Lois and Gretchen raced across the floor of the temple, a few yards ahead of him now.
Then, as if the whole world suddenly turned on its axis, the walls of the temple shook. Giant karsts and limestone pillars tore back from the earth and crashed down on the floor of the temple.
“Earthquake,” Seabury shouted and raced on behind Lois and Gretchen. Their arms above their heads, hands flying out, they battled back bits and pieces of rock and falling debris. They raced through the temple and then down through the tunnel leading outside. Up ahead, the tunnel forked.
“This way,” Seabury shouted and turned to his right. A loud, thunderous roar reached his ears as they raced up the right fork of the tunnel. The air ran thick with a wet, heavy mist, and dust and smoke billowed all around them. Lois and Gretchen held shirtsleeves up to their noses. Gretchen pulled her sister along with a new-found burst of energy. Her eyes aglow, her face alive and youthful. Seabury was amazed by her power and strength.
Twenty yards from the opening, Lois tripped and fell. A stream of crimson tore from the top of her right shoulder as she flew like a rag doll and landed hard on the sharp, jagged edge of a limestone boulder. The tunnel shook and shuttered. A wild explosion filled the air behind them. It was as if the earth were coming apart at the seams.
Seabury pulled Lois to her knees, and they raced ahead toward the opening. Outside, they hurried back away from the edge of the cave and down the mountain. High above them now, the forward wall of the mountain collapsed. On the other side, the coal mine crushed under the weight of the mountain as it crashed down around it in a monstrous avalanche of shrubs, uprooted trees, and dark megalithic boulders. They ran for cover and reached the SUV moments later.
“Keys. Keys,” Seabury stammered, tapping his pants pocket. He found the keys, got the trunk open, and laid Hornsby’s body down gently inside. Another minute later, he started the engine. In a cloud of dust and smoke, he backed up away from the mountain, straightened out, and shot across the grassy field toward the gate, got it opened, and drove through out onto the road.
Far off to his left in the distance, he saw the chopper’s dark, dragonfly image swooping low and heading his way. He stared up at the bubble nose of Plexiglas and saw the cop inside, hovering over them. He slowed up and stopped the car.
The chopper doors opened and banged shut. Reinhart, Naomi, and two other cops rushed across, guns drawn, ready for a shoot out. Seabury rolled down the window.
Reinhart leaned inside. “You’re under arrest, Seabury.”
“You’ve got the wrong man.”
“A permit violation and a charge of first-degree murder says I don’t.”
“You’re making a big mistake,” Seabury insisted. “I’m not the man you want.”
Reinhart stepped back away from the car and leveled his gun on Seabury. “Out, now,” he shouted.
Seabury opened the door and stepped outside. Lois and Gretchen came around from the other side of the car. Lois stepped between the two men. She held a palm up. Guns switched back and forth on her, then back on Seabury.
“My pocket.” Seabury raised his hand. “It’s in there. A spy camera with a video tape. You need to see it.”
Rio stared at him suspiciously.
“Can I?”
The cop paused briefly then nodded his head.
Seabury went into his jacket and brought out the camera. “It’s all there on film.” He switched on the camera.
Reinhart studied the figures on the screen. “Kill Seabury,” he heard Barat’s deep basso voice ordering the hit. He heard the hit man asked about the others, heard Barat reply, “Locket’s daughters and a college professor, they mean nothing to me. Kill them all.”
Lois stepped forward. She looked at Reinhart. “The assassin killed Professor Hornsby. Undoubtedly, he’s the same man who killed the antiquity dealer in Singapore. Seabury had nothing to do with it.”
She went around and opened the trunk of the car. She pointed down at Hornsby’s dead body. “We…we’re bringing him in. I want to give him a good funeral.” She shook her head sadly, regretfully. “We disagreed about many things—religion, politics. He didn’t deserve to die like this.” She pointed back toward the mountain. “The assassin’s back there buried under all that rubble.” She exchanged glances with Seabury. Seabury said nothing.
Rio Reinhart walked over to the chopper and dialed a number. He spoke hurriedly into the phone. “Get a warrant for Cyril Barat. Yes, that’s right…the CEO of Eastern Temple Mining Company.”
“Barat?” A sound of disbelief came over the line.
“That’s an order. Now hurry!”
“There’s more,” Seabury said. He told Reinhart about the island and the boatload of stone entering the country illegally. “They smuggle illegal contraband inside the stone.”
Reinhart shook his head. “The guy’s an octopus. His slimy tentacles are around everything.” He looked at Seabury. “It makes you wonder how much money some guys need.”
“I don’t know,” said Seabury, feeling the tension drain from his body. “Rich people can’t get enough, I guess. I know one thing…I want to be around when you arrest him.”
Reinhart shook his head.
“Come on,” Seabury said to him. “The guy ordered a hit on me. I want to see him go down.”
Stepping close to Seabury, Lois said. “Gretchen can take the car back and catch a plane to Jakarta. I’m coming with you.”
“Hold on a minute,” Reinhart said. “This isn’t a Sunday picnic.” He thought a minute. Shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not a good idea.”
Naomi stepped forward and entered the conversation. “It might not be a bad idea, Lieutenant. We don’t know what kind of security Barat has on the island. Two more bodies might be useful.”
“I’ll get the Indonesian SWAT Team out there. It’s not like we’re going to be under-manned.”
“Ah, come on, Lieutenant,” Naomi insisted. “Barat put out a contract on them. If that happened to me, I’d march to hell and back for the chance to take him down.”
Reinhart said nothing, thinking for a long moment. At last, he said, “Okay, but the two of you need to stay back out of the field of operation unless I ask you to join.”
Lois and Seabury nodded their heads. They climbed into the chopper with the others. The plane raised straight up off the ground in a cloud of dust and grit blowing in off the field. It was now completely dark. A crescent moon. Billions of stars, twinkling in the darkness of space.
“It’s six-thirty now,” Reinhart said, checking his watch. “The closest sea port out to Derawan Island is Berau. We should be there by ten o’clock. I’ll have the SWAT Team on the dock ready to go.”
They flew off into the night, heading east toward Berau across vast stretches of jungle terrain far below.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Seabury and Lois climbed out of the chopper at 10:05 p.m. They touched down in Berau inside a wide parking area near a row of warehouses closed for the night. They exchanged glances and looked down below. A small freighter docked at the pier unloaded cargo. Seabury saw the string of lights from the ship’s mast blinking on and off in the distance.
Inside a circle of bright light, deckhands labored out on deck. Cargo winched from the deep holds lining the belly of the ship landed heavily on the pier below. Beyond the light, darkness settled over the port. The air smelled salty and full of diesel fuel. The water near the pier swirled by in a sea of debris. Sticks, chunks of wet, matted straw, rumpled paper, crush boxes, condoms, and crayon husks bobbed up and down on the oil-slick surface.
Seabury barely heard Rio Reinhart and Naomi coming across the lot toward him. They had gone over and came back with another man. He slipped from the shadows of the warehouse, secured by heavy grated doors, and led the way across.
Rio introduced Lois and Seabury to the SWAT Team commander. Seabury shook his hand. It was big—almost the same size as his—with hard, bony knuckles and a powerf
ul grip. He wore jungle green fatigues, a black beret, and black combat boots. Medals and insignias appeared all over his uniform. He wore a chrome-plated, AK-47 assault rifle with a wooden stock strapped to his shoulder.
“We need to hurry.” The commander pointed to the Swedish CB90 assault boat tied to the pier below. “The cargo ship we’re looking for is out in the gulf three hours away. It’s due to arrive at Derawan Island at midnight. We just received confirmation from GPS. It’s the same ship that left the Port of Vinh Long, Vietnam two days ago. They’ll anchor out in a remote cove near the northern tip, far away from the tourist crowd on the south side of the island.”
Checking his watch, the commander looked worried. “I’m afraid we’ll never make it in time,” he said in English. “We should have been there already. I don’t want them dumping off a load of stone with smuggled contraband and then disappearing into the night. I’ve called the Coast Guard for backup. So, everything’s set. Let’s go.”
A horn sounded on the bay. “It’s the gunboat,” he called back to the others. “They’re ready.”
Ten military policemen jumped out of the back of a truck and scampered down to the pier. A ladder dropped from the gunboat. The soldiers got in, followed by the Commander, Lois, Seabury, Naomi, and Rio.
The CB90 growled back from the pier, swung around, and headed out to sea. The boat was exceptionally fast and agile. Light weight, shallow draught, and twin water jets trailing out the back. Twin 625 hp Scania V8 Diesels powered the craft like a missile across the water, at speeds up to forty knots. It could execute sharp turns at high speeds, and then decelerate from top speed to a full stop in 2.5 boat lengths. Armaments included three Browning M2HB machine guns, one MK 19 grenade launcher, four naval mines, and six depth charges. The latest search and navigational radar, portable radio, and transceiver were standard issue.
In the moonlit night, it powered north out of the harbor into the Makassar Strait. A plume of water splashed back over the bullet, olive green nose as the assault boat roared out toward the open sea. Seabury and Lois, dressed in combat gear, saw searchlights skimming over the water in front of them as they rocked and bucked over the waves.
Three hours later, they arrived on the northern tip of Derawan Island, located in the island archipelago of East Kalimantan. At a point north of Rocky Bay, they saw the black silhouetted shape of a bulky cargo ship anchored out from shore.
A few minutes before, the commander had cut the vessel’s lights and engine, allowing inertia to glide them into a small lagoon where a wooden dock jutted out over the water. A fishing village appeared beyond the lagoon, twenty yards up a flat, desolate beach.
At a window in the upper bedroom of a house up the beach, a blocky, snubbed-nosed Indonesian bodyguard saw movement stirring in the darkness down below. He removed his nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson from a holster tied to the lip of a closet door nearby and moved past a queen-sized bed to the front door. Cyril Barat must have heard the noise too, because he tapped twice on the bedroom door and then entered.
“Trouble?”
“Assault team positioned down the beach, near the jetty.”
Barat asked, “Can we get out?” His voice rose hysterically. “Is there still time? I can’t get arrested. Not here. Not with all the stone on the vessel.”
Unresponsive, the bodyguard entered the hall and called back to Barat. “Come on. We’ll try to get out the back door.”
The commander’s Alpha Team positioned themselves in a stand of tall, dark trees ten yards to the right of a fishing dock. Attempting a rear assault, they got out quickly and entered the jungle. They crept around the lagoon and kept to the right until they circled around in back of a cluster of small village huts.
Soon, gunfire erupted, shattering the silence. Off to his right, inside the trees, Seabury saw muzzle fire. Tiny lights like flames at the end of a welding torch flashed on and off in the distance. Despite protests, Lois was ordered to stay inside the gunboat for her own safety.
Now, all at once, three soldiers from Bravo Team jumped from the gunboat and sprinted up the narrow beach to a window on the left side of a two-story cinder block home, built with a wide front porch.
Nodding their heads, Rio, Naomi, and Seabury signaled to each other. Then, they raced up the beach, keeping low to the ground in combat crouches, and stopped on both sides of the front door, their weapons cocked and ready.
Seconds later, Alpha Team—minus two men—broke through a clearing at the back of the house and pressed up to a side window on the right side of the building.
The commander radioed the team leader, and the soldier said, “Two down. Sector clear.”
Sighing, the commander grimaced in pain over the loss of his men. “Acknowledged. Continue Assault Fox Fire. Over,” he radioed back.
A moment later, the teams at the side windows of the house sprang into action. Two incendiary devices slammed in through the side windows, and the interior of the home filled with smoke. Gunfire erupted back out the side windows. Shards of glass exploded. Bullets ripped chunks of wood from the window pane and hurled them high into the air.
The incoming fire continued. Rifles, with hot, sporadic flashes of muzzle fire, jerked and sputtered in the soldier’s arms. The sound cracked and splintered off into the night. A loud crash came from the back of the house. A door kicked open. Two soldiers crashed through. Rifle-fire strafed the air, turned the room red. The mournful cry of dying men filled the air.
“Sector clear,” the team leader radioed to the commander from the back of the house. The commander responded, then nodded to Seabury, who crashed in through the front door, with Rio and Naomi right behind him.
Seabury hit the floor rolling and fired his Beretta at the man who had fired at him from the landing at the top of the stairs. The bodyguard, dressed in black pants and a gray shirt opened at the throat, toppled over and rolled down to the bottom of the stairs dead. Blood leaked from a hole in the middle of his chest.
Seconds flew by. Glancing around quickly through a layer of smoke, Seabury noticed a light on the opposite side of the room. It spilled out in a long, slender band from a back bedroom and wormed onto the top of a black leather sofa.
All of a sudden, the door in back swung open. A man fired at Seabury. The bullet tore into the hardwood floor inches to his left. It ricocheted off the bronze statue of an elephant that sat to the right of a glass coffee table. A cobalt blue floor vase stuffed with red orchids splattered across the floor.
Moving quickly, Seabury dove to his right, scooted along the floor to the edge of the sofa, and got into position to fire his weapon. He knew that the man inside the back bedroom was not a soldier. Probably a security guard. He could tell by the way he had fired his gun. Nervous, excitable, a true amateur. A soldier would never fire a gun that way. A soldier would have crouched low, entered the room, out of the light, out of a direct line of fire, and would have waited patiently for the enemy to make the next move.
Now, as Seabury inched around the corner of the sofa, the door to the back bedroom cracked open. Seabury saw a hand come out followed by a body framed in the doorway.
He squeezed off, and instantly, the room exploded in gunfire. The man blew up against the side of the door, his head flying back as he grabbed his chest, his gun going off in a rat-a-tat discharge of spraying bullets. They exploded against the doorjamb and sent chips of wood flying in all directions. Slowly, he sank to the floor, leaving a trail of blood splattered across the white, glossy surface of the door.
Smoke poured out through the bedroom now, filling the living room with a layer of white haze. Coughing, Naomi stepped over and opened the front door, allowing a wave of smoke to escape outside. Then, she flicked a wall switch, and the room flooded with light.
A tall, thin figure dressed in dark slacks and a yellow cotton shirt stood at the top of the stairs. Cyril Barat stared down below with a look of outrage and tramped downstairs.
“Who’s in charge here?” Barat demanded. He
searched the room with cold, dark eyes.
Removing a handkerchief from his nose and mouth, the commander stepped into the middle of the room. “Okay, Barat,” he said, his eyes locked on him. “The game’s over.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“I know who you are,” the commander said. “I also know about your smuggling operation. What?” He scoffed a little. “The coal mining business hit a sharp decline?” The commander’s sarcasm filled the air. “Now, I won’t ask twice. Where’s the contraband?” He stepped closer to the Indonesian and leveled his service revolver on him.
Barat didn’t answer. His face flushed. He glared at the commander with a look of contempt and scorn.
Swinging his hand in a short, compact arch, the commander cracked Barat hard across the face with the barrel of his gun. The sound of bones cracking and a sharp cry of pain filled the room. Doubling over and screaming in pain, Barat twisted to the side and then stood straight up. A large, purple lump ballooned his left cheekbone. His face swelled. The skin broke open. A stream of blood trickled down his face, stopping at the edge of his bristled jaw.
“How dare you?” Barat shouted.
Eyes riveted on Barat. The commander calmly turned aside and motioned with his revolver. Seabury, Naomi, and two soldiers raced upstairs. A moment later, a Malay teen appeared at the top of the stairs. Behind her stood two young Vietnamese women. They came down into the living room wearing cotton bathrobes, looking sick, tired, and emotionally drained.
Naomi sat them down on the sofa and pulled up chairs. She talked to them in a quiet voice, telling them not to be afraid. They continued to stare down wearily, eyes to the floor, their bodies quivering.
Meanwhile, Seabury had come downstairs. He handed the spy camera to the commander. The commander held it up in front of Barat. Barat’s voice sprang from beneath the tiny plastic screen. “Yes, the big guy, Seabury and the others. Kill them all.”
Eden Two Page 18
