Or was it to isolate them?

“Uncle Sy,” Guy said, “was our private name for the CIA.”

She frowned, recalling the message. Uncle Sy asking about you. Plans guided tour of Nam. Happy trails. Bobbo.

“It was a warning,” Guy said. “The Company knows about us. And they’re in the country. Maybe watching us this very minute.”

She glanced apprehensively around the lake. A bicycle glided past, pedaled by a serene girl in a conical hat. On the grass, two lovers huddled together, whispering secrets. It struck Willy as too perfect, this view of silver lake and flowering trees, an artist’s fantasy for a picture postcard.

All except for the two police agents watching from the trees.

“If he’s right,” she said, “if the CIA’s after us, how are we going to recognize them?”

“That’s the problem.” Guy turned to her, and the uneasiness she saw in his eyes frightened her. “We won’t.”

SO CLOSE. YET SO unreachable.

Siang squatted in the shadow of a pedicab and watched the two Americans stroll along the opposite bank of the lake. They took their time, stopping like tourists to admire the flowers, to laugh at a child toddling in the path, both of them oblivious to how easily they could be captured in a rifle’s cross hairs, their lives instantly extinguished.

He turned his attention to the two men trailing a short distance behind. Police agents, he assumed, on protective surveillance. They made things more difficult, but Siang could work around them. Sooner or later, an opportunity would arise.

Assassination would be so easy, as simple as a curtain left open to a well-aimed bullet. What a pity that was no longer the plan.

The Americans returned to their car. Siang rose, stamped the blood back into his legs and climbed onto his bicycle. It was a beggarly form of transportation, but it was practical and inconspicuous. Who would notice, among the thousands crowding the streets of Hanoi, one more shabbily dressed cyclist?

Siang followed the car back to the hotel. One block farther, he dismounted and discreetly observed the two Americans enter the lobby. Seconds later, a black Mercedes pulled up. The two agents climbed out and followed the Americans into the hotel.

It was time to set up shop.

Siang took a cloth-wrapped bundle from his bicycle basket, chose a shady spot on the sidewalk and spread out a meager collection of wares: cigarettes, soap and greeting cards. Then, like all the other itinerant merchants lining the road, he squatted down on his straw mat and beckoned to passersby.

Over the next two hours he managed to sell only a single bar of soap, but it scarcely mattered. He was there simply to watch. And to wait.

Like any good hunter, Siang knew how to wait.

GUY AND WILLY slept in separate beds that night. At least, Guy slept. Willy lay awake, tossing on the sheets, thinking about her father, about the last time she had seen him alive.

He had been packing. She’d stood beside the bed, watching him toss clothes into a suitcase. She knew by the items he’d packed that he was returning to the lovely insanity of war. She saw the flak jacket, the Laotian-English dictionary, the heavy gold chains-a handy form of ransom with which a downed pilot could bargain for his life. There was also the Government-issue blood chit, printed on cloth and swiped from a U.S. Air Force pilot.

I am a citizen of the United States of America. I do not speak your language. Misfortune forces me to seek your assistance in obtaining food, shelter and protection. Please take me to someone who will provide for my safety and see that I am returned to my people.

It was written in thirteen languages.

The last item he packed was his.45, the trigger seat filed to a feather release. Willy had stood by the bed and stared at the gun, struck in that instant by its terrible significance.

“Why are you going back?” she’d asked.

“Because it’s my job, baby,” he’d said, slipping the pistol in among his clothes. “Because I’m good at it, and because we need the paycheck.”

“We don’t need the paycheck. We need you.”

He closed the suitcase. “Your mom’s been talking to you again, has she?”

“No, this is me talking, Daddy. Me.”

“Sure, baby.” He laughed and mussed her hair, his old way of making her feel like his little girl. He set the suitcase down on the floor and grinned at her, the same grin he always used on her mother, the same grin that always got him what he wanted. “Tell you what. How ’bout I bring back a little surprise? Something nice from Vientiane. Maybe a ruby? Or a sapphire? Bet you’d love a sapphire.”

She shrugged. “Why bother?”

“What do you mean, ‘why bother’? You’re my baby, aren’t you?”

“Your baby?” She looked at the ceiling and laughed. “When was I ever your baby?”

His grin vanished. “I don’t care for your tone of voice, young lady.”

“You don’t care about anything, do you? Except flying your stupid planes in your stupid war.” Before he could answer, she’d pushed past him and left the room.

As she fled down the hall she heard him yell, “You’re just a kid. One of these days you’ll understand! Grow up a little! Then you’ll understand…”

One of these days. One of these days.

“I still don’t understand,” she whispered to the night.

From the street below came the whine of a passing car. She sat up in bed and, running a hand through her damp hair, gazed around the room. The curtains fluttered like gossamer in the moonlit window. In the next bed, Guy lay asleep, the covers kicked aside, his bare back gleaming in the darkness.

She rose and went to the window. On the corner below, three pedicab drivers, dressed in rags, squatted together in the dim glow of a street lamp. They didn’t say a word; they simply huddled there in a midnight tableau of weariness. She wondered how many others, just as weary, just as silent, wandered in the night.

And to think they won the war.

A groan and the creak of bedsprings made her turn. Guy was lying on his back now, the covers kicked to the floor. By some strange fascination, she was drawn to his side. She stood in the shadows, studying his rumpled hair, the rise and fall of his chest. Even in his sleep he wore a half smile, as though some private joke were echoing in his dreams. She started to smooth back his hair, then thought better of it. Her hand lingered over him as she struggled against the longing to touch him, to be held by him. It had been so long since she’d felt this way about a man, and it frightened her; it was the first sign of surrender, of the offering up of her soul.

She couldn’t let it happen. Not with this man.

She turned and went back to her own bed and threw herself onto the sheets. There she lay, thinking of all the ways he was wrong for her, all the ways they were wrong for each other.

The way her mother and father had been wrong for each other.

It was something Ann Maitland had never recognized, that basic incompatibility. It had been painfully obvious to her daughter. Bill Maitland was the wild card, the unpredictable joker in life’s game of chance. Ann cheerfully accepted whatever surprises she was dealt because he was her husband, because she loved him.

But Willy didn’t need that kind of love. She didn’t need a younger version of Wild Bill Maitland.

Though, God knew, she wanted him. And he was right in the next bed.

She closed her eyes. Restless, sweating, she counted the hours until morning.

“A MOST CURIOUS TURN of events.” Minister Tranh, recently off the plane from Saigon, settled into his hard-backed chair and gazed at the tea leaves drifting in his cup. “You say they are behaving like mere tourists?”

“Typical capitalist tourists,” said Miss Hu in disgust. She opened her notebook, in which she’d dutifully recorded every detail, and began her report. “This morning at nine-forty-five, they visited the tomb of our beloved leader but offered no comment. At 12:17, they were served lunch at the hotel, a menu which included fried fish, stewed river turtle, steamed vegetables and custard. This afternoon, they were escorted to the Museum of War, then the Museum of Revolution-”