Chapter Fourteen

 

Dhahran - Friday, May 3

Fixing the broken Triad software at Aramco was easy since it wasn’t broken, but Callahan and DuBois tinkered and checked screens to make it look good.  Callahan left Dubois at the office and told him he was off to see about securing the contract with Saad Al Gamdi. Dubois just shook his head.

He drove south from Dhahran along the Riyadh highway, then turned east toward the gulf, moving at normal speed past Hammid Al Dossary’s villa. Some new developments had sprung up along the shore since his last drive down here a few years before, but there was still only one road leading in there from the main highway.

He was heading back to Dhahran when Berrera called. “I have someone we should talk to. Better set aside a few hours tonight.”  If Berrera didn’t know everyone in the Filipino community, he knew someone who did, and Callahan hoped he had some good intelligence.

When he arrived at the cramped third floor Khobar walk up Berrera shared, Berrera introduced him to another Filipino who sat at the small table drawing with a pencil and ruler.

“This is a friend,” said Berrera, “who worked on the construction of the villa we talked about. No names. You can trust him.”

The other man barely glanced up, and kept his head down working on the drawing. “He’s drawing a layout of the house from memory. Three floors, courtyard, utilities, water.” Callahan pulled up a stool and silently watched the work.

“Did he ever work there after it was occupied?” Callahan asked. Berrera asked a quick question in Filipino.

The man looked at Callahan. “Work building only. Nobody live house when I work. Sorry.”

Callahan leaned over and traced his finger around the outside of the walls on the drawing. “What is out here? Trees? Dunes?”

“Small hills. Hills soft sand.” He waved his hand from left to right indicating a wavy terrain. “Between hill hard sand.”  He knocked his knuckles on the table.

“And here.” He drew a line from north to south on the east side of the house. “Here wadi. One meter… two meter deep. Maybe three meter across.”

“Windows?” Callahan asked.

The man sat back and studied the drawings for each floor. He darkened sections of the walls where he remembered windows, then cross-hatched some of them. “These.” He pointed to the hatched areas. “Big window door. Move to side.”

“Sliding glass doors,” Callahan mumbled.

“Anything else?” Berrera looked at Callahan.

“No.” Callahan moved the three pages next to each other. “No. This is very good.” He extended his hand to the man who had risen from the table. “Thank you very much, Sir. This is a great help.”

Berrera walked the man to the door speaking quietly in Filipino. Berrera laid his hand on his shoulder and the man crossed himself quickly before sliding out the door.

“Nervous?” Callahan nodded to the door.

“Sure he’s nervous. He could lose his job, go to jail, or worse. Asians don’t have the privileges Americans have in the Kingdom. You guys get a slap on the wrist, letter to the file. At worst, you get deported. But us? We get our asses kicked in the basement of the police station, a year in jail, and then we get deported.”

“Can he keep quiet?”

“Oh, he’ll keep quiet. Don’t worry.”

Callahan decided not to pursue it. He stared at the drawings. If I had the treaty, he thought, where would I keep it? Where would Hammid keep it?

“Trying to figure out where the treaty is?” asked Berrera.

“Yeah, but it’s just a guessing game. We need better intel. We need to go down there and do a recon.”

Berrera sat down at the table with Callahan. “I’m trying to find who does the gardening, maintenance, cooking… all that stuff. It’s either Filipinos or Indians. Maids or cooks would probably live there and be harder to get to, but the outside people would be driven in every day.  I’ve called another priest who works in Abqaiq. He said he’d ask around quietly.”

“Think you can find someone?”

“Oh, yeah. We’ll find them. That’s how we survive. Sticking together.”

Callahan kept looking at the drawings and the Google Earth printout he had brought with him. “You know, I think we’ll need three people. Two to go in and one on the outside for cover and recon.”

Berrera drummed his fingers on the table. “Yeah.” Callahan thought he seemed uneasy. “I have a man. Take my word that he’s good, very, very good. And he’d be perfect for this.”

Tread softly on this, thought Callahan. A priest had all kinds of confidences he couldn’t reveal. Confession? Counseling? Third party? “I’ll respect your judgment, Berrera. Perhaps he and I could have a private talk? He could tell me what he chooses?”

Berrera nodded. “That’s reasonable. Like I said, he’s very good, but I doubt he’d do it unless he knows what I know. He’s not only good, but he’s very smart. He won’t go as a hired gun.” He looked up at Callahan. “That’s a decision you have to make.”

“And one I couldn’t make until we met.”

“Agreed. Do I set it up?”

“Set it up.”

 

Dhahran - Monday, May 4

Callahan flipped through the English language mystery paperback, then replaced it on the shelf, scanned the rack, glanced at his watch, and picked another book off the shelf. Muslim evening prayer time was 5:42 pm, and it was now 5:30 pm. He had to get inside the restaurant before it locked its doors for the twenty minute prayer time.

He was in the basement bookstore of the Al Raashid Mall on the outskirts of Khobar, and Fuddruckers was on the second floor. When prayer time hit, the non-Muslim expatriates would flood into Fuddruckers, and the fast-food place would follow the letter of the law by locking its doors, but they would be locked with a full house of hungry people on the inside.  The alternative for the expatriates was to wander the mall while all the stores were locked for twenty minutes. Devout Muslims said the fourth of their obligatory five daily prayers, expatriates ate hamburgers, and the religious authorities were satisfied the infidels’ blasphemy was hidden from the faithful.

Callahan counted out the Riyals and paid for his book, then set a leisurely pace through the crowd to Fuddruckers. Half the Saudi men wore the ankle length white thobe and either white or red checked gutras on their heads. The other half wore normal Western clothes. All the Saudi women wore the head to toe black abaya, some with the black veil or mask with eyeholes. The mall was a modern masterpiece of concrete, marble and stainless steel, but he found the stores strangely similar and lacking in stock. The Saudis had copied the form, but were still working on the substance of a consumer society.

He waited until the last minute to enter Fuddruckers, just before the smiling Indian manager closed and locked the doors. The place was packed with Westerners, the men who were employed, and their dependent wives and children. Good. He waited in line at the counter and ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and Coke, all prepared to the exact same standards as in Atlanta or Cleveland.  Is this what they meant by cultural imperialism?

He took his tray into the larger room with the tables full of laughing kids and scanned the area. As expected, there were no vacant tables, so he moved down the left side of the room toward the back where a bald Westerner sat reading a Newsweek and munching an onion ring.

Callahan looked around for a table, and the man said, “It’s really packed today, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Callahan, “would you believe standing room only for hamburgers?”

With the correct password phrases exchanged, the man gestured for him to take the seat opposite him at the two-person table. The bald man looked at his watch. “About fifteen minutes until prayer time is over.”

Callahan saw two shopping bags at the man’s feet. One contained an assortment of clothes, books, and specialty chocolate cookies. The other contained a croquet set in a molded plastic box about three feet long. The label on the box showed a smiling Indian family playing the game on a perfect lawn.

They made small talk about travel deals in the Orient until Fuddruckers’ reopened at the end of prayer time. Like the tide going out, the chattering Western crowd picked up their packages and headed back into the mall where the stores were all opening their doors again.

“Well, it’s been good meeting you,” said the man. “Good luck.” He picked up one shopping bag, nodded, and left. Callahan lingered over his Coke, then picked up the bag with the croquet set, misjudged its weight, and nearly dropped it. If it opened, that would really have been interesting. He bought a large chocolate chip cookie on the way out, then took the stairs to the lower level parking lot where he had left his car.

He didn’t know anything about the bald man. The Marshall had simply sent a coded response in an Internet chat room giving the location of the meeting, a general description of his contact, and the password phrases. That’s all he needed to know.  If captured, he couldn’t do any damage.

In fifteen minutes he was back in his apartment in the Aramco compound unpacking his croquet set, and examining three silenced 9mm Beretta pistols, one Heckler & Koch MSG90 A1 sniper rifle with a night scope, and ammunition for all four. He also had three pairs of night vision goggles, several explosive changes with timers and fuses, three handheld GPS units, and three military headset transceivers.

All of this was enough to ensure he would never leave the basement of Saudi Intelligence if he was caught. He thumbed the small capsule stuck under his collar that ensured he would never make it into the basement alive. They had their tools. If they needed the guns, they had already failed, but might still save their own lives.

 

Dhahran - Tuesday, May 5

Eguardo was all lean muscle, with two percent body fat, scars that spoke of serious fights, and Asian tattoos holding some secret code. Berrera had brought him to a McDonald’s on the Khobar Corniche and introduced him to Callahan.

They left Berrera in the McDonald’s and walked up to the nearby Burger King parking lot. “What did Berrera tell you?” Callahan asked.

Eguardo looked sideways at him, and scanned the Burger King parking lot. “He told me you needed of a good man with special operations experience, and he said the mission was of vital importance to the Church.”

“Do you care about the Church?”

“Berrera and the Church saved my life. I owe them everything. Let’s not waste our time. I spent ten years with the Philippine Marine Corps special operations units. That’s where I met Berrera. We hunted people in the south. Brought the war to them in ways they never imagined. Then government security services recruited me and I did the same things, just without a uniform, and without a good reason. Then I started working for myself, doing the same things with even less reason.”

Callahan motioned to the Burger King building. ”Let’s get going before Abdullah over there runs us down.” The parking lot was full of Saudi teenage boys revving powerful engines. Cars but no girls. That was against Saudi religious law.

Eguardo barked a laugh, then walked with Callahan through the door for single men. The other section was for families and single women. The Wahabbis didn’t like singles to mingle. They bought Cokes and sat in a far booth. Callahan waited.

“I went way too far, and one day didn’t like what I had become. Hated myself.  I don’t know why. I just did. That’s a long story, and I’m not going to tell it. What I will tell you is Berrera and the Church turned my life around, and for the last three years I have been making amends for my past.  I can look at myself in the mirror today.”

“I guess that means you are a friend of the Church?” Callahan sipped his drink and smiled. Anywhere else in the world, they would be in the back booth of a dingy bar, but not in a Kingdom where alcohol was strictly prohibited. Even Coke had been prohibited until recently as punishment for the company’s dealings with Israel.

Eguardo spread his fingers and shrugged. “I guess so.”

“You have any problem putting your skills to work for the Church? Infiltration, combat, killing… all of it.”

Eguardo toyed with the wrapper of his straw. “The skills aren’t the problem. It’s the reason. I have no problem fighting for the Church, if that’s what you’re doing. In fact, I would be honored. If that means fighting and killing, then… Ok. If it’s fighting these guys…” He jerked his head to a group of Saudis. “It’s about time.”

“Can you keep your mouth shut?” Would he be insulted at the question, Callahan wondered. Many people were.

He balled up the straw wrapper and flicked it away. “I’ve kept it shut for many years now. It’s a habit.”

“Do you want to work with us?”

“I have to know what you are doing. I’ll follow orders, but I need to know what’s going on, and why. Otherwise, I’ll say goodnight right here… and keep my mouth shut.”

Callahan had to make a decision. Well, the Templar Master told him to do whatever he had to do. “You know about the Treaty of Tuscany, and this guy Al Dossary who’s pushing it?”

When he finished the story of the treaty and plans, Eguardo sat back and shook his head. “You know your plan sucks, don’t you? Really sucks. You’re going to get us all killed.”

“Yeah, but it’s the only chance we have. You know how it goes. We don’t have to like it, we just have to do it. This Pope says we don’t go down without a fight, and when we fight we intend we win. So, I intend to do exactly what I told you, I intend to win, and I don’t care if it sucks.” He didn’t need to know about the Templars.

Eguardo’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward on the table. “The Pope himself ordered this?”

“Yeah. Berrera will back me up.” Not quite true, but close enough.

“One condition… I get killed, I want the Pope himself to say a mass for me. No assistants. The Pope himself in St. Peter’s. I might need some help… you know… with my visa.” He raised his eyes to heaven.

 

London - Friday, May 6

CNN’s Greg Conrad is in Cairo where Hammid Al Dossary made a personal appeal for calm today in the wake of the startling revelation that the Treaty of Tuscany had been scientifically dated to between 1160 and 1200. The date on the treaty is 1189. We go now to Greg in Cairo.

 Thank you, Peter. As the news spread that the treaty had been dated to the late Twelfth Century by all three of the teams of experts, riots broke out across the Muslim world. Here in Cairo, police battled a crowd estimated to be over ten thousand. Similar riots erupted in Karachi, Beirut, and Tehran. In Paris a pipe bomb detonated inside the famed Notre Dame Cathedral, and Italian security forces have sealed off the Vatican from a crowd of at least one thousand.

All this is sparked by the news that the Treaty of Tuscany… actually the paper… or parchment… the treaty is written on… was produced in the late Twelfth Century. All nine scholars recruited by Mr. Al Dossary and the Vatican have confirmed their analysis yields identical results, and this from independent testing in London, Tokyo, and Geneva.

In his appeal for calm, Mr. Al Dossary stressed this was just the beginning of the testing. Earlier today, Mr. Al Dossary had this to say…

Al Dossary: I stress this laser test is just the first test to be performed. It does confirm, as we predicted, that the manuscript parchment was produced in the late Twelfth Century. But, the science of paleography involves much more than laser testing, and our team of scholars will be assembling back in Cairo to conduct additional tests.

CNN: But this laser test is an important step?

Al Dossary: Important? Certainly. But all the steps are important. If any single test demonstrates the manuscript could not have been produced as we think, then the treaty cannot be considered authentic.

CNN: You seem quite confident the treaty is genuine.

Al Dossary: We assembled an unimpeachable panel of renowned experts. I await their evaluation.

So, that’s about it, Peter. The treaty has passed the most difficult and demanding test, and many are taking that alone as sufficient grounds for authentication. But, as Mr. Al Dossary said, we have to remember there is still much more work to be done before a final verdict will be rendered.

This is Greg Conrad, CNN International, Cairo.

 

*     *     *

The Old Man’s unexpected call burst Hammid’s giddy bubble.

“Stop those idiots running through the streets killing each other. I don’t want one more TV report from Karachi or Algiers showing a bunch of dancing idiots with misspelled English signs.”

“But Sheik…” Hammid started.

“You know better than I?” the Old Man clicked in his metallic monotone.

“No. No. Yes. We’ll get the word out immediately.”

“The objective in this phase is to make the Vatican look stupid, while we look reasonable. You know that.”

The Old Man broke the connection.

Hammid threw the phone against the wall and it burst into a hundred pieces. Abdullah had given the order for the riots, but the Old Man held Hammid responsible. Hammid got the credit, and Hammid paid the price.  The Old Man might know Abdullah had ordered the riots, and he might make Abdullah pay, but Hammid would pay first.

The Old Man always acted swiftly, so he had only a short window of opportunity. He called the pilot of his Bombardier business jet at the Cairo airport. “We’re going to Dhahran as soon as I get to the airport. Have the plane cleared and ready to take off immediately.”

 

*     *     *

Hammid eyed the ten men assembled around the conference table at his Villa south of Dhahran. Victory and celebration were in the air. Each was convinced the treaty was authentic and would soon lead to a massive uprising by their people.

“I’ve asked you here to talk about today’s events,” Hammid began. “We had a great victory when the panel of experts announced the treaty parchment came from the Twelfth Century.”

Abdullah clapped his fat hands together and said, “I was overjoyed when I heard the news. Just think. Proof of the true motives and objectives of the decadent West.”

“Yes,” said Hammid. “And the riots?”

“Yes, Sheik. We were ready… waiting. As soon as we heard the news, we called our brothers and gave them the word. I cannot tell you how proud and excited they were.”

“You acted quickly, Abdullah?”

“As fast as possible, Sheik. It wasn’t even a half hour before our people hit the streets.”

Hammid steepled his fingers and looked down the table. “You know you made us look like fools in the eyes of the world? Dancing idiots with English signs. They can’t even spell.”

Abdullah’s face collapsed. “Fools, Sheik? It was a great thing we did. I mean…”

“It was a great thing, Abdullah. It made us look like a bunch of great fools, dancing around the streets yelling Death to America, Death to Christians, Death to the Pope, Death, Death, Death. Death to everyone.”

“But Sheik, you said…”

 “While we are conducting scientific investigations of the highest order, showing the world our rational approach, turning the West’s technology back on it, demonstrating we are civilized people… while we are doing all that, you order our people into the streets… to act like asses.”

Abdullah looked around the table for support. Nobody met his eyes and they were slowly backing away. “But, Sheik, you must understand…”

“Shut up. Just shut up.” Hammid drew a large Colt revolver, cocked it, aimed squarely at Abdullah’s head, and said, “Traitor.” The shot was deafening in the confined room and took Abdullah in the jaw. He fell back, choking on his own blood, and Hammid walked over, aimed straight down at his head, and pulled the trigger a second time.

Nobody moved a muscle. Hammid slowly looked at each man in turn. “We do not act independently,” he said softly. “We do not act like some mob of idiots.” His voice rose a bit. “We act on orders, we act in a coordinated manner, inflicting the maximum damage on the enemy.” Now he enunciated each and every word and spat them at the nine living men. “We have no room for ego. None. We act for a cause far greater than any one man here. Is that understood?”

When nobody answered, he shouted the question again. “Is that understood?”

The room filled with a chorus of mumbled, “Yes, Sheik.”

“Good.” He pointed to Abdullah’s body. “Now remove that diseased dog from my sight.”

That went well, thought Hammid, and the Old Man would soon learn of it. At least Abdullah had died before he could reveal Hammid had given him the order to set the rioters loose. It was very close.

 

Dhahran - Thursday, May 7

He had a tentative plan for getting into the villa, but that didn’t mean it would work. Once he got in there, then what? The place was about ten thousand square feet spread over three floors, and he didn’t have a clue where the treaty was kept.

Callahan called Berrera from his apartment on the Aramco camp. “Where can we steal an ATV?”

“A what?”

You know… one of those four-wheel vehicles that can go anywhere. Like a motorcycle with four wheels.”

“Like a dune buggy?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you want to steal one? Why not just go buy one?”

When he returned to camp later that afternoon, he hauled a brand new Honda ATV on an equally new trailer, and it was all probably destroying the transmission on the new Chevy that DuBois had let him use. He had spent about an hour putting the ATV through its paces near an abandoned drill site. The ATV would go anywhere, but the big problem was staying on it while it did.

With the guns, GPS, tactical radios, night vision goggles, and ATV he had everything they needed, everything except the information to make the mission succeed.

 

*     *     *

Eguardo lounged in the back seat on the way down the highway to Hammid’s villa. “So, Callahan, we’re going to jump on that thing we’re towing, drive up to Hammid’s house, look around, wave, pose for snapshots, and leave… all without getting shot?”

 “Yeah. Maybe he’ll invite us in.” Callahan laughed. “Really, we’ll park in a lot for beach users about five miles south, then take the ATV to about a half mile from Hammid’s villa. Then we go in on foot and use the night vision stuff to take a good look.”

“Do we know what kind of guards he has out there?” asked Berrera.

“No,” Callahan answered. “That’s what we find out tonight.”

“I hope someone somewhere is praying for us,” said Eguardo.

When they got to the parking lot, they all clicked their locations into their GPS units so they could find their way back, then they set off down the dark beach on the ATV, finding their way with the crisp green picture the night vision goggles gave.

Callahan drove the ATV into the scrub at the edge of the beach when the GPS showed him about half a mile from the villa. He didn’t have an exact position for the villa, and that was one of the things he would take care of tonight. They all clicked the Point Of Interest button so the GPS could lead them back to the ATV.

After an hour of slowly creeping through the small dunes, they covered the half mile to the villa without finding any sign of roving patrols or surveillance cameras. The security was either very good or very bad. Since they were still alive, Callahan guessed it was very bad.

The land rose to a ridgeline three hundred feet south of the house where they had a good view of the walled villa and the road leading up to it. A flat stretch of hard-packed sand ran from the ridge line to the house, with the only cover a pump house at the halfway point.

“There. On the left.” Eguardo tapped Callahan on the elbow. “Coming around the corner of the wall.”

Callahan focused his goggles and saw a single guard with an AK47 slung over his shoulder kicking stones in front of him as he slowly made his way along the west wall. When the guard turned the corner, Callahan clicked his watch and timed his progress down the south wall. At that pace, he would take ten minutes to kick the stone all the way around.

The wall was forty feet out from the house, and about ten feet high, too high for one man to jump to the top and pull himself over. They’d need two men, a ladder, or a rope. The rectangular house itself had a ground floor terrace, with balconies on the second and third floors. The sliding glass doors Berrera’s man had drawn for them were right where he said they were.

“Four cars and a van in the drive,” said Berrera. “Eight men? Ten?”

“Makes sense. So where are they?” Callahan moved east along the ridge until he could see the east side of the house, with its much larger second floor balcony overlooking the Gulf. Four men were out there. No, three men and one woman. And from the way one man’s hands were roving over her, he doubted she was a Saudi’s wife. They wouldn’t even let their wives be seen.

Callahan clicked the radio headset he wore. “Take a look down here. Three guys and one girl.” The balcony was well-lighted so Callahan snapped several telephoto shots of the four people. Even from a distance, he was sure one was Hammid Al Dossary himself.

“I’m coming,” Eguardo said in his earpiece. “Berrera’s going to stay in position.” When Eguardo slid next to Callahan, he focused his goggles on the balcony. “Whore,” said Eguardo. “Interesting.”

“Think there are more?” he asked Eguardo.

“Probably,” he said. “They usually work places like this in groups. Four or five. She’s Filipino, and she has a Filipino pimp who works for a Saudi somewhere. The other girls would be Filipino, too.” Eguardo clicked his mic and spat some fast Filipino at Berrera.

“You’re lucky, Callahan. I think we might have our inside man now. Or I guess inside woman.”

Berrera told him earlier he had learned the entire staff at the villa was Indian Muslim. That didn’t mean they supported terrorists, Berrera said, but it did mean they didn’t know who they could trust, so they couldn’t approach anyone.

Now the lone guard came walking back around the wall, still kicking stones in front of him, and still watching the stones instead of the surrounding area.

“Look at that wadi.” Eguardo pointed at the gully running north and south on the east side of the house. “That’s how we approach. It’s only thirty feet from the wadi to the corner of those walls.”

“We have to get out of here, Callahan. We have to get back to the car.”

“Why?”

“I bet the pimp is sitting in the van. He’ll take the girls back about 1:00 am. That’s how they usually do it. We need to follow the van, so we have to get the car up here.” Eguardo adjusted his goggles to detect any heat from the van. “I can’t see if he’s in there. I’ll be right back.”

Before Callahan could object, Eguardo took off down the ridgeline to the west. Callahan clicked his mic. “Where you going, Eguardo?”

“Just going to get a better look in that van,” Callahan heard in his earpiece. “That pimp is around here somewhere.”

“He’ll be Ok, Callahan. He moves like a ghost,” said Berrera’s calm voice in the earpiece.

Ten minutes later Eguardo was back. “I was right. He’s sleeping in the front seat of the van. That means the girls don’t stay here. They just bring them in at night. Get as many pictures of that girl as you can. High power telephoto. We need to find her.”

 

*     *     *

When the white van left just after midnight, Callahan let it go a quarter mile before turning on his headlights and following north on the road back to Khobar. He wasn’t sure how fast he could push the Impala with the ATV on the back, but the pimp stayed to the limit.

“They probably live in a dormitory somewhere,” Eguardo said from the backseat, “and this guy will drop them there. Then we locate the girl in the pictures.” He was paging through the digital pictures Callahan had taken. “These are good. We can find her.”

Callahan couldn’t help wondering how Eguardo knew so much about the prostitution business in Saudi Arabia. Another question he should let die.

When the van reached Khobar, it stopped outside a local hospital and the four women got out, all wearing white hospital uniforms. When the van pulled away they went down the street and into a dormitory for foreign female hospital employees, just like they were coming off a normal shift.

“They are nurses or technicians of some kind,” said Eguardo. “That means they are paying someone in the hospital, too. So, there’s the pimp, someone in the hospital, and the Saudi who protects the whole operation.”

Callahan leaned over the front seat. “You think you can find this girl in the picture?” He looked at Berrera, who said nothing.

“I guarantee I can find her,” answered Eguardo.

 

*     *     *

Two days later Callahan was in the Aramco offices of Triad pretending to work when Berrera called on his cell phone. “Eguardo found her, and he found her pimp.”

“Did he make contact with her?”

“Yes,” Berrera was obviously uncomfortable with this.  “Eguardo said she was afraid of her pimp, but now she’s more afraid of Eguardo. So’s her pimp. Callahan, I don’t want to hurt this girl.”

“We won’t hurt her. I tell you what. The only reason she’s working as a whore is to get enough money to get out of here and set herself up at home in the Philippines, right?”

“Yes, that’s the case with all these girls. They can make much more money as prostitutes than they can in their legitimate jobs here. This girl is a lab technician, highly skilled occupation… and she’s making much more at night as a prostitute.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“No, Eguardo is the only contact she has had.”

The Templar Master had told him to do whatever he had to do. He had to keep Berrera focused, and couldn’t let Berrera’s instincts as a priest could get in the way of the mission. “Look, Berrera, she wants money, so let’s give it to her. Give her enough to get out of here forever. She doesn’t want to be here, she doesn’t want to be a whore, she does want money, and she does want to go home. And we need information and help. So, let’s give her everything she wants, as long as she does what we want.”

 “You’re going to pay her?”

“No, Berrera. You’re going to pay her. I’ll make it work, but you make the deal. We give her half now, and half after we’re done.”

“How much will you pay her?”

“Hell, I don’t know. How much do we need to pay her? You know more about the Philippines than I do.”

“Is ten thousand US dollars too much?”

Too little, thought Callahan. Let’s make sure this works. “Make it twenty thousand. We deposit ten thousand now, and another ten thousand when we’re done. But she can only get it by physically showing up at the Philippine bank. Have her get us the name of a relative or friend who can go to the bank and verify the deposit. Get me that name, and a city, and I can have it done in an hour. Then she can call the relative and she’ll know we’re good for it.”

“Ok. I can talk to her this evening.”

“Berrera, I know you don’t like this, but consider this. She’s getting out of the prostitution business and going home. We’re doing a good thing here.”

 

*     *     *

Maria Archuletta had never been in the tall glass and steel building in Manila’s financial district. But this was the address, and this was the bank her parish priest had given her.

She walked through the doors and timidly approached the uniformed guard, showing him the name on the paper the priest had given her. The guard looked doubtful, but spoke to a young man at a desk. The young man looked even more doubtful and asked what her business was. She answered as the priest had instructed. “It’s a private banking matter.”

The young man looked at the name of the bank official again, considered his career, flipped a mental coin and punched the number for the official’s secretary. Maria watched his expression slowly change from smug to confusion to fear.

“Mrs. Archuletta, may I welcome you to our bank, and if you will allow me, I will personally escort you to Mr. Compos’ office.”

When they reached the executive floor, Compos’ secretary ushered her directly into the spacious office overlooking Manila. He showed her every courtesy, displayed account statements, and assured her the bank stood ready to offer any assistance.

“How much, again?” she asked.

“Ten thousand US dollars.”

“And it all belongs to my daughter, Anna?”

“Yes. All she has to do is come see me in person, present proper identification, and we will release the money to her.”

Very strange, she thought as she rode down in the elevator, very strange. The bank president?

As soon as she left, Mr. Compos placed a call to a private bank in Zurich.

 

Khobar, Saudi Arabia - Monday, May 11

Anna Archuletta reached for the cell phone Callahan held out to her. “Just make the call,” he said.

There were tears in her eyes when she returned the phone to Callahan. “And there will be another ten thousand US dollars after I help you?”

“Yes, you can have your mother verify it again. But I want you to understand you cannot get the money unless you personally go to the bank in Manila. That’s how it works.” He looked at Berrera, who seemed much more at ease now.

“Ok,” Anna said, “what do you want me to do?”

Callahan spread out the drawing they received from the workman.

She knew the house well, and told them how almost all the rooms were used. “And this thing you are looking for, the thing that has them all so excited? They call it the treasure. It’s right in here.”  She pointed to a room in the middle of the second floor. “That’s the room they guard, and it’s where they always come to check. It’s locked all the time, and Hammid is always going in there.”

“You have never been in there?” Callahan asked.

“Not when their treasure was there. Nobody cares about it when Hammid is gone. One night, when he was gone, the door was open, and I went in. It’s just a room with a table, and there is a glass… a glass box.” She mimed opening a glass top upward. “It sits on the table, but it was empty.  That’s why I think the guards only check when Hammid has his treasure in there. When he is gone, his treasure is with him.”

“What about this room here?” Callahan pointed to the corner room with the sliding glass doors. “Whose room is that?”

She now blushed deeply, shot a glance at Berrera, and softly said, “Now? It’s nobody’s room. Once… Abdullah the Pig… but I think he’s gone now.”

“Does anyone go there? Any girls?”

“Not anymore.”

Callahan tapped the corner bedroom. “The sliding glass doors here? Are they locked?”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. They will go all around the house sometimes locking all the windows and doors. These doors have a pipe at the bottom so they cannot slide open. To open them you must move the pipe.”

He pointed to the middle room again. “But you are sure this is the room. This is what they call the treasure room?”

“Yes. They don’t think we understand Arabic, but we understand more than they think. Like I said, they call it the treasure. Once, someone called it some kind of paper. I didn’t know the Arabic word. And there’s another guy. Zahid is his name. He’s not like the others. I think he’s a professor or something. He goes in there with books and a magnifying glass.”

“Any other equipment?” asked Callahan.

“Zahid has a whole laboratory here,” she moved the first floor diagram on top and indicated a room. “But whatever work he was doing is finished. Now he just wanders about and reads a lot. But he does go into their treasure room with his books.”

“Do the doors have locks?” asked Eguardo. He moved his finger along the corridor.

“Most have those little locks in the doorknob. You know the little button on the inside with a keyhole on the outside? But the treasure room has…” she spoke in Filipino to Eguardo.

“Deadbolt.” He turned to Callahan. “She says it’s a deadbolt. That’s the only door in the corridor with that kind of lock.”

Callahan cocked his head to the side. “I’m average at lock-picking. I can probably get in, but I’m not sure how long it would take.”

Berrera waved a hand toward Eguardo as if he were introducing the master. Eguardo laughed. “Don’t worry about the lock. I’m sure I can do it in a few minutes.”

“You have the picks you need?”

Eguardo nodded.

That brought up another question Callahan decided not to ask.

Callahan turned to Eguardo and Berrera. “That sure sounds like the room we want. What do you think?”

“I think that’s it,” said Berrera. “It all fits.”

“It looks good to me,” said Eguardo. “And it’s all we got, so what the hell?”