and I am grateful for it every day I get up and look at myself in the mirror'
'But, sir-'
Braxton raised his hand. 'Hold on. I'm taking you somewhere with this.'
Gabriel nodded.
'Frank Harper saved my life twice,' Braxton said. 'First on the battlefield and later in a little clinic he set up in an old POW camp in the Godforsaken swamps of the Mississippi Delta. He took a look at me then, studied me along with others who had received head wounds of one sort or another. He helped me to understand what had happened to me and explained I had apparently received the perfect wound. I received a surgical incision so precise only the hand of God could have wielded the scalpel.
'Harper studied me and tried to perfect an operation on others with head wounds that could duplicate my success. Some got better, some worse, and most were unchanged.'
'Harper's work?' Gabriel ventured. 'Was this some sort of official military experiment?'
'Of course not!' Braxton shook his head. 'It was treatment! A new treatment. As hard as he tried and as many operations as he performed, Harper and his team of crack brain surgeons could never duplicate with the scalpel what God had done for me with a twisted piece of metal.'
The warrior who would be president leaned back and shook his head. Gabriel saw in his face the satisfaction of being the unique success.
'That's a side effect,' Braxton said again. 'Harper and his people had a lot better success with the new drugs. Those treatments eventually inaugurated what is, today, Enduring Valor.'
Anxiety coiled tighter in Gabriel's chest.
'Yes, there have been undesirable side effects in Harper's work and in Enduring Valor,' Braxton conceded. 'Think of it as friendly fire of another stripe.'
'Friendly fire.'
'My Lai. Almost the right formula, wrong dose.'
'You mean My Lai-'
Braxton nodded. 'We never did get formula perfected in 'Nam. Fortunately the side effects looked similar enough to Agent Orange problems that it never got picked up.'
'I'm not sure I want to know these things.'
'It's time.' Braxton looked up at the front of the aircraft to make sure the press remained obediently out of earshot. 'Time to get your feet wet, soldier, wet with things you'll need to handle as SecDef.'
Gabriel's anxiety gained new weight.
'Same thing with the new drugs we used in the first Gulf War,' Braxton continued. An almost perfect formula that did its job, but in a very small number of cases it caused permanent brain modifications, Gulf War syndrome, blamed it on accidental exposure to low levels of Iraqi nerve gas.
'We thought we had things worked out in Afghanistan.'
Gabriel heard Braxton only distantly as his anxiety became the cuckold's shock and anger at proof of the betrayal.
'Then we had all those murders by troops who had returned from combat. Fortunately the test samples were small. But by then, LaHaye and McGovern had the right formula but realized the drug needed to be released in continuous, sustained concentrations to avoid complications. That's what our allies in Holland have perfected.'
Gabriel let the drone of the aircraft wash through an emptiness in his soul he had not experienced since the death of his father.
'Son, war is for keeps,' Braxton said as he laid a practiced hand on Gabriel's shoulder. 'War is hell. People in American society can sustain their delicate ethical sensitivities only when people like you and me clearly grasp the reality of winning.'
You and me. Gabriel thought about this. He recognized the horrors of war, and he certainly knew the arrogant hypocrisy of the antimilitary, anti-any-war people who were willing to take advantage of freedoms that could be maintained only by the very force and establishment they defamed and despised.
You and me.
Gabriel encountered a new line here and worried about stepping across. He wished Braxton had never told him about this. The knowledge burned like acid, ticked like a bomb.
You and me.
The General had made good points about necessity. War was a messy ethical morass that usually rewarded action over contemplation.
You and me.
Gabriel considered resigning. Walking away before he learned any more. But he had nowhere to go, no career, no job. He had left his wife-the Army-and he had nothing, no one to rely on. The press would also have a field day with the resignation. It was something he would never live down; he'd live the rest of his life in shame.
You and me.
Perhaps the General was right. He had seen a lot more action, had needed to make more tough decisions, and had more experience weighing them all. You and me.
Gabriel knew he had to cross the line with the General. It would just take some time to come to grips with this new reality.
CHAPTER 40
Relief arced through me in a great electrifying wave when I realized the blood on Jasmine's white silk blouse had come from someone else.
Jasmine didn't see me at first, as I studied her holding the hand of a woman with a severe head wound lying on the gurney From all the blood on Jasmine's blouse, it appeared to me she had cradled the wounded woman's head in her lap. My ears picked up the strong, calm tones of Jasmine's voice as she tried to reassure the woman on the gurney The woman blinked her eyes and looked to Jasmine for strength.
More police and EMTs came through the double doors bringing more casualties. One casualty had both hands cuffed to the gurney and his feet bound with shackles. The echoes of too many excited voices jammed the corridor. I followed Claiborne and Tyrone Freedman as they headed for one of the young men dripping blood onto the floor. I pressed the thumb and middle finger of my right hand to his neck and found no pulse.
'Quiet!' Clifford Scarborough's deep, authoritative voice resonated in the corridor. 'Heads up, people!' Talking ceased as if a switch had been flipped. A sucking chest wound filled the brief acoustic vacuum with ragged wet noises; the woman next to Jasmine groaned quietly.
Scarborough looked around and asked for a triage roll call along with an injury assessment from each of the medical personnel surrounding the wounded. The presentations were quick, concise, professional, and, sadly, reflected the extensive practice all the medical personnel had, even those not formally assigned to the emergency room. I did not remember Greenwood as being a dangerous place and wondered when it had become so.
There were seven cases in all. When it came time, Tyrone Freedman spoke for our patient. When Jasmine's eyes met mine, her jaw dropped and her gaze widened. I offered her my best smile.
Scarborough and the triage nurse then directed patients and trauma teams into treatment bays.
'Dr. Stone,' Scarborough called. 'I'd like very much if you'd take a look at the head wound in C-2.'
I doubted 'Good Samaritan' laws would protect me for treating this woman. I had no license to practice medicine in the state of Mississippi and knew the trial lawyers who had the entire country by the gonads would surely sue the hell out of me for the slightest and most irrelevant of provocations regardless of whether I was volunteering to save this woman's life or not.
But a life was in the balance here. I'd worry about the lawyers later.
'Yessir,' I said.
Scarborough gave me a smile, then turned to a rotund woman with short brown hair. 'Helen, please find another nurse and assist Dr. Stone.'
'Right away.' Helen pulled another woman over and wheeled the gurney into the treatment area. When a
