“Yes.”
“All right. I will help you to relax.” She opened the door for him, let him enter. She walked in after him, shut the door, and locked it from the inside. She put her hand out, motioning for the briefcase.
“You don’t need that here,” she said.
He kept it, putting it down on the floor against the nearest wall.
”I would like a drink,” he said. “Will you get me one, please?”
“Of course.”
“Scotch whiskey, no ice. Water on the side.”
He took some cash from his pocket and held it to her, thinking that she would take it, leave the room and go to the bar to bring his drink. It was all the time he needed.
But she shook her head and waved off the money.
She reached for a telephone on the wall.
“The room boy will bring it,” she said. “You can pay when you leave.”
Room boy? Christ, Favor didn’t need this, someone knocking at the wrong time.
He said, “No, it’s all right.”
“All right? No drink?”
“Maybe later.”
She put down the phone and stood looking at him. Perplexed. Maybe a little impatient.
This was not going well.
She turned away, took a clothes hanger from a hook on the wall, and handed it to him.
“I will prepare the bath,” she said. She turned toward the shower room. The shower room with its wall of glass.
He said, “I have a request.”
She stopped, turned back to him.
“What is your request?” Definitely impatient now.
“I would like to watch you in the shower.”
“You mean washing? You wish to watch me bathing?”
“Yes,” Favor said.
She seemed to find this amusing. She broke into a laugh, put a hand to her mouth to cover the giggle.
“It’s one of my pleasures,” he said. ”To watch a beautiful woman bathing.”
This happened to be true. Favor also liked to watch a beautiful woman brushing her teeth, combing her hair, eating a chocolate cupcake. To Favor, the most ordinary act became fascinating when it was performed by a beautiful woman.
Patricia stopped giggling.
She said, “As if I’m alone. And you are hidden, and you are watching me. Yes?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s it.”
“I understand,” she said. “You are pakipot. You understand pakipot? Like, shy?”
“That’s it,” Favor said.
She reached for his arm, tugged him over to the massage table. It faced the glass wall of the shower room.
“Sit,” she said. “Relax.”
He sat up on the table. She went to a bank of light switches on the nearby wall. Tapped one—a bright light came on in the shower room, shining down from the ceiling. She tapped another, then another.
The lights went off in the main room. Only the single bright overhead light of the shower room broke the darkness.
He heard the padding of bare feet on the floor.
Nearly a minute passed, with just a soft rustle from near the shower room door.
She stepped into the light.
She was naked, her hair pinned up. She turned on the water of the shower, tested it, stepped beneath it. The water ran over her bare shoulders, down the curves of her body.
She was turned away from him. Letting him look, giving him plenty of time to feast his eyes. She reached for the soap, still deliberately angled away from him.
Favor climbed down from the table. He went around to the wall, felt for the briefcase, found it, opened it. He felt around inside, took out a metal penlight. He shielded it with his body and turned it on.
In the open briefcase was Stickney’s device. It was the section of PVC pipe, capped at both ends, perforated by about a dozen drill holes. Near one end, a timing device. At the other end, glued in place, was a small battery-powered alarm clock. Braided wire ran from the back of the clock, down through a hole in the pipe.
Favor looked back over his shoulder. Patricia was soaping herself now, with deliberate, languid movements. Playing to him.
Favor carried the open briefcase to a corner of the room. From there, he was almost out of sight from the shower. At the top of the wall was a metal vent. Air-conditioning: he could feel the cool air as it blew out in a hush.
One of the features that made the Ultimate VIP Safari Suite attractive to Favor was a plush armchair. He hadn’t seen a chair in any of the other rooms. He brought the chair over, stepped up on it. The vent was now at his eye level.
Two screws held the vent cover in place. He unscrewed them, dropped them into his shirt pocket, then removed the cover and leaned it against the wall. He shone the penlight inside the vent. It was a rectangular aluminum duct, a few inches high and about a foot and a half wide. From inside the wall it bent ninety degrees to the left, and when Favor pointed the light that way, he could see where it joined a larger duct about five feet away.
This was a main duct of the building’s air-conditioning system—he was sure of it.
He bent down and picked up Stickney’s device and a black metal tube. He gently placed the device inside the opening, pushing it toward the intersection of the main vent as far as he could reach.
He placed the black tube into the vent. It was photo equipment, a monopod—like a single leg of a tripod—used to steady a camera for offhand shots. Favor pulled out section after section, each time pushing the device closer to the larger vent. The fourth section extended the tube to six feet, and when Favor gave the fully extended tube a last push, he felt the device hit the far wall of the main duct.
Perfect.
He quickly retracted the monopod, took it out. He replaced the vent cover, screwed it back on, and closed the briefcase.
He returned to the massage table and looked toward the shower. Patricia was still in the light, under the streaming water. Still turned away from the table. She was washing her right arm, the arm bent in front of her, turning it as she soaped it with her left hand.
She looked over her shoulder, straight at where he would have been sitting.
Favor knew that she couldn’t actually see him in the darkness, but she was focusing where he was supposed to be. It was a stunning look, earthy and provocative and inviting.
She held the look for several seconds before she glanced away and continued to wash.
Favor watched for about a minute. Maybe longer.
He was carrying some cash in the pocket of his trousers. He took it out, a folded packet of one-thousand-peso notes. He counted them. Fourteen.
He thought, Thank you so much.
He laid the bills on the table and left the room.
Harvest Day
–2
Twenty-three
Favor woke around 5:30 a.m., buzzed with an aimless and unfocused energy. He told himself that he should sleep a little longer. He would need the rest.
Often when he woke too early he would think about the hours ahead, how he planned to spend the time. It was a useful trick for clearing his head, and sometimes he would doze off, sleeping on his plans for the day to come. But not now. Thinking about his plans for the day just amped up the buzz, knowing what they intended to do before the next sunrise.
He got up, pulled on nylon shorts and a thin T-shirt. He laced up his running shoes. He left his cell phone on the table but brought the back-door key, and headed out into the streets of Tondo.
Eddie Santos rose just before sunrise. He scribbled Good morning! to his daughter on a notepad and left it at her usual place at the table; she would see it when she had breakfast. Then he picked up his wallet and car keys and went out.
Totoy Ribera began his day by stopping for a breakfast of fried eggs and rice and sausage, taking the chance to fill his stomach while he could. He expected to be in his car for hours, still looking for whoever was behind the Nissan sedan and Tres Agilas and all the other shell entities that enveloped the
m. By the end of the previous day he had felt locked in a maze of corporate names and addresses, all fruitless, a convoluted trail that seemed to loop back onto itself. But he wasn’t quitting. This wasn’t even completely about the Americans (who hadn’t surfaced for almost two days). This was personal, some unseen wise guy taunting him with his cleverness. Totoy couldn’t wait to get his hands on the wise guy.
Marivic Valencia woke around this time too. A scuffle in the other cell woke her.
She didn’t know how long it had been going on, but it lasted only a few more seconds before she heard the door close on the other side of the wall.
“Ronnie?”
“Yeah.” Disgruntled.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. But they were rough with the needles.”
She said, “Needles?”
“Twice. Once to take blood from my arm. Once to give me an injection.”
“NO!” she cried.
Favor ran south through Tondo’s streets, then across the Roxas Bridge over the Pasig and past the thick stone redoubts of Intramuros, the old walled city of Manila. He ran through the city park called the Luneta, past the Manila Hotel, past the steel shafts of the fence around the U.S. embassy, perched on a shelf of land that angled into Manila Bay.
He ran on the broad sidewalk along the bay front, past gleaming hotels on one side and the still water of the bay on the other, with the high green ridges of the Bataan peninsula in the distance. A man, sleeping on palm fronds, opened his eyes and looked up as Favor passed.
Favor ran the full length of the curving bay front, past the Manila Yacht Club and the headquarters of the Philippine Navy. Where the seawall ended, at the green lawn and white walls of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, he stopped and checked his watch. He had been running for thirty-one minutes. A little over five miles at six minutes per mile.
He turned and ran back the way he had come, but the return trip took longer. He made a stop along the way. When Favor returned to the bodega, the time was almost seven a.m. and he was sweating from the heat of the day.
Mendonza and Stickney were seated at the table, drinking coffee and eating breakfast. Arielle, too, was at the table, but she was intent at her laptop.
Two large canvas bags sat on the floor of the bodega.
“Eddie Santos been by?” Favor asked.
“Second installment on the wish list,” Stickney said.
“Now we just need the firearms and the paper. And Ari’s worm.”
Without looking up she said, “Ari’s worm will be ready.”
Favor said, “Ari, if you can take a break, I need to know about a dude named Franklin Kwok.”
Now she looked up. “Would that be the rich dude Franklin Kwok?”
“Apparently.”
“Hong Kong. Shipbuilding is the family business, but since he took over, Franklin has expanded into construction and chemicals and agricultural commodities—especially construction, I think. He’s somewhere on the Forbes list. Not right at the top, but not anywhere near the bottom, either. He must be about your age. He has a touch of the flamboyant about him. He dates actresses and drives fast cars the way they’re supposed to be driven. Kind of unusual for serious Hong Kong money. They usually keep their heads low.”
Favor said, “I need an introduction.”
“To Franklin Kwok? Ray, I rarely say this, but you may be playing out of your league.”
“Probably,” Favor said. “But I want to sit down with him. Right away. He has something that we need.”
“What’s that?”
“A rat hole,” Favor said.
They all understood. To the members of the former Bravo One Nine, a rat hole was a haven. A refuge. It was any place where they could disappear and regroup in safety when their cover was compromised.
A rat hole being the place where rats go when someone unexpectedly turns on the lights.
When One Nine was active, they had never operated without at least one rat hole. Sometimes they would have several, a sequence of places where they could fall back and hide, buying some time before they retreated to the next one in the string.
The love motel had been a rat hole of sorts, but it had been improvised, and rat holes weren’t supposed to work that way. Too chancy. Rat holes were supposed to be set up in advance, waiting.
“Jeez, Favor, a rat hole. It’s about time,” Arielle said.
“Is it a good one?” Mendonza said.
“It’s a beauty,” Favor said. “Like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
Franklin Kwok motioned Favor to a seat at his table.
They were in the dining room of a golf club south of Manila. Kwok wore a golf shirt the color of lapis lazuli, mirror sunglasses, and a Rolex watch with a gold band only slightly smaller than a boxer’s championship belt.
“Sit,” he said. “Have a drink. Do you know what you want to eat? I recommend the yellowfin.”
The introduction had been arranged by Favor’s banker in Hong Kong, who knew Franklin Kwok. But this wasn’t surprising. Most bankers in Hong Kong knew Franklin Kwok.
“I’m happy to meet you,” Kwok said after they had ordered lunch. “But I have to tell you directly, I’m not selling. I didn’t build it to sell.”
“I knew it must be a custom job.”
“Custom? I built it! It’s my design, one of a kind. I was even in there getting my hands dirty when I had the time.”
Favor wrote two numbers on the back of a business card, several digits each. He passed the card to Kwok.
Kwok took off his sunglasses and held the card up to read. “What are these figures?”
“The first is my estimate of the fair market value in U.S. dollars. The second is the amount I’m prepared to pay.”
“Twice as much as the first,” Kwok said. “I like the way you think. The first is close. The second … Look, if you’re willing to spend this much, you can build one of your own. I won’t let you have my plans, but I’ll give you a few ideas to get you started.”
“I don’t have time for that,” Favor said. “I need something that’s ready to go right now.”
“Need?” Kwok said. ”One doesn’t need something like this. Desire, yes. But not need.”
“I need it,” Favor repeated. “My friends and I are engaged in a certain enterprise. It’s not for profit—not what you might think—but it entails an element of risk. This could save our lives, me and my friends. I’m not being dramatic. That’s a fact.”
“Tell me,” Kwok said. Now he was interested.
Favor spoke: not all the details, but enough that Kwok would understand.
“Fascinating,” Kwok said when Favor had finished. “This is perfect for your purposes.”
“I thought so.”
“No, I mean perfect. Even better than you could know.”
“I may not even use it,” Favor said. “But I want to know that I have it.”
“And for how long would you want to know that?”
“I expect that the problem will be resolved in a couple of weeks. Maybe just days.”
Franklin Kwok thought for a moment.
He said, “Are you a gambler?”
“Not the casino kind.”
Kwok laughed. “I know what you mean. The stakes that really matter, you don’t bet those at a roulette wheel.”
He dug into a pocket and came up with a coin. He held it up for Favor to see. On the face it showed the national heroes Apolinario Mabini and Andres Bonifacio; on the reverse, the Philippine national seal.
“You call it,” Kwok said. “Win the toss, it’s yours for one month.”
“And if I lose?”
“If you lose…” Kwok flipped the coin into the air.
“Tails,” Favor said.
Franklin Kwok caught the coin and slapped it onto the back of his left hand without revealing it.
“If you lose,” he said, “maybe you should take it as a bad omen, and consider abandoning your enterprise.”
/> He lifted his hand, just enough to peek at the coin.
He looked down on the faces of Mabini and Bonifacio.
“This must be your lucky day,” he said, and he swept the coin into his pocket. “Let me tell you exactly what you’ve got. No, better yet—let me show you.”
Twenty-four
In Nice, France—seven hours behind Manila time—the sun was just rising as Ilya Andropov’s most important client extracted himself from the limbs and bodies of the four young women who slept sprawled, mostly naked, on his oversize bed. He sorted out the arms and legs and rumps and breasts, clearing the tangle enough that he could crawl to the edge of the mattress.
He was in his fifties, a big man gone soft, his back and shoulders and barrel chest matted in graying body hair.
He was breathing hard as he sat up at the edge of the bed.
The jostling awoke one of the women. Lisette was her name. She was twenty-two, a sun-washed and tanned-all-over blonde. At different times she called herself, or had been called, a model, actress, party girl, whore. Just words, and they fit all the other women on the bed as well. They belonged to the female swarm that gravitated to the huge house on the hill above the city, with its infinity pool and its fast cars and endlessly flowing champagne, and the pricey gifts, and the prodigious quantities of drugs that were never out of reach.
And, really, all you had to do for it was be there, and be yourself, and be prepared to show a little indulgence to the man who called himself Uncle Teddy.
She watched him now as he stood and made his way over to the water closet and leaned over the toilet, bracing himself against the wall with one arm while he pissed.
She looked at his face as he walked back over to the bed. It was misshapen, out of balance. Normal from the centerline to his left ear … but the right side, the cheekbone to the jaw, was caved in and scarred. To Lisette it looked as if it had been badly broken and then put back together by someone who didn’t know what he was doing. An accident, she supposed. It had left one eye slightly off-axis, just enough that you would notice when you looked at him straight on—enough that the swarming females all called him Cockeye Teddy, though never in his presence.
He walked over to the bed and stood looking down at the sleeping women. His dick was within arm’s length of Lisette, and she reached up and gave it a casual tug. She knew there was no chance that he would respond. The dick didn’t really work, but he liked to pretend that it did, and that he was voracious and desirable. Another indulgence.
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