Manila Gold

By James O’Callaghan

Set in the historical period WWII yet totally fictional in characters and events. Every generation, it seems, produces head cases like Stalin and Hitler. A lesser known evil character was Malaki Mako. This bad guy claimed to be Muslim but was purely using the mosques, imams, and faith as a vehicle to pursue his evil objectives of global domination. Initially, he intended on securing the Philippine Treasury, Manila Gold, to fund his program.

The protagonist in attempting to elude the FBI finds himself trapped seemingly in a flooded slot canyon. Or is he?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499042559

James O’Callaghan

I joined the navy at the age of seventeen. In three months, I found myself in New Guinea and the Philippines for eighteen months. I was a gunner’s mate 3/c on PT Boat 225, Squadron 17. My story, Manila Gold, begins in 1941, a week after Pearl Harbor and just days before the Japs invaded the Philippines.

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MANILA GOLD

JAMES O’CALLAGHAN

Copyright © 2014 by James O’Callaghan.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014911605

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-4256-6

                Softcover        978-1-4990-4257-3

                eBook             978-1-4990-4255-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/18/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Earth Shaker

Chapter 2 Total Destruction

Chapter 3 Emery L. Cotford II (Early September 1941)

Chapter 4 Japanese Staff Meeting, Tokyo Imperial General Headquarters (December 6, 1941)

Chapter 5 The U.S. High Commissioner’s Office in Manila

Chapter 6 Confusion in Manila (December 1941)

Chapter 7 Romelo’s Date with Destiny (Early March 1942)

Chapter 8 Celina and Roberto Background

Chapter 9 Celina with the Japanese

Chapter 10 Roberto’s Background

Chapter 11 High Commissioner and President Quezon’s Plan

Chapter 12 SS-202 Trout (1942)

Chapter 13 Captain Erxleben and the USS Perch

Chapter 14 Interviewing USS Perch Personnel (March 1942)

Chapter 15 USS Trout and USS Perch, Pearl Harbor (March 3, 1942)

Chapter 16 U.S. Naval Detention Center

Chapter 17 Lieutenant Junior Grade Valenti Advising Client Gino Garbarino

Chapter 18 Dahlin’s Dobermen

Chapter 19 Evening Interrogation of Gino Garbarino

Chapter 20 Waldo Ortega and the High

Chapter 21 USS Detroit—Gold Heist (March 1942)

Chapter 22 Shanahan and Stumpero

Chapter 23 The Hunt for the Hijackers

Chapter 24 J. R. Miller

Chapter 25 Cooperating with the Enemy

Chapter 26 Colin O’Donnell Goes to War (May 1944)

Chapter 27 1944: The Tides of War Are Changing

Chapter 28 Elmer and More of the Treasury (March 1945)

Chapter 29 Elmer Visits the Casino Tent (September 1945)

Chapter 30 Ron 17 Base, PT 225: Final Trip (Late October 1945)

Chapter 31 Shore Patrol Duty

Chapter 32 Special Duty

Chapter 33 Provost Marshal’s Office (Late February 1946)

Chapter 34 February 1946: Manila Police Department Reopens 1942 Murder

Chapter 35 Identifying Manuel Romelo, Four-Finger Floyd

Chapter 36 Roberto Nagleo Murders Celina

Chapter 37 Lost and Found, Hotel Manila

Chapter 38 On the Trail

Chapter 39 Colin and Vincensio

Chapter 40 Quake and Tsunami in Peru (2008)

Chapter 41 Sergeant Mahero Investigates Double Murders

Chapter 42 Lieutenant Kruger Meets with Colin (1942)

Chapter 43 Colin Visits Fred Williams (Early 1946)

Chapter 44 Carolina Gold

Chapter 45 Fred Williams

Chapter 46 Fred Williams’s Home on Leave

Chapter 47 Vlinda’s Demise

Chapter 48 Malaki Mako’s Plan

Chapter 49 The Banking Industry

Chapter 50 Kidnapping and Ransom

Chapter 51 CCC

Chapter 52 The Workings of the High Commissioner’s Office

Chapter 53 Environmental Money Raiser (1965)

Chapter 54 Arms for the Jihad

Chapter 55 Malaki Mako and Roberto and the Big Lie

Chapter 56 More of Malaki Mako’s Plan

Chapter 57 Planning Assault on Radicals

Chapter 58 Mako OKs Hit

Chapter 59 The Specialist

Chapter 60 Young Specialist

Chapter 61 The Assassin Visits Manila

Chapter 62 Finding Nakita

Chapter 63 Strategy Meeting with Captain Ralston’s Group

Chapter 64 Dearborn, Michigan

Chapter 65 Discovery of Terrorist Leader’s Identity

Chapter 66 Father and Son Discussions

Chapter 67 Whitey’s Lucky Day

Chapter 68 Meeting at the Gym

Chapter 69 Moray Reports on Roberto

Chapter 70 Eluding the FBI Attack

Chapter 71 All-Out Attack on Lodge

Chapter 72 Hasty Pursuit

Chapter 73 Khalid Ponders His Fate

Chapter 74 All Hell Breaks Loose

Chapter 75 Water

Ablution:

A cleaning with water

or other liquid,

especially as a religious ritual.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Now that the labor is done, I can admire the work of many,

especially Bob and Joan Nagle. They gave encouragement during a period of self-doubt.

To all those English Majors; Ryan O’Callaghan, Patricia Tapert, Anne Wotzak and Erin Bailey.

Thank You.

CHAPTER 1

Earth Shaker

Khalid pulled the Land Rover up to the gate, letting his young assistant, Modal, jump out with the chain cutters.

OK, Modal, be quick about it. We’ve got lots to do.

It was a holiday weekend, and the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth was deserted. The gate open, Khalid headed for the derrick tower, standing high over everything just as they were told at the briefing.

This is the site of a fifteen-year earthquake experiment by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Geological Society (USGS). The scientists monitor each quake in the fault area. They collect data, studying it to see what may have initiated the release of such great energy. They had drilled a vertical hole 1.5 miles, then off on an angle of fifty degrees for another 1.5 miles. The hole ended just inside the fault zone. This is the site where the seismometers, strain meters, temperature sensors, and other devices were located, providing the scientists with much data.

Khalid said, Well, kid, the borehole is free of any equipment. Apparently, the stuff was removed for the long weekend. OK, Modal, now help me move this heavy suitcase. Man, it must weigh eighty to one hundred pounds, easy. Careful, kid. Remember this is a nuclear bomb. I don’t want to go up like a mushroom cloud just yet. OK, Modal, now let’s open this baby and reinstall it in this borehole.

They had practiced this maneuver many times back at the warehouse with dummy parts getting ready for this day. Khalid carefully laid out the bomb components on the track feeding into the borehole. Two tubelike metal containers needed to be connected to each other as well as various wires. Khalid said, I’m sweating, and you are sweating, kid. That’s OK. It’s all right to be a bit nervous. Just do what you’ve been trained to do for the last three months. It was Khalid’s job to connect the containers, arrange the battery connections, and decode the firing devices.

As an attempt of tension relief, Khalid continued to droll on. Let’s see. We put the plutonium in here, or is it uranium? OK, what container goes in first? Oh hell, it doesn’t matter.

OK, Khalid, you’ve had enough fun at my expense. Let’s just get it done.

With everything connected and ready to send the package on its way to below the fault zone, they sat back and waited for the phone to ring.

The bomb was a plutonium-fueled gun-type atomic weapon created by the Russians during the Cold War. Contained in a suitcase, the Russians had originally intended to distribute the bombs to their operatives in the U.S. in the event of war. After the Soviet Union collapsed, some of the suitcases went missing. In an attempt to pad their retirement, a few Russian generals sold some of the suitcase bombs into the global arms black market. Several were bought by an unknown gang associated with the radicals who were planning an attack on local police stations. General Stephen McKolay, director of a gulag located in snowbound Siberia, was one of these enterprising, ahead-of-the curve wackos. The general could arrange vacation time at a gulag for most anyone—never to be heard from—but this is not why his peers avoided him. Rather, it was the tedious demand, You got a cigarette? It was just a dirty little habit that drove everyone to great distraction.

McKolay’s greatest day was when several Americans, captured in Cambodia, were sent to him to serve out the rest of their lives in the mines of Siberia—their existence denied by the demented Russian prison administration. The general had all of the Americans’ cigarettes confiscated and put into his private larder. The other generals noticed the slight improvement in his social skills for the next few days. The general was completely wacked. He sold his suitcase bomb to the terrorists for two cartons of Chinese cigarettes.

Several university nuclear scientists declared, because of the inclusion of a secret enhancer, that the bombs were of sufficient strength to initiate a fault earthquake—a quake of 9 on the Richter total destruction.

The San Francisco quake of 1906 was a 7.8; the Alaska quake of 1964 was an 8.4, and the Igmil, Turkey, quake was 7.4 in 1999. All this was discussed at a recent meeting of the terrorists’ Council of Ablution.

Malaki Mako and his son, Moray, listened to the discussion, asked a few pertinent questions, and then gave their imprimatur. So be it! It is set. We want the bombs for all twelve locations. Praise be to Allah.

Meanwhile, back at the borehole, Modal said, Big deal. It’s just another bomb story.

Khalid responded, You don’t get it, do you, kid?

What do you mean? Let’s just get on with it. Blow this sucker and look out, virgins, here I come. Man, I can hardly wait to get them. Man, I hope Allah’s not watching me then.

"Kid, you really don’t get it. When this connection is completed and the package settles at the bottom of this rat hole a couple of miles, then that’s it. Kaboom! Allah won’t see you, and you aren’t gonna see any virgins. We both will be floating over Hackensack in sixty million pieces as nuclear fallout by morning. Kid, you don’t even have enough time to call your mother!

"Right now, our job is to see that this bomb goes off when it is supposed to, so get your mind off screwing! We don’t want it to blow before the appointed time.

One last piece of advice, there are no virgins waiting for you. After a few moments, Modal asked, Khalid, if you don’t believe in the faith, then why are you doing this?

"That’s a good question, kid. Hell, I don’t know why. My parents were Muslims. Their parents were Muslims and so on in our family. I bitch and moan and have some doubts, but I just can’t walk away from my religion. I just can’t take that final step. I’m not a full believer. I guess I’m just afraid of the unknown.

"My marriage got screwed up. I lost my wife, my kid—even my home. Divorce is different here. All I have left is my religion.

I just don’t know, kid, but it doesn’t matter now. I’ll do my job, and you’ll do yours. That’s the way it is. So be it.

CHAPTER 2

Total Destruction

Ma-ko (ma’ko): A Powerful Mackerel Shark

It was a cool fall day in 2004 as he gazed over the pine-covered mountainside from his deck cantilevered high above the tranquil valley. Mako was functioning on about three hours’ sleep nightly now. Sleep deprivation made it difficult to concentrate. But whatever, just a few more days, and all the intensive planning during the years will be finished. Selecting the right people, training, and molding them to perfection but unifying the mosques to function as one was the most brilliant achievement so far. Finally, he put it all down in writing in his treatise—the Absolute Ablution. The writings attempted to explain the destiny of this changing global culture. Aside from all the ramblings and repetition, it is the total destruction of the western culture. Civilization, as we know it, will be nonexistent.

The word revolution does not adequately describe what is about to happen globally. It will be geopolitical. Mako mused, "It all culminates with dozens of cataclysmic global eruptions simultaneously. The world has never witnessed such precise yet humongous destruction.

"First, the world’s population must lose their addiction to materialistic living. This is the end of their hedonistic lifestyle. Hollywood and its ilk will be eradicated.

The earth will literally erupt in many key ground faults in the U.S., such as the San Andreas Fault zone. That area alone runs from north central California to the Sea of Cortez, Mexico City, and so on. There will be other massive explosions in places like the British-French Channel Tunnel; the new Charleston, South Carolina, Ravenel Bridge; the Sears Tower; and the high-rises of Chicago, with the gleaming corporate headquarters in New York—all, with their smothering influence upon the world, will crumble like sand castles at the shore, hurling their contents of people and debris upon the population below. Such were the disconnected ramblings of the Big Mako.

Nuclear explosions set off in the major faults will precipitate earthquakes globally. All structures within a thirty-mile radius of each epicenter will experience total destruction. Bridges will collapse as their supports twist and snap, catapulting autos and people like dice in a crapshoot.

Infrastructure will be destroyed. Electric power will be unavailable to all; gas pipes will rupture, turning the ghettos and suburbs into flaming infernos. Civilian control of the chaos will be nonexistent. Military control will be national but sporadic at best as mass desertions occur. Man will be looking out for himself and his own. Everybody will be a potential threat to each other. Total chaos will reign.

Tsunamis, as recently occurred in Indonesia, will be experienced in the areas of the Pacific Rim with greater frequency. Tsunamis are seismic sea waves caused by earthquakes displacing the sea floor. The energy emitted creates water movement at a speed of three hundred to six hundred miles per hour. A quake in deep water will show little effect on the height of a wave, but as it enters shallow water, friction at the bottom increases the wave height. In some situations, a wave will be over a hundred feet high. The dense population of these rim areas will result in the death rate climbing exponentially.

The deep well drilling platforms of the oil industry will provide access to the sea fault zones for our nuclear bombing of selected targets of importance and maximum destruction by producing these tsunamis. Near-total devastation of the population of the rim areas will occur.

Mako fleetingly thought about the massive destruction and deaths but quickly rendered justification simply: "We will be destroying the nations that create the self-indulgent culture infecting much of the world. In so doing, we cleanse the people and make the survivors ready to become members of the Faith of Islam. It’s our duty.

Only our Faith of Islam is prepared to render aid and the possibility to survive. As we have said before, from such cataclysmic destruction, man will evolve to a higher level and will be a follower of the Faith of Islam. The time of Allah is neigh upon us.

Mako’s son, Moray, knew that his father was brilliant, one of the greatest minds in several generations; but now, the early stages of dementia were apparent to his son. It was all Mako’s intelligence and willpower that had driven these ideas through the years with the native skill of Roberto, his longtime friend and assistant, keeping the plan on track. As happens, when an idea’s time has come, there is no stopping it. So it is with Mako’s ideas.

Creating a global operation by one world authority is considered comic-book Superman nonsense. In reality, it is so impractical that each generation’s proponents are labeled crazy, out of sync with the world. We have our Hitlers, Stalins, and a slew of lesser known with today’s new wackos. It is not only the egomaniacs in their selves but all their followers that had not connected with any existing culture or new-era faith.

Mako’s total self-confidence had a solution for most anything, from minute issues of traffic problems to global dictatorship. The latter would label most any proponent certifiably wacko, but there are followers for any plan if it is carefully articulated.

Ostensibly, a devout Islamic believer, Mako, the closet agnostic, saw the raw power of the world’s Muslim population and is in fact using their religious structure. Through the mosque and the clerical system, he concluded, he could subjugate the entire world.

Roberto had himself in mind to replace Mako when the time was ripe, and therein lay the major flaw in Mako’s plan.

For now, Mako’s son, Moray, was the impetus needed to vitalize Mako’s plan globally.

Mako, with mixed feelings, was proud of his son’s ability. Mako knew he had to give up the reins somewhat, but just how much? Mako now realized that he had waited too long, but he had kept trying to improve the plan. It was partly procrastination, a fault not a characteristic in his son.

Finally, as Mako started winding down and in a pensive state, he said to himself, It all began when I was a student at Saint John’s Institution, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in the pre-WWII days …

CHAPTER 3

Emery L. Cotford II (Early September 1941)

It was a time when some countries with militaristic governments overran their borders for various reasons but mainly to obtain the valuable raw materials existing in neighboring countries. Such nations of greed fill our history books. However, a few blatantly aggressive countries driven by the historical claims of racial superiority and led by madmen in most cases threaten peaceful existence in the world. Such countries were Japan and Germany, most notably. Germany, under Hitler, blitzkrieging their way through Europe. Japan, under a military-prone government, prepared their way by first signing a nonaggression pact with Russia. Next, they occupied Indochina with the French permission in July 1941. Any sense of responsibility for the security of these occupied nations was ignored. Harsh control was all that appeared necessary, while all their thinking was relative to their aggressive expansion plans.

These two diplomatic moves by the Japanese reduced any threat from these countries, leaving only the U.S. The threat from the U.S. with their naval force at Pearl Harbor had to be negotiated away or destroyed before Japan could proceed with their plans of conquest. Protracted negotiation was not what Japan had in mind. It was concluded by their leaders that they best make use of the surprise element by a sneak attack. This is what they did. Japan attacked the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. The effects were devastating with great loss of American lives, battleships, and many other ships of the fleet. However, the Japanese failed to find our aircraft carriers that were at sea. This cost them dearly as war now progressed.

With Russia compromising and France sitting on the sidelines and the U.S. no longer an immediate threat, Japan felt free to overrun other countries in its insatiable desire for raw materials and to establish their racial superiority in the East.

This was the Far Eastern situation when Emery L. Cotford II was appointed high commissioner of the U.S. to the Philippine Islands.

Emery II was born in 1903, the only child of Emery and Silvia Cotford. The father, a minor official in the U.S. government, was stationed in the Batangas Consulate’s Office. Silvia, a Filipino by birth, was a teacher of American children located there. Both parents were extremely bright but locked into mundane and programmed day-to-day existence in the tropics.

As Emery said many times during their afternoon gin and tonic break, Silvia, we have had a reasonably comfortable life. We get our pay on time and report daily to our nonfulfilling jobs. This existence has stunted our intellectual growth. We are not what we could have been. Emery was dissatisfied with himself and his lot in life.

It’s too late for us to change now, but I shall not let our son succumb to such a level of mediocrity. Emery II must have the opportunity and the guidance to develop to his maximum.

Although he had addressed this problem before, this time it was different. Emery had made a decision. "It is time for our son to pursue a more demanding education.

"So I have had my secretary research the educational institutions throughout the Oceanic area, attempting to find the very best for our son. What I’ve come up with is Saint John’s Institution in Kuala Lumpur run by the De La Salle Brothers. I have concluded that this is where our son will be educated.

The curriculum of Saint John’s is second to none, including the hallowed halls of any school in London. The discipline at the high school level is excellent without being sadistic by the young religious brothers. The enrollment is multiracial and multicultural. Many business, government, and educational leaders of our world are listed among their alumni. If we want Emery II to reach his full potential, this is where he should get his formal education.

Having said this, Emery II gave his wife the opportunity to comment.

That’s nice was the total output from Silvia’s gin-embalmed brain.

Emery wasn’t really expecting much input; in fact, he wasn’t even listening to her inept words. The once fine mind of Silvia was slowly but surely slipping into dementia.

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia. The population was a mixture of Malay, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, plus some non-Malay indigenous people. Islam is the official state religion, and Muslim Malays consider themselves the indigenous owners of the country.

Saint John’s Institution had two thousand five hundred students including three hundred Catholics and eight hundred Muslims. Most of the other one thousand four hundred were Chinese, Indian, and Pakistanis who are of the Buddhist and Hindu religions.

Meeting with Saint John’s principal, Father Johanna Egan, on loan from the Dominicans House of Studies in Washington DC assured Emery II parents that the school demanded of their students a high level of scholastic achievement and that their purpose was to develop high moral principles in their students. Father Johanna was fond of saying, When they graduate from Saint John’s, they are complete young men prepared to contribute to their faith, country, and fellow man.

Time would prove that Emery II was not to be molded into the typical Saint John’s man. Blessed with a brilliant mind and a photographic memory, he exhibited great learning capacity in all his courses. However, not all his development was going as well.

Numerous meetings were held by the brothers and Father Johanna with Emery II and with his parents attending sometimes. Effort was made to redirect this conflicted individual with unlimited potential. That was the insolvable problem faced by these teachers. Education was their forte, and development of a young man to his full potential for doing well was the aim of the institution. Father Johanna was often to say, We have here in Emery II the raw stock of potentially one of the finest minds in this area that we have the privilege and opportunity to educate. Only one or two such young men appear at our doorstep in any one decade. We must devote our best efforts and prayers that we are successful in this opportunity that God has seen fit to present to us. It is an awesome responsibility, but we must rise to meet the challenge.

Academically, Emery II far exceeded their scholastic goals. He obtained high scores in mathematics, foreign language, science, philosophy, and most any subject that he tackled. However, they were concerned by the lack of evidence of any spiritual base with no signs of humanistic development in young Emery II. The brothers made great and special efforts to convince him of the need for personal responsibility and respect for your fellow being, but they were talking to deaf ears on this subject.

After much discussion, Emery II agreed to enter a retreat house and subject himself to deep meditation and lengthy, intensive prayer. This was run by the Dominican friars located in Quezon City. As preposterous as this solution sounded, Emery II’s parents agreed with the brothers. Emery II did not feel it necessary but filled with curiosity about retreatant’s life went along with the plan.

The retreat house was rather unique in that the inhabitants stayed for a period of prayer several months—more like a monastery. The Benedictine Rule of meditation, communal and manual labor was pursued. It was felt that such a program establishes a healthy balance for the makings of a friar.

Well, Emery II immersed himself into the monastic life—lock stock and barrel. He wished to fully investigate the benefits and faults of such a lifestyle. Hours of reading the Sacred Scripture and many periods of prayer throughout the day were the norm. And then there was work, preferably manual labor.

Emery II elected to work with the chickens and egg production business that helped support their way of life in the monastery. They had twenty-one thousand laying hens to supply the seventeen thousand daily egg retail business of most the shopping centers in the province. Emery II didn’t hold back. He wanted to know what the great appeal of such a solitary life existence had for today’s friar.

Emery II had many discussions with his assigned friar about the monastic life and his own beliefs. The Abbot was alarmed with Emery II. Emery II found little satisfaction or purpose in repeating prayers endlessly. It lacks intellectual benefit in Emery’s thinking.

Emery II, in a conversation with Father Johanna, explained his personal philosophy much to the friar’s chagrin.

"Father Johanna, you want your retreat house to be a place where man can better serve God to be closer to God. I don’t see it that way. To me, it looks like a place to hide away from reality. You believe God made the world with everything that encompasses it. If so, I would think God would want us to participate in using the accumulated knowledge built up through the years that man has existed in order to better know God on a higher plane as our intellect grows, certainly not to seclude ourselves from the real world. I believe that is for the weak