in the cold where there isn’t a camel for a thousand kilometers.”

“I don’t think they have camels in Israel.”

“You know what I mean. He was way out of his territory, and so is your old friend Mun if he’s come back from the dead. You think it’s strange?”

“No, more like fearful symmetry.”

Pak looked thoughtful. “Your phrase?”

“Borrowed.”

Chapter Two

The weather got better for a few days, not so cold, and finally, a lot of sun in the mornings, though the sun was still weak, like a dying man’s eyes. Every afternoon the clouds came in, but that didn’t matter much because it got dark early this time of year, so it wasn’t as if the afternoons were much use anyway. Pak was jumpy. He drifted down to my office every couple of hours. Half the time, he’d just stand there, looking into space. Sometimes, he’d ask if everything was going smoothly. Nothing more specific than that. I pretended not to know what he was talking about. I just said, “Fine, everything’s fine.”

That was true, if a meeting in the Sosan with the long-dead Mun could be construed as “fine;” if listening to Mun recite a litany of complaints and threats from the special section could come under the rubric of “fine;” if “fine” could be stretched to include a final warning that I should consider myself as being on notice that “some people” were waiting for one more incident to bring down the hammer and shatter my status as the grandson of a Hero of the Republic. This sort of thing didn’t bother me too much. It just wasn’t what I would normally label “fine.” But I also didn’t want Pak to know. He had enough to worry with. This was my business, old business, unfinished business. If there was a problem, it was mine to solve.

Pak’s too frequent visits went on for several days. It got on my nerves. Someone constantly asking you if everything is all right, it can get wearing. Pak didn’t think things were fine, I could tell. He thought things were going to end up in a train wreck. Pak knew plenty, he had good sources, and they must have been warning him. After being surprised once, he was going to make sure it didn’t happen again. He must have dug up every contact he ever had to check what was going on. He wouldn’t come out and say anything though. That wasn’t how he did things. Each time, after I told him things were fine, he’d shake his head and walk back to his office, clucking his tongue.

It was a little curious that he never asked about my meeting in the Sosan coffee shop. I figured there must be a reason he didn’t want to know, something more than his well-honed instinct against delving into things that couldn’t bring anything more than another basketful of bad news to an already bad situation. If he asked, when he asked, I already knew what I’d tell him.

“So, what happened at the Sosan between you and your no-longer-dead friend?” He made sure to be looking out my window when he finally asked, so I couldn’t see the expression on his face.

“Nothing.” I’d practiced saying it out loud. It still didn’t sound convincing.

“Is that a fact? You just sat there and laughed about old times and drank hot water?”

“I certainly didn’t laugh.”

“And him?”

“He sneered, mostly.” Which was true. “I still can’t figure out why he wanted the meeting.” Also true.

“Not good.” Pak had come away from the window and was rearranging a pile of papers on my desk. “Whatever he’s up to, it’s not good, we can assume that, but what else? He must have asked you a few questions.”

“That’s what I was expecting, questions. At least some probing for what we knew about the foreigner. But no, nothing like that. There is one thing, though. He said he wanted to get in touch with some of the people from our operation, the one he and I were on when everything went wrong.” I glanced at my desk. Pak had put everything in two neat piles. I’d known where every piece of paper was before. The latest Ministry reports had been on the edge of the desk closest to the window, in roughly the order they came into my office; interrogation reports were more or less in order of priority along the the opposite edge of the desk, nearest the door; laterally filed field reports from other sectors in the