Episode Twelve: Before the Dawn

‘I’m so sorry, Verity. I should not have exposed you to that. I'll never look your dad in the eye again.’ Don told her, regretting every second she had been in ‘the belly of the beast’.

‘You never could anyway. You’re about a foot taller than him.’ Verity quipped as she finished heaving out the contents of her stomach. ‘Got a mint?’

‘Who has mints in the Philippines?’ Don asked her.

‘Elderly white people whose breath smells like something laid down and died in there.’ Verity quipped back.

‘Okay, you got me.’ Don handed her a mint sweet from a packet in his pocket. ‘But I’ll have you know that my halitosis smells like the finest Scottish heather.’

Verity shook her head in disbelief. ‘Lorenzo’s?’ she asked him.

‘Lorenzo’s.’ he confirmed.

They sat in the Italian cafe with Rohelio, keeping an eye on their vehicles out of the corner of their eyes, while debriefing themselves – and not the kind that would get Shiloh excited.

Verity sipped on a glass of iced tea, which did not taste so good after a mint. ‘That guy is pond scum. No, he’s lower than that. I had no idea queer people could be that misogynistic.’

‘You’ve obviously never tried to arrest anyone during “Pride”.’ Don commented dryly. ‘Okay, what do we have? Audio of Valdez behaving like a complete.... one of them.’

‘Try video.’ Rohelio grinned, like a cat with a whole cow of cream.

‘How?’ Don asked him.

‘They have CCTV cameras in the lobby and the ballroom to cover staff if they’re ever accused of anything. Amazing what a little hint at aiding and abetting charges can make a hotel manager do.’ Rohelio told them.

‘So I needn’t have stood outside the ballroom like an alley creep?’ Don asked, offended that his contribution, which had caused him some muscle stiffness that he wouldn’t like to mention, had apparently been for nothing.

‘The video has no audio. It should help though.’ Rohelio informed them.

‘We also have the date, place and time of the meeting with all the other misogynist clowns.’ Verity told them, triumphantly producing the card she had endured so much, and lost her breakfast and lunch, to obtain. ‘It’s at the Bellavista Event Centre at five-thirty tomorrow. Bellavista Event Centre? Where’s that?’ she asked them.

Don whistled. ‘No expense spared there, eh? Someone’s out to impress. Or compensating for something. It's a very upmarket couple of buildings on the Isabel road, just after Barangay Tolingon.’

‘So, not that far from where I’m staying.’ Verity mused.

Don nodded. ‘A little further down the road, on the way to Isabel. Interesting that he wants this business done out of the way. That’s not exactly at the centre of town. Maybe some of his buyers are a little bit jumpy...’

‘What else do we have?’ Verity asked them.

The others all stared at her blankly.

‘Come on! We need all we can get ‘ Verity told them.

‘How does a CIA plot to murder Valdez sound?’ Don asked her.

‘That’s more like... no, hold on... what?!?!’ Verity uttered in complete disbelief.

‘A Russian former Wagner member has turned up in Cebu. He has an American diplomatic passport, which tells me he’s going to do something very dodgy. His wife was rescued by Polish police from a brothel in Krakow owned by Valdez, which means, if you put two and together...’

‘Oh, man! Are you serious?’ Verity asked breathlessly.

Don nodded.

‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.’ Verity quipped. ‘I mean, I know he’s just... beyond evil, but why would the CIA show any interest in what he's doing here? I mean, it’s not as if he's Chinese and claiming someone else’s land or something.’

‘Your man here believes that the CIA must be trying to hide something.’ Rohelio told her.

Verity chuckled. ‘He definitely is not and never, ever will be, my man.’

Don feigned being offended by that comment. ‘I’ll have you know that there are Filipinas your age who would love a piece of this.’ he protested.

‘Yeah, but that’s so they can take it out of its glass and sell it in Carbon Market.’ Verity quipped. ‘Okay, so what do we do now?’

‘I make it four-thirty.’ Don interjected, apparently off topic.

‘Good for you, but when are you getting your hearing tested, old man?’ Verity joked.

‘No, I mean, it’s four-thirty.’ Don argued.

Everyone else stared at him blankly.

‘My delivery usually arrives at the back of five.’

Still blank looks.

Don looked greatly impatiently at them. ‘Aren’t you folks the least bit curious over who is making these deliveries and what is coming this time?’

The peso dropped. The bill was quickly paid. They were about to leave when a junior employee of the Heritage Hotel ran over to them, gave a small envelope to Rohelio, and then returned the way he came, but not without saying first, ‘My boss says that this is it. He wants no further part of it.’

Rohelio slapped the envelope against the palm of his hand. ‘This’ll be the CCTV recordings. One more nail in the coffin.’ he mused, before dismissing the backup police officers and clambering into the cab of Don’s multicab.

It goes without saying that Verity, who had not even thought to change, got to the car park opposite LBC Rizal Street first, having been traced the entire way by the admiring glances of several men (and a few women). But, if she was honest, there were aspects of it that she kind-of enjoyed. At least for now.

She was already safely ensconced behind a rusting red truck before Don and Rohelio arrived.

‘You still wearing those sandals?’ Don asked her as he arrived, noticing how her feet were starting to attract dirt from the gravelly car park.

Verity couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘I’ve just gone undercover to nail one of these most wanted people traffickers in the world dressed, for the first time in my life, like I’m on my way to a high school prom, and that’s your issue?’

‘Aye!’ Don countered. ‘How could you drive that death trap of a bike in them? How do you propose, if we need to, to run after a suspect wearing them? They look like the most impractical footwear for this kind of work that I've ever seen. Don’t you have something different in your bag?’

‘Yeah.’ Verity shot back. ‘But it doesn’t go with my dress.’

Don huffed, but gave in. ‘You didn’t wear a dress like this to your high school prom, did you?’ he asked.

‘You kidding? In Scotland? I’d have died of hypothermia.’ Verity smiled. ‘I wore sensible clothes: a nice top and faux leather trousers.’

‘And you wonder why people think you’re a lesbian.’ Don quipped.

‘Can you two please quit your domestic a second and keep your eyes on that courier office?’ Rohelio snapped.

They both apologised like kids caught stealing candy and concentrated on the job at hand.

The clock had struck five. Heart Osorio had come to the end of another nine hour shift at the Sabin Resort Hotel. There was no doubt it had been a lot quieter today, now that Shiloh Stalker Valdez and the people from Pink Boy Media were off having their event in the city. She was relieved, if she was honest. It was fun at first having a big social media star like Shiloh at the hotel. However, it was starting to become very draining. They were a very demanding guest. So many times Heart had had to turn away regular drop-in guests because Shiloh and his barkada had wanted exclusive use of the pool. Plus, their dietary demands on the kitchen had been outrageous. Heart was absolutely sure that there was no such thing as an allergy that stops you from eating rice only at breakfast time, or that could only tolerate seafood if it was expensive. And then there was the partying and the noise and the late bed times, and the constant complaints from other paying hotel guests.

She would be far from sorry to see the back of them.

Well, she would not be seeing them again today, that was for sure. She said goodbye to her colleagues, left through the big glass doors at the front of the hotel, and walked straight into the tricycle of an older driver who knew her routine and was never late.

The driver checked the destination, even though it never changed. ‘Uwak na pud, Dai?’ he asked her.

‘Oo.’ She confirmed. ‘Pero nay stopover sa LBC Rizal, Kuya.’

‘Sige.’ he agreed, before the roar of his two-stroke engine made conversation impractical.

The tricycle headed out of the side road on which the hotel sat, before heading to the left onto the Baybay road, towards the centre of Ormoc City.

From their room on the top floor of the Carlosta Hotel, the two CIA agents used their drone to surveil the city centre with intense concentration, while snacking on packets of chicharon purchased from the mall across the road.

‘Now, why are three of them hanging around outside LBC Rizal in a scummy car park?’ asked one.

‘No idea.’ said the other. ‘All I know is that one of them is really pretty, and if you angle the camera just right, you get to see...’

‘How much of a bastos you really are?’ the first one told his colleague, while thumping him on the arm, much to his colleague's disdain.

‘Hey, I’m a man. I have red blood in my veins too.’ his colleague protested, rubbing his sore arm.

The tricycle took around fifteen minutes to arrive, as it normally did. It dropped Heart right outside LBC, as it normally did.

‘This is it.’ Don whispered to Rohelio and Verity.

Heart got out the tricycle. Unaware she was being watched, she headed straight into the LBC branch.

She stood at the courier desk. The clerk was distracted by some admin. ‘Maayong gabii, Ben.’ she called him.

Benigno Salvador raised his eyes from his work. ‘Maayong gabii, Heart.’

Two men and a well-dressed woman – too well dressed for a courier’s office at five-fifteen in the evening – stood behind Heart, but motioned to Benigno to remain silent.

‘The usual package, Dong.’ She handed over to Benigno a plain brown A5 envelope.

‘For a Donald McLeish, no?’ Benigno asked

‘Oo.’ Heart confirmed.

Don announced himself in his typical mildly manic Scottish way. ‘Donald McLeish? That’s me! Oh, pleased to meet you at long last.’ he said, extending a hand to her to shake.

Heart squealed. She made for the door.

But Verity got in the way. ‘We won’t hurt you. Honest. We just have a few questions.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t...’ she stammered.

‘Hotel-guest confidentiality? Maybe this will grease the wheels.’ Rohelio produced his NBI ID.

Heart’s face turned whiter than any skin bleach could have coloured it.

‘You are not in any trouble. We just have a few questions and then you will be free to go. I promise.’ Rohelio assured her. ‘Please. You just might be the person we need.’

Heart gulped. ‘Okay. Where? Not here.’

‘Jo’s Milagrina. I’m paying.’ Don told her. ‘Get your tricycle driver to take you there. Pay him and then come inside. I’m pure starving with a hankering for barbecue and this one...’ He nodded to Verity. ‘... just puked up her breakfast and lunch, so we’re right up for a feed.’

‘I would definitely go. This is a rare treat: a Scottish guy paying for dinner.’ Verity joked.

‘The cheek of it!’ Don replied in mock consternation. ‘So, are you coming?’

‘I will be there.’ Heart confirmed. ‘I should also give you this.’ She handed the brown envelope to Don.

‘Thank you. Now, let’s get some food.’ Don smiled.

‘Something is off here.’ One of the CIA operatives pointed to the screen, showing Don, Verity, Rohelio and Heart all departing from the LBC office.

His colleague agreed. ‘Yeah. This cheese dip.’ He pointed to a container on their desk. ‘I told you we should have put it in the mini fridge.’

Verity arrived first at the parking lot and quickly entered Jo’s Milagrina barbecue restaurant. She sat down at an empty traditional wooden table and was eyeing the menu when Don and Rohelio arrived. They ordered plenty of barbecued chicken, pork and bangus (milk fish), with rice and all the trimmings.

‘Are you sure this will work?’ Verity asked Don.

‘In all the years I have spent in the Philippines, an offer of free food gets information quicker than any torture method.’ Don replied, to which Rohelio nodded.

‘It’s absolutely true.’ he agreed.

Sure enough, fifteen nervy minutes later (for Verity anyway), Heart arrived. She spotted them and reached their table just as the food was arriving.

‘Okay, you are in our debt now.’ Don told her. ‘What can you tell us?’

While she was eating chicken dipped in a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, freshly squeezed lemoncito lime juice and a small jalapeño chilli pepper, Heart began her tale. ‘I work on the front desk at the Sabin Resort Hotel. We have guests staying from Pink Boy Media. One of them, a woman, comes to me each day before I go home and gives me an envelope and a thousand pesos. She tells me to drop the envelope at the LBC Rizal branch and tell them it’s for you.’ she told them, nodding towards Don.

‘Do you know her name?’ Verity asked her, wiring in to the delectable barbecue dishes.

Heart shook her head. ‘She never told me her name.’ She chuckled. ‘I've never even heard her boss call her name. I’m not sure he knows it.’

‘See, she’s not woke!’ Don joked with Verity.

‘Bisaya has no gender pronouns, so that means nothing.’ Verity jibed back.

Rohelio stopped eating so he could ask a question too. ‘Did you hear anyone else call her by her name?’

Heart though for a second. ‘I think I may have heard someone call her Raja or Maja or something.’

Don nodded. ‘Maja Hernandez?’ he asked.

The others stared at him.

‘What? You mean to say you don’t have a semi-legally procured list of all Pink Boy Media personnel and haven’t committed it to memory? Call yourselves cops!’ he protested.

‘Could be.’ she told him. ‘I never heard her family name. Actually, there was something else that was strange.’ she realised.

‘What was that?’ Verity asked.

‘At around two-thirty, she had me make a phone call on her behalf to a number I did not recognise. The number turned out to be Police Station number 1. But the message was very strange. It was, “The cleaners are coming. Get ready.” I could not understand it at all.’

Don and Verity looked at each other, completely confused.

Rohelio, however, avoided their gaze. He was giving nothing away. Not yet.

After an hour long conversation about the good folks from Pink Boy Media: how loud and raucous and demanding they were, as well as more useful information on how many there were, if she had ever seen them sneak other guests into the hotel, if she’d seen them with weapons, etc., Don offered to drive her home. Heart agreed. It was getting late. It would be hard to find a tricycle. Besides, he was old. What could go wrong?

And if it did, he would not be difficult to overpower.

It was as they were leaving that Verity received a text. It was from Roberta. ‘Hey, Verity, can you meet me in 88 Cafe? There’s someone I would like you to meet.’

How cryptic! She thought. But having had one free feed, the Filipina in her was not going to say ‘No’ to another, especially not in a fine establishment such as 88 Cafe.

So Verity slapped on her helmet, revved up her motorbike and headed for the north of the city, and then out towards the mountains on the Palo Road. The sun had just set as she’d left the barbecue restaurant. The bronze on the horizon beyond the mountains had almost melted and faded to black. The traffic was almost exclusively leaving the city, like her. There was no reason she could not enjoy a twilight ride.

‘Hey, where is she going?’ Don asked as he saw Verity peel north at the Rotunda.

‘88 Cafe.’ Rohelio told him, over Heart, who was seated between them. ‘Meeting a friend.’

‘A friend she thought was an ex-friend?’ Don asked.

Rohelio nodded.

‘Oh, I love a good reunion. So emotional! Can I come too?’ Heart gushed, angling in reality for a visit to 88 Cafe, paid for by someone else, as it was beyond her means.

Much to her disappointment, Don shook his head. ‘Not this time. Police business. But I will take you. You’ve been a great help. You deserve it. Leave me your number. I'll call you.’

Heart beamed. He could be as old as he liked, she didn’t care. She was going to go to 88 Cafe someday with a foreigner. That was all that mattered.

The drive took almost an hour through the pitch black, punctured here and there with street lamps. Verity felt her hackles rise as she passed Highland Barbecue and Residencia Abad, and shivers shot down her spine, but she wasn’t going to let that spoil a nice ride.

Soon enough, she arrived at an engineering yard and, following Roberta’s directions, turned left into a lane just before it.

The lane was rutted. She clipped a few potholes even though she was travelling with great care. She soon arrived at the cafe car park, but as she did so, her hackles rose once more.

One of the Mayor’s black SUVs was parked there.

She resisted the urge to scratch it or damage it in any way, but she was not at all happy. If this is Gabriel’s cack-handed way of getting me to apologise, I will really not be happy, she seethed.

With no little trepidation, Verity wandered into 88 Cafe. The place really was pretty special. Either side of a stepped floor-lit white walkway (with the kitchen and washrooms at the top), white-clad, wooden gazebos stood guard, with comfortable seats within their borders, and a low table in the middle, from where food could be consumed.

She scanned the gazebos and, three up from the bottom, she spotted Roberta.

But she also spotted someone else. Someone who she would never expect to see. Someone she thought she would never see again.

Someone she was convinced was dead. And had been for seven years.

Her mouth gaped in shock. She clapped her hand over it. She was rooted to the spot. She wanted to run to that gazebo, but she couldn’t. She wanted to run away, but she couldn’t.

What was this: a trick of the light? Some strange apparition? Had someone slipped her a mickey at Jo's Milagrina? How could this be possible?

How could she be seeing Charlotte Chapman standing right there, bold as brass, living and breathing as if nothing had happened?

Charlotte saw Verity. She left the light of the gazebo, wandered slowly down the white pathway, as if not to scare her, and stood in the half-light in front of her friend.

‘Hello, Verity.’ she said gently. ‘It’s been way too long.’

‘I thought you were dead.’ Verity breathed. ‘For seven years, I thought you were dead. I mourned you. I fought for your memory. I’m here because of you. But you’re alive? Is this some kind of sick joke? How could you do this to me?’

‘Ver, I’m sorry. I know what I did was wrong. I’ll always regret it. I did it...’ Charlotte sighed deeply to stop the red hot tears welling in her eyes from streaking their way down her face. ‘I did it to keep you safe.’

‘Safe from whom?’ Verity asked her, barely preventing the volcano of pain from erupting within her. ‘From Valdez?’

Charlotte nodded remorsefully. ‘You were getting too close. Or so he said. You knew he was drugging me. He was doing way worse than that, believe me. That man...’ She composed herself. ‘I needed the drugs just to cope with what that man was doing. You were getting so close to the truth. He didn’t know who you were – just that a reporter from the Morning Edition was on his tail. But he said that if you got one step closer he would kill you, and I believed him.’

‘You didn’t need to throw yourself off the George V Bridge. You could have gone to the police.’ Verity argued.

‘Who would have believed a drug-addled whore like me?’ Charlotte replied.

‘So you decided to fake your own death!?!?’ Verity asked in pained disbelief.

‘He said it was the easiest way out. I was too high to disagree.’ Charlotte told her. ‘I just put a wetsuit on under my clothes, called you from the bridge and then dived in, only to come out of the water further up the river under the Albert Bridge, where Shiloh met me and I became a new person called Cherry Popper.’

‘What a stupid name!’ Verity mocked through angry tears. ‘And I'm Filipina! We invent them! But... you’re alive!’ she exclaimed, struggling hard to find the words.

‘Yes. For the first time in my life. Thanks to Gloria Amparo over there.’ Charlotte nodded in her direction. ‘She saved me.’

‘You’re alive!’ Verity exclaimed, still struggling with words. ‘The friend I thought was dead... is alive!’ She reached out and touched Charlotte’s arms, as if to check they were real. And then, as if the last seven years didn’t matter, she grabbed her friend and the two of them embraced, tears flooding down their faces.

‘And look at you! You’re a woman, at last!’ Charlotte cooed.

‘Yeah, well, this just got me an offer to be trafficked overseas by Shiloh Stalker Valdez, so... you know... plusses and minuses.’ Verity shrugged as she informed her friend

Gloria sniffed back a tear from her eye. ‘I love emotional reunions.’

From the shadows of the gazebo, where Verity could not see her, Mayor Joy Abad quipped, ‘Are we absolutely sure she isn’t a lesbian?’

Don’s rusting white multicab drew to a slow halt across the road from San Isidro Elementary School in Barangay Uwak. He was moved by what he saw. Heart clearly worked very hard in the hotel. She had gone above and beyond for her guests. Yet her house was nothing more than a grey, unpainted, one-roomed breeze block house, just a few blocks from the highway, with a rusting tin roof and an outside toilet.

‘This is where you live?’ Don asked her incredulously.

She nodded. ‘Simple lang, but it is enough.’

‘But you have a good job.’

‘This is all I can afford, for now.’

He sighed. ‘You deserve better.’ he told her, as he removed the envelope she had given him from his glove box. He removed the bright pink pen drive it contained and placed it in his trouser pocket. He then reached back into the glove box, took out a piece of paper and a pen and wrote a quick note, which he placed back into the envelope and handed back to Heart.

‘This is really important.’ he told her, staring straight into her large brown eyes. ‘Please give this to Maja Hernandez next time you see here – soon as you can, but without anyone seeing you.’

Heart nodded. ‘Okay lang, I will.’ She told him as she opened the passenger side door of the cab.

‘Oh, and Heart?’ he got her attention again as she jumped down to the road.

‘Yes, Sir Donald?’ she responded.

‘Don’t ever be tempted to join Pink Boy Media. Doesn’t matter what they offer you. Don’t do it. Just take as little to do with them as you can. Please. For me.’ Donald advised her.

She nodded, a little puzzled by his advice. Everyone in that company seemed so happy, and to be having such a good life. Who wouldn’t trade their life for hers?

But somehow this gentle old foreigner seemed to be looking out for her.

It all seemed so confusing.

Maybe the note he wrote could clear things up.

She waited until she had waved the white multicab off, turned in the opposite direction and carefully opened the envelope, before removing the note.

When she read the contents, she almost dropped the envelope in shock:

‘Maja Hernandez, your boss is in serious danger. A hitman has been hired to kill him. The only way I can keep him and you safe is if you both surrender to the police as soon as possible. Text or call me with the time and place.’