Java Spider

by Geoffrey Archer

Kamu was the intimate form of ‘you’. Used here it was offensive. Bawi stayed silent. Argument would make things worse.

  ‘But this time you will tell me the truth. You will tell us …’ Widodo swung his left arm wide to indicate his two plain-clothed thugs. Men with stone cold eyes. Bawi glimpsed the hands of one of them. Fingers encrusted with metal rings like knuckle-dusters.

  Widodo was squat, with a round, light-brown face and straight, oily hair. Bawi knew his mood could switch from light to dark with mercurial speed.

  ‘What is it you want to know?’ he asked, trying to control the tremor of his voice.

  Widodo raised a brow and leaned forward, elbows on the table, his chin supported by balled fists.

  ‘Tell me about the kidnap of the English foreign minister Stephen Bowen …’

  Bawi swallowed to wet his dust-dry throat. He’d guessed this would be it.

  ‘I heard about it on the radio,’ he answered. ‘The BBC. I can tell you what they said, if you didn’t hear it …’

  Widodo shook his head. He mimed despair. One of the thugs chuckled, the other cracked his finger joints.

  ‘Tell me what you know, Dr Bawi. Not what the radio said.’

  ‘That’s all I know, colonel. I heard nothing about it before or since.’

  ‘Liar!’ The fist on the table again.

  ‘It is the truth …’ A rough hand slapped his face. Hard enough to twist his neck. He’d not noticed one of the plain clothes men creep round behind him.

  ‘Who planned it? You or Kakadi?’

  ‘I tell you, I know nothing.’ Bawi flinched, waiting to be hit again.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Widodo switched his expression to one of pleading. He leaned forward. Bawi smelled garlic on his breath. ‘They are Kutu people, the kidnappers. They say it themselves. OKP people. And you say you were not involved in planning this?’

  ‘I am a professor of language. I teach students about the culture of their island. Like most people of Kutu I am opposed to the mountains where our ancestors’ spirits live being robbed and destroyed by foreigners, but …’

  ‘Foreigners? You call Indonesians foreigners?’ Widodo screamed, his face ablaze. ‘Kutu is Indonesia!’

  Bawi wished he’d chosen better words.

  ‘The English and Australians in KUTUMIN are foreigners. Indonesians of course, are not,’ he answered mollifyingly. ‘Whatever my views about the mine, I have never advocated violence as a means to oppose it. That is not my way. A kidnap is an act of violence. I could never be involved in such an act, however much violence is used against me and against the people of this island.’

  A derisive slow hand clap came from behind him.

  ‘So it is Kakadi?’ Widodo’s thin, curved eyebrows rose, waiting for confirmation.

  ‘I know nothing about Soleman Kakadi,’ Junus answered wearily.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘You know the answer. You asked me last time. It was one year ago.’

  ‘How often do you communicate?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Liar! Why do you still lie to me?’ He waved a hand at the thug with the rings. The man stood up and left the room.

  Bawi’s stomach knotted into a ball.

  ‘Lies, lies, lies!’ Widodo muttered, half to himself. He moistened his lips. ‘You pretend you don’t support violence, yet you send your son out to throw stones at soldiers …’

  Bawi began to shake uncontrollably. The ring man, he realised, had gone to fetch Obeth.

  ‘I tell you he was not out last night,’ he pleaded, pointlessly. ‘You’ve made a mistake.’

  No mistake. They knew. But they would use him anyway. Against his own father.

  Widodo stood up and stretched. ‘Show me,’ he said, turning to the side and stifling a yawn.

  From the shadows to Junus’s right the man who’d hit him emerged with a metre-long cane which he laid on the table. One end was bound with string for a handle, the other frayed and split.

  Widodo picked it up, swished it, then thwacked it down, his eyes watching Bawi with cold contempt.

  ‘Children need discipline,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t you agree, professor?’

  Bawi’s gaze fell to the floor. If there was anything he knew that would stop what was about to happen, he would tell it to them. Even, Yes, it is Kakadi who is responsible for the kidnap.

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ he wept. ‘That’s the truth, colonel!’

  ‘We’ll soon see.’ Widodo turned away, pulled a toothpick from his military shirt and worked at his mouth.

  Bawi stood up to protest or beg, but a thump on the chest knocked him back on to the chair. He heard the door open and the sniffing of a child. He turned to look. Obeth came in, barefoot in his T-shirt and shorts, his face smeared from crying, one skinny arm gripped like a doll’s by the hideous ring man. The thug thrust his thick fingers into the boy’s hair and twisted his head round so he would see his father.

  The boy cried out and made to go to Junus. Then he saw the tears coursing down his father’s face.

  ‘You threw stones at soldiers, little boy …’ Widodo yelled. ‘Very stupid. Very dangerous. You could kill someone.’

  ‘No, no…’

  A big hand clamped across Obeth’s mouth.

  ‘Like your father you don’t know the difference between truth and lies. We have to teach you to tell the truth.’

  Widodo picked up the bamboo switch and shook it.

  ‘No … Please …’ Obeth blubbed.

  Through the shroud of his own tears, Bawi saw the brute holding his son pull the boy’s shorts down to his ankles, exposing his small, tight buttocks and hairless genitalia. Then he tugged the grubby T-shirt up over Obeth’s head, baring the unblemished brown back.

  The man with the rings bunched his fist and ran it down Obeth’s flesh, the sharp metal drawing thin, dark rivulets of blood from the smooth skin.

  Junus saw his son’s legs buckle and water spurt uncontrolled from his penis. He shook with sobs, powerless, knowing that nothing he could say would stop this outrage. They were all victims. Even eleven-year-olds.

  Widodo handed the switch to his torturer. Holding Obeth upright by his hair, the brute slashed the sharp strands of cane against the cuts he’d made with the rings. He beat with a practised rhythm until the boy’s back and buttocks were cross-hatched with blood.

  Then he let him drop to the floor to lie in the puddle he’d made.

  Bawi blinked the tears from his eyes.

  Non-violent resistance – his credo, his mantra, all his life – Kakadi had told Bawi he was wrong. Told him that fire had to be fought with fire.

  Yes. Now at last he agreed. They’d left him no choice.

  He would join Kakadi, behind the barricades.

  Eight

  Jakarta

  Tuesday 10.45 hrs (03.45 hrs GMT)

  THE TRAFFIC ON Jalan Sudirman was as slow and dense as a lava flow. The taxi which disgorged the young Chinese woman into the humid heat outside the Australian Embassy had stopped on the wrong side of the dual carriageway.

  For several minutes she stared through smudged lenses at the grind of cars and buses, hoping for a gap that would let her cross. Before long she understood what natives of Jakarta already knew – that a gap would never come. Not far down the road was a footbridge.

  She was as frightened as at any time in her life by the act of betrayal she was about to commit. More frightened even than during the miserable darkness of the past night, when her pounding heart had made sleep impossible.

  She was a dumpy, bespectacled woman in her thirties, with black hair and a round, open face, dressed in a red skirt, tight on her fleshy hips, and a pink silk blouse. She carried the black vinyl briefcase which every member of the delegation had been given before they left Beijing.

  This was her second visit here in two years. Relations between Indonesia and China had a history of hostility that had only recently improved. Diplomatic contacts, severed
in 1967 after the Chinese communists were accused of involvement in the attempted coup in Indonesia were not restored until 1990. Since then visits by trade delegations had become more commonplace.

  Her shoes felt tight. Designed for looks, not walking. They pinched as she climbed the steps of the footbridge. She didn’t dare look back, fearful she’d been followed despite the trust she knew the delegation leader placed in her.

  Would the embassy let her in? Could she make them understand? The only language she spoke was Mandarin Chinese. In her briefcase was a dictionary. Last night in the bathroom of the hotel room she shared with another woman from the Trade Ministry she’d sat on the toilet, searching for the English words she needed. Then she’d copied the unfamiliar script on to a page of hotel notepaper.

  In the middle of the bridge she stopped to ease the discomfort of the shoes. The small obstruction she caused provoked hostility from those brushing past. Javan Indonesians disliked the Chinese in their midst, jealous of their prosperity.

  All around towered mirror-polished marble and gold-tinted glass, displays of power and wealth which seemed to mock her. She looked down from the bridge at the oleanders lining the strip between the carriageways. She eyed the swishing conga of vehicles and wondered whether death mightn’t be a better solution for her. Then she dismissed the thought. Too much at stake. And it wouldn’t just be her life she was destroying.

  She couldn’t call what she was about to do a betrayal of her country. A betrayal of its leaders, yes. But then it was they who were the real traitors, killing, imprisoning those who opposed them, and, as she now believed, plotting to extend their iron fist across the South China Sea.

  The grey blockhouse of the Australian Embassy looked remote and inhospitable on the far side of the road. Quelling her terror, she tucked the briefcase under her arm and allowed the throng to carry her towards it.

  At ground level, the pavement was cracked and uneven. Muddy holes held water from last night’s rain. Twice she stumbled, nearly falling to her knees. Suddenly she was there, standing before the thick glass window of the police post at the embassy gate.

  ‘Visa,’ she mouthed, the only word in English she had learned to say.

  The guard opened the electronic security gate and pointed up the path towards the main entrance. Her mind flipped back three years to the last time she’d approached such a menacing-looking edifice – an abortion clinic in Beijing.

  The entrance door swung open as she approached it.

  ‘Good day!’ A man in his fifties, smiling politely, held the door for her and tipped his Panama hat in salute. She fumbled with the clasp of her briefcase, thinking to give him her note. He gestured with his head that she should go inside.

  ‘They’ll help you at reception.’

  She guessed his meaning.

  The entrance lobby was a sealed chamber, all doors leading from it protected by swipe-card locks. It felt like a prison. She shook with terror.

  More armoured glass at the reception desk. Beyond it, a weary-looking official. Communication was by microphone.

  ‘Yes?’ The man’s voice was de-humanised by the technology that conveyed it.

  She pulled out a folded page from a notebook, then held it against the glass. He stared at it, then stared at her. Slowly he raised one eyebrow and his shoulders heaved a sigh.

  She’d imagined shouting, people running, bells ringing. Anything but the bored glare she received.

  ‘Passport?’

  She let the note drop on the counter and stared down at the words, fearing suddenly that what she’d written was gibberish.

  I WANT ASYLUM.

  ‘Can I see your passport?’ he repeated. ‘Where you from?’

  She understood nothing. She’d come as far as she could. She was in their hands now. Her legs buckled. She flopped to the floor and began to cry.

  British Embassy – Jakarta

  13.15 hrs (05.15 hrs GMT)

  Harry Maxwell put the phone down and did a quick calculation. The undercover man being sent from London would be halfway to Singapore by now. Another twenty-four hours at least before he reached Kutu. That’s if he got in – the Reuters office had just rung to say there’d been riots in Piri last night, and arrests. When the streets were tense on the island, ABRI tended to close the island to foreigners.

  Philip Vereker’s signal briefing Maxwell on the Yard man’s movements had been full of irony, not least in the codename SIS had awarded Randall – Cuculus. Latin for Cuckoo.

  Maxwell sat up straight, the bulge of his stomach just touching the edge of his desk. Vereker had said Randall had been briefed to make contact with Junus Bawi. But according to Reuters the political leader of the OKP was amongst those arrested last night. Bawi was a big fish. Too big for ABRI to arrest just because there’d been trouble on the streets. Why pick him up now? Only one reason Maxwell could think of. It confirmed what Brigadier General Effendi had hinted at last night – that they were taking the Kutu connection seriously in the kidnap investigation and were putting Organisasi Kutun Pertahanan through the mangle.

  It had been an unproductive morning for Maxwell. Several times he’d tried to contact Selina Sakidin. Not at work today, her office had said, but that meant nothing; Jakarta’s bureaucrats were well practised at being inaccessible by phone. The woman would be wary of him anyway, not wanting any more light shone on a relationship she’d presumably hoped would stay private.

  He pushed back his chair and stared at the wall opposite. Hanging in the middle of it was a carved wooden mask intricately decorated in soft, dark colours. It smiled at him. Like Effendi had smiled. ‘Yes, yes, we’ve checked out Selina Sakidin and it’s all above board. Nothing to her relationship with Bowen. She merely took him to the airport to be friendly …’

  Nonsense. Maxwell stood up and looked at his watch. He’d thought of hanging around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to try to ambush her, but knew he’d melt within minutes in this heat. Instead he would make a fuelling stop. He checked his wallet.

  ‘Just going across to the Hyatt for a quick bite,’ he announced, striding past his secretary’s desk.

  ‘Right-ho.’

  Escaping the claustrophobic walls of the embassy was an important part of his daily routine, but when he passed through the security gate into the midday sun he almost turned back. Breathing was an effort for him, let alone walking.

  Pausing to cross the road, he was distracted for a moment by the pebble-eyed, brown-skinned boys who sprung from the shade to peddle cold drinks when cars halted at the lights. Then, tugging hard on the reins of his mind, he ignored them and walked on.

  The Hyatt Hotel rose monolithically on the opposite side of the square. By the time Maxwell reached the sanctuary of its huge, air-conditioned atrium, sweat was pouring from his face. He paused in the lobby to dab his brow with a handkerchief.

  Then through the glass he saw a Mercedes with blackened windows draw up outside. A flunkey rushed to do the door.

  ‘Well, well…’ mumbled Maxwell, instantly recognising the powerful figure emerging from the car. Major General Dino Sumoto pushed through the swing doors, dressed in a dark civilian suit with a slight shine to its weave.

  The nickname Effendi had given him was apt. The man had the brooding menace of a tarantula. Maxwell held back so as not to be seen as Sumoto took the escalator up to the reception floor. Then, curious to know whom he was meeting, he followed a few steps behind. The moving staircase bore them to the mezzanine past a marble cascade of crystal water.

  In the lobby in front of the reception desk Sumoto was greeted respectfully by a young under-manager who hurried him to a function room at one side. Maxwell watched from behind the fronds of a potted palm. Above the open double doors to the suite he noted its name – Surabaya. Sumoto was greeted with the reverence due a guest of honour.

  Maxwell pursed his lips suddenly. The faces in the reception line – they were all Chinese.

  He crossed briskly to the bell captain’s desk
where a board listed the day’s functions.

  Surabaya Suite – 13.00 hrs. Reception by Trade Delegation of People’s Republic of China.

  He stepped back in surprise. General Sumoto, a pillar of the right-wing military establishment, attending a reception given by the communist Chinese? Indonesia’s relations with Beijing might have improved recently, but communists were still bogeymen here. A man in his position had to be careful.

  A dark thought came to him. Deeply troubled, Maxwell drifted away towards the coffee-shop before anyone noticed him.

  ‘You want eat lunch, sir?’ a waiter asked him.

  Maxwell stared through him.

  ‘You want table, sir?’ the waiter persisted.

  ‘Yes … No. No time. Thank you.’

  He turned on his heel and strode briskly towards the escalator. What he’d remembered was that early on in the battle for the arms contract, China had entered a bid. It had been rejected quickly on technical as well as political grounds. But had Bowen’s kidnap changed things? Was General Sumoto’s fear of Britain pulling out of the deal widely shared in the ABRI hierarchy? Had they decided as a precaution to re-open the bidding?

  Ambassador Bruton would have to find out, and find out fast.

  London – Wesley Street, Westminster

  Tuesday 09.35 hrs

  Sally Bowen had the TV on in the small, chintz-furnished sitting-room, but she wasn’t watching. She’d come up to London late last night in a police car. Scotland Yard’s idea. They wanted her on hand in case of ‘eventualities’ and to help them sort through her husband’s papers for clues. In the kitchen, drinking coffee, was a detective constable, there to answer the phone. The line was being monitored on the slim chance that Stephen’s kidnappers might ring.

  She wore a tartan skirt and a red cardigan over her white blouse. She sat on the sofa, a pile of Stephen’s personal papers and letters on the low table in front of her. A quick glance through the contents of his desk last night under the heavy gaze of the detective chief inspector from Scotland Yard had revealed nothing useful, but what she had before her now she’d found in a briefcase hidden in a linen cupboard. Her life and Stephen’s had been separate for so long by now, what she was doing felt an intrusion into the life of a stranger.