This feeling of unreality stayed with him over the next ten years when he lived without David Ogden in his life. The raid on Mount Krn finished Cankar's band as an effective partisan unit; they could not operate without a haven in the mountains, and so in twos and threes the men drifted away to join other bands. The OSS recalled Ogden to Italy, but before he left he brought Vlado Priol to a trusted man named Debanjak who worked a farm on the outskirts of Kopor, and there the boy stayed until the war was over, and eight years after that, treated as a member of the family. He was sixteen years old when Ogden came back to help him to kill the man who had murdered his parents. Not the German soldier who had pulled the trigger-only God knew where he was-but the traitor who had led the German troops up the face of Mount Krn in the middle of winter. Only a local man could have done that, and it had taken Ogden ten years to track him down.

He came back in June of 1953, slipping over the border between Zone A of Trieste and Zone B, and then down to Kopor. He wore rough clothing, and he carried the papers of a tractor driver from Rijeka. He came to the farm in the middle of the night, and threw pebbles at a window until Debanjak came to the door. The farmer stared, and then opened the door wider.

"In the kitchen," he said. "Quietly. The house is asleep."

He lit a single candle, and they sat at the table. From his pockets, Ogden took a pistol, a paper sack, and a bottle of whisky. When Debanjak saw the bottle, he went for glasses, and poured. Ogden pushed the paper sack across the table to him, and said, "Tobacco, English, the kind that comes in a tin. I took it out of the tin to be safe."

Debanjak nodded his thanks. "What about the pistol? Is that for me, too?"

"For the boy."

Debanjak sighed, a wordless sound of understanding. "He isn't a boy anymore."

"I know. That's why I brought the pistol."

"You found the man?"

"I know who he is, and where he is."

"In the name of God, how did you do that after all these years?"

Ogden shook his head. The workings of the newly formed CIA were none of the farmer's concern.

"Who is he?"

Ogden shook his head again.

"The boy will kill him?"

"It's his right."

"It's his right," Debanjak admitted, "but what happens to him afterward? He goes with you?" Ogden nodded. "How?"

"The same way I came in. You're asking a lot of questions. That's not the way I remember you."

Debanjak looked down at his glass. It was empty. "Maybe it's the whisky. I'm not used to drinking it. Besides, I never thought I'd see you again. Now you come after ten long years and say that you're taking the boy away."

"I'm sorry, but it has to be that way."

"I understand that. If he kills the man, he can't stay here, but he's been with me for ten years, and that gives me the right to ask some questions."

Ogden poured whisky for them both. "Yes, you have the right," he admitted. "I'll answer what I can."

Debanjak leaned over the table. "Just one question. Why now, after all these years?"

"It was never really finished, we just didn't know his name. Now we do. He said something to someone, and that someone told someone else…" Ogden shrugged. "That's how these things happen. It got back to my people, and we decided to close the books."

"Your people have long ears."

"And long arms. Tell me about the boy. What is he like?"

"I told you before, he isn't a boy, he does a man's work on the farm. What's he like? He's strange, that's what he is."

"In what way?"

"Just strange." Debanjak searched for words. "He's a quiet one, doesn't talk much, does his work. He's… he's a cold one. Never laughs, never sings, never shows anything on his face. He has no friends, never jokes with the girls, never causes any trouble. Even when I had to beat him. You understand that while he was growing up I had to beat him once in a while?"

Ogden nodded. In Debanjak's world a young boy had to be beaten regularly in order to curb a natural rebelliousness, and to instill a respect for authority.

"Even then, he never showed pain, he never showed fear, and I never saw a single tear in his eye. Never."

"Is that so unusual?"

"Listen, in this country boys don't cry as a rule, but every boy cries at one time or another. But not this one."

"Not even when he was a child?"

"In ten years I have never seen him cry."

"Perhaps he doesn't have any tears left."

"Perhaps."

"Do you think he will be able to kill?"

"Who knows that about any man? You'll find out soon enough, won't you?"

"Yes. Go and wake him now. I want to start before dawn."

Debanjak's hand was on the whisky bottle. He started to pick it up, then put it down. "Listen, friend, you come here in the middle of the night and you tell me that you are taking him away. I understand the need for that, but there are ways of doing it, and giving me orders in my own home is not one of those ways."

Ogden said carefully, "It was not meant as an order. I'm sorry if it sounded that way."

"Ten years, you see? Like family."

"Yes. Would you wake him, please?"

"Of course."

"There is no need, I'm here," said a voice from the doorway. Vlado stepped into the pool of light that the candle threw. His feet were bare, and his nightshirt was stuffed into a pair of trousers. He was fresh from sleep, but his eyes were clear.

Ogden looked at him carefully. He saw a boy grown into a man, slight of build but clearly muscular. He looked for signs of the boy he had known, but could see none. It was a disappointment. He asked, "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes. I was listening, but I would have known you anyway."

"How much did you hear?"

"All of it. I heard the pebbles on the window."

"You move quietly."

"When I have to."

Debanjak cleared his throat noisily. "Did I teach you to listen at doors?"

Vlado did not look at him. His eyes were fixed on Ogden. "No, but you said that I'm strange. Strange people listen at doors."

"I meant no harm by it."

"I know that." To Ogden, he said, "Did you mean what you said about taking me with you?"

"Yes."

Vlado finally looked at Debanjak. "May I go?" Debanjak nodded. "Then I'm ready."

"You know what has to be done?"

"I'm ready for that, too. I've been ready for ten years. It's something I should have done then."

Ogden looked at him curiously. "Then? You mean that night?"

"Yes."

There was a long silence, and then Ogden said, "You were a child. There was nothing you could have done."

Vlado shook his head. "I should have done something."

"That's foolish talk. Did you have a pistol?"

"You know that I didn't."

"A knife?"

"No."

"They would have shot you down."

"I know, but I should have done it. I should have fought, and died. That's the way it was in the mountains. One fought, and one died. You know that. Even I knew that, and I was only a child. But I didn't do anything. I just lay there under that pile of skins and let them do that to my mother."

Ogden sighed. "Do you think about this often?"

"Every day."

"You'll feel better about it after you kill him."

"Maybe."

"You will. Now go and get dressed. Don't take much with you, just enough to fill your pockets. We'll leave when you're ready."

When Vlado had gone upstairs, Ogden said to Debanjak, "Did you notice that he didn't say hello to me? He never touched me, or reached for my hand. He never said a single soft word, and he used to be like a little brother to me."

Debanjak shrugged. "I told you he was a strange one."

Debanjak gave them a bottle of water and a small sack of plums, and they left with the sun just up as they headed southeast for Rijeka. It was a journey that could have been made in two hours by car, but walking took them the better part of the day under a sun that was soon hot and heavy. While they walked, Ogden talked and Vlado listened. The name of the traitor was Josip Koller, and he had done it for money. There had been no politics involved, none of the Royalist-Communist rivalry that had split the Yugoslav resistance movement during the war. Koller had led the Germans up the mountain for a price, the price had been paid, and the secret had been kept, until now. At the end of the war he had moved out from under the shadow of Mount Krn and had settled in the seaside city of Rijeka where he had established a small business selling paper and twine. Now, eight years later, he was a respected citizen and a prosperous merchant. He had never married, and he lived alone. He was an easy target.