The Pilau Sebu Island Group
2210 Hours; Zone Time, October 24, 2008
Drawing on the butt of his clove cigarette, Malang Sengosari lay back and watched the cloud tails swirl across the stars overhead. The strapping young Bugi seaman felt the little prahu fishing boat bobble and tug at its stone anchor as his shipmate Mahmud rolled over in the bow, grunting and mumbling to himself.
They had completed their fourth day of spying and the duty was beginning to wear. They were living on the fish they caught, eaten raw for the most part, and they drank the water from the passing rain squalls caught and rung out of their ragged shirts. What was worse, this miserable remnant had been their last cigarette.
Still, he and Mahmud were Bugi and they obeyed the commands of their ship’s captain as he obeyed their clan chief and as the clan chief, in turn, obeyed the Raja Samudra. They had been ordered to watch the big merchant ship and to watch for the red-haired foreign woman aboard it. They would continue to do so.
Regretfully, he flipped the butt over the wooden gunwale of the prahu, hearing it hiss out over the lap of the wavelets against the hull. Their mothership would return soon to collect what they had learned and they would have more cigarettes. Sengosari allowed his eyes to close.
Thump!
They snapped open again. Something had struck the hull of the boat. Lifting his head from the wadded blanket he’d been using for a pillow, the Bugi swiftly looked about.
They still lay forty yards off the mangroves, beyond the reach of mosquitoes. The waters of the inlet were glassy smooth, and to westward, beyond the mouth of the inlet, the anchor lights of the moored merchant ships twinkled.
It must have been nothing. Sengosari let his head sink back to his pillow.
Thump!
A harder blow.
The corsair came up onto his knees. Ripples were spreading out from around the prahu. Under the water there was a faint, moving luminescence. Sengosari groped for the pistol under the wadded blanket.
From up in the bow, he heard Mahmud scream.
Startled, Sengosari looked up. Powerful arms suddenly burst out of the water
around the prahu’s low set stern, clawing at him, gripping him, dragging him over the side.
Sengosari tried to scream as well, but the dark waters closed over him, gagging
his cry as the black demons drew him down into their wet hell.
Somewhere within the Muluku Island Group
The Indonesian Archipelago
2210, Hours; Zone Time, October 24, 2008
The captain of the Karel Satsuitubun thought he had been miraculously lucky to survive the sinking of his ship. Now he wasn’t so certain.
Blown over the side in the first moment of the attack that had destroyed both his vessel and the LST they had been escorting, he had witnessed and escaped the systematic massacre of the survivors by the rogue missile boat.
For black, endless hours, he had clung to a piece of floating wreckage, listening to the screams of the other survivors as the sharks had closed in. When they had come for him, he had beseeched Allah and beaten them off with his fists, his flesh tearing on their thorny skin.
The captain had been on the verge of yielding to his death when the rising sun had revealed the graceful silhouette of a Bugi pinisi bearing down upon him.
He had survived the blood-sodden night, only to find himself a prisoner. Roughly bound and blindfolded, he had been carried aboard the schooner to somewhere. There, he had been loaded aboard a small amphibian aircraft and carried to somewhere else, to this small windowless cinderblock room that smelled of copra and the sea.
Here, his bonds and his blindfold had been removed. His wounds had been treated and he had been given food and drink. But two silent, heavily armed Chinese guarded the door and his final fate seemed very much in question.
Then came his interrogator, the tall, handsome near-European with the pencil line moustache and the crisp safari suit. Outlined in the glare of a hissing gasoline lantern, he sat across the room’s rickety table from the captain, asking questions. The Indonesian naval officer answered them. He had no reason not to.
“Why?” the stranger asked finally.
The captain shook his head. “I do not know. I swear by the sacred names of Allah, I do not know. Our own
ship, our own men, murdered us. There was no warning. No reason. If you know
the explanation, I beg you to tell me why my crew and all of the others were so
betrayed.”
The big man was silent for what seemed a long time. “I honestly don’t know either,” he said finally.
He rose and started for the door. Then he hesitated and looked back for a
moment. “You will not be harmed, Captain. You will be my prisoner for a time but you will
be well treated and you will see your home and family again. You have my word.”
For the first time since the sinking, the Captain of the Karel Satsuitubun dared to believe this might be true.
Makara Harconan walked slowly back to the lanai of the plantation house, his security team hanging back in the shadows, vigilant but unobtrusive. Harconan made no note of them, nor of the piercing stars overhead, nor of the susurrus of the trade wind in the palm groves. He was lost far too deeply in thought.
Lo waited on the lanai, a spare black-suited shape standing at parade rest in
the flickering light of the candle lanterns. Harconan gestured his factotum
into one of the rattan chairs drawn around the table before taking one himself.
“The missile boat that conducted the attack, do we have any sighting reports on
it?”
Lo shook his head. “No sir. The archipelago is extensive, even for our people. It has apparently
withdrawn to some island base unknown even to the Bugi.”
Harconan smiled without humor and waved away the servant who had appeared at the
plantation house door. “I believe this is what is called being hoist on one’s own petard. This is a strange turn of events, bapak, very strange.”
“I must agree, Mr. Harconan, but possibly it is also compatible with recent
events in Bali.”
“What’s the latest from our people down there?”
“More strangeness, sir. Indeed, as per your orders, our operatives have been
seeking to avoid discord there. The potential for an ethnic and religious
holocaust is too great. However, someone is most definitely seeking just that.
Intelligence Group Bali has identified a number of covert action cells that are
apparently attempting to promote such a conflict.”
“Who are they, Lo?” Harconan demanded. “Who do they belong to?”
“Unknown at this time, sir. The operation appears to be well-organized and its
personnel skilled in covert activity. As yet, our Intelligence sections have
been unable to penetrate their organization. Beyond knowing they’re there, and that they are inspiring confrontation between Muslim and Hindu, we
know little about them. Clearly, however, there is a third agenda in play.”
Harconan interlocked his fingers and leaned into his joined fists, tapping his chin lightly. “Suppositions then, Lo. Who might they be?’
