Out of the Storm

Camp David, Catoctin
Mountain, Maryland

"What are we doing here?" Laurel Stewart asked the man sitting next to her in the sanctuary of the presidential retreat's Evergreen Chapel.

"Praying for peace?" Max Kelly, a reporter from the Boston Globe, suggested.

"Granted, it's an admirable goal, but given that the Weather Service has declared this the hottest summer on record, what made the White House decide that August would be a good time to hold another round of Middle East Road to Peace meetings? Couldn't the State Department find a road map that leads to Maine?"

She slapped at yet another mosquito that had sneaked in through the window screen. "And how come they all invited us here to participate?"

She had to raise her voice to be heard over the huge pipe organ's rendition of "The Song of Peace." According to her program, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin had sung the song with over a hundred thousand people at a peace rally in Tel Aviv minutes before his assassination.

"This from the reporter who's always bitching that we don't get enough access when the president hides out at Camp David?"

"Like you think anyone's going to nail down a scoop here today," Laurel scoffed. Her dark auburn hair, styled in a sleek, no-nonsense cut that ended at her earlobes, hinted at a redhead's temper she usually kept tightly controlled. Her eyes were a cool, intelligent green in a pale complexion, her nose was straight, her mouth generous, and her chin as stubborn as she herself was. "We're being herded around the place like a bunch of senior citizens on an If-It's-Wednesday-This-Must-Be-Camp-David bus tour from hell."

"Hey, it's not every day you can watch two world leaders knocking down ten pins in the Nixon bowling alley."

"Bowling for Peace," she muttered. "Now, that's going to catch on. I'm still trying to find out if those were new shoes they gave the prime minister, but no one's talking."

"Go get 'em, Lois Lane. That story's bound to get you a banner headline."