“Colonel, you are my trusted colleague, so I will tell you the truth. You are a very slow golf player. Very dedicated, but very slow.”

“Then it is time for me to take a break, yes?” Colonel Pham stopped walking, giving Condley a quick, knowing look and then reaching inside his golf bag for his liter of bottled water. “You’re just back from Hawaii? You have some good news, I hope?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“So that’s why you found me here instead of in my office.”

They traded wry grins that were so similar one might have thought they were brain twins. Both of them possessed razorlike intuitive skills that had been fiercely honed on the kind of battlefield where detecting a bent grass blade or a broken tree branch was often the difference between living and dying. That they had been on opposite sides only sharpened their ability to read each other’s intentions. So there was little room for hypocrisy or cant between them.

“There are very few places to speak privately in Viet Nam,” said Condley.

“A golf course on a hot day,” laughed Colonel Pham.

“I have a sensitive matter, on which I would like to ask your advice.”

“So, he was not a battlefield casualty,” said the colonel, studying Condley’s face for further clues. “Or you would be very happy to report the identification of his remains.”

“We don’t even know that much,” said Condley, choosing his words carefully. “We still don’t know who he was. But we are trying to solve a curious mystery. All we know for sure is that he was wearing the dog tags of another man when he was found.”

“Maybe they were going steady,” teased the colonel. “Don’t they trade rings and necklaces in America?”

“Actually I was thinking they might have had a mix-up getting dressed in the dark,” answered Condley dryly.

“You were a good soldier,” said Pham, laughing. “You know how to fight without getting mad.” He took a long pull from his bottle of water, pleased that he knew enough about Americans to have made his little joke. “Why do men wear necklaces and earrings in your country, Mister Condley? It reflects a certain insecurity, I think.”

“Freedom, Colonel.”

“Freedom? What do you mean?”

“Like playing golf in the rain.”

Colonel Pham tilted back his pith helmet, nodding his head with appreciation. “Doing foolish things that make you happy.”

“If you want to.”

“Choosing to be foolish. So that is your definition of freedom.”

“No, it is one aspect of it.”

“You always talk in circles,” announced the colonel, indicating that their frivolities were done. “In your last life I think you were a politician. What can you tell me about these bones?”