“Lieutenant, watch it!” Gregson yelled, whipping his rifle to his shoulder. “That first bugger’s carrying something!”
Spoke’s gut lurched. Suicide bomber!
He pressed his eye to the sighting module of the OCSW, his thumb resting on the magazine selector, balancing the switch between the teargas loads and the anti-personnel flechettes.
The crosshairs of the module zoomed on the chest of a boy of maybe fourteen, his face distorted in a rictus of exertion and fear, his bare feet hammering on the blistering asphalt.
The bundle he carried had long black hair.
“Hold your fire! He’s just a kid! They’re both just kids!”
Spokes lifted the gun sights. A good dozen men were chasing the boy. Their faces were intent, focused in their pursuit, yet also calm, almost at peace, belying the knives and machetes swinging from their hands.
Spokes’ hand came up to the transmit button on his lip mike. “Dingo Alpha! Dingo Alpha! This is Koala Charley Five! We have an incident! We
have an incident! Over!”
His helmet earphones were clogged with channel chatter, none of it a reply directed at him.
“Dingo Alpha! Dingo Alpha! This is Koala Charley Five! We have an incident! I say
again, we have an incident! Respond! Over! Scotty, hit the loudspeakers! Warn
these guys off!”
The LAV’s hull amplifiers thundered a pre-recorded warning message, one that ordered a crowd of Bahasa Indonesia speakers to stay back.
At the electronically shouted command, the pursuers broke stride, slowing to a hesitant stop, perhaps fifty yards off. The pursued, however, ignored both the order and the leveled gun barrels. He raced up to the side of the LAV and collapsed in its shade, his chest heaving with each shuddering breath. Looking down from the turret, Spokes could see that the child the boy carried was a big-eyed little girl, her arms locked in a death grip around her brother’s neck. Sucking gasps of air, the boy tried to speak.
“Scotty, kill the recording. Sergeant, can you talk to this kid? I need to know
what’s going on here!” Once more, Spokes tried his radio, “Dingo Alpha! Dingo Alpha, this is Koala Charley Five! Respond please! We have an
event in progress! Over!”
The Australian NCO sank down on one knee beside the Indonesian youth, speaking a couple of hesitant phrases in Bahasa.
The reply was a wheezing rush of words.
“What’s he saying?” Spokes tried to split his attention between the mob on the road and the prostrate figures sprawled beside the LAV.
“Trying to sort it out, lieutenant. Something about him an’ his sister needin’ help … Something about his mum and dad … Right. He and his family are Balinese Muslims – they were trying to get off the island when they got jumped by the Hindus up in
that next village.”
The Australian looked up, his pragmatism cracking. “The bastards killed the parents! They want to kill the kids too! He’s asking us for help! For sanctuary! Christ, Lieutenant! The girl’s only four!”
Spokes looked up. The clump of villagers on the road had grown to a group of around thirty. Their faces were impassive, but an air of anger hovered over them now, becoming almost palpable. Some were stepping closer to the roadblock.
“Scotty, hit the loudspeakers again. Order those people to back off!” Spokes crushed down the transmit key. “Dingo Alpha, do you copy? Damn it! This is Koala Charley Five! Roll the Mike
Force! We need some help out here!”
Hold the interchange. Permit no passage south into the Regional Intervention Force zone of operations. Aid and assist all foreign nationals seeking evacuation. If possible, avoid confrontation with the indigenous population.
Like every set of operational orders ever written, it seemed so complete, so absolute, so all-encompassing, right up until they had to actually be applied in the field.
Permit no passage south … by anyone? Aid and assist all foreign nationals – but did a Muslim amid an island of angry Hindus count as a “foreign national?” If possible, avoid all confrontation with the indigenous population. Was it possible to avoid this one without condemning a young boy and a little girl to death?
The recorded voice was barking over the loudhailer but it wasn’t holding the mob. They were bunching closer, building their energy for a rush to reclaim their prey. Gregson lifted his rifle once more, coming up in the classic kneeling firing position, picking the target for his first burst.
But the leveled guns weren’t holding the mob either.
The Muslim boy, too weary and wind broken to run farther, clutched all that was left of his family closer. Looking up, he addressed Spokes directly. The Marine couldn’t understand his words but he could recognize the plea in them.
Spokes reached for the transmit key again but stopped. He understood now that there was no aid, no advice that could reach him in time. There would be no superior to pass the buck off to. He also understood why the officers got the salutes now, the extra pay, the extra privilege or two. It was a pathetic remuneration for moments like this.
“Sergeant, get those refugees to the rear!”
“Right, Lieutenant!” Spokes barely caught the “Good on ya, yank” that was spoken under-breath – but he clearly heard the shouts of anger from the Hindus as the Muslims were hustled out of sight and to safety.
He heard his call sign finally being repeated in his helmet phones but the commander of Koala Charley Five couldn’t be bothered with that now.
“Jellybag and teargas rounds on target! Everything else over their heads! Stand
ready! Here they come! Commence firing!”
The mission profile of the Regional Intervention Force had just undergone a
radical expansion.
Bali, the Northern Regencies
Late October, 2008
What do you when the world goes insane? What do you do when order disintegrates and law vanishes, when a creeping madness infects neighbors and friends turning them into coldly murderous enemies? What do you do when the cities burn and blood of your people flows freely in the streets?
You run. You gather all who are dear to you and you flee, seeking for refuge, seeking for some lingering pool of sanity where you can hide. Your priorities change. Property and possessions lose their value. Nothing remains but precious, irreplaceable life.
By car and truck, by motor scooter and bicycle, on foot, the Muslims of Bali fled. But they fled with no destination. The government they had relied on no longer existed; their officials ran in terror with them. They had no God, for the Mosques were the first to burn and the Mullahs the first to die. They had no safe road to follow for any path might lead to a grim-eyed, throat-slitting mob.
For the Muslims of southern Bali, there was the check line and the guns and sanity of the Regional Intervention Force.
For those left in the north there was only one whisper of hope. Get to the sea!
The word spread among the survivors, passing from cluster to cluster of the dispossessed and frantic. No one knew who passed the word but the message was always the same. If you wish to live, get to the sea!
