Jack Wilder - The Missionary

And the streets of urban Manila were anything but safe, even under the best of circumstances.

It took over two hours for them to find their way to a major road, where they happened upon a taxi disgorging a young couple. Stone pushed Wren into a hustle, hobbling after her, putting more weight on his leg than was really advisable. Wren slid across the ripped upholstery, holding on to Stone’s hand as he clutched the roof of the car and lowered himself in.

The cabbie turned his head slightly, the international unspoken gesture meaning “where to?”

“The US Embassy, please,” Stone said.

“No, no,” the cabby said. “I don’ go dat par. Only Pasay City. Tapt Abenue? LRT EDSA? Go nort’, get dere easy-easy.”

Stone had to work through the scruffy, gray-bearded old man’s thick accent. Tapt? Taft, Taft Avenue. A pretty major thoroughfare in the Pasay City area, and one that would take them, as the man had said, pretty close to the embassy. “That’s fine,” Stone said. “Take us to the station, then.”

“Okay-okay. Comin’ up, quick. Not par.” He slewed the wheel to the right and into traffic, cutting off a rumbling old half-ton truck.

Wren clutched Stone’s hand with panicked strength as the cabby swung the car through traffic, stopping with inches to spare between their car and the one ahead of them, jamming the accelerator so hard the car jolted forward, slamming them both into the seat. After a few minutes of this, the traffic congealed to a standstill, and their forward progress was halted. A raised roadway or train platform ran between the north and south traffic, and through the cracked-open windows Stone could hear the incessant honks of cars, the squeal of brakes and the rumble of diesel engines, motorcycles buzzing, voices raised above the din, a traffic policeman’s whistle shrilling. He found his eyes growing heavy, despite the throbbing in his leg and the constant ache in his side.

Stone rolled down the window farther and sucked in deep breath of the humid air, hot already despite the early morning hour. Beside him, Wren rubbed her eyes.

“I can’t keep going much longer,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been awake and running for a week straight. I don’t even know what day it is, or the last time I ate something. I’m dizzy, and shaky.”

Stone fought a yawn and pulled her shoulder against his side, wrapping his arm around her. “I know, baby. I know. Me too. We’re almost there. A train ride, and we’re there. Stay with me, okay?”

She nodded, jerking as the cabby rocketed the car forward, slipping between two buses and a jeepney to cut through to the far right lane. “I’m with you.” She blinked hard, then sat up, shaking her head as if to shake away sleepiness. “Will anyone else come after us?”

Stone could only shrug.

A few more minutes of start-stop-start-stop, and the cabby jerked the wheel to bring them to the curb. “Out here, station across street.”

Stone dug the correct amount in Pesos out of his pocket, along with a tip, and then shoved the door open and hopped away from the car, balanced on one foot. He extended a hand to help Wren out.

MRT Taft was a madhouse. Even MRT Shaw in all its insanity couldn’t compete with the sheer crush of humanity flooding into and out of the Taft transit station. People flowed in every direction, holding briefcases over their heads, lugging babies on their backs, bags of groceries in their hands, moving in ones and twos and larger groups. A voice squawked in distorted Filipino over the PA, then again in what sounded like barely intelligible English, announcing arrivals and warnings to stay away from the tracks. A set of stairs led up to the platform, and a sluggish knot of people were traffic-jammed around this stairway, arrivals and departures mixing until there was simply no way to move, except with the mass of bodies.

Stone felt his stomach drop at the sight of what he had to navigate, with a reopened bullet hole in his side and another fresh one in his thigh, a gash on his head and a mouth that hadn’t tasted water in hours and an empty stomach. He’d be elbowed, his leg bumped and kicked, and it would take forever to get into the station.

“Let’s get this over with,” he sighed, adjusting his grip on Wren’s shoulders, forcing himself to use his injured leg as much possible to save the strength in his good one.

Together they entered the press of travelers waiting to ascend to the elevated train station. Within minutes, Stone had been elbowed or bumped so many times he was sure his wounds would be bleeding again, but there was nothing he could do, except deal with it and hope.

Getting up the stairs was hell. He had to use his wounded leg to push up, and nearly screamed with the pain of the effort at each step. Behind him, people were shouting their frustration at his torturous progress. Wren set her shoulder under his armpit and helped him lift up to each step, groaning and using every ounce of strength she had.

It took them nearly ten minutes to ascend the steps. They found a pillar and Stone slumped down to his ass, heedless of the stares he drew. He spotted a vending machine across the station, and pointed to it, handing Wren the last of his Philippines Pesos. “Get us some water, huh?”

She returned after a moment with two liter-bottles of water, and a panicked expression. “I think there’s someone here looking for us. I think I recognized him from the first place Cervantes held me. He was looking around like he was waiting for someone.”

Stone uncapped the water and drew slow, short sips, swishing the icy liquid to get rid of the cotton mouth. “Shit. I don’t have a gun anymore, either. I lost mine in the fight with Cervantes, and never replaced it.”

Wren drank her own water in long gulps, then paused. “What do we do?”

Stone shrugged. “Get on the train. Hope he doesn’t see us.”

“What if he does?”

Stone gathered his good leg beneath him and held on to Wren’s outstretched hand, climbed laboriously to his feet. “I’ll deal with that if we come to it.”

He realized as he spoke that he still had the knife in his pocket. He withdrew it and held it in his palm. Stone was ready to be done with violence. He wanted to be home, to lay in his bed and watch ESPN. Work on his Monte Carlo. Take Wren out for ice cream, find an empty meadow in the countryside and make slow love to her on a blanket beneath the stars.

He stuffed the water bottle in the cargo pocket of his shorts and held on to Wren as they moved toward the northbound train rails. Stone spotted the man Wren had seen. He was thick and brawny, but on the short side, with bare, tattooed arms and low-hanging shorts. He was turning in slow circles, scanning the crowd like a man looking for someone in particular. He let the crowd slurry around him while he stood on his toes and consulted a cell phone every once in awhile. Stone halted behind a pillar, hiding from view in a place where they could still wait for the train to show up.

Wren buried her head against his chest and breathed in, breathed out, fighting panic.

A deafening roar and the shrill squealing of grinding brakes announced the northbound train’s arriving from the Baclaran end of the line. The announcer squawked, and Stone found it easier to translate the Filipino than to understand the garbled, accented English: “ Pahilaga sa Monumento…susunod na hinto, Libertad… ” Northbound to Monumento…next stop, Libertad. “ Iwasan ang pagtayo malapit sa pinto… ” Stand clear of the doors…

The blue, white, and red train ground to a stop, and the knotted mass of people waiting to board shifted forward. Stone hobbled forward as fast as he could, letting the crowd guide him while he kept an eye on the man looking for them. Wren was hidden in the crowd, blending as well as she could considering her skimpy garb. Stone, however, towered head and shoulders above most of the crowd, and his face, neck and shoulders were covered in blood. He stood out like he was wearing a flashing neon sign.