‘We can get out now,’ Naplo announced, opening the driver’s door.
Dr Junus Bawi was welcomed by the guerrillas with an embrace he seemed reluctant to accept. For a year he’d opposed what these men were doing. Now he was as much an outlaw as they were, but the fact of it would take some getting used to.
Suddenly a shout cut short the reunion. The guerrillas’ smiles vanished, replaced by fear. The machine-gunner jabbed a finger at the sky, then with his fellows fled the open ground for the protection of the trees.
‘Back in!’ the priest shouted. ‘Quick.’ He scrambled into the driving seat.
Then the sound that had alerted the more sensitive ears reached the rest of them. The roar of a jet.
One foot on the step of the minibus, Randall held back and caught a glimpse of the small, grey dart flashing overhead. A British-built Hawk fighter.
He swung himself on to the seat next to Charlie. ‘What’s happening?’ she hissed. ‘Why are they so scared?’
‘Frightened of being bloody bombed, that’s why,’ he growled.
Within seconds of the jet’s passing, two of Kakadi’s men rolled aside the logs blocking the road. The priest wound up the engine, then gunned through the gap and accelerated away in a cloud of dust.
Naplo half-turned his head. ‘Maybe plane come back to attack,’ he panted in explanation. ‘OKP men they very scared.’
‘Photo-reconnaissance more like,’ Randall whispered to Charlie.
‘Don’t care what it’s doing, if it comes over again, I need it on tape,’ she whispered, lifting the grey holdall on to her knees. She unfastened the hidden pocket and pulled out the Handycam.
Naplo was driving like a madman, the suspension crashing and banging. Hot air and dust blasted in through the open windows.
‘First time I see fighter plane here,’ he told them nervously, half-turning his head.
As the track climbed, it narrowed so that branches scraped both sides of the vehicle. The path ran parallel to a boulder-strewn river, the water a trickle now, but it would be a torrent in the rains.
Ten more minutes and they emerged on to a plateau no wider than a football field. Maize grew in strips between banana plants, and pigs lay in the shade of acacia trees. Straight ahead where the road ended, was a handful of low buildings clustered round a tin-roofed church. The tiny, isolated settlement lay in a gap in the hills. Beyond they could see a wider valley and on the far horizon the simmering bulk of Mount Jiwa.
Relieved to have arrived unscathed, Naplo stopped the bus in front of a long, wood-framed building encircled by verandas, its roof daubed with a large red cross. At the side, fenced off from animals and children, Randall noticed two satellite dishes, a large one for TV reception, a smaller version for a satellite phone. Communications. Could prove extremely useful.
From the buildings and the planted areas, faces began to appear, alerted by the sound of the motor. Most were adults, some moving with difficulty, their limbs misshapen by leprosy.
‘They will be curious,’ Naplo stated. ‘Not many visitors here.’
They got out and drank from their water bottles. ‘Where do all the patients come from?’ Charlie asked. A small crowd gathered at a respectful distance. Three children put hands to their mouths, awed by Charlie’s blonde hair.
The priest swept an arm towards the volcano. ‘Between here and Jiwa are many villages. And much disease. But soon no more. KUTUMIN will make this a lake. They build barrage here between the hills where it is narrow.’
Charlie decided she’d need some shots of this place. She switched on the Handycam and videoed the people who were to be driven from their homes.
Father Naplo led Bawi into the mission hospital. ‘We’ll find out if there has been word from Soleman,’ he called over his shoulder. Bawi’s son walked with him, wincing with pain. Charlie panned the camera over to them. The back of Obeth’s shirt was criss-crossed with blood.
She switched off, sickened. ‘That’s horrific,’ she murmured, sweating profusely. Randall nodded. ‘My God! It’s so unbelievably hot,’ she went on a few moments later. She was beginning to wilt.
‘Get in the shade and keep an eye on Bawi,’ Randall told her. ‘See what the news is of Kakadi. Give me the camera. I’ll do some shots for you.’ It was about time he gave her a hand.
‘Well thanks. You know what I want?’
‘Wideshots, close-ups and faces of villagers. Right?’
‘That’s about it.’ She drifted away, glancing behind a couple of times to check that he knew what he was doing.
Randall took pictures of the valley, the hills and the church. Then he crossed to a grass-roofed hut where giggling children were helping their mother grind maize.
Suddenly, from behind him he heard a low rumble that built quickly to a roar. The Hawk was back.
Ducking for cover under the roof-overhang, he swung the camera towards the sky, the lens on wide. A black dot appearing above the trees, the fighter hurtled towards him, low this time, not more than five hundred feet up.
Eye to the viewfinder. The plane’s dart entered the frame as if aiming for it. He zoomed in, following the Hawk across the sky, then pulled wide as it banked over the wooded peaks and climbed like a toy into the sun.
He ran back to the hospital. Around him the village stirred with nervousness.
‘Get it?’ Charlie came running out towards him.
‘Yes.’
‘Great.’
‘Kakadi’s blokes are already here,’ she told him. ‘And they’re in a hurry.’
‘Good. So am I.’
He packed the camera into the holdall. An ominous feeling gnawed his guts.
That was twice the Hawk had buzzed them. Twice. Dead overhead.
As if it were following them.
Seventeen
IT WAS THE minibus the fighter had tracked, Randall decided. Followed the priest’s dull green vehicle up from the coast like a beacon.
Why? That was what worried him. Because of them? Or because of Dr Junus Bawi?
They were on foot now, a small crocodile with Kakadi’s men at front and back heading for the dense forest where ABRI’s foot-soldiers had never ventured. Under the thick tree canopy they should soon be safe from the watcher in the sky.
In single file, they climbed the side of the fertile valley that was to become a lake – towards the distant hills that were to be blasted into fragments for the ore they contained. From the position of the sun, Randall knew they were moving east. He slung the camera bag round so that it nestled in the small of his back.
The narrow, winding track skirted terraces of rice, bananas and cabbages. Coconut palms rustled in disorderly clumps, and huge green fruit hung from nangka trees. In the paddies men and women bent over their work, their brown legs caked with mud, their heads shielded from the sun by hats of straw.
Heavy clouds massed round the distant peak of Jiwa, but the sky above remained scorchingly clear. The rainy season which was in full spate elsewhere in the archipelago was still more of a threat here than a reality.
Kakadi’s men were nervous. Just two of them, boys almost, with wild eyes and heads of stringy black hair, their bodies had been reduced to skin, bone and sinew by the deprivation of life on the run. One carried an assault rifle, the other a machete. Dressed in stained dark green, their rolled-up trousers exposed wiry, muscular calves. The man at the rear kept turning round to scan the ground behind with binoculars.
Before they’d begun their march, Randall had stuffed a hiker’s compass into his shirt pocket. He took it out now to check their direction.
Charlie was glad of the walking boots she’d put on that morning. A twisted ankle would be no joke. Glad too of the long-sleeves that protected her arms from the sun and the sharp-edged scrub they were walking through. She slowed her pace until Nick drew level.
‘Could do with some shots of me hiking with these guys,’ she whispered. ‘To cover my commentary links.’
‘They won’t li
ke being filmed,’ Randall replied.
‘They won’t know, if you do it with the bag.’
He swung the holdall forward, reached into the end pocket and touched the buttons. Charlie strode ahead again, trying to look intrepid without overdoing it. Nick videoed her for half a minute then switched off.
‘No way of checking this without them knowing what we’re up to,’ he whispered.
‘Can’t be helped. Anyway, I trust you.’
Her soft brown eyes held his for longer than necessary. Randall smiled. He knew how desperate she was to penetrate his defences in the hope he would share his knowledge with her. He watched her walk ahead again, her compact body weaving lithely through the foliage. She’d smelled delicious in the bed last night. Resisting temptation had its down side.
The track petered out amongst tall ferns. In front loomed the dark wall of the woods. Guided by some feature in the foliage which only the young jungle fighters could recognise they slipped into its gloom, weaving between trunks and creepers.
For fifteen minutes they followed their escorts up the steepening slope, the sky almost invisible under the dense canopy of branches. Then they stopped abruptly, the lead guide muttering in Kutun and waving them to wait while he probed the trees for some marker left there earlier.
‘They have put mines here,’ Junus Bawi translated. ‘In case we are followed. We must go round them. Stay very close.’
The guide found his tell-tales and led them thirty paces to one side through thick undergrowth, parting branches and fronds gently, the man at the rear ensuring the foliage swung back to leave no trace of their passing.
Soon they were climbing again. Then after ten minutes they paused to regain their breath in the sweltering heat and to drink from their water bottles.
Suddenly they froze, flasks to their lips, heads cocked to one side. Through the mesmeric chirping of the tree crickets there burned another sound, the whooping roar they’d come to dread. The Hawk was back.
Galvanised by terror, Kakadi’s men shoved their three charges against the trunks of trees, where the overhead branches were at their densest.
‘Fuck!’ growled Randall as the jet crackled overhead, its thunder reverberating through the forest. The bugger was still on their tail, despite the protection of the trees.
Scared now, Charlie pressed herself against him. Without thinking, Randall put his arms round her.
Right on top, he thought. The plane was right on bloody top again.
‘Is that damned thing following us?’ Charlie whispered as the noise subsided.
‘Yes. I’ve a nasty feeling it is.’ He let go of her.
How, though? Could the pilot see them through the branches? Randall’s knowledge of thermal imaging was minimal. No idea if the technology was up to it.
Kakadi’s escorts huddled together, arguing. One kept pointing to the valley, wanting to turn back, but the man with the rifle didn’t. And since he had the gun, he had the final say.
The reverberations faded. Bird screeches filled their ears again. The guides resolved their differences and relaxed a little, relieved the plane had passed without dropping bombs. Then they hurried the party onwards, driven by the desire to be somewhere else in case the Hawk returned.
They climbed for a further fifteen minutes. Then the ground levelled and the trees thinned. They’d reached a small clearing of long, dry grasses, a natural rendezvous in an anonymous forest.
‘We wait here,’ Bawi croaked. With his white shirt and library spectacles he appeared out of place in this wilderness. ‘We stay under the trees. Soleman will come soon.’
He sat on a tree stump, hands clasped, cracking the joints of his fingers. For him, the moment of truth was near. For twelve months he’d argued against Kakadi’s methods, so vociferously that at one point Soleman had threatened to have him killed. He’d changed his view now, but was far from sure of the welcome he would get. Particularly when he demanded that Stephen Bowen be freed.
Charlie found a square of ground free of ants and squatted, glad of the rest. It was an eerie place. The forest hummed and rustled, the air pierced by screeches. She felt eyes watching her, eyes of creatures she couldn’t see. She glugged down more water and told herself to grow up.
She took stock. If all went well here, she would have the most amazing story, providing she could get her tapes out of the country. She stole a glance at Nick. He sat on a boulder deep in thoughts he was keeping to himself.
Always a mistake to think you can change a man, she reminded herself. Their jobs were chalk and cheese. His to keep secrets, hers to prise them out. So far he was winning hands down. A worrying thought struck her. What if she got something on tape which he didn’t want her to broadcast? Would he try to stop her?
The tapes. Have to make sure they stayed in her possession, not his.
Randall stood up. In his head the name Sumoto reverberated like the gongs of the gamelan orchestra in the Touristik Hotel.
General Sumoto. The man who’d driven Soleman Kakadi to take to the jungle. ‘Could be involved with the kidnap,’ Maxwell had said. How? With Kakadi or against him? A heavy feeling in his chest told him the situation was about to go pear-shaped.
He moved from his rock and crouched down by the professor. Fearful of being cut out again, Charlie slid over to join them.
‘Dr Bawi, tell me … tell me about General Sumoto,’ he stumbled, not sure exactly what it was he wanted to ask. ‘He still has connections with Kutu?’
Bawi was taken aback. ‘Why you ask about Sumoto?’
‘Just curious.’
‘Well … it is right you should be.’
Suddenly a strong gust of wind rattled the fronds of a tall palm on the other side of the clearing. Bawi looked at the sky, suspecting the approach of rain. Then he pointed at the shaking tree top.
‘You know what Kutuan people say about that? Those rattling leaves? They say it is Gundrowo. The soul of a man who died in torment and can find no rest. He cannot reach the land of the spirits, so he shakes the palm trees in his rage.’ Bawi furrowed his brow. ‘Whether it is true or not I don’t know, but I tell you, when General Sumoto was commander of KODAM Twelve, the noise in the palm trees used to keep me awake at night …’
‘Gosh,’ breathed Charlie, wishing she’d videoed him saying that.
Randall’s chest tightened further. He wanted facts not fantasies. ‘But now he’s gone, does he still have influence here?’
Junus Bawi looked down at his hands. ‘When a man’s fingers have been so deeply steeped in the blood of this island, he remains a part of it until he dies,’ he pronounced. Then he straightened up. ‘Kutu, as you know, is in the ABRI military district of KODAM Twelve. When he was in command of it, General Sumoto used to call KODAM Twelve his army. There are many officers here who are still loyal to him.’
‘Senior officers?’ Randall checked.
‘The ones who have the greatest power,’ Bawi replied. ‘Colonel Widodo. Chief of military intelligence …’ In his mind he saw again the colonel’s emotionless, wooden eyes watching his son’s back being shredded by the cane.
‘The chief of intel?’ Randall croaked. ‘He’s Sumoto’s man?’ Suddenly the pieces began to fit. ‘The arrests, the interrogations, they were all ordered by Colonel Widodo?’
‘Yes, I think.’
‘And it was he who convinced you that Soleman Kakadi kidnapped Stephen Bowen?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ Bawi confirmed, baffled by Randall’s drift.
Sumoto. Just listen out for the name, Maxwell had said. Not enough. The clue should have been bigger. And now it was too bloody late. Whatever sort of circus Sumoto was running, they were all in the middle of it. All of them were his puppets.
‘One other question. There’s an Australian living in Piri. At one time I thought he had connections with the OKP. He’s called Brad Dugdale? Does the name mean anything to you?’
Bawi looked further confused.
‘I know the woma
n he lives with. But Mr Dugdale is a businessman. He must be friends with ABRI, not with us.’
Randall’s mind flashed back to the jeep waiting in the alley when they’d arrived at the bar last night.
‘Why do you say that?’ he croaked, guessing the answer.
‘Because to have a business in Kutu, you must pay ABRI money. The military controls everything, including business permits. And to get one, you must pay twice. An official fee, and a commission to the man who arranges it. It is how the officers live. ABRI wages are bad. The junior officers need the bribes to feed their families. But if you are a KODAM commander then the bribes can make you rich.’
From the woods they heard noises. Twigs snapping. Low voices.
‘Nick!’ Charlie hissed. ‘They’re coming. Camera!’
Randall ignored her. The links in the chain – they were nearly in place. He leaned forward.
‘Brad Dugdale. Would he have known Sumoto? Paid him money?’
‘Most certainly,’ Bawi confirmed.
‘Nick, for God’s sake!’ Charlie snapped. ‘Film it or gimme the camera!’
Battledressed figures moving towards them through the trees. Nick rummaged for the Handycam, switched on and zoomed in.
Soleman Kakadi towered above his men, a striding black giant. He was dressed like them in grubby green battledress, a pistol holster on his webbing belt, a short-barrelled assault rifle slung across his chest. A handful of hungry-faced fighters hovered around him like pilot fish with a shark.
Through the lens Randall saw Kakadi’s eyes lock on to the camera. Not the self-satisfaction of a man expecting a date with the media, but fear – and then anger.
Half a dozen men with him. No sign of Stephen Bowen. But then there wouldn’t be, would there?
‘Please,’ Bawi said, flustered, ‘let me speak with him first, alone.’
The professor rose unsteadily and moved towards his former partner, arms outstretched in greeting. Kakadi’s face was a mask of suspicion. Then a stream of invective exploded from his mouth. Bawi recoiled. Kakadi pointed at the camera.
Java Spider Page 27
