"He is a good man, senor. He cares for my people, for my country."
"He cares only for himself, Carlos. And for the power he has over you."
"He has no power, senor. I can leave anytime I choose. Now, let him go. Please."
Bolan shoved Colgan backward as he let go of the shirt. But the doctor was a lot sturdier than he looked. He staggered a step or two but didn't fall.
"You leave tomorrow morning, Belasko," Colgan said. He turned on his heel and walked away.
Bolan looked at Carlos, shaking his head.
"You're making a big mistake, Carlos. The man's insane. He'll drag you down with him if you let him. And make no mistake, he's going to take a fall. A bad one."
"No, senor. You're wrong."
"I hope so, for your sake."
15
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.