Chapter Sixteen
Beneath a glassy blue sky and a blistering sun, the modified C-130 landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 1400 hours. It taxied to a remote hangar far from Manila’s commercial terminals, where a camouflaged army command car and armed Humvee were parked inside.
As the hangar door rolled closed, the cargo jet’s door opened, and its stairway unfolded. The uniformed driver of the car jumped out, ran around to the side of the car that faced the jet, and opened the rear door.
Concealed inside the hangar, Secretary of the Army Jasper Kott descended the stairway, four aides following. His smooth features were hidden behind black aviator glasses. As he approached the command car, the driver stood at attention. Elegant as usual in a perfectly tailored, three-piece suit, Kott nodded acknowledgment and stepped into the backseat. His aides climbed into the Humvee.
There was already a passenger inside the command car — a uniformed man who wore on his shoulders the single silver star of a brigadier general.
Sitting beside the far window, he drew on a thick cigar and exhaled aromatic smoke. “The cigar bother you, Mr. Secretary?” Brigadier General Emmanuel (”Manny”) Rose asked.
“Not if you need it to think, General.” Kott opened the window as the car pulled away, the Humvee following.
A door the size of an outsized garage door rolled up in the shadowy hangar, and the two vehicles drove through into the sweltering Philippine day.
“On this assignment, I need it for patience.” Rose blew another cloud as the tires droned over the tarmac. “You won’t believe these people.”
“Of course I will. I work in D. C.” Secretary Kott glanced out at the palms and tropical vegetation. The hot air did not bother him. Mango trees crowded together in the distance. Birds in violent colors flew from the branches of hibiscus and bottlebrush trees. Ahead, a mirage shimmered on the pavement. It was at least ten degrees hotter here than in Washington— hot, humid, and fecund.
“You’ve got a point.”
The secretary questioned, “You think this al-Sayed prisoner is the real thing? A top leader of the Mindanao Islamic guerrillas?”
“Sure looks like it.”
“Why? Because they want to hold on to him, get all the credit?”
“Those who don’t want to nail him to a wall and skin him alive, and those who don’t want to make a fast deal and cut him loose so he’ll keep muni about what they’ve been doing.”
“You’ve insisted we be present at all interrogations?” the secretary pressed.
General Rose nodded, his jowls quivering, on the verge of outrage. “Damn right. If they neglect our wishes, they don’t get any more aid or tech training from us. Just to be sure, I’ve put my own men on the guard detail.”
“Good.”
The general paused to smoke and watch the street. He seemed to see nothing that disturbed him. He glanced at the secretary. “You brought a team?”
“A CIA interrogation expert as well as an air force captain who speaks Moro.” Kott did not bother to mention he had also brought his chef. “My aide’s with them in the Humvee. Tomorrow, we’ll have a go at him.”
“Yeah. You will if you convince the Filipinos at the dinner tonight to let us.”
Kott smiled confidently. “That won’t be a problem.”
Soon after, both vehicles arrived at the sprawling country estate that was the temporary command headquarters of the American military mission, courtesy of the Manila government. Making small talk for the benefit of anyone who might be eavesdropping, General Rose escorted Secretary Kott to his air-conditioned quarters to rest and freshen up before the all- important dinner meeting tonight with the Filipino politicians and military men.
“This evening then, General.” Kott extended his hand.
Rose shook it. He growled around the butt of his cigar, “I’ll be ready.
Get a good nap. You’re going to need it.”
As his air conditioner whistled from the corner of his suite, Kott closed the door and waited five minutes. He opened it and peered in both directions along the hallway. No one was in sight.
Crouched outside beneath a window of the frame building, a slim woman wearing the uniform of a U.S. Air Force captain pressed a contact microphone against the wall. She had arrived on the cargo jet with Secretary Kott.
Inside his suite, Kott’s footsteps marched across the floor. There was the click of keys on a keypad being depressed, and the sound of a telephone receiver being lifted.
“I’m here,” he said. “Yes. I have to be back by six tonight. In two hours? Fine. Where? The Corregidor Club? Right. I’ll be there.”
The receiver dropped into its cradle, a wooden chair creaked, footsteps walked away, and finally shoes clattered onto the floor. Bed springs sighed. Kott was relaxing before going to meet whomever he had been talking to. Probably lying on the bed wide awake and looking up at the ceiling where assorted strange insects waited to drop onto the mosquito netting.
The air force captain was also Secretary Kott’s Moro interpreter. Her name tag read Captain Vanessa Lim. She left the window. She was not headed off to rest, and her name was not Vanessa Lim.
Hong Kong The most difficult action for an undercover agent was to do nothing. Jon stood in the bow of the ferry, pretending to feast on the kaleidoscopic cityape that filled the horizon. Although the skin on the back of his neck puckered, he did not turn again to check the two men who had been moving forward through the press of passengers, studying clothes, faces, and the attitudes of everyone they passed. There was no way they could know what the caller to Donk & Lapierre looked like. In fact, the chance that Feng Uun or anyone else in China knew It. Col. Jon Smith was even in Hong Kong was minimal.
But a minimal chance was still a chance. Possible, but not probable. As Damon Runyon once said, “The race isn’t always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But that’s the way to bet.” A matter of odds.
Smith remained at the front of the ferry, apparently unworried, no sign he was aware anything unusual was occurring around him. He appeared transfixed by all the exotic sights and sounds, as the ferry drew closer to its terminal on Hong Kong Island.
When the boat slid and thudded along the pilings, deckhands in blue uniforms pulled it in. The crowd moved forward, ready to trample onto land the instant the ferry stopped and the gates opened.]on joined them. Above them, seagulls circled and cawed, while a wave of impatience rushed through the waiting throngs. Finally, the gates opened. The surge of humanity carried Jon down the wood ramp and up the concrete one. When he looked back, the two hunters had vanished.
Manila Secretary of the Army Jasper Kott had changed into a loose-fitting blue shirt, linen sports coat, tan slacks, and bone-colored loafers. He was sitting relaxed, enjoying the stream of cool air from the air conditioner, as he studied a special forces report on a guerrilla force that had made a lightning incursion and strike on a Filipino army garrison in northern Mindanao.
When someone knocked, he marked his place, set the report on a table beside his chair, and went to the door.
The special forces sergeant who had driven him to the headquarters stepped inside. “Good evening, sir.”
“All clear, Sergeant?”
“Yessir. Most of their people are taking siestas. Ours are busy with the antirrorist training. Your car’s at the side door. The only sentry is one of my guys.”
“I appreciate the help. Very discreet. Thank you.” Sergeant Reno smiled. “We all need a little R and R sometimes, sir.” Kott smiled back, man to man. “Then let’s go.”
He strode down the silent hallway, the sergeant respectfully three paces behind. Outside, the same camouflage-painted command car waited, its engine on. The secretary nodded approval: A quietly running engine
