“What’s your name?” Riley asked when she handed the sweatshirt across to her.
“Consuelo,” she said. Worry lines appeared on her forehead as she looked back and forth at them. “What do you want me to do?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Riley said. “I won’t let anything happen to you. We’re going to a meeting at a church. I will pay you one hundred US dollars if you will walk into the church with us, wearing that.” Riley indicated the hoodie. “Once I see who is there, then you can go.”
Consuelo stuck out her lower lip as she considered the offer. Then she said, “One hundred twenty dollars.”
“Deal,” Riley said.
As they passed Rizal Park, Irv told Riley a little of the history of the Intramuros section of Manila. The name, he explained, translates to “within walls,” and the old city was built in the 1570s by the colonizing Spanish ruling class, who chose to build their walled enclave by the mouth of the Pasig River. They built the fort, churches, government buildings, schools, and fine homes inside while the walls, gates, and drawbridges were designed to keep overseas intruders as well as the native people outside. Irv said he had visited the city when he first arrived in the Philippines before the war broke out. He had seen Intramuros before it was nearly destroyed along with the rest of Manila by the retreating Japanese at the end of the war.
They entered the walled city through a large gate and the street under the horse’s hooves changed to cobblestones. The narrow one-way streets wound between the stone buildings and wrought-iron balconies. Riley thought it was remarkable the way they had rebuilt the place. There were still remnants of the ruins, but many of the buildings looked like they were centuries old when in fact they had been rebuilt in the last sixty years.
They had Pedro take them past the church once. When he turned his horse onto General Luna Street, the church loomed into view. Irv said it was the only building in Intramuros that was left intact after the bombing. It was a Sunday and they saw that there was a mass under way. A sign said the service was from ten to eleven.
Irv explained the plan. Once most of the people had left the church, Consuelo would walk in the front door and walk up the aisle to the altar. Meanwhile, Riley and Irv would enter through a side door and stand in the shadows to watch.
Riley said, “Somebody is expecting me after the mass. When everyone has left the church you’ll go in. You’re about my size. But if anyone approaches you, Consuelo, push the hood back and show who you really are. And I’ll be right there watching, okay?”
The young woman nodded.
Pedro positioned the kalesa around the corner from the church. He would wait there and direct Consuelo to head for the front door in five minutes. The service must have ended early as people were flowing out the door.
Irv led Riley around through a garden to a courtyard and the side door into the cathedral. They hung back in the shadows of the alcove. Within their small side chamber there was a life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary on one side and a glass display of what looked like bones on another. A table by the statue was covered with flickering votive candles, and out by the main cathedral there was a carved stone font of holy water. With their backs to the wall of the alcove, they inched their way closer to the church.
The main cathedral was breathtaking. It was difficult not to be distracted by the painting on the ceiling, the chandeliers, and the magnificent carved wood furnishings. They couldn’t see back to the front door of the cathedral, but they should see Consuelo once she was halfway to the altar.
Riley heard Consuelo scream before she saw her.
“Let’s get out of here,” Irv whispered.
“We can’t just leave her.”
“That was the whole point of this. She’s the canary.”
“You go on. Get Pedro to pull up right in front and get his horse ready to run.”
“You’re nuts,” Irv said, but he turned and left out the side door.
She peeked around the corner. It was Benny and he had Consuelo’s neck in the crook of his arm. She was whimpering and he was yelling in English. “Where are they?” he shouted.
Farther back in the alcove, red velvet ropes were strung between steel posts to keep people back from the wood and glass case with the relics in it. The posts had wide, round metal bases. She lifted one up. It wasn’t attached to the floor. She unclipped the rope from the end post, carried it to the edge of the alcove, and set it down.
She stepped out into the main sanctuary and said, “Are you looking for me? If you want me, come get me.” Then she made as if to take off running out the side door. She picked up the post and tucked herself back inside just around the corner. She heard his footsteps and brought the post up over her shoulder like a baseball bat. She wished she could see. Timing was going to be everything.
She swung and the moment she made her move, she knew she had gone too soon. When Benny came round the corner, the end of the post missed his head, but he ran right into the end of it and it poked him in the shoulder. His momentum drove the base back and it hit Riley in the chest. The impact knocked her off balance. She felt herself going down on the stone floor and she knew it was going to hurt.
San Agustin Church
Intramuros, Manila
December 3, 2012
Riley landed on her tailbone first, then the back of her head bounced off the stone floor. Her vision went black and then it was like watching fireworks for a second. The impact felt like an electric shock to her spine, but her butt didn’t hurt as much as her head. She was vaguely aware of Benny standing over her.
Something slammed into her ribs and all the air in her exploded out of her mouth in a low moan. He’d kicked her. She rolled over onto her side and tried to curl up into a better defensive position. She felt dizzy—she couldn’t get enough air.
“Where’s the old man?” he said.
She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself but all that came out was something between a cough and a moan.
She saw his feet on the stone floor not far from her body and she noticed he was wearing cloth espadrilles. That was certainly better than the cowboy boots that Hawkes guy wore, and she suddenly thought it was funny that she was critiquing his shoes at a moment like this. But when she saw the foot swing back in preparation for another kick, she didn’t think anything was funny anymore.
His foot slammed into her arm where she was trying to cover her midsection. Her arm deflected the blow, but it still knocked her breath away. It didn’t take much at this point. She tried to focus on his feet, thinking if only she could grab them and pull him down, trip him somehow. Where were the other people in the church? Surely somebody must be around to see what was happening. Tears blurred her vision. She wasn’t crying. She was too mad to be crying. It was the pain in her ribs and her butt.
“Where’s the gold you stole?” He leaned over and grabbed her backpack. She hugged her arms tight to her body so he couldn’t get the backpack off her.
He lifted half her body off the floor by the backpack. The straps cut into her underarms. He was yelling at her in a language she didn’t understand, but she knew it was profanity from the way he spit the words at her.
From the corner of her eye, Riley saw movement behind Benny. Thank God. Someone was coming. She turned her head so she could see better. At first she thought it was Consuelo returning, but then she saw this was a much younger Filipina woman wearing baggy green camo pants and a tight tank top. She came trotting into the alcove. Her shiny black hair fell in a long braid down the front of one shoulder and an elaborate tattoo circled one of her firm biceps.
Benny was so intent on wresting the backpack off Riley’s back, he hadn’t noticed the woman. She pulled a string off one shoulder and a little backpack purse swung around in front of her. Her hand plunged through the drawstring opening and pulled out a little canister. Opening her mouth wide, she pantomimed holding her breath and pinching her nose. Then she kicked Benny in the thigh.
With a loud groan, he let g
o of the backpack and swung around to face the young woman. She lifted the canister, pointed it at his face, and before he knew what was happening a stream of liquid hit him in the eyes and across his face.
Riley was holding her breath and trying to cover her face, but some of the burning spray landed on her bare forearms.
Benny roared and held his hands up in the air over his head. Like Riley, he obviously had been trained in what to do when hit with pepper spray. He knew the worst thing he could do just then would be to rub his eyes.
The Filipina woman ran over to Riley and extended her hand. She pulled Riley to her feet. Then she held up her hand to signal stop.
Benny was swinging his arms, trying to connect with one of them. He was like a blinded bull snorting and coughing and trying to get some revenge for his pain. When he couldn’t connect with anyone, he staggered over to the wall, felt his way to his right, and located the font of holy water. He plunged his face into the water.
“Let’s go,” the Filipina woman whispered. She took Riley by the hand and pulled her toward the back of the church. Every step sent pain shooting out from her tailbone. She wondered if she had broken her coccyx. It hurt so much it almost made her forget the pain in her ribs and her head.
The other woman pushed open the heavy wood door, and the sunlight was so bright both women stopped and held their free arms up to shield their eyes.
“We can’t stop,” Riley said, her voice still hoarse. “He’s coming. Get out of here and don’t let him find you.” She blinked to clear her eyes and then she saw the kalesa parked at the curb. Irv was standing up motioning for her to hurry. “I’ve got to go. Thank you so much.” Riley gritted her teeth and walked as fast as she could down the walkway to the street.
As she was climbing up into the kalesa, Irv said, “Hurry up. Here he comes.” Then he patted Pedro on the back. “Go, go!”
The driver flicked the reins and the horse stepped away from the curb.
Riley eased her sore body down onto the seat and turned to look.
Benny was standing outside the wood doors, his arms raised to shade his face. His long hair hung in dripping strands down either side of his face.
The young woman ran up to the rolling kalesa and jumped onto one of the shafts alongside the horse just as the driver snapped his whip and the horse broke into a fast trot down the narrow cobblestone street.
She was panting from the run, but as she clung to the side of the carriage she said, “Riley, I’m here to take you to the plane.”
Riley was stunned. She sat unmoving, just staring at the woman. Irv reached across, offered her his hand, and with Pedro’s help they pulled her into the kalesa. Once she was safely seated, Riley said, “How do you know me?”
“I’m a friend of John’s,” she said. “He asked me to look out for you.”
Riley’s face must have looked a complete blank as it took her several seconds to remember that Cole was going by an alias here in the Philippines.
The woman continued. “He told me to watch the Manila Yacht Club. When I called this morning, they said you’d arrived, but wouldn’t give me your phone number. I took a cab down to find you, but as we were going south on Roxas Boulevard, I saw the two of you just outside the yacht club fence climbing into a kalesa headed north.”
Riley turned to look at Irv. That would explain the mysterious phone call to the club. He was being uncharacteristically quiet and just staring at the woman. Granted, she was a knockout in her tank top. Riley guessed it didn’t matter how old the guy was, he could still be struck dumb by cleavage.
Riley turned back to the woman. “How’d you know it was me?”
“John described both of you, and hey”—she gestured toward Irv—“there aren’t many couples around the yacht club that look like you two. We made a U-turn but we lost you for a while when you turned off Roxas. Then we found you again along Rizal Park and followed you into Intramuros.”
Irv turned his body halfway around in the seat to check the traffic behind them. The back of the kalesa had a cutaway window with a rolled-up cloth that could be dropped to keep out rain. “Riley,” he said. “We got trouble.”
She looked back and saw two taxis behind their carriage, but behind the taxis was one of the strange three-wheeled vehicles she’d seen all over the streets. It was a motorcycle with an enclosed sidecar and a little roof over the motorcycle driver. Benny was hanging out of the passenger sidecar, motioning and yelling at the driver. He held his blowpipe in his hand.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Riley said. “Out where there is more room.”
“Those tricycles can be fast,” Irv said. “He’ll catch us if there’s more room.” Then Irv said something in Tagalog to Pedro, who turned his horse right at the next street.
Riley thought they were headed back for the same Intramuros gate where they had entered. Unfortunately, only one of the two cars followed them around the corner and now Benny’s tricycle was even closer. It looked like he was urging his driver to try to pass the taxi that separated him from the kalesa.
Irv yelled, “Duck!”
The three of them bent forward at the waist just as they passed through the gateway.
“What is it?” Riley asked.
“That damn blowgun.”
The kalesa had turned toward the harbor onto the street that passed between the park and the walled city. Traffic was bumper to bumper, moving very slowly. Probably the only thing preventing Benny from getting out and running was the residual effects of the pepper spray. He needed the driver’s eyes.
The carriage jerked to a stop. Pedro cried out and jumped to the ground.
“What’s happening?”
Their horse’s front legs had buckled. Pedro was trying to free the animal from the front shafts of the kalesa so it could roll onto its side without overturning the cart.
“Shit,” Irv said. “He hit the horse with a dart.”
Riley glanced behind them and saw that a truck now blocked Benny’s tricycle, but traffic in his lane was moving. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“A dart?” the woman said.
“He’s got a blowgun and he shoots poison-tipped darts. It’s probably just knocked the horse out temporarily. He hits you or me, it’s a heart-stopper.”
The woman said, “Follow me then,” and she jumped down out of the kalesa.
Peewee beat her out the other side of the carriage. Riley eased her way to the ground.
They darted between the cars, putting distance between them and Benny’s vehicle. Then the woman cut over to the sidewalk. She ran up to an empty tricycle and climbed onto the motorcycle. “Climb in,” she yelled.
Riley pushed Irv inside the small aluminum pod and crawled in after him. The owner of the vehicle, who had been talking in a group of men a distance off, came running over, hollering.
The motorcycle roared to life and the woman took off, driving them down the sidewalk and sending locals and tourists scrambling to get out of the way.
Irv turned around and looked out the tiny window in the back of the sidecar. “Benny’s got his driver on the sidewalk too, now. They’re not far behind us.”
When they reached the intersection with the big coastal boulevard, Roxas, the light was red for them but they bounced down off the curb, causing Riley to see stars again when her butt bumped down onto the hard seat. The little tricycle charged out into the traffic.
Horns blared and tires squealed as the cross traffic swerved to avoid them. Somehow they made it across without getting hit. Their driver continued another couple of blocks, then turned left and drove down a street and into the parking lot of a restaurant. She pulled the bike to a stop and yelled, “Come on!”
Riley tumbled out but Irv was taking longer. The two women lifted him out and set him on his feet just as the other tricycle pulled into the parking lot. The strange woman led them through the restaurant out to a ramp that led down to a long finger pier. Tied alongside the pier was a seaplane.
/> The woman put two fingers in her mouth and let loose an ear-piercing whistle as they pounded their way down the dock. Riley’s body ached in places she didn’t know she had, but now Irv was going even slower than she was.
And Benny was gaining on them.
The engines fired up and the props started turning on the seaplane. A hatch opened up on top and a man poked his head out. He reached down into the plane and pulled up a long rifle. He took aim and let fire. Riley heard the pop and saw the recoil. Then he disappeared back down the hatch just as they arrived alongside.
Riley looked back and saw Benny peering out around the side of the restaurant door. Riley guessed the pilot was shooting over the top of the restaurant, but it had slowed Benny well enough.
The woman swung open the door on the side of the plane and motioned for them to get in. Riley helped Irv climb up and they each took one of the three seats behind the cockpit. The woman who had brought them here ran forward and untied the one line that still held the plane to the pier, then jumped in and closed the door.
As the plane taxied away from the pier she made her way forward and sat in the copilot’s seat. Before she put on the big headphones that she’d picked up off the seat, she turned around and smiled a broad, white smile. She had to shout to be heard over the noise of the engine. “Whew! That was fun. By the way, I didn’t introduce myself back there.” She wiped her hand on the camouflage fabric of her pants and held it out toward Irv. “My name is Greg.”
Riley noticed Irv was staring at her hand. Then, like he was waking up from a trance, he took her hand in both of his, shook it, and shouted, “Another pretty girl with a funny name.”
Greg shrugged, then shook Riley’s hand. “And this guy”—she pointed to the pilot—“is Brian.”
The pilot lifted one hand briefly to wave, but he didn’t turn around. He was busy taxiing the aircraft out into the bay.
“Buckle up, folks,” Greg said as she slipped the headphones over her ears. “Next stop—Subic Bay.”
Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) Page 28
