A Separate War and Other Stories

  Dubdubdub-dub-dub—dub—dub, doob, doob…doomb. Thud.

  Braxn stood up and walked through the grass to the machine gun. He was halfway there when a bullet crawled through the air toward him, moving with the speed of an overfed bumblebee. He caught it between two fingers and lifted it—it was heavy with fossilized kinetic energy—and released it above his head. It glided on.

  Another bullet was just coming out of the muzzle when he reached the gun. He swatted the slug into the ground. No wonder the gunner had been firing hysterically—a piece of shrapnel had hit him in the face and spirited away his nose and half a cheek. He was in profound shock and dying.

  Braxn took the necessary elements from nearby plants and insects and a pinch of dirt and fashioned the man a new nose and cheek. Of course, it wouldn’t look exactly like his old one, but at least it was consistent with Pakistani somatypes.

  The gunner’s loader, the man who keeps the belt of ammunition feeding into the gun, was splayed out behind the gun with an ugly wound in his throat. Braxn healed the hole in the trachea, closed the wound in the neck and teleported the inspirated blood out of the man’s lungs. Then he visualized the bolt of the machine gun and made the firing pin disappear. He started to wander through the battle area.

  A hand grenade hung suspended in midair, imperceptibly rotating and falling. Braxn plucked it out of the air and unscrewed the top assembly. He snapped off the blasting cap inside, then screwed the thing back together, its firing mechanism useless, and let it continue on its way.

  In all, Braxn deactivated sixty-three rifles and pistols and four machine guns, eighty-one hand grenades and two grenade launchers. He revived seven dead men and healed the wounds of fourteen others. One person, who had evidently sustained a direct hit from an artillery shell, he had to leave the way he found him—there were no pieces larger than a section of liver to work with. The all-important brain cells were disorganized and scattered over an eight-meter radius.

  Braxn returned the soldier’s body to the stand of elephant grass. As a final touch he cleaned all of the blood and smoke from the battleground. He lay down and pushed his persona back into Harriman’s body.

  Ugh, what’s that? Of course, of course, this body’s dead—or at least not alive. It wasn’t alive when I took it over. What a bother…have to reprogram the brain—

  So quiet all of a sudden…wait! I was hurt, I was dying but O God, sweet Jesus…

  …must be careful in the future—if I leave this body again—not to leave it too long. It’ll start to smell…

  “I know, goddamn it. I can’t get my fifty to work either—stop those bastards—”

  Braxn stood up Harriman’s body and experimentally wiggled it around and stretched. Everything seemed to be in order, but numb and aching. He shuffled back into the living room. Linda was sitting on the couch, not-reading a magazine.

  “Oh, Ross. You look just awful—come and put your head in my lap.” Braxn did so to humor her, found it felt good. “I checked on you while you were sleeping. You looked so—well, so bad that I called Dr. Dean.”

  “Ah. Well. It’s not that serious. But—” Braxn closed his eyes and shook his head. “The bill.”

  “What was that, dear?” Linda was stroking his forehead with a cold wet napkin.

  “The draft bill. I shouldn’t have let it through.”

  “Didn’t you veto it day before yesterday?”

  “No. That was a different one, not as sneaky. This one just reapportions various Selective Service districts.”

  “But it still increases the draft?”

  “Overall, yes. Lowers it in some noisy districts.”

  Linda dipped the cloth in water again. “Well, I agree. You should’ve vetoed it—those poor boys. Don’t you remember how you felt after…”

  “Yes. Yes, I remember.” He squeezed a hand over his eyes. “Maybe that’s what’s bothering me—

  “But it’s more complicated than that. God, if I vetoed that bill, I’d get nothing, absolutely nothing out of this Congress, for the rest of my term.”

  “Still—”

  “Oh, still, still! You know a president can’t do everything the way he wants, the way he knows is right, thinks is right…”

  Dr. Dean came in, followed by a worried-looking Rosa.

  “Good evening, Linda, Rosa.” He moved a fake Italian Provincial chair over beside the couch and sat down. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “It’s nothing, Joe. Really noth—”

  “He almost fainted at the dinner table, Doctor.”

  “Linda…just a combination of not enough sleep and too much coffee.”

  “Well, roll up a sleeve and I’ll check the hydraulic pressure.”

  He wrapped a slender tape around Braxn’s arm and checked the numbers on a digital readout in his bag. “Normal…pulse a little low, but nothing to worry about. Here.” He peered at Braxn’s retina with an ophthalmoscope. “Yes, it definitely is an eye.” He checked knee-jerk reflexes and took a blood sample.

  “I’ll put this juice in the Mixmaster upstairs. Don’t expect to find anything, though—I think your diagnosis was correct, Dr. Harriman. Fatigue, possible overdose of caffeine and nicotine. Taking any other drugs?”

  “Not since those uppers you gave me last week.”

  “Last ones you’ll get, too. Take my advice, Ross, and try to cool it a little bit. These eighteen-hour days are driving your staff crazy.

  “Besides, you’re stuck with this job for three more years, maybe even seven. You won’t even make it to election year unless you slow down.”

  “Hogwash. I’ve never felt better in my life.”

  “I wish you knew how many people have said that to doctors and keeled over dead the next day. Your mind thrives on work, Ross, but your carcass is just the same old kind of inefficient machine everybody trundles around in.”

  “All right, Joe, I’ll think about it. I promise to sleep until six at least one day a week.”

  “Well, that’s something. Linda, make him stick to it.”

  The next morning Braxn found a note on his desk. “Urgent you get in touch soonest—Fred.” He punched him up.

  “What’s happening, Fred?”

  “God, sir, too much. You know that missing page from the dossier on Tweed?”

  “You found it?”

  “It found us. In the person of Harry Doyle, Tweed’s old chauffeur.”

  “Surely he can’t—”

  “Reconstruct what happened? I’m afraid he did—he knew that Tweed was reading something that we gave him when he keeled over. Afterwards, he tried to find it, and only came up with the one page. It’d slipped down behind the seat.”

  “Did he say what he’s going to do with it?”

  “That’s the scary part. He said he’s ‘not decided,’ but he didn’t even hint about taking a bribe. He’s a nut, sir, and he hates politicians—when he came to Washington twenty-five years ago, he had political ambitions, took a job driving for Tweed just to tide himself over. Never got any further.”

  “What a mess.” Braxn stared into space for a second, then lit a cigarette. “Any ideas?”

  “Yes, sir…we could pull Tweed’s trick on him.”

  “Have him committed? Fred, this isn’t 1958. Where would you find an old-fashioned insane asylum?”

  “Switzerland. Bern. Institut fur die Sinngesundheit—it’s a fairly new spa, but it has old-fashioned ideas, like total isolation of the patient until he gets well.”

  “And in Doyle’s case…”

  “Poor fellow. Really a deep-rooted psychosis.”

  “I don’t really like it, Fred. It sounds awful Big Brotherish.”

  “I don’t care for it either. But the alternative, the scandal, would be worse. For you and the country.”

  “We can’t just make a person drop out of sight like that.”

  “Ah, but we can, we can—all above-board and legal. His mother—she’s sixty-eight, lives in Sioux Falls and is also a nut??
?would be glad to sign the papers. She tried to get him committed eight years ago.”

  “You’re thorough, Fred.”

  “Yes. We have a man in Sioux Falls with a Swiss passport and a German accent. He has contracts that give very attractive terms, and will meet Mrs. Doyle at a Woman’s Club meeting tomorrow.

  “We also took the liberty of putting a little something in Doyle’s dinner last night. He’ll be heavily sedated for twelve hours yet.”

  “And if I give the word, he wakes up in Switzerland.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What about the rest of his family?”

  “Never married, father dead. No friends to speak of.”

  “Okay, go ahead. But I have a feeling it’s going to backfire.”

  Fred shrugged. “It seems tight enough. And it’s reasonably humane. In the Eastern Bloc they’d just haul him in and shoot him.”

  “Well, in China maybe.” Braxn took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “In Russia, they’d bundle him up and send him off to an asylum in Siberia. Or maybe Switzerland.”

  For the next week, Braxn went through the “double living” phenomenon daily.

  As the result of a bill approving the (further) devaluation of American currency, he lived with a Mexican peasant who had been making a marginal income by working in the United States, in Laredo, and crossing the border back home each night. When the value of the dollar went down, he found that his paycheck was no longer a marginal living for his family, even before his pay was cut to preserve his employer’s profits.

  To cut down on federal welfare expenses, he made it impossible for a family to get food stamps if the total family income was over $3,000 per adult member, $1,000 per child, per year. For a conventional family of two adults and two children, this was quite equitable, the average U.S. family income being $14,000 per year. But Braxn had to live through the situation as it presented itself to a forty-eight-year old ex-prostitute trying to support four children, working as a custodian for a mere $7,500 per year. She solved her problem by teaching her twelve-year-old daughter the trade, and finding old gentlemen who were willing to pay a premium for her services.

  A bill terminating funds for a space research project made him share the body of a chemist, who couldn’t tell his wife he’d been fired and instead filled a five-hundred-milliliter flask with sulphuric acid and managed to get most of it down before he died.

  A presidential directive ordering energy workers in New York City back to work resulted in a brief but bloody shoot-out between the “loaf-ins” and the National Guard. Braxn got to “be” a teenage Guardsman who didn’t want to live through an emasculating pistol wound in the groin, but did.

  “All right, Secretary, you have about ten minutes. Start talking.”

  The secretary of defense lowered himself into a chair, gently. Probably has hemorrhoids, Braxn reflected. “Mr. President, my staff informed me this morning of a very disturbing rumor—”

  “It’s true.”

  “Uh. Ha-ha. No, this…can’t be true, sir. The rumor concerns a pullout of—”

  “Yes.” Braxn slid a five-page report across his large desk. “When I heard you were coming, I had a copy of this made up, for your enlightenment.”

  The secretary picked it up and glanced at it. “We—we’re ending our involvement in Pakistan?

  “Correct.”

  “But only—only a couple of weeks ago you—”

  “I reluctantly signed a bill raising the draft call by a third…but not for the defense of a corrupt Asian regime, and not so your brass hats could get experience, playing soldier with the lives of American boys. It was to enhance our overall defense posture. Emphasis on defense. Of America, not Zambia or Paraguay or West Pakistan.

  The Secretary shook his head slowly from side to side. “This is a…a horrible mistake.”

  “No, this is the avoidance of a mistake. Almost every other country learned its lesson from the Two Chinas War. Time we figured it out, too.”

  Shimmer and split.

  “Is it all right if I have another drink?”

  “All right, Doyle, but I wish you’d try to get some sleep after we change at Kennedy.”

  “You know better than that, Mr. Secretary. China will be anything but happy—they don’t…

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we’ll be in our landing pattern in a couple of minutes.”

  “That’s all right, thank you anyhow, miss.” Got to make my plane at Kennedy. I’ll never get another chance at that bastard Harriman…

  “What are you going to do with all that Army back in the States?” The secretary was up and pacing around. “Mark my words, without an actual war—”

  He can’t clap me away in some loony bin fulla Krauts

  “Smooth landing.”

  “Ja.”

  “There’s no need discussing it. It’s an executive order, and you may either comply or submit your resignation.

  Short one that time, Braxn thought.

  “I’m not resigning. Not yet. I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”

  “Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Secretary,” Braxn said smoothly. “I want you to stay on; I need men of experience, discernment. But I’m not Ashby, I have different ideas, some of which fall into your sphere.” Braxn stood. “I’m only telling you that you can learn to work with me if you wish. Otherwise…the sooner you leave, the less prejudicial it will be to your political future.”

  “Hmn. You’ll be hearing from me, Mr. Harriman.”

  “I expect to,” Braxn said to the man’s back.

  As soon as he’d left, Braxn stabbed a finger at the phone.

  “Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “Got to speak to Mr. Allen. Very urgent.”

  “Mr. Allen’s in Chicago. I’ll see if I can patch through, and punch you back. All right, sir?”

  “That’s fine.” Got to find out what’s with Doyle, Braxn thought. How’d he get out, what’s he doing in an airplane with a German—

  Fred’s image on the screen was poor quality and rolling. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “No, sir, I’m in the mayor’s limousine, with the mayor. Would you like to say hello to him?”

  “Certainly.” Hell no. “Hi, Phil, how’re things going?”

  “Well, Mr. President”—a flaccid fat face came on the screen—“not too well, actually. The labor situation…”

  “Ah, yes, I know—that’s why I sent you Fred: he’s my right arm and half my brain…in fact, I can’t get along without him. Can you spare him for about an hour?”

  “Sure thing, sir. Fred, we’re pretty near your hotel—just take you there?”

  “Fine,” Fred said off camera.

  “While I’ve got your ear, Mr. President…” Braxn half listened to the old criminal for a couple of minutes. Then he said good-bye, and seconds later Fred punched him from the scrambled phone in his hotel room.

  “What’s up, sir? World War III?”

  “Not till next week. Fred…do you believe in intuition?”

  “Hmm…neutral. What, get a flash about something?”

  “Something like that. Maybe I’m all wet: if so, I apologize for tearing you away from your pleasant companions—”

  “Quite all right, sir. I was getting cancer of the eardrum.”

  “Anyhow, it’s about Doyle.”

  “Doyle?”

  “Tweed’s man—when did you last get a report on him?”

  “Oh, that, that—haven’t heard anything since they told me he was definitely safe behind bars. Sir, you shouldn’t worry. He’s lost to the world until—”

  “Still, I am worried. Take long to check?”

  “Well, we shouldn’t, we ought not to call the hospital directly. I’ll have my German call his mother first.”

  “Do what you think best, Fred. But do it quick. I can’t explain, I have this feeling…”

  “Of course, sir.” The tone
of his voice might have said been waiting for the old man to crack, knew he couldn’t keep it up. “We’ll get right on it and punch you back.”

  “Fine. I’ll be here in my office.”

  After a few minutes, Fred came back on the screen, worried and perplexed. “Sir, it’s…it’s weird. We tried to get his mother and patched into a funeral home. She died yesterday. My man’s calling—wait—”

  Fred looked to his left, evidently at another screen. “God. But they had orders…”

  “Has it left…arrived! Check the roster for the connecting flight—right.”

  He produced a handkerchief and passed it over his face. “Sir, if you ever get another flash…listen to it!

  “His mother died and the Institut decided that he was stable enough to attend the funeral, take care of the arrangements. They sent him to the U.S., accompanied by an aide.

  “The plane—God!—the plane landed twenty minutes ago, in New York…my man’s checking their connecting flight; it’s pretty close—”

  He looked away again. “Shit!” Braxn was amused in spite of himself. Fred was always so cool. “The flight to Sioux City has loaded. They aren’t aboard. I’ll keep checking.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep worrying. Punch me as soon as anything happens.”

  Split again:

  Sorry to have to do that, he never hurt me he was always very nice. The jet noise tripled and he tilted back, airborne.

  No need to worry. He’s just one man. I have a whole army—

  Always wanted a Weatherby, buy me a Weatherby and a twenty-power Bushnell get Harriman, haven’t killed a man since all those gooks always wanted to kill a man on my own…

  “Fred! What is it?” He looked pale. “Haven’t found Doyle…but the police found his aide, Herr Kramer, his…his throat cut with a razor blade, in a stall in the—”

  Except for Kramer, sorry about him, he was always very nice. “Gin and tonic, please.” Weird machine, cheaper than girls, cheap bastard airline.

  “—get hold of yourself! Get somebody to make an anonymous punch to the police, say he saw a man with blood—”

  They’ll never catch me, have it all figured out good thing the old bitch died yeah they’ll catch me after I do it I’ll be famous they’ll hang me but…