Dzung walked slowly up dozens of wide stone steps, looking into the cavern of the ancient headquarters built by French colonialists a century before. The steps were worn in the middle, rounded at their edges from a million such journeys that had preceded him, step by agonizing step. He reached the top and opened a heavy door, walking slowly inside. As the door closed behind him, he found himself in a dank, dark lobby, sealed off from the energy and motion of Sai Gon’s mad streets as if he had just entered a tomb. He could not remember the last time the world had gone so quiet.

He stood motionless in the high-ceilinged old lobby, squinching his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. Finally he noticed a uniformed guard sitting at a desk in the center of the room. The guard waved him over without saying a word. Dzung just as silently handed the guard his government identity card, along with the card that Nghiem Le Manh had given him. There was no need to converse. Both of them knew the drill.

“Room 212,” the guard finally said, pointing lazily toward a nearby stairwell and then ignoring him.

He began climbing the steps toward Room 212. The flopping of his sandals echoed in the silence. The building emanated an odor that itself was foreign, a mix of dust and mildew, as if the closed-windowed, European structure had been slowly conquered over the years by Sai Gon’s ferment and humidity and rot. The walls and ceiling were a dull, ugly greenish-blue, the paint so old that the dirt and mold on the walls was palpable.

The second floor seemed empty, just as eerily quiet as the lobby. Each office door was shut. No one moved along the hallways. He could hear no voices behind the office doors. No telephones were ringing. The only sound that broke the silence as he searched for Room 212 was the occasional whirring of an air conditioner. He had not felt an air conditioner in at least twenty-five years, other than the occasional gusts from the doorways of the Rex Hotel. He was already beginning to tremble slightly from the cold.

He reached Room 212 and stood before the door for several seconds, composing himself. Finally he took a deep breath and walked inside. Manh was alone in the small, stark room, waiting for him, sitting behind a cluttered desk. On the wall just behind him were three pictures of the ruins of Angkor Wat, no doubt a souvenir of Manh’s military service during the decade that the Vietnamese occupied Cambodia. Other than the three pictures, the room was as barren as a prison cell.