“That gets in at, what, around nine?”

“Something like that.”

“Listen. Don’t worry. You’re going to be all right.”

He had meant this to be reassuring, but I felt my adrenaline surge, a pulse thrumming in my ears.

“I have a plan. All you have to do is look for Top Gun.”

“Okay. I’ll text when I’m getting close.”

“Don’t text me anymore. Radio silence after this, Ting. Understand?”

“Okay.”

“You get in to the bus terminal. You look for Top Gun. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Don’t worry. Bye.”

It was only after I’d let him go that I realized that I hadn’t asked after Inchoy or Laird or even Gumboc, who must have been Inchoy’s target. I hadn’t asked why it had taken him so long to call. And I hadn’t asked him what the plan was beyond my finding Top Gun.

The bus pulled in at San Fernando, a break in the journey, as the restroom on the bus was out of order. In the terminal, a television was set high in the crook of the ceiling blasting a news broadcast, but if the president had indeed been assassinated, it had yet to be released to the public. The story was about the murder of a Cebuana teenager who had been brutally killed, her body mutilated, organs cut out and the skin stripped from her face. The suspects, a pair of brothers, were thought by the locals to be in a cult, to have murdered another in a similar way. They were also thought to be cannibals, and funds had been raised among the locals as a reward for their capture. But Gumboc was convinced that it was drugs. He used the bizarre killings to again push his strategy for rendering the country safe. He said he would kill any drug users and anyone who sold drugs. He said plainly, “I will kill you.” And then he followed with a brief explanation of how martial law was making the country safer. I wondered when Gumboc had been recorded making this statement, probably several days ago, right after the murder, although it was claiming to be a live feed. Maybe Gumboc was in Manila. I wondered how long the helicopter took to get to Manila from Baguio. I bought an orange soda from a boy, who poured the contents of the bottle into a plastic bag, expertly rubber-banding a straw in place while sealing the contents, and handed it to me. It was dinnertime, but I was not hungry.