He started talking a mile a minute like a carnival barker and he plied Lett with more of his anti-Commie Red Scare routine all wrapped in the red, white, and blue and bearing a golden cross. And, eventually, it started to make a lot of sense to Lett. That horrified him so much, like a child left in the dark, and he screamed to make the reason go away. Was Lansdale right? Was it the yellow liquid? Lett nodded along to Lansdale’s words and cheery appeals, but inside he fought it. He kept moving his true thoughts and shifting them around hoping to hide them; to himself he repeated reality and possible outcomes as he knew them . . .

The cure was the cause was the cure. The end stage of the cure was killing.

They might know that he’d let Miss Mae escape in Honolulu. That, or she was a test. He had tried. Maybe he’d failed. But he’d stayed true to himself.

They were training him to be an assassin and wanted him to possess a modicum of anti-Red sentiment. His mission might involve San Francisco. That crude map Selfer had showed him could’ve been buildings and streets around a city square.

Selfer might not know the whole story. He might only fear it.

Kanani might survive, if she knew the truth. She might even help him, but he couldn’t count on that. He couldn’t count on anyone but his dead friends.

He had Lansdale wondering something, because Lansdale was now pacing the room and studying him, tapping a finger to his chin.

“What was that you gave me?” Lett said. “You’re testing it out on me, that it? It’s part of your next pitch? That it, ad man?”

Lansdale grinned. He held up the finger, long and bony with that chunky class ring. “Look at the smart kid.” He dropped the grin and snorted at Lett. “You refuse to fight for the American Way?” he said. “Is that it?”

They might be recording him somehow. He couldn’t know. He tried to speak but his mouth was so dry. He swallowed and flexed his mouth to get some last saliva going.

“I fought for my buddies. I killed for them. But they’re all dead now.”

“Oh? Then what about Colonel Selfer?”

Lett spat. He didn’t have much saliva left so his mouth just popped.

“He brought you here,” Lansdale said. “He gave you one last chance. That sounds like a friend to me.”

Lett snorted. “Brother, you don’t know from Adam.”

“Fine. What about Jock Quinn?”

“You kidding now or what?” Lett snickered, shrugged. “You can’t figure a Marine. He hates dogfaces. Wants nothing to do with the likes of me.”

“Maybe. Then what about our Miss Kanani?”