by Michael Priv
Manila greeted us with the warm humidity often associated with that part of the world. Linda, fascinated by the city, was glued to the cab window on our way to the hotel. I couldn’t get myself interested. To me, Manila resembled rundown parts of Los Angeles or Mexico City. Just another city, poor and dirty for the most part. I was preoccupied by mentally sorting through various innovative ways of losing Alesh. I didn’t like my options. Somebody here was going to die soon. The hotel we found was no worse than any good hotel anywhere. Just a hotel. I was never big on all that travel nonsense. Linda called me on it.
“What do you know about the Philippines, Picky?” she asked butt naked, looking down on the city through the eighth story window next morning.
“Their ex-first lady, Imelda Marcos, owned as many shoes as a hundred average women, something like thirteen hundred pairs, I think, or fifteen hundred. Why do you ask?”
“What do you mean why do I ask?” Linda shrugged elegantly. “And what do shoes have to do with anything? This happens to be an ancient culture and a thriving modern metropolis. Look at this gorgeous place!”
“I’m glad you brought it up.” Linda grinned. She knew me well. Who wanted to look at some buildings when I had naked Linda in front of me? We both admired the view that way. Every little part of her body, like her hand or shoulder, the way the roundness of her breast showed from behind as she turned her back to me, her neck, her full thighs—everything about her was squeezable, beautiful, desirable. She knew I greatly admired her body. We both slept naked and loved spooning. Such an arrangement also presented Linda with an extra opportunity to show off in the morning.
Alesh tagged along with us, enticed by my promises of finding Brell. All I was trying to do was lose Alesh without having to kill him— I kind of liked that machine gun driver of the month. The nonlethal alternative was becoming increasingly illusive, since he’d taken away my gun upon arrival. So now I couldn’t shoot him in the leg and run, could I?
Before we left, I examined our clothing and possessions and didn’t find any bugs. Alesh supplied me with a go-phone, which must have been bugged, but Stan knew that I’d assume that, so the phone could only be a small part of the security arrangements. I didn’t buy for a second that the Guards trusted us. Most likely they simply believed they could control us. They probably had a contingency plan for locating us if we got away. Or they wanted us to get away and lead them to Brell.
Turned out there really was a Headless Horseman Bar & Grill in Quezon City, Manila. I was right as usual. There was a hospital nearby, too. An escape plan congealed in my mind.
We had the cabby let us out a block away from the Headless Horseman, so Alesh could watch from a distance. As expected, the bar was closed in the morning. It opened at eleven. We took Rodriguez Sr. Avenue toward Saint Luke Hospital on foot, Alesh in tow. He didn’t try to find out why we headed for the hospital, just followed us at a distance. They were up to something.
Did they want us to escape? Happy to oblige. Stealing an ambulance was as easy as jumping into an open vehicle and driving away. The paramedics, driven by overwhelming concern for the health of their patient, left their ambulance wide open and the motor running.
“Jump in!” I directed Linda, as we ran by the idling ambulance. I didn’t have to elaborate. Linda dashed inside. We took off as briskly as the heavy Ford ambulance would allow. To my surprise, Alesh ran after us a good quarter mile. Then he commandeered a cab. A car chase through the streets of Manila first thing in the morning wasn’t a part of my plan. Possibly they didn’t want us to escape after all.
Alesh called me on the phone he’d given me. “Norman, stop the van immediately or I’ll shoot you both.” He sounded a little peeved. “Hey, relax, man, you know where we are. Earth! Right? We can’t get off, you know that. So, chill!” I threw the bugged phone out the window and pressed on through the busy streets of Manila.
With the siren reverberating a catchy cadence on our intestines, we were tearing through the city, the cab closely on our tail. It didn’t take long to lose it in a maze of red traffic lights that I kept running, under the accompaniment of Linda’s disapproving expletives.
I stopped the ambulance in front of a large shopping mall, painted blue, a white sign “Robinsons Galleria” prominently displayed on the front, right next to a huge billboard, depicting a pretty Philippina in a bikini bra. Damn impressive. I stopped for an instant to contemplate my approval for huge billboards as they tended to depict everything so BIG!
We navigated all the way through the mall, past Dunkin Donuts, K-Mart, and a multitude of other stores to the other side and emerged, remarkably, through a Toys-R-Us store. In Manila. Small world. At this point I wouldn’t have been surprised to find Dunkin Donuts or a Big-5 on any of the Baltizor planets, either. Small galaxy. Small universe.
The cab we flagged at the mall ’s opposite entrance delivered us safely to the Church of the Free Immortal Spirit, which occupied the first floor in an old, three-story dilapidated house in Paranaque, a poor residential neighborhood, known for its churches.
A nondescript, except for her grasping eyes, yet friendly, older Philippina inside introduced herself as Joyce, the church keeper. She was alone on the premises. The church, the size of a large apartment, consisted of a hall with a podium, a large flat screen TV and a couple dozen folded metal chairs stacked against the wall. Three doors on the right might have been small offices and a bathroom. A tiny bookstore with books and memorabilia was more like a nook than a room. All the books were written by the same author, Robert Peterson.
Joyce explained about their meetings, seminars, and volunteer work.
“Who is Robert Peterson?” Linda asked. Grace turned her alert and serious eyes to Linda. “Our founder. We call him the Teacher or the Amibrotos,the Immortal.” I noticed that despite the highly occult meaning of her words, Joyce didn’t seem overly reverent. She wasn’t about to throw herself on her knees at the mention of Thy Holy Name, in other words.
“Peterson?” I asked casually. “Where is Bob? Where can we find him?” “He isn’t here,” Joyce replied just as casually , smiling. Except for a quick, guarded glance she threw at me, that was. And a slight tightening of her shoulders. She was going to report on us snooping around the instant we stepped out through that entrance door. Good.
“ He never comes here, so I’ve never met him personally and don’t know where he resides. We see his lectures by Skype every Saturday. Why do you want to see the Amibrotos?”
“But you can contact him, right?”
Joyce shook her head. “No, I can’t. We have our policies. It’s an organization, you know?”
“Well, all right.” I nodded. “We are staying at the Pearl Manila, room 812, if you get in touch with anybody.”
“Why do you want to see him?” Joyce asked again. There was no mirth in her brief smile. Zero mirth.
“We seek help,” Linda answered. “Marital difficulties. Do you think he can help us?” “He can definitely help, yes. What are your names?” “My friends call me the Praying Mantis,” I replied.
“Why?” Joyce seemed genuinely shocked. “Why would they call you that?”
“He’s very religious,” Linda explained, patting me on the back. Joyce appeared happy at parting. This church was a front, a make-believe. And so was Grace. She smacked of a security operative more than a church keeper.
This was too easy. A trap?
“Where to now?” Linda asked. “And what about the money?” We’d left our moneybag at the hotel. “No worries, hon. We’re going back to the hotel.” “But Alesh will catch us!”
“I thought we liked Alesh?”
Linda shrugged with a bewildered look on her face.
“Next time I’ll shoot you two idiots on sight,” Alesh greeted us upon our return.
“You’re a bitter loser,” I replied, squeezing past him in the hallway. “I won. Admit it. Do you hate it? I hope you hate it.” Alesh mumbled something angry and stomped out. We spen
t the rest of the day shopping and dining with Alesh always nearby. We visited the Headless Horseman Bar and asked around to Alesh’s satisfaction. Nothing important came up, as expected.
“Are you happy now?” I asked Alesh. “All I want is for you to be happy.” He grumbled something.
So how would we find Brell? Or, rather, why didn’t he find us yet? “Give it time,” Linda said. Right she was as always. Next morning, we set off on foot with Alesh shadowing us at some distance.
A green delivery van, parked on Escolta Street in the downtown district of Binondo, suddenly came to life as we were crossing the street. It swerved at us from its parking spot at the curb, tires screeching. We jumped to the other side of the street to avoid the van, which suddenly stopped right behind us, cutting us off from Alesh. Another van, a white one, sped over the curb right in front of us. The doors flew open and four masked assailants, armed with AKs, each sporting large praying mantis patches on their left shoulders and breast pockets, pushed both of us into the van. The doors clanked closed, and off we went speeding down Escolta Street. The entire operation must have taken less than ten seconds. Very impressive. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one left of the A5B contingent who knew soldiering.
The attackers put away their guns. Stretching on the van ’s carpeted floor, I yawned comfortably. If you ever wanted to get abducted, this was the best way to do it.
“Nicely done,” I mentioned casually to the masked attacker looming closest to me. He nodded his thanks. “Norman, what are you saying? These people are terrorists! They’ll probably rape and torture us and then chop off our heads on video. Don’t just sit there, do something!” Linda yelled.
“Relax, hon,” I said reassuringly. “They won’t rape us.” “ Rape you?” chimed in one of the attackers pulling off his mask and turning his glistening face to Linda. “No, no, not all of you. Maybe just some of you for right now.” The middle-aged, unshaven, heavyset guy eyed Linda lasciviously and licked his lips. “What are you, a Double-C, hmm, sugar? About 145 pounds?”
Linda gasped in horror, clasping her mouth with both hands but then froze, eyeing everyone suspiciously. “Do you know these perverts?” she finally asked me.
“Which perverts? These perverts right here? Yeah, we go way back. Relax, hon.”
37 “Whose idea was it to call it ‘ Free’ Immortal Spirit? Pretentious, isn’t it?” I asked the swarthy, middle-aged abductor, whom I singled out as the leader. We were all sitting or stretching out on the van’s carpeted floor. Our destination was unknown to me, but I hoped we were on our way to see Brell.
The leader meanwhile took out a device from his pocket and scanned both of us slowly and deliberately. “A bug scanner,” he explained. “You’re clean.”
“Oh, good!” Our captors, numbering four in the cab plus the driver, ranged from adolescent to at least seventy and represented three of the major races of Earth. The driver turned out to be a Cambodian woman of undeterminable age named Thida.
Liran, the group ’s barrel-chested leader, eyed me with affection. “Can’t say I remember what you looked like back then, you know when, but I do get the vibe. You’re one of us for sure. Welcome, Norman!”
Yes, the vibe. With a little practice, you can learn to recognize old friends, relatives or lovers with your eyes closed. We served together with this guy. We were friends, yes indeed. A long time ago. Was it really such a long time? Five thousand measly years out of hundreds of trillions of years? Not that long ago. A blink of an eye.
“Thanks, Liran, happy to see you too.” I grinned. “ I heard a bit about your adventures,” he continued with an unrecognizable accent, which later turned out to be Hebrew, mopping his sweaty face with a paper towel. “You guys are all right. Sorry to frighten you, Linda. Would that be a consolation to tell you that I love chocolate?”
Oh, no! A racial innuendo? How was Linda going to react? I held my breath. Linda grinned at Liran and nodded; yes, it would indeed be a consolation. She seemed to have completely recovered from her fears of being raped and tortured and was enjoying the company. How could anybody not love this girl?
“And Freedom?” Liran turned to his crew. “What do you guys think, too pretentious?” Old black man next to him shook his head. A bearded white man slapped me on the back. He looked a bit like—what’s that guy’s name from the Bee Gees?
“No, no ,” I protested. “I didn’t say ‘too pretentious,’ I said ‘pretentious.’ Too pretentious would be Absolute Freedom or Total Freedom or something. I’m saying it’s all babble. What’s freedom? Who’s free? A nine to five working stiff? A billionaire? A homeless person? You? Me? Nobody is free here or anywhere else—but for damn sure not here on Earth anyway. The whole planet is a prison. I call that pretentious.”
Liran listened to me with a look of deep attention —too deep. It suddenly occurred to me that he probably knew something I didn’t, being close to Brell and all. A happy wave of anticipation swelled inside me. What were these guys up to? Freedom? Seriously? Linda was making big eyes at me. She felt something too. She crawled over to me on all fours, no longer scared or self-conscious, and nestled against me, eyeing Liran in eager anticipation. I put my arms around her, feeling happy.
“Well, what’s your definition of freedom?” Liran asked. “You tell me what freedom means to you, and I’ll tell you if we deliver.” “ Freedom is when nobody runs your life,” I started and immediately thought better of it. Everybody I’d ever known had run my life to a degree and that was good. I liked that. I assisted somebody, held the door or something, helped Linda, tried to accommodate, helped our guys at the lab to do their jobs. Yvette used to run my life for me to a great extent. My entire life revolved around Yvette, especially when she was a baby. I did things for them all and loved it. It pleased me to feel useful, but that also meant they ran my life in a way.
“No, wait. That’s not it. I meant nobody… No, no, wait. I know, I know.”
“You are free to choose what you do or how you act, right Picky?” Linda ventured, incisive as usual. “ Exactly! Freedom of choice. Thanks, Linda.” I kissed her wherever I could reach. The kiss landed on her shoulder. I was pleasantly aware of her body snuggling tighter against mine.
“W hat about others who are affected by your free choice? Somebody chooses to be a murderer, how’s that work? He murders you, but did you choose to be killed?” the old black man suddenly joined in.
I saw the point. “That’s why we have laws and cops and all that.” “So, we want somebody to police our free choice?” Thida asked. “We want cops to save us from the free choices of others?” “ Honest people want regulations, not freedom, anyway. Nobody wants freedom except criminals, but who cares what they want, right?” The old man chuckled.
“What’s a criminal anyway?” Liran asked unexpectedly. “In some countries using the wrong piece of paper to wipe your ass could land you in Gulag for twenty years or get you killed. Even now as we speak, somebody yapping against some dude with a bad haircut in North Korea is getting butchered. A woman may be considered a criminal just for showing her face in public. Hell, women still get stoned to death for adultery in some countries. But then grown men screwing eight-year-olds is all right in Yemen. Stealing five bucks in the US can get you a jail sentence, but illegal surveillance of hundreds of thousands of people without a court order, torturing people, killing unarmed suspects by police, holding foreigners illegally in despicable, humiliating conditions and denying them the right to an attorney is okay for the US police, the CIA, and the President of the United States. So, what’s criminal? Catch the drift?”
“ So, what’s freedom then?” I asked, hoping for a clear answer. “You’ll see, Norm. I promise.”
“Huh?”
Liran laughed. The van stopped. The door slid open, letting in fragrant ocean air and the screams of sea gulls.
38 At Sihanoukville we all boarded a rickety bus.
“Where to now?” I asked Liran.
“Siem Reap,” he r
eplied.
“Is that in Cambodia?”
“Yeah, about one hundred fifty miles from here.”
“Wow, that’s a long trip. How did you guys get to Manila so fast?” “We’re taking a scenic route now. A security precautions.”
Made sense. “This Siem Reap isn’t it a tourist trap? I think I’ve heard about it.” “ You can call it a tourist trap, sure. Angkor temples attract millions of tourists. The most prominent, Angkor Wat, is huge—the largest religious structure in the world. Siem Reap is where Khmers, or Cambodians as we call them now, beat the shit out of the Thai invaders in the sixteenth century.”
“That’s fascinating. Lots of tourists, new people come and go, new faces all the time. I can kind of see why Brell, I mean the Teacher, picked such a location for his base,” I ventured.
“What makes you think the Teacher is located there? I’m just saying that we’re headed for Siem Reap right now.”
“Got it now.” The rural scenery outside was made surprisingly pleasant by the friendly natives. These people looked happy and smiled a lot. Most even waved at us, especially the children.
“Do they always wave to strangers?” Linda asked.
“Pretty much,” yelled the driver. “Very friendly people.”
“ Yes, very friendly,” Thida pitched in. “Good and honest people. You can trust these people here. You can give some money to a kid and ask him to run to a store and buy something for you, and he’ll bring you everything you asked, including your change.”
Linda started shouting, “Hello! How are you? Nice day!” to everybody in sight, waving through the open window. Siem Reap is really a cluster of small villages along the Siem Reap River, originally developed around Buddhist temples, scattered along the river to its delta where it meets the great Tonle Sap Lake.