The Imam of Tawi-Tawi

by Ian Hamilton

  “What’s the problem?” Ava asked when Elisha answered her phone.

  “I’m standing outside the immigration bureau with two shopping bags filled with copies of landing cards.”

  “How many cards?”

  “Between two and three thousand.”

  “That was quick work,” Ava said, surprised at the number.

  “I told you it was an efficient system.”

  “Yes, you did,” Ava said. “Now I guess we’re going to be the inefficient part of this process.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you have any plans for this afternoon?”

  “Not if there’s something you want me to do. The senator made it clear that you’re to have priority.”

  “Then bring the cards to my hotel. We have to go through them one by one.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here,” Ava said, and gave her the room number.

  She hadn’t expected quite that many hits, but obviously the more there were, the greater the chance of identifying the people who’d made their way to Zakat College. Now she needed to get organized. There was a large, round table near the window with a vase of flowers on it. She removed the vase, turning the table into a clear workspace. Then she grabbed her notebook and started listing criteria in order to prioritize the search. She had barely finished when she heard a sharp knock at the door. When she opened it, she saw a sturdy young woman wearing black slacks and a blue blouse. She was dark-skinned, with deep brown eyes and short black hair.

  Ava looked down at the shopping bags in her hands. “Elisha?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t expect you so soon,” Ava said.

  “The bureau is only a ten-minute walk from here.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, and it was kind of you to come,” Ava said. “Put the bags over there by the table.” She stood to one side so Elisha could pass and then followed her to the table.

  “How are the cards organized?” Ava asked.

  “They’re not. They’ve just been bundled into sets of two hundred and put into these envelopes,” Elisha said, pulling one from a bag.

  “Even so, I’m amazed that your cousin was able to do this without attracting any attention.”

  “All she did was input and correlate the dates and keywords you gave me and press Enter.”

  “Still . . .”

  “As I told you, she’s a senior director in the bureau, but she also has a lot of personal influence. Her father is one of the most prominent corporate lawyers in the city, and her mother, like mine, is a member of the Quirino family. Being part of a Spanish establishment family is a bit like being royalty. Not many people are likely to question her.”

  “Well, however she did it, I’m grateful,” Ava said. “Now why don’t you empty that first envelope and we can get started.”

  “What are we looking for?” Elisha asked as she slid the landing cards onto the table.

  Ava hesitated. “There are some activities going on in Tawi-Tawi that we need to understand.”

  “Activities?”

  “Training.”

  “At that Zakat College?”

  “Yes.”

  “What type of training?” Elisha asked as she began stacking the cards. “If you don’t want to tell me anything else, that’s fine, but I’m sure you’ll understand that I am curious. You should also know that I have top secret security clearance. All of the senator’s staff are required to have it.”

  What the hell, Ava thought, tired of sliding around the issue. “We’ve been told that there might be terrorist training being conducted on Tawi-Tawi. If that’s true, we need to identify the trainees.”

  “If it’s true?”

  “We don’t know for certain.”

  Elisha nodded and then said calmly, “Given the names I was asked to look into, I thought it might be something like that. And I think Zoey may have reached that conclusion herself, although she didn’t say anything directly.”

  “The senator didn’t say anything to you?” Ava said, pleased by her matter-of-fact reaction.

  “No, but that’s typical of him,” Elisha said, taking a seat. “How do you want to start with these cards?”

  “We’ll go after the low-hanging fruit first,” Ava said. “We need to separate out all the cards that specifically give Zakat College, or any variation of that name, as a destination. Once we’ve done that, we will group them by those approximate dates I gave you.”

  “That sounds easy enough,” Elisha said.

  There were thirteen envelopes, but one was only half full. Ava estimated that they had about 2,500 copies of landing cards to wade through. She started with a sense of anticipation, but the first envelope yielded only one person who was bound for Zakat College. Ava placed the card next to her on the table as the beginning of what she hoped would be a pile. The next four envelopes were only marginally better than the first, and Ava began to feel discouraged. Her mood changed when they opened the sixth, in which ten Zakat students identified themselves. None of the remaining envelopes had as many, but Ava’s stack grew steadily higher. When they had finished examining the contents of the last envelope, she counted the cards she’d set aside. Seventy-six people had declared that they were headed for Zakat College.

  Ava split her stack in two and handed half to Elisha. “Let’s group them by date.”

  Ten minutes later they had four stacks of approximately equal size. Ava took the one with arrivals from the February just past and put it aside. The other three stacks she put on the floor by her feet.

  “That was the easy part,” Ava said. “Now we’re going to have to go back through the rest of these cards in more detail.” She glanced at her notebook. “What we’re looking for are men between the ages of eighteen and thirty who were heading for Tawi-Tawi or Bongao. Look for names that aren’t distinctly Western, East Asian, or Filipino.”

  “What about country of origin?”

  “That’s less important than their age and a name that has roots in places such as the Middle East or South Asia.”

  Elisha glanced at her. “I’m already alarmed that we’ve found so many people going to that college.”

  “There should be more, and we need to find out who they are.”

  “This is very hard to believe.”

  “I don’t disagree, but it’s what we’re dealing with,” Ava said. “I think we should winnow down the number of cards by eliminating all the women first. Then anyone over thirty-five. Finally, we can get rid of all the people who obviously don’t meet the criteria. That should leave us with a more workable number to examine.”

  The process went more smoothly than Ava had anticipated, and they quickly found themselves with less than two hundred cards. They went over them together, their major focus the family name. If there was any doubt about a name’s origin, the card was kept. When they were finished, they had discarded another fifty cards. Then they sorted the remainder by date, again leaving aside the block of students who had arrived in February. Ava looked at what was left.

  “Combined with the people who were clearly going to Zakat College, this total is more than what I was led to believe,” she said. “But it’s better to be safe.”

  “Safe? How are we going to confirm who is who?”

  “You’re going to have to pay your cousin another visit, and what we want her to do this time will be even more demanding,” Ava said. “We’ve been told that the trainees were at the college for three months — that’s why I wanted the arrivals searched over those three-month periods — and then were sent to various foreign destinations. There should be records on file of their departures: when they left and where they were headed. We need Zoey to find that information for each of them.”

  “She would have to input every name and pa
ssport number individually.”

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, especially unofficially.”

  “This time she might ask some questions. How much can I tell her? “

  “Senator Ramirez was most complimentary about your trustworthiness, which is why I’ve been willing to share things with you,” Ava said. “How do you feel about Zoey?”

  “She’d never break a confidence.”

  “Then tell her whatever you decide is necessary,” Ava said.

  “That would be everything you’ve told me.”

  “Okay. The decision is yours. All I care about right now is that she gets us the information we need.”

  Elisha looked at her watch. “I’ll call her now. I might be able to catch her before she leaves the office.”

  “I’ll give you some privacy while you do that,” Ava said.

  Ava went into the bathroom and closed the door. She could hear Elisha’s voice but the words were indistinct. When silence fell, Ava re-entered the suite to find Elisha putting the cards back into the envelopes.

  “Zoey was in a meeting when I called. She’s not sure how much longer it’s going to last, but she told me she’ll make some time for me if I go over.”

  “So you didn’t have a chance to explain what’s going on?”

  “No, not over the phone, but I said it was urgent and I’d fill her in when I got there,” Elisha said. “My worry is that we won’t be able to do these searches until tomorrow.”

  “It won’t be a crisis if we have to wait an extra half day,” Ava said.

  “I know that logically, but as I was talking to her, I started to panic. I kept thinking about what will happen when we locate all these people.”

  “That won’t be our decision,” Ava said. “We’re simply gathering information. When we have enough to pass on, someone else with more authority will decide what’s next.”

  “This is still really scary shit,” Elisha said, shaking her head.

  “Try not to think of it in those terms. Right now it’s all supposition. Who knows, when they left, instead of going to some foreign country, they may all have gone home.”

  “Do you really believe that’s possible?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s easier if you think that maybe it is.”

  ( 19 )

  After Elisha had left the suite, Ava bundled all the cards, except those for the February student arrivals, and put them in a closet. She then sat at the table with the stack of February cards in front of her and began to leaf through them. She could picture young men sitting on a plane with the tray tables lowered, carefully printing their names and passport numbers. She wondered what they were thinking as they wrote in their home addresses. Nostalgia? A sense of loss? Relief to be away? She stopped at a card with the name BARRY FAWAZ printed on it in almost childish block letters. He was from London and twenty years old, and he had listed ZAKAT MUSLIM COLLEGE, BONGAO as his destination. What had been running through his mind? Excitement? Adventure? Martyrdom?

  She reread them, making notes about home countries. Pakistan, England, Belgium, Syria, Algeria, Palestine, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, and France all had more than one entry. How had Zakat College found them, or how had they found the college? How broad was the college’s reach, and what was its pitch? Who paid for the trip? Where did their families think they had gone? How depressing it was, she thought, all that time, intelligence, energy, emotion, and money wasted on hate.

  She restacked the cards, pushed them to one side, stood up, and went to the window. It was dark outside, and she realized that it was already past seven o’clock. Poirier should have landed, and with any luck he was on his way to the hotel. She was still dressed in her training pants and T-shirt, and that was no way to meet him.

  Fifteen minutes later she emerged from the bathroom in a pink shirt, black pencil skirt, and black pumps. She had fastened the shirt cuffs with the jade links she’d bought in Beijing many years ago, and secured her hair with her ivory chignon pin. Then she put on black mascara and a touch of red lipstick.

  She sat at the table, looked down at her notebook, and then looked out the window at the Makati skyline. She began to imagine the conversation she would have with Ryan Poirier. She knew what she wanted to tell him and how she wanted to proceed. What she didn’t know was how patient he was prepared to be and how willing he was to take her information at face value. In Surabaya he had been quick to assert his authority, despite a disbelieving attitude. She wasn’t about to cede control this time, and she didn’t have the patience or the time for skepticism. He would either buy in or he wouldn’t, and if he didn’t, then she would find a Plan B.

  Her phone rang. She watched it for a few seconds, certain it was him. “Ava Lee,” she finally said.

  “Ava, it’s Elisha.”

  “Are you with Zoey? Is there a problem?”

  “I’m at her office but I’m about to leave. She just came out of the meeting to tell me it’s going to go on for a few more hours. We’ve agreed to get together early tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s fine. And thanks for making the effort tonight.”

  “We’ll be on it first thing,” Elisha said. “I’ll call as soon as we’re done.”

  Despite knowing beforehand that the meeting could run late, Ava felt a touch of disappointment. It would have been ideal to have actual names, dates, and destinations to put in front of Poirier. She returned to the notebook, trying to focus on the questions she needed answered and anticipating what he would want to know. She circled the names of the banks in Riyadh and Amman. Fileeb al-Touma might control the flow of funds from Jordan to Bongao, but she wanted to know who had opened the original accounts and where those deposits had come from.

  The phone sounded. She had been so locked into her thoughts that it startled her. “Yes?”

  “I’ve checked into the hotel,” Poirier said.

  “The Peninsula?”

  “Don’t sound surprised. I thought it made the most sense.”

  “Of course it does.”

  “Where do you want to meet?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s meet in the lobby. The bar has some corner tables and alcoves that provide some privacy.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “The ‘Bar.’ And I spent part of the afternoon in the ‘Spa.’ The Peninsula doesn’t feel the need to be grandiose when it comes to names.”

  “Five minutes?”

  “See you there.”

  Ava sat quietly for a couple of minutes, then put a couple of landing cards in her notebook and slipped the book, her phone, and a pen into her bag before heading out the door. When she exited the elevator in the lobby, she looked in the direction of the Bar and saw a man with a mop of red hair standing at the entrance.

  “Mr. Poirier,” she said, walking towards him.

  He turned and looked at her. When she first met him, she had thought that at five foot nine he was too small to be in the RCMP, and in his slim designer jeans and green silk shirt, he also looked too hip. He was still in designer jeans, but now he was wearing a rust-brown Paul Smith T-shirt.

  “Call me Ryan,” he said, extending a hand. His hair was a bit longer than she remembered. The blazing blue eyes were the same.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” she said. “And call me Ava.”

  “They’re clearing off a table for us in the far corner,” he said. They stood awkwardly for a moment, and then the hostess returned with a big smile. “This way,” she said.

  They had a corner alcove and the tables on either side of them were empty. A server appeared just as they began to settle into seats directly across from one another.

  “A glass of white wine — something French and dry,” Ava said.

  “A San Miguel pale
ale,” he said.

  Ava opened her notebook and smiled at him tentatively.

  “Before you begin, I have a confession to make,” he said.

  “What?” she said, immediately on guard.

  “Before I left Jakarta, I called my friend at the American embassy here in Manila. I wanted to make sure he’s in the city and I thought it would be wise to have him on standby. He was and he is.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What could I tell him? I said I was coming to Manila to talk about a project that might have some interest for him, but that I didn’t have any details.”

  “That’s all?”

  “No. I said I’d call him either tonight or tomorrow to let him know whether my lead panned out or not.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Not really, and there isn’t much chance I’d recognize it anyway. I don’t move in your circles.”

  Poirier pursed his lips and gave a little shrug. “In the event that you do get the chance to meet him, his name is Alasdair Dulles,” he said. “He’s smart, focused, and creative and has been known to bend the rules. Actually, that’s why he’s in Manila. He was running a larger operation, in Bangkok, but ran into some bullshit political problems. They’ve parked him here until things settle down.”

  “Is he a Dulles Dulles?”

  “You know of Allen Dulles?”

  “I took some American history. He was an important diplomat and the first civilian director of the CIA.”

  “Alasdair isn’t related to him…unless, of course, being coy about it can be of some use.”

  “And what kind of problems did he have?”

  “Like I said, it was bullshit.”

  “I’d still like to know.”

  The server arrived with their drinks. The conversation stalled as she poured Poirier’s beer.

  “Isn’t it premature to talk about Alasdair?” he said after the server left.