“All right,” said Daeng. “I can think of one or two reasons why he’d lie.”

“Satsai didn’t exactly lie,” said Siri. “I think if we played back a recording of the conversation, we’d hear he cleverly avoided saying that he didn’t know Toshi.”

“We’re calling him Toshi again now?”

“Just to avoid confusion. We can’t keep switching back and forth.”

“All right,” said Daeng. “The obvious reason is that he had no idea whether we were who we said we were. So he was being cautious.”

“Yuki-san said Toshi would go to the tunnel during his leave,” said Siri. “What if he met a girl and took her to Sawan for discreet liaisons?”

“More importantly, now that we’ve established he was a regular at Sawan we should also ask ourselves whether the American attack was connected in any way. If Hiro was—”

“Toshi.”

“If Toshi had deserted and was fighting with the Free Lao or the Viet Minh, it’s possible he had a rebel cell based in the mountains. The caves are perfect hiding places.”

“But it looks like the Americans weren’t there looking for people,” said Siri. “They didn’t make an effort to search the caves. Shooting those four villagers would only have frightened the others into hiding. No, it seems to me they were there looking for something. And, if they found it, they burned down the village to cover their tracks.”

“But what were they looking for?” said Daeng. “Intelligence information? Records? Maps? They were there for an hour, so they did a thorough search. Satsai said there were even metal detectors left behind.”

“Let’s think about it logically,” said Siri. “It was a coordinated covert operation by a group of American soldiers acting outside—”

“But were they?”

“Were they what?”

“Were they Americans?”

“The teacher said . . .”

“The teacher said there were three American helicopters,” said Daeng. “It was wartime. A lot of US hardware was shot down and repaired. How do we know who was flying the choppers?”

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right.”

The conversation had lasted all the way to the guesthouse. They checked on the girls, who were sleeping soundly in their room on the ground floor, and they walked up the staircase to the balcony. The talisman around Siri’s neck buzzed deep like a wasp with a bad cold but, to his detriment, he ignored it—put it down to a glitch in the Otherworld. He took their room key from his top pocket, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

Boom!

There was a muddle of sounds and smells. A scream of “Siri! No!” The smell of hot flesh. Heat. Smoke. Shock. He noticed he was leaving the ground but not landing.