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Washington.’
    ‘Washington?’
    ‘Right. We’re going to hustle you right on out of the country, yes sire e . . . . He’s, uh, dying to see you.’
    Hatcher stared at him again. He was intrigued by the man’s face, by the layers of fat that seemed to reduce his features to miniatures. A little face peering out of a big, fat head.
    ‘How’d you get mixed up in this?’ he growled to Pratt.
    ‘I’m a career diplomat,’ Pratt said, trying to sound proud of it.
    ‘Some things never change,’ Hatcher whispered.
    They could see pillars of black smoke rising from the city when they were still twenty miles away.
    ‘It’s got a fires!’ the captain said, pointing upriver.
    ‘It’s got a fires,’ Pratt mimicked, shaking his head. He stood up and looked over the bow, toward the capital city. ‘My God, there must have been a counterattack on the city,’ Pratt wailed. ‘The whole place is burning up.’
    ‘What do we do now?’ Hatcher snarled anxiously.
    ‘I’ll try to radio the embassy,’ Pratt said and disappeared below. Hatcher kept watching the towers of black smoke as they got closer to the city. He could hear explosions and gunfire. When Pratt returned, he was smiling.
    ‘They’re going to send a chopper to the pier. It’s in friendly hands,’ he said excitedly. ‘They’ll fly us straight into the embassy.’
    ‘Why’re you doing all this for me?’ Hatcher demanded.
    ‘I, uh, I really don’t know, sir. They didn’t tell me that. They just said to go down with the papers, bribe the warden, and bring you back. If you want to know the truth, Mr. Hatcher, they don’t ever tell me anything.’
    ‘I drop you off and scramming,’ the captain yelled to them.
    ‘Yeah, right,’ Pratt said. ‘You scramming. Know what they told me? The captain speaks perfect English, that’s what they told me. See what I mean?’
    As they neared the pier they saw the chopper, a four-passenger job, sweep over the warehouses along the edge of the river and hover over the bank, churning up the water below it. Pratt stood up and waved to them. The captain guided the scow along the pier and bumped it gently. So he couldn’t speak English, H atcher thought. He sure knows how to run a boat.
    ‘You go now, good luck, señors,’ he yelled.
    Pratt scrambled to get up on the railing, and as he did, a shell exploded a hundred yards away, tearing out the corner of a building. A naked woman ran down the street with her hair burning. A jeep squatted on flat tires, burning furiously, the charred body of the driver still sitting behind the wheel. Pratt stopped, his face bulging with horror.
    ‘Let’s go,’ Hatcher yelled, and p u shed him onto the dock. The boat roared back into the middle of the river.
    ‘My God, look at this, it’s horrible, horrible. . . .‘ Pratt whined as the chopper swept over and settled down twenty feet away. Hatcher ran to open the hatchway. A young marine, who looked scared to death, helped him scramble aboard. Behind him, Pratt waddled across the dock towards the chopper. The pilot, a captain, looked at him in horror. ‘Christ, we can’t take him, we’re overloaded already,’ the pilot yelled. ‘Close the hatch, Corporal.’
    ‘Sir,’ the corporal yelled back and slid the door shut.
    Stranded on the dock, Pratt screamed as he saw the hatch slide shut. ‘No, no, you can’t leave me here,’ he screamed, beating on the side of the helicopter. It shuddered and lifted off as he slammed his fist over and over against the side. Then the wind began to buffet him, he was showered with dust, stinging his eyes, and the chopper lifted off. Pratt fell to his knees, his hands covering his head, and began to sob uncontrollably.
    Hatcher and the young marine stared down at the huge man and watched as he grew smaller and smaller. Another explosion erupted behind him and part of the dock disintegrated, but Pratt did not move. He knelt like a Buddha, cowering with fear, unable to move.
    ‘It’s