If I'd Never Known Your Love

by Georgia Bockoven

  Finally, her ability to come up with a reasonable explanation for not hearing from him exhausted, her nerves raw, her mind teetering on panic, she heard the phone ring.

  "Where have you been?" she said instead of hello. "I've been so worried."

  "Julia, it's Harold." He hesitated for agonizingly long seconds. "I'm afraid I have some bad news." Again he paused. 'I’m sorry, I tried to think of a way to tell you this that would make it easier, but there just aren't any words. It appears Evan's been kidnapped. The driver hired by Gutierrez Construction to pick him up at the airport said several men with guns waylaid their car and took Evan. Ernesto Gutierrez called the police and then me. I told him I would—well, that I would let you know."

  "Kidnapped?" With everything she'd imagined, she hadn't come close to this. "Why Evan? That doesn't make sense." Denial gave her precious moments to escape the horror. There had to be some mistake. He couldn't be one of those blindfolded men and women she'd seen on the evening news, terrified into a shuffling numbness, bruised and bleeding, sitting in front of masked gunmen, pleading for their lives.

  "Ernesto said there are a couple of political groups that grab anyone they believe can pay. It's how they finance their armies."

  "We don't have any money." Please, God. Not Evan. Let there be some mistake.

  "But I do. There's no way they could have known Evan had taken my place. They must have thought they were taking me.

  "Julia, I can't find the words to express how sorry I am. This is my fault. It should have been me. I swear to you that I will do everything it takes to get Evan home.

  Ernesto is working on it already. He said he has a friend whose uncle was taken and that he will get in touch with them to find out what we should do. As soon as we hear from the kidnappers, whoever they are, we'll do whatever they ask."

  "I have to go there," she said.

  "Julia, there isn't anything—"

  "I have to be there, Harold."

  "Yes, of course. I'll have my assistant make the arrangements first thing in the morning."

  That was hours away. "No, it has to be now," she told him. "I can get a flight online and be on my way by morning."

  "Let me do this for you. Please. I have a friend who has a charter company. I can get you there faster through him than you can get there commercially."

  "All right "she agreed, reluctantly. But she couldn't just wait. She had to do something. She could pack. And call her sister, Barbara, to ask her to stay with Shelly and Jason. Her mother and father had to be told. They would have a hundred questions.

  Especially her father. He'd never been someone to sit and wait for anything. "You'll phone as soon as you hear something? Anything? From anyone?"

  "I promise."

  She packed and then called Barbara, waking her, needing her, knowing that she would be there as soon as she could get dressed and drive over.

  Barbara arrived in her bathrobe just as Julia finished telling Shelly and Jason what had happened to their father and why she had to go to Colombia. Shelly cried. Jason's eyes grew ever wider as he listened with the rapt attention of a seven-year-old whose only experience with violence was a video game where the good guys always won.

  With the aplomb and authority and sensitivity of a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school, something she'd experienced seven times in her teaching career, Barbara took over. She calmed Shelly and corralled her into helping with breakfast, giving her something to do. Julia handled Jason, responding to his endless questions with the same answer—that she didn't know.

  After seeing them off on the school bus, her bunny slippers decorated with birch-tree leaves that she'd gathered as she'd hurried across the front lawn, Barbara stood at the bottom of the stairs and shouted up to Julia.

  "What can I do now?"

  "Call Mom and Dad."

  "Okay—but you know they're going to want to talk to you."

  Julia came to the bedroom door."Tell them I'll call when I get to Colombia, when I actually know something. And tell Dad that I know how much he's going to want to be there, too, and that I appreciate it, but—" She paused and took a deep breath. "Damn. I'll call them myself."

  "Let me give them the news and then I'll pass the phone to you."

  The small kindness tipped Julia over the emotional edge, and she broke down. She flashed to mental images of Evan being wrestled from the car, a gun stuck in his ribs, a blindfold, a racing car, men shouting at him in a language he didn't understand. Had they hit him? Was he bleeding? She hugged herself, her tears punctuated by deep moans.

  Please, please let them realize they've made a mistake and let him go, she silently cried over and over again, collapsing to the floor. "No-o-o-o-o-o----Oh, please, please let him go."

  Barbara ran up the stairs, forgetting her leaf- encrusted slippers and leaving a trail of yellow in the threadbare green carpet. Crouching to enfold Julia in her arms, she said,

  "He s going to be all right. Just keep reminding yourself that kidnappers don't take people to hurt them—they do it for the money."

  "We don't have any money," she sobbed."We used every bit of our savings to buy this house. There's no way I could get it sold in time to pay a ransom. Harold said he would help, but—"

  "I have some money put away and so do Mom and Dad. We'll find a way, Julia."

  Abruptly shaking herself, she moved free of her sister's arms and stood, wiping her eyes with her hands. "I can't do this. Don't let me do this, Barbara. I have to stay strong.

  What good can I possibly be to Evan if I don't?"

  Harold kept his promise and called Julia even when he had nothing to report, innately knowing if she didn't hear from him she would assume the worst. The arrangements were finalized for the flight, and Julia, Harold and a nurse, whom his wife, Mary, had insisted he hire, were on their way to Colombia by noon.

  To keep herself sane while Harold slept off the painkillers he'd needed just to get out of bed to go with her, Julia searched the plane for a magazine, something to distract her if only for an hour or two. She found four on golf, one on fishing and the past six issues of Sports Illustrated. She also found a tablet, spiral-bound and blank. With no clear idea what she would say, or why she felt the sudden, compulsive need, she took a pen from her purse and began a letter to Evan.

  As she wrote she discovered a peace and connection that were almost mystical. Evan would read what she wrote. She believed that with her heart and her soul. She had to.

  One Day Missing

  My darling, Evan,

  I know I've told you this a dozen times in a dozen different ways, but I was a little bit in love with you even before we met. You were all my girlfriends could talk about the whole two weeks I was stuck at home after I broke both my legs jumping out of the hayloft. Of course the guys who came to see me never mentioned you unless I asked.

  All they wanted to talk about was why the football team that most of them were on was doing so well, and how they were sure they would make the state championship, finally. They thought I cared more than I did because I was a cheerleader and couldn't get to the games.

  Maybe it was something I heard in my girlfriends' voices, or maybe I noticed how animated they're came when they talked about you. Whatever it was, I could hardly wait to get back to school and see you for myself Looking back, it's easy to understand why you had the effect on them that you did. You were the bad boy from Detroit who showed up one morning walking across the school yard looking like you'd just stepped out of the movie Grease. You were Danny Zuko with your long hair and black T-shirt and jeans. Only, unlike John Travolta, you never smiled.

  You didn't talk, either. Not to anyone. For a group of small-town Kansas farm girls you were the most exciting thing to come into their Hues since puberty.

  Becky Roberts insisted that even the teachers were a little afraid of you. What great gossip you provided for a bunch of kids who'd lived their entire lives in Bickford, Kansas. Oh, Evan, if they'd only known.

&nb
sp; Of course, hearing all this, I could hardly wait to see you and to win you over with my charm and wit. I was absolutely sure that there was no way you'd be able to resist my cheerleader personality and smile.

  But you could. And you did. Oh, boy, did you resist me.

  I spotted you across the quad, sitting on the grass with your back against a tree. You were reading a book, something with a library tag on the spine, and didn't even glance up as I rolled my squeaky wheelchair across the asphalt toward you.

  "Hi," I said with a calculated, perky enthusiasm as I parked at the edge of the grass.

  You ignored me.

  "Hey, you with the book," I tried again.

  That got through and you looked up, directly into my eyes. I know you meant to shut me up and send me on my way, but for an instant I saw something you never intended for me to see—a longing so deep and sad it stole my breath.

  That day I learned that love at first sight isn't a lightning bolt. It's like trying to control the drips on a triple-scoop ice-cream cone on a blistering August day. You can lick like crazy, and you just might succeed for an instant or two, but anything beyond that— well, forget it.

  "You want something?" you asked, still staring at me.

  I think it was the wheelchair that breeched your defenses, because I'd turned into what had to be a fairly unattractive puddle of swirling vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Stupidly, I stuck out my hand. "I'm Julia Warren."

  You glanced at my hand. "You're kidding, right?"

  "What? People don't shake hands where you come from?"

  "Not any of the people I know."

  Even then I realized it was a pretty dumb thing to do. But it was all I could come up with. After all, I'd just fallen in love with the one boy in the entire school my parents would not be happy to find standing at their front door.

  Thankfully, I was saved by the bell announcing the start of first period. I waited for you to leave, but you were waiting for me. Another awkward moment. I gave in and backed up my wheelchair, hanging on to the right wheel and pushing the left the way I'd been taught to do to get it to turn around. Great in theory, terrible in execution. I don't know if you felt sorry for me or were impatient, but you grabbed the handles and said, "Which way?"

  I pointed toward the main building. "Thanks."

  We squeaked into the building and down the worn wooden floor toward Mr. Brolin's biology class. It was funny how all the kids peeked around their lockers to stare at us and how hard they looked to pretend they hadn't when they got caught.

  I saw Barbara headed toward me and tried to wave her off, but as usual, she was oblivious to anything more subtle than a rock hitting her on the backside. She told you she would take over, that it was her job to get me to class. You told her to be your guest. I watched you walk away, and told Barbara that if she ever chased you off again, I would poison her oatmeal.

  C H A P T E R 2

  " I ' m sure it's been explained to you that the official policy of the United States will not let me help you negotiate your husband's release, nor can I officially allow you to pay a ransom, Mrs. McDonald. We can, however, provide a list of lawyers and translators without, of course, recommending one over the other."

  The man speaking was in his mid-forties, sitting tall in his leather executive chair, commanding, and wearing a navy blazer with traces of pet hair on the left sleeve. While they were only a few hairs, that made him seem human somehow, someone she could reach out to. A removable piece of brass tucked into a wooden sleeve said Paul E.

  Erickson. She mentally repeated the name several times. After a day filled with dealing with the Colombian authorities who handled kidnap cases and being shuffled from one department to another here at the American Embassy, people's names and faces were blurring. She'd even lost track whether Paul E. Erickson was with American Citizen Services or the ambassador's office. Tomorrow, she would bring paper and take notes.

  Eventually, Harold would be well enough to make the rounds with her and hopefully pick up what she missed, but not for another week at least, if then.

  In varying degrees of helpfulness, everyone she'd talked to that day had told her the same thing. There was nothing she could do until she heard from the kidnappers, and that wouldn't happen for days if not weeks, possibly even months.

  She realized that there was no way for any of them to feel the urgency she felt, the panic, the fear that ran so deep it colored every thought with a warning that if she didn't do something right now—regardless of all the learned advice to be patient—it would be too late. All it would take was one more bureaucrat giving her one more verbal pat on the head and she would turn into a screaming lunatic.

  "Thank you," Julia said with effort. She stood. "I appreciate your rime and will certainly let you know when I hear something." If she'd learned nothing else that day, it was how eager everyone was to be kept informed of the process and progress even while claiming there was nothing any of them could personally do to help. "Do you have a card?"

  Her abrupt move to depart took him by surprise, plainly interrupting his oft-repeated speech subtly modified to fit individual crises. He motioned for her to sit back down. "I know that right now it seems we're the enemy, too, and you had expected more from your country, Mrs. McDonald, but there is only so much we can do when it comes to kidnapping. The official policy is rigid—negotiating with kidnappers only encourages more kidnappings—and, frankly, although few will admit it, there isn't one person working here who doesn't feel that policy is foolishly out-of-date.

  "Sacrificing a half-dozen American citizens is not going stop these people," he went on. "Kidnapping has become a way of life in Colombia. Go down streets in some of the wealthier areas of the city and you can see men holding machine guns, sitting on top of eight-foot walls lined with barbed wire."

  Finally, she'd found someone willing to throw away the script. Julia sat down again, responding to his incredible candor with a pent-up sigh. "Thank you, Mr. Erickson. I may not like what you're saying, but it's something I need to hear."

  "There are eight million people living in this city.

  Almost all of the country's major corporations have their headquarters here. There is great wealth and abject poverty and compelling opportunity for potential redistribution through ransom. Americans aren't the primary target, however. In total, we don't account for even one percent of the three thousand people who are kidnapped in this country every year. That doesn't give us much leverage. What possible difference can we make by refusing to negotiate, when everyone else does? It's not only shortsighted—

  it's stupid. And dangerous."

  "I'm confused. First you tell me the United States won't let me negotiate, and now you're telling me it's the only way to get Evan back."

  He leaned forward, clasping the edge of his desk. "I can't officially help you but there are other things that I can and will do. I've already called the FBI, and they're sending someone who has worked on several kidnapping cases in Colombia. He should be here in a couple days."

  "How can the FBI become involved when you can't?"

  "They've been allowed to operate in foreign countries since the eighties. And because they're independent of the State Department, they don't work under the same restrictions that we do."

  "Those other cases...? How did they turn out?"

  He reached for a folder with George Black written on the tab and looked inside."Of the most recent and ongoing cases, one was resolved in a little over six months, another just short of a year. One captive escaped. And one case is ongoing."

  None of the victims had died. This was the first time she'd been given something real to cling to; the first clear promise of hope. While the Colombian authorities had been sympathetic and encouraging, they were also strangely wary, telling her that they were convinced Evan's kidnapping was a mistake, that the real target had been a Colombian oil executive on the same plane who'd left the airport in the same kind of car and with a driver wearing a similar unifo
rm.

  "The ongoing case—how long has he been held?"

  "Actually, it's a woman. She was taken in the middle of the night from an ecotourism.

  group camping in the jungle in the Choco province."

  "How long?"Julia repeated.

  For the first time he appeared uncomfortable. "Three years."

  "Oh, my God," she said softly."All that time."And then, past a sudden lump in her throat, she asked, "How do they know she's still alive?"

  "A couple of months ago, the family insisted the kidnappers give them proof-of-life evidence or they would cut off the negotiations. It cost them twenty thousand dollars, but they feel it was worth every dime."

  "Those poor people. I can't imagine what it must be like for them." But she was beginning to. They undoubtedly lived every day with the same sick fear that lay in the pit of her stomach.

  "There isn't anything easy about this, Mrs. McDonald."

  "So, are you saying I should just sit and wait for the FBI agent to get here?"

  He gave her an understanding smile. "Basically, yes. But I don't think it's advice you will follow. In the meantime, there are some things you need to hear that are critical for your husband's safe return. One, don't draw attention to yourself or to Evan by going to the media. Make sure your friends and family understand this, too. I know it goes against an instinctive belief—that attention will put pressure on our government and the Colombian government, which will result in quicker action. But all you'll succeed in doing is convincing the kidnappers that Evan is more important than I'm sure he's telling them that he is.

  "You'll also give them the idea that the company he works for is in a position to pay a lot of money to get him back."

  "They are. His boss has assured me that he will pay whatever it takes." Harold had told her this so many times that she'd come to believe he would sell the company, if necessary, to raise the money.