Chapter 12 — The Journey of the Missing Bronze Drum

This time Diem did not have an appointment. She arrived at Hoai Co Duong in the middle of the afternoon, alone, leaving Hai waiting in the car parked a short distance away — deciding they should discuss it carefully before leaving: a private conversation, without the appearance of formal interrogation, might get Ta Bach Son to open up more than a meeting with a minutes.

He came out to greet her in the lobby, still maintaining his familiar warm expression, but Diem noticed a moment of caution cross his face when he saw her arriving alone, without warning.

"Diem, I didn't expect you to visit so unexpectedly." He invited her into the old living room, where the black and white photo of Vinh Sa port still hung in the corner of the wall.

"I'm sorry for not telling you in advance," Diem said, sitting down but not accepting the cup of tea he offered, a deliberate way of keeping distance. "But I think it's time we talk frankly, Mr. Son."

Before getting down to business, she briefly told about the tracking car, about the positioning device mounted under her car, and about the strange warning message she received a few days ago. She watched his reaction closely as she told it—not to accuse, but to see if the information was new to him, or if he already knew it.

Ta Bach Son's face turned pale. "They followed you too?" There was genuine panic in his voice, a reaction that was difficult to fully fake. "I... I didn't know about that."

"Who are 'they', sir?" Diem asked immediately, not missing the moment he just blurted out.

He didn't answer right away, just clasped his hands on his knees, his knuckles turning white.

His eyes momentarily hardened. "Frank about what?"

"About the certificate of origin form in your file, used for a batch of lacquer paintings three years ago," she said, without beating around the bush. "The notary seal on it bears the code of an office that was dissolved a year before the file was created. The notary's signature is a forgery, signed on behalf of a deceased person. I don't think you didn't know this when you showed me that file yourself."

The room fell silent for a long while. Ta Bach Son put down the cup of tea, slowly, his hand, for the first time since Diem met him, trembled slightly and could not hide it.

"You investigated carefully," he said finally, his voice losing much of its usual confidence.

"That's my job." Diem kept her eyes straight on him, not avoiding him. "Do you want to explain?"

He sat up straight and took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for something he had avoided saying for years. "Can you give me a few minutes? I need to organize my thoughts. This is not something I can tell in a few sentences."

Diem nodded, waiting silently, letting him find his own rhythm. She learned this from many years of working: sometimes silence has more weight than any pressing questions, forcing the other person to fill it with the truth they are trying to suppress.

Ta Bach Son stood up, walked to the window, turned his back to her for a moment, looking out at the small garden behind the villa. When he turned around, his face was different — no longer the face of a confident collector, but the face of a man who had carried a heavy burden for too long.

"That document," he said, his voice hoarse, "I did not forge it myself. It was given to me, complete, by someone I have known for a long time. I just needed to sign my gallery's name on the guarantee, certifying that I had examined and believed in the authenticity of the item."

"Who gave you that file?"

He was silent for a long time, long enough for Diem to feel the internal struggle going on behind his eyes.

"I can't say the name right now," he said, his voice almost pleading. "Not because I want to protect someone, but because... there are consequences I'm not ready to face if I speak out."

"Mr. Son," Diem said, her voice softened a bit, trying to find an opening to approach the truth instead of pressing. "I didn't come here to immediately accuse you. I came because I believe, based on everything I know about you from my volunteer work over the years, that you are not the mastermind of a ruthless smuggling ring. But remaining silent now will make you look exactly like that in the eyes of the law, even though the truth is much more complicated."

Ta Bach Son sat down on the opposite chair, holding his head with both hands for a moment. When he looked up, his eyes were red, although no tears had fallen.

"Do you know why I spend my life donating, supporting museums, trying to be a 'patriot' in the eyes of collectors?" he asked, his voice choked. "It's not because I'm rich and want to do charity for fun. It's the only way I know to redeem something I can't change."

"Redeem for what?"

He looked towards the black and white photo hanging on the wall, his distant eyes as if looking through it to a very distant time.

"My father," he said, "used to work at Vinh Sa port. He died when I was young, leaving me with not only the pain of losing my father, but also a debt I didn't know existed until I was an adult, had my own career, and had built a trustworthy name in the world."

Diem felt her heart beat slowly, a feeling of both nervousness and heaviness, as if she was standing on the threshold of a truth that had been buried for too long.

"What kind of debt?" she asked, her voice quiet.

He stood up, went to the glass cabinet displaying a few heirlooms in the corner of the room, opened a small drawer below, and took out a paper envelope that had yellowed over time. He held it in his hand for a moment, as if considering it one last time, then gave it to Diem.

"This is the only thing my father left behind besides that photo," he said. "I found it in his belongings many years after he passed away, hidden in the bottom of a wooden chest that my mother never opened because she was so heartbroken. I read it when I was thirty-two, right before opening this gallery."

Diem held the envelope, not opening it yet, just looking at him, waiting for an explanation.

"It's a letter my father wrote but hadn't sent it yet," Ta Bach Son continued, his voice trembling even more. "In it, he admitted that he had assisted, although not entirely voluntarily, in a ring that smuggled antiques out of the port for many years, when he was still a warehouse manager. He wrote that he wanted to stop, wanted to report, but was afraid of getting too deeply involved, afraid of the consequences for the whole family if he did so. He died not long after writing that letter, in a traffic accident that I'm still not sure was actually an accident or not."

Diem squeezed the envelope in her hand, the disparate pieces in her head began to rotate in a new order, more terrifying than she imagined.

Ta Bach Son looked straight at her, and in that moment, Diem realized he was about to say something that would completely change the direction of this investigation.

"The kind of debt," he said, "that those who hold it believe I will have to pay for life, at whatever price they demand."

"Who are those people?" Diem asked, placing the envelope on the table but still holding her hand on it, as if afraid it would disappear if she let go. "Can you explain more clearly?"

Ta Bach Son rubbed his face with both hands, an extremely tired gesture. "A few years after I opened the gallery, when my work started to get a little famous, someone came to me and introduced himself as an old acquaintance of my father. That person knew all the details about my father's past at Vinh Sa port, and knew things that my mother and I had never known. That person asked me to do a small favor - just sign a guarantee of origin for an item, in exchange for a large sum of money and a promise to 'keep my family's past secret forever'. I refused. the first time. But that person came back, this time not with an offer, but with a reminder that if the story about my father were to be exposed, not only would my reputation collapse, but also the donations and relationships I had worked so hard to build with the museum world would all be seen in a completely different light — as a calculated bribe of trust, not genuine goodwill."

"So you agree."

"I agree," he admitted, his voice full of regret. "I tell myself it's just one file at a time, one small help at a time, and I can still continue to do other good things to balance it out. I know, it sounds ridiculous and cowardly to say it. But I've lived with that fear for so long that it's become a normal part of my life, like a tax I have to pay to be at peace."

Diem looked at him with mixed emotions between professional indignation and a reluctant sympathy that she did not expect she could have for someone who had just confessed to being complicit in the ring she was pursuing. "The person who contacted you, do you know his real name?"

"Never real name. Only a first name in rare contact, always over the phone, never in person after the first time." He looked up at her, his eyes filled with both fear and relief of someone who had just let go of a burden that had been on his shoulders for too long. "They call that person Van."