This sees a resurrected Miko, with Isabella (Bella), his new girlfriend and saviour in hand, travelling through Asia to Paris.
Miko is hatching a plan to return to Saigon via Bangkok to retrieve what he believes are priceless works of art. A perilous plan is hatched and put into action. Saigon’s post-war paranoia and Bangkok’s seedy underworld nearly undo them both.
Isabella discovers her attraction to young Asian girls, kinky sex and heroin. Miko’s cover story gets exposed in Vietnam, but he is aided by a double agent who now hates the communists. Upon his return, he has to deal with the Thai mafia, who have taken Bella captive to be sold as a sex slave. Miko trades a priceless work of art for both their lives, then returns to Paris. Bella needs a change of pace and seeks out her roots in Italy. A chance meeting allows Miko to enter the dangerous underworld of forged art. Their once envied ‘power couple’ lives implode from selfishness, chasing uncompleted destinies and dark, very dark, nightmarish pasts. Isabella becomes a dominatrix at a Paris brothel. Miko is now part of an underground art mafia dealing in real fakes and priceless artworks of dubious provenance. They are now both addicts and living apart. In 1985, the author turns up in Paris to interview Bao Dai for a 10-year reflection on the war’s end. He finds out Miko and Isabella are both there. Bao Dai warns him to be careful. These are not the people he knew 10 years ago. He goes to see Miko. He finds him down and depressed, and hiding his new life from the Author. Still worried about being caught and recognised. He is on a downward spiral. He goes to Bella, and she fills in the story. He goes back and confronts Miko again, who then threatens to kill him. Then, as a final act of defiance, Miko overdoses. Both the author and Bella are shattered. Bella shows her generosity and love as a parting gift to the author.