"I'm just waking up," said Johnny slowly. "In a way, it's your fault."
"Now, don't be a jackass, Johnny."
Jackass or no, Johnny hit him. His knuckles went crunch and Harry
Bettis' nose went crunch and Bettis fell down. He lay there, his nose
not looking so good.
Now, when it was apparently too late, Johnny knew what his course of
action should have been. Get rid of the money-grubbing Bettis. Go to
work for the government unselfishly. Insure world peace.
Too late ... too late ...
Because unless he could somehow save Jo-Anne, he would never predict the
weather again--for anyone.
* * * * *
"But what you ask is impossible!" the Secretary of Defense said a few
days later.
"If I come back, if I'm successful," Johnny said quietly, "I'm your
man, for as long as you want me, without pay."
"You mean that?" the Secretary asked slowly.
"I mean it."
The Secretary nodded grimly, touched a button on his desk. "Get me Air
Force Chief of Staff Burns," he said, and, a moment later: "Bernie?
Chuck here. We need a plane. A jet-transport to go you-know-where.
Cargo? One man, in a parachute. Can you manage it? Immediately, if not
sooner. Good boy, Bernie. No ... no, I'm sorry, I can't tell you a thing
about it." The Secretary cut the connection, turned to Johnny:
"You leave this afternoon, Sloman. You realize, of course, there isn't a
thing we can do to get you out. Not a thing."
"Yes," said Johnny.
"You're a very brave man, or very much in love."
Hours later, the jet transport took off with Johnny in it.
He came down near what had been the border of the motherland and Poland.
He began to walk. A farmer and his son spotted the parachute, came after
him. The son was a Red Army man on leave. The son had a gun. He fired
prematurely, and Johnny ran. It was hopeless, he decided. He would
never make it. He would never even reach the capital alive, where they
were holding Jo-Anne.
He ran.
He wished for rain. A blinding rainstorm. The clouds scudded in. The
rain fell in buckets. The farmer and his son soon lost sight of Johnny.
Just to make sure, Johnny ran and let it go on raining.
* * * * *
"Floods in their motherland," the Secretary of Defense told the
President. "Naturally, their news broadcasts are trying to keep the
reports to a minimum, but these are the biggest floods we've ever heard
of over there."
"Our man is there?" the President asked.
"He was dropped by parachute, sir!"
* * * * *
It was snowing when Johnny reached the capital. He had been parachuted
into the enemy's motherland, naturally, because propinquity alone
assured the success of his strange talent.
He was tired. His feet ached. He'd been the only one heading for the
capital. Hundreds of thousands had been fleeing from the floods ...
"There he is!" a voice cried in the enemy language. He didn't understand
the language, but he understood the tone. His picture had been flashed
across the length and breadth of the motherland. He had been spotted.
He ran. Down an alley, across a muddy yard, floundering to his knees,
then his thighs, in thick mud. They came floundering in pursuit. They
fired a warning volley of shots. He stumbled and fell face down in the
black, stinking mud.
They took him ...
* * * * *