Jaws of Death

by Paul Adam

  ‘He did,’ Rita replied. ‘But the week after he disappeared there was a break-in at his office. All the paperwork was taken.’

  Max’s heart sank. ‘Everything?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. There is evidence at the Rescomin processing plant, Narang was sure of that – documents that would show the corporation had stolen land, had been logging illegally, maybe even records of which politicians, which police officers they have bribed. But the plant is heavily guarded. Narang was trying to get the courts to order Rescomin to hand over their papers, but the case was getting nowhere. And now Narang is gone there is no one else to continue his fight.’

  ‘He had no partners?’ Consuela said.

  ‘No, he always worked alone. Most lawyers here are not interested in fighting multinational corporations. They are only interested in making money. That’s why we have a two-bedroom bungalow rather than a six-bedroom mansion with a swimming pool. Narang followed his conscience, not his wallet.’ Rita shook her head in despair. ‘What can anyone do against a corporation like Rescomin?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of the Cedar Alliance?’ Max asked.

  ‘No, what is it?’

  ‘An organization dedicated to protecting the environment, to fighting the people who want to destroy it. My father was part of it. I think your husband was too.’

  ‘He never mentioned it.’

  ‘My dad came back here last week,’ Max said. ‘I need to know why. Is there anyone he might have visited? Do you know if he met any other people when he was here two years ago?’

  Rita thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know. The only person I can think of is a man named Jaya who runs the local charity for which your father was going to do a show – the orang-utan sanctuary.’

  ‘Where do we find him? Where is this sanctuary?’

  ‘The sanctuary is out in the rainforest, but Jaya has an office in town – not far from Narang’s.’

  ‘Do you have the address?’

  ‘Ari will take you there.’

  ‘No, that’s not necessary.’

  ‘There are some things he can do for me in town at the same time.’ She turned her head and called, ‘Ari!’

  The Dayak boy came in, stealing a curious glance at Max, Consuela and Chris, then waiting while Rita gave him instructions.

  At the front door Rita shook hands with them, holding onto Max’s hand with both her own. ‘If you find anything, you must let me know. I do not want Narang’s death to go unpunished.’

  ‘I will,’ Max replied.

  They went back out into the sweltering heat and headed towards the town centre. Ari walked alongside them in silence. Max tried to make conversation with him.

  ‘Do you live with Mrs Anwar?’ he asked.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Ari replied.

  ‘Where do you live the rest of the time?’

  ‘Here and there.’

  ‘In Pangkalan Bun?’

  ‘And upriver.’

  ‘Upriver?’

  ‘Where I come from.’

  Max wanted to ask him about his parents, but decided not to. He didn’t know the boy at all and it was probably a very sensitive subject. So he asked him how old he was instead.

  ‘Fourteen,’ Ari replied.

  ‘The same age as me. Don’t you have to go to school?’

  Ari’s face broke into a wide grin. ‘Don’t you?’ he fired back.

  Max laughed. ‘Mrs Anwar said you were a Dayak. What does that mean?’

  ‘Dayak is word for forest peoples. Who live here a long time. Before Chinese and Malays and others come.’

  ‘You grew up in the rainforest?’

  ‘Yes. Rainforest was my home.’

  ‘“Was”?’

  Ari shook his head – this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about – and Max moved swiftly on to a different topic.

  ‘You speak very good English. Where did you learn it?’

  ‘Here and there,’ Ari said again. It was obviously one of his favourite phrases.

  ‘In school?’

  ‘I pick it up from tourists. Some days I am guide in orang-utan sanctuary.’

  ‘This one run by Jaya?’

  ‘Yes. I speak English to tourists. Show them forest, orang-utan being fed.’

  ‘That must be fun to watch.’

  ‘Yes, orang-utan is very funny, very good to watch. You want to go there? I take if you like.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’m not sure if we’ll have the time.’

  ‘You look for father, yes?’ Ari must have been listening outside the door at Rita’s house.

  Max nodded.

  Ari nodded back, as if he understood. ‘I hope you find him,’ he said.

  They went back through the market by Narang Anwar’s office. The street was still thronging with people, stallholders yelling their prices, measuring out their wares on brass scales – big ones for fruit and vegetables, smaller ones for spices. A man staggered along carrying a huge bag of rice; youths passed by eating Chinese dumplings with their fingers, their lips smeared with grease. Glistening fish and chunks of meat were laid out on slabs beneath gaudy red and green canopies; women bustled around the stalls, pushing and jostling, their arms laden with bags; and drifting over everything was a cloud of smoke from the grills where chicken was being barbecued.

  Beyond the market, the streets were less crowded but still busy, cars and bicycles and belching lorries competing for space. Ari led them away from the main road down a narrow side street that was shaded from the sun by the surrounding buildings. He stopped outside a doorway screened by strings of beads to keep out the flies.

  ‘This where Jaya work,’ he said.

  He pushed aside the bead curtain and they followed him inside. A slightly built, mahogany-skinned man was sitting behind a desk, speaking into the telephone. He waved a hand at Ari, acknowledging their arrival, and continued his conversation.

  Max looked around the office. The walls were covered with photographs of rainforest animals and plants – trees, flowers, monkeys, lizards, snakes, lemurs. But dominating the display was the orang-utan. Max studied the pictures. He’d seen orang-utans in zoos back home, clowning around in their enclosures, and always found them fascinating: their long arms, all that ginger hair, those big eyes and expressive faces. He knew they were an endangered species and was glad to see that someone was fighting to ensure their survival.

  Jaya came off the phone and exchanged a few words in Bahasa with Ari, the boy obviously explaining who Max, Consuela and Chris were. Jaya started with surprise and stared hard at Max for a moment.

  ‘I have to go now,’ Ari said. ‘Maybe I see you around.’

  ‘Yes – thanks for bringing us here,’ Max replied.

  The Dayak boy flashed a quick smile and left the office. Jaya stood up behind the desk and said in English, ‘Hi, I’m Jaya.’

  He shook hands and found chairs for them, then went back to his own seat, giving Max another stare that was so intense he had to look away. ‘So how can I help you?’

  ‘You met my father a couple of years ago,’ Max said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You haven’t seen him again in the last week, have you?’

  Jaya blinked, then frowned with puzzlement.

  ‘He’s alive,’ Max went on quickly, anticipating Jaya’s next question. ‘I know he came to Pangkalan Bun. Did he come to you?’

  Jaya shook his head slowly. ‘He has not been here. Perhaps Mrs Anwar …’

  ‘He didn’t go there either,’ Max said. ‘Who else might he have gone to see? Have you any idea?’

  ‘No idea at all. I met your father only once, with Narang. I have not seen him since.’

  Max was disappointed. He’d been so optimistic that he would pick up his dad’s trail in Pangkalan Bun, but every lead he’d found – Narang Anwar, Rita Anwar and now Jaya – had proved to be a dead end. He looked at Chris and Consuela. He could see that they were as deflated as he was.

  ‘Your father talk
ed about doing a show for us,’ Jaya said. ‘For our orang-utan sanctuary. It’s a shame it never happened.’

  ‘I was looking at your photographs,’ Consuela said. ‘You’re doing good work.’

  ‘I only wish we could do more. The tide is against us, I’m afraid. Every week, more and more rainforest is being destroyed. Soon there will be no orang-utans left in the wild.’ He gave a weary shrug of resignation. ‘What are orang-utans compared to palm oil? What can a small charity like ours do against the multinational corporations?’

  ‘Narang Anwar was fighting them,’ Max said.

  ‘And look what happened to him.’

  Jaya got to his feet. ‘I have to go out to the sanctuary now. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help you.’

  ‘That’s OK. Thank you for your time.’

  Max walked out of the office and paused to let Consuela and Chris join him. ‘We didn’t get far there,’ he said despondently. ‘I was hoping for more.’

  They headed off down the street. No one said anything. They were all thinking the same thing: Where do we go from here?

  They turned onto the main road, heading back towards the street market. Two hundred metres further on, they were waiting to cross at a busy junction when Max saw a blue-and-white police car speeding towards them from the town centre. Some sixth sense told him to look over his shoulder and he saw a second police car coming in the opposite direction. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Something was wrong – he could feel it instinctively.

  The police cars slewed towards the kerb and came to an abrupt halt. Two officers jumped out of each vehicle. Chris and Consuela didn’t even notice what was happening until the policemen had surrounded them.

  ‘You’re under arrest,’ one of the officers said curtly.

  ‘What?’ Chris stared at the man, then spun round to find two more policemen behind him. His arms were seized, Consuela’s too.

  For a split second everyone seemed to have forgotten about Max. He didn’t think twice, didn’t hesitate. He took off across the junction, weaving his way through the traffic, and sprinted away along the road. He didn’t look back – he knew the police would be coming after him.

  NINETEEN

  The pavement was crowded with people – shoppers and other pedestrians sauntering along slowly, in no hurry to go anywhere. Max couldn’t afford to get trapped in the middle of the throng so he stuck to the road, running along in the gutter next to the streaming lines of traffic. It was dangerous, but not as dangerous as allowing the police to catch him.

  At the next junction he glanced back. The two officers were still in hot pursuit, though he’d opened up a gap of fifty or sixty metres. They were young, trim men, but they were hampered by their uniforms and all the equipment they carried on their belts – radios, pistols, batons. Max, on the other hand, was carrying no extra weight and he was fast and fit, all his hours of training paying dividends now.

  He shot across the road, dodging recklessly through the traffic, which had to brake or swerve to avoid him. Car horns honked, drivers yelled insults at him, but Max was oblivious to everything. Everything except escape.

  He headed for the street market. He could shake off the policemen there, or find somewhere to hide. He looked back. They weren’t giving up the chase. One of the officers had his radio to his mouth as he ran – calling for reinforcements, Max guessed. The other was yelling out and gesticulating furiously, apparently ordering the pedestrians to stop the fleeing boy. But no one intervened. People paused and turned to stare curiously at Max as he hurtled past, but they made no attempt to catch him.

  Max smelled the smoke from the barbecues before he saw the market. He careered round a corner and there it was in front of him. A whole street blocked by stalls and dawdling shoppers. He glanced over his shoulder again. The two officers hadn’t come into sight yet. Max’s heart leaped. He was going to make it.

  He ran into the market, squeezing through the crowds, looking back over people’s heads. Still no sign of the policemen. He couldn’t move very fast here and had to slow to a walk, ease his way past all the shoppers. Their bodies were all around him, a pulsing mass of flesh that he had to force apart to keep going. He hit a wall of people and came to a stop, trying to find a way through. He took another quick look behind, but couldn’t see the police officers. He prised apart two large men and slipped quickly through the gap. The police would be encountering the same obstacles, the same dense jam of people. If Max could only get to the other side of the market, he’d be home and dry.

  The crowd began to thin out. The stalls were coming to an end. Max burst out of the market, already starting to accelerate. And skidded to an abrupt halt.

  There were two more policemen waiting for him. Max stared at them, feeling suddenly sick. They were five metres away, blocking his path. He knew he had no chance of getting past them. He was trapped. Police officers in front of him, two others closing in from the rear. Max did the only thing he could: he spun round and plunged back into the market.

  The officers yelled at him in English to stop, but he was already twisting and turning through the crowd. He looked around desperately for another way out, but couldn’t see one. There were stalls all along the street and buildings behind them – no side streets, no exits. In the distance, Max caught a glimpse of two peaked caps gliding towards him. He stopped. Whichever way he went he’d be caught.

  The policemen were closing in, still shouting, pushing and shoving people out of the way. Max threw himself to the ground and snaked away underneath one of the stalls. As he emerged on the other side, he felt a pair of hands take hold of his arms. He stiffened, getting ready to fight, then looked up and saw Ari.

  ‘This way,’ the boy said softly.

  He helped Max to his feet, then kept hold of his arm and guided him away from the stalls and into a narrow alley that Max hadn’t noticed. They ran along it and out into another street. Ari turned left and Max followed. He thought he was fast, but Ari was even faster and he knew every inch of the town. They ducked into another side street, then crossed a wider road to another alley, emerging into a secluded courtyard where Ari finally came to a stop. Max bent over, hands on knees, and panted for breath.

  ‘Is safe here,’ Ari said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Max gasped. He straightened up, still breathing heavily. His face and back were dripping with sweat. He wiped his forehead with his hand.

  Ari grinned at him. ‘Running from policemens is fun, no?’ He said it as if he’d done it many times himself. ‘Why they chase you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Max replied.

  He wondered about it now for the first time. Why had the police stopped them, told them they were under arrest? Was Penhall behind it, or Julius Clark? They’d done nothing wrong, committed no offence, as far as Max was aware. His decision to flee had been instinctive, but he knew it had been the right thing to do. He didn’t trust the authorities – not back home in England, and particularly not here in Borneo. No one was going to lock him up again. Not if he could help it.

  ‘What you do now?’ Ari asked.

  Max had to think about that. Chris and Consuela were in custody, he didn’t know for how long. He was on his own: he had to make a decision. Did he wait for them to be released – if they were going to be released – or did he carry on with the task they’d come to Borneo to carry out? It didn’t take him long to make up his mind.

  ‘Mrs Anwar told us that Rescomin has a big oil-palm plantation and processing plant upriver from here. Can you take me there?’

  ‘Is long way,’ Ari said doubtfully. ‘Two days by boat.’

  ‘Is there not a road, or a bus or something?’

  ‘No road, no bus. Is rainforest. River is only way through.’

  ‘Can we get a boat then?’

  ‘I can fix, yes. But it will cost money. I get ces for us.’

  ‘Ces?’

  ‘Is canoe with motor.’

  Max checked his pockets. He had only a small amo
unt of rupiahs, the local currency. The rest of his money he’d left in his hotel room. ‘I have to go back to my hotel first.’

  ‘I come with you. Which hotel?’

  Max gave him the name.

  ‘I know it,’ Ari said. ‘We go this way. Is not far.’

  They headed for Max’s hotel, walking now, not running – they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. Max kept a sharp eye out for the police, but didn’t see any sign of them. They were a couple of kilometres from the street market, in a quieter residential area. With any luck, the officers would still be scouring the town centre.

  Ten minutes later they were standing behind a tree fifty metres from the hotel, on the opposite side of the road. Max studied the building. Did the police know where he was staying? Would they come here? He knew there was a good chance they would, but he had to risk it – he needed his money.

  ‘I keep watch for you. Whistle if police come, OK?’ Ari said, reading Max’s mind.

  Max nodded. They crossed the road together and walked rapidly towards the hotel.

  ‘Where your room?’ Ari asked.

  ‘Upstairs – that one at the end,’ Max replied, pointing up at the first-floor balcony.

  He went into the hotel warily, preparing to run if there was a welcome party waiting for him, but the entrance hall was deserted. The manager came out from his office when he heard the footsteps. Max got his key and went up to his room. His money was locked in his suitcase under the bed. He retrieved it quickly – a wad of rupiahs and some US dollars – and grabbed his passport as well.

  He was pushing the case back under the bed when he heard a sharp whistle from the rear of the hotel. He stepped over to the window and looked out. Ari was in the yard, waving to him urgently. Max waved back and hurried across the room. He opened his door and peeped out cautiously. A police officer was just coming up the stairs onto the balcony. Max closed and locked his door, then ran to the window and pushed it open. He clambered over the sill, hung by his arms and dropped to the ground. Ari caught him, helping to break his fall, then they ran across the yard, scrambled over a fence and sprinted away from the hotel.