Aces Abroad

"My brother needs his sleep, as does his general. Please."

"Why must you always oppose me, woman?" Sayyid frowned, and Misha knew that he remembered his earlier embarrassment, when in frustration he had battered her, as if he could find release in her pain. "Tell me," he insisted. " I must know if it's something to tell the prophet."

I am Kahina, she wanted to say. I'm the one Allah has gifted. Why must you be the one to decide whether to wake Najib? It was not your vision. But she held back the words, knowing that they led to more pain. "It was confused," she told him. " I saw a man, a Russian by his dress" who handed Nur al-Allah many gifts. Then the Russian was gone, and another man-an American-came with more gifts and laid them at the prophet's feet." Misha licked dry lips, remembering the panic of the dream. "Then there was nothing but a feeling of terrible danger. He had gossamer strings knotted to his long fingers, and from each string dangled a person. One of his creatures came forward with a gift. The gift was for me, and yet I feared it" dreading to open the package. I ripped it open, and inside…" She shuddered. "I… I saw only myself. I know there was more to the dream, but I woke. Yet I know, I know the gift-bearer is coming. He will be here soon."

"An American?" Sayyid asked. "Yes."

"Then I know already. You dream of the plane carrying the Western infidels. The prophet will be ready for them: a month, perhaps more."

Misha nodded, pretending to be reassured, though the terror of. the dream still held her. He was coming, and he held out his gift for her, smiling.

"I'll tell Nur al-Allah in the morning," she said. "I'm sorry I disturbed your rest."

"There's more I would talk about," Sayyid answered. She knew. "Please. We're both tired."

"I'm entirely awake now"

"Sayyid, I wouldn't want to fail you again…"

She had hoped that would end it, yet had known it would not. Sayyid groaned to his feet. He said nothing; he never did. He lumbered across the room" breathing loudly at the exertion. She could see his huge bulk beside her bed, a darker shade against the night." He fell more than lowered himself atop her. "This time," he breathed. "This time."

It was not this time. Misha didn't need to be Kahina to know that it would never be.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF XAVIER DESMOND

DECEMBER 29, 1986/BUENOS AIRES:

Don't cry for Jack, Argentina…

Evita's bane has comes back to Buenos Aires. When the musical first played Broadway, I wondered what Jack Braun must have thought, listening to Lupone sing of the Four Aces. Now that question has even more poignance. Braun has been very calm, almost stoic, in the face of his reception here, but what must he be feeling inside?

Peron is dead, Evita even deader, even Isabel just a memory, but the Peronistas are still very much a part of the Argentine political scene. They have not forgotten. Everywhere the signs taunt Braun and invite him to go home. He is the ultimate gringo (do they use that word in Argentina, I wonder), the ugly but awesomely powerful American who came to the Argentine uninvited and toppled a sovereign government because he disapproved of its politics. The United States has been doing such things for as long as there has been a Latin America, and I have no doubt that these same resentments fester in many other places. The United States and even the dread "secret aces" of the CIA are abstract concepts, however, faceless and difficult to get a fix onGolden Boy is flesh and blood, very real and very visible, and here.

Someone inside the hotel leaked our room assignments, and when Jack stepped out onto his balcony the first day, he was showered with dung and rotten fruit. He has stayed inside ever since, except for official functions, but even there he is not safe. Last night as we stood in a receiving line at the Casa Rosada, the wife of a union official-a beautiful young woman, her small dark face framed by masses of lustrous black hair-stepped up to him with a sweet smile, looked straight into his eyes, and spit in his face.

It caused quite a stir, and Senators Hartma

"Yeah, yeah," I heard Digger tell him, "but how did you feel when she spit on you?"

Jack just looked disgusted. " I don't hit women," he said. Then he walked off and sat by himself.

Downs turned to me when Braun was gone. "I don't hit women," he echoed in a singsong imitation of Golden Boy's voice, then added, "What a weenie…"

The world is too ready to read cowardice and betrayal into anything Jack Braun says and does, but the truth, I suspect, is more complex. Given his youthful appearance, it's hard to recall at times how old the Golden Boy really is-his formative _years were during the Depression and World War II, and he grew up listening to the NBC Blue Network, not MTV No wonder some of his values seem quaintly oldfashioned.

In many ways the Judas Ace seems almost an i

Golden ages give way to dark ages, as any student of history knows, and as all of us are currently finding out.

Braun and his colleagues could do things no one else had ever done-they could fly and lift tanks and absorb a man's mind and memories, and so they bought the illusion that they could make a real difference on a global scale, and when that illusion dissolved beneath them, they fell a very long way indeed. Since then no other ace has dared to dream as big.

Even in the face of imprisonment, despair, insanity, disgrace, and death, the Four Aces had triumphs to cling to, and Argentina was perhaps the brightest of those triumphs. What a bitter homecoming this must be for Jack Braun.

As if this was not enough, our mail caught up with us just before we left Brazil, and the pouch included a dozen copies of the new issue of Aces with Digger's promised feature story. The cover has Jack Braun and Mordecai Jones in profile, scowling at each other (All cleverly doctored, of course. I don't believe the two had ever met before we all got together at Tomlin) over a blurb that reads, "The Strongest Man in the World."

The article itself is a lengthy discussion of the two men and their public careers, enlivened by numerous anecdotes about their feats of strength and much speculation about which of the two is, indeed, the strongest man in the world.

Both of the principals seem embarrassed by the piece, Braun perhaps more acutely. Neither much wants to discuss it, and they certainly don't seem likely to settle the matter anytime soon. I understand that there has been considerable argument and even wagering back in the press compartment since Digger's piece came out (for once, Downs seems to have had an impact on his journalistic colleagues), but the bets are likely to remain unresolved for a long time to come.