‘And Bloomfield?’

‘What about him?’

‘You’re working together?’

‘We couldn’t have got them there without his say-so. They’re supposed to be somewhere else right now.’

‘But Bloomfield … you hate him.’

‘This isn’t the schoolyard, Mikey. When he’s right he’s right, whoever he is, and he’s right when he’s seeing what’s as plain as the nose on the end of your face.’

So Donovan and Bloomfield had made a truce for the greater good. It was just another turn of that bewildering merry-go-round of alliances and internecine power struggles that I couldn’t even begin to grasp. And when I think back now, there were always parts of the picture missing so it meant I never had access to a fuller understanding and had to interpret both people and events from that limited perspective, often relying on little more than instinct. As we headed back towards the Embassy, Donovan stressed the need for the meeting to be completely confidential and once again I found myself to be the possessor of a particular secret and didn’t know whether it was a good one or something that might be better shared.

A few days later, just after I had arrived at work, Donovan appeared again, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, and his clothes looking like he had slept in them. But he hardly had time to speak when there was the sound of gunfire and a massive explosion that rattled the building. My first thoughts were that we were under attack, but when I went to the window I saw the guards pointing skywards. Donovan meanwhile had spun on his heels and was hurrying out to the stairs, as he ran telling people to stay away from the windows. On impulse I followed him up the stairs and out on to the building’s roof. I heard the wheezing approach of Greenberg and we both looked as Donovan pointed to where a jet was speeding away. There was a rising plume of black smoke. Car horns shrieked and dogs barked in a crazy crescendo.

‘It must have hit the Embassy,’ Donovan said.

‘I think it’s the presidential palace,’ Greenberg said, still breathless and pointing in the direction of the smoke.

‘I think you’re right,’ Donovan told him and we all stared across the roofs and wondered what it meant.

Later, we learned that no one had been killed and that the pilot was trained by us but, despite the limited physical impact, psychologically it erased any lingering fantasy of the city as a protected enclave and set everyone on edge. It was a feeling that was soon accentuated by the sound of approaching warfare. Eventually Xuan Loc, the last defensive line between the enemy and Saigon, would collapse. But before that happened there would be other people on that same roof, and other roofs throughout the city, in the shape of DAO construction teams frantically clearing spaces where small UH-1 helicopters might safely land. The black flights out were already underway and amongst a panicked population, a panic that we had helped to create, rumour and counter-rumour coursed like electricity through the streets. The martial music in Lam Son Square was momentarily replaced one night just before midnight by the scream of warning sirens and the sibilant hiss of incoming rocket fire.