by TR Kohler
Coming to expect as much, Mike bobs his head once. A single, emphatic nod before turning to face the opposite direction.
A signal that is met with the lights in the observation springing to life. Spotlights that remove the one-way glare on the window separating them to reveal Tania standing with fists clenched next to the young woman, a worm of red blood already oozing down out of her left nostril.
Chapter Seventy-Three
The word is out before the man even realizes it. A completely reflexive response to seeing the woman seated on the other side of the glass from him. Jerking upright in his chair, his eyes go wide as he gasps the sound out.
A single syllable, already granting Mike more information than he had a moment before.
“Eka,” Mike repeats, circling around the side of the table to interrupt the line of sight between them. “Her name is Eka.”
Completely unaware of the admission that was just made, the young man keeps his focus aimed straight ahead as if trying to see right through Mike.
When that doesn’t work, he begins pulling to either side. Tendons bulge the length of his neck as he strains, tugging against the handcuffs holding him in place.
When that too yields nothing, he begins to shove his chair back and forth across the floor. A combination of sliding and hopping that Mike easily matches, keeping his body between the young man and Eka.
A response that is just as visceral, as reflexive, as the gasp and calling of her name a moment before. Ingrained reactions that go so much further than seeing a mere colleague. A cohort brought together under the banner of a shared mission.
The type of thing that can only be rooted in passion. Affection harbored for an amorous partner.
The sort of thing that would make the young man sacrifice himself by tackling Mike in the streets the day before.
Something that can be wielded, fitting exactly with the scheme he and Tania had in mind when deciding to put the girl in the observation room.
“Her name is Eka,” Mike repeats, rotating slowly to match the young man. “And your name is?”
Falling completely on deaf ears, the young man continues to strain. Sweat rises to his brow as red lines appear along the sclera of his eyes.
Strain and desperation beginning to manifest on his features.
“Eka!” he calls, completely ignoring Mike’s question. “EKA!”
“Apparently, you don’t understand how these rooms work,” Mike says. Words that continue to land on deaf ears, the young man still fighting to see past him.
An effort that has to be broken. A singular obsession that Mike has to interrupt if there is any hope of extracting what he needs from the kid.
Taking one elongated step forward, Mike slaps both palms down on the metal table separating them. Flat hands that slam into the thin surface, sending vibrations up the length of his arms.
Miniature shockwaves that ignite the dull throb from the blast the night before within him. A reasoned bit of pain that accomplishes what he hoped it would. Causes the young man to visibly flinch, jerking his attention back toward Mike.
“Hey! Dumbass!” Mike snaps. “She can’t hear you. Right now, she can’t even see you because I’m blocking the way. And unless you want to keep it that way, you’re going to answer my questions. Got it?”
Bringing his teeth together, the young man snarls. “I swear to God, if you so much-”
“Wrong answer,” Mike says, cutting the man off and turning back toward the mirror. Raising a hand overhead, he twirls it in a quick helicopter motion.
A signal that Tania has been waiting for, snapping out a hard cross. A right hand that lands square, whipping Eka’s head to the side.
“No!” the young man yells. “What the hell are you-”
Much like the line a moment before, Mike has no interest in hearing anything the kid has to say that it isn’t directly related to Firash. Mashing the heel of both hands into the side of the table, he shoves it back into the young man’s stomach.
A direct shot that doubles him over, driving the air from his lungs and leaving him gasping.
“Again, where is Firash?” Mike demands. Voice elevated, he walks off to the side, making sure the sightline between the two sides is clear.
A direct visual for all parties to see the damage being inflicted.
A race to see which one will crack first.
“I know you’re probably a pretty big deal in whatever little college bubble you’ve been hanging out in,” Mike says. “But this ain’t that. And if you don’t start talking, you’re never going to see it again.”
Bending forward at the waist, he peers across the tabletop at the young man still gasping for air.
“And neither is she.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
The first rays of light stripe the floor as Arief Wardoyo comes to. Jerking himself awake in the same upright chair by the door where he’s been sitting vigil all evening, pops of light flash before his eyes. Blinking in rapid succession, he raises his palms and presses them into his eye sockets before lowering them to his lap and taking in his surroundings.
Under the wan half-light of morning, the place looks significantly different.
Everything save Firash sitting across from him.
Staring intently at the door, he rests in the exact same pose as when Arief dozed off hours before. Fingers laced in his lap, his body leans forward, anticipating an enemy he looks to expect at any moment.
A pose he maintains for nearly a minute before slowly rotating his focus to peer at Arief.
“You have ten minutes.”
A cleft forming between his brows, Arief considers the words before responding. A frantic search back through the evening before. Hours spent assisting Firash with the preparations outside. Backbreaking labor with the two of them side by side in the dirt.
A tedious task that went well into the night, both of them dripping with sweat, the only sounds the assorted background noises of the jungle and Firash barking out the occasional order.
A task that was completed only a few hours earlier with the both of them retiring inside. An ending to the night that, as far as Arief can recall, included guzzling down a couple of bottles of water before dropping himself into the chair where he now still rests.
“Before?” Arief asks, almost hating to voice the question, fearing that he might have forgotten some directive prior to drifting off.
“Before you need to be ready to move,” Firash replies.
Giving either wheel on his chair a small push, he rolls himself forward. A slow ride across the floor, easing to a stop just in front of the door.
Peering out through the mesh screen, he turns his gaze toward the east, the first faint bits of dawn just visible on his features.
Still working to shrug off the grog of slumber, Arief rolls his neck to either side. A movement eliciting loud pops from sleeping upright in the chair.
“Did something happen?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Firash whispers. “The sun came up.”
Not sure how the two correlate, Arief thinks better of voicing another question. Recalling his time in the service, the assumption was always that dawn meant the end of a threat. With daylight came the chance to let one’s guard down, an enemy almost always wanting to move under cover of darkness.
Especially in a position such as this, where the American would know that preparations have been made.
“Knowing how they operate,” Firash says, “they’ll wait until morning to try and break your two friends. Keep them up all night, no food or water, and then start asking questions.”
Nodding slightly, Arief rises from the chair. Lacing his fingers, he extends them down between his knees. Keeping them out as far in front of himself as he can, he slowly rotates upward until his hands are high above his head.
A full body stretch that incites a handful of pops and cracks.
Step one of a process that will take half of the ten minutes allotted to completely push aside
any stiffness from the few hours of rest. Prepare him for the arrival of their guest.
The chance to prove his mettle before Firash himself.
A man seemingly oblivious to the ongoing preparation beside him, his gaze aimed outward.
“It won’t be long now.”
Chapter Seventy-Five
More than an hour after sunset in Arizona, most of the world outside Kari Ma’s window is shrouded in darkness. Not the kind of light haze that marked her time in the nation’s capital. A veil that never quite fully dropped, held at bay by the perpetual glow of the city lights.
In the desert, it is more of an inky shroud hiding all but just the barns up close to the farmhouse. Dark shapes rising upward, their profiles barely visible against the sky behind them.
In the air are the faint calls of black angus cattle. Low moans from one clump to another, relaying whatever information it is they have to share.
Data that Kari can’t much bring herself to care about as she stands on the front porch of the farmhouse staring out. The closest point where she could step away from the cafeteria inside after receiving the incoming call to grab a bit of quiet.
A move made as quick as her cane would allow, rising in the middle of her meal and striding straight away. An action Doc seemed to think nothing of as she exited, he too understanding how things work for people like them.
Especially while one of their own is out in the field.
“Kari Ma,” she opens, pressing the phone to her face. Turning away from the barns nearby, she puts her back to the porch rail, allowing it to replace the cane as her support.
“Two things,” Mike opens, not bothering with an identification of his own. “First, since the pipeline of information seems to move quickly, figured I should fill you in before the White House or whoever starts calling.”
Voice resting somewhere between weary and annoyed, he continues, “Last night, Agent Lynch and I were able to thwart another attempted bombing. This one was at the Avon plant, down by the waterfront.
“Second largest American employer in Jakarta.”
Pausing there, he seems to give Kari a moment to process what was just shared. A brief break to put things into order, listening to the sounds of the road just barely audible in the background.
Hints that he is in a vehicle, possibly heading toward his next target.
“When you say thwarted...” Kari begins, letting the question trail away.
“I mean, we were able to neutralize the threat before it caused any more destruction.”
Every word in the sentence feeling as if it was chosen carefully, Kari isn’t quite sure what to unpack first. All of it seeming to have been loaded with double meanings, she can’t tell if the destruction he referenced was life or property.
If his use of the term neutralize meant they’d found and deactivated another bomb or if he’d been forced to throw himself atop it.
An answer she suspects she knows the answer to based on the weary tone of his voice, though she can’t be certain.
Knows better than to ask at the moment.
Leaving the host of question unspoken for now, she instead inquires, “Firash?”
“His colleagues,” Mike replies. “Apparently, he’s got some young enviro-hippie sorts doing his leg work these days. And I don’t mean that to be funny.”
Not sure exactly what the last comment means, Kari lets it go for now. Putting her focus on the front end, she asks, “They talk?”
“Eventually,” Mike answers. “Namedropped a guy named Henry Rawit as the purse strings behind the whole thing. You know him?”
Pausing a moment to consider it, her brows coming together in thought, she replies, “Knew a Harold Rawit. Big businessman in the region that died a year or two ago. Connected?”
“Don’t know,” Mike says, “but it would make sense. They said he sought them out about a year ago, said he wanted to go after some of the major production hubs in the region. Places that were already on their radar, so they joined in.
“Later, when what they were doing wasn’t quite getting it done, Rawit brought in Firash.”
In the background, sounds of the road continue to be heard. The engine of whatever he is driving surging ahead. The occasional ticking of a blinker.
The thrum of the road passing under his tires.
Sounds that inform her next question, asking, “You en route now?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
Very nearly asking if he is up for it, if his physical state is at full capacity after possibly falling on an explosive device just hours before, Kari pulls back. Refuses to step into the trap that so often snared overseers at the Agency when she was in the field, micromanaging everything from afar.
Hints of mistrust she will not foist on people under her employee.
If she didn’t think the man capable, she would not have sought him out on Nusa Ceningan.
“What was the second thing?” she asks instead.
“The daughter I may or may not have,” Mike replies. “Wanted to see if you’ve still been on that.”
Not surprised in the least to hear such a question, Kari nods in the darkness. “Yes.”
“You find her?”
“Also, yes.”
Chapter Seventy-Six
So many questions fill Mike’s mind. Inquiries about what Kari Ma was able to find. Where his daughter might be. Who is watching over her. If she is happy. Well taken care of.
If Ma was even able to track her down yet or was merely putting him on, hearing the strain in his voice.
Handfuls of things he has no way of knowing right now. No way of finding out the answers to just yet.
Thoughts that he allows himself to entertain for just a few minutes before forcing them away. Casting them aside with a shake of his head.
The sorts of things that he imagines every parent probably considers before facing impending danger.
Even a fledgling – if at all – father like himself.
Pushing them to the side for the time being, he instead pulls his focus back to the words shared by Eka and Intan earlier. The information about the scheme they were a part of.
The man that had first approached them and their small radical group nearly a year prior. A bunch of kids entrenched in their twenties that had met at university and had thoughts of saving the global environment implanted in their minds.
A rogue clan that was content causing low-level mischief and generally being a headache for the larger corporations they deemed polluters in the area before Firash was put on the payroll and things really picked up.
All of it put in motion by a man named Henry Rawit. Someone that Mike had never heard of - Kari Ma neither, apparently - but Tania Lynch seemed to be familiar with.
A man that she was moving to act on while Mike took the other key piece of information shared. The part that had been driving him on for the last day.
The sole thing that could even begin to rival the notion of having a daughter out there in terms of motivation.
Finding and eliminating Firash. A lingering task he thought was finished years ago.
A stain on Mike’s time in the military and a burden on society in general. A man they were lucky to have avoided for so long before he finally decided to become active again.
Flicking his gaze between the navigation screen pulled up on his phone and the narrow one-lane road before him, Mike drops his speed to twenty miles an hour. His pulse picks up as the jungle pushes in tight from either side.
A harsh contrast to the dense urban scene he’s been staring at for the last couple of days.
Farther still from the open beaches where he normally spends his time.
Growing heavier with each passing inch, thickets of bamboo and palm trees extend out over the road, their fronds serving to blot most of the early morning sun from view. Stray bits of light pass over his windshield as he rolls forward, steering wheel gripped tightly in both hands.
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Sweat staining his features despite the air conditioning pumping through the interior of the vehicle, he holds his breath as the site the young girl described comes into view. A narrow two-tract cut into the wall of vegetation along the side of the road.
A turnout so small that it would be completely missed if someone didn’t know to look for it.
The first hint of life Mike has seen in more than a mile, he forces himself to roll on by. Follow the road as it gently jogs to the right, giving way from gravel to dirt just a half mile later.
A rutted trail that ends completely another half mile beyond that, the jungle eventually swallowing it whole. A green wall that, if the map up onscreen is to be believed, ends abruptly a short distance ahead.
A sharp cliff leading directly down to the sea below.
Taking the sedan as far as he can, wanting to remain out of view from the narrow driveway behind him, Mike pulls clear to the end. Making a quick k-turn, he parks facing back the way he just came, the rear bumper just inches from the jungle wall.
An optimal angle in the thin chance that he needs to make a hasty retreat later.
An eventuality he can’t imagine coming to pass, but doesn’t want to discount entirely.
Reaching for the middle console, he snatches up his cellphone. Passing it into his left hand, he goes back again, this time extending for the glove box and the Glock 19 stowed away inside.
The weapon loaned to him by Tania, practically a prerequisite after hearing Eka describe the fourth member of their crew. A former soldier named Arief that it sounds like is there to do the heavy lifting, Eka and her partner involved simply to serve as window dressing.
A smokescreen providing believable motive for anybody that might get wind of the ongoing endeavor.
Grabbing up the weapon, Mike eases from the vehicle. Greeted by a veil of humidity that immediately dampens his skin, he stands in the center of the moist dirt.
Taking the Glock in a shooter’s grip, he cocks his head, listening for any sounds that don’t belong.
