The General lay in bed in the med tent in front of a row of monitors. The monitors flashed and beeped and purple liquids pulsed through tubes that fed into his arms. And a second row of serious monitors lined the wall under the first row. A team of technicians wearing green smocks and blue gloves checked the colorful tubes. Another team in yellow smocks and blue gloves studied those serious monitors.
Tears in his eyes, Uncle Brucker stood quietly beside the General’s bed.
General Hardesty did not look like General Hardesty. The bullet from Uncle Brucker’s pistol had turned him into something else. Now he had the sad eyes of a wounded animal. Bandages wrapped his head from ear to swollen ear—boxer’s ears.
Uncle Brucker thought about what he had done to the General. The nasty head wound, the animal eyes, the boxer’s ears.
“Excuse me,” the medic said, and he elbowed my Uncle out of the way. The medic was a huge man with piston-like elbows and the jab hurt. He gave my Uncle a look that said You Shot The General, and that hurt more.
Uncle Brucker stood with the medics for a silent prayer.
“Allow me,” he said, and he pulled the sheet up over the General’s head.
The soldiers took down the med tent and folded it and loaded it into a truck. Another vehicle took the monitors and the medics and the multi-colored technicians away.
Uncle Brucker looked around.
“All clear!” he said.
He pulled the sheet from the General’s body and handed him a towel. The General sat up and wiped the ugly makeup from his face and tore off the bloody bandage and removed the fake swollen tongue and boxer’s ears, and he threw it all to the ground. He combed back his hair. A dab of cologne, and the General was the General again.
He grabbed my Uncle’s hand and smiled. The smile was for pulling through, the shake for helping him out.
“You did the right thing, Brucker, under the circumstances.”
“If I was shootin’ bullets, you’d be dead.”
“It’s tough bein’ caught between your convictions and your orders,” said the General.
“There’s no gettin’ around it,” Uncle Brucker said. “You gotta go with your orders and let your convictions slide.”
“You need a special man for a Special Assignment. Thanks for answering the phone.”
Last week a rat impostor fooled the guards and sneaked past Camp Security. He looked exactly like the General. He would have fooled anybody, not just us, the guards said. He made his way to the budget committee meeting up on the third floor of Central Command where he introduced a proposal to cut funding for the Army, but the guards caught up with him before the deal went through, and the Army remained funded.
It was a serious breach of security and it made General Hardesty look bad to the High Command. After a restless night of on and off sleep, he formulated a plan: fake his own assassination and knock himself off. That will put an end to their impostoring.
Uncle Brucker’s special assignment: shoot General Hardesty with a prop gun and make it look good.
Most rat impostors are so bad you can’t help laughing at them. Bad impostors won’t even fool another rat. It takes a heap of determination, concentration and practice, which is a heavy load for a rat to carry. Don’t underestimate talent. A talented impostor can make you think he’s a man through refined gestures and movements.
It’s like this: your eyes can only tell your brain what they’re seeing, but your brain can tell your eyes what to see. A talented impostor can put it all together and get you seeing what he makes you think. Of course he has to refine his gestures first, and he must master his movements. That’s how impostors do it.
A siren went off in sector #3. Seconds later, the General’s battle Jeep pulled up and the passenger door flew open. The General got up from his sick bed. Sirens sounded in section #6 and #21. Mortars sailed overhead and landed in the parking lot. Searchlights glared, gates locked, sentries doubled up and rifles were loaded.
The rats are in the compound! General Hardesty put Base Camp on Lockdown.
General Hardesty stepped into the wide vehicle.
“Outlet City, Uprising #2,” said the General. “I stabbed ‘em with the skewer. Rita invited us to dinner. Do you recall?”
Uncle Brucker set the General straight.
“It’s Outlet Plaza, not Outlet City. And it’s Charcoal Dealer. Never heard of Cookout King. I had the skewer, you mixed the drinks. You can call her Rita but she’s Sophie to me.”
The General passed his helmet to Uncle Brucker.
“Wear it when you need it,” he said.
Uncle Brucker took the General’s lightweight bulletproof all-weather form-fitting helmet and put it on his head.
He closed the door and turned to his driver.
“To the Safe House!” he said.