The metal door hit the concrete floor with a heavy thud that echoed down the empty alley.

I hooked the heavy steel padlock through the latch and turned the key until the lock’s inner tumbler clicked shut.

The brass bell over the consulate’s heavy wooden door rang once as I came in out of the rain on Michigan Avenue.

The waiting room smelled of floor wax and old paper, and six high-backed wooden chairs stood in a row along a paneled wall.

Behind the bulletproof glass partition, a clerk in a dark blue blazer took a manila file folder from a metal desk tray.