“Thirty-­five of them,” Bianco said, “all from that one village. Some were old, two were little kids. All transported in 1941, and all alive. Why? And not just alive. Fed! That was a death camp, Captain. They were killing them day and night at the end. Thousands of ’em. But not these men. These men they fed when they were starving themselves. Thirty-­five Jews ate applesauce and canned fish while the SS ate garbage. Why?”

General Pearce closed Bianco’s folder. “Captain Abrams says I should send you home, Major. I’m sending you home.”

“I thought we had an agreement,” Bianco said.

“We did,” Pearce said. “I’m breaking it.”

“Why now . . . sir?” Bianco asked.

“You are, according to Abrams, ‘at serious risk emotionally’; he recommends you go home to get treatment.”

“Do you think I need treatment, General?”

Pearce didn’t answer; he concentrated on folding the orders. When Bianco first saw him, he’d had a pink, tight, midwestern-­looking face and the beginnings of a belly. Now his face was gray and slack, like Bianco’s, and his uniform was too big. Pearce put the orders in an envelope.

“Kind of sudden, isn’t it?” Bianco asked without the sir.

Pearce looked up. “There’s a truck convoy leaving for Frankfurt tonight from Dürer House at nineteen hundred. Don’t be late. From Frankfurt you have a lift to Kirkwall. . . .”

Bianco loved night flying, looking down at the black North Sea flecked with white foam. At Kirkwall there’d be strong tea waiting for him, oatmeal in the morning, and a view of Scapa Flow.

“From Kirkwall you catch a morning flight to Mitchell.”

Mitchell was fifty miles from home. Bianco had planted hemlocks the spring he left, and juniper to edge the driveway. That was four years ago.

Pearce held the envelope out to Bianco. Bianco didn’t move.

“I’ve been waiting for Speiser for seven months, and all I got for that were some drunken questions at the Easter dance. Now all of a sudden, I get an hour with the busiest psychiatrist in the world and orders to leave tonight. Why?”

Pearce said, “Take the envelope, Major.”

Bianco hesitated, then took it. “You’re going home, Major,” Pearce said softly. “Good luck.” He swiveled his chair to the side and picked up the phone. Bianco saluted and left the office carrying the envelope.