“Unfortunately yes.”

     “And they'd kill an insurance investigator?”

     “An American,” said Dela Cruz.

     “The NPA hate Americans, of course,” said Agoncillo.

     He made this sound like fundamental truth, so complete that it left nothing else to say. Dalzell and the two officers began to play who-do-you-know in the military, ours and theirs.

     After a while Dela Cruz and Agoncillo got up to leave. When do you expect the report, I wanted to know, and they said tomorrow morning. What time tomorrow morning? Perhaps nine, perhaps ten—but not to worry, they would send a copy to the hotel and another to the embassy.

     “Rest, relax, enjoy our city,” Dela Cruz said. He patted me on the shoulder again when he said goodbye.

     “A word of advice,” Dalzell said to me when they were on their way out. “A fella will get a lot farther in this country if he doesn't get pushy. Especially with P.C. officers. Directness is definitely not a virtue here.”

     “He's been dead two days, nobody knows anything.”

     “You're in a tropical climate now.”

     “Do you believe the communists killed him?”

     “The Sparrows are homicidal little fuckers. Whacked-out kids, glue-sniffers—it isn't hard to imagine.”

     “He was an insurance investigator.”

     “They wouldn't care what he was.”

     “I still don't see a motive.”

     “Listen, the communists'd love to drag us into a dirty little war here,” he said with sudden force. “Turn us into the bad guys, get every peasant in the boondocks whittling punji sticks—oh, believe me, they'd love it. That's the day we lose this country.” He was loud enough, people were beginning to notice. He reined himself in. “See, when we put troops in somebody's backyard, even when we're trying to do him a favor, we can kiss his heart and mind