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subtly soiled.
    He tried to date her again, but he had little time off, and when he did, she was busy. And about two months after the picnic trip in the
Banshee
she was gone. With the sailor. The talk about her was worse after she was gone. Once he came close to joining in, letting them know that he hadn’t been left out. But at the last moment he had turned away, bitterly ashamed of himself.
    Since that time he had often wondered if Spence had found her and brought her back to Ramona. The dossier on Jenna, part of the thick file Colonel Presser had given him, answered the question. She had not come back. It covered the years from when she was eighteen until she was thirty, when M’Gann had met her. Had he read it about some strange woman he would have thought it unsavory in the extreme. A marriage and divorce. Modeling for life classes and seedy photographers and unsuccessful commercial artists. Singing with third-rate groups and in grubby joints. A police record of sorts. The minor night-time offenses for which you can be picked up in Seattle and Biloxi, Buffalo and Scranton. But it was all because she had been so alive … and restless.
    So how had she felt when she had gone back? As the colonel’s lady. Full of an uneasy bravado? Amused, perhaps? Why had she gone back there at all? There had been no need.

chapter   TWO
    After lunch the next day he got the folder from the hotel manager and went to the Pentagon. He told themhe had decided to do it. He did not tell them why. He did not tell them that he had learned in the long and sleepless hours of the night that if he did not go back he would spend the rest of his life in a half-world where neither identity fitted him, neither the old nor the new. He could not say that this was, in a sense, his own search for Alexander Doyle.
    When he said he would rather not take the file with him, they both questioned him sharply until they were satisfied that he had retained all the information he needed to know. “And what about a cover story, Mr. Doyle?”
    “I’ve got one that I think is very ordinary and very foolproof, sir. I know South America pretty well. And I know heavy construction equipment. On my last assignment I was working outdoors. And I look it, I guess. A lot of single men take construction jobs abroad for the high pay, and then go back to their home towns. If I had the passport and necessary papers to show I’d been in Venezuela for the last three years …”
    “Sounds good enough. Get rolling on that, Jerry. Mr. Doyle, what will be your public reason for going back to Ramona?”
    “Tired of knocking around. Got a few bucks saved up. Looking around with the idea of maybe setting myself up in a small business. If it hasn’t changed too much, I’ll rent a cottage out on Ramona Beach. That will put me closer to Colonel M’Gann. After I get established, I’ll have to play it by ear. Maybe I can line up some kind of temporary job that will make it easier to get to the colonel. I’ll need mobility, Colonel Presser. I think the best thing would be to fly to Tampa and pick up the right kind of clothes there and a used car. I don’t think I was expected to amount to very much. Except for having some cash, I don’t think I want to disappoint them.”
    “You sound bitter, Mr. Doyle.”
    “A little. Maybe. But I’ll be a lot less conspicuous than if I went into town driving a rental sedan and wearing a suit like this one, sir.”
    “You are absolutely right, Mr. Doyle. I approve the plan. It isn’t theatrical. You won’t be tripped by the casual question. And you can look and play the part, I’m sure. When can we have his papers ready, Jerry?”
    “By tomorrow noon, Colonel.”
    “We want you to take all the time you need to handle it carefully, Mr. Doyle. I think three thousand dollars would be ample.”
    “More than enough.”
    “How would you take it with you? Traveler’s checks?”
    “Alex Doyle, construction bum, would wear a money belt,