Enemy Compassion

It was nine o’clock at night. The exercise room had the odor of antiseptic cleaners mixed with hopeful ambitions and glum disappointment. It was empty except for a dark-haired woman running slowly on the treadmill in a t-shirt and sweatpants. She had buzz-cut hair and her t-shirt was stained with sweat. As she ran, she repeatedly visualized the steps needed to strip, clean, and reassemble a Sig Sauer P239 pistol. Her memory had been playing tricks on her lately and there were some skills that she thought were just too important to forget.

Her breathing started to get ragged and the color drained from her face. She needed to keep running so she began to play a mental game: she would run four more strides and then decide if she could continue, and then another four strides, and then another four strides. She played variants on this game before, in life-and-death situations, and it had proven its effectiveness. She considered getting back in shape to be a life-and-death proposition for her now.

But even the game had limits. Waves of nausea began to wash over her. If she were outdoors, she would have just puked and kept running, but she didn’t want to get stuck cleaning the hospital treadmill. Instead, she hopped off, doubled over, and grabbed her side. “Shit, shit, shit! I hate this.”

As she was bent over a tall, balding man wearing a doctor’s coat came into the room, paused by the door, and then walked slowly towards her. “Samantha, what are you doing? You already had your P.T. for the day. You should be in bed now.”

Samantha looked up at the middle-aged man with a pained expression on her face. “Do you know what an Iron Man competition is, Doc? In a single day, you have to swim two and a half miles, then bike for over a hundred miles, and finally, run a full marathon. Last year I could have competed in an Iron Man and been one of the top finishers. Look at me now. I can’t even run four minutes on a fucking treadmill. I’m pathetic.”

The doctor shook his head. “That was before your injury. Considering you have only been in the rehab wing for three weeks, I am surprised that you have the strength to walk to the exercise room, much less run on a treadmill for five minutes.”

Just then Samantha’s heartbeat started to roar in her ears, the doctor’s voice faded into the distance, and the room began to shrink. She knew that she was close to fainting, so she quickly lay down on the floor and propped her bare feet up on the side of the treadmill. “How much longer will I have these fainting spells, Doc?”

“Let’s see if it’s the same as last time,” the doctor said as he came over to examine Samantha. He peered into her eyes, took her pulse, and then repeatedly pressed a finger against the top of her foot. “Are you still feeling faint when you’re just walking around, or is it only when you’ve been exercising?”

Samantha tried to remember the last couple of days. “It can happen anytime. I think that eating may trigger it sometimes. The last two days I had an attack right after lunch. The food here is lousy, but not bad enough to do that.”

“Well, it’s most likely another problem caused by the blood loss from your injury. According to your chart, when you first arrived at the emergency room there was so much blood loss that you had some hypoxic brain injury, your heart was in distress, and your kidneys were shutting down. Based on your medical history and the symptoms you’re presenting, I think you may have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.”

Samantha stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Just for a moment, pretend you’re talking to an ordinary human being, Doc.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m afraid that right now your body isn’t regulating your blood pressure properly. Sometimes it gets confused and can’t tell if you’re standing up or laying down. Your B.P. drops for no apparent reason and your heart has to kick into high gear to compensate.”

“Okay, so how long before I’m well?”

The doctor shook his head. “Samantha, you are going to have to accept that things aren’t going back to the way they were. All of your major organs suffered at least some damage from the blood loss, and even with the electro-stim while you were in a coma you lost a lot of muscle mass. I doubt you’ll be able to compete in an Iron Man for a very long time.”

“Or ever?” she asked.

“Or ever,” he said, nodding his head.

Samantha started visualizing the various ways she could kill this man, this bearer of ill tidings. She wasn’t really going to hurt him, at least not now, but running through death scenarios was a good mental exercise that kept her sharp. She decided that a quick chop to his throat would probably be best under these circumstances. It would be quick, quiet, and she could do it even though she was still a little dizzy.

“Are there some pills or something you can give me to at least cut down on the symptoms?” she asked.

“At this point I think the best thing is to up your salt intake, keep you well hydrated, and get some compression stockings for you to wear. If we can increase your blood volume and prevent it from pooling in your legs and feet, you should do better.”

She was fine with wearing compression stockings. Her knees were so badly scarred that she always tried to keep her legs covered, anyway.

“Well, I think I’ll take your advice and head for bed now,” she said. “If you’ll give me a hand up, I’ll be on my way.”

Samantha steadied herself by putting a hand on the doctor’s shoulder as they walked. “What about my memory problems? Do you think they are ever going to clear up?”

“We hope they will, over time. Right now, you have some holes in your long-term memory, and your limbic system is struggling a little bit when it’s making new memories. But what you need to do now is concentrate on good things. Positive thoughts really will help you recover. You are quite lucky, actually. You had a horrific injury and were close to bleeding out. And yet here you are, still able to speak, still able to see, and seizure-free.”

“Wonderful,” she grumbled, removing her hand from his shoulder. “Positive thoughts are fine, Doc, but I have to make plans for the future. Are there any surprises you haven’t told me about yet, or do I have the whole story?”

“Well, now that you’re up and interacting with people again, we do need to start monitoring you for minor personality changes and problems with executive functioning.”

“Executive functioning? What the hell is that?”

“The type of brain injury you have can lead to poor decision-making.”

Samantha turned to him and smiled. “Like running unsupervised on a treadmill when I’m supposed to be in bed?”

“Exactly,” he replied, smiling back at her.

“You know, you had visitors again today,” the doctor continued resignedly, as they reached the door to Samantha’s room. “I’m afraid I’ve run out of excuses to keep them away. I’m getting leaned on by people in high places to grant access to you. I’m afraid that you’ll have to start meeting with them tomorrow.”

“Well, that will certainly increase my blood pressure if nothing else works,” Samantha muttered.

“Just one more thing,” she called out as the doctor turned to walk away. “What about my memory problems? Do you think they are ever going to clear up?”

She enjoyed watching the doctor’s face struggle with how to respond but eventually couldn’t help herself and began to laugh. “That felt good," she thought. “I haven’t laughed in a very long time.”

Dan Slater quickly crouched down in the brush, trying to suppress his rapid breathing, listening attentively for the enemy. The stench of rotting vegetation competed with the stench of his long unwashed body. He could hear movement around him, but there was always movement in the jungle. The trick was to filter out the random background noise and concentrate on repeating patterns, like the sound of footsteps as the Viet Cong bastards tried to track him down.

Rain began to fall, filling Dan’s ears with white noise, soaking his already damp uniform, nourishing the jungle rot that slowly devoured his flesh. He hunkered down lower, the uniform chafing tender skin. He would never hear Charlie sneaking up on him in a rainstorm. He just had to hope his camouflage was good enough to keep him out of a sniper’s gun sight.

Then he heard a noise off in the distance. It was definitely a man-made sound, a high-pitched wailing. He stood up and began to run through his father’s cornfield, jumping over the bodies of dead children who had been blasted apart by M-16 rifles. He had to get to the family shelter before the tornado hit. The siren screamed at him with increasing urgency. He could feel the wind picking up. Sand and debris began to pelt his face. Black clouds blotted out the sun like the smoke from a nearby napalm strike. Dismembered arms and legs began to fall from the sky, splattering him with gore. He needed to run faster. He needed to run smarter. He needed to get up and turn off his fucking alarm clock.

Detective Dan Slater lay in sweat-soaked sheets, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore the alarm clock. If he could ignore it for a full minute, the freaking thing would stop on its own.

Dan slowly wandered into the bathroom. As he sat on the toilet, he calculated how long before he was forced to retire. Today it was three years and forty-five days.

He had no hobbies and no real friends. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to die, but without the job he would have no real reason to keep struggling through life. Three years and forty-five days left to live. He learned in the Army that it was important to plan, and found it comforting to know the exact day he was going to die.

Dan was thirty minutes late getting to work. His banged-up desk seemed like a giant toad squatting on his grave. He found a note waiting for him when he sat down. The new captain wanted to see him.

Captain Barr was a young guy with high ambitions. He was trying to impress the city council with his uncompromising management style. He dressed for success, spoke forcefully, and brooked no dissent. Unfortunately for those around him, his sweat smelled like cat piss when he got anxious—and he was frequently anxious.

Dan had partnered with him once or twice before Barr’s promotion to Captain and thought he was a slimy, backstabbing, glory-grabbing asshole. He had commented once, a little too loudly perhaps, that if he saw Barr lying in a ditch on fire he wouldn’t even stop and piss on him to put out the flames.

Dan dragged himself up and walked to the corner office, knowing it was too much to hope that the captain was on fire. When he entered the room, he noticed that the chairs facing the desk had been replaced with a shorter, smaller, less comfortable model. Looking around he also saw that Captain Barr’s desk had been raised; there were blocks of wood under the legs to make it higher. Barr still looked to be at the correct height relative to the desk, which was interesting because he was not a tall man. Dan wondered if the captain’s feet could touch the floor with his chair jacked up like that.

Captain Barr didn’t pull any punches in these one-on-one meetings. He prided himself on being straight forward with his subordinates. Today was no exception. “Dan, I’ll just come right out and say it. I am not at all happy with your work. You seem to think that you can just coast the last couple of years until retirement. Let me assure you that you’re not going to coast in my department.”

“Captain Jones didn’t seem to have any issues with my work ethic,” said Dan, the small chair squeaking as he sat down without an invitation.

“I am not Captain Jones. He may have let you just sit around and do other people’s paperwork, but in my department, every man does their own. I don’t care how much paperwork you file, or how many reports you fill out, or how many pots of coffee you make. If you’re not out there making our streets safe, then you are nothing but a worthless worn-out old fart taking up a desk that could go to someone more deserving. Do you understand me, Detective?”

Dan understood him but could really care less what the little turd thought. “Yes, sir.”

“We are all aware of the work you did on the soccer-mom kidnapping last year, and that you were disappointed with the final outcome. Get over it, already! You were hot-dogging outside of channels and weren’t even in our jurisdiction when you found her. We had crime going on right here in our town while you were off playing hero with your fishing buddy. You should have been here in Milford keeping our streets safe instead of butting heads with the federal government. If it were up to me, you would have been disciplined instead of getting a pat on the back.”

Dan knew that the captain wasn’t really worried about keeping the streets safe; what he was worried about was keeping his men highly visible to the city council. If the Feds hadn’t suppressed the news stories about the kidnapping and rescue, Barr would probably be kissing his ass instead of chewing on it.

The dressing-down went on for another ten minutes, but Dan just let the captain’s words slide past his ears, occasionally grunting consent when the captain’s expression indicated that a response was required. The captain had Dan thinking about Kim Ammar, the kidnapping victim. Considering how severely she was abused, Kim would likely carry emotional scars for the rest of her life. She probably woke up in sweat-soaked sheets sometimes, just like he did.