“Who’s joking? You don’t like the sound of this, I can tell.”

“Just do it,” Selfer snapped, “and get back safe.”

“It all sounds so familiar. Sir.”

Lett expected a dressing-down, spiteful words, something. But Selfer only dragged in a deep breath and sighed. He handed Lett a wallet with civilian ID in the name of one Wendell Lett, which Lett didn’t like, not at all, and he imagined it was their way of keeping him honest. But whose fault was that? After all, he had chosen all of this.

The next hour was filled with rushed preparations. Lett was sure to take his dose. A clerk in the quartermaster’s Quonset hut issued him his civilian clothes: linen trousers, rubber-soled sneakers for quiet, a lightweight driver’s cap and sunglasses for hiding his face, and a muted aloha shirt loose enough to conceal a holster. He got a Colt pistol, this one brand-new, feeling lighter somehow than the ones he’d held during the war. He knew Colts. He’d carried one on night patrols especially. Despite that, they had him report to an instructor on the training ground.

It was Jock Quinn. Lett almost didn’t recognize Jock striding up, his posture straighter than a flagpole and a voice like a snare drum in a way that could only be a Marine’s.

“Good morning,” Lett said.

“Morning,” Jock said. “Let’s get to it.”

Lett spared Jock the sick wisecracks. And Jock didn’t make small talk, joke, or even cuss. He made sure Lett remembered the weapon, had him take it apart, load it, arm it. Next Jock handed Lett a suppressor, which civilians called “silencers” in crime pictures. Lett didn’t know the suppressor. It was as long as the gun itself and not all that silent. It made a sharp crack, like branches being snapped, which sounded to Lett too much like trees busting. The suppressor was strapped to his leg, where it would stay. He told himself he wouldn’t have to use that piece any more than he would the gun.

“Get back safe, wherever they’re sending you,” Jock said.

“Amen to that,” Lett said.

22.

Late that afternoon, Lett entered Honolulu harbor on a fishing boat from the Big Island. They passed a clock tower bearing the word ALOHA. Once docked, Lett walked out to the main road as instructed and met a cab. The cabbie asked, “Where to, buddy?” and Lett replied, “Pacific Heights, friend.”

The cabbie had red hair under his cap and more eyes on Lett in the rearview mirror than on the road ahead. Lett happened to ask him where the red-light district was and cabbie said they already drove past it, down Hotel Street to the left—thus the neon lights Lett had seen out of the corner of his eye. That had once been Kanani’s world, Lett recalled, and her stepping-stone to The Preserve.