Rebound (26 page)

Dartley scowled. This domestic stuff was too much for him. When he had to work with others, it was easier for a loner to team
up with
other loners. When they dropped, you buried them where they fell and that was that. With regular people there were always
dependents or relatives, and with them came awkward questions. It always came as a big surprise to the families, who always
had believed the dead man had been away on “coastal surveys” or “looking for oil” or some other dumb story. Men never liked
to tell their loved ones that they might not be coming back, and probably they never believed it could really happen to them.

Time to go. They climbed aboard the plane. Purcell started the engine and said casually, “I don’t suppose you want to bother
radioing in a flight plan?”

Ruben Montova was in a cold, lingering rage. He had put a lot of time and money into Happy Man’s political maneuverings, and
he had a lot to lose if Velez lost out in his struggle for national power and status. If Happy Man was beaten, Montova could
still benefit greatly, since he would be seen as a loyal anticommunist who supported men with similar commitments. The only
real way for Ruben Montova to lose heavily in his association with Happy Man was if the latter grew soft on communism. Any
backroom deal with the NPA guerrillas had to be defined as a softened attitude. Montova had not expected Velez to crack this
easily. He was a man who had stood up to powerful generals like Bonifacio and more than held his own against them. Now here
he was, allowing himself to be intimidated by some country yokels who had learned how to clean an M16 but not behind
their ears. Normally he would have assumed that Happy Man was just playing games with them if it were not about this “black
cloud” stuff and seeing the old herbalist. This was where they were going now, much to Ruben’s disgust.

“I remember my father saying that old Apo used to go to Siquijor Island to the
tang-alap
during Holy Week every year. Of course, he’s been too old to go for a long time now. All the
mananambals
from all over the Viscayas and Mindanao gather there for the
tang-alap,
a very big ritual. They gather herbs from the forests, caves, and cemeteries, and form a circle around the material all night,
to give it all their collected powers. At dawn they divide it up among them. Now, a lot of these
mananambals
are black sorcerers. The people hereabouts hire the black sorcerers to harm their enemies through special insects and special
invocations called
magbabarang.
Ruben, I think this has been done to me.”

“I think your nerves are shot,” Ruben said, snapping at him. “You are beginning to lose your mind. The country people here
are ignorant and superstitious. But you are an educated man. I can hardly believe what I see happening to you before my eyes.
I warned you not to run away for the second time, to make a stand at Balbalasang. Instead you ran and hid here. Now you are
thinking of letting some farmyard communist bullies grab half of your estates while you whine about sorcerers putting curses
on you like a toothless old peasant woman. It’s time you took hold of yourself and ruthlessly struck back.”

Happy Man shook his head sadly. “Your reactions are entirely predictable, Ruben, and I don’t blame you for having them. I
know what all this must seem like to a rational person who believes in material progress, such as you. Yet, not even you can
deny that wherever I go, sudden attacks break out. Americans, Kalingas, NPA guerrillas… the sorcerer’s curse that I carry
with me is breathed by them into their brains and they go mad.”

“Later today I’m going to phone a psychologist I know at the University of the Philippines and have him fly down here for
a few days,” Ruben said.

“I’ll take him to meet Apo too,” Happy Man said fatalistically.

In spite of himself Ruben was curious. “Is this Apo a black sorcerer?”

“I don’t know. But everyone agrees that he is the most powerful
mananambal
in this area.
Mananambals
get into very intricate power games with one another, and the one who has the most
anting-anting
usually wins. I think Apo will be able to help me. Even if he can’t or won’t, he will be able to feel the presence of the
curse—maybe even show it to you.”

“He had better,” Ruben said. Then he got mean. “What if this Apo is the one hired to harm you in the first place? Won’t you
be putting yourself even more in his power by going to him?” Montova saw the look of deep panic on Happy Man’s face and instantly
realized to what extent this man’s mind was disturbed. Ruben was wasting his time confronting him while he was in this irrational
state—he
might even be making him worse. He would make that phone call today and tell the psychologist to bring a colleague, for a
second opinion. Ruben was beginning to get a terrible sinking feeling that his hero not only had feet of clay but also that
Happy Man’s head was rapidly turning into the same substance.

Their car and the jeep escorting them pulled up at a grove of coconut trees, many of them fallen and rotting, on the ground.
A bare patch of dirt before an old shack contained the rusted hulks of two pre-World War II cars, about fifty worn tires,
and dozens of black plastic plant pots bearing crude symbols in white paint and containing small herbs of various shapes.
The four guards left the jeep and looked around among the junk. One knocked at the door and waited a moment before going inside.

“You ever see these guards so respectful before, Ruben?” Happy Man asked. “They believe. They know better than to mess with
Apo.”

The guard came out of the shack and waved to the guard beside the driver. He got out and opened the door for them. The other
three guards stood at strategic points, their M16s leveled.

“If I make this deal with the NPA, I won’t have to live like this anymore on my own land,” Happy Man observed.

“Except you will never know which day the NPA will unilaterally decide to end your agreement by shooting you,” Ruben responded
drily.

“The NPA I can deal with. What I can’t
handle is this curse I am under. Let’s see what Apo can do about it.”

Ruben sighed and followed him across the junkyard to the shack. They both had to duck to get in the doorway. It was dim inside,
and it took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust before they saw the
mananambal.
He looked light and brittle as a fallen leaf, but his eyes were as bright, sharp, and wild as those of a fox. He said nothing,
and they said nothing to him. They watched him pour them tea with a shaking hand. The tea was incredibly bitter to taste,
and they loaded spoonfuls of brown sugar into their cups. The old man said something.

“What did he say?” Ruben asked.

“That this tea prevents stomach cramps.”

Ruben snorted and looked around him. He could now make out pictures tacked to the bamboo walls. They were mostly color photos
of flying saucers torn from magazines. “Have you seen any?” Ruben asked the old man in Tagalog.

“He doesn’t speak Tagalog or English, only Ilongo. I’ll ask him.” The old man spoke in a voluble monotone to Velez’s question,
and Velez translated: “He says he sees them all the time. They like to hover over churches. He thinks they may be recharging
their batteries. You can spot them by the light they give off, which is the same kind of light certain very powerful plants
give off.”

“I’m sorry I asked,” Ruben said.

They sat for a while more without saying anything. Ruben noticed a sweet, pleasant smell in the shack and hoped it wasn’t
something in the tea that was doing it to his mind. Unhurriedly
th
mananambal
reached behind him and brought out little bottles with glass stoppers. Some he put back unopened after looking at them for
a moment; others he partically emptied into a tiny heap in front of Velez and Montova, using the shake in his hand to trickle
dried flakes of leaf, seeds, and pieces of root and bark out of the bottlenecks.

“Tell him I don’t want any,” Ruben said.

Happy Man did, and he translated Apo’s reply. “He says you need it more than I do.”

“Let’s get out of here and back to the real world,” Ruben responded.

The old man said something. Happy Man translated: “He says you will see the real world soon enough.”

“I thought you said he didn’t understand Tagalog,” Ruben pointed out.

“He doesn’t.”

Ruben let it go. This folk superstition stuff was going too far. Apo went on issuing crumbly organic stuff in the two little
piles in front of them, and it bugged Montova to see that more was being added to his pile than Velez’s. Finally Happy Man
used his left hand to push his pile of plant pieces into his right palm. He motioned for Montova to do the same. Ruben shook
his head and got to his feet. Happy Man said nothing. He pressed a small roll of notes between the earthen pots and followed
Ruben to the door, not forgetting to duck his head as he went outside.

The sun blazing in the blue sky blinded them as they emerged from the dim hut. They blinked and looked in the direction of
a heavy truck
speeding toward the junkyard and raising a plume of gray dust. Eight men stood in the roofless back of the truck, leaning
their M16s on its wooden side. The rifles spat fire, and the four guards from the jeep twisted and fell without getting off
an answering shot. The driver and guard from the car threw themselves on the ground and were not hit. A few adults and children
who had gathered in the open space in front of the shack out of curiosity at Happy Man visiting the
mananambal
were not hit, either, although many of them made no effort to find cover.

Happy Man and Ruben were caught in the open, halfway across the yard, when they saw the guards cut down by the rifle fire
from the passing truck. The truck skidded almost to a stop, and two shots were fired into Ruben Montova’s chest as he stood
less than a meter from Happy Man’s side. Happy Man could have caught him before he fell to the ground, but instead, like everyone
else, he stood and stared as Ruben took a few stiff steps forward like a man on stilts. He put his right hand out in front
of his face and tried to say something. No words come from his mouth, stifled by a ribbon of crimson blood that gushed out
and down over his chin and onto his shirt and pants. Then he fell down, as lifeless as a sack of rice, nose first into the
dirt.

Happy Man stood staring for a moment, as if finding it hard to believe that he was still alive. He naturally thought that
the riflemen had been trying to hit him, not having seen
Froilan Quijano in the back of the truck selecting the target for the top guerrilla marksman.

Happy Man opened his right fist and showed people Apo’s magical herbs, which he had been holding there.

“My curse is lifted,” he said. “Apo took it from me and laid it on poor Ruben’s shoulders for not respecting him. I’m a free
man!” he shouted, and laughed hysterically at the awed people watching him. “Apo saved me! The curse is gone!”

The American military attaché, Roscoe James, and his assistant, Ken Hodges, were shown without delay into the spartan office
of General Pominador “Phil” Bonifacio. James did not attempt to smother the general with his Southern charm, knowing that
this was the fastest way to arouse the Philippine army commander’s suspicions. The general was still treating Roscoe a bit
coolly, implying once in a while that the American assassin on Velez’s trail was a CIA specialist there with Roscoe’s knowledge
or, worse still, without his knowledge. Roscoe was still sticking by his concept of a renegade serviceman out to avenge his
buddies, and the media was blaming the New People’s Army. What had begun to occur to both James and Bonifacio, but which so
far remained unsaid between them, was that all these theories were wrong. The
general was less sure now than before that he was being duped by the CIA, either with or without Roscoe’s connivance. If combat
had taught the general anything, it had taught him not to rely too much on ideas. He had survived on gut instinct many times,
and his gut feeling for Roscoe James was still good. Only, he wasn’t going to let the American see that. He was going to play
a very tight game until he knew who all the players were.

Roscoe came to the point fast. “Still all that traffic between party headquarters and the Russian Embassy?”

Coded radio messages and the movement of known couriers between the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Soviet Embassy
in Manila had been so heavy, the military had managed to pinpoint the locations of communist headquarters. The party was illegal,
and Bonifacio had to intervene to prevent a raid on the HQ, which would have ended the flow of messages and heightened communist
vigilance.

“They’re still going hot and heavy,” the general assured him. “We’re sending the stuff in armfuls to your computer people.
You still think the Russians are giving the guerrillas surface-to-air missiles?”

“That wasn’t my idea,” James said. “The computer boys decoded a few recurring phrases in the messages that might mean that.
It sounds like a dumb move for the Russians to make—it would get their embassy closed for sure. Up until now the Russkies
haven’t been making any dumb moves in this part of the world. Why start now?”