by Mark Speed
“This is the very chap I told you about, Jack. Doctor How. He’s always on time.” He chuckled, grasped my hand warmly and squeezed my wrist with his left. “Good to see you, old friend. This is Congressman Jack Kennedy, son of the former Ambassador.”
I extended my hand. “A great pleasure to meet you,” I said. “I was sorry to hear about your illness. I see your back is also problematic.” Kennedy hesitated a fraction of a second before taking my hand, at first weakly, then more firmly.
“Sorry to hear, even though Winston says you knew about it three years ago?” said Kennedy. “Sir Daniel Davis, no less, tells me it’s a death sentence. A long, slow and uncomfortable one.”
“Life is a death sentence,” said Churchill. “But I have to say you do look rather well – an excellent tan; the picture of healthy youth.”
“I think you’ll find that’s a symptom of the Addison’s,” I said.
“Ah. Insensitive of me. Old fool that I am. Forgive me.”
“Oh,” I said, holding out a brown paper bag. “Some grapes.”
“Grapes?” said Churchill. “Where in blue blazes did you get grapes in London at this time of the year?”
“I wanted to prove my bona fides to your friend here,” I said.
“Never mind war-winning technology and tactics,” said Churchill to Kennedy. “Grapes in Britain in February is nothing short of miraculous. May I?” He took the bag, tore it open and popped a couple in his mouth.
“Heaven,” he said, and offered the bag to Kennedy.
“Later, thanks. So what’s my prognosis, Doctor How?”
“What have they told you?”
“A decade. Two at the outside if I’m lucky. But I’m interested in what you think.”
“I think,” said Churchill, “I shall beat a tactical retreat. My books won’t write themselves. Unless you have the technological know-how, Doctor?” I smiled and shook my head. “Glad to hear it – there’s so much pleasure in writing them. It’s like conversing with old friends. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen?” He took his hat from the bedside table, shook our hands and then shuffled off with his cane, closing the door gently behind him.
“Please,” said Kennedy, and motioned to the seat Churchill had left facing the bed, just a foot away. “A great man.” He nodded at the closed door.
“One of the greatest.”
We listened to Churchill’s footsteps and cane echoing down the hall. He coughed a rasping cough and rumbled something we couldn’t quite make out to a nurse. There was a female laugh. The footsteps shuffled off, a door swung shut, and they were gone.
“Fading into history,” said Kennedy, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“There’s life in the old dog yet,” I said. “Plenty. He’ll serve his country as PM again.”
I let silence fall once more. After a spell he turned to me and said, “He told me about you. He said… He said he knew there was a lot more he didn’t know, and that he won’t be mentioning you at all in any of his books.”
“Well, I’m relieved to hear that,” I said, and smiled. “But I always knew I could trust him with a secret.”
“He told me you saved his life once. Once that you admitted to, leastways. He thought there might have been a few other instances.”
I smiled, remembering moments in Sudan and South Africa.
“And he said you were a man of the utmost discretion.”
I gave him a slight nod.
“Will this… Is this the end of my political career?”
I shook my head. “Winston’s right: life is a death sentence. What you choose to make of it is up to you. There are those who are given months to live, but are incapacitated. You’re thirty years old and they’ve given you a decade: the prime of your life.”
“Don’t expect me to feel grateful, Doctor,” he spat.
I gave him a few moments.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that…”
“Having survived the war, you felt you deserved a break. And you do.”
“My father. My father, he –”
“Has all his hopes pinned on you. Fathers live vicariously through their sons. He will see you rise to greatness; to achieve what he failed to in his lifetime.”
“I can still do that?”
I nodded.
“And that’s what you’re here to tell me?” he was leaning on his right elbow now, animated. “Really?”
“Yes. And you will. Now, lie back down or you’ll do yourself an injury.”
“So you can cure me, Doctor How?”
“Alas, no.”
He collapsed back down onto the bed.
“But I can help you get the most out of your life. I can ensure that your name is forever remembered as a great one, despite all your… indiscretions.”
He regarded me coolly.
“You’re a man who’s lived through a lot. You enjoy women, but you will want to marry. And you will marry well. But you’re not – how shall I put it – temperamentally suited to it. You want to be, but you know you’re not. America dislikes womanising, Jack.”
“What are you suggesting? That I get castrated?”
I laughed. “No, Americans would never elect a eunuch. They like a man with cajones.”
Kennedy, who was well-travelled in South America, gave me a puzzled look. “They like a man with drawers?”
“Ah. Forgive me. I’m temporally challenged at times. It means something quite different in the future, but only in American Spanish.”
“American Spanish?”
I waved his implied question away. “They like a man with balls. But they don’t want him strutting around the farm like a bull on heat and mounting all the cattle.”
“Politically, will I be a good President?”
“Like Winston, your political upbringing has given you a sound footing. Like him, your broad travel has also opened your mind. Your first term will be excellent. The achievements shall resonate down through history.”
“Wow!” he beamed at me.
I returned a straight face, and my careful phrasing began to sink in.
“And my second?”
I closed my eyes for a second and gave a slight shake of the head. “That’s when you begin to get sick. And I mean really sick. Terminally ill. You won’t live to see the end of that second term.”
“But I’ll have public sympathy, right?”
“Let’s just say that rumours have turned to allegations, and those allegations…”
“Oh. The womanising.” I maintained my eye contact. “I could control it.”
“‘Control’ is an interesting choice of word, Jack. You didn’t say ‘refrain from’. This particular ailment is as deep as your Addison’s.”
“Damn.”
I let another half-minute pass in silence.
“But, you know, if I’m going to have such a short life I deserve to have all the fun I can get. Greek mythology, right? The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. If I’m going to snuff out early, I want to make the most of it.”
“Live life to the full, Jack. I agree.”
“Wait a minute. What are you telling me here, Doc? Are you saying I have this one glorious term and then I don’t even bother seeking nomination and re-election? I just leave the scene and croak like some old man? Even FDR got to die in office. At least give me that, will you?”
I held up my hand. “Please, I’m not God, Jack. You’re master of your own fate. Well, more or less. But you’re onto something there. Tell me, who’s the greatest president? The one you’d most like to emulate?”
“Oh, Lincoln. Without a doubt! His speeches. His passionate –”
I held out my open palm to him and leaned back into my chair.
His face froze. He slumped back into his pillow once more and stared at the ceiling for a couple of minutes, his breathing fast.
“Lincoln,” he said. “Three days before he was assassinated he had a nightmare. He wrote that he woke up to the sound of
grieving and walked through the White House until he found a catafalque guarded by soldiers. He couldn’t see the face of the body and asked who it was. A soldier told him it was the President.”
He looked at me for a few seconds before continuing. “The day he was assassinated, he was reported to have been the happiest he’d been in months.”
I closed my eyes and nodded once.
He lay back again.
Finally he took a deep breath and swallowed. “Will I… Will I feel anything?”
“It’s over in a couple of seconds. By that time the Addison’s is… more than just an annoyance.”
“This is like Dickens’ Christmas Carol – except Scrooge at least got to choose a happy ending.” He swallowed hard, his mouth sounding dry. “Are you going to give me a time and a date?”
“No.”
“Jesus, Doctor! You can’t give me a time and a date or you won’t give me a time and a date?”
“You know the answer.”
“Damn it! Look, I don’t know who you are, mister – but you can’t do this to me!”
“Can’t do what, Jack? Give you a choice? Give you a chance to live your life as a great man whose legacy is so great that it survives the later disclosure of his worst character traits? Your brother Joe never got that chance. No more than a handful of people in a century get to do that, Jack. And one of them walked out of here just ten minutes ago.”
He glowered at me. “Okay. You’re right. Where do I sign this Faustian pact?”
“It’s no Faustian pact. I’ve given you a choice between two versions of history. I had to allow you to make that free choice in full knowledge of the facts. My brother, Who, is currently trying to alter the course of history to make the unfavourable one reality.”
“Who?”
“Yes, Who.”
“No. Who is your brother?”
“Yes, Who is my brother. That’s what I just said. Who is doing it because he’s sick, Jack.”
Kennedy gave me a peculiar look, then it clicked. “My apologies for the confusion. Did Winston ever tell you that Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about me and my cousins and my brother?”
“I don’t know where you’re going with this, but it can’t get any crazier. Indulge me.”
“I keep six honest serving-men, (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When –”
“And How and Where and Who,” he finished. “My God. Who knew?”
“Yes, he did. Oh, sorry. Look, can we please get back to the matter in hand? Who is doing it because he’s made a mistake in his own life that affects the lives of others, and he’s trying to over-compensate. He will ruin your legacy by saving your life from an assassin’s bullet.”
“Winston did mention there were six of you. Of your… kind.”
“And?”
“He said you were the one who always ‘played with a straight bat’, as he put it.”
“Thank you.”
“So. Your brother, Who. Where is he?”
“He’s watching. I know he’s watching us right now.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. You agreed.”
“I don’t need to do anything else? Just this one insane conversation?”
“You need do no more. Go and live your life to its fullest, Jack.” I rose from the bedside chair and placed it back in position. I nudged it a couple of times to ensure it was squared up nicely. “Work hard, play hard. Live like a Greek demi-god.”
“Will I see you again, Doctor?”
I hesitated. “Yes. Briefly.” I offered my hand again and he shook it. “Thank you, Jack. You’ve done a great thing. The right thing. A brave thing. The best thing for all of humanity.”
A few minutes later I was back in November 22nd, 1963, in the car park behind Dealey Plaza. My hearts were filled with a curious mixture of trepidation, sadness, and excitement. I’d liked Kennedy. I could still feel our last handshake. Sixteen years ago for him, a minute for me.
In the previous timeline I’d been able to spend more time with him, when he was at the peak of his powers. But through Churchill’s letters and friendship I’d intervened earlier in his life. In this version of the timeline I was robbed of that friendship, but spared the immediacy of the loss.
I recognised the back of the other person on the Grassy Knoll as I approached. The time was 12.28.
“Hello, brother,” said Who, without turning. “Congratulations. You won.”
“Please don’t feel as if I’ve won, because I think we’ve both lost. I never wanted to fight you over this. I have better things to do than stop you from gambling with the timeline.” I stood to his right, but a couple of inches behind – enough to get a good look at his face whilst avoiding eye contact. He was wearing a contemporary suit to blend in with the lunchtime crowd of office-workers, and sunglasses.
“It was me who ended up being his occasional aide-de-camp,” said Who, suppressing a grin. “Very enjoyable it’s been, too. What a legacy I’ve helped him build!”
“He’d have done it anyway. Is your ego really so large that you cannot allow anyone else any credit for their own abilities?”
The white Ford came round the corner of the Texas School Book Depository, followed by the President’s limousine and the rest of the motorcade, straightening up onto Elm Street.
Crack.
The first shot rang out.
“Jack!” shouted Who. I grabbed him around the upper arms and chest.
The bullet hit the road and a fragment of asphalt hit Kennedy’s right cheek. “I’m hit!” he said. A memory zipped through his cerebral cortex and he looked around to see me and my brother standing on the Grassy Knoll, above and behind the crowd of spectators, a flash of wide-eyed recognition and realisation in his face as our eyes met for the last time.
“Jack!” Who shouted again.
Crack.
The second bullet passed through Kennedy’s neck and he clutched at his throat. Governor Connally slumped in the front seat, wounded in the chest, arm and leg by the same bullet.
“Ha!” said Who. “They could save him!”
The Secret Service agent in the car behind had reached for his assault rifle and was bringing it up, still pointing forwards. I let go of my brother and pointed my Ultraknife at the agent, but there was no need. His finger accidentally squeezed the trigger as the rifle came to the horizontal.
Crack.
The coup de grâce hit Kennedy’s head, blowing off the back of his skull with a puff of pink mist. He was dead.
The crowd were taking cover on the ground, screaming.
I grabbed my hysterical brother and ran for the car park, and the safety of my Spectrel. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Doctor leaned forward in his chair, turned the projection back on and began scrolling through the diagrams again.
“Man,” said Kevin. “That, like, explains everything. The commotion some of the witnesses reported behind them. A figure with a handgun. The smell of cordite at street-level. Like, everything. Even the hazy figure on the Grassy Knoll, who barely shows up with the most advanced photo-enhancements. And the spare round in Oswald’s rifle.”
“Well, don’t tell anyone. The hazy figure would be my brother. Just enough loosening of the cloaking field to get his face – or one of his many faces, at least – into the history books but no more.”
“…”
“Please would you close your mouth, Kevin? You know I dislike it when you leave it open like that. It’s also rather dangerous in some of the places we’ll be going in later adventures.”
“Like, what else aren’t you telling me, Doc?”
“If you’re into such forensic detail, it also explains the fact that the entry wound at the back of the skull from the third shot was of a smaller calibre than Oswald’s rifle: 6mm compared with 6.5mm. Oswald’s round went through two people – in fact it went through poor Governor Connally twice before lodging in his thigh – because it was a Car
cano metal jacket. The one that entered Kennedy’s skull exploded into over forty fragments because it was flat-headed.”
“You what?” gasped Kevin.
“Dum-dum.”
“Look, just because I don’t know as much as you, there’s no need to insult me, Doctor high-and-mighty How. We’ve talked about this before.”
The Doctor gave an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t insult you, you idiot. His skull was blown to bits by a dum-dum bullet, as used by your local, friendly neighbourhood secret service. Details, Kevin. I expect my assistant to have a much better grasp of the details. I’ve told you before.”
“Jesus,” Kevin’s eyes widened. “You killed Kennedy, Doc.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah. It was the Secret Service – the conspiracy theorists were right! Even if it was, like, an accident. They covered up the accident!”
“Kevin, listen to me. He was already dead in the timeline. Who tried to alter history to save him to serve his own ends. I stopped him from doing that.”
“Like, even so…”
“The Addison’s would have killed him in 1967. Most US presidential second terms are a disappointment, and his would have been no exception. By that time, the infidelity would have been public knowledge. He would have died a broken man, his legacy in ruins and the entire Kennedy clan a laughing-stock. You would not have liked the world that those events ushered in. Nor, in fact, would you have been born.”
“And what about your brother?”
“You’ve seen his legacy. You were brought up on it. A wild, egomaniacal rollercoaster.”
“And that was when the split with your cousins happened, innit?”
“Exactly. They couldn’t be bothered to help me, and I couldn’t be bothered with them.”
“Like I say, my Mum has this colleague who does talking therapy. She does a non-NHS clinic on the side. I mean, it’s not like you can’t afford it. And she’s only over in Dulwich Village. The P13 bus gets you there in, like, ten or fifteen minutes. You get me?”
“Talking therapy. What a very modern solution, Kevin. However, I think they’ll find they don’t have a choice. We either stand together in this coming fight, or we die separately. Simple as, in your parlance.”