Selfer shrugged but followed. Lett picked up the pace and followed a trail until they were far into the woods. They assumed patrol distance, single file with Lett five yards ahead of Selfer who had likely never marched like this since boot camp, if then. Craggy bark on knotty trees hung like flaking paint. An insect buzzed like a small electric motor seizing up. Lett eyed the perimeter for sentries. He saw none. Selfer, to his credit, was watching their backs. Lett reached a thicket of flowering shrubs and went down on one knee like a squad leader.

Selfer went down on a knee and tried a smile. “Look at us. Like we’re sneaking cigarettes behind the schoolhouse.” Lett didn’t smile. “All right,” Selfer added. “You want the latest score, is that it?”

“What do you know about a Japanese goon named Kodama?”

Selfer started. He shushed Lett, his index finger to his lips.

Lett saw what Selfer had spotted: a camp sentry was passing by some twenty yards away, head down, carbine bobbing on his shoulder, moving away from them.

It was Jock Quinn. They had him doing sentry work, and Jock probably saw it as a feather in his cap. Lett’s heart sunk a little.

They waited it out. “Very well,” Selfer said. “For your ears only?”

“None other.”

“First things first. One Edward Lansdale. I’ve been looking into him. He used to be attached to SCAP intelligence section, sure, but he was operating out of Manila and he got himself moving up real fast.”

“SCAP being MacArthur—”

“Shut it,” Selfer hissed. “Do not mention the general’s name. They do not get linked, see? Not anymore.”

“I see.”

“That Lansdale, he’s a real conniver. Let’s go further back. He wasn’t even in the war! Wrote advertising copy for the OSS out of San Francisco. Office of Strategic Services. Probably ran a nice tab at the Top of the Mark. When Washington disbanded the OSS, this conniver Lansdale got himself sent to the Pacific by the head of OSS Donovan, Donovan wanting his own boys in the right places.”

“So, just to be sure—Lansdale has never been a doctor.”

Selfer sneered. “That’s rich. No. He just knows what gets results.”

“Top of the Mark?”

“Forget it. Let’s just say his spoon is silver and we’re not talking plated. Ah, but these days Lansdale is making his own play. SCAP staff never liked him much because he’s sharp and slick, yet strange, I tell you, but now he’s got his own sponsors and they might have more pull. Hear he’s getting a new rank in the new US Air Force branch, just to keep all the players happy.”

He already has that, Lett wanted to say.