It was precisely noon when Mihajlo Golic arrived at the hotel in the van.
The rope and tape were in the briefcase he carried, and he felt the comforting press of the Beretta lodged in the small of his back.
Hans was waiting for him in the lobby. “Follow me,” Hans said.
Hans led Golic outside and gave him directions to the room. “The girl is in room 162. I don’t want to be there when you take her. I’m leaving now.”
“Who’s with the girl?”
“She’s watching TV with Anna. She will be no problem for you.”
Golic nodded.
Hans gave him the key to the room.
“Now is the time for our payment,” Hans said.
Golic reached into his pocket and gave Hans a thick envelope.
Hans did not look inside.
As Golic headed for the room, Hans walked in the other direction, away from the hotel. He turned down a residential street where Anna was waiting, holding Johanna. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
Golic, carrying his briefcase with the rope and tape, approached the door to room 162. He heard the television. He knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, louder, but got no response. Finally, he reached into his pocket for the key and opened the door. He saw that no one was inside. He raced into the room, checking the bathroom. It was empty.
He had been tricked. Golic was furious.
He raced back to his van and withdrew the Beretta. He drove around the area, looking for Hans or the girl. The Dutch man would pay for this, he vowed. Meanwhile, he would set out for Wassenaar. Perhaps there was still time to find the girl.
Ellen boarded a train for Leiden where she could catch the bus to her house.
She had gotten to Amsterdam Central Station as Hans had instructed. She was scared and kept looking back, but no one appeared to be following her. She went to a phone to call her parents, but she didn’t have her phone card and the phone didn’t take coins. She decided she would just get home on her own. What a great surprise it would be to her parents when she walked in the door!
When the train arrived in Leiden, Ellen got off and walked outside to catch a bus.
She knew that the number 43 bus would take her to Wassenaar and to the bus stop a few blocks from her home. She waited a few minutes for the bus to arrive, and then got on. No one appeared to notice her. She sat looking out the window, knowing that in about ten minutes she would be safely back at her home with her Mom and Dad.
Detective Weber popped her third antacid pill of the day in her mouth. It had been a roller-coaster day.
First, there had been news of the verdict. Then, the President of Serbia himself had ordered that Ellen not be harmed. Finally, the frustrating knowledge that Golic was out there somewhere, probably with Ellen by now, and unreachable by phone. Vacinovic had been calling Golic’s phone number for the last two hours with no response.
She thought about how Kevin and Diane must be feeling. The verdict must have been devastating. She decided to pay them a visit and wait it out with the parents, at least until she had some kind of additional information that she could act on.
The first to reach the Anderson home was Mihajlo Golic.
He drove by and looked in the window as he passed. There was no sign of the girl.
He parked his van a block away, behind some trees. He slowly walked back down the street, on the opposite side from the Andersons’ row house, his Beretta tucked once again in the small of his back. He waited behind some bushes. He would be patient, but in the end, he would finish the job that he was ordered to do.
Golic knew he could not go back to Belgrade in failure.
Failure was the word that summed up Kevin’s thoughts as he sat on the couch of his living room, staring blankly out his front window. How could he have done this to Ellen? To his family? How could he have been so naive to expect justice at the Tribunal?
Take me, he prayed to God. Just let my daughter live.
Ellen alighted from the bus, the weight of her backpack once again on her shoulders. It was just a few more blocks to walk on a cold, sunny day.
She pictured her mother, her father, and her room on the third level. It would be great to be home again. She only wished she could have brought Johanna with her.
Golic saw the young girl from about 50 yards away as she crossed the street.
Was it her? He walked forward in her direction, reaching for the Beretta as he strode. As she got closer to the row house, Golic was sure it was her.
He stood at the edge of the bushes now, concentrating on the small target now turning into the walk leading to the row house where the Andersons lived.
He raised his gun.
“Stop! Police!”
Golic was stunned. A large woman was on him, her gun thrust firmly in his ear.
Golic’s weapon fell from his hand as Detective Weber pushed him roughly to the ground. Before he could react, his hands were pulled behind his back and handcuffed.
Ellen neither saw nor heard the commotion. She excitedly rang the bell by her front door.
Kevin lifted himself off the couch and padded over to answer the door.
“Daddy!” shouted Ellen as she leapt into his arms.
“Oh my God, it’s you!” Kevin exclaimed, hugging his daughter, tears pouring from his eyes.
Diane screamed and ran over to them.
The three of them were hugging, laughing, and crying.
They were a family again.
News of Ellen’s return spread through Holland like a North Sea gust. Kevin spent much of the afternoon and evening answering calls from reporters, friends, and Ellen’s classmates. That night, Ellen proudly showed Kevin and Diane all the schoolwork she had done, and insisted that she wanted to go to school the next day to turn it in.
The morning after the greatest day of Kevin’s life, he awoke to the sound of a dog barking. A few seconds later, he heard the sound of little footsteps racing down from the third floor. When he got out of bed, he heard Ellen scream: “Johanna!”
The puppy had been left at their doorstep, its leash tied to their front doorknob.
At about 8:00, just as Ellen was getting ready to leave for school, there was a knock at the door.
Kevin opened it.
The headmaster of The American School stood in the doorway; a crowd of people behind him. “We’ve come to welcome Ellen back to school.”
Ellen came to the door. “This is awesome!”
The path from her door to the street, and then toward the school, was lined with children and adults. Some held signs that said, “Welcome back Ellen.”
Ellen grabbed her backpack, stuffed with all the work she would show to her teachers. “Bye Mom, bye Dad,” she called out as she went out the door.
Kevin and Diane watched as the headmaster led Ellen between the two rows of people, who were cheering and clapping. They saw Ellen accept high fives from her fellow students, and then disappear into the crowd.
“We’re lined up all the way from your house to the school,” Ellen’s math teacher, Maureen Toohey, said to Kevin. “Every kid in the school is out here.”
“And teachers, too,” added Ellen’s home room teacher, Kerrin Poiker.
Kevin looked at Diane. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. He put his arm around her as they watched the crowd following their daughter toward her school. When the throng had gone from sight, Kevin closed the door.
Diane held him tightly as they walked back and sat on the couch, saying nothing.
Johanna jumped up on their laps, licking the wet hands Diane had used to wipe away their tears of joy.
“I promise I’ll never do anything like this again,” Kevin said.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER…
To: KevAnd@aol.com (Kevin Anderson)
From: Raiderfan@carribean.net