The Eye of Shiva (7 page)

Ronnie sat next to Lamont. He wore one of his
many Hawaiian shirts, an endless scene of surfers at Waikiki done in unnatural colors that looked dreamed up by a mad chemist on an acid trip.

Elizabeth began. "There's been an attack on the Indian Embassy in Manila," she said. "
They cut the night guard's throat, planted Semtex and did their best to blow up the building. The ambassador and his wife were killed in the explosion."

"
Who did it?" Nick asked.

"Nobody is certain, yet.
Possibly ISOK."

"That could explain why Abu Khan was on Mindanao.
"

She looked at Nick. "President Rice is
trying to get new base agreements in the Philippines. With the Chinese claiming islands right off their coast and building bases in the China Sea, Manila is getting nervous. It's important that nothing disrupts those negotiations."

"
The Filipinos kicked us out and now they need us," Lamont said. "Why am I not surprised?"

"American bases and our nuclear weapons are a sensitive subject
over there," Elizabeth said. "There's a demonstration scheduled two days from now to protest any new agreement, with a planned march on the Embassy. Demonstrations like that have turned violent in the past. After the Indian Embassy bombing, Rice is worried the terrorists may use the march to create an incident. He wants me to send the team to Manila."

"What do you want us t
o do there?" Nick asked.

"
Think of it as a preventative mission. See what you can find out. If Abu Sayyaf or ISOK is planning an attack, head it off at the pass."

"
You want us to go in blind, sniff around for terrorist activity and then prevent an attack that might or might not happen?"

"Is that a problem?"

Nick sighed. "Anything else?"

"That's about it. Try to stay out of the way of the demonstrators."

"Mob, you mean. How do we get there?"

"Clark Air Force Base is open to us again. You'll go in on military transport
. That puts you about forty miles from Manila and avoids the complications of civilian travel. Take weapons but keep it light and easy to conceal. We don't want to upset anyone. Take a comm package for the satellite uplink back here."

"When do we leave?"

"Wheels up at 0200 tomorrow from Andrews. "

"What about Langley?" Ronnie asked. "They've got to have
a man in the embassy looking into the same things we are. Do we let them know we're there, or keep our distance?"

"Keep your distance," Elizabeth said. "I don't see any need to involve
the agency. I'll decide if we need to bring them in."

"I know the U
.S. Ambassador in Manila," Selena said. "Not well, but she attended a series of lectures I gave at Stanford a few years ago and we got to be friends. I could arrange to see her. She might be helpful."

"Good," Elizabeth said. "Definitely, go see her." She turned to Lamont. "How are you feeling, Lamont? Are you ready to go back in the field? You haven't had an easy time of it the last few months."

"I'm fine, Director. I'm going crazy sitting around doing nothing. Yeah, I'm ready."

"All right then," Elizabeth said. "Any other questions?"

No one had any.

"I'd better get
going on the gear," Ronnie said. He got up and left the room and headed downstairs to the armory.

"I'll give you a hand," Nick
called after him. He stood and went after Ronnie.

So much for a quiet talk over coffee
, Selena thought.

CHAPTER 12

Selena decided where the
y would stay in Manila. Most of the time they were in places where accommodations were lousy or nonexistent. She tried to upgrade whenever they had a choice. She had the money and she was damned if she was going to be uncomfortable just because they were on a mission in some foreign country.

She'd picked one of the large chain hotels with a five star rating, a
modern businessman's hotel within easy walking distance of the American Embassy. There was nothing particularly unique about it. It was clean and you could drink the water. It was a slice of commercial America set down a block and a half from Roxas Boulevard and the waterfront on Manila Bay.

She was sharing a
luxury suite on the twentieth floor with Nick. It had two bedrooms and separate bathrooms, which would come in handy if things didn't smooth out between them. There'd been no opportunity to talk when they were getting ready for the mission and trying to hold a conversation in the aluminum belly of a C-130 was a lost cause.

Ronnie and Lamont were down the hall. Nick looked out the window at the impressive view of the bay and the eight lanes of Roxas Boulevard and thought the wide, modern highway along the waterfront made a perfect route for marchers and protesters. It would also work well if the
government had to bring in the tanks and water cannons.

There were signs the protest was going to be a big one. Thousands of people
were coming in from the countryside and the outlying districts of the capital. Temporary campgrounds had sprung up everywhere in the parks along the bay, complete with cooking fires, makeshift shelters, and a nervous police presence. The demonstration was scheduled to begin early the next morning.

There was
a feeling of tension in the air, a kind of unpleasant, electric anticipation, like the way things felt before a big storm. There was going to be trouble.

"I have a bad feeling about tomorrow," Nick said.

Selena came over and stood next to him at the window. "So do I."

They looked out at the fabled waters of Manila Bay. A large tanker was heading away from the port towa
rd the distant entrance of the bay, where the island of Corregidor stood silhouetted against the most amazing sunset Nick had ever seen. The broad bowl of the sky was filled with colors of flaming orange, gold and red. Billowing black clouds taller than Everest scudded across the horizon, forcing the light of the setting sun into a kaleidoscope of fiery golden rays that spread across the sky.

They stood in silence looking at the spectacle. Selena felt Nick take her hand. She glanced over. His eyes had a distant look in them as he watched the sunset. As the sun vanished on the horizon, there was a brief, brilliant green flash.

"Did you see that?" he said.

"Yes."

"I've heard about the green flash but I'd never seen it," Nick said. He turned to her and took her other hand. "We need to talk."

"Yes, we do."

"I'm sorry about the other day. I shouldn't have surprised you like that."

"I'm sorry too." She paused. "It's just that...things seem to be moving too fast."

"Too fast?"

"We're talking about getting married," she said, "but we don't know what it would be like to live with each other all the time."

"We already spend most of our time together," Nick said. He kept his voice neutral.

"A lot of that is in the field," Selena said, "like right now. It's not the same."

"No, I suppose it isn't."

"I mean, why aren't we living together? My condo is more than big enough for two people."

"So is my apartment," Nick said. "Well, not in the long run. But I like it there. I like the privacy, doing things my way."

"And I like my place," Selena said.

Nick looked out the window again at the growing tropical twilight. "I meant it when I asked you to marry me," he said.

She heard an unspoken
but
in his voice. She wasn't sure where he was going with this. Was he backing out? Was she pushing him away?

"Have you changed your mind?" she said.

He looked at her. "No, I haven't changed my mind. I was wondering if you had."

If she were honest with herself, she definitely had second thoughts. Why else had she reacted like that in the jewelry store?

"Because of the ring?"

"That was a pretty strong message," he said.

"I told you, it took me by surprise."

"Yeah, I get that, but I think most women would have at least looked at the rings they had in that store. It wasn't like I was trying to force you into making a decision right then. It makes me wonder if I'm pushing too hard."

"So what are you saying?" Her heart was beating hard in her chest.

"I think we need to back off a little. Like you said, we haven't tried living together. It might be a good idea. See if it works."

"What about our engagement?"

"Nothing's changed," Nick said. "That jewelry store will still be there when we get back."

Nothing's changed.
That's easy for him to say.

Selena took a deep breath. "I think I'll give Ambassador Cathwaite a call."

CHAPTER 1
3

Omar Madid was a small man, even for a Filipino. His eyes were deep brown
, with large, black pupils. They should have been beautiful eyes, but there was something about them that made people turn away, as if someone you didn't want to meet lived inside him.

Omar had grown up in the poverty-stricken slums of Manila, a lawless collection of shanties, makeshift houses and desperate people. He had never known his father. As a boy
, life had revolved around his mother and days spent playing along the banks of the polluted creek that ran through the shanties. Then his mother was trampled to death by a mob running from the police as they made one of their periodic sweeps through the district.

After that, life held no joy for Omar except for one thing; death. Death was always interesting. He began to torture and kill small animals unfortunate enough to cross his path. He
killed his first man when he was eleven, a drunken Chinese tourist who'd been looking for a male prostitute but who had found Omar instead. The older criminals used him to carry drugs and guns, sometimes as a lookout for one of their operations. His small size meant he could get into openings no adult could climb through.

When he was
seventeen, he was arrested and beaten by the hated police, then taken to Navotas Municipal Jail. The police threw him into a cell crowded with filthy, desperate men. When three of them came for him, Omar killed the first with a blow to his throat. He crippled the second with a knee to the groin and stomped on his chest. He broke the knee of the third with a vicious kick. After that, no one bothered him.

I
n the jail he was recruited by Abu Sayyaf. That had been eight years ago. He'd become devout in those years, a true Jihadist. It was why he'd been chosen to lead this mission.

Omar sat in the bow of a small boat piloted by one of his comrades as it bounced across the choppy waters of the bay. He kept his binoculars trained on the American Embassy passing to his right. The grounds were protected by a curving sea wall.
A high, black barrier rose from the sea wall and extended the length of the embassy grounds. All that could be seen beyond the barrier were palm fronds and the tops of trees rippling in the breeze coming off the water. In the middle of the sea wall was a glassed security tower with a commanding view of the bay.

Through his binoculars Omar saw a
Marine guard in the tower looking back at him through his own set of lenses. Omar lowered his binoculars, smiled a toothy grin and waved at the guard. The man was too far away to see that the smile never reached Omar's eyes.

The Americans thought their walls, their fences and their security forces would keep them safe.

They were wrong.

CHAPTER 14

The American Embassy was a three-story, flat roofed, federal style mansion, built early in the
twentieth century to house the United States High Commission. It had always been a seat of power. In World War II the building had served as the residence of the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Army, then as the Embassy of Japan in the puppet Republic set up by Tokyo in 1943. After the war, the building became the center for the Japanese war crimes trials. After independence in 1946, it became the U.S. Embassy.

A
ten foot high wall and a black iron fence separated the embassy grounds from Roxas Boulevard. A large guardhouse sat to the right of the main entrance. Double-gated passages for vehicles were placed on either side of a central wall bearing the sign identifying the embassy. The gates operated electronically from the guardhouse and opened and closed one at a time. They formed an iron cage.

Once through the gates,
visitors turned onto a continuous drive lined by a row of three foot high iron bollards. A car or truck bomb would never reach the front doors of the building. Internal security at the embassy was covered by a small detachment of Marines commanded by a Staff NCO. Filipino security forces were responsible for external security.