Met Sar rose like a prophet before the rank of agents. The Center had ordered him to come to Kompong Cham, to take direct command of the Krahom operatives, to infuse the nationalistic movement with a sense of urgency. Over the years, the Krahom had patiently built an extensive network of spies and proselytizers, yet here, in ten days of post-coup strain—ten days in which the NVA and the Khmer Viet Minh had overtly taken control of fully forty percent of the country, contested thirty percent and threatened what remained—even his closest and most trusted agents were cracking, turning.
Met Sar surveyed the agents with cool passion. A third, mostly older men, wore net masks to keep their identities secret; a third, mostly young men and women, stood boldly; a third, mostly boys trained on Pong
