This volume follows the further exploits of Doctor Paul Marzeky. He's been home from Vietnam for more than twenty-five years. His practice is running smoothly and he's been working with Doctor Heather Farrington as a consultant (as well as starting to develop personal feelings for her).But something eerie is happening. Or at least he believes it may be. He keeps catching glimpses of a man he last saw at a firebase in Vietnam, a man he presumed must be dead. Just when he's convinced himself he was mistaken, the man himself appears. He tells a long, rambling story of having gone AWOL from the 'Nam', and travelling around the world smuggling heroin. He's being hunted by both clandestine agencies of the government and organized crime figures.After much resistance, Doc Roach agrees, quite reluctantly, to go into therapy-not to change professions or reverse the direction of his life, but to help him sort out his fear and confusion about the potential of his being a potential murder candidate.When a body is discovered in a room registered to him at the Fairmont, Paul becomes the focus of a great deal of official attention from the San Francisco Police Department, who are, in turn, being pressured by unnamed, alphabeted agencies in Washington, D.C. Paul gets unwittingly embroiled in a murder investigation led by a fellow vet, Homicide Lieutenant Phil McLaren.