“You asked for him by name? Auwe!” Kanani waved her hand again, but this time it was as if she’d touched a hot plate. “But it was classified. You could be in a prison.”

“I would’ve been anyway. Deserters were getting nabbed all the time. And I was a head case to boot. Word was getting around about what they did with the likes of us. A stockade on its own was a sanatorium, brimming with killers and crazies and hopeless cases. Other inmates were just silent, staring into walls, curled up, stuttering sleepwalkers. On the other hand, there were treatment centers. Hospitals you never leave, wards that stay locked up. Outdated therapies. Drugs that made you dumb. Lobotomies. That was the good old Veterans Administration for you—still doing its part for the war effort . . .”

“So this Captain Selfer,” Kanani said, “he made you the offer.”

“Not directly, no. The men in suits had been in contact with him—the good captain was now in Washington, DC, of course, true to form. They spoke for him. Told me a new intelligence group was forming. The suits told me they could offer me a new cure in a secret facility. I was a perfect candidate. Or, I was also a candidate for a court martial. And that was that. Selfer should’ve been the last person I wanted to see, but he ended up my only hope. Bremen to Boston by ship, then an unmarked C-47 to San Francisco riding with the type of soldiers who don’t wear insignia. From there it was a merchant marine steamer. I had a cabin all to myself.”

“I seen my share of deserters before. But you’re one hot potato.” Kanani was staring at him in a new way, one that made her face harden. “You have a boy, you said.”

“I do. Holger Thomas is his name. He thinks I’m off being a sailor.” Lett added a sad chuckle at that.

“And where is this Captain Selfer now?” Kanani said.

“Oh, they tell me he’s going to meet me here. At The Preserve. Transferring to where the action is. Which should be interesting. We haven’t seen each other since the war.”

***

The vegetation thickened, rampant bushes, giant ferns, spikey ohia blossoms like little red porcupines. The roads cutting through became ruts, and it was hard to tell if the surface was old cracking asphalt or just lava rock. Kanani was right about all the locals’ warning signs. Every private property they approached seemed to have them. DO NOT ENTER, PRIVATE ROAD, KEEP OUT, KAPU. Kanani joked about them. And the higher they went, the more short rock walls they encountered. Kanani hopped those easily, kept going; Lett followed. The air grew cooler and the clouds loomed lower, nearly a fog.

Lett was the one showing her sidelong glances now.

“You’re not going to let me off the hook, are you?” she said.