Tengu (28 page)

“The jungle trail,” she told him. “Is that important?”

Yamashita ignored the question. “How many men?”

“Perhaps twenty.”

“Have you ever noticed that many men leaving at one time before?”

“No,” she said.

“But they appeared excited? Not anxious? Were they in a rush?”

Hatsue dreaded the direction his questions were leading. “No,” she answered flatly. “No rush. They seemed . . . eager.”

“Eager,” he sighed. “And the old one?” They both knew to whom he was referring.

“An Arab went to his hut. But he hasn’t come out.” As she said it, she caught movement on the veranda of the old man’s hut. He emerged from the shadows like a ghost. He stepped into the dim light cast by the kerosene lantern that flickered just inside a window. The light played on his face, making his eyes seem like sightless blobs that moved restlessly in place, dark, liquid organisms restless for escape. The old one turned to face in their direction and Hatsue jerked back away from the gap in the window.

“He is . . . there,” she said, and swallowed. “Watching.”

Again, Hatsue heard the hiss of air escaping from Yamashita. He sagged, then straightened once more. “Perhaps we can talk of other things,” he said quietly. “A lesson in . . . distraction.”

“I don’t want lessons!” Hatsue pleaded, her voice tightening with tears. She could feel the cold force of the old man’s gaze on them, as if he could sense their thoughts. It unnerved her. “I want help! To escape! Don’t you understand?”

Yamashita reached out and tried to hold her small hands between his. They were like paws, clumsy with only the skin’s warmth to make them feel alive. “I understand,” he said soothingly. “But that is not possible now. I have failed. All I can offer is another lesson. It is perhaps the only one worth learning.”

He said nothing for a long time. He listened to her weep and felt her body jerk with sobs. After a time, they subsided.

“Come, child,” he whispered in the blackness. His voice was sad, yet calm. “I will teach you to die well. It is the only gift I have left.”

23
MA-AI

The pills left a funny taste in my mouth and made me feel as if my eyes were stretched way too wide. Micky said they had called them “go pills” years ago when he was in the Marines.

“They’re amphetamines,” I protested. “They can’t be good for you.”

The dashboard threw a dim light into the interior of the jeep and I could just make out his sardonic expression. “Connor. You moron. We’re heading toward a camp of armed terrorists and kidnappers. A little chemical enhancement is going to be the least of your problems.” So I had gulped them down dry and now I sat, restless and wired, as we bounced through the night.

In the aftermath of the chopper attacks, Ueda had made us drag our gear back into the ready room. People were rushing around like mad and nobody was paying any attention to us. Cooke was off caring for what was left of the strike force and Reyes was in another room, phoning in to his superiors. He had looked green as he prepared to report on another debacle in this case. Only Ueda seemed untouched by the chaos at the camp, and strangely unworried.

The cultural attaché glanced at his watch and looked at us significantly.

“We’re screwed, right?” Micky said to him. “No way to get another raid mounted in time.” He sounded pretty sure.

“Maybe they can get another team assembled . . . ” I started to protest hopefully, but Art put a big hand on my arm to stop me from saying any more stupid things.

“It’s not gonna happen, Connor,” he told me quietly. A truck raced by outside, its motor screaming through the gears. “They’re gonna button-down and try to figure out why they got hit and how they got so vulnerable. Even if they had another team they could put on alert, the powers that be probably wouldn’t want to put them in harm’s way until they figured out whether there was a security breach down here.”

I sagged down onto a bench, knowing that he was right. I looked around me in the harsh light of the briefing room, as if the battered table and maps were going to provide me with an answer. Ueda was examining the planning map that Cooke had pinned to a board when he briefed the troops earlier for the raid. He traced the route from our current location at the camp to the insertion point.

“How far?” Micky asked him. His voice was tired and not very hopeful sounding.

Ueda shrugged. “One hundred kilometers or so by air. On the road, perhaps twice that.”

“How good are the local roads?” Art said quietly.

“A mix. Some highway. Then dirt tracks. The insertion point was along an old logging route . . . ”

“Driving would average, what,” my brother said, thinking out loud, “thirty kilometers an hour?” Ueda nodded in agreement.

“Be tight, but we could make it,” Art concluded. “If we decided that was the only option . . . ” He looked at me.

I stood up and approached the map board. Ueda moved aside and watched me. I traced the route with a finger. “If we drive all night, we could be at the planned insertion point by morning,” I told them. “That would give us the day to hike in to the vicinity of the camp.”

“It’s a long shot,” Micky agreed, “but it’s probably the only option we’ve got left.”

Art was thinking as well. “We got our gear. We know the GPS coordinates of the camp, right?” Ueda nodded. “Only thing I can think of is that it would be nice to have a local to make sure we take the right roads. And maybe another vehicle as a backup.”

Ueda smiled and took out a small satellite phone.

“You dog,” Art said. “Why didn’t you let Reyes know you had one?”

Ueda punched in a number and held the phone to his ear. While he waited for a connection, he told us, “I do not always tell Inspector Reyes everything. It preserves . . . options.”

Ueda had a hurried, low conversation on the phone. He kept one eye on the door in case Reyes returned. Ueda finished talking, listened for a minute, and grunted. Then he cut the connection. “Take the map,” he told me, getting Micky and Art’s attention and nodding toward the door with his chin. “Hurry,” he hissed.

We tossed our gear into the mud-spattered jeep that had brought us to the camp and then piled in. The place was still in some confusion, lights flashing and people running all over creation. The fact that we had arrived earlier at the camp with a police escort let Ueda fabricate some plausible explanation for the guard at the gate to let us leave. Once we were a decent interval from the camp entrance, Ueda floored it. The jeep was cramped and Art and I would have bounced around inside the back of it, but with all the gear we were wedged in pretty tight. The headlights flashed along a wall of green as we sped down the road. Moths flickered brightly in our high beams, and the occasional insect splattered against the windshield. Ueda was at the wheel and Micky was next to him with the map in his lap, using a small flashlight to read it.

“We head west along the coast road, then pick up this northern artery after about forty klicks,” my brother said. The jeep lurched slightly as Ueda downshifted and then gunned us up a slope. “Hang a right when you get to the main intersection.”

Art was looking out the back window to see whether anyone was following. “So far, so good,” he commented.

“It will only be a matter of time before they realize we’re gone,” Ueda said. “The Inspector will not be pleased.” He didn’t sound particularly upset about it.

“What’re the chances they’ll send someone after us?” I asked.

“I believe that nothing will happen until morning,” Ueda answered me. “I told the guard at the gate we were heading into the city. Perhaps that may throw them off a bit. By the time they realize we went the other way, if all goes well, we’ll be too far ahead of them to be stopped.” Ueda barely touched the brakes as we sailed onto the coast highway. He shot a quick look to his left to check for oncoming traffic, and then swung us onto the road. The force of the turn pulled us up against the left hand side of the vehicle. Crammed against the duffels, I could feel the hard edges of weaponry. When the jeep had steadied and our speed had inched up to about seventy, Ueda glanced over at Micky.

“There will be a small town indicated at a point just beyond where we pick up the northern route,” he said.

My brother peered at the map, moving the flashlight around its surface. “I got it,” he said.

“We pick up the second vehicle there,” Ueda said.

Micky shot a glance sideways, but said nothing. Art leaned forward. “How’d you pull that off?”

“Marangan,” I guessed out loud. I saw Ueda smile tightly and knew I was right. The old
eskrima
expert had dropped out of sight once Reyes was back in the picture.

“The
batikan
has many useful contacts among various factions here in Mindanao,” Ueda explained. “When I knew we were, indeed, to travel here, I took the precaution of sending him down ahead of us . . . ”

“You’re a piece of work, Ueda,” Micky said. “He’s been shadowing us all the time we’ve been here?”

Ueda leaned back into a more comfortable driving position. The road was well maintained and the tires hummed in the darkness, their sound made rhythmic by the regular
thunk
as they hit the seams on the highway’s surface. He checked the rearview mirror and seemed to relax.

“In my line of work, I have found it useful to always have a variety of plans and assets to fall back on. And I was not always sure that the Inspector’s intelligence was accurate. So Marangan has been useful in getting independent confirmation. You saw tonight that the security of the Philippine forces leaves something to be desired.” In my mind’s eye, I saw the rocket streaking again toward the helicopter and the churning black and orange ball of the explosion. “The
batikan
warned me of this. And I have been able to relay information on the GPS coordinates so he could scout out alternate access routes.”

“He’s meeting us at the village?” Micky asked.

“Yes. He has an approach mapped out to the area that is slightly different from the one Cooke developed. It provides us with a little more cushion in terms of time . . . ”

“And also ensures that Reyes won’t know exactly where we are,” Micky concluded. “Slick.” But his voice didn’t sound pleased. I glanced at Art, sitting next to me in the back of the jeep, and I didn’t like the look on his face.

After twenty minutes, Ueda called on his satellite phone to alert Marangan that our arrival was imminent. We slowed and made a right turn onto a two-lane road. We passed a fenced-in field where some animals stood in the darkness. At first you just saw their eyes glowing, but as the jeep got closer, you could pick them out, carabao standing motionless, hulking dark sentries waiting on the dawn.

Some small houses with tin sheets for roofing were clustered around a wide dirt plaza. It was dark and there was no sign of life. As we approached, Ueda shut off the vehicle’s lights, pulled to one side, and coasted to a stop. He flicked his lights on and off in a prearranged signal. From up the road, headlights flashed in another pattern. Ueda nodded, got back on the road, and drove forward. A small, battered pickup truck was idling in the darkness. The interior lights flashed on briefly and we could see Marangan’s craggy face. Ueda flashed our lights as well to show him the occupants of the jeep.

Ueda braked just short of the pickup. “I will go with the
batikan
. You follow closely.” He checked his watch. “We should be there before dawn,” he told us and started to get out of the jeep.

“Ueda,” I said, and reached out to grab him. In the dark, his face was even more contained looking than usual. “Leave us the phone.”

“Why?” He was suspicious.

“Marangan has one. It’ll be easier to talk with each other using the phones rather than stopping every time we need to confer or you need to give us directions,” I explained. “I don’t want to waste any time. We’re running pretty close to the edge here.” I put some of the urgency I felt into my voice.

He shrugged. “Good. The
batikan
’s number is saved. Press memory one.” He left without saying anything else and Micky took the wheel. The pickup pulled out and we followed them.

“Good thinking, Connor,” Art told me. Micky was feeling his way through the jeep’s unfamiliar gearbox, muttering under his breath.

The rest of the journey wore on, accompanied by the whine and growl of the jeep’s engine. Following another vehicle along the winding mountain roads was a challenge—the jungle closed in on both sides of the road and the night sky served as a lid to our long and twisting tunnel. Bugs flickered across the beam of the headlights and occasionally the surreal glow of floating eyes punctuated the darkness. But mostly, we were fixated on following the two red lights of the truck ahead of us. We didn’t want to get too close because the changing road conditions meant that we were constantly braking and speeding up, but we didn’t want to let Ueda and Marangan get too far ahead. We had a map, but in case they needed to take an alternative route, we wanted to stick close to our guides. The effort of keeping those lights in sight, rubies that bounced and swayed in the tropical blackness, created an almost hypnotic experience.

By dawn, we had all had a turn at the wheel. My eyes burned and felt gritty. Deep down, I knew I was tired, but the pills forced that feeling way below the surface. I was anxious and itchy, eager for the hint of gray that would announce the arrival of morning. Yet, at the same time, I was worried that the hours were slipping away from us, that we weren’t going to be able to reach Yamashita in time.

The roads had gotten rougher. We jounced along the track, climbing up switchbacks. The holes and ruts set your teeth on edge. Nobody was talking much. We conferred periodically with Ueda by phone and traced our progress on the map, but that was about it. One really bad jolt in the road spurred Art into conversation.

“Thank God we didn’t take that lunatic Horowitz up on his offer of explosives. Some of that stuff looked old and unstable. We’d be blown sky high by now.”

Micky shot a look over his shoulder from his position behind the wheel. “We’ve still got enough ordinance in here to make a pretty good bang.” He’s always got a cheery word. After some more silence—he twisted the wheel and wrestled the jeep’s stick shift into a lower gear to match the latest sudden twist in the road—Micky spoke up again.