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sometimes had when we were a three-pointer away from winning in the basketball league matches where I captained for MIT. And most of the time they didn’t work, I reminded myself grimly.
    Everyone stared at me.
    ‘A map of the area? Come on, quick, somebody must have one.’
    A young, sharp-looking brunette handed me a crumpled map.
    ‘Sam, hand me the guidebook,’ I said hurriedly.
    ‘What?’ he asked, looking dazed.
    ‘Pull yourself together, will you?’ I snapped. ‘Get the Cambodian travel guide out of your backpack.’
    He rummaged through his bag and handed me the guide with trembling hands. I thumbed through the pages quickly and found the address I was looking for. I tried to find it on the map, suddenly irritated with myself for refusing to go to the jungle reconnaissance training my father had wanted me to attend.
    ‘I’m not even joining the army,’ I had whined. ‘Do I need a map to find my way around the school cafeteria?’
    Despite being a strict disciplinarian, he had relented that once, although now I wished he had forced me as he had for the Himalayan mountain survival course and the marathon training.
    ‘There is one way if we can figure it out, I think,’ I said as I struggled with the map.
    I looked up to see thirty pairs of petrified eyes fixed on me. ‘We should head out to our respective embassies immediately. If we are lucky, there’s still a chance they will be safe zones.’
    They continued to stare at me with the same dazed expression, until the German spoke.
    ‘That’s an idea,’ he said excitedly. ‘Are the embassies close to where we are?’
    ‘I can’t read this map,’ I said. I turned to Sam for help but one look at his white, petrified face, and I knew I would have to look elsewhere. ‘Is anybody good with maps?’
    No one moved for a while until the PhD student stepped forward.
    ‘I can help,’ he said, kneeling down beside me to study the map. ‘I know Phnom Penh quite well.’
    The German guy quickly broke away from the group. ‘Let’s divide into groups quickly, shall we?’ he said authoritatively. He took the guidebook from my hand. ‘I’m calling out the names of the countries that have embassies listed here. Just stand with your group, okay?’
    Suddenly, I felt calm. We needed to treat this like a soccer match against a powerful opponent or like a tough mathematical regression problem. If we worked together and used our heads, we had a fighting chance to get out of this.
    ‘USA,’ the German called out.
    Nearly three-fourths of the group raised their hands.
    ‘Collect there,’ he said, pointing to one corner of the airport. Folks huddled together, shivering despite the hot Cambodian summer, staring out the window at the rapidly advancing procession. They were barely a hundred metres away now, and the loud hoots of the boy soldiers outside could be heard as clearly as the subdued voices of the hippies inside the airport. The PhD student and I busied ourselves with the map as the German went through the list quickly.
    ‘Britain.’
    ‘France.’
    ‘Germany.’
    ‘Brazil.’
    ‘Thailand.’
    ‘Philippines.’
    ‘Malaysia.’
    Within seconds, he had exhausted the entire list of embassies that appeared in the guidebook, even as we managed to figure the route out. I looked up to see just one person unassigned: Sam.
    The German checked the list again. No Indian embassy. I was an American citizen thanks to NASA’s quick processing of my citizenship application, but General Electric hadn’t processed Sam’s application as yet. Sam turned a shade whiter, if that was at all possible.
    ‘We’ll go to the American embassy,’ I told him gently as I joined him. ‘We are students, so we should be good.’
    He nodded, still looking dumbstruck as we walked over to the American group.
    ‘Where are you from?’ the German asked the PhD student.
    ‘I am Ishmael from Estonia,’ he said calmly.
    The German looked at the list again. ‘No Estonian