"How did you meet Colgan?"

"That's a long story."

"We have time."

"Not now, Mr. Belasko. Maybe some other time."

The road was unusual. For two hours they traveled under the hammering sun, and Bolan saw not a single sign of its construction. It was as if a laser had cut through the forest, incinerating everything in its path and fusing the surface of the road to a smooth, melded contour, running off on either side into a shallow ditch.

Here and there, smaller roads, less precise and not nearly as well maintained, wound off between two hills or stabbed suddenly off among the trees. It was primeval forest face-to-face with man's will to subdue the planet. It seemed to be a stalemate. The road itself seemed free from natural incursion, but twenty feet on either side, jungle as faceless and ancient as any on earth marched off to the mountains.

It was like traveling in a time machine, Bolan thought. He wouldn't have been surprised to round a bend in the road and come face-to-face with a dinosaur.

And the thought brought him back to Thomas Colgan another kind of dinosaur.

He was a vestige of the nineteenth century. Maybe he had mastered modern medical science, but his attitude was a hundred years old. What puzzled Bolan was why Marisa didn't see it that way.

Her country was simmering on a low boil, had been for forty years, and yet she seemed not to understand that Colgan was not a solution any more than Marcos had been or Charles Harding threatened to be.

Most likely she was blinded by misplaced gratitude, he thought, unable to see him for what he was because she so much wanted him to be a savior. The road began to slide downhill, now, and Bolan looked back at the gentle rise behind him. As they descended more and more sharply, the forest grew deeper and the trees grew taller. They were heading into the very bowels of Luzon. This was NPA country at its most pristine, a place where the Philippine Army was just a rumor, where civilisation consisted of this single road and, more than likely, an arsenal of smuggled weapons.

Far ahead, as the road bottomed out, Bolan saw a flutter of white. He leaned forward to get a better look. As they approached, he recognised it as a white cloth on a stake driven into the ground just off the side of the road. Without having to ask Marisa, he realized it was a sign that had some connection to their journey.

Carlos pulled over about fifty yards before the stake. He climbed down and left the engine running. Colgan stayed in the jeep.

Bolan's jeep stopped in the middle of the road, the truck and the third jeep right behind. Bolan watched as Carlos walked slowly toward the flag. The young man hefted his rifle nervously, and his head swiveled constantly from the flag to the trees on either side of the road and back again.

"Maybe I should go with him," Bolan said.

"No! You stay where you are," Marisa snapped. "You're not just a visitor here, you're an intruder."

"And your husband isn't?"

"He was invited."

She said no more. Bolan climbed down to stretch his legs. His spine ached from the jarring of the jeep's tight suspension. It was hard to pin down, but something bothered him about the whole operation. It seemed curiously theatrical, like everything else about Thomas Colgan. But if it was just a dramatic performance, who was the audience for which it was intended, he wondered. Surely Colgan wasn't going to such a lot of effort for his benefit.

And that, of course, he suddenly realized, was the key. Colgan was doing it for himself.

It was a play in which Colgan was the star and the sole audience. Colgan had constructed an elaborate image, was using the whole world as his stage, and was prepared to give himself rave reviews. It didn't matter what anyone else thought, and it didn't matter whether anyone else even saw the performance.

Colgan wanted to please himself, and he had to feed his enormous and eccentric ego.

Bolan knew that such an ego was voracious.

Soon even so elaborate a charade as this would not be sufficient. More and more would be necessary.

Colgan had bought into the self-constructed myth so totally that he wouldn't be able to see it even if it were pointed out to him. That was why he lost his patience with Bolan, and why he kept everyone, even Marisa, at arm's length.

Let somebody close, and you have to acknowledge their existence. You have to interact, and once that happens, you are forced to realize that the world holds a hell of a lot more than just yourself. For a man like Thomas Colgan, the Filipino people were not people at all. They were props. Their diseases and injuries were part of the script, and they were what enabled him to shine so brightly.

And that's as far as Colgan cared to see. It was as if he lived inside a plastic bubble. People on the outside could see through it, see him gliding on angelic feet, ministering to the sick and infirm. But when he looked back, all he saw was his own reflection on the inside of that bubble. No matter which way he turned, it was his own face he saw. And he liked what he saw too much to ever want to look at anything else.

Carlos had reached the flag and stood with his back to the convoy. Bolan saw him turn sharply to the left, then raise a hand in greeting. A moment later two men in fatigues materialized against the dark green of the jungle. Carlos stepped toward them. One of the men hung back, and the other waded through waist-high grass. He said something to Carlos, who turned and waved, then together they started walking back toward the jeep, accompanied by one man.

Carlos waited for his companion to climb into the jeep, then jumped behind the wheel. He released the emergency brake, and the jeep bumped forward in first gear. As the small convoy rolled slowly ahead, Bolan watched Colgan, who had said nothing to the man and had barely even looked at him.

Instead he sat with his hands in his lap, staring straight ahead.

When Carlos reached the flag, the second guide waved him on, running through the tall grass for about fifty yards. He turned left, heading toward the trees, and pulled aside a net interlaced with green fronds. A small lane appeared in the forest wall, and Carlos wrestled the jeep through the shallow ditch and into the tall grass. Bugs swarmed up out of the thick clumps and buzzed around them as they bounced over the uneven ground and into the lane.

After the third jeep had entered the forest, the guide replaced the netting and eased through a narrow gap in the trees. He climbed into Bolan's jeep without saying anything. Carlos jolted ahead now, and they made their way slowly forward. The big truck, its canvas cover slapped incessantly by branches, groaned and squeaked as its chassis twisted back and forth.

Bolan looked at the new passenger, who kept his eyes forward and made no attempt to communicate with the rest of them. The lane snaked its way, tall grass nearly shrouding the hint of ruts beneath. The lane had been cut some time ago, and many of the stumps, cut off just above the soil, had already begun to sprout new shoots, which whipped at the undercarriage of the jeep, slapping against the gas tank and filling the narrow gap with a hollow drumming sound.

The lead jeep braked, its taillights flashing and smearing a wash of artificial color over the shiny green leaves. Carlos leaned forward and the engine died. Bolan's driver turned off his own engine.

Behind them the truck continued to rumble.

"We're there," Marisa stated.

"Looks like," Bolan said.

"Watch Thomas. You'll see what I mean."

"He's still sitting in his jeep. Somebody's coming to talk to him, I guess."

Bolan waited until a small man in fatigues and a headband, like an aged version of the one who had climbed into their own jeep, halted beside Colgan. The doctor turned his head and leaned down to listen to the new arrival. Bolan was reminded of scenes of the Pope among the faithful.