trangers tumble into a frozen foxhole, seeking shelter from the horde of Chinese forces rampaging down the Korean peninsula. One will commit a heinous crime, and the others will join him in a devil's compact that will bind them together for the rest of their lives.

Two remained in the Army and found themselves entangled in the web of intrigue, deception, and the ever-shifting loyalties of Cold War Germany. Later, they were drawn into the corruption and treachery of Vietnam. Often, they had to navigate the amorphous line between good and evil, succumbing to temptation and taking some of the purloined contraband for themselves.

Surviving life-threatening wounds, the remaining two pursue civilian careers. One, a wartime medic, becomes a doctor to the Hollywood elite. The other marries into a banking family and conceives a financial empire that will enrich them beyond anything they could have imagined when growing up in the desperate years of the Great Depression.

At ninety-six, the last of them, driven by an unyielding determination to atone for his many sins, decides to put their story into a book. "Let the chips fall where they will," he tells his worried daughter, his voice filled with a mix of regret and resolve.

It will be up to her to somehow placate the father she adores and shelter him, their family, and those of his deceased comrades from his folly.

This tale is about loyalty at any cost, revenge, the raw pain of love tragically lost, the renewal of hope when a new one is found, and the guilt of surviving when so many have fallen. It is a parable on the burden we are fated to carry from the sins we commit along our brief journey aboard this great blue orb we call Earth.