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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?

“So you’re missing four years. And Ninh Phuoc is a long, long way from Sai Gon.”

“Particularly in the middle of a war, wouldn’t you think?”

Condley laughed cynically. “I couldn’t have gone a hundred meters outside my company perimeter by myself in that area without the risk of being killed. What the hell was this guy doing in Ninh Phuoc?”

“Other than dying, you mean?”

“Oh, that.” He thought about it some more, staring at the bones that lay before them. “So what do we do with the remains of a deserter, Professor? We don’t just wrap them up in the American flag and fly them back to Dover in a C-141, do we?”

“That, as they say, is above our pay grade.” Muir’s disdain was palpable as he surveyed the remains before them on the gurney. “We do our job, which is to make a positive identification. And then we turn the matter over to the powers-that-be.”

“Stand by for a fucking parade, right up Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Stifle yourself, Condley.”

“Another victim, coming home from Viet Nam.”

“We do our job, they do theirs.”

“I remember that drill. The way they do their job. I learned it about fifty-eight thousand dead guys ago.”

“Fifty-eight thousand and one.”

Condley grunted. He was beginning to feel claustrophobic. “Call me when you get his file. Hanging around him makes me sick.”

Muir put a hand on Condley’s shoulder, guiding him toward the door that led to the hallway. It was a fatherly gesture, from a man only five years older than he himself. But Muir, despite his flights of emotion, was far older in his soul than Condley.

“Get some rest, Brandon.”

“Maybe.” Condley knew what he needed, and he knew just where to find it. “If I’m not in my apartment, call me at Maria’s.”

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

“Never get drunk before noon in the Philippines.” Condley’s perpetually sunburnt face was filtered by the bar’s dim light, making him seem twenty years younger as he continued his fruitless lecture. “It’s too hot. You get sick and then you get robbed.”

Yes, this was Hawaii, but Maria’s bar was in a heavily Filipino enclave just west of Honolulu that the locals called Little Manila. The four sailors sitting across from him were on their way to a deployment in the Philippines, so they had decided to drop in on the neighborhood for a little ethnic warm-up. And it was ten minutes to twelve. And they were already drunk.