The Imam of Tawi-Tawi

by Ian Hamilton

  Dulles glanced at Ava and gave her the slightest smile. “I did read something about that.”

  “I was also one of the largest individual donors to the president’s re-election campaign.”

  “That isn’t a question.”

  “But you have some idea where I’m heading?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good, because you should also know that I was the founder of Christian Allies of Israel, and over the past twenty years I’ve donated more than one hundred million dollars to that foundation,” he said. “I was also the largest contributor to the Israeli Independent Conservative Party during the last election, and Stephen Weisman, the leader of the party and now prime minister, is a personal friend.”

  “I knew you had close ties to him.”

  “Close ties? I bought radio and television stations and newspapers and magazines in Israel for the sole purpose of supporting Weisman and promoting his party. He’s keeping Israel safe, and I’ll do whatever I can to assist him.”

  “That’s a remarkable commitment on your part.”

  “I see it more as a fulfillment of my Christian obligation,” Allison said. “I believe that the emergence of a Jewish state in the land promised by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was ordained by God. A unified Israel in the hands of Jews is a prerequisite for the Rapture and for the return of Jesus.”

  “I respect your beliefs, although I can’t pretend to understand them,” Dulles said. Allison’s shoulders tensed, and Ava wondered if Dulles had offended him.

  “Tell me something. How many people know about this threat right now?” Allison said.

  “The people in this room and a handful in the Philippines,” Dulles said.

  “Your colleagues in Beirut?”

  “Only in the most general way. I haven’t shared details with them.”

  “And you haven’t advised Washington or Langley, or wherever you report to?”

  “Not yet, but it is inevitable. We’ve been in information-gathering mode and it’s been a whirlwind. As I said, we’ve been led to understand that the threat isn’t imminent, so we thought it important to confirm what we’ve been told before raising the alarm.”

  “Who knows that the casino might have been the source of the money?”

  “The same people, here in this room and in Beirut.”

  Allison spun around, took a step forward, and pointed his index finger at Dulles. His cheeks had turned bright red, and Ava wondered if that was because of anger or the cognac. “Do you have any notion — the slightest idea — how loathsome and destructive it would be to me if it was even hinted that a business I own part of helped fund an Islamic terrorist group?” he said, his voice coarse.

  “I understand —”

  “You really can’t,” Allison interrupted. “I have devoted a good part of my life to defending Israel. All that work and dedication and money would be forgotten. The fact that I knew nothing about what was going on at that damn casino wouldn’t matter. I would be a villain to some and a laughingstock to others.”

  “I don’t see why that would necessarily be the end result,” Dulles said quietly. “I would certainly make it clear in my communications that we have no reason to believe you were involved in any way and that you’ve been very co-operative.”

  Allison took another step forward and almost stood over Dulles. “You could choose not to mention me. You could just name the casino and the local partners.”

  “That wouldn’t be the entire truth.”

  “Truth? The truth is that my partners were extorted. That needs to be said. Everything else is irrelevant.”

  “Talk to those partners and get me everything they have on al-Touma, and then we’ll see where we sit.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” Allison said, “but you must understand that I’m a man who doesn’t shrink from adversity.”

  “I don’t know why you would say ‘adversity.’ I hardly think we represent any kind of challenge or danger to you,” Dulles said.

  “My name and my reputation are in peril. I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect them.”

  “I would expect you to do nothing less, just as I hope you understand that I have a job to do.”

  “I’m not going to just sit back and hope all this goes away.”

  “We should all be so lucky that it goes away,” Dulles said.

  “I don’t count on luck,” Allison said, and then walked away. He went into the sitting room, spoke to the bodyguard, and headed for the bedroom. There he stopped at the door and turned to stare at Dulles. “Don’t mess with me, Alasdair. I can go so far above your head that I’d seem little more than a speck on the ceiling.”

  Dulles started to reply, but Allison disappeared into the bedroom before he could speak.

  Ava looked at Dulles. “What do we do now?” she said.

  ( 33 )

  They waited, but after a few minutes Ava knew they were wasting their time. Allison wasn’t coming back. She was about to say as much to Dulles when the bodyguard spoke. “You two need to go,” he said.

  He was standing by the sofa, his eyes fixed on them. Ava recognized his body language; she’d seen it often enough, in men who were gearing up for a physical confrontation. “You two need to go,” he said again in an accent that Ava thought had its origins in New York or New Jersey. “Mr. Allison is finished with you.”

  “I don’t see any value in hanging around,” Ava said.

  They walked towards the door. As they passed George, he glared at them and then fell in behind them until they exited the suite. The door slammed shut as soon as they stepped into the hallway.

  “Charming,” Ava said. “I wonder what Allison said to him.”

  “Throw the bums out?”

  Ava smiled. “It was certainly a strange end to a strange conversation. Do you think Allison will call his partners?”

  “I expect so, or maybe I should say I hope so,” Dulles said. “What did you think of him?”

  “He’s tightly wound, but then a lot of tough, smart people are.”

  “What about his level of co-operation?”

  “Until that closing drama, I think his responses were reasonable, given what you’d just dropped on him,” Ava said. “I don’t know what more you could expect from him. And if he gets you the al-Touma information, he’ll have done everything you want.”

  “You know, everything he said about his support of Israel is true.”

  “And that makes his sensitivity about the casino’s involvement going public all the more understandable.”

  They reached the elevator and waited for a car. Dulles appeared lost in thought. Ava turned to him and said, “Are you going to be informing Washington or Langley or wherever about Tawi-Tawi?”

  “I should probably have done it by now, but I was holding off until we had some confirmation that this wasn’t just another conspiracy theory,” he said. “I’m comfortable now that it isn’t, so I’m going to make a phone call when I get to my room.”

  “Do you have to move that fast?”

  “I’m sorry, but I think I do. That chat with Allison was the tipping point. I can’t trust him not to make some phone calls of his own tonight. If he starts blundering around and my director is questioned, he’s not going to be happy about getting caught off guard, and he won’t be pleased to hear about this second-hand.”

  “Do the Philippine security services have to be brought into it?”

  “Ava, I’m going to call only one person, and that’s Brad Harrison, my boss. I’ll explain the sensitivity of the Brotherhood’s involvement and their fears about Philippine security. He appreciates that sources have to be protected and he understands there’s a vigilante mentality loose in the Philippines right now, so I don’t expect him to start making calls to Manila. I’m also going to ask him to let us run with this on our own
for another day or two. But that will be his decision, and I won’t argue with him if he says no.”

  “You do know that I haven’t told the Brotherhood, Ramirez, or Chang Wang about you.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “I’m not worried how Chang will react, because he knows me and trusts me, but I’m worried about losing the co-operation of the others.”

  “We still need them.”

  “I know.”

  “So don’t tell them — not yet, anyway. Wait until I get some kind of direction from Harrison.”

  The elevator arrived. Dulles’s room was on the forty-second floor and Ava’s was on the forty-first. As they began their descent, she said, “Okay, I’ll hold off talking to anyone until I hear from you.”

  “I think that’s best.”

  “But one more thing: I was thinking about Allison. I wonder whether the agitation and anger he displayed before we left were real or contrived.”

  “You doubt that it was real?”

  “He turned it on in an instant but he was still under control. Those two things don’t always go together,” Ava said.

  “He’s a pro.”

  “Yes, he’s smart, tough, rich, and a pro. So how does all the religious hocus-pocus fit with that profile?”

  “Are you religious?”

  “I’m a lapsed Catholic.”

  “I’m a lazy Methodist,” Dulles said. “I’m not sure which church Allison belongs to specifically, but, as I said, it’s fundamentalist, and the attitude he displays towards Israel is common among those groups. He just puts his money where his mouth is — and he’s got more money than just about anyone, so he makes a bigger impact. But I think what you’re really asking is whether he’s sincere.”

  “That is the question.”

  “I think he’s completely sincere and totally committed.”

  The elevator came to a stop. “I’ll be up early,” Ava said.

  “Me too. You should assume that we’ll be out of here tomorrow and probably heading back to the Philippines.”

  The curtains in Ava’s room were closed when she entered it. She turned on the entrance light and then a desk lamp. She thought about opening her computer, but that just made her feel tired. She sat on the edge of the bed and unpacked her travel bag. It had been a long and exhausting day. They’d made progress, but towards what end she wasn’t sure. Knowing how the college got its money and Jason Said’s explanation of how it operated were two positives, but it didn’t get them any closer to Tariq al-Bashir or identifying where about 150 young men were embedded.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Why did I let myself get sucked into this?” She closed her eyes and drew deep breaths. There was no point in thinking about it anymore until she heard from Dulles.

  In the meantime she needed to look after herself. She stripped and walked to the bathroom with her toiletries bag in hand. She brushed her teeth and then stepped into the shower. She set the showerhead to a fine mist, and for five minutes she enjoyed the sensation of standing inside a warm, wet cloud. When, wrapped in a Shangri-La bathrobe, she re-entered the bedroom, she climbed straight into bed.

  It was still dark when she woke, and at first she thought it was the middle of the night. But the bedside clock read ten minutes after seven. She sat up, not quite sure where she was for a few seconds. Then it registered, and without thinking she reached for the room phone.

  “Good morning, baby,” Fai answered. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Hong Kong, but I’ve been running around like mad and I’m about to leave for Manila again.”

  “And I’m about a hundred kilometres closer to Beijing than I was yesterday morning.”

  “You know, I saw High Noon on one flight, and it reminded me of your film,” Ava said, and described the similar theme.

  Her cellphone vibrated. She looked at the incoming number and saw that it was Wahab. “Fai, I have a call coming in that I have to take. I love you, and I’ll call you tomorrow.” She picked up her phone and connected.

  “Hi, Wahab. If you’re phoning about the brushes, we haven’t heard anything yet,” she said.

  “Ava, they’ve left the college,” he said.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, walked towards the window, and pulled open the curtains. It was a grey, rainy morning. “I’m not sure I understand,” she said.

  “They’re gone. The imam and all of his assistants, including his own security people. They left the college about an hour ago.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Alcem’s cousin, the cook, phoned him. He said they left in three cars and a white van filled with their stuff, including computers. They told the students and staff they were going to General Santos City for a few days to attend a religious conference.”

  “Is there a conference?”

  “I haven’t had time to check, but I will.”

  “What are the students supposed to do while they’re gone?”

  “I don’t know. Study, I guess.”

  “Well, whether the imam and the others are going to General Santos City or not, they’re probably trying to get off the island. Can you send someone to the airport to find out if anyone saw them leave?” she said. “And just in case, have someone check the port as well.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Wahab, is there any security left at the college?”

  “Just the local guys. Why do you ask?”

  “Do you have good contacts with the local police?”

  “We do.”

  “If I can get to Bongao either late today or first thing tomorrow, can you arrange for your police friends to come with us to the college and get us past security?”

  “Why do you want to get into the college?”

  “I’d like to see where the imam and the others live and go through whatever they left behind.”

  “Let me talk to my friend. He’s a captain, so I’m sure he can make it happen. All he’ll need is some kind of reason, and I’ll come up with something.”

  “Okay, you do that. And stay in touch with me. I’ll try to make the flights work from my end.”

  Ava shook her head. The imam had either gone to the conference in General Santos City or he’d done a flyer. She was almost certain he was on the run, but she didn’t want to believe it. She and Dulles should have anticipated it. They should have expected that someone would alert al-Bashir that he was being investigated. How wide had they cast their net? Could Jason Said have called the college? Had Fileeb al-Touma been warned by the bank or the casino or the Lebanese secret service and called his cohorts? What about Tom Allison or someone in the Brotherhood — had they let something slip?

  What a mess, she thought as she phoned Dulles.

  “I haven’t heard a word from Allison,” he said when he answered.

  “Do we have flights booked to Manila?”

  “We leave at ten past eleven and get in at one-thirty. I was just about to call to say I’ll meet you in the lobby at nine.”

  “Did you talk to your boss last night?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “How did it go?”

  “We’re on our own until the lab results come in or the boys in Beirut find al-Touma. After that, he says, we have to bring in backup and start involving the Philippine security agencies.”

  “Alasdair, you might have to call him back.”

  “Why?”

  “Things have changed. The imam and his people left the college this morning. They said they were going to General Santos City for a religious conference, but I can’t believe it’s true. Wahab said they packed a van with their stuff, including computers.”

  “They’ve all left?” Dulles said.

  “So I’m told.”

  “Fuck. We didn’t need that to happen.”

  “Som
eone has to have tipped them off that we’re looking at the college.”

  Dulles paused and then said, “And, unfortunately, we have a healthy list of candidates.”

  “Whoever it was and whatever they said, it seems to have spooked the imam.”

  “And now we need to locate him and his crowd. We may have to advise the Philippine government.”

  “Not yet,” Ava said. “Wahab and the Brotherhood are already checking the harbour and the airport. Give them a chance to find out how they left and where they might have gone. Besides, we don’t know who al-Bashir and the others really are. How will the Philippine authorities track them down any better than we can?”

  “We can’t wait forever.”

  “I know, but I’m also thinking that this gives you and me an opportunity to get into the college. I’d love the chance to go through whatever is there while it’s still intact, and Wahab says he can get us in. If you go to the Philippine authorities, the Special Action Force or the National Police Intelligence Section will get called in immediately, and who knows what will be left to look at.”

  “You said Wahab can get us inside?”

  “There’s only local security at the college now, and Wahab will have us taken in by a police captain. I can’t imagine there will be any resistance.”

  “That does make some sense, and I can’t deny that it’s appealing.”

  “The problem is how to get to Bongao,” she said. “As far as I know, there’s one commercial flight a day and we’ve already missed it.”

  “We can get from here to Manila easily enough,” Dulles said. “Maybe I can arrange a private plane from Manila to Bongao. I’ll have to make some calls.”

  “We need to move quickly,” she said, and then immediately felt stupid for stating the obvious. “Sorry. You’re the last person I should be saying something like that to.”

  “I’ll talk to you as soon as I have things organized,” he said.

  ( 34 )

  By eight o’clock Ava was dressed, packed, and pacing the room. She hadn’t heard from Wahab or Dulles and she was rapidly running out of patience. She went to the window and looked out onto the harbour. The weather was so bad that she could barely see through the veil of fog and rain. She kept checking her watch, and at ten past eight she gave up and called Wahab.