Finally the colonel stood, nodding to him and walking to the subway door. The subway halted and Condley silently followed him onto the platform.

As they climbed the steps, the bone-biting, wintry darkness hit them as if they were forcing themselves through a wall. At the top of the steps Condley discovered they were in a residential neighborhood whose nearly treeless streets were crowded with mammoth, dimly lit apartment buildings. The streetlights were out, and even the occasional cars that passed them in this section of the city drove only with their parking lights on. The darkness and the cold and his own electric anticipation made Condley’s limbs shake uncontrollably.

Oddly, Colonel Pham seemed completely unaffected by the weather, at home in the cold, greeting it with the same nonchalance as he did the steaming heat and rains of his favorite golf course in Sai Gon. He took a few deep breaths, gaining his bearings in the dark, then pointed toward a set of buildings far away, across an open field.

“Over there,” he said, and began walking.

They walked for fifteen minutes, neither of them saying a word as they trudged across treeless, empty fields and little-traveled streets. As they walked, Condley’s body generated some much-needed heat, and by the time they reached the huge apartment complex his limbs had ceased their shaking. Each building of the complex was huge and boxy, consisting of hundreds of units, as unimaginatively designed as a penitentiary.

Colonel Pham studied the buildings from the road that bordered them, then finally nodded, choosing one and heading toward it.

“This one,” he said, tapping Skip Rogers’s map. “I know, I know.”

Inside the dim-lit building, the air was damp and very cold. A large pile of stinking trash sat just inside the door, bottles and garbage spilling from the usual trash room into the doorway itself. Down the hallway the colonel found a metal-plated elevator and pushed the button, summoning it. The elevator light did not go on. Condley started shivering again as they waited for the elevator to descend. After a few minutes they finally realized that it wasn’t going to come.

The colonel pointed to a set of stairs and resolutely began climbing them, with Condley close behind. When they reached the fifth floor the colonel stepped carefully into the darkened hallway. He peered for a long moment down the corridor and then at the nearest apartment numbers to get his bearings. Deciding, he pointed to his left and began walking again. After a few steps his pace slowed considerably, as if he were a hunter on the prowl. Finally he stopped, turning back to Condley and pointing just ahead.

“Right there,” he whispered.