He handed each of them a tall glass filled to the brim with Condley’s vodka. Then he raised his own glass into the air, his haggard face wretched with emotion. “I make a toast to you, Colonel. To my friend and my ally. And to our victory, because we did win, did we not? To Viet Nam!”

Colonel Pham raised his own glass. “To our liberation, yes? Doc lap va tu do! And to Russia! And to all our Soviet friends!”

Condley continued to hold his glass, declining to drink, watching the two men as each drained half of the vodka from his own glass. The colonel’s capacity for vodka was another little surprise. Finally they lowered their glasses, revealing reddened, suddenly cheerful faces. They were blissful in their shared ritual, living for that moment in a past that did not include him. Indeed, in a past where he had been the very object of their joined efforts. And yet undeniably a past whose boastful victories had long since disappeared.

Finally they turned to him, looking at him as if he were a voyeur intruding on their intimacy. And in a way he was. “Ah,” muttered Pham, raising his glass to Condley and searching for words that would somehow include Condley as well. “And to the future. With new friends.”

Condley finally raised his glass, forcing a smile. “Yes. To new friends. Because you may have won, but then you lost, didn’t you? And we may have lost, but then we won. Didn’t we?”

“You are too clever,” said Petrushinsky darkly.

“Perhaps, but I am only speaking the truth,” said Condley, still holding his glass up near his eyes. “You’re gone. We’re back. And we’re not going to go away. And if you think about it, we’re pretty good people to have around. Ask the colonel.”

Pham watched Condley for a moment, then nodded to Petrushinsky. “We know him,” said the colonel. “Sometimes he boasts too much, but we like him. This is not a bad thing.”

“Well, I don’t know him,” resisted the Russian, still frowning darkly. “And so far I do not like him. But he did bring the vodka. So I will drink with him.” And the former soldier drained his glass.

The ceremonies over, Petrushinsky gestured to his two chairs, taking a seat on his couch. “I thank you for the vodka, Mr. Condley. So now we must talk.” He watched them closely as they took their seats, his face flushed and his eyes cloudy from that night’s ration of vodka, much of which had been taken even before they arrived. “Colonel Pham, my friend, you said that I could help you. What is it that you want from me?”

“We are trying to find an American who was with you in the Que Son Mountains,” said the colonel. “I think you would remember him.”