by Brad Willis
Mary Beth and I have been here five days—five restful days on a remote little island in the Bahamas called Elbow Cay, sunning ourselves on isolated beaches ringed by palms, papaya trees, and tropical pines. In the morning, we snorkel with giant manta rays and tropical fish. As evening nears, I drift our tiny motorboat over crystal-blue waters, dive over the side, and swim down to coral reefs in order to grab spiny lobsters for dinner. At the end of the day, we watch the sunset color the horizon through our wine glasses, then gaze into the skies until the first stars appear.
It’s amazingly beautiful, and getting to know Mary Beth better is a joy, but I just can’t relax. I’m dying to get back in the groove, break another story, or pitch another international trip. When I’m in the field confronting the target of an investigative report, or even on turbulent foreign soil, like I was with the mujahideen in the Afghan war, I feel perfectly calm and stress-free. Here in paradise, I’m stressed out and distracted, consumed with thoughts of getting to network news. It’s an obsession that even a romantic vacation can’t drive away. I’m Type A, healthy as a horse, and I feel invincible. I’m also dying to know what’s going on in the world as we wake on our last full day of vacation. Little do I know that the worst accident of my life is screaming across the ocean and heading straight for me.
Mary Beth and I plan to spend this final day soaking up the sun, eating cold lobster salad, and snorkeling in the shallow inlet of our favorite little beach, where we’ve never seen another soul. The beach is just a short walk from our vacation rental home, and today’s another perfect morning, with calm breezes and tranquil waters. When we arrive, the beach is all ours again, and we spread out our towels on the fine sand, dab on some sunscreen, and agree to take a swim after a little sunbathing. I doze off but soon awaken with a start. A thick black mass of clouds has appeared on the horizon, and the ocean is starting to roil and froth. The wind is kicking up hard, wailing through the island pines, and bending the palm trees sideways.
Not wanting to get soaked, Mary Beth and I jump up from the beach and run back through a small forest to our vacation rental home. It sits alone in a pine forest at the ocean’s edge, facing the approaching storm. As we arrive, the entire sky turns black. A torrential rain slams into the house. Its large, plate-glass windows vibrate and hum as the tempest descends on us. The force of the wind is so powerful we wonder if it’s a hurricane.
I have just a few minutes to batten down more than a dozen storm shutters before the brunt of the storm hits. I run to each window, yanking hard at the heavy wooden shutters as their rusty hinges resist. I finally close them all, except one. It’s stuck. As I struggle with the rusty latch, it punches a hole in my thumb before I finally secure it.
Completely soaked and with blood trickling down my arm, I dash inside and slam the door. The whole house shakes as the storm lashes against it with amazing force. We hear a loud-pitched scream and look up to see a small, open window at the top of the vaulted ceiling in the bedroom where we’ve taken refuge. It’s shaking so hard I think it might burst.
“I’ve got to close that,” I say to Mary Beth.
“Why?” she asks softly.
“I’m not sure,” I answer, laughing a little at myself. “It just seems like the right thing to do. Maybe the glass will break and the room will be damaged by the rain. Besides, I can’t stand the noise.”
I’m six feet tall, but the window is far above my head, so I have to climb onto a dresser and then pull myself up and balance on a narrow ledge as the storm continues to scream like a banshee.
Barely steadying myself, I reach up and grab the window handles as the salty spray of the storm whips at my face. They’re badly corroded and I have to force them. As I twist harder, it happens in an instant. Both handles snap off in my hands. I fly off the ledge, falling twelve feet to the hardwood floor and slamming onto my back.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t breathe. My heart is pounding like a jackhammer. My ears are screaming. Mary Beth kneels by my side and holds me, pleading with me to take a breath. I gasp and convulse for what seems an eternity. Please, body, breathe. Just breathe. I begin fearing I might die from suffocation. Then, it’s like a dam bursting open as the first inhale floods in. A wave of relief rolls over me as I drink in the oxygen. Now I try to get up from the floor. I’m stuck. I can’t seem to send the right signal to my legs. They won’t move at all.
I’ve been lying here on the floor for ten minutes. I still can’t move my legs. I can feel them, but I can’t make them do my bidding. No matter how hard I try to will them to, they won’t move.
“Just stay down. Give it time. You’ll be fine.” Mary Beth is comforting me, saying just the right things, but I can hear the fear in her voice.
“I’m okay,” I tell her with a grunt, but I have to use my arms to drag myself across the floor, grab the bedpost, and pull myself onto the mattress. I’m exhausted, yet I feel very little pain. I must still be in shock from the fall. You’ll be fine in the morning, I tell myself with my usual hubris, then collapse into a deep sleep as the storm continues to rage.
At dawn, the sun is pouring through the tiny window with the broken handles as if nothing ever happened. The skies are calm and the tropical storm, having never become a hurricane, has passed. It’s time for the long trip back to the States, but as I stand up from the bed my legs are like noodles and I fall down to my knees. My lower back is on fire. It feels like there’s an ice pick in my tailbone and someone is twisting it just to torment me. Despite the agony, I have to laugh as I consider the irony: I just tromped through the freezing mountains of Afghanistan during a terrible war without suffering a scratch, but now I’m on a warm beach in paradise so wounded I can barely walk.
I grit my teeth and force myself to stand. The pain deepens. Don’t worry. This will soon be over. Tough it out. I repeat this silently as Mary Beth and I head for the ferry boat. There are no cars on the island. We have to take our little boat and motor to the main harbor, then walk to the ferry landing. I limp the entire way, holding the left side of my lower back with one hand while dragging my suitcase with the other hand. When we board the ferry, I grip a rail and steady myself during the long ride to a larger island, where we finally catch a commuter flight to Florida.
By the time we land in Miami, my whole body is on fire. As I limp toward baggage claim gritting my teeth, a TV at the airport bar catches my eye. It’s breaking news. A covert CIA operative, Eugene Hassenfus, has been shot down and captured in Nicaragua. He was airlifting military supplies to right-wing Contras fighting to overthrow the socialist government of President Daniel Ortega. It’s long been suspected that the American government was behind the war, and here’s the first tangible evidence. Adrenalin rushes through my veins and I prepare to jump on the story in any way possible, pain be damned.
I’m at WBZ the next morning, covering local angles on the story, including street protests, predictable sound bites of outrage from our Massachusetts senators, and obfuscations from White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes. Being fully absorbed in the news is powerful medicine for me, and it takes my mind off the pain. Anyway, I’ll be better in no time. It was only a little fall from a ledge. Nothing to worry about.
The back pain subsides after a few nights of rest, allowing me to function closer to my normal level. But at least one morning each week I wake up with a tender back and shaky legs. It inevitably gets worse throughout the day. When this happens, sitting to write a news script or edit videotape agitates the problem and sets my back on fire. An airplane or helicopter flight to cover a story is scorching. On top of it all, every few weeks the invisible tormenter with the ice pick sneaks up behind me and stabs me in the tailbone again.
Some days it hurts so badly I want to scream out loud, but I stuff it. I’m convinced that I’ll be better soon. Meanwhile, I feel like I can’t let anyone know I’m injured. I have to push forward. In this business, the weak fall behind and most of them never catch up again. I’ll never let that ha
ppen to me. Never.
Three months have gone by since I crashed onto my back during the storm in the Bahamas. I’m still running at full speed, artfully hiding the problem from my colleagues, each day faking that I’m fine. But the pain is deep. Gnawing. The invisible ice pick torturing me more often. I try everything to make it better: different postures in my chair. A seat cushion. Cold packs. Hot packs. Salt baths at home. Nothing does the trick. Physical therapy and massage at my gym provide temporary relief, but I’m merely treating the symptoms. My back is not healing. I don’t like doctor offices and am only comfortable in hospitals if I’m there as a reporter with a camera crew and an interesting story to cover. But this looks like the only option left. Reluctantly, I finally decide to see an orthopedic specialist.
“You have a hairline fracture in L5, the lowest lumbar vertebra in your spinal column,” the doctor says as he holds the X-ray film up to the light.
“You see the pedicles, the two flanges that protrude from the sides of each vertebra?” I have to look closely to see them. They seem like stubby wings sticking out from the sides of each disc.
He points his pen to a thin, blurry line running across a portion of the left pedicle. “This is a hairline fracture. Technically, you have a mildly broken back. I can’t believe you are still functioning at the level you are.”
“No, it’s not a broken back, just a little crack,” I snap at him with unintended anger. This has been happening more often with me as a result of the nagging pain. I hear myself getting short with people, sounding aggravated when I don’t intend to. “So what can we do?” All I want is a quick solution.
“We might be able to control the pain with medications and a brace,” he continues, “but you need to have surgery if you want to fix this. I’d like you to see a colleague of mine, a surgeon who specializes in these procedures.”
This is out of the question. Surgery would take way too much time. Get in the way of my career. I obstinately refuse to even consider it. I rationalize it in an instant, recalling having a broken arm and leg as a child and how each injury healed in due time without surgery. My back tightens as my resolve intensifies. I can still meet deadlines, I think to myself. Travel anywhere. Rough it whenever necessary. I am not spineless. I am not crippled. I am not stopping now.
I grit my teeth and say to the doctor, “I’ll take the brace and the pain medications.”
The doctor’s reaction makes it clear he doesn’t agree with my choice, but he complies and fits me with an elastic back brace that straps around my waist. It has two thin metal bands that curve into the arch of my lower back to support the main muscles flanking my lumbar vertebrae. He also prescribes medication: a high-strength dosage of the anti-inflammatory drug Motrin, along with Valium to relax the muscles that often flare up from my buttocks to my shoulder blades.
“You shouldn’t drink alcohol with the medications,” the doctor warns, “and let me know if the Motrin bothers your stomach.”
I’m barely listening, still numb from the thought of having a broken back. I can hardly bring myself to say thank you. I fill the prescriptions at the pharmacy below his office and stop at a water fountain to swallow a dose of each, having no idea that I’m taking my first step into what will become a pharmaceutical-induced nightmare.
Mary Beth and I are still seeing one another, but I’m not a very good partner. Back pain makes me irritable and impatient, and I’m only interested in pushing my career forward. Everything else is on hold. I can’t work out at the gym any longer, I’ve stopped going out on the town, and I’m no longer taking long walks along the Charles River after work. At the TV station I’ve found a vacant room upstairs and sneak into it whenever possible to lie down on the floor and rest. Three times a day I gobble Motrin and each night down a Valium with a glass of wine, ignoring my doctor’s warning about mixing alcohol with drugs.
I’m able to cover the local news in Boston, pursuing the investigative reporting I love, but I have to back off the computer several times a day, stand up, and press my palms into my tender lower back while pushing my hips forward. It’s become a newsroom joke as my fellow reporters jump up from their chairs now and then, playfully mocking my stance. They still have no idea how bad it is. My back brace is invisible beneath my trousers and sport coat, and I tell no one about it for fear the station will stop sending me on more rigorous assignments.
My career is all that matters. I have to move forward. Afghanistan was just a few months ago, but it seems like years. I have to find the next opportunity to pitch an international story. I feel like I’ve almost made it to the top of the mountain and my body is trying to drag me back down. No way. I’m not giving in. I’ll never stop.
CHAPTER 5
Apartheid
IT’S 1987 AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST APARTHEID, South Africa’s white supremacy system, is boiling over. There are riots and violent clashes throughout the country. Nelson Mandela, the charismatic founder of the African National Congress (ANC), has been imprisoned by the South African government for years and is now a living martyr. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is pushing for strict economic sanctions against South Africa in hopes of freeing Mandela and forcing an end to government-sanctioned racism. The Reagan Administration calls Mandela’s ANC a terrorist organization and is adamantly opposed to sanctions. Instead, Reagan promotes “Constructive Engagement,” a euphemism for preserving the status quo. It’s a classic struggle between liberals and conservatives.
With antiapartheid protests in New England, there’s great local interest in the international story. The networks have bureaus in South Africa with correspondents filing reports almost nightly, so if I want to cover it myself, I have to come up with a unique angle. I decide to focus on Zambia, where the ANC is now headquartered and run by Nelson Mandela’s law partner, Oliver Tambo.
Tambo is in exile and a prime target for the South African government. It takes weeks for me to make contact, even with the help of Senator Kennedy’s staff. When I finally do get his top aide on the phone, he confirms that Tambo has agreed to an on-camera interview with us. This positions me to tell the story from the perspective of what are called the Frontline Nations of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Mozambique, where black Africans have their independence and are putting up a united front against apartheid. When WBZ approves the proposal, it’s like a miraculous medicine for my back. I can barely feel the pain as Dennis and I board a flight to Africa. Even so, I take an extra dose of Valium and Motrin as we land in Zambia more than fifteen hours later, just to be sure.
Zambia is landlocked, sitting atop the lower third of the continent like a gateway to its southern regions. The capital city of Lusaka, built on a plateau, is subtropical and steamy. Humidity hangs heavy in the air as we bounce into the city in a taxi that feels like it lost its shock absorbers years ago. A million poverty-stricken people live here, virtually on top of one another. The streets are organized chaos. Makeshift markets selling paltry goods. Children play on street corners as raw sewage flows by. Starving dogs fight over bits of food hidden in the piles of trash. The stench is overwhelming, but the thrill of being on a major story makes it almost smell sweet.
Surprisingly, there is little sense of desperation amid all this filth and chaos. The Zambian people hold themselves with dignity. It’s been two decades since they ended a century of white domination and exploitation, mostly at the hands of the British. Every time we jump out of our taxi to film, young people immediately surround us to express the pride they feel as members of an independent nation.
In South Africa, it was the white Afrikaners who fought with the British for primacy and ultimately took power. The Afrikaners are a deeply conservative German, Dutch, and French ethnic group called Boers who migrated to South Africa in the 1600s. They formed a political minority National Party that managed to take power in 1948 and quickly enacted harsh segregationist laws that became known as apartheid, which means “apartness.” The policy created a system of complete social and econ
omic discrimination against black South Africans, who were forced into ghettos called townships and denied all rights.
To fight back against the ANC and Frontline Nations, Special Forces of the South African government regularly launch military strikes into Zambia. They have secret police throughout Lusaka. Assassinations of ANC leaders are all too common. Oliver Tambo has various safe houses hidden within the heart of the city. It takes a day to arrange a secret meeting with Isaac, the ANC operative who will guide us to the right location. We meet at a side street several blocks from our hotel.
“Welcome,” Isaac says with polite formality and a firm handshake. “We must move quickly. I will speak to your driver. Please get back in your car.” Isaac whispers something to our driver, Jonas, and walks off in his well-tailored suit like a businessman headed for an urgent meeting. His commitment to the struggle is palpable. It’s clear he’s prepared to die for his beliefs, and equally clear he intends not to.
Jonas starts the car quickly and turns into the first alley, entering a maze: Narrow lanes. No street signs. Thicker crowds. Within five minutes I’m completely lost and know I would never find my way out of here without a guide. We begin doubling back, circling, losing anyone who might be following. A sudden stop. We’re in front of a fifteen-foot, rusted steel wall with a small doorway cut into its center. Suddenly, Isaac appears from nowhere, now clad in a faded T-shirt and jeans, blending perfectly into the neighborhood.
“Grab your gear and follow me,” Isaac says with firm calmness. “In here. Quickly.” He knocks a code on the steel wall with his knuckles as we get out of the car. Thick steel bolts are unlocked from the interior and the door swings open with a screech. We slip inside the compound with Isaac, and behind us the door is immediately slammed shut and bolted by a tall, muscular young man with a pistol tucked into his waistband. We are standing in a dirt courtyard ten yards from a single-story structure that looks like a cross between a workshop and a residence.