Whipsaw (7 page)

Bolan sat in the jeep, taking it all in. The camp was a model of efficiency. More than a dozen buildings, and not a single one could be seen from the air, so cleverly had they been woven in and around the rain forest. Even the clearing at its heart looked pristine.

It was beginning to brighten, and Bolan glanced at his watch. It was five-thirty, and the sun was due in just a few minutes. In another hour or two, the morning mist would burn off, and by midday, everyone alive in this part of Luzon would be counting the minutes until sundown. Bolan had seen similar places before, though none so economically designed. It was the precision that stunned him, and bothered him more than a little. Just this cursory examination convinced him that Marisa's group was not just a spontaneous movement of inexperienced peasants.

The camp had something of the textbook about it, something of the ideal that is seldom approached in field conditions. And never achieved.

And yet, here it was. Picture perfect.

Why? The question rattled around Bolan's brain like a runaway pinball. Who the hell were these people? And what did they really want? The most troublesome question was who was helping them to get it?

Marisa had promised that answers to his questions would be forthcoming. He doubted that more than most things, and Mack Bolan was a man who took very little on faith. As he sat there, the sky turned a milky white.

The sun must have risen above the mountains now, but the morning soup was still too thick for its color to come through.

The others had left him unattended, as though he posed no threat to them. They were either supremely confident of their position, or Marisa had been telling him the truth. Neither seemed too likely, and yet, there he was, alone in the middle of the Luzon jungle, in the very heart of the guerrilla camp, and no one seemed to give a damn.

He climbed down from the jeep to stretch his legs, reached over the bullet-scarred rear panel and snatched the canvas bag Marisa had left behind.

With nothing better to do, he decided to go through it.

Bolan dropped the bag on the hood and unbuckled the flaps. And there were his Beretta 93-R and his .44 AutoMag, each wrapped carefully in oiled cloth. It seemed that Marisa and her people even worried about rust.

Somewhere behind the semicircle of thatched huts, a rooster cut loose. Almost as if it had been a signal, Marisa reappeared in the doorway through which she had gone five minutes before. Behind her a tall man, a thatch of unruly red hair tumbling over sun-leathered skin, ducked under the lintel and followed her.

Bolan studied the man as he approached. About six three or four, he looked to weigh no more than a hundred and ninety, if that. He had an easy gait, a casual, almost jaunty walk that was as far from Charles Harding's ramrod strut as it could be. His shoulders were broad, and even under the camou shirt, Bolan could see the power of the man.

The tall man draped an arm over Marisa's shoulder, guiding her gently with pressure from his fingers. When they were three feet away, he let the arm fall and Marisa stopped. She held out a hand, and Bolan took it in his own. Then turning slightly and moving a step away, she allowed the tall man to take her place. He, too, held out a hand as Marisa said, "Mr. Belasko, this is Tom Colgan."

Bolan tried not to react. Marisa, of course, couldn't see him. Colgan himself, though, was another matter. Bolan could hear Frank Henson's voice in his head, saying "Colgan" over and over again. He noticed the man's eyes and wondered just how much they could see. Like two blue beacons, they burned with a dark light, set deep in the leathery skin. Bolan had the funny feeling that Colgan could look right through him, even see the bones buried deep inside him, as if looking at an X ray.

The eyes looked as though they had a life of their own. He'd seen eyes like them before, but not lately.

They were the eyes of a madman or, perhaps worse, a zealot.

The tall man clasped Bolan's hand in both of his own and shook it warmly.

"Tom is my husband," Marisa said.

"I see," Bolan replied.

She laughed. "I don't think you do." The laughter was genuine, as if some great pressure inside her had been mysteriously released or a weight lifted from her shoulders by an unseen hand.

"I've been waiting to meet you, Mr. Belasko. You are wondering how I knew you were coming. I understand. Let's get you something to eat. We can talk over breakfast."

Bolan nodded. "Fine."

"This way," Colgan said. He turned, and without waiting but to see whether Bolan would follow, he walked toward one end of the half moon of buildings. Marisa followed, glancing back at Bolan over her shoulder.

Bolan fell in behind the couple, wondering what other surprises lay in store for him. That there would be more was beyond question. Colgan ducked to enter the last building on the left, and Marisa disappeared right after him. Bolan hesitated for a moment, then stepped into the dimly lit interior.

The mess hall was functionally laid out; four rows of tables and benches, all roughly hewn from the same raw wood, ran the length of the building, leaving aisles after every pair to make navigation easier. A door, similar to the one he'd just entered, sat in the middle of the far wall, and two more opposed one another at either end.

One of the tables was already set for three. The simple tin dishes and Army-issue utensils brought Bolan back years to a time he'd rather forget.

Colgan helped Marisa slide in between bench and table, then sat across from her. He nodded toward the remaining plate, next to Marisa, and said, "Help yourself. We don't stand on ceremony here."

Bolan looked at the food, mostly rice with an admixture of a stringy red vegetable somewhere between pimiento and pepper and thick hunks of something that was probably fish.

Bolan took a mouthful, tasted it cautiously, then swallowed. It wasn't bad, but it was not going to be the latest rage in nouvelle cuisine, either.

While they ate, Colgan began to fill him in.

"Marisa tells me you don't know very much about Charles Harding."

"That's right," Bolan said.

"But you were following him." Bolan noticed that it was a statement, not a question. "Look, you don't have to say anything. I know what I know. And I know you were following him. What I know, and you don't, is why."

"Oh?" Bolan raised an eyebrow at that.

"That think-tank charade is pure fluff, garbage, window dressing, for Christ's sake. That nonsense is about as legitimate as three-card monte on a New York street corner."

"Then what is he really up to?"

"I only know part of it," Colgan said, reaching for a tin cup to wash some of the rice down with tepid water. "Look, Belasko, let's be honest with one another. Harding is fronting, maybe even masterminding, although I can't prove it, a plot to overthrow the Aquino government. That's why he is here, and that's what he's been doing ever since she took over."

"And I suppose you're a white knight who plans to rescue the lady from the dragon."

"Something like that, yes. But the lady is not who you think she is, Mr. Belasko. The lady is not Corazon Aquino she is the Republic of the Philippines."

"So you tried to have Harding iced..." Bolan watched Colgan chew one of the chunks of fish, reach in gingerly to pull a small white bone from between his teeth and shake his head in disagreement.

"No," he argued. "That business at the airport was his people."

Bolan grunted. "What'd he do, make off with the treasury?"

"Nope. It's probably a lot simpler than that."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really."

"Then why?"

"Because you were following him. Maybe they were after you, Mr. Belasko. Maybe it's even as simple as that. The people behind him are scared. They're a special breed. I call them the mushrooms. They only grow in the dark, and the more shit around them, the better they like it."

"And you think that's why I was following him? To let some light into the cellar?" Bolan scooped a forkful of the sticky rice into his mouth. It was getting cold, and the grains were clumping together into a pasty mass in his mouth. He dropped the fork and let it lie on the table. "Well, I'll tell you something, Mr. Colgan. You couldn't be further off the mark."

"Whatever you say."

"If you know something, Colgan, spit it out. Otherwise let's just shut up and eat whatever the hell this is. And I'll be on my way."

"Look, you think things are okay here. You think, now that Marcox is gone, the Philippines can settle down to a nice, quiet Third World siesta. Mama Aquino is here to spank people like me who get out of line, so Uncle Sam can sleep well at night. But it isn't like that. You know, most Americans think reality is what's in the newspapers. But they're dead wrong. Reality is what people don't let into the papers. It's Ollie North and Rose Mary Woods, Lee Harvey Oswald and Gavrilo Princip. It's what's in the tucking dark, Belasko, that's what reality is."

"So where does Harding come in?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, man. Harding is just one of them. And not the most significant. In this chess game, he's a bishop, no more. But the queen, Belasko, the queen, that's where the power lies. And she's down there somewhere, in the dark, planning it all, trying to reshape the Philippines in the image of Ferdinand Marcos. He was the liaison man, the conduit between the Pentagon and the Leyte Brigade."

"Never heard of it," Bolan said, not particularly impressed.

"You will, and you can take that to the bank. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless we manage to uproot it, kill it, let it lie there in the bright sun and shrivel up like a dandelion. These are tucking vampires Belasko, that's what we're talking about. They need the darkness, deep cover. They know every trick in the book, everything from false flags to bamboo under the fingernails. They have money and they have connections, in Aquino's government and in the Pentagon. That's what it's all about. Getting rid of Aquino and replacing her with a right-wing government. Generals in her own army get drunk and talk about setting her head out on a stake. This is not kindergarten here, man. And you have been sent to school without your textbooks. You better be a quick learner, Mr. Belasko."

"Then why doesn't anyone know about it in the States?"

"They do, damn it, they do. But only a few people, people with one hand in the cash drawer and the other wrapped around a gun butt."

"Who, then. The CIA?"

"That's the bogey man, Belasko, kid stuff to scare liberals around their campfires. No, nothing that simple..."

"Who, then? The NSA?.."

"I'm not sure."

Bolan laughed outright. "You expect me to buy your joke and you don't even have a punchline. That's just plain pathetic, Colgan."

"Oh, you think so, do you?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Then answer me one simple question."

"Shoot."

"Why were you following Harding?"

Bolan stared at him. Colgan had a hook, and Bolan could see him debating whether or not to twist it a little deeper into his flesh. But the look faded, and Colgan smiled instead.

"Forget I said that."

"No, you're right. But something tells me you do know." He locked his eyes on Colgan's. Neither man blinked.

"All right, fair enough." Colgan smiled more broadly. "Something tells me we're on the same side, whether you know it or not. I'll tell you what I know, which isn't much. Two months ago, on Harding's last trip back here, somebody else was following him. We knew about him, just like we knew about you." He held up a cautionary finger. "Don't ask, because I can't tell you how. Anyway, we lost track of Harding and the tail. The next thing we knew, Harding was back in the States. The other guy finally turned up in a sewer in Ongpin."

"That could be a coincidence," Bolan suggested.

"I'll grant you that," Colgan replied. "It could be."

"But you don't think so..."

"No. Mr. Belasko, I don't."

"Do you want to tell me why?"

Colgan nodded. "Sure. Because that was the third time it happened. Three tails, and three corpses. The odds against that sort of thing are rather high, if not astronomical."

"I gather you have someone pretty high up in D.C., somebody in a position to feed you information."

"Naturally. But our source can't get a fix on Harding from that end, and we never managed to pull it off on this end, either."

"Tell me something," Bolan said. "If Harding always managed to get away from his tail, and the corpse showed up days later, with no fanfare, why would his own people try to take me out in such a public way? Why call attention to themselves? It doesn't make sense."

"That's true, and I don't have an explanation for it. Or, rather, I should say I don't have anything but conjecture."

"And that is?"

"You, Mr. Belasko. It has something to do with you. If the situation is not different, then the tail must be. It's just simple logic, after all."

Bolan shook his head but said nothing.

Colgan did not amplify, and Bolan finally stood up.

"Marisa will show you to your quarters. Get cleaned up. I'll see you in an hour or so," Colgan said. "I know you don't believe me. But after you see what I have to show you, you will. I think you'll want to join the team. And we have a lot to do. The mushrooms are waiting, Mr. Belasko. They're waiting for us."

"Teas twice you let him slip through your fingers." Charles Harding leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. "I'm beginning to wonder if you can cut it anymore." The man across from him said nothing. There was nothing he could say, and he knew it. "Cordero is doing his part. We're so close I can almost smell the cordite. I don't want any more screw-ups. Do you understand?"

The man nodded. "I still don't see what the big deal is about this guy."

"No, I don't suppose you do. But then, I'm not surprised. You let some two-bit sawbones with a messiah complex run you like a damn rabbit. How the hell can I expect you to understand what this man is?"

"Maybe if you weren't so damn secretive..."