Rebels of Mindanao (8 page)

There seemed to be two distinct body types among the women of Mindanao—either the slim and graceful brown girls with perky breasts, tight butted and boasting world-class ratios, or those with belly girth broader than the bust, due to heredity and a diet of pork fat, rice and
indifference. Mariafe Van Wert was an example of the latter and emphasized her androgynous ugliness by cutting her hair short, which made her virtually indistinguishable from the bulky males, especially because she habitually wore unisex shirts and trousers.

Mariafe had difficulty engaging in extended conversations, but was street savvy and had found a way to get a foreigner to marry her, sight unseen, through an Internet service. An aging Dutch fruit importer from Rotterdam, Hans Van Wert, intrigued with seeing the land where his produce originated and in need of a caretaker before he died, flew to General Santos City for the ceremony, after which they moved into a three-room house in Mariafe's village. He did not last long. A few months after his untimely death, Ugly Maria used all the money she had squeezed out of him, investing it with her mother in a
sari-sari
store with a single bedroom above the retail shop. Her new general store was strategically located along the road through her village in the province of South Cotobato and advertised “Foreign Goods” on its hand-painted sign. Mariafe lived there with her even less fortunate mother, and they worked together selling canned food and dried fish. Her jealousy soon turned into a hatred for all Europeans. When the owner of the hardware store next to her offered her a hundred U.S. dollars for a month's work driving jeepney loads of cargo into and out of Davao City, she took the opportunity, which also gave her the chance to do some wholesale buying for her own store in the metropolitan capital of the neighboring province.

She had heard about the Spanish who occupied the Philippines for half a millennium before the American colonialists took control of the country after a lucky war won mostly back in the Caribbean Sea, and thought both must be to blame for her plight. When she first heard about the Abu Sayaf from her cousin, it sounded like a good gang to join and, in her mind, a chance to hurt the imperialists and the Christian zealots who she was sure were the cause of her woe. Of course, as a woman in a Muslim war camp she would be treated neither well nor as an equal, but she did not notice or care, and the men gradually began to think of her as one of their own.

After she was recruited by Lateef, the squad leader of more than two dozen Abu Sayaf warriors, she began to spend weekends hanging
around his camp whenever she was not working in her store or hauling cargo. Sometimes she would travel with the squad when they went on combat missions or to Abu Sayaf headquarters for training. It was she alone who met Mahir under the bridge and led him inland.

The two of them, an incongruous pair, remained together throughout the hot day in a lean-to shelter they made near the bridge to protect them from the sun. Shortly after dark, a four-man patrol led by the apparently underfed Abu Sayaf soldier with only one name, Lateef, picked them up. Thin, with skinny muscles rippling under his brown skin, he wore military trousers and shirt, sleeves rolled up. To signify his mujahadeen status, he had tied around his head a white headband with a red spot in the middle, which made him look like a kamikaze pilot before his last flight. Lateef led the returning patrol into the rain forest and ordered Ugly Maria to take the point, the first to push through the underbrush. From behind, Ugly Maria appeared powerful, squat and bow legged, and her muscled legs pumped her up the hills. The patrol easily followed her, focused on the faint reflection of the moon off the round, balding spot on the back of her head.

On Mahir's second night in Mindanao, the Abu Sayaf patrol traveled only five miles from their rendezvous to an established campsite. The place looked as though it might have been set up as a primitive camp challenge on some reality TV show, but it was the only home to more than thirty Abu Sayaf warriors, plus their women and assorted kids. Now that Mahir had joined him, Lateef's next goal would be to steal enough dynamite for the bombing that would show everyone that the Abu Sayaf were a power to be reckoned with.

Mahir watched two of the Abu Sayaf soldiers work on a laptop computer. He asked Lateef, who spoke English, if they were able to pick up a satellite signal and connect to the Internet directly.

Lateef explained the level of his soldiers' ability. “No, they're just trying to learn how to play games. We have to go to the mall in General Santos to connect to the Internet.” Mahir felt lucky that he had a GPS device that worked.

The camp headquarters was a native hut, a wooden platform raised on stilts the height of a man to make it easier to see snakes attempting entry. The single room was square, long enough for two men to stretch
out along a line on each side. Pigs, chickens and possibly usable trash were kept below the living area. The second floor had no walls, rather only a waist-high barricade to keep people from falling out while they slept, and a roof of woven grass. This is where Lateef and Mahir came to discuss their objectives and to make plans.

Lateef asked, “What are your instructions about giving me the money?”

“I must deliver it to Kumander Ali.”

“We need some cash now,” Lateef told Mahir, and went to open a bag.

“Wait. Sheik Kemal instructed me that Kumander Ali was to decide how and when to use this. He can't make another shipment before the target date,” Mahir said.

“Ali sent me as his agent to get you. You must help our cause now. Then we will deliver these bags to Ali together,” Lateef told him.

Mahir was not certain what to do. He realized Lateef could take the bags anyway if he chose to, so he replied, “You can have it, but I will need Ali's confirmation to the sheik, then my job is done.”

“You are on jihad! Your job is not done until we have defeated the enemy.”

“My job was to deliver these bags to Ali. I am not involved in other matters.”

“You must be involved. We will need to pay for supplies to accomplish our first mission. Then we can move on to meet Kumander Ali. It is the only way you can get to him.”

Mahir saw he had no real option, since he was alone in Lateef's armed camp. “Take what cash you need. You will have to answer to Ali yourself,” Mahir told Lateef. “But I want a signal from Sheik Kemal.”

“Very well. I will handle those matters. We should also spend some of this money to keep our pursuers busy here while we move to attack Davao City.”

It was common practice for the Abu Sayaf to pay their pursuers, the poorly paid and loosely organized Philippine Army soldiers, to stage an attack with an arranged outcome and a fake objective. They would attack, pretend defeat, and leave behind guns, ammo and supplies, picking up a cash bundle left for them in the combat area. The next day the two enemy forces would again assume their antagonistic roles, both
sides better off for the exchange, both paid by foreigners, with everyone making it through another day alive and fed. Thus the communist rebellion had reached its thirty-sixth year and would so continue if not for sudden global interests demanding a religious and political resolution, a visible victory rather than the informal live-and-let-live stalemate.

Lateef opened the bag. He was surprised at the sheer volume of the bills and took out one banded stack. Speaking English, their common language, gave Lateef an idea. Here was a man he could trust, who was beginning to trust him. He was a man who did not care about the money itself, but rather his duty.

“We will need you to be our communicator,” Lateef told him. “Some of our people speak a few of the dialects, and some only speak their own tribal dialect. English is the common tie among our leaders and of course for negotiating with Manila. You will be a big help to Kumander Ali after we link up. After our victories you can lead the negotiations with them.”

Mahir accepted his new role, and it put him in a position from which to keep watch on the money until his final reward was in his bank account. “I'll stay with you at least until you have joined with Ali and the tribes in the north.” That was the most he wanted to commit.

“Then, at that time,” Lateef told Mahir in accepting his offer, “Ali will signal Damascus to release the second half of your payment.”

Lateef called in Ugly Maria, and she squatted down with them and the other mujahadeen. Lateef explained, “Ugly Maria will go with us on patrol. She does things others do not like to do.” Maria was flattered. Mahir thought of her as Lateef's right-hand man.

I
n her hotel room in downtown Davao City, Elaiza awoke after a good night's sleep. She had been put up at U.S. government expense, and had enjoyed the evening before, dining alone in the hotel restaurant. Now she was having coffee and croissants by her open window overlooking the park. She enjoyed living upscale in the city where she had once studied, living not so well then.

Major Hayes, her boss, had called just before nine
AM
and instructed her, “Meet me at the consulate at 1100 hours. General Hargens is back from his U.S. trip and has assigned me to be the handler for a guy he hired to help us here; I hear he's done something like this before. He's an older guy, knows Hargens from way back. I don't know yet what all Hargens will lay on us.” He explained that the JUSMAG (another one of the government's endless proliferating acronyms) would be debating in Manila at that very moment how to implement whatever Hargens had ordered and then signed off, “I'm on my way to pick the guy up at the airport.”

“Meet you at the consulate,” she answered, and then had time to finish her breakfast in leisure. She was already in her new tight miniskirt and a pink-collared black top with a small design on the breast that looked like a paperclip. The Penshoppe logo meant something around this town. She knew she looked good.

Thornton's plane was late arriving in Davao City, as usual for the domestic airline. When he strode into the luggage area, he saw Major Hayes standing tall in uniform with hair cut short enough for white scalp to shine through. “Thanks for being here to pick me up. That wasn't necessary.”

“No problem, we know you must be tired after your all-nighter in the embassy.”

“I slept on the plane.”

“OK. I need to get you to the consulate ASAP, but thought we could make good use of our time and talk along the way.”

In the crowded airport terminal, Hayes' cleated dress shoes clicked along the airport corridor. Thornton asked, “So, what's new since yesterday?”

“General Hargens has a surprise for you. Did he tell you about our new technology?”

“Yes, he mentioned it, no details. Said I should get with you.”

“OK. Good.” They left the terminal and got into his official, but unmarked, car and left the airport.

Thornton turned to Hayes. “How long have you been in country?”

“Three-year tour, half up. You? You retired army?” Hayes was not all that curious, but wanted to be polite.

This officer had a plush assignment, and even got full overseas pay for it, Thornton thought. If he could have gotten this kind of cushy job, he might have stayed in the army for a career. “Yes, and no, did my time in the army, but only nine years, resigned, no retirement package,” Thornton said, “still doing my time in business.”

“You know about politics here. There's a whole chain of officials between the national congress, which approves the money, and the guys on the ground who do the work.” Hayes continued his briefing as they rode. “Each level needs their participation percentage.”

“Participation percentage?” Thornton had heard the expression, but wanted to get Hayes's version.

“Yes, say there's a government project that gets funded. This is a cash economy, so a lot of cash is moved around physically. As it moves from Manila out to the country, some gets retained at each level, a percentage kept for personal use.”

“Makes life here interesting.” Thornton encouraged Hayes to continue.

“I wish we could just go in there and do the job,” Hayes said.

“Using our own assets would make it a whole lot easier for all of us, and them too, I know, but it's not allowed. The Philippine government has to get the credit. And that's OK with me.”

“Me too. Let them do it.” Thornton had his deal and was not interested in getting his name in the
Philippine Star
, or on some stone at Fort Bonifacio.

Hayes took Thornton to the Davao City Consulate, an old, drab building, not like the embassy in Manila—this place was for work, not for show—and to a downstairs workshop; a basement with no windows and poor lighting, “Need breakfast?”

“I've had breakfast, twice, but could go for another cup of coffee.” Thornton appreciated the offer.

As Hayes poured a coffee for Thornton, Elaiza walked down the steps in front of them. The two men looked up to see first high-heeled shoes, then lean, brown legs, and a red miniskirt, as she descended into view.

Hayes made the introductions. “Mr. Thornton, Elaiza Otakan. She can explain the TIAM technology better than I can. Hargens has assigned her to work with you in the field. Elaiza is a JUSMAG civilian; security clearance OK for what we're doing here. Elaiza, Thomas Thornton.”

Thornton said quietly to Hayes, “I see what you mean by local assets.”

Elaiza ignored Thornton's comment and nodded in his direction; her intonation of his name had a slight accent. “Your first name is Tomas?”

“Yes, Thomas, or Tom. And your name, is it Muslim?”

“Cultures get mixed up in Mindanao. I have some Spanish and Japanese blood in me, but I'm mostly Manobo.” She answered factually, pulled her iPod out of a pocket sewn into her leather belt, placed it on the table and began to lecture in a professional tone.

“Well, Tomas, we've added GPS capability onto the circuit board of my iPod, concealed it inside.”