by Hank Parker
Halfway into the curve, the train tumbled off the rails, plowing up a deep furrow of earth as it plunged into an abandoned field littered with refuse. When the train finally stopped, the engine and passenger cars lay on their sides. The sounds of screaming penetrated the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SEPTEMBER 2 (SEPTEMBER 3, PHILIPPINES TIME)
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Mariah glanced around the airy, spacious lobby of the Manila Hotel, noting the high ceilings with lazily turning overhead fans and comfortable old rattan furniture. “Kind of old-world,” she said to Curt.
“Right. A lot of history,” he said. “MacArthur stayed here during the war. A little dated now but the security’s good. And it does have a romantic appeal.”
Mariah looked at him. Was that a teasing smirk on his face? Lots of luck, fella, she said to herself. Then she remembered that they were supposed to be newlyweds.
A young man rose from a chair in the lobby and approached Mariah and Curt as if he’d been expecting them. So this was the guy Cothran had said was going to meet them in Manila? He seemed really young and struck Mariah as nervous and maybe even a little angry. She did like that he had gray-blue eyes, like Curt’s, but they seemed out of place with the man’s dark hair. She figured the anomaly must be a feature more common than she’d imagined, like birthmarks, just something she’d never really picked up on before. There were a lot of things about other people that she hadn’t been noticing, she admitted to herself. She’d been so focused on her work, so wrapped up in her own little world, a world that was now getting larger.
Curt grinned, extended his hand to the young man, and turned toward Mariah.
“Meet Angus Friedman,” he said. “Angus, Mariah Rossi.” For a couple of minutes, they made small talk, how their flights went, that sort of thing, as Mariah tried to size up Angus. What she had first thought might be anger now looked more like disappointment. Maybe he was expecting a more modern hotel. It was pretty clear that he already knew Curt. And what about the Cothran connection? Was Angus CIA too? Sure didn’t look like it. But then she didn’t have any basis for that judgment, except from the movies.
“Angus, we’re going to check in and freshen up a bit,” Curt was saying. “Want to join us for dinner later? Say seven thirty?”
Mariah could see a struggle on Angus’s face between acting professional and showing his disappointment. He definitely seemed to want to say something of meaning to Curt, but instead just replied, “Yes, sir. See you then. Thank you.”
Curt seemed oblivious to Angus’s strange tone. He went up close to him and asked, “Do you have some information for us?”
Angus nodded. “Our fugitive flew to Jolo yesterday. That’s in the province of Sulu.”
“I know where it is,” said Curt. “Do we know why he’s there?”
“Not yet, but he was accompanied by an Abu Sayyaf guerrilla—you know, the local Islamic terrorist group.”
Mariah was close enough that she could hear. She now figured that Angus must work for Curt’s organization, which she now suspected was a branch of the CIA. What was it again—the Bio Investigative Service? He obviously knew what was going on. Was he going to join them on the search for the fugitive?
“We do have a first name,” said Angus. “Omar. That’s it. Even that’s probably an alias. We’ve got an agent embedded with Abu Sayyaf. Our guy thinks Omar may be Pakistani. He still hasn’t shown up on any databases.”
“So what are we doing to catch this Omar?” asked Curt.
“We’re booked on a flight to Jolo early tomorrow morning.” Angus reached into his pocket, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to Curt. “Here are your tickets. Seven thirty departure.”
“I’ll arrange for a cab,” Curt said. “Let’s meet in the lobby at five thirty a.m. We’ll plan to make it an early evening tonight.”
* * *
Later that evening, after a frustrating dinner with Curt and Mariah at a restaurant near the hotel, Angus returned to his hotel room. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep. Why did that woman have to come? Why couldn’t he get a single moment alone with Curt, to tell him what he’d failed to tell him back in Honolulu because there hadn’t been time? Why couldn’t Cothran have just told Curt instead? Why did it have to be up to him? He was feeling so many things—angry, anxious, and even a little jealous that the woman seemed to be Curt’s girlfriend. He needed a walk. He knew it could be dangerous to go out at night in this area. But he had to clear his mind before the next day’s operation.
He gathered up his wallet and passport and left the room. The waterside walk down Roxas Boulevard was pleasant and had a calming effect. After a while he stopped and sat on a bench overlooking Manila Bay and tried to sort through a jumble of thoughts, some in conflict with others. Foremost in his mind was that, after all these years, he now had a father again. He’d known about Kennedy for months, ever since Cothran had revealed his identity during the agency’s background investigation. At first he’d been overcome with emotion. But now Angus was struggling with the reality of coming face-to-face with his long-lost father.
Of course he was thrilled to finally be reunited with Curt, a man whom he’d instantly liked and admired. But Angus had grown up without a dad, had, over time, adjusted to the loneliness and rootlessness that had come with that, had developed a core of independence and self-sufficiency that he sensed could be threatened by the insertion of a father figure into his life. Especially a father figure as dominant as Curt.
And what about Curt? Angus wasn’t at all sure what his reaction would be to the sudden intrusion of a son that he’d probably long assumed he’d never see again. Would he be viewed as a complication in the man’s busy, shadowy life, even an encumbrance? If Angus told him the truth, would Kennedy be able to accept it?
And then there was the question of Mariah. It was obvious to Angus that she and Curt had a close relationship, maybe even a romantic one. What would Angus’s appearance on the scene do to that relationship? And how would Mariah respond?
Finally, there was the mission. If the three of them were to successfully complete it, they’d need utmost focus on the job at hand. The emergence of complicated family issues could distract them from their all-important task. Maybe he should wait until they’d accomplished the mission before telling Curt the truth. But how could he concentrate effectively with this secret buried within him, crying for release like an animal trapped in a cage?
Finally, Angus made a decision. He’d go back to the hotel and wake up Curt and just tell him. Just get it out. It was the only way he’d be able to think clearly in the morning. And, in the end, he’d have to be thinking clearly if this operation was going to be successful.
As he began to walk back a car passed slowly on his side of the road and eased to a stop just ahead of him. The passenger door swung open and a man stepped out and turned to face Angus. In the man’s hand was something dark and heavy-looking. As Angus’s mind finally registered that the man was looking at him, the man raised the dark object, and that was the last thing the young man saw.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SEPTEMBER 3 (SEPTEMBER 4, PHILIPPINES TIME)
THE PHILIPPINES
Kennedy followed the hotel security guard to the elevator and down the hall to Angus’s room. Angus hadn’t met them in the lobby at the arranged time, and he hadn’t answered his phone.
The room was empty except for an open suitcase lying on the bed, which obviously hadn’t been slept in. Kennedy checked the bathroom. The space smelled of aftershave. A damp towel was draped over the tub. Dirty clothes hung on the back of the bathroom door.
Kennedy walked back into the bedroom and quickly searched it. Nothing was amiss and there was no evidence of any struggle. Nothing unusual at all, not even a note. There was no sign of a wallet.
Kennedy thanked the guard and returne
d to his own room. To maintain the honeymoon ruse, he and Mariah had shared a room, but that was all they’d shared. Even if he’d been tempted—and Kennedy admitted to himself that he definitely would have been tempted under other circumstances—it was obvious that Mariah was keeping him at arm’s length. He could hear her in the shower. He grabbed his phone, punched in a number, and Cothran answered, “Pacific Enterprises.”
“Batman here,” Kennedy said.
“What’s up?”
“Our new player seems to have disappeared.”
Long pause on the other end. “Did you meet him?”
“Yes, last night,” said Kennedy. “But no sign of him this morning.”
“I’ll contact the team managers and track him down. It shouldn’t take us long. I’ll call you right back.”
“I’ll wait here.”
Minutes later his phone rang. “We can’t reach him either,” said Cothran. “Can you proceed on your own?”
“Yes, no problem.”
“We’ll be in touch. Watch for a text. Safe travels.”
* * *
Angus groaned and tried to stand on tiptoes to alleviate the aching pain in his shoulders. His arms were suspended over his head and stretched backward, his wrists bound together by a nylon line that hung over a metal pipe beneath the ceiling of a large dingy room that smelled like rotten fish. He was naked from the waist up. His face was caked with blood and one eye was swollen shut. With his good eye, he tried to make out his surroundings, thinking it would be important to note and remember every possible detail. Looked like an old storage building. Overhead door at one end. Concrete floor with dark stains and muddy tracks. Flickering fluorescent lights with half the bulbs burned out. Rows of empty shelving on the far wall. An old army-green forklift with a flat tire.
He thought back to the previous evening. Car pulling over on Roxas Boulevard. Guy getting out, holding an object that looked like a blackjack. Waking up sometime later in a dingy hotel room, couple of guys standing over him asking questions. Contents of his wallet strewn on a table. They’d said they knew he was a software engineer, that he must be rich. They’d wanted him to give them the names and phone numbers of family members who could provide a million-dollar ransom. He’d refused to talk. They’d hit him again and he’d blacked out for the second time. When he’d awakened he’d found himself in this warehouse, with two hooded men standing guard over him. From the sound of their voices Angus knew these weren’t the same guys who’d captured him.
He heard a door open. Short, thick guy wearing a black hood with eye slits, carrying something in his right hand.
“Ready to talk yet?” the man asked.
“Fuck you,” Angus slurred.
Searing pain across his lower back. What had they hit him with this time? Angus turned his head. He could see that the man was holding a whip. There was something on the end of the tail, looked like a cluster of fishhooks. The man raised his arm again and swung. Angus moaned through gritted teeth.
“We know you’re CIA,” the man said patiently, in an accent that Angus couldn’t place. “Just tell us what you’re doing here and we’ll let you go.”
Angus knew that even if he talked, they’d probably kill him. How did they know who he was? Had they picked up on him at the airport? Did they know about Curt and Mariah? Doubtful. They’d have put two and two together by now if they knew he was working with the two Americans. The questions weren’t leading in that direction.
More likely something in his wallet had given him away. Think. Was there anything incriminating in the wallet? Credit cards, driver’s license, even his passport were all under the name Andrew Hyatt. Business cards identified him as a representative of a U.S. software company. The wallet held other business cards with names of local computer companies. Then Angus remembered. On a small piece of folded paper, tucked deep inside his wallet, was a special phone number that Cothran had given him. He’d ignored Cothran’s warning to not write it down, to just memorize it. He was afraid he’d forget the number and figured that the number by itself, without an association, wouldn’t be incriminating. Stupid rookie mistake. He now realized that any professional worth his salt would track down the number, figure out that it wasn’t just an innocuous U.S. embassy line. And it seemed that the guys who’d originally captured him for ransom had figured it out and traded him to these new guys for a nice profit.
Fine, they suspected he was a spy. But they wouldn’t get any information from him.
Angus watched as the hooded man walked to a table in the corner of the room. The man picked something up and came back toward him. Angus squinted to make it out. As soon as he realized the object was a syringe, fear swept over him. He had little hope now that he’d be able to hold anything back. He was sure he’d even tell them the one secret he’d been trying to let Curt in on.
* * *
Later that morning, Mariah sat rigidly in a South East Asian Airlines thirty-passenger turboprop commuter plane and clenched her teeth as they flew through low clouds toward Jolo airport in the province of Sulu. She had a window seat but wished she didn’t. The pilot had announced that the flight could be rough. The outer fringes of a fast-moving typhoon were brushing the area. Mariah could feel wind buffeting the plane.
She looked over to Curt. He sat stiffly, his jaw clenched, staring straight ahead. Doubt he has a fear of flying, Mariah thought. Was he thinking about Angus? Curt had told her that instead of joining them on the flight, Angus would meet them later in Jolo, but he hadn’t explained the change in plans.
The plane gave a sharp jolt. Mariah cinched her seat belt tighter and gripped the arms of her seat. Curt had turned toward her, an amused expression on his face.
“So what happened to the dollhouse you made for Lucy?” she asked, not realizing until later, when she thought back on the moment, that she’d asked the question defensively. She’d felt nervous because of the plane, and because of Curt seeing her nervous, and she’d brought up the sensitive topic of his sister as a way of putting him back on his heels.
Curt looked down. “I guess my parents gave it away,” he said.
“But you kept making them?”
“No, I switched to more masculine things. Toy boats, wooden guns, that sort of thing. And a tree house. My father helped me with that one. It wasn’t until I got out of graduate school that I started building dollhouses again. Still do it. Helps me stay connected to Lucy.”
“What do you do with the dollhouses now?”
“Give them away. I go up to Penn Hospital quite a bit to visit the kids in the cancer ward. Every time I finish a dollhouse, I take it with me and leave it for one of the little girls.”
Mariah started to respond, then caught herself. She wanted to compliment him, but didn’t know how he’d take it. She doubted that he’d ever talked with anyone about this aspect of his life, and she was glad he was opening up to her, but she didn’t want to embarrass him by probing too much. So she finally said, in a tone that she hoped conveyed admiration at his generosity, “So that’s why you wanted to go to medical school?”
Curt raised his head and turned toward her. “Basically, yes. The navy gave me a really good opportunity. But after a few years of treating patients—soldiers and sailors with everything from STDs to PTSD, I pretty much burned out. And got fed up with bureaucracy. But I got interested in animal diseases because so many of them can be transmitted to humans. Left active duty and went back to school, this time on my own dime except for what the GI Bill covered. Earned a PhD in microbiology.” He chuckled. “So look what happens. I end up working for the federal government. Back to the bureaucracy.”
The plane banked low and approached the runway with wobbling wings, touched down, bounced a bit, and then taxied to the end of the runway as the passengers broke into a smattering of applause.
As she exited the aircraft with her duffel bag, Mariah felt a
little ridiculous. She was wearing a straw hat, a floral sundress, and sandals. Curt was decked out in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and wraparound sunglasses. They were trying their best to look like a young couple on a diving holiday. They’d booked a flight for the following day to Puerto Princesa in the Palawan Islands and had reserved a four-day dive package through Evergreen Dive Adventures—a flight and a vacation they had no intention of taking, Mariah thought ruefully to herself. They’d even chatted about their diving plans while they’d waited in the terminal for the flight to Jolo, and had gotten into an animated conversation with another passenger about the province of Palawan. Mariah wished that the dive resort was their real destination.
* * *
Angus rubbed his raw wrists and rotated his aching shoulders. He was alone in the storage shed for the first time since they’d brought him here. And for the first time he wasn’t half hanging by his arms from an overhead beam, steeling himself against the next physical assault, trying to summon up every ounce of his resistance to keep from spilling his guts.
But, in the end, he’d talked.
He thought back to his training, to a stooped, gray-haired man with a road map’s worth of lines on his face and deep-set eyes that resembled tarnished copper coins on old parchment. Everyone has a breaking point, the veteran had told him. The object was to hold out as long as you could and reveal as little as possible.
Angus had held out as long as he could. For more than a day he’d withstood the beatings and the sleep deprivation. Then they’d brought out the syringe. He’d figured it contained some kind of truth serum. Angus had learned enough about these psychoactive drugs to know that their efficacy was questionable. But he also knew that recent advances in neurobiology increased the likelihood that more effective pharmaceuticals were under development—if they weren’t already out there. If they injected him, he might not have any control over what he said. He couldn’t take that chance.
