t 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 ...

* * * * *

Dark room. One light, on his face. A voice: "We can kill you."

"Kill me," he said. "My last wish will be for rain. Rain, forever."

"We can torture you."

"And I will say, before you start, let it rain and go on raining. Let me
be powerless to prevent it. Rain!"

"We can kill the girl."

"Your country will float away."

A fist came at him out of the darkness. Hit him. It was tentative
torture. He sobbed and thought: rain, harder. Rain, rain, rain ...

Water seeped into the dungeon. This had never happened before. The fist
went away.

Outside it rained and rained.

* * * * *

"What does he want, comrade?"

"We don't know, comrade."

"Give it to him--whatever it is. He has disrupted our entire economy. We
face economic disaster unless he--and his rain--leave us in peace."

"Perhaps that is what he wants. Peace."

"You fool! We are supposed to want peace. Shut up!"

"Yes, sir. Comrade."

"Better ask the party secretary."

"Yes, comrade."

The party secretary was asked. The party secretary sighed and nodded.

Johnny saw the light of day. And Jo-Anne.

* * * * *

A month later, the Secretary of Defense told him. "Thanks to you, they
agreed to a German settlement, stopped sending arms to their Red ally in
Asia, withdrew their promise of aid to the Arab fanatics, and have
freed all foreigners held in their motherland illegally."

Johnny listened, smiling at Jo-Anne. They had been married two weeks.
Naturally, the enemy had been only too glad to see them leave.

"Just stay available, Sloman," the President beamed from alongside the
Secretary of Defense. "As long as they know we can always send you over
there again, they'll never try anything. Right?"

"Yes, sir," said Johnny.

They called him the Weather Man. They