The Imam of Tawi-Tawi

by Ian Hamilton

  “This should work,” he said as he pressed the starter button. The engine sputtered and gradually rumbled to life. He jumped down from the cab. “Do any of you know how to work this machine?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Dulles said.

  “Me neither,” said Wahab.

  “Can you operate it?” the captain asked him.

  “Sure. I spent a summer working with equipment like this,” the officer said. “Where am I going with it?”

  Wahab swung his flashlight in the direction of the stand of trees. “Over there. We should take both Jeeps, I guess. We’ll need all the light we can get.”

  “I’ll get the other one,” Reyes said. “I’ll meet you at the site.”

  Ava, Wahab, and Dulles got into the Jeep and, with Dulles driving, slowly made their way to the back of the property, with the earthmover following them. Even with the high beams on, visibility was poor because of the shadows cast by the broad leaves of the palm trees. When they were joined by Reyes and the second Jeep, the combined light created a clear if somewhat haunted-looking view. They got out of the Jeeps and stood at the perimeter of the soil patch. It was like being in a darkened theatre looking up at a brightly lit stage, Ava thought.

  “What do you want to do?” the officer asked.

  “Make our holes wider and go deeper,” Dulles said.

  “I shouldn’t go straight down,” the man said, looking at Reyes. “It will be more efficient and easier on whatever is in the ground if I scrape across the top and gradually uncover layers.”

  “Whatever you think is best,” the captain said.

  The officer drove the machine onto the bare ground and was almost immediately swallowed up in shadow. He manoeuvred it to the left outer edge of Dulles’s hole and turned so the light was in front of him. He positioned the earthmover’s front-end bucket on the ground, put the machine into reverse, and backed up, taking several inches of soil from the surface with him. He moved the dirt to the far right and deposited it there. Then he drove back to where he’d started and repeated the process.

  There was no conversation among the four people watching him. Their attention was riveted on the ground. Progress was almost imperceptible until about half an hour had passed. Ava saw that the original trenches had disappeared and the patch of ground was starting to resemble a large pit. As the ground was laid bare, more shell casings and metal fragments emerged, but nothing else. Ava began to feel a sense of relief, and she could see that the others seemed less tense.

  When another fifteen minutes passed without discovering anything new, Ava began to wonder if they should call it off. She was about to make that suggestion to Dulles when his phone rang. He took it from his pocket and receded into the darkness to answer it. Ava tried to eavesdrop, but Dulles was speaking softly and his words were drowned out by the noise from the earthmover.

  Then the machine stopped, and as the engine idled she heard Dulles say, “I can’t believe it.” She turned in his direction, but as she did the officer leaned from the cab and shouted, “Come over here!”

  Ava, Wahab, and Reyes walked quickly towards him. He leapt down from the mover and went around the bucket to a spot of ground he’d just uncovered. His body cast a shadow and Ava couldn’t see what had caught his attention. Then he moved to the side and pointed. Part of a hand was sticking out of the soil.

  The captain shone his flashlight on the protruding object. Then he cast it back and forth around the general area. About two metres from the hand, Ava saw what she thought was a finger. She couldn’t tell if it came from the same body. The captain flinched, and she knew he had seen it was well.

  “What the hell is going on?” Dulles asked as he came over to join them.

  “Body parts,” Wahab said, his voice thick with emotion.

  “Oh fuck,” Dulles said. He stared at the hand for a few seconds, and then he gripped Ava by the elbow. “I have to talk to you for a minute. We need to move away from here.”

  “This is so awful,” she said as they retreated past the Jeeps.

  “As bad as it is, it’s about to get even more complicated, and maybe worse.”

  “Your phone call?”

  “Yes. It was Susan Crawford. They managed to lift a clean set of prints from the hairbrush.”

  “They identified al-Bashir?”

  Dulles nodded, and even in the darkness Ava could see that his brow was deeply furrowed. “We didn’t mention al-Bashir. We just gave them the brushes and asked them to find out what they could. They found Wallace Murdoch,” he said.

  “Murdoch?”

  “I’ve always known him as Wally.”

  “You know him?” she said.

  “He’s ex-agency. He left four years ago for a job in the private sector.”

  “This is certain? There can’t be some kind of mistake?”

  “No, there’s no mistake. It’s him. And it made sense when I heard the name,” Dulles said. “His last station was in Jordan. He must know Obeidat — al-Touma.”

  Ava looked back towards Reyes, Wahab, and the officer. She shivered, felt her body convulse, and fought back a powerful wave of nausea.

  “I guess now we know where all those students are,” she said.

  ( 37 )

  She was in shock and so was Dulles, but it seemed to her they were trying to cope with two different realities. He was trying to comprehend how the man named Murdoch had gone from being a colleague to some kind of pseudo-imam supposedly bent on the destruction of Jews. Ava couldn’t turn her mind away from the potential mass grave they’d just unearthed.

  They talked over each other at first, but they gradually slowed down and began to listen to what the other had to say. As they did, the realities began to merge, and they found themselves confronting a potential disaster beyond comprehension.

  “Are you sure that hand and that finger belong to students?” Dulles asked.

  “Who else could it be? And if there are two of them dead in that pit, then there are going to be more,” she said. “That wasn’t a lost wallet you found.”

  “We have to stop digging. We’re not equipped to do this. A team will have to brought in,” he said, almost talking to himself.

  “You would know more about that than I do.”

  “This is like being in a bad dream.” He looked at the men still standing by the earthmover. “What did they say?”

  “Nothing. They’re just numb, like us.”

  “We can’t afford to be numb,” Dulles said. “We have to contain this.”

  “How are we going to do that? That man is a police captain. There are body parts in a pit. This is his province, his jurisdiction. We’re hardly in a position to tell him what to do.”

  “I need to contact Harrison.”

  “Do what you feel you have to,” Ava said. “I’m not sure that I want to be involved in any more of this.”

  “You may not want to, but you promised the Brotherhood that you’d try to keep them safe from any fallout. This could be even worse than we imagined, especially for them,” Dulles said. “All I want is to buy a little time so we can figure out the best way to handle this, for everyone concerned. One way of doing that is to convince the captain not to do anything until we can confirm what’s in that pit.”

  “How long would that take? Days? And how many people would be in that team you’d bring in? Ten, twenty, thirty? There’s no way you can keep things quiet and under control for that length of time and with that many people involved.”

  “If I could get twelve hours — until dawn tomorrow — I’d be satisfied.”

  “What can you do in twelve hours?”

  “Come up with a plan to manage this mess, and that would include keeping the Brotherhood out of the spotlight.”

  “What about confirming what’s in the pit?”

  “Have you ever encountered
ground-penetrating radar?”

  “Of course not.”

  “It does exactly what the name implies: it can penetrate the soil and tell us how many bodies there are and where they’re located. It’s a quick and non-intrusive process. There’s an operator in Manila we’ve used several times; he’s good, and he knows how to keep his mouth shut. I’ll ask Harrison to locate him and get him on a plane to Bongao.” Dulles looked at his watch. “With any luck we might get him here by midnight.”

  “I can’t believe we’re standing here talking about counting bodies in a pit,” she said.

  “Ava, please help me with this,” Dulles said, reaching for her hand. “The captain will listen to Wahab, and Wahab will listen to you. We all need a little time. It will benefit everyone if we know what we’re really dealing with.”

  She withdrew her hand from his. “Are you confident you can get the radar technician here that fast? Are you sure that dawn deadline will be enough?”

  “There are no other choices.”

  “Okay, then I’ll talk to them. But I won’t do it again if you fail,” she said.

  “That’s fair enough. But Ava, you can’t mention that we’ve identified the imam.”

  “You mean I can’t mention Murdoch? I can’t tell them that he’s a former CIA agent?”

  “I mean that precisely. There will be a time and place for that, and it isn’t for you or me to decide.”

  “I’m not going to be bound by CIA protocol.”

  “This has nothing to do with CIA protocol. I don’t know of anything that covers a situation like this,” he said. “All I know is that we need to establish the facts before saying or doing anything.”

  “I do understand that this might not be the ideal time to tell them who al-Bashir really is,” she said.

  “Then wait, please. Wait until it’s appropriate.”

  “Okay, I will. Why don’t you go and make your phone calls while I talk to Wahab and Captain Reyes.”

  “I’ll do it from the college. I’ll be in the lounge. Join me when you’re finished out here.”

  She watched him walk into the darkness and then started towards the pit. Wahab met her halfway.

  “What were you talking about with the American?” he asked.

  “What else?” she said, pointing to the pit.

  “Captain Reyes wants to call this in. He says we’ll need a lot more men,” Wahab said. “I asked him to wait until we talked to you.”

  “That was the smart thing to do,” Ava said, relieved that a call hadn’t been made already. “We need to take time to confirm what we have here.”

  “Do you have any doubts?”

  “Not really, but I can hope.”

  “How is it possible? I can’t conceive of it. He was an imam!”

  “Do you have any other explanation for what we’ve found? Are there any other candidates?”

  “All I can think about is how bad this could be for us. If there are bodies in that pit, Manila won’t care that it was Muslims killing other Muslims. It will give the army or the SAF the excuse they want to come in force to Mindanao.”

  “That’s why you need to persuade the captain to do nothing until tomorrow morning. We’re trying to fly in some expert from Manila tonight to examine the site with ground-penetrating radar. He’ll tell us if there are two bodies or two hundred bodies.”

  “I pray that it’s only two, but my instincts tell me it’s more. How could an imam allow this to happen to fellow Muslims?”

  “We’re all praying for the same thing,” Ava said. “But we need time to confirm the truth.”

  “But even if the captain doesn’t call it in, are you sure the American will keep it quiet as well?”

  “Yes. It serves his interests.”

  “I see. Maybe we should speak to Captain Reyes and let him know that. I think he’s worried that someone else will report this before he has the chance.”

  “Okay. But I don’t want to go back there,” Ava said.

  “I’ll get him,” he said.

  “The bodies don’t bother you?”

  Wahab looked at her with a grim face. “I was in the field and at war against the Philippine government for fifteen years. I’ve seen a lot of bodies. So has Reyes.”

  A moment later the two men joined Ava. “Captain, do you know what ground-penetrating radar is?” she said.

  “I know of it.”

  “Our plan is to get an expert to examine the site. Once it’s clear what we’re dealing with, then we’ll know which authorities we need to involve.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be a police matter?”

  “Even if it is, are your local men trained to handle something of this magnitude?”

  “What magnitude?”

  She turned to Wahab. “You didn’t tell the captain how many bodies might be in the pit?”

  “No, I just said there could be a lot.”

  “Captain, there could be as many as 150,” Ava said.

  His face fell, and Ava heard a gasp from the officer who was standing by the earthmover.

  “That’s a possibility but not a certainty,” Wahab said solemnly.

  “If it turns out to be true, you’ll need an entire team of experts to secure the scene, properly exhume the bodies, and start the appropriate forensic work,” Ava said. “I’m assuming that you don’t have those resources locally.”

  “We don’t.”

  “Then all the more reason to wait. It wouldn’t look good if you started the process, found out you couldn’t handle it, and then had to call in outsiders to pick up the pieces. No one will blame you, though, for being cautious enough to determine the facts before you ask for help.”

  “How long will this expert take?”

  “I’m told that if we can get him here tonight, he’ll be finished by dawn.”

  “I might be prepared to wait until then.” Reyes glanced at Wahab. “But what about the American?”

  “He’ll say nothing.”

  “Okay. If that’s the case, we’ll wait.”

  “Thank you,” Ava said. “Now, do we have to stay here or can we go back to the college?”

  “It makes no difference to me if you go,” Reyes said. “But I’m staying here with my officer.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Wahab said to Ava.

  “We’ll come back the instant we hear about this expert’s arrival,” Ava said.

  Wahab used the flashlight to lead them towards the college. They walked in silence until they were almost at the rear door.

  “What if there are only two bodies?” Wahab said.

  “You said you were praying for that.”

  “Yes, but when I was looking at that hand, I found myself struggling with the morality of it. Would the world be a better place if there were two or more than a hundred? If there are two, that means the rest of them are somewhere preparing to kill and be killed. What’s worse, the certain death of a hundred or more or the potential death of maybe thousands?”

  Ava had no answer.

  ( 38 )

  They found Dulles sitting on the sofa in the lounge with his phone pressed to his ear. Give me five minutes, he mouthed.

  Ava and Wahab wandered back to the main entrance. The other police officer stood at the door talking to one of the security guards. “Have any of the students left the main hall?” Ava asked.

  The guard looked at this watch. “They’ll be there for about another hour, and then they’ll go to their dorms in the other wing,” he said.

  “Captain Reyes wants you to make sure no one leaves the building,” she said to the police officer.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  Ava looked into the main hall. The students were still sitting with their books resting on their laps. She watched them for several minutes, trying to understand how t
his studious, seemingly peaceful group of young men could be turned into something so different. Any psychology she knew had been learned from Uncle and her years on the job, and its application was limited to mainly one-on-one dealings. She had no clue about the nuances of mass persuasion. A couple of questions popped into her mind. She thought about asking Wahab but stopped herself — the timing couldn’t have been more inappropriate.

  “Hey,” Dulles said from the wing corridor. “I’m finished.”

  Ava and Wahab joined him and they walked together back to the lounge.

  “What did the captain say?” Dulles asked. “Will he wait?”

  “He will,” Ava said.

  “So you told him about the radar?”

  “I did, and he’s fine with it.”

  “Excellent. We should know soon when the technician is going to get here. We should meet him at the airport.”

  “You’ve talked to him already?”

  “My people did. They’re arranging for a private plane,” Dulles said. “And Wahab, my thanks for the assistance you’ve provided.”

  “Let’s hope it wasn’t misplaced,” Wahab said.

  Ava and Dulles sat on the sofa and Wahab took the easy chair. They tried to have a conversation but mostly just stumbled around. Ava had questions for Dulles that she didn’t want Wahab to hear, and she was sure they were being as circumspect. Only one subject was on their minds, and nobody wanted to talk about either its possible horrible reality or its ramifications. After some awkward minutes, Wahab turned on the television and found a Philippine variety show.

  Dulles’s phone rang before the first singer had finished. He looked at the incoming number, listened briefly, and then said, “What’s his ETA?” Evidently satisfied with the answer, he ended the call. “The technician’s name is Alan Dawson. He’ll be here in about three hours.”