Jean Paul said, “Well, I had better go and let you—”
“No.” For an instant, Dana’s mind was filled with a vision of Wally’s head exploding, and his body falling to the ground. “No,” Dana said. She looked up at Jean Paul. “Please stay. I need you.”
Jean Paul sat down on the bed. And Dana took him in her arms and held him close to her.
The following morning, Dana said to Benn Albertson, “Can you get hold of a cameraman? Jean Paul told me about an orphanage in Kosovo that’s just been bombed. I want to go there and cover it.”
“I’ll round up someone.”
“Thanks, Benn. I’ll go on ahead and meet you there.”
“Be careful.”
“Don’t worry.”
Jovan was waiting for Dana in the alley.
“We’re going to Kosovo,” Dana told him.
Jovan turned to look at her. “That is dangerous, madam. The only road there is through the woods, and—”
“We’ve already had our share of bad luck, Jovan. We’ll be all right.”
“As you wish.”
They sped through the city, and fifteen minutes later were driving through a heavily forested area.
“How much farther?” Dana asked.
“Not far. We should be there in—”
And at that moment, the Land Rover struck a land mine.
11
As election day approached, the presidential race became too close to call.
“We’ve got to win Ohio,” Peter Tager said. “That’s twenty-one electoral votes. We’re all right with Alabama—that’s nine votes—and we have Florida’s twenty-five votes.” He held up a chart. “Illinois, twenty-two votes…New York, thirty-three, and California, forty-four. It’s just too damned early to call it.”
Everyone was concerned except Senator Davis.
“I’ve got a nose,” he said. “I can smell victory.”
In a Frankfort hospital, Miriam Friedland was still in a coma.
On election day, the first Tuesday in November, Leslie stayed home to watch the returns on television. Oliver Russell won by more than two million popular votes and a huge majority of electoral votes. Oliver Russell was the president now, the biggest target in the world.
No one had followed the election campaign more closely than Leslie Stewart Chambers. She had been busily expanding her empire and had acquired a chain of newspapers and television and radio stations across the United States, as well as in England, Australia, and Brazil.
“When are you going to have enough?” her chief editor, Darin Solana, asked.
“Soon,” Leslie said. “Soon.”
There was one more step she had to take, and the last piece fell into place at a dinner party in Scottsdale.
A guest said, “I heard confidentially that Margaret Portman is getting a divorce.” Margaret Portman was the owner of the Washington Tribune, in the nation’s capital.
Leslie had no comment, but early the following morning, she was on the telephone with Chad Morton, one of her attorneys. “I want you to find out if the Washington Tribune is for sale.”
The answer came back later that day. “I don’t know how you heard about it, Mrs. Chambers, but it looks as though you could be right. Mrs. Portman and her husband are quietly getting a divorce, and they’re dividing up their property. I think Washington Tribune Enterprises is going up for sale.”
“ I want to buy it.”
“You’re talking about a megadeal. Washington Tribune Enterprises owns a newspaper chain, a magazine, a television network, and—”
“I want it.”
That afternoon, Leslie and Chad Morton were on their way to Washington, D.C.
Leslie telephoned Margaret Portman, whom she had met casually a few years earlier.
“I’m in Washington,” Leslie said, “and I—”
“I know.”
Word gets around fast, Leslie thought. “I heard that you might be interested in selling Tribune Enterprises.”
“Possibly.”
“I wonder if you would arrange a tour of the paper for me?”
“Are you interested in buying it, Leslie?”
“Possibly.”
Margaret Portman sent for Matt Baker. “Do you know who Leslie Chambers is?”
“The Ice Princess. Sure.”
“She’ll be here in a few minutes. I’d like you to take her on a tour of the plant.”
Everyone at the Tribune was aware of the impending sale.
“It would be a mistake to sell the Tribune to Leslie Chambers,” Matt Baker said flatly.
“What makes you say that?”