Chapter Thirty-Seven Summary

Eugene remembers that after the authorities had shot and killed the Freedom Fighters, the hostages were rescued. Eugene details how they were airlifted by helicopter off the roof of the prison. He tells the reader this reminds him precisely of how the American military had to retreat in the fall of Saigon in the 1970s when Eugene was still in command. In fact, Eugene had been on the very helicopters that departed Saigon during the overthrow of the Americans by the communist-backed Vietnamese fighters, he recalls. As he helped load the hostages, he had shared a seat next to a young woman physicist who has applied for a job at Tarkington College the day before the riots. Dr. Helen Dole tells Eugene how she probably wouldn't have gotten the job anyway, because she told the board of trustees who interviewed her...