During the eighties, Afghanistan had cheered him up for a while. He’d shaped up physically, patched up the marriage, and even taken Van camping and fishing in the California mountains. But in Angola, he’d done something indescribable. Generally the CIA never gave its top agents Third World assignments that risked malaria and guaranteed diarrhea, but Van’s father was a charmer. He had a genius for working himself into situations where he was unwelcome, unneeded, unwanted, and way too smart for the job.