“Which is?”
“The destruction of the nation of Indonesia.”
Childress’s frown deepened. “The overthrow of the Indonesian government, you mean?”
Van Linden shook his head. “No, sir. I mean the physical dissolution of the Indonesian State. Harconan seeks
a deliberate Balkanization of the archipelago into scores of independent island
states.”
“For what purpose? Your average revolutionary wants to seize a nation, not
destroy it.”
“Harconan is not your conventional revolutionary, sir. Nor has he launched a conventional revolution. His point of contention is that the existing Jakarta government is unjustly Java-centric. That is, that the island of Java with its massive population and political and economic power base dominates the other island groups and cultures, economically and politically.
“Speaking frankly, he has good reason to feel so. The stated motto of the Jakarta
government is ‘Bhinneka tunggal ika’, the ‘Many are one.’ In reality, the Javanese always seem to end up a little more ‘one’ than anyone else. In many ways, they’ve supplanted the Dutch as colonial overlords, dominating the other peoples
within the archipelago.”
“And what does Harconan propose to replace the existing Indonesian state?” the President inquired.
“Harconan seeks to return Indonesia to the days of the Bone Empire, an idealized golden age that existed before the coming of the Europeans. At that time the archipelago existed as a scattering of independent island nations and kingdoms, each with its own chosen religion, government and culture, loosely bound together by the Indonesian seafaring clans, such as the Bugi.
“Harconan himself is half-Bugi and he is already recognized by many of the tribes
as the semi-mythic Raja Samudra, the ‘King of the Sea.’ As the Bugi seafarers would dominate the archipelago, he, in turn, would
dominate the Bugi.”
Childress snorted. “I have yet to see one of these great revolutionary leaders who didn’t have at least a tinge of enlightened self-interest. What’s his game plan?”
“There is a grim but elegant simplicity to it, Mr. President. In any nation as
fantastically diverse as Indonesia, there will always be discontented
minorities and political factions. The Jakarta government’s heavy-handed treatment of many of these minorities and factions has only
aggravated the situation. Long before Harconan launched his destabilization
program, the Indonesians had to deal with any number of sputtering minor
insurgencies ranging from the Morning Star separatist movement in New Guinea to
Islamic extremism in Sumatra.” Van Linden sank deeper into his chair, interlacing his fingers. “Harconan is not seeking to organize or unify these highly diverse elements into
one revolutionary army. That would be an act of futility. Many of the involved
factions hate each other more than they do the central government. In fact,
there is evidence that he is using Bugi agent provocateurs to incite these
various political and social factions to greater violence against each other.
Then, through a second network of agents, he provides these various inflamed
insurgent groups with arms and funding, no questions asked.”
“I see.” Childress settled his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “He’s setting up a titanic game of ‘let’s you and him fight’, with the end result being anarchy.”
“Exactly, sir. The minor conflicts are flaring into major conflagrations, putting
greater and greater stress on the Jakarta government. Eventually, the
governmental structure will shatter, and Harconan and his Bugi will be there to
pick up the pieces.”
Childress processed the information for a moment. “If we go for a direct military intervention to block this Harconan, we could
find ourselves committed to a nation-building operation that would make the
restructuring of Iraq look like child’s play. That will never fly with Congress, Harry, and I’m not too crazy about the notion myself. There has got to be something else.”
“I agree, sir,” Van Linden replied. “President Kediri’s government has its failings but the devil we know is definitely better than
the multitude we don’t. It’s a certainty that some of the islands of a sundered Indonesia will fall under
the control of Muslim radicalists, becoming tropical Afghanistans.”
The Secretary of State chose his words and emphasis carefully. “The one possible rectification of the situation is to cut the supply lines
feeding the insurgencies. Then, with enough economic and military aid and
assistance, the Jakarta government just might be able to stabilize the
situation.”
“You’re prevaricating heavily, Harry.”
“I’m fully aware of that, sir. To have any chance at all of pulling this thing off,
we have to eliminate the primary immediate agent of destabilization. We have to
destroy the Harconan organization and the man behind it. If we can accomplish
this in the short term, maybe we can use the leverage we’ll gain to arm-twist Kediri and his people into some of the policy reforms
needed to correct the situation in the long term.”
“Assassination is a word that doesn’t sit well with the American people,” Childress said slowly. “I believe the Politically Correct term used these days is that we must ‘sanction’ this Harconan individual.”
“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, there is another factor we also have to consider, Mr.
President.”
“And that is?”
“Before we can make rabbit stew, we first have to catch the rabbit.”
Part Two
Convergence of Forces
Somewhere within the Moluku Island Group
The Indonesian Archipelago
0631 Hours; Zone Time, September 18, 2008
He was a profound believer in discipline, especially within himself.
Without exception, he ran and swam a cumulative total of four miles every morning, hardening his body and clearing his mind. Today, as the sun edged above the horizon in a flaming tropic dawn, he alternated quarter mile sprints along the sand with plunges into the strip of azure water that lay between the deserted beach and surf-smothered reef, slashing through the low waves with a powerful Australian crawl.
The regimen of hard-driving exertion had long ago paid off for the man. The body revealed by his swim trunks was tall and broad-shouldered, tapering to a narrow waist and solidly layered with muscle. His skin had been darkened by a tropical tan.
He was Eurasian, his height and bulk coming from his Dutch father while his litheness of movement and the exotic cast to his strong, decisively masculine features stemmed from his Indonesian mother.
She had been a princess of one of the Bugi sea clans – and possibly this connection with an ancient, royal bloodline accounted for a great deal else in this man’s makeup. For in an age of kings, he would have been a king, and this was the kind of world he sought to restore.
His four miles completed, he emerged from the sea. Pausing ankle-deep, he bent forward, his hands braced against his knees, inhaling deeply, regaining his breath. In this place, he had the luxury of not being concerned with his personal security. This island and every last man and woman upon it were his, sworn to his cause and chained to his destiny.
The man straightened. Lightly backhanding his pencil-line moustache in a reflexive gesture, he looked out across the waters that would someday be his as well. No other islands could be seen, save in the mounded cloud caps on the shimmering horizon, but he knew they were there, in their thousands. He also knew of the wars that raged upon them, conflicts that he had carefully fanned into a blazing existence.
He was by no means an inherently vicious person, no monster who took joy in death and destruction for its own sake. Nor was he a man driven with any particular lust for power or personal avarice. Wealth, respect and position had all been his, earned via a comparatively peaceful methodology.
But three extremely dangerous factors had converged within this man who would be king. At one and the same time he was an idealist – outraged at what he perceived as injustice and oppression – and a romantic who, as one great American writer had phrased it, “Saw paradise either around the next corner or behind the last.” However, in practical matters, he was also a stark realist, one who recognized that blood was frequently the lubricant of history and violence its driving mechanism.
Bind those factors with a focused willpower, an imagination and a dynamic capacity for organization and leadership and a force was created that could shatter nations.
He recognized and regretted the death, destruction and agony that came with his dream, but like so many kings before him, he rationalized this devastation as a price to be paid for something stronger and cleaner beyond the next corner.
But even a king-to-be could find doubts within a dream. Unbidden, Makara Harconan found himself recalling a pair of large, golden hazel eyes with an unnerving capacity to look into his soul. He recalled also the words of their owner: “There are no problems left that can be solved with one bright clean slash of a sword …”
