In fact, right at the entrance itself, you see it. Instead of cars, the porch is lined with hearse vans and ambulances. Instead of liveried doormen, there are policemen, members of rescue teams. All wearing surgical masks and gloves.

In the flurry of bodies being carried out on stretchers and luggage of rescued guests being wheeled out, I slip in, unnoticed. What my colleagues and I had watched all day long, from a perch of our newsroom in Express Towers, located right across, is now up close.

If you, for a moment, ignore the granite floors and the gleam of brass, newly polished, the lobby resembles a camp ravaged. The front desk is heaped with cartons of plastic food trays and crates of Coke cans. After more than 40 hours of trigger-alert tension, Army commandos sit on couches. Across the concierge desk, NSG commandos are sprawled on sofas. They sit, ringed by rubble, by empty Coke cans and heaps of their security paraphernalia, from trunk-sized ammunition boxes to cases of what appear to be lighting flares.

But what strikes you is the quantity of shattered glass, the shards that carpet the floor. The front windows, with a view of the Arabian Sea, are smashed. You can see Mumbai’s third longest night right outside. The glass doors leading to the once-bustling Opium Bar are riddled with bullet marks. An overpowering stench floats down from the mezzanine above.

The staircase that connects the Trident to the Oberoi Hotel has commandos still running up and down. While one heavily armed NSG contingent is preparing to leave the hotel, their sniffer dogs in tow, Army commandos are moving up to inspect the upper floors. One medical team climbs down, all masks firmly in place. “Nine bodies are still lying on the floors above,” says one paramedic.

Even in this setting, the Oberoi staff display exemplary grace. Executive Vice President Devendra Bharma, busy in a conversation, perhaps with relatives of the guests, steps forward to help. He brings me a hotel note pad and a pencil so that I can take notes. “It will take a long, long time for us to repair and reconstruct everything. Because of grenade bursts and gunfire, the roofs have caved in, fires are breaking out, railings have been uprooted,” he says.

Pointing to the bullet marks on the doors of the Opium bar he says, “That is one place where militants chased our staff with automatic guns and killed them on the spot.” Ten members of the staff and around 20 hotel guests were killed during the armed siege, he says.

But others in the hotel say this could be a conservative estimate. Hotel security staff, who have not gone home since Wednesday night, say 26 bodies have been taken out. For the others, thea wait for the next of kin goes on.

Earlier, the sight of a couple holding hands, their bodies stiffened by rigor mortis at least 30 hours after they died, was one of the few things that rose above this stench. “In their last seconds together, one must have squeezed the other’s hand,” said one of the members of a team of politicians and policemen who accompanied Home Minister R R Patil into the Oberoi.

The policemen doing panchnamas inside fought nausea, he said. “There were 13 bodies in one small area where there was a restaurant,” he said, “plus more bodies elsewhere.”

An Oberoi employee recounted seeing a terrorist shoot a guest point blank, in his chest, because he had hurt him accidentally while performing a chore for the terrorist. “The terrorist had asked the guest to light a fire for something. While lighting the fire, the guest accidentally singed him. The terrorist got enraged, killed the guest,” said the employee.

As I step outside, an NSG contingent is loading its guns and equipment in an Army truck. Some commandos are munching apples, others look more drained than relieved. “t was a difficult operation, thae hotel was so large. Now we are glad it is over,” says one of them.

Their truck rolls out.

The space it vacates on the porch is quickly taken by a hearse. It will have to wait since the body of terror victim, Uma Garg, is being slowly brought down from her room on the 19th floor.

(inputs by Kavitha Iyer and Shashanl Shekhar)