Whipsaw (10 page)

Bolan stared in amazement. Colgan, dressed in white from head to foot, bent to duck under the lintel and stepped into the open. Almost ghostly in the brilliant sunlight, his figure seemed to float over the ground, and he sat in the passenger seat of Carlos's jeep without seeming to climb in.

Marisa sat next to Bolan in the second jeep. "This is my idea, you know," she said.

"And just what do you hope to gain?" Bolan looked at her, head cocked to one side. She wore sunglasses that picked up the sun and glinted small yellow daggers.

"Gain? Why, nothing. I just thought you should see what my husband is really like. You should see how he treats the people, how they look up to him."

"Idolize him, do they? Is that what you mean?"

"No." She turned away. "You're like all the others. You don't think a white man can come to a place like this without either going native or becoming Lord Jim. That's what Thomas means, you know, by the third way. He wants to be among the people, not lord it over them or becoming one of them. He wants them to meet him halfway."

"He has a funny way of showing it. What's the point of his getup?"

"Getup?"

"The white. He looks like a saint in a bad movie."

"Maybe he is, Mr. Belasko."

"Is that what you think he is? A saint?"

"Perhaps. I know he has done wonders for thousands of people. I know they love him and respect him for what he's done."

"I think your husband is a very dangerous man. He's made some sort of bargain with the devil, and the devil will eat him alive."

"I don't believe in devils, and neither does my husband."

"Do you believe in Charles Harding? Do you believe in Juan Rizal Cordero?"

Marisa didn't answer him immediately. When she finally spoke, Bolan could sense the uncertainty in her, as if she were wrestling with something unpleasant. "You must understand... it is difficult here. My husband doesn't want to take sides. But the countryside is in turmoil. The people hate the army, and they don't trust the government. Thomas is walking a very fine line. He tries to stay neutral. The NPA will attack us sometimes, because it is not a single entity. Every group is a law unto itself. Thomas makes no distinctions. If someone needs medical help, he gives it without regard to politics."

"Does that include members of the Leyte Brigade?"

"Yes, it does."

"Then he does know where Harding is, doesn't he?"

Marisa stayed silent.

"Do you understand that Harding and Cordero are planning to destroy this country? They will level it, if they have to, to save it from the NPA. Colgan showed me the village where..."

"I know, he told me."

"Has he told you that Manila will look the same way if Harding isn't stopped?"

Marisa fluttered a hand in the air, then waved it vaguely, as if to chase away something neither of them could see. Bolan sighed but said nothing more.

Carlos started his engine, and Bolan's driver followed suit. Together the two jeeps, followed by a truck full of medical equipment, began to roll out of the camp. As they slipped through the entrance to the road, the truck scraping its roof on some low-hanging branches, Bolan glanced back.

Behind the truck, a third jeep, this one sporting four heavily armed men, fell in line.

Bolan leaned closer to Marisa. He had to shout to be heard above the roaring engines. "Where are we going?"

"Malanang. There is an epidemic there, probably measles. Thomas has to set up a quarantine hut and inoculate those who haven't already contracted the disease."

"How did you meet Colgan?"

"That's a long story."

"We have time."

"Not now, Mr. Belasko. Maybe some other time."

The road was unusual. For two hours they traveled under the hammering sun, and Bolan saw not a single sign of its construction. It was as if a laser had cut through the forest, incinerating everything in its path and fusing the surface of the road to a smooth, melded contour, running off on either side into a shallow ditch.

Here and there, smaller roads, less precise and not nearly as well maintained, wound off between two hills or stabbed suddenly off among the trees. It was primeval forest face-to-face with man's will to subdue the planet. It seemed to be a stalemate. The road itself seemed free from natural incursion, but twenty feet on either side, jungle as faceless and ancient as any on earth marched off to the mountains.

It was like traveling in a time machine, Bolan thought. He wouldn't have been surprised to round a bend in the road and come face-to-face with a dinosaur.

And the thought brought him back to Thomas Colgan another kind of dinosaur.

He was a vestige of the nineteenth century. Maybe he had mastered modern medical science, but his attitude was a hundred years old. What puzzled Bolan was why Marisa didn't see it that way.

Her country was simmering on a low boil, had been for forty years, and yet she seemed not to understand that Colgan was not a solution any more than Marcos had been or Charles Harding threatened to be.

Most likely she was blinded by misplaced gratitude, he thought, unable to see him for what he was because she so much wanted him to be a savior. The road began to slide downhill, now, and Bolan looked back at the gentle rise behind him. As they descended more and more sharply, the forest grew deeper and the trees grew taller. They were heading into the very bowels of Luzon. This was NPA country at its most pristine, a place where the Philippine Army was just a rumor, where civilisation consisted of this single road and, more than likely, an arsenal of smuggled weapons.

Far ahead, as the road bottomed out, Bolan saw a flutter of white. He leaned forward to get a better look. As they approached, he recognised it as a white cloth on a stake driven into the ground just off the side of the road. Without having to ask Marisa, he realized it was a sign that had some connection to their journey.

Carlos pulled over about fifty yards before the stake. He climbed down and left the engine running. Colgan stayed in the jeep.

Bolan's jeep stopped in the middle of the road, the truck and the third jeep right behind. Bolan watched as Carlos walked slowly toward the flag. The young man hefted his rifle nervously, and his head swiveled constantly from the flag to the trees on either side of the road and back again.

"Maybe I should go with him," Bolan said.

"No! You stay where you are," Marisa snapped. "You're not just a visitor here, you're an intruder."

"And your husband isn't?"

"He was invited."

She said no more. Bolan climbed down to stretch his legs. His spine ached from the jarring of the jeep's tight suspension. It was hard to pin down, but something bothered him about the whole operation. It seemed curiously theatrical, like everything else about Thomas Colgan. But if it was just a dramatic performance, who was the audience for which it was intended, he wondered. Surely Colgan wasn't going to such a lot of effort for his benefit.

And that, of course, he suddenly realized, was the key. Colgan was doing it for himself.

It was a play in which Colgan was the star and the sole audience. Colgan had constructed an elaborate image, was using the whole world as his stage, and was prepared to give himself rave reviews. It didn't matter what anyone else thought, and it didn't matter whether anyone else even saw the performance.

Colgan wanted to please himself, and he had to feed his enormous and eccentric ego.

Bolan knew that such an ego was voracious.

Soon even so elaborate a charade as this would not be sufficient. More and more would be necessary.

Colgan had bought into the self-constructed myth so totally that he wouldn't be able to see it even if it were pointed out to him. That was why he lost his patience with Bolan, and why he kept everyone, even Marisa, at arm's length.

Let somebody close, and you have to acknowledge their existence. You have to interact, and once that happens, you are forced to realize that the world holds a hell of a lot more than just yourself. For a man like Thomas Colgan, the Filipino people were not people at all. They were props. Their diseases and injuries were part of the script, and they were what enabled him to shine so brightly.

And that's as far as Colgan cared to see. It was as if he lived inside a plastic bubble. People on the outside could see through it, see him gliding on angelic feet, ministering to the sick and infirm. But when he looked back, all he saw was his own reflection on the inside of that bubble. No matter which way he turned, it was his own face he saw. And he liked what he saw too much to ever want to look at anything else.

Carlos had reached the flag and stood with his back to the convoy. Bolan saw him turn sharply to the left, then raise a hand in greeting. A moment later two men in fatigues materialized against the dark green of the jungle. Carlos stepped toward them. One of the men hung back, and the other waded through waist-high grass. He said something to Carlos, who turned and waved, then together they started walking back toward the jeep, accompanied by one man.

Carlos waited for his companion to climb into the jeep, then jumped behind the wheel. He released the emergency brake, and the jeep bumped forward in first gear. As the small convoy rolled slowly ahead, Bolan watched Colgan, who had said nothing to the man and had barely even looked at him.

Instead he sat with his hands in his lap, staring straight ahead.

When Carlos reached the flag, the second guide waved him on, running through the tall grass for about fifty yards. He turned left, heading toward the trees, and pulled aside a net interlaced with green fronds. A small lane appeared in the forest wall, and Carlos wrestled the jeep through the shallow ditch and into the tall grass. Bugs swarmed up out of the thick clumps and buzzed around them as they bounced over the uneven ground and into the lane.

After the third jeep had entered the forest, the guide replaced the netting and eased through a narrow gap in the trees. He climbed into Bolan's jeep without saying anything. Carlos jolted ahead now, and they made their way slowly forward. The big truck, its canvas cover slapped incessantly by branches, groaned and squeaked as its chassis twisted back and forth.

Bolan looked at the new passenger, who kept his eyes forward and made no attempt to communicate with the rest of them. The lane snaked its way, tall grass nearly shrouding the hint of ruts beneath. The lane had been cut some time ago, and many of the stumps, cut off just above the soil, had already begun to sprout new shoots, which whipped at the undercarriage of the jeep, slapping against the gas tank and filling the narrow gap with a hollow drumming sound.

The lead jeep braked, its taillights flashing and smearing a wash of artificial color over the shiny green leaves. Carlos leaned forward and the engine died. Bolan's driver turned off his own engine.

Behind them the truck continued to rumble.

"We're there," Marisa stated.

"Looks like," Bolan said.

"Watch Thomas. You'll see what I mean."

"He's still sitting in his jeep. Somebody's coming to talk to him, I guess."

Bolan waited until a small man in fatigues and a headband, like an aged version of the one who had climbed into their own jeep, halted beside Colgan. The doctor turned his head and leaned down to listen to the new arrival. Bolan was reminded of scenes of the Pope among the faithful.

Colgan climbed down from the jeep, the little old man darting in and out like an anxious child. Colgan moved toward the scattered tents, and children raced toward him on their own or were dragged by stern-faced women in khaki with rifles slung over their shoulders.

The men of the camp seemed to hang back, forming a ragged ring around the growing knot of women and children. Colgan nodded and patted the children on their heads like a man dispensing indulgences rather than medicine. When he reached the center of the camp, towering over the crowd, his white clothes gleaming in the morning sun, he turned and waved toward the medical supply truck. For a moment Bolan held his breath, waiting for a thunderbolt to be summoned by that long, shining arm.

"Maybe now you can begin to see my husband for what he is," Marisa said.

"I already do."

Bolan lay on the narrow cot, his arm folded under his head. The moist air smothered him, pressing on his chest like a layer of damp concrete. He had tried to sleep off and on for two hours.

His watch told him it was nearly three in the morning, but it made no difference.

In disgust he threw the light blanket off and let his legs dangle down over the edge of the metal frame. He leaned over and tugged on his boots.

Rubbing his hands on his thighs, he realised how tight he was. The muscles in his legs felt like metal bands. Getting to his feet with a weary sigh, he stretched his arms out as far as he could, then did a dozen deep knee-bends. His legs loosened up a little, but he could feel the tension sitting there in his gut like a ball of freshly smoked rubber.

He strapped on the AutoMag and walked to the door of the hut. Fitted with a simple screen door, it was bug tight and hot as an oven. Already he could feel a river of sweat coursing down his backbone. He listened to the night with one hand on the doorjamb. A small trickle of sweat ran down his bare forearm, beaded at his elbow, then dripped away.

Outside he could just see the corner hut at the right end of the compound. Just beyond, on the edge of the trees, a small glow told him a bored sentry was taking a smoke to ease the monotony. It always amazed him how predictable men could be. Left alone with the night, even men who had no interest in smoking reached for an open pack, if only to take a puff and crush the nearly whole cigarette under a boot heel. The coil of smoke, at least, moved. It made one feel a little less alone, as if the smoke might somehow be a companion until the next shift.

Deep in the jungle, something screamed. It was frightening, but not a scream of terror. More likely a predator, howling its frustration, was coping with the night in its own fashion. Idly Bolan pushed the screen door away with the toe of one boot. It swung open noiselessly, and almost like an automaton, he stepped out into the thick, hot air.

Stepping aside to let the screen door close behind him, he bumped it with a hip to make sure it shut tightly. Whatever else he accomplished, he didn't want to come back to a room full of mosquitoes. He walked out into the center of the green half-moon that echoed the curve of the line of huts.

Looking up, he saw stars brighter than any he'd seen in a long time. Only this far from the city were so many stars visible that one could keep counting them until morning.

A single dim rectangle of light spilled through one of the screen doors. Faintly orange, it came from a kerosene lamp. For purposes of saving fuel, the generator was shut down every night at nine.

The day was too insistent very early in the tropics, and no one had the need of electricity much after dark.

He started walking without knowing quite why. Colgan's hut, like the others, was dark. The camp was as quiet as an empty tomb. The cigarette across the compound was long since dark. Staring into the night, Bolan saw no trace of the sentry. Behind him someone moaned, probably having a bad dream.

The sound was barely human and sent a shiver up Bolan's spine. The chill lingered long after the sound faded away.

A shadow passed through the center of the light smear, and Bolan knit his brows. Who else, he wondered, would be up at this time of night? And why would they be in the prison hut?

Curious, he started toward the hut when he heard a strangled cry. It sounded as if it had been squeezed off before it really got going.

Bolan quickened his pace, checking to make sure the AutoMag was on his hip. The shadow passed through the wedge of light a second time as Bolan drew close.

He reached the door just as a second stillborn cry dribbled to a halt. Bolan leaned forward to peer into the hut, thinking perhaps one of the prisoners had taken sick. He grabbed the door, but it wouldn't open. That was normal, but something bothered him. There was still the matter of the light and the shadow.

Pressing his face against the oblong, barred window, he couldn't make anything out. Then he caught a whiff of something that made his stomach coil back in on itself. He thought for a moment he was going to gag. It was the unmistakable smell of flesh. Burning flesh.

"Anyone in there?" Bolan called.

No one answered, and he twisted himself around to try and squeeze a look, but the bars were just too close together. He noticed a single window, set in the wall directly opposite the door, and he sprinted around to the back of the hut. He wasn't afforded a better view there, but the smell was even stronger.

"Anyone there? What's going on?" He called more loudly this time, but still got no answer.

Bolan raced back to the front door, grabbed the bars and pulled. He propped himself against the door with his feet and put his entire weight behind the pull.

His muscles strained as he tried to use himself as a lever to pry the bars free. Twice he lifted himself off the ground and slammed his heels into the door, but the bars held.

He couldn't see the lock on the inside and didn't want to wake the entire camp, but he had to do something. What ever was happening inside was dreadful that much he suspected. Pounding his fist against the door, he heard it echo hollowly from inside, followed by a faint sound like a snicker. He called, and again he heard the snicker, like a kid laughing behind his hands when he's put one over on the teacher.

Bolan slammed a fist into the door in his anger, but it refused to budge. Feeling along the door's edge, he realised the design was less than perfect. The hinges, mounted with the pins facing out, were accessible. Using the butt of the AutoMag, Bolan rapped on the top pin. It resisted at first, then started to slide free, a quarter inch at a time.

Hearing footsteps, Bolan turned to see the sentry rushing toward him, rifle at an angle across his chest.

"What's going on?" the sentry asked.

"You tell me," Bolan said.

From inside, there was a sudden hiss, and the stench of burning flesh wafted through the open bars.

"Give me that," Bolan snapped, indicating the survival knife sheathed on the sentry's hip. The man looked puzzled, but Bolan ignored the look and snatched the knife from its sheath. Dropping to one knee, he pried the lower pin loose enough to get the fat edge of the blade under it. Using it like a crowbar, Bolan worked the knife up, slid it farther along, lifted again, then placed the fat edge flat against the pin, just under its head. He tugged up, and the pin shot free. He repeated the process on the second hinge, then snapped the already loosened pin out of the top hinge.

Again he grabbed the bars and pulled. This time, pivoting on the latch, the door swung open. Bolan pushed it aside, where it hung at a crazy angle. He stepped through the door into a wash of orange light. In one corner McRae sat on a chair, his eyes a little glazed, a bottle of Scotch in his lap.

On a table next to him, the open flame of a kerosene lamp flickered in an occasional draft. A survival knife projected from the wall behind McRae. It started to tilt downward slowly, then dropped with a faint ping as it stuck into the floor point-first. An elaborate ivory inlay in the handle caught fragments of light and splashed them on the floor in tiny pools.

"What's going on here?" Bolan demanded.

McRae chuckled. "Just cooking up a little trouble for the NPA," he said.

Bolan looked at the three prisoners, who lay motionlessly huddled next to the wall like bundles of rags. He dropped to his knees beside the nearest prisoner. He shook the young man, but knew already that it was pointless. The skin was cold to the touch. The shirt felt sticky to his touch, and he leaned forward to find it soaked with blood.

He rolled the kid over, and noticed a series of ragged, blackedged burns on his cheeks, like steps running up from the jawbone and stopping just under the right eye.

Bolan took the kid's jaw in his hands and turned the head to look at the other cheek. A similar pattern, like some bizarre tribal marking, lined that cheek also. A knotted rag bulged behind the kid's teeth. That would explain the strangled cries.

Bolan stared in disbelief and deep rage tightened his jaw.

Quickly he checked the second prisoner. That one, too, choked on a knotted rag. The burn marks were on his chest, where the shirt had been sliced up the middle. Darkening blood from a gaping throat wound concealed half of the burns.

Just to confirm what he already knew, Bolan examined the third boy and found what he'd expected. Bolan turned to stare at McRae, and there was a deadly calm on his face.

"You'll be sorry you did this."

"Hey, man, I got to know what they know. I got responsibilities. Man won't talk, you got to make him."

"Responsibilities?" Bolan shouted as he threw himself across the hut. McRae tried to avoid the charge, but man aged only to slip off the chair and land in a heap on the floor beside it.

Bolan grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. He swung his fist into the man's midsection. McRae doubled over and flew backward into the wall. As Bolan was reaching for him, McRae swung an arm up and chuckled.

"Uh-huh. Just hold it." He held an ugly Colt.45. Behind the gun, his face split in a triumphant grin. "Tut, tut, big boy, you just tucked up. I knew you would."

Bolan made a slight move, and McRae moved the automatic back and forth. Using one hand to hold himself erect, he ratcheted himself up the wall with his hips, dropped into the chair again, then called out.

"Take Mr. Belasko's gun, Juanito."

Bolan looked at the sentry, who was still staring at the three crumpled bodies against the wall.

"Juanito? I'm waiting... Do it, or I'll blow your fucking brains all over the wall."

Juanito looked at Bolan as if asking for his approval. Bolan said nothing. The guard stepped close and wrapped his fingers around the butt of Bolan's pistol, then backed away.

"You watch him now, Juanito, you hear me?" McRae knelt down to retrieve the chains that were locked around the dead bodies.

When the chain was free, McRae got to his feet and moved past Bolan, keeping his distance.

Slipping up behind Juanito, he darted forward, swinging his Colt in a vicious arc. The blow caught Bolan over the right ear, and he went down hard.

McRae kicked him in the small of the back, then snapped the chains around Bolan's ankles and secured it through the bolts. He slipped a pair of handcuffs from a pants pocket and clicked them shut, pinning Bolan's arms behind his back.

He towered above his captive. "You won't be going anywhere," he snarled. "Cause I got somebody wants to talk to you, but after he does, I'm gonna decorate you some." McRae looked at Juanito. "I'll be back later." Then, pointing to the three corpses, he said, "In the meantime, put out the garbage."