Philippine Hardpunch (9 page)

The NPA camp still smoldered and smoked with telling evidence of the damage delivered here. The fires had been put out, the
bodies and wounded cleared away, but smoke drifted everywhere and the heat from piles of rubble that had been various structures
added to the already unbearable heat of the day beneath increasingly heavy, stationary clouds.

The Huey’s pilot cut his engine and the rotors whooshed slowly to a stop.

Locsin and Escaler started from the gate, past their men who eyed the surrounding jungle with far more interest and wariness
than they did the chopper. Locsin’s attention fell on no other after Arturo Javier appeared at the side hatchdoor, backed
by a dozen or more of his own troops who leaped after him to the ground to fan out, shoulder to shoulder behind their leader
with their AK-47s in firing position, clearly establishing dominance of this scene.

Locsin wanted to turn and run but he knew he could not do that. He kept walking toward Javier.

His own men did nothing to take any sort of defense posture.

“What shall we tell them?” Escaler asked, in a voice low enough for no other to hear, when they were halfway from the gate
to the men waiting at the chopper. Locsin tried to quell the rising panic coursing through him, to slow his jumbled thought
processes.

“L—let me handle this,” he instructed, damning the quaver in his voice. “There were no hostages, do you understand that? There
were no hostages.”

Escaler nodded.

They reached where Javier stood, combat boots planted squarely, pressed and starched camou fatigues, and those of his men,
a sharp contrast to the bedraggled appearances of Locsin and his personnel. Javier’s apelike features glistened in the muggy
sunlight.

Locsin experienced again the curious combination of repulsion and fear he always felt in this man’s presence. He extended
a hand.

“Arturo, it is good of you to come to my, to our, assistance.”

The greeting sounded hollow even to Locsin. He cursed the patina of sweat he felt on his face.

Javier, cool and arrogant, ignored the proffered hand, his eyes cold pinpoints of steel which Locsin could feel boring holes
into him as if Javier could see through him. He sensed Escaler easing slightly back, away from him. He felt isolated and suddenly
very afraid.

“What has happened here?”

Javier’s demand matched the steel in his eyes.

“An attack, my… good friend.”

“I can see that, imbecile. Who attacked you?”

“Ah, of that, we are not yet quite sure,” Locsin replied. “A commando force. You… intercepted them?”

“They escaped us.” Javier reported that fact with no show of emotion. “They killed many of my men. I lost much equipment.
This can be contained from the press, but only with extreme difficulty and a possible show of our hand at a most crucial time.”

“I… wish I knew who they were—” Locsin began.

Javier sprang forward before Locsin had time to dodge. He grabbed two handfuls of Locsin’s soiled tunic and yanked him forward,
nearly off his feet, so that Locsin’s face was but inches from Javier’s, the bigger man holding him half-dangling on his tiptoes.

“Who were they?”

“I… I swear, I do not know!” Locsin gasped. “It is God’s truth!”

“
Why
were they here, then? Why did they attack your base?”

“Government troops, perhaps—”

Javier’s left hand lashed out an open-palmed slap across Locsin’s face, hard enough to nearly wrench Locsin from his one-handed
grip.

“Those men we fought were not mere soldiers.
Why were they here?”

“P-perhaps the government has learned of our plans for… tomorrow! A new tactic!”

Javier flung Locsin to the ground.

Locsin landed in a sprawl and started to get up, then realized Javier towered over him.

Javier unholstered a Tokarev pistol.

“Aligning myself with the New People’s Army went against my better judgment from the very beginning, did you know that?”

Locsin began to understand then what was about to happen to him. He had difficulty finding his voice.

“I… I am a man of considerable power—” he tried to bluster.

Javier laughed.

“You forget who truly controls this province.
I
do. Those whom you serve will not concern themselves with your miserable death, not after what I hand them after tomorrow’s
work is done.”

“Javier, no, wait! I’ll tell—”

“It does not matter what insignificant personal intrigue of yours brought this down upon us,” Javier snarled, nodding to the
smoldering destruction and disorder of the base. “I can replace the men I’ve lost tenfold. The important thing is that I have
learned that I cannot trust you.”

“You can, oh, you
can
! Locsin screamed. “I can explain—”

“It is too late for that,” Javier said quietly.

He raised the Tokarev pistol, placing the muzzle against the center of Locsin’s forehead. He pulled the trigger, stepping
back to escape the blood spray, as the dead man flipped over backward, legs and arms wrenching beneath him.

Javier took his time about raising the Tokarev, making a show of holding the pistol up, ready to be fired again. He studied
the man he knew to be Escaler.

The other NPA guerillas behind Escaler had their attention arrested by the sight of their commander’s fallen body. The jungle
around the NPA base grew very quiet except for the droning of the flies already drawn to feast on the blood splattered across
the dead man’s face. None of the guerilla force made any move to raise a rifle or show any indication of resistance.

Javier holstered his Tokarev. He strode over to Escaler.

The two men stood toe-toe-toe, situated between Javier’s force and the NPA guerillas.

“You are in command here now?” Javier asked.

“I… suppose so,” Escaler conceded with little show of enthusiasm.

“Do you know who those men were who attacked you here?”

“No.”

“I saw civilians with them. You were holding hostages here.”

Escaler paused a moment, wording his reply carefully.

“Colonel Locsin held those hostages.”

“It would be the American family then, the Jefferses.”

Escaler nodded.

“Colonel Locsin commanded our obedience. We were told it was in the interests of our socialist revolution. If I had thought—”

“Enough. You know of what is to happen. You know what I have organized, what is already under way.”

“I do. It is only—”

“Yes?”

“My superiors… they may wish another to command—”

“I will tend to that. How many men have you lost?”

Escaler told him.

Javier told him, “I shall see you have replacements before we move. This changes nothing. Is that not correct… Colonel Escaler?”

Escaler straightened his posture when he heard himself addressed by the new rank.

“We are ready,” he assured Javier. “There will be no more… mistakes. I apologize for our part in what happened here.”

Javier accepted that with a curt wave of the hand and a nod toward Locsin’s remains.

“It was his fault and he has paid for his mistake. I put this thing together, Escaler, what is about to happen. We will make
history within the next twenty-four hours. We shall change forever the course of our country. Nothing stands in the way of
that, do you understand?”

“I do, Mr. Javier.”

“Good. It is settled, then.”

Javier directed a stream of spit upon the corpse.

“Feed this garbage to the vultures and see that readiness is maintained here. You will be moving, of course. We will relocate
as well.”

He turned to stride back to the helicopter.

Escaler waited until Javier climbed aboard to call out.

“What of… those who staged this attack?”

“They will not return,” Javier snarled. “They got what they came for. And if they return, it will be too late for them to
do anything to stop that which has already been set in motion. The country is
ours
, Colonel Escaler. All that remains is for us to now regroup and wait a short time longer, and then the moment of our, and
our country’s, destiny will be at hand.”

Most Filipinos belong to a race called Filipino-Malaysian, whose seafaring ancestors reached and began settling the islands
from Indonesia as early as 200
B.C.

By the thirteenth century, a thriving civilization was conducting active cultural and commercial trade with the Chinese and
the Japanese as well as carrying on similar activities with India, Siam, Cambodia, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and
Siam.

Nonetheless, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, was said to have “discovered” the Philippines
in 1521, and twenty-one years later a Spanish exploration party named the islands in honor of Prince Philip, later Philip
II of Spain. By 1564 the Spaniards had completely taken over the area, retaining possession for the next three hundred fifty
years.

A full-scale rebellion was under way when Admiral Dewey defeated Spanish forces in the battle of Manila Bay. In 1898 Spain
ceded the land to the United States. America granted the Philippines partial independence.

The Philippines were invaded by Japanese troops on December 8, 1941, and suffered heavily during an occupation of nearly four
years. U.S. forces led by General Douglas Mac Arthur regained the Philippines in 1944, and recaptured the country for good
after the liberation of Manila in February 1945.

The Philippines were granted their full independence by the U.S. on July 4, 1946, but American military presence has remained.
The Philippines forms a vital strategic toehold for American interests in the region, its reason for backing the anti-insurgency
efforts of a corrupt Filipino government for seventeen years.

The history of the Philippines is written in blood and conflict, from the beginning to the present, defining the chances of
any of that changing when considered in the light of the monumental obstacles facing the new government.

More than 42 million people presently reside in the Philippines. In addition to Malayans, there are Chinese, Japanese, Dutch,
American, and British, most of them Christian, more than 80 percent of them Roman Catholic, the remainder comprised of Buddhists,
Moslems, and Taoists.

The long-standing conflict between insurgents and the government, which in many areas has long since reached civil war proportions,
has its roots in justifiable social grievances: unemployment in the Philippines runs at 40 percent; 70 percent of the population
lives in poverty, and Manila spends half its export earnings to service foreign debt.

Prior to the ouster of Marcos, critics had rightly labeled that gangster as the rebels’ best recruiter, particularly after
he established martial law in 1972, cutting off all avenues for legitimate public dissent, thereby forcing activists to make
a choice between giving up their cause in the face of stern government repression or working with the communist party.

Many of them have gone with the communists, and the ranks of the New People’s Army are populated by a diverse cross-section
of well-meaning people, including students, clergy, even disgruntled local politicians. The Manila government’s estimates
hold NPA strength at well over seventeen thousand. The NPA controls or influences close to eight thousand
barangay
(villages) in the rural hinterlands, such villages being linked to the outside world by no more than a patchwork of trails
across heavily forested, rugged islands.

The New People’s Army is neither run nor controlled by the right-minded intellectuals and idealistic young swelling its ranks,
of course.

No, that distinction belongs to crud like “Colonel” Locsin and the North Koreans, and, ultimately, the Soviet KGB. The NPA’s
true function, once the political rhetoric used to draft and motivate its mass is seen through, is actually to serve as muscle
and shield to protect Soviet expansion in the region.

The Soviets pull the strings, the way they always try to.

World War III has already begun, waged by two superpowers, fought around the world by Third World surrogates.

It is happening as you read these words.

Now you understand the situation as John Cody does.

It matters to Cody, to us, what happens in the Philippines, so far from home, because if it falls we are all that much closer
to putting the surrogates behind us, and no one will survive that.

M
urphy piloted the chopper on a northwesterly course, jabbering into the tac net while he worked the controls, cutting in on
standard frequencies to get the coded word through to the brass waiting at Clark that they were on their way home.

A somber feeling of exhaustion permeated the insides of the chopper.

Caine and Hawkins rode out the ride with the same hangdog look of exhaustion Cody felt to the core of his own being.

Cal Jeffers and his wife sat across from them, farther down the same bench from where Cody leaned back, his head against the
hull.

He let the humming vibrations of the chopper in flight massage his aching body and psyche.

Jeffers and his wife held hands. They looked washed out, but damn glad to be alive.

Ann was seated between Cody and Louise Jeffers. She sat there with her eyes closed, fatigued.

Cody had diagnosed it as that pushed-too-far tension that had to be diffused before it imploded.

She sat there with her arms crossed tightly before her, as tightly as her knees were pressed together. She sat there next
to him, her spine straight like a lifelike statue.

Cody willed himself to rouse himself from his weariness. He touched her gently on one arm. This got her attention.

Her eyes snapped open, but she did not look at him. She stared straight ahead, her mouth remaining a taut line.

He leaned close enough for her to hear him through the din of the chopper noise.

“It will be all right, Ann. You’ve been through a lot. We’ll be landing soon. It’s all over. There are people waiting to help
when we land.”