Novak was a powerful man, and his enemies would be powerful as well. He had to accept that Novak’s enemies were his enemies, too. And, the most infernal part of the infernal equation, they could be anyone. They could be anywhere. Fielding, before he turned, had spoken incisively about Novak’s opponents. The “oligarchs” of corrupt plutocratic regimes, especially those of Eastern Europe, could have found common interest with a cabal of planners within the United States who had regarded Novak’s growing influence with dismay and envy. Ask yourself why America is so hated: Andros’s words. The answers were complex, encompassing the rancor and resentment of those who felt displaced by its dominance. Yet America was no toothless innocent: its efforts to protect its global preeminence could be ruthless indeed. Members of its foreign-policy establishment might well feel threatened by the actions of a truly benevolent figure, simply because those actions were beyond its control. Fielding: Everyone knew that he’d spurned America’s advances, that he’d angered its foreign-affairs establishment by steering his own course. His only polestar was his own conscience. Who could predict the rage of Washington’s planners—shortsighted unilateralists blinded by a zeal for control they mistook for patriotism? This was not America’s best face, not the better angels of its nature. But it was sheer naïveté to pretend that the establishment was incapable of such actions. Lieutenant Commander Alan Demarest, he sometimes reflected, believed himself to be a true American. Janson had long considered that a noxious figment of self-delusion. Yet what if the Demarests of the world were right? What if they did represent not America, no, but a strain of America, an America that foreigners in troubled lands were more likely to encounter than most? Janson closed his eyes but could not banish the piercing, vivid memories that transfixed and haunted him even now.

“No, don’t bring them in,” the lieutenant commander had told Janson. Faintly, even in the weather-befouled headphones, he could hear choral music. “I’ll come out there.”

“Sir,” Janson replied. “There’s no need. They’re securely bound, as you requested. The prisoners are unharmed but immobilized.”

“Which I’m sure took some doing. I’m not surprised you rose to the challenge, Janson.”

“Transport would not present any difficulties,” Janson said. “Sir.”

“Tell you what,” Demarest said. “Take them to Candle Bog.”

Candle Bog was what the Americans had named a clearing in the jungle four clicks north of the main army encampment. There had been a skirmish there a month earlier, when American sentinels came upon a couple of hooches and three men they identified as VC couriers. One American was shot in the engagement; all three Viet Cong were eventually killed. An injured member of the American party had corrupted the Vietnamese name of the area, Quan Ho Bok, to Candle Bog, and the appellation stuck.