DEVIL’S KEEP

by PHILLIP FINCH

  They were about one hundred feet behind the car. Favor looked back and saw another trike swing in off the main street and accelerate behind them. They went three blocks this way, the Kia with the two trikes following, until the Kia turned left without signaling. Romeo continued straight ahead, but the second trike swung in behind the sedan.

  Favor knew that that must be Erming Mandaligan picking up the tail, but he couldn’t be sure. Every sidecar in Tacloban seemed identical to the next. But this was an advantage, he thought: the driver of the Kia wouldn’t be able to recognize the two trikes as they swapped positions behind him.

  Romeo turned left at the next intersection and accelerated up the street parallel to the Kia. It was a residential neighborhood, with no streetlights. The trike’s headlight punched weakly into a low-hanging pall of smoke from cooking fires. The pavement was broken, and the unsprung third wheel of the sidecar slammed down hard in a long pothole. Favor could feel the shock up through his spine.

  Favor, looking left, spotted the Kia as they flew through an intersection. They were now abreast of the car and gaining. One block later, Romeo zipped left and then turned in behind the Kia again as Erming’s trike dropped off.

  It was a perfect handoff. Favor knew that the driver would never catch the tail now.

  Traffic was picking up again as they drove through a busier part of the city. The Kia slowed as it came up on a truck, and Romeo too backed off, slowing enough to let a car and a jeepney pass. The Kia was still visible, easily within contact.

  The road headed south along the waterfront. They were leaving the city. The brake lights blazed on the Kia as it turned left onto a wide two-lane. Favor recognized the road. He had seen it before, a day and a half earlier.

  Romeo Mandaligan leaned in close and, over wind and the rapping of the engine, said, “I believe he is going for the airport.”

  The call with Mendonza was still open. Mendonza said, “Ray? What’s that?”

  Favor said, “Airport, Al. Better haul. I think we’re out of here.”

  The package went out by airfreight aboard Philippine Airlines. The doctor brought it into the terminal. Favor didn’t follow him in—he thought that he would be conspicuous in the little place—but Romeo went in to watch, and after the doctor returned empty-handed and drove away, Romeo came back out and reported to Favor that the man had handed the package to an attendant at the PAL counter.

  So it was airfreight, and it had to be the evening flight to Manila, the only remaining PAL flight of the day.

  Romeo Mandaligan said, “I did good, huh?”

  “You sure as hell did,” Favor said.

  While Mendonza bought tickets at the counter, Favor went to a nearby window that looked out onto an open shed where several baggage carts were parked. A short conveyor belt ran into the shed from the PAL ticket counter, and two baggage handlers plucked baggage off the belt and loaded it onto the carts. An open bulb hung from the ceiling of the shed, and the cream-colored package with the red tape stood out in the light.

  Favor took out his phone and called Arielle.

  He explained what they were doing, following a carton with vials of blood. He asked her and Stickney to bring two cars to the PAL domestic terminal.

  They were going to follow the carton to its final destination.

  He described the carton and said, “Find the pickup area for PAL air freight and wait for us there. I want somebody watching that package as soon as it shows up. Al and I should be off the plane before the cargo is offloaded, but you never know.”

  She said, “Cream color, red tape, about a foot and a half on each side.”

  “Correct. I don’t know who will pick it up, but Stick needs to stay with the cars, out of sight. He has definitely been burned.”

  She said, “I’m probably burned too, if they have the passport photocopies.”

  “I know,” Favor said. “But I want an eyeball on the package, and you aren’t burned the way Stick is burned. You can do this. Be discreet, mix with the crowd. You remember the drill.”

  “Dimly,” she said with a small laugh.

  “I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t matter. I believe the path back to those two kids starts with that blood.”

  “Eyes on the box. You’ve got it,” she said.

  When he spoke with Arielle, Favor kept watching the package as it sat on the cart in the PAL baggage shed. He watched the package as Mendonza returned with boarding passes for seats near the front exit. He watched the package while he ate food that Mendonza brought from a snack bar in the terminal.

  A loudspeaker announced first call for boarding of the PAL flight. But the cart with the cream-colored box still sat in the baggage shed, and Favor stayed by the window and kept it in sight until a handler hitched the cart to a small tractor and pulled it out to the waiting plane.

  Then Favor left the window and went through the gate. He walked out across the asphalt apron and stood at the bottom of the ramp as the baggage handlers loaded the carton into the belly of the plane, then he walked up the ramp and took his seat beside Mendonza.

  The plane touched down a few minutes late, a little after 8:30 p.m. Favor turned on his phone while the plane was still rolling and called Arielle when the jetway ramp rolled up to the door.

  She said, “I’m at PAL air freight. It’s near the baggage claim, straight across the concourse from your gate. Get over here as soon as you can. There’s something you need to see.”

  “As soon as we’re out. It shouldn’t be long.”

  “You did say cream-colored carton, right? Red packing tape, about eighteen inches on a side?”

  The passengers on the plane were standing. A flight attendant was opening the hatch, swinging the door open. Favor looked out the window and saw that a baggage tug was wheeling under the fuselage.

  “Right,” Favor said. “But the cargo is still in the hold. We’ll be there before the package shows up.”

  “Just get over here,” she said.

  Favor and Mendonza were among the first half dozen passengers off the plane and through the gate. From halfway across the concourse, Favor spotted Arielle. She was seated near a baggage carousel, reading a magazine. Or seeming to read.

  He stopped about twenty paces short of where she sat. It was ingrained training. She gave no sign that she had seen him, but she took a phone out of her purse, tapped a speed-dial number.

  In a few seconds the call came in on his own phone.

  He turned away from her. She was looking away from him. To a casual observer they were strangers who both happened to be using phones, in a place where almost everyone was using a phone.

  She said, “Second shelf from the top, left side.”

  Various packages and crates lined the shelves along the back wall of the office. A PAL logo on the glass partly blocked the view, but at second glance he spotted the familiar cream carton and red packing tape.

  This wasn’t right, he thought. The carton he had chased through the streets of Tacloban couldn’t be off the plane already.

  Then he realized that it was not one box.

  “Three?” he said.

  “How about that?” Arielle said. ”It was two just a little while ago. They must’ve put another one up there when I was waiting for you. I guess we can say three and counting.”

  Favor watched as a fourth carton—probably from the Tacloban flight—went onto the shelf beside the others. He realized that the cartons were arriving on flights from other cities around the Philippines. This had to be the daily collection of blood samples from other Optimo offices.

  He wanted to keep the cartons in sight, so he could track them to their final destination. But the terminal was clearing out. Unlike the international terminal, this one shut down for several hours a night. There were no more outbound flights until the morning, and just a few still to arrive. Favor knew that as the place emptied, he would be increasingly conspicuous, a foreigner hanging around with no apparent purpose. Arielle and Stickney would be just
as visible. Even Mendonza didn’t really fit in.

  He walked outside and studied the layout.

  The terminal had one passenger exit, a set of doors that opened onto a taxi stand and a loading zone. To one side was a freight dock, large enough to accommodate a single truck. Across the street, a parking area. From the spot, one car could watch the passenger exit and the freight dock.

  Favor called Mendonza and Arielle and asked them to join him in the parking lot across from the terminal. Stickney was there already, and they all sat together in one of the two cars that Stickney and Arielle had brought.

  Favor said, “We can’t hang around in there watching the cartons, but we don’t have to. We can watch from here to see when they come out. It’ll either be through this front door or the loading dock. And it’ll go down soon. This terminal will be closing after the last flight is in.”

  “How do you know it won’t be tomorrow?” Mendonza asked.

  “It’s blood,” Favor said, “and somebody went to a lot of trouble to collect it. I don’t know why they want it, but I can’t believe that they’ll let it sit overnight, even if it’s on ice.”

  “You don’t need all four of us to watch,” Stickney said.

  “Correct,” Favor said. “I thought I’d leave you and Al with one car here. Ari and I will park out on the street, where the terminal traffic exits. You let us know what we’re looking for, we’ll latch onto them there. Give them about half a minute, then you hustle up behind us.”

  “We really ought to have three vehicles,” Mendonza said. “This looks like a daily routine, right? Wait a day, we can have that third car, do it right.”

  “No,” Favor said. “I feel like I already gave away a day yesterday. I don’t want to give away any more. Two vehicles is what we’ve got, so we make it happen with two.”

  He looked around at them, checking their faces. He was looking for hesitation, disagreement.

  He saw that they were all with them.

  “Then we’re on,” he said.

  He got into the second car with Arielle and drove out of the parking lot, past the terminal, down the one-way terminal. He found a parking space on the street where the terminal road exited into city traffic.

  He pulled in and parked, and waited for the call from Mendonza and Stickney that would ID their target for the tail. Cars and jeepneys surged past his window, moving fast. Favor knew that darkness would help mask the tail, but he would have to hustle to stay with the target. Mendonza in the second car might not be able to catch up. Then it would be just him, hanging with the target while trying to stay unnoticed.

  He realized that Arielle was looking at him. She had turned partway toward him and was taking him in, studying him. Smiling.

  She said, “Ray, you’re looking good.”

  “I appreciate that, but we probably ought to wait until we get to a room.”

  “I didn’t say you looked edible. Although you do. I said you look good.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Solid. Squared away. On the beam,” she said. “Good.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” he said.

  Stickney and Mendonza sat waiting in their car, Mendonza behind the wheel. The parking area was thinning out, and foot traffic through the front doors was light.

  A red Honda CR-V pulled up and parked at the curb in front of the terminal. Mendonza watched the new arrival, but there was no movement, and about half a minute later a dark blue Toyota van stopped short of the pickup zone, reversed, and backed up to the loading dock.

  Mendonza said, “This may be it.”

  A side door opened on the van, and the overhead light briefly illuminated the driver and a passenger, both young men, as the passenger got out and walked around to the back.

  At the periphery of his vision, Mendonza caught movement at the red Honda in front of the terminal—someone stepping out onto the sidewalk—but he disregarded it and focused on the blue van at the loading dock.

  A door opened at the dock. Someone pushed out a freight dolly. Stacked on the dolly were five cream-colored cartons sealed with red tape.

  Mendonza had his camera out, shooting with the telephoto lens. He said, “Call Ray. Dark blue Toyota van, driver and passenger, coming his way.”

  “No,” Stickney said. “Let that one go.”

  “Let it go? Stick, they’re putting the cartons in the van.”

  He looked over at Stickney and saw him bent low at the waist. Stickney was hiding behind the front dash.

  “Ray’ll be burned if he follows the van,” Stickney said. “Guy that just got out of the red Honda, standing on the sidewalk—I think he’s running cover for the shipment. Tell Ray to follow him. He’ll go where the shipment goes.”

  Mendonza saw him now: a stocky Filipino standing at the entrance of the terminal.

  “Close-cropped hair, late forties, white shirt worn untucked?”

  “That’s him,” Stickney said.

  The man was appraising the situation, alert. For a moment he looked straight at the car where Mendonza was sitting, checking him out, before he clocked over somewhere else.

  Mendonza had put the camera in his lap. He raised it now and fired off several frames, getting a couple of good shots as the man stood beneath a light at the entrance.

  Stickney was still bent down, trying to stay out of sight.

  Mendonza said, “I think you’re right. Good read, Stick. How did you know?”

  “I met him this morning,” Stickney said.

  Most of the time, Totoy Ribera left his drones to handle the daily cargo run from the airport, and most of the time the Russians were fine with that. Not tonight, though. Tonight Andropov had insisted that Totoy go along for the pickup.

  The Russians were nervous, Totoy thought. It was because of the unknown Americans poking around, even though they hadn’t actually done anything more than ask a few questions.

  At first Totoy thought that the Russians were overreacting. This was the first little bump in the road since this deal first came together seven months earlier, and it didn’t seem like much of a threat.

  But Totoy was aware that he had one big disadvantage: he didn’t know what the Russians were hiding at the other end of the seaplane ride from Manila. The Russians knew, though, and Totoy told himself that if they were uneasy, maybe he should be too.

  So when Andropov told him to accompany the pickup crew to the airport and back, Totoy didn’t argue. And he didn’t just go along for the ride, either. He took a separate car so he could shadow the pickup on the return trip. While the van was loaded, he parked the red Honda at the terminal concourse. He got out and scanned the scene, looking for some disturbance, some subtle hint of jeopardy.

  He noticed the car in a front row of the parking lot. One occupant, a driver, sitting in the dark. Totoy couldn’t make out details, but he saw that it was a man. A big man.

  Toto thought about the description from the Optimo office manager in Tacloban. A big Fil-Am. Very very big.

  Totoy considered whether he ought to go over to the car, check out the big guy.

  To Totoy’s left, at the loading dock, his boys were pushing the last of the cartons into the van, shutting the door. They were getting ready to leave. Totoy knew that crossing the road and checking out the car in the parking lot would take at least two or three minutes, maybe more. He could order the boys in the van to wait, but he didn’t like the idea. He wanted that shipment on the move.

  But there was an easier way to check: just watch the car, see how the driver reacted when the van left the terminal. If the car remained behind, then Totoy could assume that the big driver was harmless. But if the car pulled out of the lot and followed the van, then Totoy would know that the Americans had somehow discovered the nightly delivery, and that the big Fil-Am was trying to track the shipment to its destination.

  That can be dealt with, Totoy thought.

  The van was moving, wheeling away from the loading dock. It passed Totoy an
d continued down the terminal road to the exit.

  The car with the big man inside didn’t move.

  Totoy waited. He counted out half a minute, and still the car didn’t move. By now the van was at the exit, turning into the city streets. Totoy climbed into the Honda and pulled out from the curb at the terminal. He looked back in his rearview mirror and saw that the car with the big man at the wheel still hadn’t moved.

  In the clear, Totoy thought. He put the car and the big man out of mind as he accelerated along the terminal road. The van was now turning into the street, entering traffic. When Totoy pulled into the street, he was about half a block behind the van.

  That was just right for his purposes. He was checking for a tail, watching the vehicles between him and the van, how they moved and behaved.

  He saw nothing unusual.

  The direct route from the airport to the residence was just a couple of miles, usually no more than ten or fifteen minutes, but Totoy had told the van driver to make a couple of sudden turns, and he hung back to see how the other vehicles reacted. After the second detour, the set of vehicles between him and the van was completely different from those at the beginning of the trip, so he was sure they were unobserved.

  At that point Totoy pulled in close behind the van as it crossed Amorsolo Street and turned down the alley that ran behind the Impierno building and the residence.

  They stopped at the back entrance of the residence, a black-painted gate of solid steel that the guards opened and swung in. Totoy followed the van in, and the gate closed behind them.

  Done, and not a ripple of trouble. Maybe the Russians really were paranoid after all.

  Favor followed the Honda as far as the alley behind the residence. He swung around the block and came back the other way, and when he passed the alley again the two vehicles were pulling through the open gate. Mendonza and Stickney were behind Favor’s car, and they, too, got a glimpse of the Honda following the van inside.