“Here ya go, sir. Coffee and hot chocolate in the back if you want it.”
“Thanks.” Bruce hesitated, then pushed for the front. He stuck his head into the cockpit. The pilot and copilot both wore shaded visors on their helmets. The helicopter was not more than a three hundred feet over the tops of the trees. Bruce called out over the roar. “Hey, guys, thanks.”
The copilot turned around. Seeing Bruce, he elbowed the pilot. “Look who’s here.”
The pilot craned his neck around. “Well, well — Assassin, isn’t it?”
Bruce grinned. “Beer’s on me tonight.”
Head turned back to the front. “As it should be.”
Cervante nodded as Pompano handed him the box. It was surprisingly light. Cervante held his cigarette in his lips as he set the box on the table.
Light shone from a single oil lamp set in the middle of the table, its flickering glow sending shadows dancing throughout the room. This was one of the drawbacks of living away from power lines, and Cervante had not wanted to start the diesel engines outside the house, to keep from drawing attention to the plantation. It was still light outside, but Cervante had the curtains closed.
He pried open the box with a knife. Ashes fell from his cigarette. Reaching into the box, he picked up a long cylinder that was as fat as a sausage on one end and narrowed to a thin point on the other end. All along the top, tiny sensors studded the cylinder. Cervante lightly bounced the object in his hand. It weighed less than a kilogram and was just under a third of a meter long.
“Nice.” Cervante brought the object closer and turned it around. He took a drag from his cigarette. “Where did you get it?”
Pompano shrugged. “The market.”
Cervante replaced the device. “I mean, where did they get them?”
“The detectors are planted all along the interior of Clark. The Americans constantly replace them. Some stop working, some are run over by their jeeps or horses, some are just missing.”
“How many did you get?”
“Twelve. There has not been a market for the detectors — no one besides the Americans really wants them, or even knows about them. It is my guess that the person I bought them from collected them more out of curiosity than for profit.”
Cervante nodded. He pulled on his smoke. “Who do you get them from?”
Pompano smiled and lightly wagged a finger at Cervante. “Ah, yes. We all have our little secrets, don’t we? What do you say I keep this one to myself, so that the source is not compromised?”
Cervante smiled tightly. “Of course.” The old man had started to put some distance between them, setting up an “insurance policy” so that he would be the only one who had some key information.
It was a smart move — one that Cervante would have made himself. Pompano was proving to be more shrewd than Cervante had initially thought. He made a mental note to withhold some of the sensor locations from Pompano.
Cervante placed the lid back on the top of the box. “What about the receiver? How do these detectors transmit information?”
Pompano moved to a chair and sat. “That was harder to obtain. The devices detect sound to a very low level, and transmit the sounds as soon as they are heard. My, ah, source, he learned that the radio signals transmitted by the detectors are coded. A computerized station can unscramble the codes and tell you which detectors are transmitting and where they are located.”
“And where is the station?”
“I said it was harder to obtain.” Pompano paused. “So I decided not to get it and use a simpler method instead.”
Pompano nodded to the box of sonic detectors. “The detectors can be modified to transmit along a wire. I have brought several kilometers of wire that we can lay from each sensor to our plantation. It is an easy way to hook up the detectors, and it works.”
Cervante nodded, remembering the old radios and televisions in the old man’s sari-sari store. Fixing electronic equipment was another talent the old man had to offer. “Crude, but effective. You have come up with a good plan, my friend. How long will it take to modify the sensors?”
A shrug. “Two, three hours. The wire is in the truck. I can start right away.”
Cervante took a final drag from his cigarette. Pompano was beginning to outshine all of the other Huks. As a measure of his respect, Cervante decided then and there that Pompano would definitely not learn the locations of all of the sensors.
Cervante ground out his cigarette and stood. He clasped Pompano’s shoulder. “We must move quickly. As soon as you can modify the sensors I will plant them, and we will move to a location outside of the Clark Air Base to start disrupting their flights. The faster we move, the better.”
Pompano frowned. “So fast? We are not rushed for this.”
Cervante breathed deeply through his nostrils. “We have a lot more at stake than what you might think. This new treaty about the American bases … it is a critical time. If we can disrupt their operations, put a thorn in their side during the negotiations so that it is known that not everyone supports this stupid treaty, we will succeed.”
The old man nodded to himself, as if he were debating the process.
Cervante reached down and squeezed his shoulder. “Anything, any person you need, I will get you. Once the sensors are in place, we will prepare to go to the American base tomorrow morning, early to avoid detection.”
The phone rang twice.
“Bolte.”
Charlie froze. “Uh … may I speak to Nanette, please.”
“Stand by one.”
A moment passed. Charlie’s pulse quickened. He started thinking to himself, started putting the pieces all together. Bolte — the Wing Commander. Like in Colonel Bolte. Charlie had known that he had children, but Nanette? She wouldn’t tell me who she was, acted like it was a game, he thought. What the heck is going on? Meeting a blonde beauty doesn’t happen every day, especially one who has the poise, background, and savvy as Nanette. Charlie grew flustered.…
“Nanette?”
A second passed. “Charlie?”
“Hi.”
She paused. “How did you get my home number?”
“Nipa Hut. I looked sad enough for them to pity me when I showed up and you weren’t there.”
She laughed. It sounded like music. “I’ll bet. I’m glad that you got a hold of me. So, what’s up?”
“Well, my roommate and I are thinking of heading down to Subic tomorrow afternoon. He’s bringing a date, and I thought you might like to go along.”
“Subic?”
“Bruce’s father is stationed there. We’ll go down, meet him, and make an afternoon of it. What do you think?”
She was silent for a moment. “Sounds like fun. Can I call you back if I can’t get a replacement at work?”
“Sure.” He gave her his number. “Pick you up around eleven? We can stop for lunch somewhere.”
“Yeah. And your roommate — was he one of the guys out by the pool that day we met?”
Charlie hesitated. “That’s him.”
She sighed. “I think this is going to be an interesting day.”
Yolanda Sicat sang along with the radio, lightly adding a harmony part to the melody. The music helped get her through the day. Her father had been away from home a lot lately, and the music kept her company.
The early years were hard, when she had first realized that she was unlike the others — the time when girlhood giggles and sly smiles had turned to boastings of what their mothers could do, and Yolanda had no mother of which to boast. She was four when she realized what it meant not to have a mother, a mommy, like the rest of them. The tears that had come were tempered by her father. He took her in his arms and assured her that she would never be alone, that she would always have a friend in music.