The Ill Wind Contract [Joe Gall 10]

by Philip Atlee

  "What in the name of Christ is keeping them?" I exploded, and Hatta pointed.

  Suharto's troops were pouring out of KOSTRAD headquarters on the double, in columns of fours. They came silently, moving toward the communications building, and their path would lead them directly by the 530th. The officers held their side arms ready, and the ranks carried leveled carbines. I never saw troops move so fast and quietly.

  When they were only a hundred yards away, the officers of the 530th began to howl different orders, and without any hesitation the men of the rebel unit dropped to a kneeling position and leveled their rifles. More acid spilled into my gut, because they had executed the defensive maneuver with parade-ground precision.

  The KOSTRAD troops came doubling on. showing no sign that they had even noticed the weapons aimed against them. When they were only a few yards from the kneeling rows of rebels, the 530th officers dropped their swords in unison and shouted, "Fire!"

  But nobody fired. The defenders were still kneeling, and their rifles were still leveled, but they would not fire. The KOSTRAD troops went doubling past them into the communications building, and the rebel officers went raging up and down before their stricken men.

  Colonel Hatta and I looked at each other and. in unison, expelled our breaths. We had been holding them as marksmen do. before squeezing off the shot.

  "I did not think it would work," said Hatta wonderingly, almost to himself. "Here it was only a small thing, but it could change warfare everywhere."

  Suddenly he snapped to attention and saluted. General Suharto and his staff officers went striding by us and into the communications building. Hatta and I followed them up the stairway to the main radio studio and stood in the hallway watching through the glass wall.

  The engineer put the national anthem on the turntable, holding the tiny phone in one ear, and when the music was fading out. he pointed to General Suharto and nodded. Suharto began to speak into the microphone. earnestly and quietly, fatigue blurring his voice.

  While the general was addressing the nation Colonel Hatta and I went downstairs and out the back door.

  ***

  Just before I fell asleep on a cot in the pans depot, I regretted the necessary killing involved in taking the communications building. But, then, I always feel bad about the necessary killing.

  Ten hours later Colonel Hatta shook me awake and said General Suharto was grateful for my help but that it would be better for everybody if I got out of Indonesia as swiftly as possible.

  I was accustomed to that, too. Hatta worked around the fringes of it a little, saying that reinforcements of loyal government troops were arriving in Djakarta; that the situation was stabilized, and that a widespread reaction against the abortive pro-Communist coup was beginning.

  I smiled at him without much humor. "You mean, Abdul, that the PKI and all other Communist groups are going to get their throats cut?"

  "Yes," he said. "That's what I mean. And as a Western mercenary who is known to have been around Suharto's headquarters, you are very likely to get killed."

  "But I thought our side won?"

  "Nobody won," said Hatta. "Nobody ever does when brothers kill each other."

  "Okay." I flopped back on the hard bed. "Do me a favor. Tell Suharto I need a plane to Semarang. And that I want Katja Arnkloo and Harvard Frank to be on it…"

  I hesitated, looking at the barracks' ceiling. I honestly did not remember Harvard Frank's square handle. I had been using the Frank Merriwell straight-arrow term so long I had forgotten it.

  "I'm: going now to arrange for the plane," said Hatta.

  TWENTY

  IN AN HOUR THE ARMORED CAR WAS BACK inside the walled compound of the U.S. Embassy. Katja and Harvard Frank were waiting beside their baggage, and when it had been loaded, the car set out for Kemayoren Airport. Twilight was swirling down over the battered Indonesian capital; it was stifling hot inside the armor-plated car.

  As usual Harvard Frank was ebullient. He clapped me on the back and burbled that he understood I had contributed the "star turn" in retaking the communications building.

  "No question about it," I admitted. "I was braver than John Wayne, incredible feats. But Colonel Hatta, here, was the fellow who really held the operation together." I stared at the gutted buildings along our route, thinking that it was true. I remembered the snick of Hatta's combat knife and the way he deftly wiped it clean on the skirts of his battle jacket. How he had never put a foot wrong…

  The colonel smiled slightly, patrician lips quirking in the dark face. To Katja he said, "General Suharto asked me to convey his thanks for your help. It was invaluable, he said."

  The little girl nodded bleakly. She was still wearing the dark coveralls and jump boots, and her bright hair was covered by a black silk scarf. "The best news," she said, handing Hatta a folded sheet of newsprint, "is that this stinking Communist newspaper, Harian Rakjat, won't be able to get out today's issue."

  I was sitting in the middle of the front seat, between Hatta and the driver. When the colonel unfolded the paper, I saw that it was a hastily pulled proof of the Harian Rakjat's front page.

  From the back seat Katja crowed. "It was all set in type and ready for today's run when General Suharto came on the air."

  At the bottom of the smudged proof was a crude cartoon, showing a huge fist smashing into the face of an Indonesian general. The general portrayed was gross and slack-jawed, and falling from his pockets was a flood of U.S. currency. Instead of epaulettes, he had dollar signs, and his cap bore the letters "C.I.A."

  A smaller cartoon showed two generals, wearing the badges of the "Council of Generals," being impaled on sharp stakes and bayonets. And boxed in the center of the page proof was a six-column editorial.

  Colonel Hatta scanned the paper swiftly and whistled.

  "Read me the editorial," I said. He nodded, and in his clipped British accent, read it off:

  It has happened that on the thirtieth of September measures were taken to safeguard President Sukarno and the Republic of Indonesia from a coup by the so-called Council of Generals. According to what has been announced by Lieutenant Colonel Untung of a Tjakrabirawa battalion, action taken to preserve President Sukarno and the Republic from the Council of Generals is patriotic and revolutionary.

  Whatever the justification that may have been used by the Council of Generals in its attempt, the staging of a coup is a condemnable and counterrevolutionary act.

  We, the people, fully comprehend what Lieutenant Colonel Untung has asserted in carrying out his patriotic movement.

  But whatever the case may be, this is an internal army affair. On the other hand, we, the people, who are conscious of the policies and duties of the revolution, are convinced of the correctness of the action taken by the September Thirtieth Movement to preserve the revolution and the people.

  The sympathy and support of the people is surely on the side of the September Thirtieth Movement. We call on the people to intensify their vigilance and be prepared to confront all eventualities!

  I nodded. "Read it again," I requested.

  Hatta read the editorial another time.

  "Now turn the car around," I said.

  Hatta was astonished. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Done countless times, with impunity," I admitted. "Just the same, turn this, frigging car around and head it toward the office of Harian Rakjat."

  Hatta was puzzled, but he shrugged and ordered the driver to go to the office of the Communist newspaper. Turning, I motioned for Harvard Frank to hand me the metal-cased transceiver in the back seat. He looked puzzled, too, but handed it to me. I gave the instrument to Hatta and told him to get on the air to KOSTRAD headquarters, with an emergency call for General Suharto. No one else. When he had Suharto on, he was to explain about the blistering editorial and read it to him.

  He was also to describe the two scurrilous cartoons on the front-page proof. After Suharto had been thus advised, Hatta was to hand me the transceiver.


  Hatta was still bewildered, but he did it. Getting Suharto on took several minutes; then he read the editorial, explained the cartoons, and handed me the transceiver.

  "General," I said slowly, to be sure he understood me, "this issue of Harian Rakjat must come out. Its effect, for you, will be the same as ten divisions of soldiers. It is absolutely vital to your cause that this issue of the opposition paper has the largest pressrun and widest distribution in its history."

  "Why, Mr. Gall?" he asked.

  "Because, sir, the six generals who were so brutally killed and mutilated are the pantheon in Indonesia's fight for freedom. When that news gets abroad, together with this call to further atrocity, the people in the kampongs and cities will both react in vengeful fury."

  The transceiver was quiet for a few seconds, but the carrier wave hummed. "What is a pantheon, Mr. Gall?" asked General Suharto. "I am not expert in English; I do not know the word."

  "It is, sir, a place where national heroes are enshrined."

  "I see." His voice faded as he turned to speak to someone near him. His low voice came back to me. "What is it you suggest we do?"

  "Send troops to seize the offices of the paper. If necessary, have them take it by frontal assault. Get as many rolls of raw newsprint as you can from the other Djakarta papers and send it to the Harian Rakjat offices. We are going there now and with Colonel Hatta's help we will put out as many copies as we have paper for."

  "I will give the orders immediately," said General Suharto. "I would not have thought of it myself, and I repeat that we are deeply in your debt." He clicked off the air.

  Harvard Frank leaned forward and spoke urgently. "My God, old man! The cartoons have the agency's initials all over them. We'll be the whipping boy of every foreign office in the world."

  I lost my temper. It is something I don't do often. Turning to stare at him, I growled, "Shut up your goddamned Boy-Scout, Ivy-League mouth! If the agency has done wrong, it will be damned anyway. And worse by word of mouth than honest admission. You've been with me all the way. Have we done wrong in this country? Do you know of other malicious agency machinations to subvert the freedom of this country?"

  "No," he said, leaning back.

  "Then quit being a bad imitation of a nineteenth-century conservative. Be your own delightful self, a hearty snob and capitalist who got his job, name, and entire image through preferential treatment. When I need the dinosaur approach, I'll make you Queen of the May."

  He didn't answer, just blinked himself into an outraged silence, and I immediately hated myself for telling the truth. There hadn't really been any need for it. And since I like order in all things, I regretted the choice in my opprobrium. I should have said "name, job, and entire image," because they had been achieved in that order.

  ***

  When we arrived at the newspaper's offices, off Merdeka Square, government troops had taken it over after a short skirmish. Three of the editors and four printers had been killed while trying to overturn trays of type, but Hatta went into high gear again and we soon had the combustible front-page reassembled.

  For the next four hours we coaxed the ancient flatbed presses to capacity. One after another the army trucks drawn up in the alley were loaded and dispatched not only to the normal distribution points in Java but also to Kemayoren Airport. To be placed on every departing airliner to the other islands, and on the foreign flights. Under orders from Suharto, the papers were to be distributed without cost to dealers and the general public everywhere.

  It was nearly midnight when we ran out of newsprint and the heated presses clattered to a halt. Wearily, Katja, Harvard Frank, Hatta, and I got back into the armored car and started for the airport again. None of us had much to say; we sat slumped with our private thoughts, but as the heavy vehicle rumbled along I lifted my head.

  "Listen!" I said, and the other heads came up.

  "To what?" asked Katja.

  After listening, they realized that silence was the point. The constant crackle and fusillade of gunfire no longer sounded over Djakarta, and the fires were burning low.

  TWENTY-ONE

  AS WE FLEW TOWARD SEMARANG THROUGH mild turbulence. Harvard Frank produced a bottle of Cutty Sark and four bottles of Perrier water. He always went first-class, that boy, and I told him I was sorry for having been rude to him in the armored car.

  "No matter, Tuan besar," he said affably, pouring me a huge drink in a paper cup. (He just happened to have a few paper cups on him, also.) "I mean, it was lovely done, and I'm going to support you for ombudsman of all."

  So then we had to explain ombudsman to Colonel Hatta, and he lifted his cup to it. Explaining amiably that I must be qualified, because I was the only foreign devil in three hundred years to get in and out of his ancestral village alive.

  Katja Arnkloo was not sharing in this slightly hysterical jollity. She was asleep in the back of the plane, her face disturbed in troubled repose. Several times, as we killed the bottle of Cutty Sark, I twisted around to look at her. Some fury had been driving her hard, and it showed on her face. I remembered the rapturous glee with which she had skipped rope with the bald-headed Buddhist nuns in Tokyo and hoped that she would come to terms with whatever was troubling her.

  ***

  The plane was an hour out of Kemayoren Airport, washboarding through turbulence, when the slender young Indonesian copilot came back into the cabin and crouched beside Colonel Hatta's seat. Hatta interrupted him twice, then nodded, and the boy went weaving back up the aisle to the pilot's enclosure.

  "They are diverting us to Djokja," Hatta told me. "Semarang's airport is closed. It appears, from what the lieutenant tells me, that your front page in Harian Rakjat has blown the coup attempt sky-high. All over the islands, people are pouring out of the kampongs to massacre Communists."

  "Not my goddamned front page," I protested. "The thing was already in type."

  "A matter of degree, Josef," said Hatta dryly. "You at least midwifed it. Sarwo Edhy's paracommando reserves are based in Semarang. They control the port and most of the city but have not yet retaken the airport. KOSTRAD headquarters has advised us to stand by in Djokja until we can proceed without danger."

  I thought of the fortune in bullion hanging on the rudder of the big junk. "There's no chance that Untung's forces there will seize or sabotage Frank's ship?"

  Hatta smiled. "The port is safe, my friend. There is a guard around the Chinese ship."

  "And we're to clear Java in it with the bullion still attached?"

  "Yes." The colonel was emphatic. "No one knows about that but the two of us, Ling and the Chinese crew members, and the foundry workers who helped us. I have had these workers sent to Palembang. The bullion must go out of the country because Central and Eastern Java are almost solidly PKI. It may take weeks to root them out of Solo and the surrounding countryside."

  There were heavy guards around the airport terminal at Djokjakarta, and Frank. Katja, and I were detained on board while Colonel Hatta took our passports into military headquarters. By the time he returned, the sun was blazing down and Katja had gone to sleep again. Rather than awaken her, I gathered the little girl up effortlessly. Carried her off the plane, down between the ranks of soldiers, and to the waiting car.

  When we unloaded in the back courtyard of the kraton, Katja blinked awake and Hatta told her we were returning to our former apartments in the palace. Until we were advised by Djakarta to proceed to Semarang, where we would board the junk. She nodded and followed the barefooted servant toward the women's quarters. As Frank and I followed our luggage the other way, we passed several courtyards where young legong dancing girls were training.

  Frank did not speak to me often. He was still a trifle peckish about the way I had jumped him on the newspaper deal, but I felt that I could not let this ruin my day. After I had showered, I had a whopping breakfast of mangoes, scrambled eggs, and curry, and hot, spiced coffee. Then I crawled under the mosquito netting and fell asleep.

  W
hen something touched my shoulder, I uncoiled like a snake and caught one foot in the trailing netting. Colonel Hatta was bending over me. I informed him that ten-minute naps weren't going to help me, and he said it had been nearer four hours. Grunting, I sluiced my head and shoulders in what passes for cold water in that country, sat down across the low teak table from him, and had a cup of steaming coffee.

  "So, what passes, mynheer?" I asked, knowing it would amuse him to be addressed by the Dutch styling. "Are we cleared to Semarang?"

  "Yes." The handsome Indonesian officer ignored my levity. "We have a problem, however."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes." He was looking past me, over his coffee mug, at the deep-set window. "An hour ago, before I received the message from Djakarta, a car came for Miss Katja Arnkloo. There were four soldiers in the car, all wearing the palace uniform. But she has not arrived at the airport."

  I stared at him. Got up, went back into the bathroom, and brushed my teeth vigorously. The two gaping cavities in my lower gum stared at me reproachfully, and I reminded myself that my occlusion was being ruined. And that if I could play my cards just right, and find the proper orthodontist, it would cost me a small fortune to get my bite realigned. Going back to the teakwood table, I poured myself more coffee.

  "The sultan is in Djakarta," said Hatta, "but I talked to his senior brother and to the military commanders. No one dispatched a car for Miss Arnkloo."

  I nodded, dressed, and went back into the spacious bathroom to zip my toilet articles into their case. Strapped on the holstered pistol. I do hate to pack a damp toothbrush. Two straps tightened and buckled on the larger bag, and I was ready.

  "Best have a look around," I said. "But where?"