The nightmares always began as the Bay of Pigs and included Guillermo, but usually they became Vietnam. As a naturalized citizen who was a physician he faced a military call as soon as he finished the final year of residency, and many of the young doctors who had been in the hospital the previous year were now in Vietnam. Already one had been killed and one wounded. This was a war that did not respect doctors, he reflected gloomily. Surgeons had been sent out on the line instead of enlisted medics, and hospitals in Saigon were as exposed as aid stations.

His wife was half right, he decided. He had become stronger.

By now he faced with courage the fact that he was a coward.

It was very unusual. The note merely said Are you free for lunch? It was signed Harland Longwood. No title. If it had been business, Surgeon-in-Chief would have been typed neatly below the signature. That meant the meeting probably would have something to do with Liz. The only personal subject Rafe discussed with his wife’s uncle was his wife.

He stopped at the old man’s office and told his secretary he was available for lunch. He had eaten alone with Dr. Longwood only once, five days before he and Liz had been married. They had gone to the Men’s Bar at Locke-Ober, where amid all the pewter and polished mahogany Dr. Longwood had tried to suggest, delicately and glumly, that while she was far too good for a foreigner she was still a handful of problems, alcoholic and sexual and others that he merely hinted at, and Dr. Meomartino would be doing a great favor for all concerned and especially for himself if he were to stop seeing her at once.

And so they were married.

This time Longwood took him to Pier Four. The soft-shelled crabs were very fine. The wine was mellow and precisely chilled. It helped Rafe through the arduous small talk.

Over the black coffee, which he drank alone, he ran out of patience. “What’s on your mind, sir?”

Dr. Longwood took a small sip of brandy. “I am curious about where you will be going next year.”

“I suppose into private practice. If by some miracle I escape the army.”

“Your wife is a woman with problems. She requires stability,” Longwood said.

“I understand that.”

“You haven’t made arrangements yet, for next year?”

It told Rafe at once the reason for the invitation to lunch. The old man was afraid he was going to take Liz and the boy half a world away.