a disposable cigarette lighter that he carried in one hand, and lit a paper fuse that extended from the black paper.
Stickney threw the packet over the wall. He walked briskly along the sidewalk, lit another black package, and threw that one over the wall too.
The sirens were louder now in the Mitsubishi. Mendonza pulled out from the parking space, and he drove across Amorsolo Street, parking on the sidewalk beside Impierno.
The time was now ten o’clock.
In Impierno, in the air-conditioning vent of the Ultimate VIP Safari Suite, the device that Favor had planted came to life at its programmed time. It sparked and began to emit clouds of gray smoke through the holes that had been drilled in the PVC pipe. At first the smoke was thin, curling out of the perforations, but within a few seconds it blew out thick and heavy. This was the low point of the main cooling duct—Favor had looked for it when he scouted the building—and the airflow carried it up and into the main room of the Impierno stage.
Out on the sidewalk along Amorsolo, Stickney lit one more black brick and tossed it over the concrete wall. Then he crossed the sidewalk, looking for an opening in traffic, and he ran cross the street to where the Hyundai was parked.
As he started the car, Stickney spotted a white man emerging from the side gate, onto the walkway between the villa and the Impierno building. Stickney slammed the door of the Hyundai and pulled out into Amorsolo, disappearing up the street.
A ripping explosion erupted at that moment on the grounds of the villa, a rolling, continuous series of detonations inside the wall.
The noise came from the first of the three bricks that Stickney had lit and tossed over the wall. The bricks were five-hundred-count packages of ladyfinger firecrackers, fitted with a forty-five-second delay fuse. Even before the first one had finished, the second one ignited and began to explode.
In Impierno, smoke billowed from vents into the main showroom and the private rooms at the back. It was faint at first, and few noticed it. What hit most people then was the smell. It was the stench of rotten eggs, hydrogen sulfide. It immediately permeated the rooms, followed by the smoke, causing patrons and employees to panic.
Three fire companies arrived: two pumper trucks and a hook and ladder. They met the crowds that came streaming out the front door and the side emergency door.
Winston Stickney, having made a loop of three blocks, pulled onto Amorsolo Street again and back into the parking spot that he had left less than a minute earlier. From there he had a view of the walkway and the door at the side of the building, the Optimo entrance.
He said, “Got your back.”
He heard Favor’s response in the Bluetooth earpiece: “Coming out.”
Favor and Mendonza stepped out of the Mitsubishi. They were dressed, head to foot, in firefighters’ turnout gear: helmet and balaclava and jacket and pants and bunker boots.
It was the gear from the canvas sacks, Eddie Santos’s second delivery.
Each wore a breathing mask to cover their faces. Favor carried a fire ax. Mendonza carried a firefighter’s wooden pike pole, with a gaff hook at one end, and a large crowbar. They walked along the sidewalk, crowded now with firefighters and customers and employees of Impierno, including several squealing, near-naked young women.
Inside the villa grounds, the third brick of firecrackers began to bang and snap.
Favor and Mendonza made their way through the crowds, around the corner and down the walkway, up to the door in the side of the building. With a single swing of the ax, Favor knocked off the doorknob. Mendonza poked the damaged door with the end of the crowbar. He pried, giving it his weight, and the door popped open.
They went up the stairs, two at a time. At the top, Mendonza stopped and took out another of Stickney’s smoke bombs from inside his turnout coat. It needed no timer; he ignited it with a nine-volt battery, and set it on the top step.
He took up position at the top of the stairs, holding the pike pole ready for use.
Favor stood before the thick glass door at the landing, the entry to the offices. He swung the ax, and the glass exploded. He cleared the remaining large shards with a few swipes of the ax, and he stepped inside.
Just before ten p.m., the security staff at the villa was down to two Filipino guards, one at the