While their wives were putting the final touches on dinner, John Heisman gave Scott Dixon the high sign to move into the living room out of earshot of his wife, Annie, and Fay Dixon. There Heisman turned to Dixon. "Jesus, Scott — I haven't seen that much ice since the last time I saw the movie Titanic! You and Fay haven't said two words to each other since you got here. Is she that upset about the orders?"
Scott moved over to a large overstuffed chair and plopped down into it before he answered. "Upset?" he said in a glum, expressionless manner. "I wish she was only upset. Livid is more like it. And it's not just the orders." Scott leaned forward toward Heisman to emphasize his next point. "Actually, Fay took it quite well, considering." Dixon took a drink, then continued. "Did you know Fay had been out job hunting?"
John nodded his head. "I found out tonight, just before we got here. Annie warned me the situation here might be a little tense."
Glibly Dixon shrugged his shoulders. "Well, tense it was and tense it is." Easing back into the chair, he added, "Fay was not a happy camper when I brought home the wonderful news that I had orders for Egypt."
Three days after he had run around the Pentagon hand-carrying the messages concerning the "accidental" death of Lieutenant Colonel Dedinger, Dixon had been notified by Personnel Support Command, or PERSCOM, the Army's personnel management center, that he was about to receive orders assigning him to Egypt as the chief of staff of the 2nd Corps (U.S.) (Forward). Several quick calls and a few inquiries into the possibility of getting out of the assignment yielded nothing. When the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans called him in and told him that he had been hand-picked for the job, Dixon resigned himself to the inevitable and prepared for the worst part: telling Fay.
Surprisingly, Fay took the news well. Instead of horrified and outraged, she was calm and noncommittal. She was, in fact, too calm and too noncommittal — a reaction so far out of character that it threw Dixon. The house in Prince Frederick, once owned by a famous writer, was to have been their last: Fay and Scott had agreed that this was it, the end of the line. Though the commute to Washington, two hours every day, was hard on Scott, that sacrifice was his way of showing Fay that he meant what he said.
It was a year before Fay finally was able to settle back into a comfortable relationship with Scott and believe that he meant what he said about finishing his twenty where they were, then leaving the Army. His decision to decline command of a task force finally convinced Fay. Happy, she had begun to dig her roots deep into the community. The house was redone, top to bottom. The children were enrolled in every program that Fay could find and the best private school in the area. And, unknown to Scott, Fay began to prepare herself for resuming a career in TV news. Scott didn't find that out until he hit her with the news that he was under orders for Egypt. "Well, I guess that shoots my job with CBS in the ass, doesn't it?" was Fay's only response, and the first he had known that she had been out seeking employment. It was hard to tell which of them had been more surprised. Fortunately, there had been no fighting, no verbal thrashing — which, as Scott told John, not only came as a shock but aroused his suspicions.
In the kitchen, Annie was pumping Fay for information. Fay, for her part, was being very selective about what she provided. Though she knew that with Scott leaving the next day, the odds were that he wouldn't get any information via Annie or John, Fay wasn't taking any chances.
Before marrying Scott, Fay had been a successful field producer. Together with her college roommate Jan Fields, who had opted to go the reporter route, she had achieved a couple of remarkable coups. Young, ambitious, and willing to take chances, the two of them dug into stories other reporters and producers wouldn't touch. In a couple of cases, it had almost cost them their jobs; but in the end they had earned themselves a reputation, a joint nickname—"the Terrible Two" — and healthy salaries to go with it.
Then Scott Dixon came into Fay's life. They met while doing a story on the introduction of a new tank into the Army's inventory. The tank was reputed to have many problems and couldn't meet specifications. Because it was a dirty job and very touchy, the Terrible Two were sent to tackle it. The Army also prepared for battle, selecting a young, self-confident cavalry captain to escort the two female media types and charm their pants off. In the case of Fay, Scott Dixon did just that. In short order, Fay turned her back on a promising career and on her best friend, despite Jan's efforts to get her to listen to reason. They parted, still friends, but each pursuing divergent goals. Jan continued her career, roaming the world in search of news, while Fay became the good Army wife.
It wasn't until Fay was applying for a position with the CBS news office in Washington, D. C., that she got in contact with Jan Fields again. Though Fay had seen her on TV, and those appearances had provided the impetus for Fay to apply for a job, Fay had not tried to contact Jan. Now, however, since she was once again entering the world of TV news, Fay would be able to deal with Jan as an equal again. So Fay fired off a long-delayed letter to Jan care of the World News Network Middle East Bureau in Cairo. To her delight, Jan's response was rapid and positive. In an hour-and-forty-five-minute phone conversation initiated by Jan, the two college roommates caught up on twelve years and promised that they would get together again soon, just like in the old days.
So when Scott came in and announced that their lives were about to be uprooted again, Fay didn't bat an eye. While Scott had taken away her shot to work with CBS in Washington with one hand, he was setting up an opportunity, at the same time, for Fay to reenter the world of TV news at the side of an old and trusted friend. Fay resolved that this time nothing — not Scott, not the Army, not heaven or hell-would stand between her and the realization of her dream.
As Annie filled the bowls with salad, she said quietly to Fay, "Well, are you?"
Fay, just finishing taking the baked chicken breasts from a cookie sheet and arranging them on a plate, looked Annie in the eye. "What would you do? After all, nothing has changed. I may have to beg and wait till hell freezes over before I can find a decent job in Egypt, but I'm going to do it."
"Does Scott know?"
"He knew about the CBS job." Fay paused, her expression softening as she let her arms fall to her side. "You know, I think he was really sorry that he screwed up my chance for the job with CBS."
"Does that surprise you? After all, Scott still loves you, doesn't he?"
Fay was tiring of Annie's probing. Signaling that Annie had overstepped her bounds, Fay picked up the plate with the chicken breasts on it. "Well, let's serve 'em while they're still hot."
For miles around one could see the lone and ancient tree perched atop a jagged rock ledge. The tree, its gnarled roots grasping the gray soil that gave it support and life, was surrounded by hundreds of square kilometers of windswept hills and gullies. The ledge and the tree therefore served as a reference point for travelers, human and animal, who traversed this part of northwestern Ethiopia. The tree also served as a home and resting place for migratory birds in need of a place to rest on their annual journey. The pale moming sun this morning greeted a flock of such birds that had been drawn to the tree the night before. Quiet chirping and an occasional flutter of wings were the only sounds that could be heard.