Rebels of Mindanao (29 page)

Within the triangle, Ali was up quickly when the firing started and bolted out of his tent, having slept in his clothing; as all of his men did,
and he moved toward the sounds of the action. He found many of his undisciplined collection of fighters moving around in disarray instead of proceeding deliberately to their positions—just what Colonel Liu had counted on. Kumander Ali tried to rally them by shouting “Allah Akbar!” and firing a rifle burst into the air, but that only added to their confusion.

With A Company withdrawn, Captain Bautista's company moved forward and fired at will from their positions directly into the general area of Ali's flank as his fighters headed west, bunched together and illuminated by the morning sun, now risen and outlining them from behind. Again, as Liu had expected, many of the rebels turned to face the direction from which the new firing was coming, some throwing themselves down into the wet grass in fear, others courageously moving toward the fire, and some disenchanted recruits simply escaping all the commotion by disappearing into the jungle and starting a long walk home. Overall, the initial fighting succeeded in getting the NPA to move around, aimless and dispersed.

Three minutes after they began firing, Bautista's men paused, reloaded, and moved forward in line, now taking aimed shots. The disorganized NPA soldiers were obvious targets, picked off easily. Ali did not know which way to retreat and had difficulty communicating with the scattered groups. By default, not knowing what else to do, they held their positions, and the fighting continued, but were not effective in their own defense.

Rather than have many of his men wounded or killed, Liu radioed Captain Bautista to withdraw to the west and then to turn south as planned, regroup, and move back into defensive positions along the east-west road, next to Agustin's company, which had already returned. Bautista acknowledged and marched back to camp in good order, his troops showing new discipline and the great satisfaction of victory as they headed back to where they had pulled out the night before. There they rejoined Captain Agustin's company, poised in its position in case the rebels pursued. They need not have worried; the entire enemy camp was in disarray.

In the battle for the triangle, Liu's force had taken only five casualties, two dead and three with minor wounds from lucky hits made by the
NPA in their confusion, while sixty-two NPA had been killed and perhaps over a hundred more wounded. Liu was sure of the exact number killed; one of his patrols found their bodies the next day stacked in an abandoned pile and counted them before the final report of enemy KIA was filed. Liu could have exploited his victory and killed even more of the insurgents, but, politically, it was better to have only a few of his own to report dead, and after all, he would really be killing his own countrymen. But he wanted to get revenge for his defeat at Koronadal, not simply kill a bunch of half naked men, and women, fighting with knives and stolen guns. He wanted to engage the main NPA force, wherever they were assembling.

During the last minutes of firing before Captain Bautista's troops broke off contact, Ugly Maria got caught in the fire from the AFP infantry and was hit in the upper right arm with a small caliber bullet. It was painful, and after tying it up with a rag, she looked for someone to help her. But the loose collection of NPA groups had no medical contingent, so she had to do the best she could on her own. Some of the women around the camp looked at the wound, which was still bleeding, pumping regularly spaced spurts. But Maria did not belong with the other women; she was a fighter. And she did not belong with the fighters; she was a woman. With the fighting still going on, she was not missed when she staggered off and sat down to rest near one of the rivers.

The next morning when she was found, her body had bloated to the point that it was hard to tell whether it was that of a man or a woman. In death, Ugly Maria was regarded with much the same ambiguity as she had been in life. The new recruit who found the body didn't know what to do with his discovery and rather than make work for himself or someone else, he covered it with a stack of loose, green vegetation, to let nature and the scavengers of the rain forest consume the remains.

I
n the windless night, rain was falling straight down in buckets. It had started a few hours before, a heavy rain indicating that a front was moving in. It was not going to be a quick shower. Elaiza was crouched low, under a small canvas sheet that was too small to keep her dry, but let her observe. Thornton was pushed in tight beside her as they saw an NPA patrol moving from left to right only twenty meters in front of them.

“What direction are they headed?” Elaiza asked.

“They're pushing northeast through the brush,” Thornton told her. “Let's do a map check,” and he took out his compass and crumpled, moist map. “They're making a path that will bring them directly into Itig village after they cross the Banga and the main highway. If this is the Abu Sayaf patrol with the Turk and the bags, it could be our chance.”

Thornton and Elaiza turned around and crawled on their stomachs toward Starke. Thornton signaled the STAGCOM team with hand movements to get down and not to move, and they stretched out in a line behind Starke, frozen in position. When Thornton reached Starke
he let him know, “There's movement along the trail, many of them, not the small patrol we followed before.”

“Shouldn't we let Colonel Liu know? He might have the chance to …”

“The hell with him. We have to let JUSMAG know. That's who we work for,” Thornton said. He would have liked to surprise the Abu Sayaf patrol, but he had the duty to keep Hargens informed. “Elaiza, make some techno noise.”

Elaiza stood up and walked in a perpendicular line away from the direction the enemy patrol was headed, making one step to the right at the end. “Should I draw the circle?” she asked, the request for a fire mission from JUSMAG.

“No,” Thornton answered her. “We only have to tell Hargens where they are: we can get them ourselves.”

Elaiza cocked her ear toward the trail the NPA were making. “I hear movement,” she told him. “There's another group passing now, bigger than the first and talking loudly, speaking a dialect I don't understand.”

“They're all escaping from the triangle. Liu must have attacked them. Damn him, he attacked too soon,” Thornton concluded.

“Look at the map, Elaiza.” Elaiza shared her scrap of canvas with Thornton again to protect the map as she studied it.

“It's a clever escape route; Task Force Davao won't know about their move.”

“This messes up our chance to surprise them. Liu's already alerted them.” Starke said a bit too loudly.

“I know.” Thornton tried to get Starke to speak quietly, and to show by example he whispered from under the canvas cover. “We have to work with what we have. Our embassy needs to have up-to-date intelligence. They can pass it on to Liu, or not, as they please. Hargens expects me to report any and all current information. It's part of my deal.”

“How many men have you counted so far?” Thornton asked Elaiza.

“Over a hundred.”

“Then you were right before. This is not the Abu Sayaf hit squad that took the radio station; it's part of the main force. The entire NPA army is on the move.”

“Let's pull back a few more meters; we don't want to be seen,” Starke recommended. “We're way outnumbered.”

“Yeah, but not for that reason. We don't know where the Turk is. This would all be useless if we didn't get him and the two bags.”

Pedro, dripping, moved up to them and looked to Elaiza for some sign of what to do. He had also seen and heard the movement of the patrol. She put her finger to her lips, and he propped himself against a fallen palm tree trunk.

“The NPA are retreating after their defeat,” Thornton concluded, “they're not looking for a fight right now, they're making a lot of noise, and their heads are hanging down in this pouring rain.”

“Looks like they're moving their main force to the radio station in Itig, right?” Starke asked.

“Logical. They'll regroup there around it. Itig is easy for the NPA units from the north and east to get to, as they build strength,” Thornton said.

“From the map, it looks like a good choice.” Elaiza studied the wet map with Thornton, took out her iPod and verified the data. “Rather than stay trapped in the triangle, they can defend Itig village. If they have to retreat out of there, they could withdraw in any direction if they have to; there's jungle all around Itig.”

The STAGCOM members settled down, waiting for Thornton to decide what to do next. Killing time, he said to Starke, “Know what I like about this rain?”

“You have to be kidding, like what?” Starke said, water dripping off his Oakland A's baseball cap.

“No, I'm not kidding. When it rains like this, mosquitoes can't fly.”

“Not at this moment, thank God, but watch them as soon as it stops.”

“Then let's get moving now.” Thornton got himself together. “Liu's preemptive attack changes things. Our embassy will pass on location info to him from Elaiza's data, but he won't know it's the NPA main force pulling out of the Isulan triangle; he's probably still planning on wiping them out there.”

“And I bet he doesn't know how many more of them there are now,” Elaiza said.

“Quiet. Look, another group is moving forward. At this rate, they'll get a thousand men into Itig in a day,” Thornton said.

“Let's get out of here. We won't be able to get to the money carrier this way. We don't know which group has it, but one of them must. We
have to get to Itig before Liu messes up again. After we have the cash he can have his way with them.” Thornton put away his equipment and STAGCOM changed direction. Soaked through to the skin and feeling heavy from their wet clothing and gear, they moved south and then circled around to advance parallel with the NPA route, both columns heading directly for Itig village.

STAGCOM took all night to get into position near Itig, and they were tired when they saw the village before them at dawn. Thornton had kept them moving by pointing to Elaiza and asking Pedro, “Are all Manobo women like her?” He knew her example would inspire the Otazas.

“No, she is unusual even for one of us.” Pedro answered with pride.

“You'll all have your chance soon enough to do something unusual.” Thornton said, wanting to take action before they all passed out from exhaustion. He gave Pedro an encouraging slap on the back and turned to Starke.

“I'm going to try to get in close and see what I can spot with my binoculars. I'll take Elaiza and Pedro with me to recon; you stay here with the other Otazas, I don't want too many of us moving at once. We've got to find out where those bags are, then maybe we can get them before Kumander Ali spends all that cash.”

With that, Thornton, Elaiza and Pedro moved forward toward Itig.

T
he New Peoples Army camp at Itig had continued to grow with more warriors and their entourages arriving. They heard on their radios the “Call to Prayer” being announced by Radio Free Mindanao. The faithful of the village and the ever more numerous transients loitering along the main street put their abaca cloths on the ground or on the wooden floors inside the huts and bowed toward Mecca. From the single mosque in the community the mullahs chanted their rhythmical prayers in their best imitation of Arabic, and for this moment, differing views were compromised and all were united as they prayed together for a free Muslim nation. All else was momentarily quiet in the armed camp of the mujahadeen in Mindanao.

After his prayers, walking through the village to stretch his limbs, Mahir saw two women standing in front of the shacks, wearing chadors of inconspicuous neutral colors. Something in their bearing was foreign to the place. The two women seemed taller and more graceful than the
others, and were not mingling. As he approached, they moved into the street to pass near him, and the first whispered in English, “Sheik Kemal says your family is safe. They have received the transfer.” Continuing, she added after an almost imperceptible pause and with a slight lilt to her voice, “And perhaps you will be with us again, if you wish.” The second shrouded female form pressed a small cloth bag into his hand as she floated by. Mahir knew not to look more closely at them, but after the two figures were out of sight, he opened the bag and examined its contents. Inside was a very small chip of jade and one white jasmine blossom. Sheik Kemal had reached out to him and confirmed what Lateef had reported about the electronic transfer of his reward. Mahir knew that whatever happened from now on, his family would be provided for. The feminine contact and brief touching of a hand also excited him with anticipation for a possible return visit to the second floor chamber in Digos.

Women who were permanent residents of the village remained inside if they had a place with an inside. The women who had followed their men from other regions to join the movement stayed hidden within their personal tents, their chadors, the shapeless cloth sacks that covered female bodies from head to ankle. Some of the wives did not cover themselves effectively, the mullahs reported, because they did not own enough cloth; or at least they used that excuse when the temperatures rose near 100 degrees. Naked arms were exposed and sometimes more than just their eyes could be seen through the slits in the headscarves.

Aldrin Bumbog, chief of the original NPA faction, left the shade of the command post when he saw Mahir walking along the street and moved near him to engage in conversation. The two had spoken only a few words in their brief prior meetings. To break the ice, he asked the Turk, “Do you have wives back in your homeland?”

“Yes, I have a wife, and my first son. You must understand, my country is Muslim, but a modern, progressive Muslim nation. In Turkey, men are allowed only one wife under our laws.”