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Chapters (48)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. EPIGRAPH
  4. PRAISE
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  6. MAP
  7. PROLOGUE
  8. CHAPTER ONE
  9. CHAPTER TWO
  10. CHAPTER THREE
  11. CHAPTER FOUR
  12. CHAPTER FIVE
  13. CHAPTER SIX
  14. CHAPTER SEVEN
  15. CHAPTER EIGHT
  16. CHAPTER NINE
  17. CHAPTER TEN
  18. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  47. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  48. What’s next onyour reading list?

Manh’s comments washed over Dzung like a sudden, cold rain. Shooting a pistol on a firing range was a novelty, even fun. Going into combat was as natural as waking up and cooking rice. But killing someone on the street at the direction of the very government that hated him, and then escaping without being caught, was beyond his ability to comprehend. And what then? Would they allow him to disappear back into the anonymity of his cyclo trade? Would they catch him and charge him anyway, having set him up as a scapegoat for the same crime they forced him to commit? And if they didn’t charge him for the crime, what would they want him to do next?

“I am not the person to kill someone like that, Manh.”

“Not yet,” said Manh, finishing his cigarette and tossing it toward the targets. “But we will teach you.”

“There’s nothing about this that you can teach me.” Dzung emptied the third magazine into the pie plates effortlessly, almost without looking. Seven shots, five seconds, seven hits. “Are you sure you want me to have a pistol? You’re taking a risk, Manh.”

Manh grunted, unconcerned. “You are as predictable as the rains.”

Dzung turned casually toward the young Interior Ministry official, letting the barrel of the pistol rest just underneath Manh’s chin. “Check my file. I have a very bad attitude.”

Manh grinned coolly back, not the least bit intimidated. “Yes, but you will never let your family down. We know you, Dzung. We are not foolish in these matters. So, keep shooting. You have a great deal to learn, and not much time.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hawaii

The skull of Nguyen the Black American lay on a clean sheet at the top end of its own gurney, as if awaiting the arrival of Prince Hamlet, who might pick it up and stare moonfully into its dirt-crusted recesses. Or perhaps, thought Condley a little more cynically, the members of the Central Identification Lab, Hawaii, actually believed that someday the rest of Pepper’s remains would magically appear from the harsh village with no name far toward the peaks of the Que Son Mountains and cover the entire gurney with ribs and vertebrae and femurs and patellae, all the missing, irrelevant evidence that might allow him to picture the dead man more clearly.

“I hate his guts,” he said flatly. “That is, if he still had any guts.” He was wishing that Nguyen the Black American might come alive just for a moment so that he might kill him properly instead of allowing him the luxury of a simple, peaceful death.