“So, on to Dogpatch,” mused Professor Muir, intrigued with the irony of it all. “Marvelous. A place to run to, inside the combat zone. Let’s call it the poor man’s Canada.”

“Not to mention Cho Lon in Sai Gon, where our friend Deville first disappeared,” said Condley. “And don’t forget the Que Son Mountains.”

“No, we shall definitely not forget the Que Sons.” Muir held up an eight-by-eleven-inch photograph of the late Private Smith. “Does this man look familiar?”

Condley stared at the picture for several seconds, his insides tightening around a futile agony. The bulky neck, the thick shoulders, the rounded face, all leapt tragically out at him from the old photograph. No, he thought. It could not be a coincidence, particularly since this man’s bones were found so close to the ambush site itself. “That’s him.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Can you testify to that under oath?”

“Yeah.”

“In the papers? In court? In front of a congressional hearing?”

Muir continued to hold the photograph in front of his face. Doubts clouded Condley’s anger as he stared at the blank young face of a man who, despite all the later disrespect and rebellion, at least had stepped forward those years ago and offered to serve his country before going bad. Unlike with Deville, there had been no positive identification of Pepper after that long-ago ambush, only reports that the other attacker had been black. Could he now provide it with certainty, based on quick glimpses during the madness of combat more than thirty years before? What if there was someone else after all, someone who got away, even a Cuban adviser? What if Alphonse Smith’s greatest crime was indeed merely having fallen in love and abandoned his post, then drifting up into the mountains to live harmlessly in a remote village?

“Is this Pepper?” asked Professor Muir, relentless in his objectivity.

“Yes, Professor, that is Pepper.”

“You’re absolutely positive?”

Finally Condley threw his hands up into the air. “Look, I know it’s him, okay? But how can I be absolutely positive, like I’ve got some strand of DNA under a microscope, when I’m staring at a thirty-year-old picture and a fucking skull?”

“Well, you have to be, Brandon, if we’re going to take this forward. Probably isn’t good enough. Probably doesn’t work in a court of law. Not when we are condemning a dead man to an eternity of retribution.”

Condley sighed, suddenly deflated. “Okay. Enough of this shit. I mean, I know that’s him. I have no doubt. But you’re right.”

“I’m sorry, Brandon.” Muir lowered the picture, putting it back into the manila folder where he kept the pages from Smith’s record books.

“So what do we have now, Professor? What are we taking forward from here? Answer me that.”