Actually, she supposed she was being unnecessarily safeguarding with this peeking out the window or door at him every few minutes, but she couldn't help herself. He was still just a boy in a foreign country to her, and Mark's "… Now don't worry about him, honey, he's very capable of looking after himself…" hardly cut any ice. What he'd been forced to do to survive on the streets of Saigon was to be a far cry from his new life in the peaceful San Diego suburb of La Berdina, California. It would take a little time, but she intended that he would know a different sort of life now, one overflowing with love and kindness.

Sergeant, Kye's big German shepherd dog, a fierce appearing, heavy-shouldered animal with an astonishing docile nature, strolled into the scope of her windowed scene to seat himself before his young master, his massive animal-presence bringing to mind the whole story as Mark had unfolded it to her three days before on his return from Viet Nam.

It had been Sergeant's barking in the hold of the plane which had made Mark order an investigation, turning up their pair of stowaways, and both suffering from lack of proper air-pressure. All the same, her handsome thirty year old husband had told her, Kye was grinning, and obviously proud that he had done what he had said he would the day before… not let Mark go back to the United States without him!

Dianne had yet to learn the particulars of how Mark and Kye had become such fast friends. Her pilot husband, even after eleven months in Viet Nam, had had only a few hours to spend with her, and though both of them were frantic to pass them in a more intimate manner, Kye and Sergeant's presence had made that impossible, along with any lengthy private discussions. Mark had gotten special permission to house the boy and dog in his own home while military authorities and immigration people were deciding what was to be done with them. Fortunately, Sergeant had undergone myriad shots and didn't have to be impounded, Kye producing the animal's papers before the commanding officer at March Air Force Base.