Later that night when Peter and Bernadette were sitting around a small campfire by their tent, Peter asked Bernadette about her uncle. Peter said, “I see a six-foot-two heavily muscled man who is immensely strong with hair clipped as short as the clippers could cut. Beyond that and my respect for his integrity and kindness, I only know I like him very much.”

“I read some papers he had lying on his desk when he was making an application for foreign security work of some kind. I’ll give you what I remember.” Bernadette stared at the flickering small flames and started to recite. “Terry left the service as a colonel with multiple tours of special operations combat duty in Vietnam and as a combat advisor in Angola and Central America. Two Silver Stars, three Purple Hearts with the scars to go with them, and numerous campaign ribbons were listed under awards. They didn’t mean anything to me and I didn’t focus on them. There was practically no weapons course he had missed. Weapons training, operational planning assignments, and intelligence collection and analysis were where he excelled. He is good with languages with a natural ability to learn languages. In addition to Chinese he speaks Spanish, French, and German.”

“Bernadette, you have amazing recall.”

“I’ve always been able to recall and see things in my mind, if it was important to me. Focusing is the important part. You want me to tell you about our first night together?”

“No. I’d sooner you show me.”

“Okay! I’ll lead, you follow. I knew you had some promise.”