"Valdez knew. Anyone who went down in Laos was in for an education. If they survived. And that was a big if. Say you did manage to eject. Say you lived through the G force of shooting out of your cockpit. If the enemy didn't find you, the animals would." He stared down at his beer. "Valdez was lucky to be alive."

"You met him at Tuyen Quan?" asked Guy.

"Yeah. Summer camp." He laughed. "For three years we were stuck in the same cell.'' His gaze turned to the river. "I was with the 101st when I was captured. Got separated during a firefight. You know how it is in those valleys, the jungle's so thick you can't be sure which way's up. I was going in circles, and all the time I could hear those damn Hueys flying overhead, right overhead, picking guys up.

Everyone but me. I figured I'd been left to die. Or maybe I was already dead, just some corpse walking around in the trees… " He swallowed; the hand clutching the beer bottle was unsteady. "When they finally boxed me in, I just threw my rifle down and put up my hands. I got force marched north, into NVA territory. That's how I ended up at Tuyen Quan."

"Where you met Valdez," said Willy.

"He was brought in a year later, transferred in from some camp in Laos. By then I was an old-timer. Knew the ropes, worked my own vegetable patch. I was hanging in okay. Valdez, though, was holding on by the skin of his teeth. Yellow from hepatitis, a broken arm that wouldn't heal right. It took him months to get strong enough even to work in the garden. Yeah, it was just him and me in that cell. Three years. We did a lot of talking. I heard all his stories. He said a lot of things I didn't want to believe, things about Laos, about what we were doing there… "

Willy leaned forward and asked softly, "Did he ever talk about my father?"

Lassiter turned to her, his eyes dark against the glow of sunset. "When Valdez last saw him, your father was still alive. Trying to fly the plane."

"And then what happened?''

"Luis bailed out right after she blew up. So he couldn't be sure-"

"Wait," cut in Guy. "What do you mean, 'blew up'?"

"That's what he said. Something went off in the hold."

"But the plane was shot down.''

"It wasn't enemy fire that brought her down. Valdez was positive about that. They might have been going through flak at the time, but this was something else, something that blew the fuselage door clean off. He kept going over and over what they had in the cargo, but all he remembered listed on the manifest were aircraft parts."

"And a passenger," said Willy.

Lassiter nodded. "Valdez mentioned him. Said he was a weird little guy, quiet, almost, well, holy. They could tell he was a VIP, just by what he was wearing around his neck."

"You mean gold? Chains?" asked Guy.

"Some sort of medallion. Maybe a religious symbol."

"Where was this passenger supposed to be dropped off?"

"Behind lines. VC territory. It was billed as an in-and-out job, strictly under wraps."

"Valdez told you about it," said Willy.

"And I wish to hell he never had." Lassiter took another gulp of beer. His hand was shaking again. Sunset flecked the river with bloodred ripples. "It's funny. At the time we felt almost, well, protected in that camp. Maybe it was just a lot of brainwashing, but the guards kept telling Valdez he was lucky to be a prisoner. That he knew things that'd get him into trouble. That the CIA would kill him."

"Sounds like propaganda."

"That's what I figured it was-Commie lies designed to break him down. But they got Valdez scared. He kept waking up at night, screaming about the plane going down… "

Lassiter stared out at the water. "Anyway, after the war, they released us. Valdez and the other guys headed home. He wrote me from Bangkok, sent the letter by way of a Red Cross nurse we'd met in Hanoi right after our release. An English gal, a little anti-American but real nice. When I read that letter, I thought, now the poor bastard's really gone over the edge. He was saying crazy things, said he wasn't allowed to go out, that all his phone calls were monitored. I figured he'd be all right once he got home. Then I got a call from Nora Walker, that Red Cross nurse. She said he was dead. That he'd shot himself in the head."

Willy asked, "Do you think it was suicide?"

"I think he was a liability. And the Company doesn't like liabilities." He turned his troubled gaze to the water. "When we were at Tuyen, all he could talk about was going home, you know? Seeing his old hangouts, his old buddies. Me, I had nothing to go home to, just a sister I never much cared for. Here, at least, I had my girl, someone I loved. That's why I stayed. I'm not the only one. There are other guys like me around, hiding in villages, jungles. Guys who've gone bamboo, gone native." He shook his head. "Too bad Valdez didn't. He'd still be alive."

"But isn't it hard living here?" asked Willy. "Always the outsider, the old enemy? Don't you ever feel threatened by the authorities?"

Lassiter responded with a laugh and cocked his head at a far table where four men were sitting. "Have you said hello to our local police? They've probably been tailing you since you hit town."

"So we noticed," said Guy.

"My guess is they're assigned to protect me, their resident lunatic American. Just the fact that I'm alive and well is proof this isn't the evil empire." He raised his bottle of beer in a toast to the four policemen. They stared back sheepishly.

"So here you are," said Guy, "cut off from the rest of the world. Why would the CIA bother to come after you?"

"It's something Nora told me."

"The nurse?"

Lassiter nodded. "After the war, she stayed on in Hanoi. Still works at the local hospital. About a year ago, some guy-an American-dropped in to see her. Asked if she knew how to get hold of me. He said he had an urgent message from my uncle. But Nora's a sharp gal, thinks fast on her feet. She told him I'd left the country, that I was living in Thailand. A good thing she did."

"Why?"

"Because I don't have an uncle."

There was a silence. Softly Guy said, "You think that was a Company man."

"I keep wondering if he was. Wondering if he'll find me. I don't want to end up like Luis Valdez. With a bullet in my head."

On the river, boats glided like ghosts through the shadows. A cafe worker silently circled the deck, lighting a string of paper lanterns.

"I've kept a low profile," said Lassiter. "Never make noise. Never draw attention. See, I changed my hair." He grinned faintly and tugged on his lank brown ponytail. "Got this shade from the local herbalist. Extract of cuttlefish and God knows what else. Smells like hell, but I'm not blond anymore." He let the ponytail flop loose, and his smile faded. "I kept hoping the Company would lose interest in me. Then you showed up at my door, and I-I guess I freaked out."

The bartender put a record on the turntable, and the needle scratched out a Vietnamese love song, a haunting melody that drifted like mist over the river. Wind swayed the paper lanterns, and shadows danced across the deck. Lassiter stared at the five beer bottles lined up in front of him on the table. He ordered a sixth.

"It takes time, but you get used to it here," he said. "The rhythm of life. The people, the way they think. There's not a lot of whining and flailing at misfortune. They accept life as it is. I like that. And after a while, I got to feeling this was the only place I've ever belonged, the only place I ever felt safe." He looked at Willy. "It could be the only place you 're safe."

"But I'm not like you," said Willy. "I can't stay here the rest of my life."

"I want to put her on the next plane to Bangkok," said Guy.

"Bangkok?" Lassiter snorted. "Easiest place in the world to get yourself killed. And going home'd be no safer. Look what happened to Valdez."