t just the way she made a living. She interpreted the world visually. She thought about how theories, ideas, philosophies could be conveyed visually, unmistakably, in the context of real events. Images crossed the boundaries of culture and age and education. They were a universal language, and she spoke it fluently.

  “I’m sorry.” He peeled his eyeglasses off his face and rubbed his eyes. “What was that last question, again?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “You’re tired. Let’s stop.”

  “I am,” he agreed. “But you understand now, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I understand, all right.” Brenna strolled to the plate glass window and studied the runway in the distance. “You see the world in black and white, good or bad, and have never encountered the evil in yourself. You believe violence lives in the hearts of other men—lesser men, unlike yourself. You want to look at this analytically, from an antiseptic distance that won’t offend viewer sensibilities.”

  He opened his mouth, then soundlessly closed it again, confused by the anger in her voice.

  She rounded on him, eyes flashing. “I know what you want, Ellsworth. But I’ll be damned if that’s what I’ll give you.”

  Chapter 6

  In Ancona, the C-130 Hercules sitting on the tarmac outside the cargo terminal looked like an Angus bull. Beefy, powerful, belly close to the ground. The loading ramp at the rear of the four-engine turboprop transport plane was down, and Brenna watched through the glass as a forklift with a pallet of UN ration boxes headed toward it.

  “Well, hello there, Brenna.” A blond Canadian Forces sergeant with the thick neck and muscled shoulders of a life-long hockey player stepped up to the counter where she and Ellsworth waited to check in.

  “Gordon,” she said.

  He flashed his capped front teeth.

  Ellsworth slid his UNPROFOR-issued press card and passport across the counter.

  “It’s been a while, eh?” Gordon said, taking Ellsworth’s paperwork while continuing his conversation with her. “Not the usual in-and-out visit to Italy. Some of the lads were betting you’d decided not to come back—given in to the lure of hot showers.”

  “And not being shot at,” she said. “Almost as good as hot showers.”

  Gordon scarcely glanced at Brenna’s documents, but held up Ellsworth’s passport, comparing the photo to the man. “And the purpose of your visit, sir? Business or pleasure?”

  Ellsworth’s jaw dropped at the improbable question.

  “Pleasure
,” she replied for him.

  “I’m just having you on, sir.” Gordon grinned at Ellsworth, stamped Brenna’s papers and slid them back to her.

  “Is Sami around?” she asked, tucking the documents back into the right side pocket of her cargo pants.

  He nodded out the window toward the Hercules. “Loading those last two wooden crates.”

  She followed his gaze. “Thanks.” She turned, picked up her bags, and left Ellsworth to finish checking in.

  Gordon called after her, stopping her at the door. “We’ll radio the Colonel and let him know you’re on your way.”

  She nodded, pushed the glass door open, and headed across the tarmac. She needed a quick moment alone before Ellsworth caught up.

  The forklift beep-beeped as it backed down the ramp. The operator glanced up, saw her, and stopped.

  “It’s all there?” she asked, holding out her hand in what appeared to be a handshake.

  The operator, a swarthy man with two fingers missing from his deformed right hand nodded, smoothly took the roll of bills she handed him, and backed away, turning the vehicle in a semi-circle before putting it into forward gear and heading back toward the hangar.

  The interior of the Herc was cavernous. With a wingspan in excess of 132 feet, the transport could take off and land on unprepared runways, lift 45,000 pounds, and be configured to move vehicles, cargo, or troops, as needed. Up to 74 stretchers, stacked five-high, could be rigged for medevac, though at present, only five were installed.

  She walked forward to the starboard side to the red web-type seating, and dropped her bag.

  “Brenna!”

  One of the plane’s two pilots, a petite woman with blazing red hair and fair skin, stood on the port side access stairs up to the flight deck.

  “Sarah.”

  Women weren’t allowed to fly in war zones, but technically the siege in Kavsak was merely civil unrest, not a war. And the mission was humanitarian, not military. So the fact that they would soon be flying over the most dangerous airspace in the world—airlift planes had been hit by ground fire on more than 200 different occasions, and more than once shot down—was also a technicality.

  “Welcome aboard.”

  Sarah looked over Brenna’s shoulder. Ellsworth had arrived.

  “I’m Captain Flynn,” she said, extending a hand.

  He shook it warmly. “Daniel Ellsworth.”

  “How’s the ground?” Brenna asked. The Kavsak airport was ringed by anti-aircraft artillery, and paper-based accords for the safe passage of the airlift were often ignored by troops on the ground. Sarah and her co-pilot would stay as high-altitude as possible until the last moment, land at a breath-takingly steep angle, keep the engines running while the transport was unloaded and reloaded, then fly out again. Turnaround time would be ten minutes—if that.

  Sarah was no featherweight. Brenna was glad to be flying with her.

  “Hot,” Sarah said, responding to Brenna’s question about ground conditions. Her co-pilot squeezed behind her, waving amiably as he took the metal stairs upward.

  “Well,” Sarah glanced at her watch. “Let’s go cheat death.”

  She disappeared to the flight deck. Shortly afterward, the flight engineer, loadmaster, and navigator came on board and prepared for departure. The loadmaster, a slender, dark-skinned man of Pakistani descent, checked the pallets were properly strapped to the deck, and doled out foam ear plugs to his passengers.

  The ramp rose on smooth hydraulics and locked into place. One by one, each of the four engines kicked on. The noise level rose to a deafening roar. The plane lumbered slowly toward the runway, the pallet tie-down straps vibrating as the aircraft picked up speed.

  Brenna had ridden in C-130s many times, but it always amazed her when the gargantuan aircraft actually lifted off the ground.

  Once they were aloft and leveled off, she tipped her head back and closed her eyes. She felt queasy, light-headed, infected by dread. Shit. She couldn’t believe she was doing this again. She shouldn’t have come back so soon. Push it away, she warned herself, trying to take a cleansing breath. What should have been a long, slow invitation of air into her lungs turned into a shuddering rasp. She expected to feel uneasy, but this was a dissonant tension, like a violin string tightened past harmony to imminent rupture.

  This was the worst part, the transition between safety and danger. This was when the insanity of the journey was most evident, like submitting to surgery when nothing was wrong. She wanted to run screaming from the plane, say it was a mistake, and get back to real life.

  But that was the curse.

  She seemed to be at odds with ordinary life in some fundamental way that precluded connection to it. She didn’t know what to do with it, or how to hold onto it. So she kept finding herself on some wretched airplane, doing this all over again. She frowned, inadvertently giving the struggle behind her eyelids an outward expression.

  Pull it together, Rease. This was what she did. It might be madness, but she was good at it. And the fear wasn’t new. She was always scared. It was the uncertainty she hated, the not-knowing what was ahead. Once she hit the ground, she would cope. She always had.

  No, she corrected herself. Not always.

  A cold sweat bathed her.

  The last time she was in Kavsak, she had disconnected. Looked away and missed her shot. She never missed her shot. And it hadn’t even been that unusual a situation. A soldier cracking a civilian in the face with the butt of his rifle. Scarcely worth a picture. But she had flinched, jammed her eyes shut and spun away, covering her exposed ear so she wouldn’t hear the impact.

  And then she’d stood there, numb, paralyzed, unable to flee. The soldier grabbed her and shoved her backwards onto a heap of rubble, bruising her thigh and shoulder. Looking down at her with his eyes as black as a winter’s night, he pressed the tip of the bayonet into her neck. She was so terrified, she peed her pants. He laughed and let her go, her humiliation a longer-lasting punishment than death.

  She shuddered, her stomach churning. It was a random event. A blip. She could still hold it together.

  Right?

  A wave of nausea swept through her.

  She tossed her seat harness aside and lurched forward, heedless that she’d pushed the strap onto Ellsworth. She bolted past the pallets to the tiny curtained area that passed for a lavatory. Inside, she sagged, shaking, over the toilet—a seat bolted to a crude metal canister. The worst already happened, she kept telling herself. She lost Ari. Life couldn’t hurt her further.

  Get a hold of yourself. You’ll do this job and get out. Three more days, that’s all. It won’t happen again.

  Would it?

  A clock was ticking somewhere, winding down. The Balkans were going to kill her. It was foregone. More journalists had been killed in Kavsak so far than in all fourteen years of the Vietnam War. She’d risked death for a long time.

  The real question was—why did it suddenly disturb her?

  Daniel looked at the curtained area. Fifteen minutes must have gone by since Brenna fled there, looking like she was going to toss her cookies. If it had been Aya, he would have checked on her long ago. If he’d been traveling with anyone else, he would have checked by now.

  But Brenna wasn’t anyone. If he called at that curtain, she might as easily bite his head off as thank him. Maybe she was making feminine repairs, or something.

  Yeah, right. He was acting like a chickenshit, afraid of a little snarling. Ellsworths didn’t run from fang-baring. He didn’t stop being who he was because of how she behaved. It was a matter of basic decency. He unclicked his seat harness and went over.

  “Brenna?” He wasn’t sure she could hear him over the roar of the engines. “Are you all right?”

  The curtain slid open. She appeared, chalky white, with a haze of sweat on her forehead. “I’m fine,” she mouthed, and stepped past him.

  Watching her weave back toward her seat, he decided she wasn’t. He went forward, found the loa
dmaster and shouted over the engine roar, pointing at the case of bottled water beside him.

  She sat with her elbows on her knees, head between her hands, fingers laced through her hair, staring at her boots.

  He crouched in front of her. She was unnaturally still, breathing as if she were afraid of breaking. “Here.” He cracked open the seal on the bottle cap. “Water.”

  She lifted her head and gazed at the bottle as if it were a thousand miles away. He took her right hand, guided it around the bottle, and helped her lift it to her lips. She was trembling and clammy, but drank eagerly.

  “Are you ill?”

  She shook her head.

  “Airsick?”

  “No.”

  “That time of the month?”

  “Lay off,” she snapped. “I’m all right. I’ll be fine on the ground.”

  Fine on the ground?

  He left the water in her hand, took his seat, and sat back, stunned.

  It was fear.

  Brenna Rease was sick with fear.

  About an hour into the flight, the loadmaster delivered body armor and helmets to his passengers. UN regulations required all crew and passengers to wear protective gear once they cleared the Adriatic Sea and started over the disputed Balkan territory.

  Though it made more sense to sit on the vests than wear them, Brenna dutifully pulled hers on, donned the helmet, and buckled the chin strap. If you wanted the ride, you followed the rules.

  Ellsworth, inexperienced with protective garb, accepted the loadmaster’s help, the expression on his face growing increasingly solemn.

  Kavsak lay about twenty minutes ahead.

  Ringed by towering mountains, the city’s maze of narrow switch-backed streets wound through neighborhoods as ancient and diverse as history itself. East and west, old and new intersected there. Mosques, synagogues, cathedrals, and the former communist party headquarters all stood within blocks of each other.

  Here, over forty percent of the citizens were ethnically intermarried. Until the war, neighbors had just been Drago and Vera and Mediha. They didn’t identify themselves as Christians, or Jews, or Muslims. Contrary to General Cavic’s inflammatory propaganda, their lives had already proven that peaceful coexistence was possible.