Painless

by Derek Ciccone

  After returning home to the barn that night, the diagnosis began to somewhat sink in. Despite its surreal nature, it was what they expected in some regards, from the standpoint that it was a life-altering diagnosis, but it wasn’t the type of diagnosis that rips lives apart, and for that they were thankful.

  They ordered pizza from Uncle Joe’s Restaurant in Norwalk, and the diagnosis sure didn’t put a damper on anyone’s appetite, especially Carolyn. It was as normal as a Friday night could be when you learn your daughter is an alien. Carolyn caught fireflies and then negotiated to play for “five more minutes,” which lasted about an hour. She finally gave in, changing into her pajamas and climbing into bed. Chuck sang to her, and then she called for Billy. The usual.

  He didn’t have a Peanut Butter & Jelly story for the occasion, but did have a few questions.

  “Did you understand what the doctors said?”

  “That I got Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis, silly.”

  Billy smiled. “That’s a mouthful. Do you know what it means?”

  “That I can’t feel my boo-boos.”

  “That’s right.”

  Her face scrunched in thought. “What do boo-boos feel like?”

  “You know when you get sad?”

  “Uh-huh, like when they say I can’t play hockey.”

  “Well, that’s kind of what boo-boos feel like.”

  “Then I’m really glad I don’t feel boo-boos,” she do-ra-mi’d.

  “That makes you really special.”

  “Dr. Carlson said I’m one in a hundred million!”

  When Carolyn drifted off to sleep, Billy slipped out of the room. Before exiting, he snuck a glance back at the “special” girl and another chunk of the iceberg broke off into the sea, his heart continuing to thaw. But like that first spring-like day in March, he knew there was always another snowstorm that would hit before spring had truly arrived.

  Chapter 25

  Dr. Dash Naqui stood like many of the other tourists in the Lincoln Memorial. He was dressed in a lavender Polo shirt tucked into khaki shorts, sandals, and no socks. He moved toward the enormous statue of Lincoln, who was sitting comfortably in his chair and probably wondering if the sacrifices he had made for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans were in vain. A century and a half later, Naqui wondered the same thing.

  He had spent the previous day lobbying Congress for federal funding of stem cell research. The only thing that made sense to him anymore was finding a cure for Claire. He never questioned that battle.

  He read Lincoln’s words from the Gettysburg Address that were inscribed on the south wall of the memorial. They described the ultimate sacrifices for liberty. Naqui thought of the young men and women of Operation Anesthesia, whom he thought of as his own children. Many had sacrificed their lives so the nation could live. Thoughts of the children got to him, as they always did, and he was forced to walk outside, away from the crowds that had filled the memorial.

  He crossed under the thirty-two Doric columns of the memorial that gave it the look of a Greek temple, one for each state of the union at the time of Lincoln’s death. Naqui stared out at the Washington Monument in the distance, which hid the majestic rotunda of the US Capital—the two great monuments of freedom were built in perfect linear symmetry. He always thought this view was a symbol of stability in the unstable world. A sign that despite all its doubts and struggles, America would always prevail, as would the dream it stood for. At least Naqui used to think so.

  Naqui looked down at his feet to see the plaque that signified where Martin Luther King Jr. stood to deliver his historic “I Have a Dream” speech. One specific line from the speech rushed back to him, “...still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.”

  Naqui’s fists clenched. He wondered if a man like Dr. King who provided so much hope ever questioned his own faith in America. Did he really believe his dream would come true—a future in which all men stood as equals? Was it really a place worth fighting for?

  But suddenly, as if Lincoln and King were whispering in his ear, Naqui felt a sudden resolve come over him. The voices told him that America is built of the people and for the people, and since people are flawed, America would always be flawed. But the ideals it stood for, the same ideals Lincoln and King fought for, were not flawed, and worth the ultimate sacrifices. He wasn’t betrayed by America, but by flawed men living within its boundaries. The same type of men who assassinated Lincoln and King. He knew Operation Anesthesia must carry on their fight.

  Naqui descended the steep marble steps with a renewed vigor. He turned to his left, passing the long reflecting pool, and moved toward the Vietnam Memorial. A few of his fellow veterans were selling POW tribute T-shirts with the faces of the still-missing plastered on them, along with the always-popular I Ain’t Fonda Jane bumper stickers. Naqui wished they could see that they were being held hostage themselves, by the past. He walked by a booth that was manned by an unkempt man with a long beard, who was wearing a Vietnam Vets are better in the Bush T-shirt. Naqui dropped a hundred dollar bill in the cup and said, “Good work soldier,” to which he received a lonely grin of stained teeth.

  Naqui drifted into the sunken memorial. It was created for those whose lives ended in the thick jungles of Vietnam, but if truth be told, it was built to ease the turmoil of those who survived. The names of the fallen soldiers were carved into the marble. There were so many names—so much sacrifice—so much suffering. The memorial was built in the shape of a Bell Curve, the sidewalk gradually descending to the steepest point in the middle. Naqui reached the midpoint and stared upward at one specific name engraved into the black marble.

  A familiar voice erupted from behind him. “Greg Ponson was a great man. It should’ve been me and not him,” Kerry Rutherford said in his deep baritone. Like Naqui, he wore a Polo shirt and shorts, but for incognito purposes, he wore dark sunglasses and a Washington Nationals baseball cap with an interlocking DC on the front. “He was my best friend.”

  “I only knew him in his final moments,” Naqui said.

  “Yet you seek out his name before those you knew much longer.”

  “He was the first person to die in my arms. You never forget that.”

  “You did everything you could, doc. If it weren’t for you saving my life, I’d be just another name carved on this wall. They say fate saved me, but I know it was you.”

  “Are we still on the same side, Kerry?” Naqui got right to the point.

  “We must pull out, Dash. If we are exposed, all the work we’ve done will be ruined and ridiculed. The legacies of our brave soldiers will be for naught, and they will die in vain.”

  “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

  Rutherford nodded his head, recognizing the familiar words. “Abraham Lincoln—a great patriot who understood sacrifice. People don’t talk like that anymore.”

  “I used to think the same of you, Kerry, but now you sound a lot like a politician trying to cover his ass.”

  Chapter 26

  Rutherford simmered; nobody questioned his commitment. “I’m not the one who has been questioning his faith in his country,” he shot back in a loud whisper.

  “Did you call me to meet so we could debate who the greater patriot is?”

  “No, I called you here because Vietnam is where this started and now it’s where I’m going to end it. The mission has become too clouded by power struggles. Stipe even threatened me the other day.”

  “You brought him in…”

  “Your protégé, Dr. God, is no better. His only agenda is feeding his enormous ego. Not about sacrificing for the greater good like you and me, Dash.”

  “Last I checked, there’s never been a problem from the me
dical side of things. Frankly, we’ve done brilliant work. Iran was caused by arrogant thugs like Stipe who were too busy feeding their Rambo-complexes and overlooked basic security.”

  Rutherford didn’t like to be talked back to, whether it be a world leader or his good friend, Dash Naqui. “Stipe said if I discontinued our association, then Anesthesia’s services would be sold to a terrorist organization.”

  Naqui said nothing. Rutherford searched deep into his friend’s complex eyes. He was convinced that a man like Dash Naqui couldn’t just turn off his love for his country like a faucet, even if doubt was starting to cloud his view. Rutherford was sure it was a bluff, but he knew now wasn’t the time to call him on it.

  They had met in Vietnam on January 29, 1968, and not under the best of circumstances. It was the Vietnamese New Year, and a cease-fire was in place, which history would note as the reason the US was unprepared for the surprise attack by the North Vietnamese now famously known as the Tet Offensive. Provincial capitals were seized and the US embassy was invaded in Saigon. It became a media disaster for President Lyndon Johnson, and most believe it was the turning point in the war.

  Kerry Rutherford was a young, brash marine intelligence officer working out of the US embassy in Saigon at the time of the Offensive. That was where he came in contact with his first suicide fighter. A concept that would shape his adult life. There were nineteen suicide fighters involved in the taking of the embassy. Rutherford was badly wounded and his best friend Greg Ponson was killed. Rutherford escaped death because of the heroic work of a young doctor named Dash Naqui.

  They formed a special bond that turned into a lifetime of friendship. Naqui rose to become one of the world’s leading neurologists, while Rutherford climbed the ranks in the Defense Intelligence Agency.

  Their other bond was an unmatched love for their country. It was the very reason why Rutherford reached out to Naqui after the Beirut bombings. He told his friend of the enemy he foresaw threatening the next generation of Americans—the suicide bomber. He also predicted that by the turn of the century, the only way to combat this enemy would be to develop a clandestine fighting force that could get behind enemy lines, boundaries that would be much more fluid than the traditional nation-state. And these soldiers would have to be able to endure unimaginable locations, along with being able to match the suicide bomber’s willingness to sacrifice their own lives.

  The problem was that at that time the military was too focused on the Soviet Union, which Rutherford correctly predicted was a dinosaur on the brink of extinction. And intelligence agencies had been turned into government bureaucracies, no longer able to provide the undercover fortress of security they were intended to provide. Rutherford knew that to protect the nation, he would have to take the responsibility on his own shoulders.

  Naqui had just returned from performing charity medical work in Thailand. He normally dealt with ailments like scurvy and cleft lips. But on this trip, he came across something he had never seen before. A young girl with a rare genetic mutation that impeded her ability to feel pain or sense temperature. It was an astonishing disorder called CIPA.

  The wheels began to turn in Rutherford’s mind. If one couldn’t feel pain, then they would be fearless by nature. They could travel to places like the rugged terrain of mountainous Afghanistan without having to deal with the elements to which traditional soldiers would succumb. If they were to be captured and cultivated at a young age, then they would be free from a culture where sacrifice had become a dirty word. If captured by the enemy, no level of torture could harm them. It was perfect—fearless warriors that wouldn’t be stopped by pain or wicked temperatures or implausible terrain. They would fearlessly run toward the gun that could cause them no pain.

  Rutherford brought on Franklin Stipe, a young marine working under him at the DIA, to be in charge of the recruiting and the military training. He set him up with a business called Stipe Security, which was to be used to funnel money from the DIA to Stipe under the veil of legitimate government contracts, so he could carry out his duties. Stipe then put together a team of ex-CIA and rogue bounty hunters to handle the recruiting and training.

  Naqui was in charge of the medical training. His mission was to discover what those with CIPA could do, medically speaking. What were their limits, or did they have any? And what they accomplished was groundbreaking.

  In 1991, just after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Rutherford called on Operation Anesthesia for the first time. The CIPA soldiers were sent into Iraq on intel missions. Because they operated as a private entity, they weren’t slaves to the same constrictions that the US military faced. Only those involved in Operation Anesthesia had knowledge of its existence, not even the US president or top military commanders. And while the history books would never tell their story, there was a good reason the war was over in less than a month, with so many targets easily eliminated—the US had Operation Anesthesia working covertly behind the enemy lines.

  André Rose was the first Anesthesia soldier taken hostage, leaving the Iraqis dumbfounded at his ability to endure the pain of their torture tactics. They learned the hard way that pain only hurts when you can feel it. When the Iraqis eventually abandoned their post to run for their lives, André was rescued and returned to his family at Operation Anesthesia.

  Until the Iran incident, almost three months ago, Operation Anesthesia had averted numerous terrorist acts and saved countless lives, all while remaining the most secret of secret societies. And because of its success, they always looked past the internal power-struggle of the military men—Stipe and his recruits—versus Naqui and his medical staff. Rutherford always served as the glue that held everything together. But now with his desire to discontinue Operation Anesthesia, the foundation grew shakier.

  A long awkward silence developed between the old friends. “Maybe I overreacted,” Rutherford said, knowing full well he came off like a bureaucrat without any cards to play. “All I’m asking, Dash, is that everything remain low profile until the hearings pass. Then we can assess the future.”

  Naqui continued drilling a hole into the memorial with his stare. “Do you even know the complete truth of what happened in Iran? Or are you more interested in plausible deniability these days, for when you testify before LaRoche’s congressional panel?”

  “I only know Stipe’s version of events. Helicopter crashed in a sandstorm on the getaway. He and Jones escaped, but our boys were captured. Stipe played the role of courageous hero, of course.”

  “Same tale he told me,” Naqui agreed. “It’s those still missing that I find most worrisome.”

  “Maybe they were shot during the struggle, or died in the crash. Or, hell, the Iranians are always negotiating. Maybe they held a few to use as a negotiating ploy in the nuclear talks. They know the US always weakens in the knees at the sight of a hostage.” He returned his gaze to the engraving of Greg Ponson’s name, a tear dripping from under his sunglasses. “It worked in the Tet Offensive. The US media did a hatchet job on LBJ and he lost support.”

  Naqui continued to stare lifelessly ahead. “What I find interesting is that André, Calvin, and Bronson Rose are the ones unaccounted for from the mission manifest. They are all brothers.”

  Rutherford’s face puzzled. He dropped his shades down the bridge of his nose to get a good look at Naqui’s eyes. “Brothers?”

  But the conversation was over. Naqui had already begun walking away.

  Rutherford instinctively headed in the other direction. The memorial in front of them symbolized their past. Their opposite paths were symbolic of their current relationship.

  Chapter 27

  Monday morning, Billy joined the Whitcombs on a private jet that flew them to Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. From there, they took a short helicopter ride and landed on the grounds of the Jordan Children’s Hospital in Durham.

  With the helicopter blades still whipping in the background, they were met by Dr. Samuel Jordan. He was not only
the lead physician, but had his name etched on the seventy-thousand-square-foot research and treatment hospital that served children with special needs, neurological disorders, and incurable diseases.

  Samuel Jordan was lanky thin with sandy blond hair, looking much younger than his forty-eight years. He was what Carolyn would term as “shiny.” But he spoke with a gentle southern accent that gave him an “aw shucks” quality.

  He greeted the Whitcombs with smiles and handshakes. He then turned his attention to Carolyn, whose sturdy barrette couldn’t keep her hair from blowing in the strong gusts of wind coming from the helicopter. She wore a pink cotton dress with a matching sling on her injured shoulder, although she kept removing the restrictive sling whenever the opportunity presented itself, much to her mother’s chagrin.

  “And what is your name?” the doctor asked her over the whirring blades.

  “Carolyn Whitcomb,” she shouted proudly.

  “You look like a true southern belle, Carolyn Whitcomb.”

  “Bells are on bikes, silly.”

  “I stand corrected. But I must say that you don’t look like a Carolyn Whitcomb. You look like a princess. Would you mind if I called you princess?”

  Carolyn’s face scrunched. “How did you know I was a princess?”

  “Only a princess could radiate such delightful beauty.”

  Carolyn giggled. “You talk funny.”

  He laughed a charming laugh. “We do talk a little funny down here. You are quite observant. Did you enjoy your ride on the airplane?”

  She bubbled with excitement. “It was coo’!”

  Carolyn then extended her arms straight out to her sides like she had wings, and began running in circles, joyously making airplane sounds and laughing unapologetically.

  The diagnosis had provided Beth with some relief, but it also had raised her over-protectiveness to Defcom-2 level. “Carolyn, be careful!” she yelled to her.