CHAPTER 1

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
June 8th, 1994

Jacob Slaughter paced to the bed and turned for the ninety-seventh time, an exact number of which he was absolutely positive. Either his cell had been larger or he was now faster as he made three steps to the wall, a turn, and ten steps to the window before heading back to the bed, avoiding the mirror's reflection of the terrified face of his own youth, now eroded by time to match his forty-six-year-old body, his absolute fear of this country crawling down his neck like the warm breath of a predatory animal.
The two thousand three-hundred and sixty-two new steps while waiting for Lu Kham Phong were an insignificant addition to the much larger number from two and a half decades earlier. The deep cut across his nose had healed over those years and his right cheek was now only slightly sunken from the guard's gouging, but his eyes were still wide and worried. He understood their look too well, sure of himself where fear was concerned. There were no hidden elements they hadn't forced him to explore.
Lu Kham Phong was a quiet little man who'd been insistent and demanding. "Wait in your hotel," he'd said, "and stay off the streets of Hanoi. Anything could happen here, even now, and the issues between our two governments are too important to risk an unnecessary setback."
So Slaughter waited, taking inventory of all the differences between this room and the last one Vietnam had provided him. And he worried along with Secretary of State Mills that his skills as a Foreign Service Officer might be overwhelmed by his past. But the Vietnamese Foreign Minister had personally insisted on Slaughter, leaving Mills no option but to send him.