I watched for the third time as her head exploded in a shower of blood. It was Maria, of course.

I turned and looked helplessly at Allie. Her chest was heaving and tears were streaming down her cheeks. She was moaning from pain and loss. I felt something deep inside my chest get thick and sour.

I put an arm over her shoulder. Her being so much bigger than me, and the way she looked, we must’ve seemed a very strange-looking couple. Harry and his two assistants watched us until they recognized that Allie and I were terrifically affected by something. They froze the projector and diplomatically slid out of the room.

I finally said, “Allie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

She didn’t answer. She just sat and cried and moaned, and I felt as miserable as I could ever remember being in my whole life. Or maybe miserable is the wrong word. Maybe what I felt was shame and inadequacy. Maria had owed me nothing. No, actually she’d owed me less than nothing. From the moment I’d laid eyes on her, I’d judged her and ignored her, which, if you think about it, is maybe the worst form of disdain there is.

You always read stories about heroes who save people’s lives, where they recount what they were thinking and how they felt in that fleeting instant when they did something unbelievably courageous. What you never read is what it feels like to be the one who gets saved, particularly when your savior dies. So I’ll tell you what it feels like. It makes you feel so guilty you want to rip your own heart out of your chest.

Somehow, I guess Allie sensed that, because she slipped her long arm across my shoulder and pulled me toward her. And that’s how we sat for the next few minutes, neither able to say a word, sitting in mutual misery, her because of her loss, and me because I wished more than anything I could trade places with Maria, even as I was guiltily content that I couldn’t.

Allie finally withdrew her arm, stood up, and went to retrieve Harry and his boys. They flipped the projector back on and we grimly returned to our viewing.

There was one sequence where I quickly bent over to pick up the riot baton. On the film, the second I leaned over to get that baton, three more protesters right behind me got their heads blown open like splattering melons. If I hadn’t bent over, the bullets would’ve hit me.

Harry said, “Wow! Man, look at that.”

So the cameraman replayed the scene in slow motion twice more, until I was tired of watching people die from bullets meant for me.

“Move on,” I barked.

The next sequence showed me sprinting toward the shooter. I looked damned good, too, if I do say. Allie even reached over and squeezed my arm, I guess to make me feel better.

Harry had focused his lens on me, so the figures around me were blurry and unfocused. I saw myself swing the baton and knock the cop on his noggin, then bend over and steal his pistol. I thought I saw something else, too, though it didn’t register.

I was running up the hill at the shooter, and I relived that moment where he yanked that magazine out of his vest. Then I noticed something else. He glanced over to his right. Then he looked back at me and dropped his weapon.

I made them replay that moment of decision five or six more times. The more I studied it, the more apparent it got. There wasn’t anything aimless in that sideways glance. The shooter was looking at somebody off to his right. He was searching for instructions. He was looking at his boss, or his lookout.

Then I remembered that I’d noticed something earlier in the film. I said, “Take it back to the point where I’d just emerged from the crowd. Slow motion again.”

So they did. Probably they thought I was reveling in my moment of glory. Truth be known, I’m not above such things.

This time, though, I stopped looking at myself and saw it more clearly. The figure was foggy and blurry, but there was something about him, something odd.

“Take it back and freeze it when I say freeze.”

It was impossible to be sure. The film was too out of focus. The figure was twenty, maybe thirty yards from me. What made him appear out of place was this: He was standing perfectly upright. He wasn’t diving for the ground, or running, or anything. He was standing with his hands on his hips, a pose of command. He was located at almost exactly the spot the shooter had looked for his signal.

I turned to Harry. “Can I have a copy of the film?”

He said, “Sure, man.”

So Allie and I collected the film, and then I took her hand and we left.

When we got outside Allie said, “What did you see?”

I felt bad about it, since reviewing the film was her idea, but I had no choice. “Nothing.”

She looked at me in disbelief. “Nothing? Why’d you ask for the film?”

“Hell, who knows? I guess so I’ll always remember how Maria saved my life.”

Constructing that particular alibi made me a real louse, but I knew it would end any further curiosity on Allie’s part, because really, how could she argue with that?

She smiled grimly and nodded, and we returned to base, me wondering about that figure in the film, her reliving the nightmarish sight of the woman she loved getting struck in the head by that bullet.

Back at the office, I furtively stepped outside and used a cell phone to call Spears’s office. I told my favorite colonel I needed to see Mercer and I needed to see him right away. I gave him my number, and he said okay and hung up.

I stood under a shady tree for three minutes before my cell phone rang.

He said, “Drummond, Mercer here.”

I said, “I need to see you. It’s important.”

“I’m busy. How important?”

“Damned important.”

“All right. We’re gonna have to be tricky about this. You’re being watched.”

“By who?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you later. Go down to the Post Exchange. Loiter around by the jewelry counter and we’ll take it from there.”

I grabbed my cane and told Imelda I’d be back in an hour. Then I hobbled over to the Post Exchange. The PX just happened to be the one support facility located on the other half of Yongsan, and I worked up a good sweat, cursing at Mercer as I hobbled around on that cane. The blast of air-conditioning as I entered the building nearly made me kiss the floor. I went to the jewelry counter and looked at watches. When I finally glanced up, the ruthlessly coldhearted Miss Kim was perusing some earrings on the other side of the glass counters.

She held up a pair, shook her head, and then moved off toward the stereo section. I slowly followed her. She stood studying a gargantuan-size pair of Infinity tower speakers until a guy walked by her, she glanced at him, and he nodded. Then she hooked a finger in my direction for me to follow her.

I have to tell you I thought all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was simply hilarious. These people probably run Geiger counters over toilet seats before they take a squat. She led me through some doors and into the warehouse in the back.

We walked around stacks of boxes and cabinets, until we turned a corner and ran right into Buzz Mercer.

I said, “You moonlighting as a warehouseman on government time?”

“Heh-heh,” he said, although I had the impression he didn’t really think it was funny. Maybe it wasn’t. “You got two trailers on you, Drummond. They didn’t come inside, although if you’re in here too long, they might get suspicious. And make sure you buy something before you leave – you know, for authenticity.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“We’re not sure. We took their photos this morning. We’re checking them with our friends over at the Korean CIA at this moment. In fact, the reason we diverted you all the way over here was so we could make them pass through the post gate. We had a man there checking their IDs as they came through. Maybe we’ll have a better idea soon.”

As he spoke I could see his eyes inspecting my damage. Some of the bruises I was sporting had started to yellow around the edges, so I was sort of a walking kaleidoscope of colors. He didn’t seem too distressed by my condition.