Hostage Heart

by Renee Roszel

  Hostage

  Heart

  RENEE ROSZEL

  To the two that gave me life,

  and to the many that fill it.

  Copyright © 1983 by Renee Roszel. All rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Don Congdon Associates, Inc.; the agency can be reached at dca@doncongdon.com.

  Cover design by Tammy Siedick.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Los Alamos, New Mexico 1983

  “You’ve played your little game. Now I’m coming to get you,” the letter ended. Drew sat for a long moment without moving, staring at the brief note until the familiar heavy-handed script blurred before her. Then, with a sudden unreasoning need to be rid of the written threat, she tore the page in half and let it drop to her desk.

  Jim was coming! After all this time of silence, he was coming! Heaving a ragged sigh, she brought the heels of her hands up to her eyes. As she did, she realized that her head was moving slowly from side to side, unconsciously negating, rejecting the very idea. He couldn’t really mean to come here, to Los Alamos, and drag her back to San Francisco.

  “No!” she breathed, a cloying unease shrouding her like a damp wool blanket.

  “No?”

  Drew jerked her head around to her office door, surprised to see Gladys Sims, her boss, peering in, the ever-present grin splitting her round face. “I never figured you for a yes-man, Drew, but you really should have the decency to wait for the questions before you say no.” Her wink was as quick as her wit.

  Drew smiled a bit weakly at the older woman and tried to make her greeting sound light-hearted. “Hi, Glad, come in.” Her success was minimal. She could see that clearly in the concern that suddenly clouded her superior’s eyes.

  Gladys’s grin faded slightly as she stepped into the small, but comfortably furnished office. Cocking her graying coiffure toward the torn letter lying in front of Drew, she asked, “I know it isn’t my business, Drew, but is that bad news?”

  Shaking her head, Drew picked up the torn page and dropped it into the wicker basket beside her desk. “It’s nothing.” She worked on her smile. No matter how inwardly shaken she was by Jim’s threat, she couldn’t bear to talk about it to anyone. Sitting back, she crossed her arms, hoping that she would appear at ease before querying, “What can I do for you?”

  The statuesque woman moved toward the desk with characteristic briskness, “Well, since you asked. . .” Holding out a folder filled with yellow, legal size pages, she explained, “Dr. Mott’s paper on his magnetic fusion research is ready for editing, you lucky gal.” She grinned and dropped the clutter of rumpled pages in front of Drew.

  Gladys’s theatrics always managed to take Drew off guard, and she felt a bit of her tenseness ease. Pulling a wry face, Drew made a real effort to join in the fun. “Has the good doctor discovered the joys of punctuation since his last paper?”

  Gladys’s laugh was almost masculine in its depth, and she waved a braceleted hand negatively. “Heavens no! What you have there, Drew, is one seventeen-page sentence.”

  Gladys’s lively personality was infectious, and Drew’s smile was now almost genuine. She lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “Well, I suppose if Dr. Mott is willing to try to solve the world’s energy problems, I can at least attempt to correct his punctuation crisis.”

  “And you’ll be a lead-pipe cinch for the Nobel Punctuation Prize.” She flicked the folder with her index finger. “What a grandiose mess that thing is.” Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Say, with your Nobel, you and your father will be a two-Nobel family!”

  Drew laughed in spite of her dour mood. “I’ll try to be as humble when I accept mine as Dad was.”

  Gladys shook her head doubtfully. “Nope, I’m afraid your daddy pretty much invented humility. Besides”—she swept Drew with an appraising look—“beautiful redheads never do as well with humility as bashful doctors of physics.”

  Drew felt her cheeks grow warm with the light compliment. Deciding a subject change was in order, she opened the folder and began to thumb through the questionable scrawl. “This is written in Greek, no doubt.”

  Gladys leaned over her shoulder and her chuckle gurgled near Drew’s ear. “My guess was ancient Babylonian.” She patted Drew’s shoulder. “Remember, you are my only physicist-journalist on staff.” She straightened. “If you didn’t want to deal with eccentric professor types, you shouldn’t have wasted all that time in school getting a masters in journalism and physics.”

  “Now she tells me.” Drew shook her head, grinning. “You live and learn. And one thing I’ve learned,” she added with a sigh, “is that I should have taken some courses in the handwriting reading of doctors. Look at this”—she pointed—“it either says, ‘tomahawk reunion planned,’ or ‘tokamak reactor plasma.’”

  Without a moment’s pause, Gladys tossed back easily, “Go with either. I like them both.”

  Drew smiled, but didn’t look up. As associate editor for the Los Alamos Scientific Monthly, a sleek magazine highly regarded in the scientific community, she was accustomed to rewriting the ungrammatical articles compiled by scientists at this New Mexico government installation. This latest project was no more of a problem than most. And though she was prepared for Gladys’s seemingly offhanded attitude, she knew from experience that this easygoing manner was not to be confused with disinterest or lack of expertise. With a doctorate in both chemistry and journalism, Gladys Sims, managing editor of the Scientific Monthly, was not a woman to be taken lightly in either field.

  Drew could hear her boss’s heels click toward the door, and realized that she was leaving as she tossed the last of her instructions over her shoulder. “I’m assigning Beverly to do the color illustrations. After you translate that gobbledygook into readable prose, tell her what drawings you’ll need.”

  “Right.” Drew closed the folder as the office door clicked shut. Sitting forward, she put her elbows on the desk and allowed herself a deep sigh. The letter from Jim had been a shock, and pretending calm before her boss had been draining. She drummed nervous fingers on the folder, clenching and unclenching her teeth in agitation. The last sentence of Jim’s letter ran, once again, through her mind: “I’m coming to get you.” With suddenly trembling fingers, she flipped her desk calendar from Monday, March 2 to Friday, March 6, when Jim had said he would arrive—only four days away. Four days! The reality clutched at her like piercing talons of a hawk. Why couldn’t he accept the fact that it was over between them? She’d thought, hoped, she was finally free. Obviously she had been wrong. Wincing at the buildup of emotions within her, she slammed a fist on Dr. Mott’s helpless folder, crying out with a seething hatred, “Why, Jim? Why must you torture me?”

  Her body was taut with angry frustration. She wanted to scream, to cry, to run. She was not only furious with Jim, but also with herself. Why did she allow him to upset her so? Why did a few words scrawled on a piece of paper and sent a thousand miles frighten her? She swallowed hard, knowing, remembering well what Jim could do if he had her within reach.

  A knock at the office door broke through her black reverie like a bullet piercing thin glass, making her jump. “Yes”—the word was high pitched and breathless.

  “Hi-ho,” sang Beverly Atkins, one of the three magazine illustr
ators, and Drew’s closest friend in Los Alamos. Oblivious to Drew’s stress, she strolled casually in, looking very arty in her paint-splotched smock. “Sorry, kiddo, but I can’t give you a ride home tonight. Tom’s asked me to stay for a cup of coffee.”

  Drew slipped the Mott folder into her desk. The movement was a poor substitute for the active flight she craved. Concentrating hard on sounding conversational, she asked, “Tom? Things must be looking up in the Art and Design department if you’ve got the director asking you out.” Looking up into Beverly’s pixie face, Drew noticed that it had pinkened.

  “Well, it’s not really out, not yet.” She paused, lifting her thin shoulders. “Do you mind about the ride?” Walking closer, she leaned against the metal desk. “Say, I like that black sweater with the gold threads.”

  “Thanks.” Drew smiled at her friend. “And I don’t mind about the ride. Dad can drop me. He won’t mind.” She pulled the long sleeve of her sweater away from her watch, noting the lateness of the hour for the first time, and began clearing papers from her desk. “Never let it be said that Drew McKenna stood in the way of romance.”

  Flipping the desk calendar pages back to the proper date, she finished, “Besides, I know that look. Good luck.”

  Beverly’s cheeks were now a classic shade of red. “Does it show so much?” It was asked with uncharacteristic shyness.

  “So much,” Drew repeated with a sympathetic curl of her lips, “but it is lovely on you.”

  “And I thought I was becoming so sophisticated.” Beverly shook her short dark curls. “I guess sophistication and weak knees are incompatible, huh?” Lowering her eyes to the desk, she picked up a partially covered pink envelope. Without waiting for an answer to her previous question, she eyed it curiously. “What’s this cute little thing?”

  Drew followed Beverly’s gaze to the small envelope, a frown of puzzlement replacing her forced expression of placidness. “I don’t know. It must have come in with my other mail.” She paused, realizing that after seeing Jim’s letter she had completely forgotten that there had been anything else. “I—I guess I didn’t notice it.”

  Beverly grinned playfully. “Well, since it’s pink, it can’t be from a man. Junk mail, no doubt.”

  Drew stifled the desire to say that she had had all the letters from men that she cared to receive for one day, but forced herself to laugh. “You’re incorrigible, Bev.” Taking the envelope from her friend’s fingers, she went on, “I hope you never have to find out that a man and happiness are not necessarily synonymous.”

  Beverly crossed her arms across a modest chest, eyeing Drew narrowly. “Someday you’ll have to tell me what male animal soured you on love, honey. Why, with your looks, you could have every single guy around here going after you in no time if you’d just—” Noting Drew’s squelching look, she held up a halting hand. “Okay. I won’t pry. Besides, I think I’d rather have Tom all to myself.” She dropped the envelope in Drew’s lap. “Gotta go.”

  “Bye,” Drew tossed absently after Beverly as she made a hasty exit; her interest was now centered on the little envelope with the return address from West Berlin, Germany. A silver letter opener made quick work of opening the letter that Drew knew to be from her college roommate, Megan Roman, now married to Army Captain Curt Cutler. They had been living in West Berlin now for nearly a year.

  The announcement was short: “Drew Marie Cutler, 7 lbs. and 8 ozs., was born to Megan and Curt Cutler on February 17.” On the back of the card was a brief note in Megan’s feathery hand. It read:

  Question: Where should a godmother be on the date of March 8, when her namesake is being christened in West Berlin?

  Answer: Holding the diaper bag, of course. See you soon, love.

  Drew rolled her eyes heavenward. It was just like Meg to drop a note like this, assuming that she would drop everything and go to West Berlin within the week! She hadn’t changed in the five years since they had graduated from college. It was not Meg’s way to ask if Drew would come—she would just expect her to be there. That was how close they were. Meg knew that Drew would come if she possibly could. But Meg also knew that Drew’s father’s position would make her decision very difficult.

  She sat back resting her chin thoughtfully on her knuckles. Of course, she wanted to go. And had it been anywhere else—March 8! A sudden thought struck: Jim! She sat erect, breathing excitedly. Perfect. Providence had stepped in and solved her problem for her. Biting her lip, she reached for the phone. She knew that she was acting rashly. But she had made her decision. Within minutes she had sent a cable to Megan, accepting the invitation. Jim could just come to Los Alamos. He could waste his time. She would be gone, a half a world away—just about far enough! That should show him once and for all just how it was between them—absolutely finished!

  DREW pulled the collar of her down jacket up to cover her ears in an attempt to block the icy March wind. Leaning into it, she trudged toward the multistoried lab where her father, Dr. Drew McKenna, Tokamak Program Manager, supervised eighty-two scientists and technicians. Nearly six o’clock now; dusk was rapidly deepening into darkness. Drew quickened her step, concerned that, for once, her father might have decided to leave work at a reasonable hour, and she would miss her ride home. Pressing her hands deeper into the flannel-lined pockets, she felt her determined expression soften into a melancholy smile. Dr. McKenna, a Nobel Prize winner in physics for his advances in the field of fusion, was basically a good man. But as a parent, Drew had to admit, he had been minimally supportive, at least in the emotional sense. Oh, Drew knew that he cared for her. But the affection she received from him had always been more appropriate to a professor’s interest in a favorite student, rather than a father’s love for his only child. Dr. McKenna’s work was his life, his family, and his passion. And Drew had reconciled herself to that fact years ago. That was why, when she returned to Los Alamos nearly a year before, she had decided to rent a small A-frame house on Los Alamos’s outskirts rather than move back in with her father. A widower for some years, Dr. McKenna lived alone, preferring it that way.

  As she pushed open the fusion lab door, she found her mind wandering to thoughts of her mother, Lenore McKenna. Dead in a car crash when Drew was five, her memory of her mother was vague but pleasant. She recalled an attractive blond woman, always happy, always laughing. This vision she carried with her of her mother made Drew feel sure that it had been her mother who had served as the catalyst that made the McKennas a close, contented threesome. Drew reasoned that her mother must have been a very special woman to have captured the attention and affection of a man so totally engrossed in scientific research. And she surmised that her mother must have had a great deal of strength to have lived and blossomed in the shadow of her father’s all-consuming work. But, of course, these were things that Drew had decided for herself, for her father was painfully non-communicative in areas outside his scientific specialty. He never spoke of Drew’s mother. And when she asked questions about her mother, he would merely smile softly and say, “Your mother was a woman of quality, Drew. Strive to be like her, not like your plain old father.”

  She sighed and shrugged. This was the sum and substance of what she knew about her mother. And in her earlier years, it had been a point of frustration for Drew to be told to be like a person she knew so little about. Even now, she doubted that she would see the day when her father would tell her she had come particularly close. She had no idea if she was much like her mother or not. Actually, she was fairly sure that she lacked the sparkle that had set her mother apart, made her the “woman of quality” that her father remembered so fondly.

  Yet in dusty family albums Drew had seen pictures of her mother. And it was obvious from them that there was a striking physical resemblance between mother and daughter. Except for the fact that Drew’s hair was not blond, but more the color of fire-lit brandy, they were very alike. Both had gray eyes framed by curling dark lashes. A rather poetic maiden aunt had impressed Drew with the comment
years before, that “Lenore’s eyes changed with her moods from smoky gray when happy to the sparking color of lightning when angry.” Drew had clung to that glimpse of her mother like a starving man to a scrap of bread.

  Drew knew one other thing about her mother. She had been tall and willowy, and Drew had inherited her mother’s beautiful figure. Drew knew this because she had worn her mother’s wedding dress. . . . Pleasant thoughts faded with the memory of ideals gone sour, and she felt her jaw tighten in rekindled anger.

  “Hi, Drew.” The distant voice of a young male technician echoed in the nearly empty building, cutting into her mental ramblings. She looked up to see a rather bookish young man hurrying toward her. He was dressed in the casual blue-jeans style of a lab technician, his flannel shirt sleeves pushed up to just below his elbows. An ever-present clipboard was tucked under one arm.

  “Hi, Pete.” Squinting, she let her eyes wander for the first time since entering the building. Powerful lights from fifty feet up blazed in the cavernous room, illuminating the huge embodiment of the essential systems of the Tokamak reactor. To outsiders the towering metal housing that rose to meet the ceiling appeared to be a rather unstreamlined spacecraft. But in reality it was an experimental fusion reactor. Drew’s father agreed with most authorities that when perfected, the Tokamak would be a far superior energy source than present-day nuclear fission reactors because it would be fueled by easily accessible and safe hydrogen, rather than the rare and difficult to handle uranium and plutonium. In addition, and most importantly, fusion reactors would not hold either the hazards of devastating nuclear accidents or radioactive wastes. Making this dream of fusion energy a reality for the United States was Drew’s father’s lifework.

  “You sure brighten up this barn.”

  She turned her attention to the smiling young man, matching his pleasant expression. “Sure, me and a half million watts of electricity. But, thanks.” Unbuttoning her coat she asked, “Say, Pete, have you seen Dad? He didn’t answer his phone when I called a while ago.”