Condley sighed, shaking his head and staring at the pictures on Muir’s wall for several seconds. All the people in the pictures were happy. Muir’s life, in fact, was happy. He had immeasurable respect for the dead but he had never heard the actual, horrible sounds of death, the gurgling of lungs filling up with blood, the crack and whump of combat, the running of a shower in an upstairs bathroom where a woman was lying with her limbs in utter disarray, her throat cut with such ferocity that only a few threads of skin on the back of her neck kept her from having been decapitated. Death came with an odd purity to the gentle Professor Muir, in bleached bones that awaited identification and after that a hero’s burial, replete with a spotlessly clean flag.

“I’m not going to murder him, Professor.”

“Do I have your word on that?”

“I might execute him, if I get a clean shot. But that’s different.”

“I’m not going to let you do either. Because there’s another reason, Brandon, one that transcends your anger and your thirst for revenge. Wouldn’t you like to interrogate this man? Don’t you want to know how he escaped from the American military, how he made contact with the enemy, and what he did for the other side? Not to mention how he again escaped from them, assuming that he did? Or maybe they even helped him kill Larkin, what do you think of that? And maybe he still works for them. Whatever the truth is, doesn’t history deserve to know?”

“He killed two of my Marines. He betrayed everything I and a lot of others believed in, at a time when we were being humiliated even in our own country for believing in anything. History is for guys like you, Professor. I want my moment. One on one. Me and him. And I don’t give a rat’s ass about preserving his options to be interviewed in the media and sell his memoirs. I couldn’t care less about that.”

“Well, a lot of other people will. Sure, a few of the media divas will try to make him a hero. But this is a side of the war we know nothing about. I for one would like to know the entire story.”

“That’s because you’re a typical American pervert, wanting to feed off the stories that come in on CNN so you think you’re really alive.”

Muir stiffened, a rare moment of rebuke. “That was gratuitous, Brandon. I’ve taken my risks with you in some very nasty places.”