There were a half dozen loaded magazines on the shooting table. Manh picked up one of them, pushing it upward inside the pistol’s grip as he kept it carefully pointed downrange. A host of memories clogged Dzung’s mind as he watched Manh load the pistol and release the slide, arming it with a bullet in the chamber. It was amazing to him how easily he regained the memories and even the panache of a quarter century before.

“I was born to do this, Manh. You should know that.”

“I do know that,” said Manh simply. He handed Dzung the pistol, giving the cyclo driver a taunting grin. “So go ahead, Dzung, shoot me. You can, you know. No one would be able to stop you from doing it.”

Dzung grinned also, looking up and down the empty firing line of the shooting range and then back at Manh. The Interior Ministry agent was indeed correct that Dzung could kill him with ease at that moment. But both of them knew that Manh had the ultimate defense against such action, greater than any bullet-proof vest or indeed any gun. For if Dzung shot Manh he would never make it out of the shooting range, much less back to his home. And even if Dzung was given the gun and later shot Manh on the street, there would be no place for him to hide. And even if he found a place to hide, some of his family would be marched off to prison, and all of them would suffer for the rest of their lives whenever they tried to find a job or a school or a house. Nor would they ever be allowed to emigrate away from such misery. The whole country would become their jail, to set an example for the others, because shooting Manh would be a crime against the revolution.

“Bang,” said Dzung, pointing the pistol for a moment at Manh’s head.

Manh did not even flinch. “Go ahead. Get all of the anger out of your system.” And then he lit a cigarette, watching Dzung as if he were sitting in a spectator section, far away.

Dzung toyed with the pistol for a while, admiring its sleek design and testing the squeeze mechanism on its grip. The pistol felt immediately comfortable in his hands. Without coaching, he spaced his feet sideways and apart, as if in a boxer’s stance. Then he raised his right arm until it was straight, pulling his left hand into the pistol to steady his grasp, and looked for a moment through the sights, lining up the dot of the front site exactly with the two dots of the rear sights.

“It is a beautiful weapon, Manh.”

“Go ahead,” said Manh. “Shoot it.”