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I WAS taking a Martini across the room to my wife, who was still chatting with our host, Amos Darrel, the physicist, when the front door of the house opened and a man came in to join the party. He meant nothing to me-but with him was the girl we'd called Tina during the war.

I hadn't seen her for fifteen years, or thought about her for ten, except once in a great while when that time would come back to me like a hazy and violent dream, and I'd wonder how many of those I'd known and worked with had survived it, and what had happened to them afterwards. I'd also wonder, idly, the way you do, if I'd even recognize the girl, should I meet her again.

After all, that particular job had taken only a week. We'd made our touch right on schedule, earning a commendation from Mac, who wasn't in the habit of passing them around like business cards-but it had been a tough assignment, and Mac knew it. He'd given us a week to rest up in London, afterwards, and we'd spent it together. That made a total of two weeks, fifteen years ago. I hadn't known her previously, and I'd never seen her again, until now. If anyone had asked me to guess, I'd have said she was still over in Europe, or just about anywhere in the world except here in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Nevertheless, I didn't have a moment of doubt. She was taller and older, better looking and much better dressed, than the fierce, bloodthirsty, shabby little waif I remembered. There was no longer the gauntness of hunger in her face or the brightness of hate in her eyes, and she probably no longer concealed a paratrooper's knife somewhere in her underwear.

But it was Tina, all right-expensive firs, cocktail dress, and hairdo notwithstanding. She looked at me for a moment without expression, across that room of chattering people, and I couldn't tell if she recognized me or not. After all, I'd changed a little, too. There was more meat on my bones and less hair on my head after fifteen years. There were the other changes that must have left visible traces for her to see: the wife and three kids, the four-bedroom house with the studio out back and the mortgage half paid up, the comfortable bank account and the sensible insurance program. There was Beth's shiny Buick station wagon in the driveway outside, and my beatup old Chevy pickup in the garage back home. And on the wall back home were my hunting rifle and shotgun, unfired since the war.