"I"m glad you arranged to be here," he said, his voice deep and serious.

"I"ve got to tell you something."

She was suddenly wary. "Shhh. This isn"t the time to talk."

"Yes, it is. I"ve got to tell you a few things about me."

"Court. . ." She stood up.

He looked at her naked body. This handsome, lithe, and sleek female, this best of the very best. "G.o.d, but you are put together so well I can"t believe you"re mine now and forever. Our love is here to stay."

"Court, please . .

"Just listen, will you? No harm in that?" What the devil is she so antsy about every time I try to talk serious with her?

"Just listen. I think you know I"m not your basic nine-to-five kind of guy. I"m not the standard consumer with three kids, two cars, one wife, and a mortgage. I guess I"m still a kid who"ll never grow up, a Peter Pan who really flies. I can"t do the diapers-and-dentist, lawnmowing-and-retirement program for some airline. Once I thought that was what I wanted. But I"m a fighter pilot, and I know I wouldn"t make it. I do what I do because it"s difficult and challenging work and I thrive on it.

When I do it good I feel a satisfaction no engineering or airline job could ever provide."

She kissed him briefly. "I know all that, silly."

"But I still want you to marry me. . ."

"Oh d.a.m.n," she said and bolted out of the bed to stand by the sliding doors, clutching her arms around her body.

Outside, thunder riffed over the city and a warm rain fell.

Sporadic gusts of wind brushed the trees and bushes on the patio and flung rain against the gla.s.s.

"What do you mean, "Oh d.a.m.n"?" He arose from the bed and put his arms around her. "That"s a h.e.l.l of a thing to say to a guy who"s proposing to you."

She turned suddenly into his arms and kissed him, at first lightly, then deeply and hungrily, her hair streaming down her back. "Court, oh G.o.d, Court, I love you so much. Hold me." Her voice was husky and he could feel her body shaking.

He stroked her back. "Hey there, hey now-I didn"t mean to make you cry." He held her at arm"s length and looked deep into her eyes. "You say you love me so much, but you won"t marry me."

She looked away. "It would never work."

"Why?"

"I can"t tell you. Just hold me, will you? Please?"

He picked up the perfect body and bore her to his bed.

Gray light outlined the drapes drawn over the patio doors as he awoke with a start. Something was wrong. He raised up, braced on his elbows.

Her side was empty. There was an envelope lying on the pillow. He fumbled on the side table for his watch. It was eight-thirty. She must be packing. He quickly put on his pants and a shirt and ran across the living room to her bedroom. It was raining. Moisture was heavy on the windows.

The hard rain drummed on the roof and plants. Her door was open, a maid"s cart outside. He burst into the room.

"Susan," he called. "Susan!" The maid looked at him in surprise as he ran into the bathroom, then looked into the closet. It was empty. Her clothes were gone and the bathroom gleamed white, without a trace of her personal things. He stood in the center of the room for a long moment, then threw open the sliding doors to the patio and ran back to his room through the blowing rain. In his room he tore open the envelope on the bed. Her handwriting was even and large, with wide loops and whorls.

The stationery was from the Oriental Hotel. It was dated at five o"clock that morning.

Beloved Court, My Forever Man, My Dearest Heart: I know it isn"tfair to do this to you, and I am the worst chicken fink in the world for running out on you. But I"ll just have to tell you right upfront so you won"t holler for a taxi or steal a bike and try to pedal out to the airport.

The truth is, I lied to you. Oh my dear, I just had to. My plane doesn"t leave at three in the afternoon, it leaves at eight in the morning. Maybe it"s already taken off by the time you read this. I was so hoping you wouldn"t do what you always say you do-double-check. But then, why should you double-check my takeoff time? You would take my word for it, wouldn"t you? You old dear. Good old shambling trusting Court, the wonderful man I love so dearly and so deeply. The Supreme Court. I can just hear you: "If she loves me so much, why the lie?"

And oh, my dear, our love is here to stay.

But I"m not here to stay. And that"s why I lied. It seems there is this funny little thing that is running around inside of me. There are words like carcinoma and lymph glands involved. And nonoperative and terminal. Well, maybe it"s not so little. It"s in there, this black thing. I know it and I hate it. I thought I could exorcise it out of existence by sheer willpower. If I hated it enough and loved you I enough, it simply would cease to exist. The doctors tell me it doesn"t work that way.

The doctors also tell me that with a sort of chemical therapy and maybe some radiation, I could hang around a bit longer. "How much longer?" sez I "A couple of months. Maybe a year," sez they. "Of course your hair will fall out and your face will puff up and your arms swell from edema, " they added. "No, thank you, " I said, and decided to make this last flight to Asia and be with you in this wonderful crazy place called Bangkok Oh Court, it was good, wasn"t it? You were so good to me. And I was mean to you a few times, wasn"t I had to be. I"m so sorry, but I had to be. You were getting too close to what I wanted to say only in this letter. So now I"m doing what you always say a good fighter pilot does: he plans his course, double-checks, and presses on. I"ve planned my course and, oh, my dear, how do I say this-I must fly alone. You cannot come with me. And you can"t follow me. You see, I told you another lie. I"m not returning to work Or to my apartment, I gave it up just before I left. I don"t need it anymore. American Airlines is just great. They are footing the bill for a clinic, actually it"s called a hospice, where people go to ... to leave this mortal coil, I think is how the hard put it. (Mortal coil? Sounds like an odd type of mattress.

I can still laugh, and so must you. Oh yes.) Anyhow, you cannot find out where I am. Oh, I suppose with your father"s connections you could, but I beg you not to. I want to do this my way. Like Garbo, I vant to be alone. So, my sweet man, there you have my little story. I thought about this so much, then I decided I simply could not tell you before. I wanted this, our last time, to be our best time. There is no second act, this was the whole play. You had all of me, the perfect me. No flaws, no ... other things. That"s what I wanted. And it was good, wasn"t it? And I am being a good fighter pilot, aren"t I? Fly high and fast, my beloved. And once in a while, when you see the right cloud, think of the girl who loves you so much, Your Susan He sat perfectly still, the paper clutched in his hand, then slowly doubled over onto the bed, where he could still smell her fragrance. He gathered the sheets and pillows into his arms and sank his head deep into them.

At last he arose. He stood staring out at the rain, now streaming down the long panes and into the room where he had left the door open. He had to leave this place and leave it right now. There was too much here, too much. He quickly threw on his flight suit without showering or shaving, stuffed his civilian clothes into his B-4 bag, and walked into the bathroom for his Dop Kit. Next to it stood Stately Horse. His eyes stung as he carefully wrapped it in tissue and placed it in his kit. In the bedroom he held Susan"s letter for a long time in his hand, then painstakingly folded it and put it into his pocket. The rain lashed the windows. He walked erect as a robot to the elevator and pressed the b.u.t.ton. At the lobby desk he carefully checked out and engaged a hotel limousine to drive him to the military side of Don w.a.n.g, where he could catch the courier to Ubon.

Goodbye, any Susan. I loved you so much, more than I ever told - you. I will need you for a long, long time. I will need YOU forever.

1530 Hours LOCAL, MONDAY 28 OCTOBER 1968 BAMBOO BAR, MONTIEN HOTEL.

BANGKOK, KINGDOM OF THAILAND.

It was just past the peak of a sunny day, before the afternoon thunderstorm washed the Bangkok streets. Shawn Bannister and Richard Connert sat drinking gin and tonics at a table far to the rear in the cool dimness of the Bamboo Bar. They both wore tan safari suits and were on their third round of drinks.

From a distance, the two men were similar in appearance: blond hair, youthful faces, slender builds. Closer inspection showed Shawn Bannister"s face to have more lines, and his shoulders and waist to be thicker than Connert"s. They both looked to be in their mid-to-late twenties.

"I don"t believe it," Connert said. "You went where? Brata what?"

"Bratislava," Shawn said. "In Czechoslovakia. And, later, in Cuba."

"How come you didn"t tell any of us before we came here?"

Shawn leaned back with a superior look on his face. "Well, no one really had the need to know. Certain things had to be arranged, certain contacts made. Secrecy was the word. Didn"t want the pigs to get on to what I was doing. We were"-he leaned forward-"working out ways to a.s.sist them in their war against the United States of Amerika, with a-"

"Oh, wow. That"s really cool. And then there"s this trip."

Connert drained the rest of his gla.s.s and looked pointedly at the waiter, who leaped to bring fresh drinks for the two men.

Connert took a deep swallow. "Speaking of which, you said you were going to tell me more-why I"m here and all that."

Shawn leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial voice.

"What would you say if I told you I arranged for the two of us to go to Hanoi?"

"To Hanoi? The two of us? Hey, that"s terrific. I thought I was just coming to Bangkok to kind of introduce you to the Orient "cause ... you know ... I"d sort of been here before and all that. The two of us?

Groovy. Will we see the prisoners of war?"

"They"re not prisoners, they"re criminals, you got that?

Criminals. You call them prisoners up there and we"re both in trouble."

"Yeah, well, sure, but ... but what am I supposed to do up there?"

"You were at George Air Force Base, weren"t you?"

"Sure, you knew that."

"And you know all about F-4s, don"t you." Shawn said it as a statement, not a question.

"Sure. I flew them, you know."

Shawn Bannister tried to keep the contempt from his face.

The only F-4 this guy ever flew was that simulator thing. But that was all right. It was useful to have Connert claim he had been a combat fighter pilot, even if it was a sham. He looked at his campaign manager.

"We"re going to Hanoi to bring an F-4 pilot home, but we"re not sure he really appreciates the opportunity he has. His name is Al Apple. He"s an Air Force major."

"We? I thought n.o.body but you and me was in on this."

"Look, there are a few others. I didn"t exactly go on those trips by myself, you know. We did meet some people."

Connert was wide-eyed with enthusiasm. "Yeah-now I got it! You and Bernadine and Tom were all gone at the same time."

Shawn leaned forward. "Listen," he said in a conspiratorial tone. "That stuff is real secret, like cla.s.sified. We don"t want just anybody to know about this trip. Like, the pigs might get on to it, and maybe we"re going places we"re not supposed to."

"Okay, Shawn, okay. Whatever you say."

Shawn dug into his breast pocket. "Here, I got something for you." He pulled out two solid aluminum rings and handed one to Connert. It was lightweight and dull in appearance. "One for you, one for me."

Connert examined his ring. "What"s this for?"

"A little gift from our friends up north. They"re made from shot-down aircraft."

"Shot-down American aircraft?" Something flickered in Connert"s eyes.

"Yeah, sure," Shawn said. "Are there any other kind doing the bombing up there? Here, put it on." He slid his own onto a finger of his left hand.

Connert tried the ring on several fingers. "It"s too small," he said and slipped the ring into a pocket. He looked at Shawn with fathomless blue eyes. "Exactly what is it I can do for you up there?"

"What I want you to do is help me talk to Apple. You know about F-4s and pilots. Convince him that it"s better for him to come home. He"s a real patriotic guy and we want him to know he can serve his country a lot better in the good old USA than in some stinky prison in North Vietnam."

"Well, yeah, sure, but why us? I mean, what makes you think the North Viets will-"

"Don"t call them Viets. They are Vietnamese or comrades not Viets."

"Okay, sure. So what makes you think they will simply let a prisoner ... unh, criminal, go away with us? What"s so special about us?"

"That"s why I was in Bratislava and Cuba, to hammer out those details.

Look, I can"t tell you everything, but leave it be that I and some other SDS-ers have a special deal with the Viet Cong and the big wheels up in Hanoi. They like us, they like me. I used to write great things about them. I used to write the truth." SDS was the Students for a Democratic Society.

"What do you mean, special deal?" Connert asked.

"The deal is that some of us can get visas to go up there and see the criminals and try to bring them home. It"s already happened. Just last August three Air Force criminals were released to one of our groups, three more before that in February."

The August group had included a USAF major, an Ace from Korea named Jim Low, who had told his captors right from the start that he didn"t intend to go through any torture and would do whatever they wanted. He had been given an early release in what the POWs called the Fink Release Program.

"Wow, that"s really cool," Connert said. "But I still don"t know what you want me to do."

"It"s easy. Like I said. You were in the Air Force, you know what fighter pilots think and how they talk. What you do is get Apple talking and tell him it"s okay to come home, it"s okay to leave the, ah, other people there. In fact, he"d be doing them a favor by coming home.

You follow me?"

"Not exactly. How would he be doing them a favor?"

"By speaking out against the war. Then the war is over sooner and all the guys get to come home."

Connert looked thoughtful. "You really believe that?"

"Look, Richard. What difference does it make whether I believe it or not? The important thing is the Viet Cong and those people in Hanoi do.

That"s why we get to go up there."

"Yeah," Connert persisted. "If you don"t believe it, why are you doing it, going up there and all that?"

Shawn fixed him with a steady gaze. "You want me to get elected, don"t you?"

Connert nodded.

"Well, this is a big step. If it works I get lots of favorable publicity and that translates into votes. If it doesn"t work, I still get lots of publicity. But we"ve got to move. We have to be in Hanoi by tomorrow-"

"Tomorrow?" Connert interrupted. "How come you didn"t tell me?"

"Because, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, timing and secrecy are everything.

This isn"t just you and me going to Hanoi, you know. There are a lot more things tied into all of this. Other things have to happen also.

We"re after a big scoop, a big prize. One that"ll not only help get me elected, but that"ll help win the war."

"Win it? For whom?"

"For the Viet Cong. Who the h.e.l.l do you think I mean?"

Connert looked at him, then suddenly dug his handkerchief from his pocket and sneezed.

1030 Hours LOCAL, TUESDAY 29 OCTOBER 1968 WATTAY AIRPORT.