by Tom Anthony
Thornton was interested now and asked Hayes, “How do you achieve that kind of accuracy? If you call in artillery, we want you to be right on target.” Thornton knew artillery and what even one volley of 105mm rounds could do to a hillside or a town. Air Force munitions were even more powerful.
“While in operation, the device continuously sends a signal that our satellites covering the South Pacific will pick up. Of course you will know approximately where you are on the ground from your map reconnaissance, but we will see every step you have made on our computer maps in the embassy.”
“But how would we communicate a target’s location? You only know my position.” Elaiza wanted to be sure she was not considered expendable cannon fodder.
“You will draw a line on the ground with your footsteps. You would only need to walk back and forth on a straight line pointing toward the target. If you call for a fire mission, first walk a small, two-meter circle on the end of an imaginary arrow where the feather would be. Along the arrow, take one step to the right to make a notch on the line for each fifty meters in front of the arrow head to pinpoint the target.” Hayes explained in simple terms how to use the TIAM. “We will take out any target you point out to us this way. Drawing the circle will call for a fire mission. After you have identified it, we will take it out within three minutes, if we have the right aircraft in position and target approval. No need to communicate further; just get down and cover your head. Better, get out of the way as far as you can by moving perpendicular to the line of the arrow. The TIAM will track your movement.”
“Knowing what will be coming down, you can expect to see some rapid movement along the perpendicular.” Thornton would heed the major’s warning if the time came.
“And it still looks like an iPod.” Hayes, the technician, was proud of his work.
“My iPod,” Elaiza continued to jab at Hayes for not telling her what she was carrying to Singapore. “And what is this target you’re talking about?
Thornton liked that they were becoming a team, knew they could be starting down a dangerous path. She needed to know. “I’ve signed on with General Hargens to take out one Turk who is carrying some cash to Kumander Ali. I’ll take care of him when the time is right. You track him with that thing in case we need help.”
“Well, I guess that’s it then.” Hayes escorted the two STAGCOM operatives upstairs to the glass door and shook hands with Elaiza, slapped Thornton on the back and said as a farewell, “See you in the field.”
“Not today.” Thornton held the door open for Elaiza. “We first have to locate the Turk before we can get the cash. Try to get us some use-able intelligence.”
“I’m working on it. I’ll get back to you when I have something. You two get busy. You need to find some muscle for your operation, some muscle the others at the embassy don’t need to hear about.” Hayes waved a goodbye to them both.
Elaiza picked up her reconfigured iPod and buckled it back on her hip.
Standing in the street, Thornton and Elaiza had to wait a few minutes until his driver showed up with Thornton’s well-worn Pajero. They now saw each other in a new light. They had to work together on this unusual assignment, and they didn’t know each other. Thornton broke the ice. “Let’s check you out of your hotel. You can stay at my place in Toril while you’re in Mindanao, lots of rooms there, and my staff takes care of everything. It will save you bouncing back and forth into the city in a jeepney every day while we get set up, and it will make our work a lot easier. Tomorrow we can find the muscle Hargens says you control.”
“OK with me, Kapitan Tomas.” Elaiza parodied his name, a gentle poke at his ego, and got into the air-conditioned vehicle, content to get out of the humid early evening heat.
9
A Message for Mahir
Mahir had time to think as they moved. He was not seen as a leader in his community back in Turkey, but rather as a mechanic. His role in this country with the Abu Sayaf would continue to evolve after they had attracted some attention, especially if their first mission proved successful. Then friends and enemies alike would take him very seriously. He was honored to have been asked by Lateef to go with him and Ugly Maria on a special assignment.
In the early evening twilight, the raiding party reached the cement factory where there was a large stock of dynamite that the company used to blast for raw materials and also sold to some of their customers in the construction business. The attackers set themselves up inconspicuously around the entrance to the factory and waited for the night; they would not need guns for this job, only knives and hand tools.
At the front gate of the factory, unlucky Carlito “Lito” Perias was the security guard on duty. While two part-timers worked in the back after normal hours to load a truck, he sat propped up on a plastic chair at the gate, quite a handsome figure in his neatly pressed navy blue pants and starched white uniform shirt with a badge created by the security agency to make him look official. A girl from the village sat beside him until it got late, fanning him with a hand-made reed fan. She was beautiful, almost seventeen, one of the village girls with dreams, her wildest one to marry a uniformed security guard, a professional of substance who earned the equivalent of six dollars a day, a good potential provider. After evening turned to night, her mother walked by and picked her up, both of them dreaming of how good life could be if the girl would someday marry Carlito. He was their hero.
From their position, the Abu Sayaf attack squad watched Lito for a while. Behind him in the yard, a scrawny worker loaded a flatbed truck. His co-worker inside the warehouse would stack an eighty-pound sack of cement onto his head, and he would balance it and carry it, hands free, out of the warehouse and drop it onto the bed of the truck. They loaded the whole vehicle this way. The workers did not notice the two men and a squat third person crawling up to the gate.
Maria wanted to kill Lito. But Lateef thought it would be more useful to keep him with the patrol, alive, as he could serve as a useful ruse. As the factory’s security guard, he might be suspected of being the perpetrator of the theft of the dynamite and the truck it was being loaded into.
Lateef and Mahir advanced into the yard and killed the two laborers just as they finished loading the truck. It was easy. Each took one of the tired workers from behind and used his knife to finish off his target quickly.
Lito became Ugly Maria’s special guest. As soon as he came around, he began muttering never-ending prayers to Jesus, which did not endear him to his Muslim captors and simply bored Ugly Maria. Lateef made him drive the empty flatbed truck stolen from the yard. They put a gag over Lito’s mouth, to get some relief from his babbling, and while he drove, Lito looked at Ugly Maria with fear, though she thought he was admiring her. The patrol moved into hiding before dawn.
The third night after Mahir’s arrival in Mindanao, Lateef repositioned his command outside General Santos City, near Digos, preparing to make the next move to an attack position nearer Davao City, 125 kilometers farther north. They stopped for food and San Miguel beer at an open ihaw ihaw that provided television for entertainment, the volume turned loud to show the quality of the sound system. They ordered rice with viand, the viand being whatever fish or meat, or possibly only a vegetable, was available in the kitchen. Some of the men watched a soap opera on TV and the exaggerated and romantic stories made them giggle. Mahir could not follow the dialog, so he studied the surroundings in silence. Two young girls were quietly working in the kitchen, preparing the food. They were solicitous toward Lateef, who obviously had been here many times and knew everyone in the restaurant. Mahir watched the girls move and felt pleasurable awakenings within himself as they circled about the kitchen in tight, ankle-length skirts and sleeveless blouses, their faces covered for religious reasons.
Lateef announced that they would spend the night here, and after evening prayers, ordered more rounds of beer and a bottle of brandy. Two of the younger Abu Sayaf warriors, pleasantly drunk, put a video CD in the machine and started sing
ing along with old Beatles songs.
Mahir sat quietly in the dark and as the night wore on, the restaurant work stopped and the staff joined the videoke party. The two girls grew quiet, and as the others grew louder they moved closer to where Mahir was sitting in silence. They conversed easily with Mahir in English, and after they become comfortable, one asked, “How do you like working for Lateef?” Obviously, they were a part of his support structure.
Mahir was cautious in his reply. “I haven’t been with him long. I don’t know him well.”
“We have known him since we were children,” one of the girls said.
Mahir had difficulty telling them apart in the dark, and asked, “Are you sisters? Do you work here?”
“Yes, to both of your questions,” the other girl replied from the nearer darkness beside him. It was warm and humid. They dropped their veils to talk to the new warrior. “I am the older, but only by ten minutes. This place was our father’s until a soldier from the Manila army killed him. Our mother runs it now—this is all we have, except for what Lateef gives us.”
“We’re happy that you will help us with our war,” the younger sister said to Mahir from the other side of the table they were now sharing. Mahir was surprised that they were aware of Lateef’s mission, and he must have evidenced suspicion in his silence.
“We know who you are. We were told to say our names to you and that you would understand.”
Mahir was shocked. Could others spot him as easily and ruin his mission? Why did Lateef not have this under control? While he was thinking, he looked at them again. The twins suddenly seemed to be more grown up.
“Don’t worry,” the one beside him said, “we were told to tell you that if anything goes wrong, this is the place you should find your way back to. We are the answer to your question to him.”
Mahir thought back to his request of Sheik Kemal and the cryptic response he received, something about a green stone and a white flower. “Then what is the answer to my question?”
The answer from across the table was Jade and the nearer one told him Jasmine, and Mahir realized he had received the message from Sheik Kemal that he had been waiting for. His family was safe and the first installment had been received by them.
Lost in thought, Mahir looked around him. The younger warriors had returned to the stolen truck, and Ugly Maria was asleep on the floor, snoring and slobbering over the two duffel bags. Lito, still bound, had fallen asleep on a bench. The small TV was tuned to a game show that Mahir could not understand. When Lateef started to nod off, he found a corner to sleep in, leaving Mahir alone at the table with the two girls.
“We were born here. That’s our mother working in the kitchen. This is her place, now, because of Lateef.” Jasmine explained.
“But since we’re eighteen now, we have new work, in the city.” Jade seemed excited to have someone to speak to about her experience.
Jasmine confirmed, “We dance. It’s fun. The money helps our mother.”
“Especially when the great festival, Kadayawan, starts next Thursday, then we’ll be back in the city. It’s not far by bus.”
“But now’s a slow time, and we came back here to help.”
It was obvious to Mahir that the twins knew everything, and he relaxed. “I heard about Kadayawan. Lateef told me. That’s the time we will attack.”
Jasmine made it clear she knew what was going on. “We know. You may need to return here, if there is a problem.”
“Or maybe if there is no problem.” Jade moved closer to Mahir, touching his thigh with hers as they sat. “Do you have a wife?” she asked.
“Yes.” Mahir answered, becoming confused.
“Is she as pretty as we are?” Jasmine touched Mahir’s hand. “Many men say the girls of Mindanao are very special.”
Jasmine closed her hand around Mahir’s and felt no resistance as she gently coaxed him to stand.
Jade wanted to be included and began to tow him gently toward the steps to their room. “Maybe we can explain better upstairs.”
On the second floor, Jade and Jasmine slowly undressed each other while Mahir watched, then they undressed him and demonstrated why Muslim men are permitted more than one wife. Mahir was at first reluctant, thinking about his loyal wife and his infant son. But the physical reality was near and his family far. His desire became irresistible when they let their long, soft hair fall down and around him. He stopped thinking. He could not stop himself as the three became creative on the floor, their only bed being a thin pad covered with a single bed sheet.
Early the next morning the sisters were gone. But now he knew where to retreat if he had no other option. It all made sense now. The answer to his question was apparent, and it put his mind at ease that he had given Lateef access to some of the money. Sheik Kemal had kept his promise.
Lateef pulled his team together and this time drove himself, with Lito sitting bound-up between him and Mahir. Ugly Maria and the other men rode in the back, perched on the load of dynamite, now covered with a tarp.
The rest of the week they stayed in a new camp at a resort between the lake and the ocean, a few kilometers south of Davao City. The Abu Sayaf soldiers brought to camp the usual supplies of mangos and durian and other tree crops from the forests around them, which the farmers donated to the cause, willingly or unwillingly. The stolen truck was made into a handsome parade float covered with fruit and flowers shaped into a towering, purple peacock, innocent and lovely, but blocks of dynamite were tightly packed into its bowels. That would make a nice present for the mayor of Davao City at the Kadayawan festival. Neither the Philippine National Police (the PNP) nor the Task Force Davao—the local army contingent—would challenge such a thing of beauty slowly moving into the assembly area for the extravaganza called Kadayawan.
10
The Mango Tree
After she showered, Elaiza pulled a long red tee shirt over her head as a full-length dress and went outside to sit on the patio off her first floor room. Thornton’s place in Toril, a village west of Davao City, was nice enough, small but with four bedrooms, she guessed. He apparently had a master suite on the second floor. Her small room must have been for one of the servants. She thought he must have two or three, probably an entire family working for him; in the Philippines, that would not cost much. She looked around her room. The few personal things lying about showed that others lived there. They must have pushed together into the other rooms to make a place for her.
The aroma of sizzling pork fat and onions meant someone was cooking a hearty breakfast in the “dirty kitchen,” the outdoor cooking area in the back. She walked around the side of the house from the patio to the source of the cooking aromas.
Thornton was making fried eggs and ham. He looked interesting but out of place, wearing old jeans, well-scuffed Tony Lama boots and a safari shirt.
“Good morning, ready to go to war?’ she asked.
“Magandang umaga,” he answered, smiling, “not if I can help it. Let’s try to do this job as quick and easy as we can.”
“Do you mean the STAGCOM mission, or breakfast?” Elaiza teased Thornton, who gave her a warm smile.
“First one, than the other,” he responded. “Breakfast sounds better than STAGCOM, but we’re stuck with the acronym, not as bad as Strategic Support Command, the name Hargens wanted to give us.”
“It sounds silly.” Thornton thought she looked like a schoolgirl when she talked that way.
“Well, General Hargens created the name for us while I was with him in Manila. It sounds official and gives our team status with the paper shufflers at the embassy. They had to name the operation something to get the project funded.”
“And you’re the boss, right, Kapitan Tomas?”
“Yep. It’s my command. First one since Vietnam. Just you and me—a young woman and an old guy—taking on an entire insurrection.” Thornton winked at her. She turned her back and made it clear she didn’t like to be winked at.
“You know ther
e will have to be more than just me.” Elaiza wanted to be professional. “My boss told me you needed some men with guns, a few really good warriors who know their way around. Maybe I can hook you up with the Otazas, Manobo natives from Agusan who can shoot and fight.”
“If you say so, I’ll check them out. I have another guy joining us, if I can convince him. He’s younger than me and older than you, a retired U.S. Army combat veteran. We worked together before on a project like this, and we work together now in my construction company. We should be able to train the guys you get.”
“I know you have to count on me to provide your ‘local assets,’ as you Americans refer to the people who work for you here. I want only to recruit from my region, from my tribe, that’s where I have contacts I can trust.”
“Right. Thanks. The man I want is Starke, Hank Starke, he would be my tactical leader, our First Sergeant.
“We’ll see how he works with my guys. Nice place you have here.”
Thornton and his company had built the house as a model home. First it served as his showroom and office, but as the business grew he took it for his own. Now, in the early morning and over breakfast, still tired after having spent most of the previous day traveling and then getting briefed at the consulate, Thornton talked with Elaiza about the mission from General Hargens.
Thornton had already accepted the deal, and Elaiza had been assigned to him as part of her job, but he wanted to sense her active involvement and personal commitment. While it was still cool, with an early breeze coming in off the Celebes Sea, Thornton quietly talked about his meeting in Manila with Hargens. He told her about the Turkish terrorist who was bringing in money from Syria to finance revolution in Mindanao, and that someone highly placed in the American government wanted his help to take the guy out.