PROLOGUE

Friday, September 22, 1972

The day began with bomb threats against children. Manila schools were closed. After weeks of nerve-jangling rumors of coups and terror attacks, the entire city was on edge. For a country steeped in superstitions, there was no shortage of omens - the distant chorus of mournful dogs, the sudden eruptions of wildly cackling chickens. To the superstitious this was the howl of dire portent.

On this sultry evening, eleven-year-old Luis “Boyet” Mijares was too young to be distracted from play by such tales. Outside his home, he roared about on his mini-motorcycle near his house, enjoying a day off from school and unconcerned what caused the “holiday.” But his elderly neighbors watched over him - and they worried. As sunset crept across the sky over Manila Bay and the city slipped deeper into shadows, the old couple heard the rising noise of wailing animals and called to Boyet. Speaking in an ancient Ilocano dialect of Tagalog, the anxious neighbors urged the boy to go home. They warned: something ominous lurked in this Manila night.

A few miles away at Malacanang Palace, the gracious colonial-era residence of Philippine presidents, Boyet’s father, Primitivo “Tibo” Mijares, heard a different ominous sound — the disapproving voice of The Boss, President Ferdinand Marcos.

“Those people move so sluggishly… !” complained the president’s voice, broadcast loud and clear over an intercom speaker. The Boss wanted to talk with his defense secretary immediately, but time ticked away.

In the next room, Marcos sat fiercely erect behind his desk, his four-inch platform shoes concealed beneath it, his impatience much more obvious. Defense chief Juan Ponce Enrile was slow getting on the line, but it was palace aides like Tibo Mijares suffering for the delay.

Tibo had seen it before. “Sir,” as much of the president’s staff called him, was not one to be kept waiting. Even cabinet members learned not to waste meeting time expressing their own ideas. Such meetings primarily were intended to convey the president’s ideas to the cabinet. Mijares was the proverbial “fly on the wall,” a journalist of sorts, writing for the Marcos-controlled Daily Express.More important, he was the president’s ghostwriter.