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“Does he understand the urgency of the situation?”
“I made that very clear when I was there yesterday. He’s as motivated as we are, but he says that without the original list of the drug’s components, it’s virtually impossible to re-create.”
Locsin picked up the white pill and twirled it between his fingers like a worry bead.
“Why is this so hard to duplicate?”
Tagaan slurped his coffee and shrugged. “I don’t understand the chemistry. Ocampo says he doesn’t know what plant makes up the key ingredient and he can’t produce a replacement for it. It would be like trying to make cocaine without coca leaves or heroin without opium poppies.”
“What about a synthetic substitute?”
“If that was even possible, he said it would take years of research to create.”
Locsin’s uncontrollable rage that emerged on an ever more frequent basis threatened to bubble to the surface, and it took all his will to suppress it.
“We don’t have years,” he growled, popping the tablet in his mouth and washing it down with the coffee. He knew it would take several minutes for the drug to take effect, but a rush of invincibility surged through him. He’d been smart enough to sew an emergency supply of pills into the waistband of his pants, which was why he’d still been able to take his daily dose while in police custody.
When several of his men had been in retreat from police forces through the jungle, they had stumbled upon a cache of twenty thousand pills. The tablets had been stored in a secret underground bunker built by the Japanese in the middle of Negros Island during World War II, but the base must have been abandoned during the American assault. The entire supply of pills had been vacuum-sealed and stored in a steel drum with no papers to explain the contents. A code name was stenciled on the drum: Typhoon.
There were many guesses as to the drug’s purpose. Was it a narcotic? A stimulant? The Japanese were notorious for providing their kamikaze pilots with crystal meth. Or perhaps it was a poison for their soldiers to commit suicide with instead of surrendering. An antidote? An antibiotic? There was no way to tell.
Locsin could have sent the pills for analysis to a scientist sympathetic to their cause, but that would have taken too long. He used a more expedient method: he made one of his government prisoners take the pill.
It didn’t take long to observe the effects on the obese bureaucrat, an Interior Ministry functionary named Stanley Alonzo. Every day, Alonzo’s physical transformation was noticeable. He complained of constant hunger, and each time he was fed, his muscles grew rapidly and he shed fat as if he were exercising ten hours day. Torturing him for information became less fruitful as he fiercely resisted the beatings, seemingly oblivious to the pain being inflicted. Bruises healed in hours instead of days. Then when the drug was withheld, Alonzo’s muscles withered, and torture again became intolerable. His drug doses were restored, and within another week, his metamorphosis was so total and dependent on Typhoon that Locsin thought he could be effectively controlled and become an agent for their side. Alonzo was sent back to his post to spy for the insurgency.
In his research, Locsin discovered that steroids had been developed by the Germans in the lead-up to World War II to treat dysfunctional growth syndromes. The scientists even received the 1939 Nobel Prize for their work. Then, during the war, anabolic steroids were used to help malnourished German soldiers gain muscle mass long before they were distributed to athletes in the Soviet Union and East Germany so they could dominate the Olympics.
But Typhoon did more than improve strength and stamina far beyond anything possible with anabolic steroids. The Japanese had apparently developed a drug that enabled the user to tolerate an inhuman level of pain, rapidly healed wounds normally considered fatal, and allowed users to recover from grievous injuries within days instead of weeks or months. Typhoon was like steroids on steroids. Users weren’t invincible—broken bones and bullet holes didn’t mend themselves in seconds like they did for superheroes in movies—but quick blood clotting and accelerated tissue regeneration meant that almost nothing less than a headshot or a knife to the heart would be lethal. All the user needed was time and food to fuel the repair process.
It didn’t take long for Locsin and his revolutionary comrades to see the profound benefits of Typhoon, so they started taking the drug themselves. They’d enjoyed the effects for the past six months, and his victories over the Filipino government had grown exponentially. Now he had the most fearsome soldiers in the world.
The problem was that their supply was swiftly dwindling. Within two months, it would be exhausted.
“I’m going to the lab tomorrow,” he said to Tagaan. “I want Ocampo to explain to my face why he can’t figure out the type of plant we need to find.” He had a project under way to get more Typhoon, but Ocampo and the lab were his backup.
“Yes, comrade. I’ll prepare your helicopter.” Tagaan nodded at the aluminum briefcase holding the eagle finial from the Gardner Museum. “The Manet we lost in Thailand has not surfaced yet. What should we do about the other artwork?”
Locsin felt his fury building anew at the setback, but he tamped it down. He’d been counting on Udom to be his conduit to Southeast Asia for Typhoon, but Tagaan had wiped out his men after the deal went sour. Not only would he have to build a new network in Thailand, he’d have to delay using the paintings as collateral. For now, they would have to go back to transporting money the old-fashioned way, in five-hundred-euro notes and hundred-dollar bills.
“We’ll keep the rest of the paintings for the future,” Locsin said. “Once production ramps up, we’ll be dealing in huge sums of money, and we’ll need them for our transactions. Any word about Beth Anders?” She was the only loose thread tying his men to the paintings.
Tagaan shook his head. “She disappeared, along with her companion. Our informant at Interpol says they haven’t contacted the authorities.” The spy within Interpol was another beneficiary of Typhoon.
“Did you find out who the other woman is?” Locsin asked.
“Our contact is working on that, but he hasn’t been able to identify her.”
“If you find them, try to get the painting back, although that’s not our highest priority.”
Tagaan nodded, but the white knuckles on his fist showed that he was on the brink of crushing his mug at the thought of his failure, another effect of the Typhoon. Like testosterone, it amplified aggressiveness in users.
“I will kill them both,” Tagaan said. Locsin didn’t share his desire to avenge being embarrassed for letting the two women escape. Their deaths were simply necessities.
Finally sated, Locsin left the empty plates and exited his quarters with Tagaan. They emerged into the center of a soaring cavern fifty stories high. It was one of the largest caves in the world but remained unknown to the outside world. Like the massive caverns discovered in Vietnam only a few years ago, this cave system was hidden in the jungle, and only a select group of his comrades knew the location. All others brought to it were blindfolded before making the journey.
Men carrying out their duties shuttled across the main square centrally located among the buildings that had been constructed to house the soldiers and their equipment. Power was provided by large diesel generators lowered through a massive sinkhole that allowed sunlight to illuminate the interior. It also made it possible for the insurgency’s helicopters to descend directly into the cavern. The only other access point was a truck-sized opening in the hillside where the original discovery of the cave had been made by a loyal communist. Now it was well concealed.
As he and Tagaan made their way toward the armory, Locsin stopped in the middle of the square where a huge stalagmite had formed. Steel rings had been drilled into the limestone, and a limp man was s
