“Roger that.”
As it turned out, they weren’t going far: a nearby gated community called East Greenhills. I had to show a guard my ID, which was fake in any event, but he let me in when I told him, following my hunch, that I was there to attend morning Mass. He could have tested me on the liturgy if he’d wanted. My American mother, who was Catholic, had taken me to church regularly enough for the experience to have made an impression.
The approach to the church was clogged with cars, and I had to park some distance away and walk. That was fine. I preferred to keep the car out of view, so as not to give the bodyguard too many opportunities for multiple sightings.
Inside it was crowded, nearly full. I recognized the subject of the sermon, which was being delivered in English-spoken almost universally, along with indigenous Tagalog, throughout Manila. The priest was discussing the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, who opined, among other things, that it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
My own experience has led me to contrary conclusions, but I didn’t see the point of arguing.
The priest’s voice echoed from the front of the long room, competing with a series of wall-mounted ceiling fans that swayed forward and back as though alternately entranced by and then distracted from the cadences of his speech. The room was open on three sides to the outside, and the air was heavy with tropical moisture.
I sat in back on one of the varnished wooden pews, feeling the weight of the edifice settle in around me. It had been a long time, a lifetime, since I’d been in a church, and that was fine with me.
I could see Manny and his family, to the left and six rows forward. The boy sat between Manny and the woman. I sensed I’d been right in suggesting to Dox that periodic church attendance was an accommodation Manny made to the desires of the woman. Probably he didn’t really give a shit on a religious level. Or maybe the whole thing was uncomfortable for him. Either way, that he was willing to participate was further evidence that he cared a lot about the woman, and, I assumed, about the boy, too.
I watched from where I sat, wondering what the boy made of the ritual to which he was being subjected. I didn’t know if his father’s participation would make things better for him, or worse. My own visits to church had always been exclusively with my mother, over the silent protests of my Japanese father, who objected to such silliness, and, I realized later, to the Western infection it would impart.
Yes, I thought. Four-hundred-plus years ago, the Spanish infect the natives. And now the infection perpetuates, persists. The woman passes it on to the boy.
My own father was killed when I was eight, in a Tokyo street riot. Since then there have been a number of what I suppose might be called “defining moments,” but that first death was the original. I can still feel the terrible fear and shock as my mother broke the news to me, trying and then failing to hold back her own tears. If I choose to, and I usually don’t, I can vividly recall the years of strange dreams after, in which he would be back with us and alive but always insubstantial or mute or dying or in some other way less than whole. It had taken me a long time to recover from all that.
I realized that seeing Manny with his family was stirring up this shit. And being in a church, that wasn’t exactly a plus, either.
I thought of the photos Boaz and Gil had shown me. If Manny were to die in an accident today, there was no question that many innocent lives would be saved. How could it be a sin, then, to facilitate his demise? On the contrary, wouldn’t the sin lie in forbearance? Wouldn’t such forbearance, in fact, be a form of complicity in those later deaths?
But I also knew that Manny’s death would leave this boy bereft, crucify him in grief and loneliness. I knew that very well.
All at once I hated being faced with this dilemma. I resented all the forces, past and present, that had conspired to impose it on me. I wanted to be one of the ignorant, the undeserving recipients of the fruits of awful choices like this one, who could sleep secure in their beds and dream innocent dreams and enjoy the profits of the sacrifice I was about to impose on this child, and the sacrifice I would make in the process, without bloodying their own hands in the process. They didn’t deserve the benefits any more than this boy deserved the burden, and goddamn if I was going be the one to present them with such a bloody gift.
And then I thought, Maybe this is the sacrifice that’s required of you. This is the sacrifice that you owe. All those lives you’ve taken… do lives saved count against them?
I shook my head, confused. I’ve been at this for more years than I care to acknowledge, and I’d never been troubled this way before. At least not in the middle of the proceedings. Sometimes you learn something afterward, or see something when it’s too late to turn back… it bothers you later. But not like this.
It’s the boy, I told myself. You never want to see that the target has a family. And the boy is reminding you of yourself. Perfectly normal reaction. It’ll pass, like it always does. Focus on the job, on doing the job. That’s all you can trust, that’s the thing that gets you through.
I took a deep breath and let it out. Right. The job.
Mass lasted another forty minutes. When it was over, I drifted behind Manny and his family, staying well back in the crowd. As we exited the church, the boy clambered onto Manny for a piggyback ride. I could hear his delighted laughter carrying across the tropical air. I watched the three of them load into the Mercedes, then walked back to my car.
I called Dox. “They were at church. My guess is that they’re on their way to a meal now. Let me know where they’re heading and I’ll stay with them. This might be our chance, too, so be ready to move.”
“Already am.”
With Dox apprising me of the direction they were taking, I was able to follow them without maintaining a visual. It turned out I was right about the meal. They stopped in the Ayala Center, a sparkling mega-mall almost across the street from the Peninsula. I got to the mall only a minute behind them, and took my best guess, based on where they had parked, on where they had gone inside. From there, it was mostly a matter of checking restaurants. It took me only a few minutes to find them, in the main food court on the third floor. They were sitting in front of a place called World Chicken, already working on a meal. The bodyguard was standing off to the side. I picked him up in my peripheral vision, but gave no sign that I was aware of him. I felt confident he hadn’t noticed me. The area was crowded with shoppers and diners and I had plenty of cover.
I called Dox. “I’m on him again. They’re at the Ayala Center, right across the street from you. Walk over and you’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Switch to the commo gear when you get here.”
“Roger that.”
I bought a coffee from one of the vendors and sat down on the other side of the food court. After a few minutes, I heard Dox.
“I’m here,” he said. “First-floor atrium. Where are you?”
“A place called Glorietta Food Choices, third-floor Glorietta. One floor under one of the cineplexes, right next to a video game arcade. I’m sitting near the windows, farthest from the escalators. Our friend is getting lunch ten feet in front of the escalator. Guard is staying with them. Come up and move to your left right away and he won’t see you. Then stay at the periphery until you ID the players. I don’t want him to recognize you from the hotel.”
“Roger that.”
A minute later, I saw Dox enter. He circled wide as I had suggested, keeping the crowd between himself and the principals. I saw his eyes move past me without stopping.