Sea of Gold

by Nick Elliott

  It further warned American citizens residing in southern Mindanao and those travelling to Mindanao ‘to exercise extreme caution and re-evaluate their personal safety situation’. I promised myself I would.

  ‘Same old Mindanao, eh,’ I said. I’d only ever been here once before. An old rust bucket which the Club should never have accepted in the first place had been stuck in Davao with a full cargo of copra and the crew refusing to sail until wages were paid, which didn’t look at all likely. The Greek owner had gone bust. The port authority, the bunker supplier and the agent were all after the owners too for unpaid bills, so I wound up here sorting it out on the Club’s behalf. And Carlos, as the local Lloyd’s Agent, had helped out in the absence of a Club correspondent. We’d negotiated reduced payments to all creditors including the Romanian crew, who had agreed to sail the ship to Hong Kong where she was delivered for scrap before being towed up to Taiwan. The crew then got the balance of their wages and airfares back to Constantza, courtesy of the Romanian consul in Hong Kong.

  ‘Remember how you told the skipper that the consul in Hong Kong was a Eurasian beauty who had promised to personally buy him dinner at the Mandarin, for just the two of them, if he agreed to sail the ship from here with wages outstanding? Did she ever fulfil her promise?’

  ‘She did. And he told me it didn’t end with dinner either.’

  Carlos laughed. ‘Seaman’s talk, eh?’

  I’d left Scotland unobtrusively. I couldn’t be sure that Kershope, or whoever was calling the shots from within the Revival, wasn’t harbouring suspicions as to what I was up to. Or Boris might lose his nerve and talk to them. Unlikely, I thought, but I couldn’t be certain. So I’d got Phyllis in the office to book me a ticket to Athens from Edinburgh three days hence, then, arranging the bookings myself, flew from Leeds Bradford to Frankfurt on one ticket and from there bought a separate return to Singapore. Once in Singapore I’d bought a return to Davao. It wasn’t exactly sophisticated tradecraft and it had meant a frustrating six-hour delay in Frankfurt waiting for a flight with an available seat, but it was the best I could arrange in the time available and might cover my traces for a while, if anyone was watching.

  We drove south through Digos City on the AH26, leaving the looming mass of Mount Apo behind us. It began to rain heavily, the car’s wipers sweeping the water off the windscreen in waves. We pushed on into General Santos City.

  ‘Mining is a sensitive subject in this part of the world,’ Carlos was saying. ‘You know that. Every interest group in Mindanao has its own position and is prepared to fight for it. The tribes, the clans, the Church, the military, local government, central government and the mining companies themselves. You name it. And very often it’s happening illegally.’ He looked over at me. ‘How much do you know about the Malatan clan?’ I’d already given him a brief outline of what I was here for.

  ‘Not as much as you Carlos, I’m sure. Tell me.’

  ‘Well,’ he began, his eyes back on the chaotic traffic around us. ‘They claim they can trace their ancestry back to the earliest Arab settlers who brought Islam to Mindanao, although no one’s seen the evidence. They were always a powerful presence but under the tenure of one of our former presidents, they extended their influence considerably, with her support. They have hundreds of armed militia on their payroll, not to mention certain members of the police force and local politicians too. You know how it works. It’s the old recipe of generous bribery and violent intimidation.

  ‘But this Buwan Bundok mining project is something different. They’re moving into the big time with this one and from what you say, they’re relying on help from foreign friends to make it work.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘These people are not small-time crooks. Razul Malatan is a warlord. His son is a well-educated playboy but with a real nasty streak. You don’t want to mess with them. I mean, do you have an appointment to meet with them? What’s your plan?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Carlos. I can look after myself. I’ll tell you the plan when we stop.’

  We passed through General Santos City and followed the coast road through Maasim and on to Kiamba, where Carlos pulled in beside a little restaurant on Tuka beach, a wooden shack with a thatched roof a few feet from the sea.

  We were in a land of sharp divides and striking beauty. To one side the brilliant greens of the palm-fringed shoreline with forests and hills beyond; to the other, the vivid waters of Sarangani Bay on which small wooden outrigger fishing boats glided about. The sun was still shining here but behind us, from where we’d come, the sky was dark with the approach of a typhoon.

  ‘Emerald and sapphire,’ I said, admiring the view with what I thought was a poetic turn of phrase.

  ‘Or copper and gold more like,’ Carlos replied prosaically. ‘Goons, guns and gold – that’s what is going on here amongst the clan warlords fighting over their fiefdoms. Let’s get something to eat.’

  Carlos ordered San Migs, which came ice cold in mugs covered by a thin layer of frost straight from the freezer. We ate a local noodle dish called sinigang na bangus. Stewed milkfish in tamarind, Carlos explained. It might be the last decent meal I would eat in a while.

  As we sat looking out over the bay, a young couple walked past us along the beach, hand in hand and laughing. The girl pushed her boyfriend playfully and ran from him towards the sea. He caught up with her, sweeping her into his arms. They kissed. I looked away.

  ‘So the Malatan ranch is what, about fifty kilometres inland from here?’

  ‘If that, more like forty.’

  ‘And Mount Buwan Bundok, the site of the mine, is another forty or so beyond, into the hills going north-west of their ranch?’

  ‘The planned site; yes, more or less.’

  ‘OK, so here’s the plan. You drive me to a point no closer than a kilometre from the ranch. I’ll stay there until you’re well clear and back in Kiamba. You can find somewhere to wait. Then I’ll walk to the ranch and ask to see the Malatans. Once I’m done, I’ll call you and you can come and pick me up. Or I’ll get a ride back. It’s as simple as that.’

  Carlos was looking agitated. ‘You call that a plan? You think it’s going to be that straightforward? What will you say to them?’

  ‘Don’t you worry. I have some strong cards to play.’ I hadn’t told him what they were.

  ‘They’re ruthless, Angus. Just remember that. Don’t imagine they’re going to ask you whether you prefer Earl Grey or English Breakfast. They’re ruffians.’ I laughed at his use of the English vernacular.

  We set off inland, heading north into farmland at first – fields of maize, sugarcane, bananas and pineapples, interspersed with rambutan and durian orchards. The road was rough but sealed. We passed through small communities called barangays, houses with rusting corrugated iron roofs, children playing amongst the family livestock – poultry, goats and cattle, these last ambling along with herders on their backs. These villages were poor but not impoverished. Many had schools and churches and the people seemed contented.

  The road began to climb steeply and as it did, it deteriorated. The weather was going the same way. To our east, lightning flashed in the darkening sky. Gusts of wind buffeted the car and with the strengthening wind came heavy rain squalls.

  Carlos slowed down. Eventually he pulled over in a tidy little barangay, got out and spoke to an old man sitting in a wooden chair by the side of the road, observing the prevailing weather conditions without apparent concern.

  ‘This is it,’ Carlos announced returning to the car. ‘We’re about one and a half kilometres from the Malatan place he says. There’s a road off to the left just past the last houses here. The ranch is up there but the old boy says there’s a road block before you get to it so you’ll need to talk your way through that first. Take a gun if you like, Angus. They’re both loaded.’

  ‘Not a good idea, Carlos, but I’ll borrow your rain jacket if I may.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said reaching into t
he back of the car for it. ‘I thought you might have brought your umbrella.’

  ‘Very funny. Right, I’m off,’ I said, pulling on his jacket. It was several sizes too small but better than nothing.

  He was looking uncomfortable again. ‘Are you really sure you want to do this?’

  ‘If you carry on like that I’ll change my mind. Now head off and leave me to it. I’ll get in touch as soon I’m done.’

  ‘How long will that be?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours but if you don’t hear from me don’t panic, at least not for a day or two. Then if I haven’t made contact, call Peter Stark in Singapore.’ I passed him Stark’s card. He knew all about the Coreminex involvement. ‘He’s got a contingency plan.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘It’s called Plan B. Now get going, Carlos. I’ll see you later.’

  CHAPTER 28

  The old man had moved on to get out of the rain. I found a leaky structure by the side of the road to shelter in and after waiting an hour for Carlos to get back to Kiamba, hiked up to the roadblock we’d been told about.

  The Malatan estate might have been mistaken for a cattle ranch but for the perimeter fencing, which was more Guantanamo than South Fork. The checkpoint was a concrete block house with steel security gates, a three-metre high fence, topped with razor wire and interspersed with CCTV cameras, stretching off into the distance on either side.

  As I approached, three goons walked towards the gate from inside the compound. Each carried a sub-machine gun slung across his chest. All three were dressed in black military fatigues. And all three were big. They walked with a lumbering gait, heads forward, arms hanging away from their torsos, ape-like.

  We all arrived at the gates at the same time. Such choreography made me wonder whether I’d been expected; more likely they treated all visitors this way. The one in the middle spoke. ‘What you want?’

  ‘I’d like to see Mr Malatan, please.’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘I’ll wait. I have important news for him.’

  ‘Wait,’ he grunted and went into the gatehouse. The other two stayed, still eyeing me malevolently.

  After a few minutes the gorilla returned and I was ushered inside the gates.

  ‘Wait,’ he said again. Inside the gatehouse was an array of CCTV monitors showing views from the cameras which were interspersed around the perimeter. As I waited I watched them but there was no sign of activity. After twenty minutes or so a golf buggy came wobbling down the road from within the estate. It stopped in front of the gates and a man in his late-twenties stepped out. He was medium height, overweight but, unlike the goons, this was no tough guy. He was wearing a black polo shirt and jeans.

  ‘What is it you want?’ He had an American accent.

  ‘I’d like to see Mr Malatan,’ I replied, guessing this was Razul Malatan. Jnr.

  ‘I am he.’

  ‘It was your father I wanted to see. I have important information for him.’

  ‘You may tell me what you’re here for. I will mention it to my father if it’s of any importance.’ He had the kind of supercilious air I find irritating.

  ‘I’ve come from Scotland,’ I told him, ‘from your father’s friends there.’

  ‘And who might they be?’

  ‘I think he will know who I’m talking about.’

  ‘Well you’d better wait here then and I’ll speak with him.’ He strolled off with an air of bored indifference so he could speak on his phone out of earshot.

  Number one goon and I stared at each other. He was the heftier of the three, obese by current western measures, but I wasn’t about to lecture him on the benefits of a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. Eventually Junior returned.

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Will your dad see me?’

  ‘He says he will see you, yes.’

  I climbed aboard the buggy and we drove up through green pastures on either side of the road where cattle grazed contentedly, despite the rain. The road got steeper as the grassland gave way to thickly forested hills. Eventually we reached the house. Neither of us had spoken a word to each other.

  Malatan’s pad was a huge Spanish-style hacienda. Immaculately tended lawns with a scattering of trees presented an elegant foreground beyond which was a complex of low white buildings with faded terracotta roofs.

  To one side were garages outside which were parked two black SUVs, a large Mercedes sedan, also black, and a white Land Cruiser, for the servants I surmised – or maybe there was another visitor.

  Junior pulled up here and we walked to the entrance of the main house.

  I was getting used to visiting palatial residences, what with Grant’s tower house in the Borders, Kyriakou’s lovely Greek island villa and Peter Stark’s black and white in Sembawang, but this place would have swallowed all of them with room to spare.

  I was shown into a room beyond the hall which I took to be a study – a large study. There were windows on two sides but because of the gathering storm, three or four low lights had been switched on to relieve the gloom. A man got up from behind a large rosewood desk. I guessed Razul Malatan Senior was in his early sixties – short, muscular, with a leathery complexion and a full head of steel-grey hair. He radiated impatience, and a wariness. He walked towards me but didn’t offer to shake my hand.

  ‘I am busy,’ he said with an air of self-importance, but he gestured to me to take a seat. ‘What do you want?’ I took Carlos’s rain jacket off, letting it drip onto his hand-woven rug and sat down in one of five faux antique, red leather Chesterfield wingchairs clustered round a large rosewood coffee table. Everything was large here.

  ‘Get some coffee brought in,’ he said to Junior. He spoke English in abbreviated staccato bursts. Number one goon had appeared and stationed himself by the door leaving Malatan and myself facing each other across the ornate table.

  I had heard much about this man, mostly from Peter Stark, then from Carlos. I knew of his power and influence amongst the central government politicos in Manila and stories of cronyism and nepotism in the provincial politics of Mindanao. I’d heard rumours of his direct involvement in any number of murderous feuds or ridos, of his private army of militias. In all these things he differed little from the many other warlords of Mindanao – ruthless feudal clan chiefs acting with impunity within their own fiefdoms. This was endemic, part of local lore and local culture. It was not unusual and, if deplored in some circles, was venerated in others.

  But Razul Malatan Senior differed from these men. His ambitions went way beyond those of his peers. Malatan’s pride and the reverence he felt for his ancestry, stretching back seven hundred years so he believed, had given him a vision that had become an obsession. He was a secessionist, not just for his province of Sarangani but for the whole of Mindanao, including the rebellious islands of the Sulu Archipelago scattered to the south. His dreams were remarkably similar to those of Boris Kaliyagin. But as men they could not have been more different.

  Malatan was having none of the Bangsamoro framework agreement negotiated by the central government that Peter Stark had spoken of. For him that was what the Scots would call devo max – a sop to what he saw as the worn-out efforts of the MILF, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

  Malatan wanted full independence and nothing less. And his ace was Buwan Bundok. To play it he had to get his hands on the mine and exploit its riches. And at some point he would make a grab for independence. And this, according to informed speculation on the part of Mindanao’s pundits, meant launching an armed coup.

  Whatever obstacles might lie in his way, it was not my aim to add to them, nor to antagonise the man.

  ‘It’s more what I can do for you,’ I started off. ‘I know of your strategic alliance with a group of business people from Scotland. I know you were depending on them to support your efforts in opening up and sharing with them the Buwan Bundok mine’s riches, and I know you were hoping they would assist you
in mounting a coup to achieve independence for Mindanao.

  ‘I’m also aware you were party to the sinking of the Astro Maria, resulting in the loss of eighteen lives and a cargo of mining equipment belonging to the Coreminex mining group and valued at over seventy-five million dollars. But the ship’s flag state, although a small island in the Pacific Ocean, enjoys certain treaty agreements with the governments of both the Philippines and the United States, including authority to extradite and try anyone committing a crime against that flag state’s property, which in this case means the ship, her crew and cargo. You may therefore expect the Republic of Nawihiki to be seeking an extradition order from your government in Manila to ensure you stand trial for conspiracy to commit murder, amongst other charges. Such a trial would take place in the United States.’

  Much of this was not strictly true and some was mere guesswork, but I wasn’t prosecuting him – just getting his attention. I wanted to rattle his cage. ‘I urge you to take what I’m telling you seriously,’ I added.

  At this point Junior reappeared, followed by an immaculately dressed housemaid bearing a silver tray. Coffee was poured from a silver pot into fine bone china cups. Malatan waited for the maid to leave. Junior took a seat beside him.

  ‘And you’ve come to tell me these things. What’s your name?’

  ‘McKinnon.’

  ‘So why come here? You know who I am. You take big risks with these lies.’

  I wasn’t going to go into my own motivation just yet. ‘Listen,’ I urged. ‘Your friends in the Revival have no intention of honouring their promises. Their own agenda has changed very recently. The funds they promised you to develop the Buwan Bundok mine and support your coup, have been reassigned.’

  I was re-running the story I’d told Boris Kaliyagin, my intention being to play both ends against the middle. ‘I’ve got good news and bad news for you. The bad news is you’re being double-crossed by your friends in Scotland.