Up Country

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Contemporary Vietnam, as represented in this book, is based partly on my experiences of January and February 1997, when I returned to Vietnam after a twenty-nine-year absence. Places such as restaurants, hotels, the former United States embassy, and other locales were in existence and as described as of 1997, which is the time period of this story.

Bad things come in threes.

The first bad thing was a voice mail from Cynthia Sunhill, my former partner in the army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Cynthia is still with the CID, and she is also my significant other, though we were having some difficulties with that job description.

The message said, “Paul, I need to talk to you. Call me tonight, no matter how late. I just got called on a case, and I have to leave tomorrow morning. We need to talk.”

“Okay.” I looked at the mantel clock in my small den. It was just 10 P.M., or twenty-two hundred hours, as I used to say when I was in the army not so long ago.

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