“Razon is a smart man,” I said. “He would have wanted allies. It could be another company, perhaps an Israeli one. Do any of your rivals know about this technology?”
“Not that we know of.”
“Steve,” Ivy said, sitting between us. She put her lipstick away, her hair fixed. She was obviously trying to ignore what I’d seen between her and J.C.
Damn, I thought. I’d assumed the two hated each other. Think about that later. “Yes?” I asked.
“Ask Monica something for me. Did Razon ever approach her company about a project like this? Taking photos to prove Christianity?”
I relayed the question.
“No,” Monica said. “If he had, I’d have told you. It would have led us here faster. He never came to us.”
“That’s an oddity,” Ivy said. “The more we work on this case, the more we find that Razon went to incredible lengths in order to come here, to Jerusalem. Why not use the resource he already had? Azari Laboratories.”
“Maybe he wanted freedom,” I said. “To use his invention as he wished.”
“If that’s the case,” Ivy said, “he wouldn’t have approached a rival company, as you proposed. Doing so would have put him back in the same situation. Prod Monica. She looks like she’s thinking about something.”
“What?” I asked Monica. “You have something to add?”
“Well,” Monica said, “once we knew the camera was working, Razon did ask us about some projects he wanted to attempt. Revealing the truth of the Kennedy assassination, debunking or verifying the Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot video, things like that.”
“And you shot him down,” I guessed.
“I don’t know if you’ve spent much time considering the ramifications of this device, Mister Leeds,” Monica said. “Your questions to me on the plane indicate you’ve at least started to. Well, we have. And we’re terrified.
“This thing will change the world. It’s about more than proving mysteries. It means an end to privacy as we know it. If someone can gain access to any place where you have ever been naked, they can take photos of you in the nude. Imagine the ramifications for the paparazzi.
“Our entire justice system will be upended. No more juries, no more judges, lawyers, or courts. Law enforcement will simply need to go to the scene of the crime and take photos. If you’re suspected, you provide an alibi—and they can prove whether or not you were where you claim.”
She shook her head, looking haunted. “And what of history? National security? Secrets become much harder to keep. States will have to lock down sites where important information was once presented. You won’t be able to write things down. A courier carrying sensitive documents has passed down the street? The next day, you can get into just the right position and take a picture inside the envelope. We tested that. Imagine having such power. Now imagine every person on the planet having it.”
“Dang,” Ivy whispered.
“So no,” Monica said. “No, we wouldn’t have let Mister Razon go and take photos to prove or disprove Christianity. Not yet. Not until we’d done a lot of discussion about the matter. He knew this, I think. It explains why he ran.”
“That didn’t stop you from preparing ways to bait me into entering into a business arrangement with you,” I said. “I suspect if you did it for me, you did it for other important people as well. You’ve been gathering resources to get yourself some strategic allies, haven’t you? Maybe some of the world’s rich and elite? To help you ride this wave, once the technology goes out?”
She drew her lips into a line, eyes straight forward.
“That probably looked self-serving to Razon,” I said. “You won’t help him with bringing the truth to mankind, but you’ll gather bribery material? Even blackmail material.”
“I’m not at liberty to continue this conversation,” Monica said.
Ivy sniffed. “Well, we know why he left. I still don’t think he’d have gone to a rival company, but he would have gone to someone. The Israeli government, maybe? Or—”
Everything went black.
I awoke, dazed. My vision was blurry.
“Explosion,” J.C. said. He crouched beside me. I was . . . I was tied up somewhere. In a chair. Hands bound behind me.
“Stay calm, skinny,” J.C. said. “Calm. They blew the car in front of us. We swerved. Hit a building at the side of the road. Do you remember?”
I barely did. It was vague.
“Monica?” I croaked, looking about.
She was tied to a chair beside me. Kalyani, Ivy, and Tobias were there as well, tied and gagged. Monica’s security men weren’t there.
“I managed to crawl free of the wreckage,” J.C. said. “But I can’t get you out.”
“I know,” I said. It was best not to push J.C. on the fact that he was a hallucination. I’m pretty sure he knew, deep down, exactly what he was. He just didn’t like admitting it.
“Listen,” J.C. said. “This is a bad situation, but you will keep your head, and you will escape alive. Understand, soldier?”
“Yeah.”
“Say it again.”
“Yes,” I said, quiet but intense.
“Good man,” J.C. said. “I’m going to go untie the others.” He moved over, letting my other aspects free.
Monica groaned, shaking her head. “What . . .”
“I think we’ve made a gross miscalculation,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I was surprised at how evenly that came out, considering how terrified I was. I’m an academic at heart—at least, most of my aspects are. I’m not good with violence.
“What do you see?” I asked. This time, my voice quivered.
“Small room,” Ivy said, rubbing her wrists. “No windows. I can hear plumbing and faint sounds of traffic outside. We’re still in the city.”
“Such lovely places you take us, Stephen,” Tobias said, nodding in thanks as J.C. helped him to his feet. Tobias was getting on in years, now.
“That’s Arabic we hear,” Kalyani said. “And I smell spices. Za’atar, saffron, turmeric, sumac . . . We are near a restaurant, maybe?”
“Yes . . .” Tobias said, eyes closed. “Soccer stadium, distant. A passing train. Slowing. Stopping . . . Cars, people talking. A mall?” He snapped his eyes open. “Malha Railway Station. It’s the only station in the city near a soccer stadium. This is a busy area. Screaming might draw help.”
“Or might get us killed,” J.C. said. “Those ropes are tight, skinny. Monica’s are too.”
“What’s going on?” Monica asked. “What happened?”
“The pictures,” Ivy said.
I looked at her.
“Monica and her goons showed off those pictures of Razon, walking around the church,” Ivy said. “They probably asked every person there if they’d seen him. If he was working with someone . . .”
I groaned. Of course. Razon’s allies would have been watching for anyone hunting him. Monica had drawn a big red bull’s-eye on us.
“All right,” I said. “J.C. You’re going to have to get us out of this. What should—”
The door opened.
I immediately turned toward our captors. I didn’t find what I’d expected. Instead of Islamic terrorists of some sort, we were faced by a group of Filipino men in suits.
“Ah . . .” Tobias said.
“Mister Leeds,” said the man in the front, speaking with an accented voice. He flipped through a folder full of papers. “By all accounts, you are a very interesting and very . . . reasonable person. We apologize for your treatment so far, and would like to see you placed in much more comfortable conditions.”
“I sense a deal coming on,” Ivy warned.
“I am called Salic,” the man said. “I represent a certain group with interests that may align with your own. Have you heard of the MNLF, Mister Leeds?”
“The Moro National Liberation Front,” Tobias said. “It is a Filipino revolutionary group seeking to split off and create its own nation-state.”
“I’ve heard of it,” I said.
“Well,” Salic said. “I have a proposal for you. We have the device for which you are searching, but we have run into some difficulties in operating it. How much would it cost us to enlist your aid?”
“One million, US,” I said without missing a beat.
“Traitor!” Monica sputtered.
“You aren’t even paying me, Monica,” I said, amused. “You can’t blame me for taking a better deal.”
Salic smiled. He fully believed I’d sell out Monica. Sometimes it is very useful to have a reputation for being a reclusive, amoral jerk.
The thing is, I’m really only the reclusive part. And maybe, admittedly, the jerk part. When you have that mix, people generally assume you don’t have morals either.
“The MNLF is a paramilitary organization,” Tobias continued. “There hasn’t been much in the way of violence on their part, however, so this is surprising to see. Their fundamental difference with the main Filipino government is over religion.”
“Isn’t it always?” J.C. said with a grunt, inspecting the newcomers for weapons. “This guy is packing,” he said, nodding to the leader. “I think they all are.”
“Indeed,” Tobias said. “Think of the MNLF as the Filipino version of the IRA, or Palestine’s own Hamas. The latter may be a more accurate comparison, as the MNLF is often seen as an Islamic organization. Most of the Philippines is Roman Catholic, but the Bangsamoro region—where the MNLF operates—is predominantly Islamic.”
“Untie him,” Salic said, gesturing toward me.
His men got to work.
“He’s lying about something,” Ivy said.
“Yes,” Tobias said. “I think . . . Yes, he’s not MNLF. He’s perhaps trying to pin this on them. Stephen, the MNLF is very much against endangering civilians. It’s really quite remarkable, if you read about them. They are freedom fighters, but they have a strict code of whom they’ll hurt. They have recently been dedicated to peaceful secession.”
“That must not make them terribly popular with all who would follow them,” I said. “Are there splinter groups?”
“What is that?” Salic asked.
“Nothing,” I said, standing up, rubbing my wrists. “Thank you. I would very much like to see the device.”
“This way, please,” Salic said.
“Bastard,” Monica called after me.
“Language!” Ivy said, pursing her lips. She and my other aspects followed me out, and the guards shut the door on Monica, leaving her alone in the room.
“Yes . . .” Tobias said, walking behind the men who escorted me up the steps. “Stephen, I think this is the Abu Sayyaf. Led by a man named Khadaffy Janjalani, they split from the MNLF because the organization wasn’t willing to go far enough. Janjalani died recently, and the future of the movement is somewhat in doubt, but his goal was to create a purely Islamic state in the region. He considered the killing of anyone opposed to him as an . . . elegant way to achieve his goals.”
