The Imam of Tawi-Tawi

by Ian Hamilton

  Ramirez nodded, and then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card. “Here, take this. It has my personal email and phone number on it. I’ll be available to you twenty-four hours a day until we conclude this business.”

  “So that’s a yes to my involvement?”

  “It is.”

  Ava stood up. “Then I guess I should get to the hotel as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  As they retraced their steps, Ramirez lagged a pace behind her. When she looked back at him, she thought she saw a combination of concern and reluctance in his face.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  He stopped at the door, his hand resting on the handle. “I know this might be unnecessary, but I don’t feel right about your going to Tawi-Tawi without warning you not to get any ideas about wandering around on your own,” he said. “The island is one of the last real hotbeds of terrorism in our country. The Abu Sayyaf group is as active and militant as ever. There are only about four hundred members, but they make up in viciousness what they lack in numbers. Their specialty is kidnapping for ransom, and they often target foreigners by staking out the airport, the harbour, and the resorts. So if for any reason Wahab isn’t at the airport in Zamboanga to accompany you to Tawi-Tawi, don’t go. I don’t want to have to explain to Chang Wang that something unfortunate has happened to you. After all the complimentary things he’s said about you, I don’t think he would be the least bit understanding.”

  As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, Ava thought.

  ( 8 )

  The Peninsula Hotel was on Ayala Avenue in Makati, no more than a ten-minute drive from Forbes Park. She remembered staying there when she worked on the Tommy Ordonez job. From the outside, the hotel’s Georgian façade made it look like the headquarters of an old and very profitable bank. Inside, it was art deco in design and completely modern in function.

  Chang had reserved a premier suite for her with a garden view that was rather wasted at eleven-thirty at night. Her second disappointment was that the Old Manila restaurant closed at eleven. She had mouth-watering memories of an Irish rib-eye beefsteak topped with seared foie gras. She thought about ordering it from room service, but it wasn’t an option, so instead she ordered a BLT with french fries. Then she phoned Chang.

  “Wei,” he answered.

  “Uncle Chang, it’s Ava,” she said. “You asked me to call after my meeting with Ramirez, but I figure you must have heard from him by now, so I’m not sure what more I can add.”

  “Yes, he did phone me,” he said. “And thank you for agreeing to go to Bongao.”

  “I wish you’d told me about Bongao. You had the chance and you didn’t.”

  He hesitated, and she knew that her abrupt tone had caught him off guard. “I apologize. I could make the excuse that it wasn’t confirmed, but the truth is I was worried that you might be reluctant to come to the Philippines if you knew we wanted you to go to Bongao. And when you arrived, I thought it best for Ramirez to tell you, after he’d explained the political and economic realities of Mindanao and the other southern islands.”

  “He was long and strong on context and short on detail,” Ava said.

  “That is unfortunately the position in which we find ourselves. Hopefully you and the officials from the Brotherhood can remedy that lack of detail.”

  It was Ava’s turned to pause, before saying very deliberately, “Uncle, do you remember how I operated when I took on that job for you and Tommy?”

  “I’m not sure what point you’re making.”

  “When I worked on an assignment, I didn’t brief clients as I went along. I communicated with them only on an absolutely need-to-know basis,” she said. “I know you’re not strictly a client, but don’t expect me to contact you or the senator with every little detail I uncover. The people from the Brotherhood can do as they like, but that’s how I operate.”

  “I have no interest in the process or the methods you employ, only in the conclusion you reach,” he said. “So I won’t expect to hear from you until there is something definitive to report. But I do have to tell you that Ramirez can be very helpful. He has many contacts inside and outside the government. You shouldn’t hesitate to use him, to make demands of him.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “And now would you like your flight details?”

  “Please.”

  Ava wrote as he spoke. The flight to Zamboanga was very early, as Ramirez had said. She was booked on a late afternoon return flight that arrived in Manila mid-evening.

  “There’s only one flight in and one flight out of Bongao every day. If you have to stay over, you should keep that in mind. The flights are never full, though, so you shouldn’t have a problem getting out of there,” Chang said.

  “Hopefully one day will be enough, but I’ll take an overnight bag just in case,” she said.

  “Good luck, Ava, and thank you again for making this effort.”

  She put down the phone and sat back in the chair. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt less enthusiastic about taking on a job of any kind. She opened her notebook and began to record her perceptions of Ramirez and the stories he’d told her. After she wrote They’re training terrorists at the college, she underlined it, and as she did, she felt her interest spike. Could it be true? Ramirez hadn’t been certain, only alarmed at the possibility that it might be. Then she thought about the timeline he’d given her and other questions came tumbling forth. He said the college had been open for a year, for example, but how could it train terrorists for that long without it becoming known?

  The doorbell rang, and five minutes later she was devouring the sandwich and fries, at the same time pondering how best to spend the few hours she had before leaving for the airport. She considered showering and then decided she’d be better served by getting all the sleep she could. She undressed, threw on a T-shirt, and climbed into the luxurious king-size bed.

  She quickly gave up any attempt to sleep. Her mind kept replaying her meeting with Ramirez. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she knew virtually nothing about the southern Philippines, other than what she’d been told by him. And how much of that could she believe? She got out of bed, went to the desk, opened her computer, and entered “Tawi-Tawi” into a search engine.

  It was indeed the southernmost island in the Philippines and a separate province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. It was surrounded by the Sulu Sea and shared ocean borders with the Malaysian state of Sabah and the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan, both of which were on the island of Borneo. It had a population of about four hundred thousand, ninety-six percent of whom were Muslim. And, as Ramirez had said, it still had active terrorist groups, Abu Sayyaf being the largest.

  She typed in “Abu Sayyaf” and quickly realized that Ramirez hadn’t been exaggerating. Since the 1990s the organization had been fighting for control of the Sulu Archipelago, of which Tawi-Tawi was a major part, for the purpose of establishing an Islamic state. They had targeted and killed soldiers, priests, journalists, and foreign tourists, a strategy they still employed. The group had external ties. Abu sayyaf translated to “bearer of the sword”; it was the name of a mujahedeen commander in Afghanistan who had fought the Soviets in the 1980s. In addition to their Afghani connections, several Abu Sayyaf commanders had recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Are they active in Bongao? she wondered as she entered that name. If they were, there was no mention of them. In fact, all the descriptions of Bongao painted it as a pleasant city of about eighty thousand people with a lot of government offices, a couple of colleges — Zakat not among them — and a new two-storey mall.

  She closed that page and entered “Yasin Juhar.” There wasn’t a lot of information, but what she could find confirmed what Ramirez had told her. Juhar had been leading
the Muslim Brotherhood for more than thirty years, first in combat and now in government. She read some recent newspaper articles and ascertained that nothing of any real importance seemed to happen in Mindanao without his involvement and, she assumed, his approval.

  She checked the time. She’d figured she would leave the hotel at around two a.m., and it was already past one. She decided to shower and have some coffee, in the hope that the combination would keep her awake and alert until she got on the first plane.

  ( 9 )

  Ava left the Peninsula dressed in black linen slacks and a blue button-down cotton shirt. There was virtually no traffic on Ayala Avenue, and her taxi got her to Aquino Airport in less than fifteen minutes. She checked in, cleared security, and joined one other person in the business-class lounge of Cebu Pacific. She drank coffee and watched CNN until it was time to board.

  The moment the flight took off, she reclined her seat, slipped on an eye mask, put in earplugs, and fell soundly asleep. She woke reluctantly, prompted by a flight attendant who was gently shaking her arm.

  Only three other people were waiting at the boarding gate for the flight to Bongao. She sat in an orange plastic chair and waited. By six o’clock she was beginning to wonder if Wahab was going to show. Then she saw a short man in blue jeans and a black short-sleeved shirt scanning the departures area. He was sturdy, with a fleshy face and a thick handlebar moustache. He caught her eye and waved in her general direction. She stood up and waved back.

  “I’m Wahab,” he said when he reached her. “Sorry for being a bit late, but on the way I had to drop off my children at my mother’s home.”

  “It’s been an early start to the day for all of us,” Ava said.

  “I know. I told Senator Ramirez that it’s ridiculous to send you here, but he insisted. You could have stayed in Manila and let us handle it. It would have the same result,” he said.

  “Maybe that’s true, but I’m not here because of or for the senator,” Ava said. “There are other people who have an interest in this. I’m here on their behalf.”

  He shrugged and looked at the gate, where people were beginning to form a line.

  Ava noticed he was carrying a small travel bag and pointed to it. “Are we staying over in Tawi-Tawi?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, but is it a problem if we do?”

  “No, I have my things with me,” she said, noticing cigarette on his breath.

  “Did you book a return flight?” he asked.

  “I have one at four.”

  “That should work.”

  Before she could ask why, she was interrupted by the boarding announcement. Wahab smiled awkwardly at her, turned, and headed for the gate. Ava was starting to get irritated by his manner.

  They both had aisle seats but were separated by ten rows. The plane was an Airbus 319 that could hold more than a hundred passengers. There were fewer than twenty on board, and both she and Wahab had a row to themselves. She considered sitting next to him and then thought, Let him make that decision. She took out her Moleskine and began to reread her notes. They held her attention for only a few minutes before her eyes began to close. She put the notebook on the seat next to her, let her head fall back, and closed her eyes.

  She woke as the plane began its descent. Ava looked at her watch. They’d been in the air for twenty minutes of what was only a thirty-minute flight. The pilot announced their approach to Tawi-Tawi’s Sanga-Sanga Airport in an almost singsong manner.

  She walked down the steps of the plane onto the runway and waited for Wahab. There was a scattering of white clouds overhead, but they didn’t offer any protection from the blinding sun. The sky was a shockingly brilliant blue. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen a sky that colour. The tarmac shimmered in the heat like a desert mirage, and soon she was wiping the sweat off her brow.

  Wahab was one of the last people to get off the plane. “You didn’t have to wait for me,” he said. “It’s too hot out here in the open.”

  They walked towards the small one-storey terminal, which was bordered by a row of trees blooming with yellow flowers. Ava breathed in deeply. “That’s such a beautiful scent,” she said.

  “It’s ylang-ylang. We call it the perfume tree,” Wahab said.

  “Another double name.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  As soon as they entered the arrivals hall, a thin young man wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, a white T-shirt, skin-tight jeans, and Nike high-tops rushed towards them. “Good morning, sir,” he said to Wahab, bowing deeply.

  “Hi, Saham. Is everything arranged?” Wahab said.

  The young man stepped to one side and looked in the direction from which he’d come. “The imam can explain that better than I can,” he said, motioning at a short, stout man wearing a white thawb and a black taqiyah who was walking laboriously towards them.

  The imam bowed his head ever so slightly when he reached them. Wahab did the same and then turned to Ava. “This is Imam Sharif,” he said. “He is the person who contacted us about the college.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ava said.

  The imam’s eyes moved back and forth between Ava and Wahab. Then he began to speak to Wahab in what Ava recognized as Tagalog, the native tongue of the Philippines. Wahab replied in the same language. Ava had no idea what was being said, but she did catch her name and those of Ramirez and Ordonez.

  “Is there a problem?” Ava asked when their conversation paused.

  “No. The imam just wasn’t expecting me to bring a woman.”

  “He does understand the circumstances?”

  “Now he does. I explained to him that you’re working for one of our partners and that you’re an expert at gathering and assessing information.”

  “Is that what Ramirez told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did you say earlier that it’s a waste of time for me to come?”

  “Because I’m quite good at it myself.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “But now that you’re here, we need to show solidarity.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Saham led the way out of the terminal with Ava by his side and Wahab and Sharif trailing them. They crossed the roadway, entered an outdoor parking lot, and turned right. About twenty metres away, another young man jumped out of the driver’s seat of a black Honda SUV and opened all the doors. He was dressed almost identically to his colleague, except he wasn’t wearing a baseball cap. Ava could hear the air conditioning going full blast and gratefully slid into the back seat. Wahab joined her, leaving the front seats for the imam and Saham, who took the driver’s seat. The young man who’d been sitting in the car left without an explanation.

  Ava looked out the window as they drove towards the city. She noted the looming presence of a mountain covered in trees and a magnificent whitewashed building overlooking the harbour and bay. Wahab noticed her interest and pointed to the mountain. “That’s Bud Bongao,” he said. “At 340 metres, it’s the highest mountain in Tawi-Tawi. There are three Muslim shrines at its peak, and many pilgrims go there.”

  “And the building?”

  “That’s Tawi-Tawi’s Provincial Capitol building. It’s modelled after the Taj Mahal.”

  The city was mainly low-lying, and aside from the miniature Taj, the tallest buildings they passed were mosques, their minarets decorating the skyline. The car made a right and they were now skirting the city, moving away from the mountain. They turned right again, and what Ava assumed was the Sulu Sea filled the view ahead. The road narrowed and the asphalt became dirt; houses became less frequent and red tiled roofs gave way to thatched.

  They turned right once again and the Honda came to an abrupt stop in a dirt courtyard in front of a long, narrow wooden building painted pink and white. A canvas sheet t
hat said MARIA’S HOTEL AND RESTAURANT hung on the side of the building. Ava estimated they were about a hundred metres from the sea, with several clusters of small huts between them and the water.

  “You can leave your carry-on here,” Wahab said to Ava, and then turned to Saham. “Turn off the car while you’re waiting. If you get warm, sit in the shade.”

  He and Sharif got out of the car and she followed them into the building, carrying her Chanel bag. It was dark inside. All the blinds were drawn, and two giant ceiling fans were slowly churning warm air. “Over here, sirs,” a voice said.

  They walked to the left, past a small reception desk and into a room with ten or twelve wooden tables. Two young men sat at the table farthest from the entrance. They were wearing identical blue short-sleeved cotton shirts with “Zakat” stitched in large letters above the pocket. They stood and bowed. One had long hair parted down the middle; the other’s was closely cropped. They both had thin, scraggly beards. They look like teenagers, Ava thought.

  “Sit,” Wahab said to them with an impatient wave of his hand.

  They did as he asked. The table was long enough to accommodate eight people, and the young men sat side by side with what looked like glasses of lemonade in front of them. The imam sat with them. Ava and Wahab slid onto a bench facing them.

  “Do you want something to drink?” Wahab asked her and the imam.

  “Black coffee would be perfect,” she said, while the imam shook his head.

  Wahab raised his hand and held it in the air until a short, wiry woman arrived at the table. “Two black coffees,” he said.

  He waited until she left before he said, “Imam, will you introduce these men?”

  “This is Ben,” the imam said in English, indicating the one with cropped hair. “And this is Alcem. They’re cousins.”

  “My name is Wahab, and this is a colleague, Ava Lee,” Wahab said to them.

  “Wahab is deputy commander of our Muslim Brotherhood,” the imam continued. “He has flown all the way from Mindanao to speak to you. The woman is a friend of a friend of the Brotherhood. I expect you to show her every courtesy.”