Trevor began working with Dan eighteen month ago. Dan was a short, open-hearted young man, a pacifist and a bit of a ladies man. Only twenty-five, he was accepted to Les Mondes as a promising, young and ambitious reporter immediately upon graduating from Tampere University. Rochefort, chief editor of Les Mondes, took the young reporter under his wing. Rochefort appointed Dan as Trevor’s assistant, and Dan ended up accompanying Trevor and Etienne on several trips to the Middle East. A rumor went around that Dan was a distant relative of Rochefort, or even a love child from a long abandoned liaison. Be that as it may, Rochefort was clearly concerned about the future of this young man and he was helping him to find his own place in journalism.

After Etienne and Kate made their relationship official and Kate had moved to Paris to live with him, Dan became Trevor’s buddy during his sojourns to the nightlife of Paris and Zurich.

Dan, too, was secretive about his past. He never spoke about it, but he was happy to be useful to his more experienced colleagues and closely watched Trevor, acquiring the essential skills of a hardened war correspondent. It was Dan, as Trevor’s assistant, who was lately covering the USA v. Woud trial, the scandalous case of the biggest illegal arms dealer in history, tried by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Trevor was sitting on the veranda of a busy restaurant watching an elderly couple talking quietly at the table near the entrance. He was amused by how the man was stealthily feeding a small dog that was sitting under the table.

Trevor flipped through a fresh newspaper, trying to find the latest news on the Woud trial, but seeing nothing asked the waiter for the bill. That was when the encounter happened that turned his life upside down, inadvertently exposing that part of him which he had not even guessed existed.

Trevor was surprised to hear someone speak in Serbian. A man and a woman, clearly tourists, were talking to one another. They had two children with them, close to the age of seven. The man’s voice sounded familiar. Trevor was ready to swear that he knew the man well. He shoved the newspaper aside and stared at the retreating silhouettes of the family. The woman was walking ahead, holding the children by their hands. The man was inspecting the cobblestones engraved with the names of cities, incidentally turning towards Trevor. He was a short, stout man, about fifty, balding, with thick glasses, and dressed in a well-worn but clean suit and an oversized navy raincoat.

Suddenly it dawned on Trevor that he knew the man. He got up and shouted in Serbian: “Jovan? My friend, Jovan, it is you!”

The man glanced back. His wife also noticed the stranger who was loudly calling after her husband. Both children immediately clutched their mother.

“Jovan, hey! It’s me, Trevor. Don’t you recognize me, old man?”

“Teo?!” the man responded, throwing open his arms. “Trevor! Well, I didn’t expect to see you here! It’s been a while! It is a small world, I guess!”

The friends hugged tightly.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” said Trevor. “How long has it been? Ten? Twelve years?”

“Teo, fifteen years at least! You were serving in the Legion back then,” Jovan responded slowly, tears of sincere joy fogging his glasses. “I forgot how you look. Let me see you!”

Jovan wiped his glasses and after putting them back, he scanned Trevor. Grabbing his shoulders, he joyfully exclaimed: “You are a real badass, and you still look cool. Haven’t changed a bit! Right, Anna? This is Trevor… Teo, a friend I once told you about."