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Our next stop was a Shan cah an opening in a stockade fence and entered a large open area A two-story frame house was flanked by half a dozen low concrete-block buildings that looked like barracks We wound up on the large front porch of the fra Tao beer out of long-necked bottles Someone handed bottles to each of us, and to the driver

One, with gray hair and a salt-and-pepper e He asked which of us was Evan Tanner I said I was

"And your friend?"

"Katya Singh"

"Singh? That is an Indian name"

"My husband was Indian," she said

"You are a woman," he said He seemed a little dismayed not to have noticed this himself "A woman dressed as a e, whereupon all of his fellows had a good laugh

"Ku Min said twoabout a woman"

"Well, you know Ku Min," I said

He laughed, and translated for the others, and everybody laughed

"You are a woman," he said to Katya "And you are alive," he said to me

"Actually," I said, "we’re both alive"

"Yes, but ere told you were dead"

"Me?"

"Evan Tanner"

"That’s me," I said "Who told you?"

"It was on the radio It was also in the newspaper Do we still have that newspaper?" He turned and barked an order, and one of the younger men ran off to check "He will look for it," he said "But you want to bathe, yes?"

"God, yes," I said

"And perhaps you are tired of dressing as monks, eh? You have other clothes?"

"I’m afraid this is it," I said

"We have clothes that will fit you" And he said so else I didn’t understand, and one of the youths indicated that we should follow him

An hour later ere back on the porch We’d had showers, and I would have liked to stay under the streaerprints washed off It wasn’t as luxurious as the loo at the Strand, but it was at least as welcoues, the saht across the shoulders, and the pants ended an inch or two preood fit

Katya told ly, that I looked very military Her own effect, clad in khaki, was hard to sum up She looked at once waiflike and coer

Back on the porch, there were handshakes all around, and drinks poured, and toasts offered We went fro tables and passed around platters of rice and vegetables and several kinds ofI wasn’t sure of, but I’, or turning around in a circle three ti down

Our after-dinner drinks were that orange brandy Katya and I had come to know and love I don’t suppose it had aphrodisiacal properties – I don’t suppose anything does, really – but we see love every ti establishes an association in your mind I looked at her and she looked at ht, and a prurient one at that Ti out in the hot sun, and such a fine and substantial ot to bed, wasn’t it?

But instead I heardthe fellow in co that newspaper

"The newspaper! Yes, we still have it Nohere did he put it?" He called out so to someone "I will show it to you," he said, "but will you even knohat you are looking at? Do you read Bur to you"

That wasn’t quite true I’d glanced uncooon, and the articles didn’t look like nothing Generally they looked like a staph infection reaching epidemic proportions

"Here ‘Evan Tanner, American soldier of fortune’ That is you, is it not?"

"Soldier of ent provocateur, it says here Apprehended after an intensive police investigation and subjected to intensive interrogation – you knohat that means?"

"Torture?"

"Of course After all that, you adoda and-"

"What booda Do you not know it?"

"I was there h it had been boo"

After we’d left the boat and struck out on foot frooon or anywhere else on earth