Lansdale gave him his own breakfast of pork chop, soft scrambled eggs, hash with plenty of onion, toast, coffee, and guava juice. Lett ate in Lansdale’s tent at a table with plates and silverware and could feel the curious eyes of those passing the tent flap outside. He shoveled in the food and, since he didn’t have to do a sentry shift that morning, or any duty, went back to his pup tent afterward. His M1 carbine had been returned. It lay on his bedroll.

He made straight for his musette bag and prepared his syringe and shot up a double dose.

Not taking his medicine was why that had happened, he told himself. It was why he had that old nightmare again, and why he’d acted so instinctively, so ruthlessly to subdue three attackers. He wondered what Lansdale truly thought about it. Did those actions somehow prove to Lansdale that the treatment was working? Lett sighed at the sick notion and brooded at the thought of Lansdale in general until his chest was so tight his breath came out wheezy, not unlike the commando’s. Lansdale had it wrong—that was not his old self. That was a sick person. All he needed was to take his dose.

***

The next morning, Lett and others climbed into two trucks that were still empty. The mango tree dig had yielded little apparently, but the ensuing interrogation surely offered something better. They traveled maybe an hour, tops. It was nearing noon, the sun rising directly above the valley like a glaring light bulb hanging from the very middle of a ceiling.

They drove between two seemingly impassable ridges and arrived at a place not even that sun at its highest point could find. More trucks were waiting here, big six-by-sixes—their power trains running to every wheel. Two more experts were there, Corps of Engineers men. Lansdale and the previous engineers had led the way over in a Plymouth and held another meeting of their minds. It was an All-American confab now. Kodama and Frankie weren’t invited. Neither was needed, apparently—they had done their part for the effort.

Poor dead Reuben must have finally told them what he knew.

Lett and the other guards watched the perimeter, which consisted of only the trucks and the narrow, shaded road. As they did so, Lansdale and his cohorts slung their briefcases and disappeared into dense flowering shrubs, passing first between two palms many yards apart, but that could act as a telltale landmark if a person knew what to look for. They knew. They appeared to map out their way, counting footsteps and gauging angles and directions.

And later Lett heard a boom from somewhere inside the hillside, not an explosion, more like a wall falling over.

***

“You, there,” a man said to Lett. One of the engineers had found him standing guard and now glared at him impatiently, all metal-framed glasses and civilian job boss haughtiness.