his way.
He looked back to the office building, where a woman was leaving, stepping out into the sidewalk. The clinic nurse. A bulky shopping bag hung from her right hand.
The blue Kia appeared from around the corner and stopped abruptly in front of the building, where the nurse stood on the sidewalk.
Mendonza said, “Ray, it’s going down, this has to be it.”
The doctor, behind the wheel, leaned over and opened the passenger door. The nurse passed the shopping bag into the car, then stepped back empty-handed and closed the door.
The Kia moved away from the curb, fast.
“Ray, on the move,” Mendonza said.
Romeo Mandaligan was approaching the intersection as the Kia, headed in the opposite direction, turned right.
Romeo pointed at the turning sedan and said, “Ray, that’s it?”
“That’s it,” Favor said. The words had barely cleared his throat when the trike shot forward, swinging into the opposite lane. A pair of headlights filled Favor’s vision through the sidecar’s windscreen. Romeo levered the handlebars left and the trike instantly pivoted and darted out of the path of the onrushing traffic, down the uncongested cross street where the Kia had disappeared.
They were about one hundred feet behind the car. Favor looked back and saw another trike swing in off the main street and accelerate behind them. They went three blocks this way, the Kia with the two trikes following, until the Kia turned left without signaling. Romeo continued straight ahead, but the second trike swung in behind the sedan.
Favor knew that that must be Erming Mandaligan picking up the tail, but he couldn’t be sure. Every sidecar in Tacloban seemed identical to the next. But this was an advantage, he thought: the driver of the Kia wouldn’t be able to recognize the two trikes as they swapped positions behind him.
Romeo turned left at the next intersection and accelerated up the street parallel to the Kia. It was a residential neighborhood, with no streetlights. The trike’s headlight punched weakly into a low-hanging pall of smoke from cooking fires. The pavement was broken, and the unsprung third wheel of the sidecar slammed down hard in a long pothole. Favor could feel the shock up through his spine.
Favor, looking left, spotted the Kia as they flew through an intersection. They were now abreast of the car and gaining. One block later, Romeo zipped left and then turned in behind the Kia again as Erming’s trike dropped off.
It was a perfect handoff. Favor knew that the driver would never catch the tail now.
Traffic was picking up again as they drove through a busier part of the city. The Kia slowed as it came up on a truck, and Romeo too backed off, slowing enough to let a car and a jeepney pass. The Kia was still visible, easily within contact.
The road headed south along the waterfront. They were leaving the city. The brake lights blazed on the Kia as it turned left onto a wide two-lane. Favor recognized the road. He had seen it before, a day and a half earlier.
Romeo Mandaligan leaned in close and, over wind and the rapping of the engine, said, “I believe he is going for the airport.”
The call with Mendonza was still open. Mendonza said, “Ray? What’s that?”
Favor said, “Airport, Al. Better haul. I think we’re out of here.”
The package went out by airfreight aboard Philippine Airlines. The doctor brought it into the terminal. Favor didn’t follow him in—he thought that he would be conspicuous in the little place—but Romeo went in to watch, and after the doctor returned empty-handed and drove away, Romeo came back out and reported to Favor that the man had handed the package to an attendant at the PAL counter.
So it was airfreight, and it had to be the evening flight to Manila, the only remaining PAL flight of the day.
Romeo Mandaligan said, “I did good, huh?”
“You sure as hell did,” Favor said.
While Mendonza bought tickets at the counter, Favor went to a nearby window that looked out onto an open shed where several baggage carts were parked. A short conveyor belt ran into the shed from the PAL ticket counter, and two baggage handlers plucked baggage off the belt and loaded it onto the carts. An open bulb hung from the ceiling of the shed, and the cream-colored package with the red tape stood out in the light.
Favor took out his phone and called Arielle.
He explained what they were doing, following a carton with vials of blood. He asked her and Stickney to bring two