Countdown: H Hour (3 page)

Tears began to flow again as Paloma cried out, “Oh, Aida, what the hell am I going to
do
?”

It took quite some time—hours, it seemed like, to the policewoman—to calm the stricken Mrs. Ayala down.

“I can make a phone call,” Aida said. “Our own people won’t get your husband back alive; you know our track record with these things is very mixed. And you have to be prepared that the people who have Lucio are going to do some vile things to pressure you to pay when the time comes.”

“I couldn’t stand it,” Paloma admitted, then asked, “A phone call to whom?”

Aida chewed her lower lip, answering, “A former . . . associate. He’s with an . . . organization that specializes in these things. So far their track record is good. But they don’t come cheaply. Fair, yes. Cheap? No.”

“It can cost everything I—
we
—own, so long as it gets my husband back in my bed, healthy and safe.”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Aida said. “You know it’s possible one—maybe more than one—of your own children is in on this. You can’t let them . . . ”

“Why do you think I insisted on meeting
here
,” Mrs. Ayala said. “I already
know
that much. Make your call.”

“Okay,” Aida agreed. “It will be a couple of days, though. I’ve got to gather some information first. Hopefully, too, the people who’ve grabbed Lucio will identify themselves and make an initial ransom demand. The more solid information on the threat that I can pass on to my contact the more likely they’ll take the contract.”

CHAPTER THREE

Happy, peaceful Philippines . . .

—Anonymous, “Damn, damn, damn the Filipinos”

“Lawyers, Guns, and Money” (SCIF), Camp Fulton, Guyana

Officially it was called “the SCIF,” the Special Compartmentalized Information Facility. Despite the name, it never had seen and in all probability never would see anything officially classified as “Special Compartmentalized Information,” since the regiment and corporation didn’t use the designation and the combat units the United States rotated through Camp Fulton would never reveal anything that deeply classified in what amounted to a foreign installation.

Even so, it looked like a SCIF, with thick concrete roof and walls, half buried under ground, covered with jungle growth, and impervious to electronic penetration. It was also surrounded by barbed wire and permanently guarded, inside and out. And, if it never held any official special compartmented information, it held all the regiment’s and corporation’s secrets. These tended to fluctuate around legal work, procurement, sales, and contracting, which is to say, money. Hence the unofficial but common name, “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”

Before the visitor hit any of those offices, however, down a narrow side corridor leading from the wide central one, was the office of Ralph Boxer, retired Air Force two star, and de facto chief of staff for M Day, Incorporated.

In that office, on the wall behind Boxer’s desk, was a poster, a copy of the famous painting by Leutze of “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” The caption underneath said, “Americans. We will cross an icy river to kill you in your sleep. On Christmas.” Beneath the poster, sitting at his desk, Boxer, an older man, grayed but not balding, spoke into a telephone.

“You finally ready to take me up on that offer, Aida?” asked Ralph Boxer, Executive Officer and practical Chief of Staff of M Day, Incorporated.

“Not hardly,” answered the voice on the phone. The English was accented, but crisp and clear. “Ralph . . . I’ve got a problem . . . I think
we’ve
got a problem . . . that’s pretty much in your line of work.”

“Are you on a secure line?” Boxer asked.

“No, but I bought a throwaway cell phone and enough credits to call you. You’ll have to call me back before we get cut off. No one’s tracking this one, if that’s your concern.”

Boxer thought,
She’s never been given to panic . . . but there’s something that sounds a lot like panic in her voice.
“Your number’s not showing on my caller ID,” he said. “Give it to me; I’ll call you back directly.”

“I’ll bring it to the boss and the regimental council,” Boxer agreed, “but I’ve got to tell you, honey, that I’m going to recommend against. We’ve got a problem here—coming soon, too—that no amount of money can buy us out of. Frankly, we can’t spare—at least we can’t be sure of being able to spare—the force.

“And, no, I’m not just setting this up to drive a harder bargain.”

The voice on the other end didn’t answer for a minute. When Aida spoke, she said, “Well . . . ask your boss to consider the amount of trouble there’ll be for you and everybody if the worst sort of barbarian—these are the
Harrikat
, Ralph! Even
Abu Sayyaf
considers them vile—gets hold of the kind of money Ayala’s ransom would bring.”

Abu Sayyaf was a different Moro group; and noted, itself, for extreme measures and inhuman ruthlessness.

“Doesn’t really change anything, Aida,” Boxer replied. “We’ve still got a major problem of our own, right here and now. Who did you say grabbed Ayala? And how much are they demanding?”

Terminal One, Ninoy Aquino International Airport,

Republic of the Philippines

It was nearly the hottest part of the local day. Air conditioned or not, Terminal One was muggy, the air thick with dampness and the cloying aroma of a sea of sweaty humanity. One of three international terminals, and one of two that also served carriers other than the Philippines’ own airline, the terminal was also the oldest of the lot and showed its age in ways both plain and subtle.

Terry Welch—ex-U.S. Army Special Forces and currently Major commanding Company A, Second Battalion, M Day, Inc.—passed customs, then moved to a fairly open spot in the jostling human sea to wait for Lox. Big, even for an American, Terry towered over the tide of Asiatics passing him to either side.

An elderly, gray-haired woman, lightweight business suit-clad, and sprightly for all of her gray, walked up and asked, “Terry?” Her mildly slanted, deep brown eyes looked both terribly inquisitive and also very intelligent. If she had any wrinkles on her café au lait skin, they were tolerably hard to see.

“Yes, ma’am,” Terry answered, inclining his head respectfully. He already recognized Aida Farallon from his final briefing with Boxer. “I’m waiting for my—”

“Here, Terry,” Lox announced. He’d started with the regiment as a sergeant, but now was rated and paid as a warrant officer. He handed Welch a cell phone purchased from one of the airport concessions. Then he turned to the woman, gave a short but polite bow of his head, and said, “
Magandang tanghali po
.”

Aida cocked her head and smiled, saying, “Ralph told me one of you would speak Filipino with an almost perfect accent.”

“With all due respect, Ma’am,” Lox answered, “my accent
is
perfect for certain parts of Luzon.”

Aida considered that. Indeed, she seemed to be running through a cerebral file. At length, and not a very long length, she agreed, “Aurora, I think.”

“Ooo, you’re good,” Lox admitted. Then he turned head and eyes away from Aida to focus on something in the middle distance.

“Eh?” Aida shrugged. “Been around. Cop for better’n twenty years, doncha know? Still keep my hand in a bit, too.”

“Where now, ma’am?” Terry asked.

The old woman scowled. “Just call me ‘Aida.’ And now we go collect your bags. After that, I’m taking you to see the victim’s wife. And
right
after that, I’m out of your lives. Because, at heart, I’m
still
a cop, and I don’t want to have the first clue about what you’re doing, lest I feel duty bound to interfere.”

Aida’s eyes locked on Lox who, instead of moving, was standing stock still with his eyes still focused in the distance. She followed his gaze to a suited man, his face ornately tattooed, apparently just off a plane and waiting impatiently for someone or something.

“TCS,” she announced. “True Cinnamon Siblings. Use to be True Cinnamon Sisters, but then they took on men to add some muscle. And, yes, those titles are in English. There’s a reason for that; the gang, just like the Salvadoran MS-13, didn’t start here, but in the states, in TCS’s case in San Diego, California. They got their start in the States, got deported, and set up in business here. Big in prostitution. Medium in drugs. Heavy into kidnapping. They
own
a chunk of the city; the police won’t even go in there anymore and the politicians won’t let the army loose to clean it up.”

“Like parts of Europe, with the Muslims?” Lox asked.

“Sort of,” Aida agreed. “But they’re not Muslim. To the extent they’re anything, I suppose they’re Catholic . . . or maybe Christian Animist. Or maybe some kind of heresy I’ve never heard of. But Muslim they definitely are not.

“What’s bothering you?” she asked. “The tattoos? I’m not sure what they mean—can’t read the code in any detail—but I’d guess he’s pretty high up in their chain of command.”

Lox shook his head. “It’s not the tattoos,” he whispered. “He’s packing. He just got off a commercial
airplane
and he’s packing.”

Aida looked a bit below the tattooed face and shrugged. “Yeah, he’s packing. Go figure: Filipino carrier and I’m sure he got himself enrolled as a reservist in our equivalent of the States’ Sky Marshal program. No surprise. Maybe some money but no surprise.

“They call themselves a nation and they’re serious about it,” she said. “They’re their own nation, in us but not of us. And why not? They judge. They tax. They police . . . in the area they control they police better than regular police did. But they recognize no obligations to the rest of us. Citizenship is something they use when they get caught outside their own area to try to keep out of jail, a pure one-way street. Beyond it, being a Filipino means nothing to them.”

Lox sighed and said, “
Sic transit
Nussbaum?”

“Huh? Nussbaum?” Aida asked.

“An academic and cosmopolitan philosopher of a few years back,” Lox explained. “Among other things, she insisted that the logic of nationalism and patriotism required the drawing of ever narrower circles of in and out groups. Seemed incapable of observing that, in the real world beyond her brainpan, it’s the breakdown of nations that causes people to fall back to ever narrower circles, while nations have so far proven the only thing—besides religion—capable of creating larger circles of acceptance. Silly woman tried to reason with a mob once, during the Great Chicago Ipad-9 riots. They tore her limb from limb.

“He”—Lox pointed with his chin at the tattooed TCS leader—“is an affront to and refutation of her world view. Then, too, so was the mob that killed her.”

Aida shrugged; the fantasies of the intellectual class interested her little. “I suppose,” she said, “based on some things that Ralph Boxer told me, that they’re a little like your organization that way.”

“No, ma’am . . . Aida,” Terry replied. “We’re both symptoms of breakdown, yes. But M Day is only a symptom, not a cause of the breakdown. And even there, we’re more like the fever that helps fight off disease. Large criminal gangs owing no duties to anybody outside of the gang? They’re both symptom
and
cause.”

“As are fuzzy minded intellectuals and academics,” Lox added.

Aida’s auto stopped on the same narrow, palm-lined street, not far from the gated gap in the hedges that led to Paloma’s meeting house. Through iron gates Terry had caught glimpses of small, but well-kept bungalows, many of them raised on thick stilts.

“Through that one,” Aida said, pointing with her chin as her hands were still tightly wrapped around the wheel. “Expect armed men on the other side, maybe three or four of them. Maybe only one or two, too. Expect to be frisked.”

Terry nodded, saying, “Thanks, ma . . . ummm . . . Aida.” Lox added in a Tagalog farewell in the polite form. From a shirt pocket Terry took out a thick envelope, which he handed over to the woman.

“What’s this?” she asked, a hint of indignation rising in her voice. Gnarled fingers bent the envelope a few times, then squeezed it experimentally. “I didn’t strong arm Boxer for money!”

“Officially,” Terry replied, “I don’t know. Unofficially, Boxer told me it was airfare to our base—Swiss Francs because who knows where the dollar is going—plus some, if you cared to join us someday. He said, ‘keep it, save it, use it when you feel the time is right.’ He said, too, to consider it a tentative signing bonus and that it would be subtracted from your real bonus if you actually did sign on with us. He also said that if there were some close relatives you thought might need a safe haven, then maybe a place could be found for some of them, too. Might be in a line battalion. Might be cutting grass. Or anything in between. But a place.”

Aida nodded somberly, thinking upon the benefits of having a secure bolt hole. “Well . . . maybe then,” she agreed. “We’ll see.” She passed over a computer disk, explaining, “That is a bill of particulars for every at-large Abu Sayyaf and al Harrikat operative and sympathizer I was able to extract from police files. Both, because you never can tell when someone’s going to switch over. There’s also an intelligence summary from the army in there, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it authoritative. There’s no difference in the level of fighting, after all, between a province we’ve cleared of the enemy and one we’ve abandoned. In any case, it’s free, not something Boxer paid me for.”

Both exited the car from the curb side. Lox dragged his bag after himself, dropped it to the street, then reached in to pull Welch’s out as well. The pair grabbed their bags, then walked to the gate. Aida’s small sedan was screeching a turn around the next corner even before they reached it.

There had only been two guards, both of them on the gate, when Lox and Welch walked through. They’d been polite enough, but also firm. Nobody was getting in to see Madame until and unless they were thoroughly searched.

Terry shrugged, saying, “Well, do your jobs then.”

As the guard squatted to finger Terry’s ankles, the American thought,
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.

Search completed, one of the bodyguards remained on the gate, securing it and likewise the bags. The other led them to the bungalow, up the broad wooden steps, and into a living room furnished in wicker and cooled—inadequately cooled—by a large overhead fan. Terry still had the disk given him by Aida safely stowed in one pocket.

“The two Kanos you were expecting, Madame,” the guard announced.

An old woman, wearing a printed silk dress and with a string of pearls precisely sized for her age and station, was seated on one of the wicker chairs with her legs demurely crossed. Above the pearls, on a simple gold chain, was a crucifix. Quality told; behind the wrinkles—and there were surprisingly few of those—was a bone structure that boasted a past of rare beauty.

She nodded and said, “Thank you, Pedro, that will be all until I summon you.” Her accent was pure New England. Her tone was pure command, as if by right.

“Yes, madame,” the guard agreed, with a polite bow of his head. He withdrew backwards, then disappeared out the front door.

“Please, gentlemen, be seated,” Mrs. Ayala said, indicating with a bejeweled hand a pair of wicker, padded chairs opposite her own. Terry thought the hand surprisingly youthful, if not precisely young. He also thought that the gold, rubies, emeralds and pearls detracted from that youthful appearance.

“Radcliffe?” Terry asked, as he took his seat.

“Mount Holyoke,” the woman answered, serenely. Weeping and shrieking time was over; this was business.

Terry nodded.
Old money. They’re different.