Miss Impractical Pants (51 page)

Katie caught sight of Marko trying to clear the sleep cobwebs from his head, his lower lip trembling. She stood just in time to catch the eight-year-old frame that came bounding into her arms. He was almost too big for her to hold.

“He is telling someone he’s found us and he will waste no time in killing us. The only one who will live is Katie…for now. He says he will make her pay for Mensur’s death.”

Katie felt cold terror fill her veins. She forced herself not to fall into a state of hysterics by clinging to the tiny hope that she would be lucky enough to catch an errant bullet through the heart. In an instant, Lucas had her and Marko encircled in his arms. Putting his cheek next to hers, he held them both tight. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” he promised with conviction. His whisper was hot against her ear, and his warm tears spilled onto her face.

Kata
was the only one not idly waiting for the attack. It seemed the promise of imminent death filled her with a determination not to kick the bucket before Indira could have a head of hair. She bent her head into her project with ferocity. The whir of her sewing was the only sound that occupied the tiny room.

Quaking from both fear and pain, Katie could no longer ignore her wounded leg. She pushed Marko into Lucas’s chest and crumpled into her chair just as a sequence of bullets was fired into the door. The
blasting pinging sound charged against the metal but did not penetrate. Katie was too caught up in the dizzying pain to react, but she took in the terrified shrieks of her companions, and felt their relief when the door held. Then, she shut her eyes and blocked out everything around her.
             

When she opened them again, the looks on everyone’s faces told her something was horribly wrong. She scanned the room to find Kata’s broken form slumped across Indira’s legs. For one petrifying moment Katie feared the door hadn’t held and the woman had been shot. Then she heard the crying that shook Kata’s entire body. Indira bent over and hugged her aunt’s head, showering her with her own tears.
             

“Stanley, what’s happened to Kata?” Katie whispered, noticing everyone but Lucas was crying.

Stanley sniffed. “There was not enough
mane
to finish the wig. Hair was the only gift she had to give to Indira.”

“
When we get out of here, can’t we go to the stable and get more hair?” Katie offered.

Stanley shook his head. “It is impossible, the horse has been sold.”

Katie’s eyes also began to pool as her own hopes for Indira’s beautiful head of hair were dashed. She regarded the wig dangling from the Styrofoam head. It was scant at best and pieces of the cap underneath peeked out between carefully positioned wefts. It would take a whole other horse’s tail to draw out its full potential.

More loud turbulence and gunfire from above jolted them from their melancholy. A thunder of voices stormed as men screamed back and forth. But they weren’t Bosnian voices; they were lovely American
and British voices, and German ones—which weren’t so lovely, but welcome nonetheless. Katie’s heart began to pound.

A loud knock rang through the cellar and a sturdy German-accented voice sounded in English: “United Nations Peacekeeping—is anyone down there?”

Stanley sprinted to the top of the stairs shouting, “We are here! We are here!”

“Can you open the door?”

“Yes,” Stanley replied.

“Good. Do so only when I tell you it is safe,” the rigid German voice commanded.

Katie smoothed her fingers along a section of wig while her stomach did loop de loops. Would she soon be freed from this nightmare?

Looking around at the state of her company, she didn’t experience the elation she expected to feel. She observed her new friends: Kata, with strands of short, wild ponytail clinging to her tear-stained face, her only wish to give her niece a head of hair; the orphaned Indira, feeble and pale, with her most important possession, a scarf, covering her balding head; Stanley, who had abandoned his American dream to help his family, now watching his world literally crumble around him; and Marko—what would become of the tenderhearted little boy?

Katie stared down at the wig again, discovering that she had inadvertently tangled some of her own long strands into the horsehair. Her slightly lighter color complemented the mahogany horsehair, creating an effect of salon perfect-highlights. She ran her hand down the length of her own hair and suddenly realized she had the resources
to not only complete the wig, but to make it even better than imagined. Before she could change her mind, she grabbed a piece of fishing wire, tied her hair into a low ponytail, and started cutting. It took several attempts for the scissors to chew through the thick stalk, but eventually fourteen inches of her most prized possession—in fact, her identity—fell limply to the table.

Without the weight of the heavy cascades, her head nearly floated away. Apprehensively, she ran her shaky fingers through the ends of her new haircut. When her fingertips hit just below the bottom of her chin, she realized what she had done, and cried—not for what she had lost, but for what she had given.

“It’s safe to open the door!” the German hollered. “Do not come out—we’re coming in!”

Stanley opened it wide, and two by two, camouflaged soldiers wearing blue helmets with a white UN logo above the ear pushed their way through, forcing Stanley backward down the stairs with the ends of their rifles. Each unison step the soldiers took was quick and strategic. The first two men landed at the bottom of the stairs and skimmed over the group.

“Is Kathryn Sutherland down here?” a harsh American voice with a Southern accent barked.

Katie stood, hands still shaking from her haircut. “Yes, I’m here.”

The stocky American soldier looked perplexed as he took out a photo of Katie and compared it to the Katie standing in front of him. Just then, Kata wailed something in Bosnian, picked herself up from the floor, and dashed to the table, grabbing two handfuls of Katie’s luscious fallen hair. Indira choked on a series of sobs that rendered her
speechless. It only took a moment for the befuddled soldier to take in the gaunt, pallid girl on the loveseat, the Styrofoam head, the long tresses on the table, and the barely recognizable Katie to understand what had just taken place.

“Soldier, let’s move!” the commanding German voice barked. Without another word, the American soldier moved to the table, grabbed Katie around the waist, and carried her off.

“Wait!” she demanded. “What are you doing? I need to say goodbye!”

“Sorry ma’am, just following orders. It’s for your own safety,” he said in a Southern drawl.

“Lady!
Come back!” Marko wailed. Katie craned her neck to see him struggling against Lucas’s hold, tears sliding down his cherub cheeks. She tried to run to him, but the vice grip around her waist was unbreakable.

Red-faced from crying, Stanley reached out and grabbed her hand as she passed. “Goodbye Katie, pretty lady.”

Between the two soldiers who flanked the one who carried her, Katie caught glimpses of the shambles that remained of Stanley’s house. Her heart wrenched as she wondered how the family would ever recover. She caught sight of Lucas, not far behind, surrounded by another three soldiers, and knew by the torn expression on his face he had the same thoughts.

“How come Lucas gets to walk and I don’t?” Katie complained to her bulky soldier. She couldn’t tell if he seemed annoyed, but he halted the brisk procession and set her on her feet. She smoothed the baggy nightshirt over her knees and tried to summon as
much dignity as possible as she limped along, trying to keep stride with her camo-clad bodyguards.

She blinked,
then
blinked again, barely believing her eyes when she saw all the commotion outside. White UN vehicles, Jeeps, trucks, ambulances, Humvees, even a tank all waited on standby around the perimeter of Stanley’s property. Three bound and bloodied men were being prodded into the back of a pickup by soldiers with rifles. Was she really the cause of
all this
hullabaloo?

The sight of
Mensur’s
stiff, lifeless corpse, still wearing his sinister sneer, being carried away was more than Katie could endure. Having the United Nations called in was one thing, but having the death of a maniacal, justice-seeking fanatic on her hands was quite another. With the finesse of a proper Southern belle, she put the back of her hand to her forehead and collapsed against the body of one of her militiamen.

They sat…and they sat…in some military-type compound…somewhere. A general or corporal—maybe a prime
minister,
or even the chairman of the Federal Reserve, for all Katie knew—interrogated Lucas and her. She didn’t know which was worse—living through the terrorist attack or the excruciating recounting of it. Eventually, Katie’s stomach growled so long and so loudly that it could not be politely ignored.

“Why don’t you two go and get some rest? I’ll have someone drive you to your hotel,” suggested the General Corporal Prime Minister of the Federal Reserve.

“Sir?”
Katie ventured as he escorted them down the sterile corridor.
“What happened to Stanley—Stanislaus—and his family?”

“They are also being questioned.” For the first time he looked at her as a person instead of a fount of information. Slackening his shoulders, he dropped the military persona. “The girl has been taken to a local hospital and we have Janek in custody. But you should be able to see the others tomorrow—”

Though she worried for Indira and Janek, she couldn’t stop the smile from springing to her face. At least she would get to say goodbye to the others.

“That is—before you leave for London and after we ask you a few more questions,” he continued.

Her smile slid to the linoleum.

***

The Jeep pulled in front of the Vegas-style, glass high-rise hotel. Despite its off-putting name, The Radon Sarajevo, the hotel
boasted a five star plaque next to the door. Katie gulped, very aware of her oversized man’s nightshirt of an outfit. At least Lucas didn’t look much better in his matching bottoms and baggy, bloodstained shirt.
             
The two soldiers in the front of the Jeep jumped out and opened the rear doors more like doormen than military men.

“Compliments of the
Waverlys
,” one British soldier crooned, obviously impressed to be in the company of people who’d been in the company of the Waverlys.

“We’ve been instructed to pick you up at noon sharp tomorrow,” the second British soldier informed them.

***

Wandering through the largest and most luxurious suite she had ever seen, Katie had to admit the loveliest sight was not the marble kitchen, the giant jetted bath, or the sauna. It was her backpack crammed full of clean clothes and toiletries resting neatly against the bed, along with Lucas’s two shopping bags of newly purchased clothing. On the bed rested a note written in an elegant script. She grabbed it.

             
Lucas & Katie,

Thank the Lord you are safe! We can’t tell you how delighted we will be to see you at Pellyn Hall as soon as you are returned to London.

Room service has been ordered and will be delivered within one hour after your arrival.

             
Please try to get some rest after your terrible ordeal.