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Mandalay Bay, with about an hour of sun left in the day. The valet service was backed up and it seemed the pressure wasn’t going to relent. I waited patiently for my ticket and watched how they worked. Inside I washed up, bought some coffee, and walked around enough to show up on the security cameras if anybody bothered to check. By the time I strolled outside, two lines of cars were backed up. I hung around and counted: three valets driving cars into the garage and two harried valets hustling from driver to driver with tickets. The hotel guests took their tickets and either went in to gamble or unloaded the luggage from their trunks. I strolled past the front car and turned back to watch and time the valets. Each return trip took just over two minutes. I didn’t have to wait long for all three valets to take cars up within a minute of each other. I turned swiftly and got into the next waiting car. I was gone before anyone noticed.
    Was I going there to save him? I knew better. Did I want to save him? Save him from the people whose stolen money he stole, orsave him from jail? I kept struggling to figure out what the mission was, and I didn’t like getting closer to my destination without the slightest idea what to do when I arrived. He was hiding out, which meant he did not need a warning. Help him get away? To where?
    I should have learned my lesson in Afghanistan: know the goal before you begin the mission. The desert on either side of the highway stayed quiet, patient, and blank for hours, as if waiting for me to supply an answer. But the patience was a trap. I just kept traveling deeper into the darkness, which felt more like a gaping maw than a tunnel that might have an end, all the while yammering to myself to help avoid facing the truth. Flashes of Afghanistan came to mind, mixing with flashes of Dan.
    For some reason, I’m good at picking up languages, a skill I was unaware I possessed until I got to Afghanistan. Speaking Spanish was just a survival skill where I grew up. Maybe Dari and Pashto fall into the same category now. I learned a little Dari in my first weeks, but the best lessons came when I went along to the shura, the meetings with tribal leaders. They and our captain spoke and the translators went to work. Before long, I didn’t need the translator, though, of course, I didn’t let anyone know that. My job was to listen anyway. It was pleasant to sit there drinking tea and sussing out the distrust and wariness and fake sincerity on both sides. Sometimes I would imagine Dan sitting there, telling stories like the pro he was, pausing as if to allow his hosts to beg him to continue but really just to figure what came next, and all the while working on partnerships, alliances, new ventures. The Afghans distrusted pointless conversations with strangers but relished anyone who could convey his points by what he didn’t say, by the pauses and change of direction. To visit them without a plan and a goal wasmore than disrespect; it was a form of betrayal, as if the point of the meeting was to waste their time. And that meant their allegiances would find other attachments. They wanted every word to hold a clue, a hint, an evasion. They would have loved Dan—even though all the while that he spun his web, he would be working out how he could sell off his end of those same deals before he had to deliver. Because when Dan was telling a story, he was delivering all he ever could.
    It started with a tap on the back while I was in Helmand Province in the southern part of Afghanistan. I turned to find an Afghan staring into my eyes and looking entirely pleased with himself. There was a problem with that. If an Afghan sneaks up on you and you live, then your nose is defective and you should have it checked because those people smell. They smell bad until you get used to it, then they just smell distinctive. No running water for most of them so showers are scarce. Outside the cities, washing machines are as rare as