“I went back to the States. Dropped out of Harvard. Got drafted and sent to Vietnam.”

“That seems so long ago. I was just a schoolgirl,” she said.

“Oh yes. Vietnam is ancient history. Hardly worth talking about,” he said, his tone offhanded.

She stroked his hair with her hand, as if he were a feverish child.

“I don’t believe you,” she said finally.

“I haven’t thought about it in a long time,” he lied.

“What was it like? Really?” she asked.

“What? Nam? If you survived, it was a kind of Lost and Found Department of the Soul.”

“What did you lose?”

“My innocence. It was common enough in those days,” he shrugged.

“What did you find?”

“My profession. I found I had a talent for this kind of thing,” he said, feeling the sweat break out all over his body, remembering the Ashau Valley. He remembered how the dewdrops clung like strings of pearls to the concertina wire along the perimeter that morning and how the mist boiled up from the stream to the treetops, wisps of fog tangled in the branches like spider webs. He remembered how still the fields were, the only sound the faint tinkle of a tin can against the wire. And then how they found his buddy Cool’s body. The VC had left him slumped over his M-60; blood still spilling out of the place where his head used to be.

That night, Nick volunteered for a LRP patrol. Carrying nothing but a combat knife, a bicycle chain covered with black tape and a Colt .45 he stayed out for eight days and nights straight. When he finally came back to the laager, the VC had fled the area, amidst whispers of a hundred headless bodies strewn across jungle trails.

The legend of the Scorpion had been born.

“Did you work for the CIA?” Kelly asked.

“At first. But working for ‘the Company,’ as it’s called, required a bit more spinal flexibility than this particular vertebrate is capable of. So I became a freelancer.”

“You sound so matter of fact about it.”

“Sorry. Like I said, Vietnam is ancient history.”

“Is it? Is it truly?” she demanded.

“No,” he said.

He rested his head on her breast. He heard the pounding of her heart in his ear.

“So you’re a kind of modern-day knight errant,” she jeered gently.

“That’s making it a lot more romantic than it is,” he said. He felt her stiffen, then will herself to relax.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Did you mean what you said … just before we made love?”

He thought for a moment. “Yes.”

“Because I feel I should tell you. I mean it seems silly now, but …” she hesitated and he wondered if she was thinking of another man. “It’s just that being together now, so close to death … it didn’t seem to matter so much,” she said lamely, a catch in her voice.