“And one day you’re using your one-oh-six trying to hit a sniper, firing across the river at this one guy. He was in a building the corner of Isabella Catolica and Luperon.”

Nolen raised his eyebrows. “Marines weren’t ever that close to the river. Were they?”

“I got excited,” Moran said. “The heat of the chase.”

“You mean you fucked up,” Nolen said. “Got suckered.”

“The dinger would fire a round, then disappear,” Moran said. “You never knew where you’d get shot at from next.”

“I remember snipers,” Nolen said. “Yeah, and I remember the troopers talking about they took this guy out. Little fucker with an M-one.”

“It was a medium-size fucker with an M-fourteen,” Moran said. “It was me they got. We’re chasing the dinger, I run upstairs, he’s gone. I look out the window and a fifty-caliber racer round nearly took my head off.”

Nolen was nodding again. “Fired from the spotting rifle.”

“I know what it was fired from,” Moran said. “Followed by screaming one-oh-six. I had a mitt I could’ve stuck my hand up and caught it.”

“Didn’t kill you, huh?”

“It took out the back end of the third floor and the stairs. I got hit here, below my flack jacket and down my leg. Fifteen pieces of iron they dug out and gave me a Heart,” Moran said. “So you were Airborne. What’d I bring you a beer for?”

“You felt something, a kinship,” Nolen said, “one grunt sniffing another. I’ll tell you what. Even if it wasn’t me I’ll buy you a drink later on. Make it up to you.”

“I’m going down there next week,” Moran said.

“Where?”

“Santo Domingo.”

“Jesus Christ, what for?”

“Walk my perimeter, see if it looks the same. Stay at the Embajador-we were bivouacked right there. Maybe look up some people. There doesn’t seem to be anything going on; now it’s El Salvador.”

“If there’s any place down there we can go in and fuck things up,” Nolen said, “Reagan and Haig’ll find it, don’t worry.”