that Doc was part of it. Maybe Doc was involved in another drug smuggling group and he wanted me to disrupt Stanley’s outfit.
And why had someone pointed me toward J.D.? Why the attempt to make it appear she was part of the conspiracy involving Stanley’s group? The puzzle was getting more out of focus, the pieces dissolving into different shapes, refusing to fit together. I could not see through the fog of deception that had been surrounding me for days.
The old soldiers were tired. It had been a long day of planning, thinking, and, in some cases, grieving. They were milling about the room, finishing their drinks, saying good night. J.D. was still sitting in her chair, staring at me. “What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking about you as Sir Galahad, rushing off to rescue me.”
I laughed. “You don’t need rescuing. I knew you could take care of yourself.”
“Probably, but I’m glad you came.”
“You’re not going to make a habit of this are you? Disappearing, I mean.”
“Are you afraid you wouldn’t be able to find me?”
“Yeah. I’d miss you.”
She looked at me for a moment, quietly. There was a seriousness about her that I had seldom seen. “I’d miss you too, Matt,” she said and rose from the chair. She came and sat on the sofa next to me.
I was only sure of my friends, J.D., Logan, and Jock. I looked around and realized that other than those three, I could not trust anyone in the room. It was a sobering thought, and one that raised the hairs along the back of my neck, sending a tingle through my brain, a warning that all was not as it seemed, and that my friends and I needed to be very careful.
I leaned into J.D., whispered, “I want you to sleep with me tonight.”
She drew back, a shocked expression on her face. “Matthew,” she said.
I chuckled. “Let me rephrase that. I want you to sleep in the same room with me tonight. There are two beds in there. I’ve already told Jock and Logan to bunk in together as well. I’m not sure I trust these guys, and it’d be better if we stick together.”
She smiled. “Well, shoot,” she said. “I thought maybe you were just getting a little frisky.”
“And if I were?”
She was quiet for a moment, staring at me. “I couldn’t settle for just frisky.”
I felt a lurch in my chest, down where my heart is. She was opening a door, I thought, a door to a relationship. Maybe. But now was not the time to explore it. “I couldn’t either,” I said. I looked at her for a beat, smiled, and left the sofa.
I pulled Jock out of the group he was chatting with, got him out of earshot. “We need to find out the names of the two CIA guys Team Charlie killed, Opal and Topaz.”
Jock looked at his watch. “It’s late. I doubt the night-shift wonks can pull anything for me.”
“What if the director lit a fire under them?”
“That’d get the job done. Is it that important?”
“I think so. If there are men in the CIA who’ve gone rogue and are pursuing this, we may be able to backtrack and find out who Opal and Topaz were buddies with in Saigon.”
“I’ll call him, but I have a question.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Why do I have to sleep in the room with Logan while you get J.D.?”
“Because I’m the guy making the room assignments and Logan snores. A lot.”
Jock grinned and went to make his phone call. I walked out to the patio in search of Doc. I found him talking to Fleming. “Excuse me, Flem,” I said, “but could I have a word with Doc?”
“Sure,” said Fleming. “I’m on my way to bed. See you guys in the morning.”
“Doc,” I said when Fleming had gone, “tell me about the Evermore Foundation.”
I saw his face change, a look of surprise crossing it. He was silent for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “Not much to tell, really. I set up the foundation to funnel money to the survivors of Ban Touk.”
“Explain it to me.”
“Several years ago, I began to make more money than I’d ever dreamed of. I didn’t just want to spend it on bigger and bigger houses and cars. I’d never been able to get those dead women and children out of my mind, the Ban Touk people. I assumed that some villagers had survived, mostly the men who had been taken into Laos by