The machine clicked again, and another of the trio appeared center screen. The blowup fuzzed a lot of detail. The man was sitting at an angle to the camera, and his profile was as wispy as breath on a cold afternoon. One prominent, dark eye looked like a burn hole in the screen, but the rest of him was hazy and indistinct.
"Sorry about the quality," Wilson said. "Sometimes I think Fotomat does a better job than our lab."
"Got a name for this one?" Bolan asked.
"Not a syllable." Wilson sighed. "He's new in our rogues' gallery. We don't even know what nationality he is."
Next to fill the screen was the image of the distinguished gray-haired gentleman. He was the one Bolan had seen somewhere but couldn't place or come up with a name.
"If you knew anybody up there, it'd be this fella," Wilson said. "Charles James Anthony Harding."
"Harding," Bolan muttered. "Harding I know that name."
"Three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, a DSc. Four years in a POW camp, courtesy of Uncle Ho. Worked out of a think tank outside of L.A. for a while. Still there as a consultant, but mostly he stays in the Philipines. Did a stint on the Hill, then ran for a House seat in Mississippi, his stomping grounds, but lost by a hair's breadth, and voila, a thinker was born."
"Where were these photos taken?" Bolan asked.
"Manila. Two months ago."
"What's his connection with Cordero?"
"Search me..." Wilson stood up and walked to a sideboard to pour himself a coffee. "You want one?"
"No, thanks," Bolan said, continuing to study the screen.
Wilson scooped two spoons of sugar into the coffee, added a little cream from a silver creamer, then stirred. He set the spoon down with a clang and sipped noisily before returning to the table.
Dropping back into his chair, Wilson set the coffee on the polished tabletop, leaned back to stretch and said through gritted teeth, "Next one, Donny." Harding disappeared and was replaced by a shattered storefront. Paper-and-cardboard signs, torn to ribbons, fluttered in a breeze at the instant the photo was taken. "This," said Wilson, "used to be a government health clinic, set up by Aquino. Next..." The projector clicked. The storefront moved to a corner of the screen. "See that white circle, down there on the left? Watch this..." The projector clicked again, and the circle expanded to touch the four sides of the screen. "See that?"
Bolan leaned a little closer.
"It's fuzzier than most, because we got this from a Manila newspaper."
"Cordero," Bolan said.
"Right you are, boyo. Not a minute after the explosion. You can still see smoke in the other corner, just beside the storefront."
"You don't think it was a coincidence, I gather," Bolan said.
"Hell, Belasko, would you?"
"No, I wouldn't."
"And the interesting thing is that this picture was taken just forty-eight hours after that little confab we saw at the beginning. But that's not all... show him, Donny." Whirring and clunking, the projector advanced another notch. Another photo, this one from the opposite side of the shattered headquarters, filled the screen. "This one is about thirty seconds later. Blowup, Donny..." Wilson skipped a beat, then resumed. "And here you have another of the confabulating buddies, right in the middle of it all, just like Cordero." And sure enough, in a profile shot, there was the second man, this time just a little more clearly etched.
Bolan said nothing.
Wilson chuckled. "The odds are gettin' pretty long against coincidence, ain't they?" Wilson took another noisy sip of coffee. "But the pictures ain't the whole story, Belasko. There's a big iceberg under that little bitty ice cube you saw on the screen. It seems that Mr. Harding has been showing up in Manila regularly, twice a month for the last four months, like clockwork. The rest of the time we don't know where the hell he is. It also seems that he has been doing a lot of shipping to the Philippines. It's supposed to be electronic parts, according to the manifests, but I have my doubts about that."
"Why?"
"Well, for one thing, the C that blew that clinic all to hell has been traced to a missing batch from right here in the U.S. of A. Now, I don't know that Harding was behind the theft, but I don't know that he wasn't, either. It makes me a little nervous, though, thinking that he might be. And I am the very picture of calm alongside the Secretary of State. I mean, you can understand that, I guess. After all, how would it look if we were somehow connected to terrorist attacks? And worse yet, in the Philippines? Subic and Clark are not your run-of-the-mill bases. Mrs. Aquino might be a nice lady, but if she thought we were trying to blow her to bits, she might be a little irritated. You ever think how the Pacific would look if it was to be MiGo-27's flying into Clark, instead of F-16's? I know the President has, and what he had to say about it is not for polite company."
"So you want me to find out what Harding is up to?"
"Now, hold on, there's more."
Bolan shook his head. "I think I will have a coffee."
"Good move. It's going to be a long night."
Bolan stood and moved around the end of the huge table, fixed himself a coffee and sipped it slowly, leaning against the sideboard. "I'm still missing something here," he said. "I thought the problem in the Philippines was the NPA, the New People's Army..."
"And you were right. It is a problem. But it's been manageable so far. The trouble is, if it even looks like we've been supporting the right wing over there, shit will come flying in from every shade of red in the Pacific basin. China and Vietnam, Russia and North Korea, hell, they'll be falling all over themselves to make points with the locals and get themselves a foothold. If that happens, Aquino goes down the tubes in jig time. She's only hanging on by the skin of her teeth. If she goes, there are a dozen generals just waiting for a chance to emulate Mr. Marcos. And if that happens, all hell breaks loose. At best you can have a civil war, and at worst, a red Manila."
"And we take the rap."
Wilson slurped some more coffee down. "Yup." He set the coffee down again, the cup almost sliding off the saucer. "Lights, Donny," he said.
The lights came on, and Wilson reached for a stack of folders, each stamped LA for Limited Access and bordered in bright blue. He spread the fingers of one hand over the top folder. Bolan walked back around the table to sit down.
"This is everything we've got on Cordero. On Harding we don't have much. His life's an open book, sort of. But the pages are blank. You can always see where he's going, and his career's been well documented, but that's all icing. We got no cake underneath. If he's fronting for somebody, we don't know who. If he's got some hidden agenda, we don't have a clue what it is. In other words, if he isn't what he appears to be, what the hell is he?" Bolan looked at the folders, then at Wilson, who continued. "Time was, Belasko, when we only had to worry about one end of the political spectrum. Red was easy to spot, like a fire engine coming up the block. If it wasn't red, we didn't have to worry about it. But times have changed in a major way. We've taken a lot of hits, more than we should have if you ask me but nobody has and so I now have twice the work to do. I have to watch everything left and right." Bolan reached out for the folders, and Wilson shoved the stack across the table. "I wish to God there was more I could give you, but that's what I've got. Period."
"When do you want me to leave?" Bolan asked, not bothering to ask the earlier, more obvious question.
Wilson dug inside his jacket and pulled out a crisp white envelope. He slipped it across the table.
Bolan looked at it without making a move to retrieve it. "Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" Wilson watched the big guy silently for a minute before continuing, "Brognola speaks very highly of you. He and I go way back. He told me there were certain things I could take for granted. I took him at his word." Bolan smiled the faintest of smiles. "As it happens, you'll be on the same flight as one Mr. Charles Harding. This time we don't want to lose him. You'll be going under diplomatic cover. The man to see in Manila is Frank Henson. I cabled him this afternoon. He knows you're coming, and he'll take care of contact on his end."