Selfer sighed. “I told you, from that very first day—you’re special. I mean, look what you did to those halfwit blotto sergeants back at your billet.” He added a happy shake of his head.

“They all right?”

“They’ll live. They shouldn’t have been in an off-limits bar. You were defending your post. There was no need to run.”

Lett glared at Selfer.

“Okay, maybe there was,” Selfer said. “I understand. But we will fix that. You only need to listen to me. That’s all.” He added a smile. “I knew that I’d find you again. But I didn’t have to in the end, did I? Because you came asking. For me.”

The very sight of Selfer should’ve done Lett in. But the man had said it himself: Lett had asked for him, by name. He had practically pleaded for Selfer, even though the last time he saw the captain during the war, at the height of the bloody Bulge, he had promised the man, I will head back out there for whatever you cooked up because I have no choice. But I won’t kill for the likes of you. Not anymore.

“All you ever had to do was ask, Lett. Just tell me the truth. Tell me what you wish.”

“I just want to be cured of it,” Lett said finally. “Of what they did to me. What you did to me.”

Selfer let out a long, reedy sigh. He looked around the room. His eyes landed back on Lett. “Let me admit something to you,” he said. “No one knows this: My father was a simple con man. A city sparrow turned slicker, sure, but a sharpie just the same. That was me, what I was becoming. Where I was headed. Because that, in a nutshell, is Washington, DC. But things are different here. We’re all looking for a new start.”

Lett opened his mouth, but nothing more came out.

Selfer inserted in its place, “You remember that very last thing you said to me? At the command post? Before I sent you back out?”

“I won’t kill for you,” Lett muttered.

“Yes. You also mentioned the Golden Rule. The old ‘Do Unto Others.’ And I told you that I know it well,” Selfer said. “Here—on the cusp of the Orient where we’ve now ended up, me and you—they have the good rule, too. Confucius. Laozi. ‘Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.’ You see, I believe in reciprocity. Lett, listen to me. I want to help. I will help. But you have to come and meet me halfway.”

Tears had run down Lett’s cheeks. He only now noticed them, already cooling. He leaned forward, his hands hanging off the insides of his knees.