Mac stumbled forward into the officers’ mess as Simon shoved him in the back. Faces turned as Mac stood still in front of the dining tables, embarrassed to be disarmed and to be dragging Jessica into this situation.
Bongo quickly grabbed Haryono by the hair and shoved his gun into the major-general’s neck, but Simon kept his nerve.
‘I don’t think so, Morales,’ said the American. ‘Pretty white girl versus an ugly old Javanese – do the math.’
Looking first to Jim and getting no backup, Bongo stared at Mac, who averted his eyes and stared at the carpet.
‘Fuck,’ muttered Bongo, allowing the Kopassus officers to rush him and take the weapon from his hands as Tommy and Jim were roughly disarmed. Amir Sudarto stood and issued orders to his men, who raced out of the mess. Through the windows, Mac could see the soldiers being roused from chow to search the base for more interlopers.
‘Don’t harm them,’ said Simon, waving his gun towards a group of chairs. ‘I have an idea.’
As the officers searched the captives and pushed them towards the chairs, Amir Sudarto walked back to Mac and eye-balled him.
‘G’day, Amir,’ said Mac. ‘Nasty scratch you got there.’
Sudarto’s nostrils flared and his dark eyes bore into Mac’s. ‘You and me, McQueen – we got the unfinished business, yeah?’
‘Sure, Amy,’ said Mac as Sudarto leaned in. ‘Guess we’re up for round three, right?’
‘So you can count?’ said Sudarto.
‘Sure,’ said Mac, poised for an attack. ‘But don’t let fear hold you back.’
His eyes turning to saucers, Sudarto threw a fast left elbow at Mac’s jaw, dropping him on the floor. Slightly dazed, Mac pushed himself onto his elbows, waiting for his vision to clear.
‘That’s enough, lieutenant,’ said Simon. ‘Let’s think about how we can use them?’
Sitting with Bongo, Jim and Tommy in the middle of the mess, surrounded by armed Kopassus officers, Mac watched Haryono and Sudarto storm out of the mess and he tried to think of options. Across the room, Jessica’s big blue eyes stared at Mac, pleading. She looked scared but not injured.
‘This what Mom and Dad thought you’d be doing when you got accepted for a master’s at MIT?’ said Jim, his cold rage aimed at Simon.
‘They wouldn’t understand,’ said Simon, his tone slightly dreamlike. ‘There are things I never knew about the world until I knew them.’
‘Think that makes you smart?’ snarled Jim, who had a dribble of blood running down his lip from an altercation with a Kopassus officer.
‘Not smart, Jimbo – just a greater understanding.’
‘Of what?’ asked Mac. ‘You make an Ethno-Bomb to prove you can?’
‘Oppenheimer did it,’ snapped Simon, jerking the choker chain around Jessica’s throat. ‘Apollo was the same thing – we went to the Moon, McQueen! What the fuck was that about?’
‘It wasn’t about weaponising a disease that kills one race,’ said Mac. ‘There’s already enough diseases that kill poor brown people – we don’t need to create weapons out of them.’
Mac could sense Bongo bristling beside him. Bongo Morales was a shoot-out guy and he’d be annoyed that Jim and Mac didn’t want to go with him.
‘Forget the weapons side of it,’ said Simon. ‘Think of the research, think of the applications!’
‘Applications?’ said Jim.
‘Can you imagine how fast we could evolve ourselves if we exploited the secrets of which races were the strongest, which ones had the genes to become super-beings?’ said Simon, his face flushed with excitement.
‘No offence, Simon,’ said Mac, ‘but why is it always dudes like you who have the super-race fantasies?’
The bullet sailed past his face and Mac ducked instinctively.
‘Don’t do it, Simon,’ Mac begged. ‘Just get on the phone and call it off, okay?’
‘Jesus,’ said Simon, rueful. ‘It was all going fine, we were going to launch this program and the UN were going to pay us for it.’
‘Clever guy,’ said Mac.
‘But you,’ said Simon, pointing at Mac, ‘the boy scout from Australia – you found that camp up in Memo, and you had no idea what you’d stumbled on, did you?’
‘Looked like a refugee camp that had got out of hand,’ shrugged Mac. ‘Turned into a death camp.’
‘Yeah, but they thought they knew,’ he said, indicating Jim and Tommy. ‘And suddenly, these idiots who were supposed to be monitoring Lombok are now sending an Aussie in there to take photos and have a look? I was thinking, “Holy shit! A bunch of morons from intel are going to unravel this whole thing?”’
The room buzzed as Haryono and Sudarto returned.
‘Base is secure – it’s just them,’ said the major-general.
‘So we’re clear for Boa?’ asked Simon.
‘Clear,’ said Haryono.
‘Just a pity you’re not getting the bonus, eh Ishy?’ said Bongo, an island of calm in an adrenaline-charged room. ‘Would have been nice – buy that private jet, get you to Surfers Paradise faster, yeah?’
Simon threw Jessica to the floor and moved at Bongo, threatening him with the gun. ‘Shut up, moron.’
‘Wait,’ said Haryono, advancing on Bongo. ‘Last thing I heard about you, Morales, you were flying a Mirage jet from Manila to Colombo.’
‘A 737, actually,’ said Bongo.
‘Still a cheeky little monkey, I see,’ said Haryono, pulling up a chair to face Bongo. ‘What you know about a bonus?’
‘He’s lying -’ said Simon, but stopping at Haryono’s raised hand.
‘I want to hear this from the legendary Bongo Morales – might be the last lie he ever tells,’ said Haryono, prompting laughter from the Kopassus officers.
‘Simple, Ishy,’ said Bongo. ‘Simon’s spent your bonus.’
Staring at Bongo, Haryono’s eyes went through several emotional seasons before arriving back at the indulgent uncle.
‘Spent it?’ said Haryono, very slow.
‘The whole forty mill,’ said Bongo, like ice ran in his veins.
Mac gulped at his dry throat, wondering where Bongo got the balls. Swapping a look with Jim, he saw the American beside himself with fear; if there was one thing guaranteed to incite unpredictable acts of violence, it was stealing money from a Javanese soldier.
‘He’s messing with us -’ Simon started again, but this time a burly Kopassus second lieutenant moved in closer from the American’s three o’clock, silencing him immediately.
‘Tell me,’ said Haryono, smiling at Bongo with big white teeth.
‘Got a laptop?’ asked Bongo.
‘I think so,’ said Haryono, looking at Amir Sudarto and getting a nod.
‘See that bag over there,’ nodded Bongo at the backpack Jim had hauled through the jungle. ‘There’s a sat phone in there, it lets you connect with the internet, lets you see the trust account at the Koryo.’
‘Trust account? How he know that?’ said Haryono, turning on Simon like a shark. ‘How he know it Koryo?!’
‘He’s lying – we have bigger things -’ stammered Simon, stopping now as he realised the second lieutenant had a gun trained on him.
Snapping a command in Bahasa Indonesia, Haryono looked Bongo in the eye as the bag was brought to him and an officer retrieved a laptop.
Opening the laptop and connecting the data cable to the sat phone, Bongo remained calm while Mac’s heart did backflips – Haryono was waiting to confirm that Bongo was making a fool of him, at which point it was likely he’d personally execute the Filipino.
‘The Koryo website,’ said Bongo, turning the laptop for Haryono. ‘Put in your numbers and let’s see.’
Tapping at the keyboard, Haryono looked up momentarily with an expression which suggested Bongo was already dead. Then the laptop buzzed, there was a change of light reflected on Haryono’s face, and his eyes refocused.
Jessica writhed on the floor, hands busy behind her back, looking Mac in the eye. Mac wanted to tell her to stay down, stay tied up, but he didn’t dare speak.
Suddenly, Haryono’s hands flew away from the computer as if it was a leper and he erupted in a blast of Bahasa Indonesia. The second lieutenant pushed his gun into Simon’s ear, and confiscated the American’s handgun as Haryono stood in front of him.
‘We agreed, Mr Simon,’ said Haryono, putting out his hand for a SIG Sauer 9mm. ‘We bring Operasi Boa to a successful conclusion, and there is a bonus of forty million dollars US.’
‘It’s a trick,’ said Simon, wide-eyed. ‘Bongo’s a con man, you know who he -’
‘Do not tell me what I know,’ said Haryono. ‘Tell me what I don’t know, like where is my forty million dollars?’
‘It’s there!’ screamed Simon, pointing at the laptop. ‘It was there this morning – I checked because the first bonus was going to be paid tomorrow.’
‘Look for yourself,’ gestured Haryono.
Taking the laptop from Bongo, Simon sat and scrolled up and down frenetically, his face dropping as his eyes confirmed Haryono’s anger.
‘I can’t… it’s not possible,’ he said, then looked at Bongo. ‘What did you do with it?’ he yelled, going for Bongo’s throat.
Slapping Simon to the floor, Bongo looked at Haryono and shrugged.
Waving the handgun, Haryono fixed Bongo with a homicidal stare. ‘So, Morales – what do you know about this problem?’
‘Not much, Ishy,’ said Bongo, smoother than honey pouring out of a jar. ‘Just got a call from Joao about an hour ago.’
‘Joao?’ said Haryono, his face darkening. ‘Yeah, he’d just been told about a very large, very recent deposit in the bank,’ said Bongo. ‘He thought I might see the funny side of it.’
‘Joao?!’ yelled Simon. ‘Who the fuck is Joao?!’
‘Silence!’ barked Amir Sudarto, training his gun on the American scientist.
The room fell quiet, except for the sounds of Simon whimpering on the carpet. Haryono stood over him and looked at his SIG. ‘It’s one thing for a man to get greedy, steal something for himself, for his family,’ said Haryono.
‘You can’t -’ said Simon.
‘But when a man steals from me and then adds the insult, then it is time for the hard hand, right?’ said Haryono, almost whispering.
‘He did it!’ cried Simon, pointing at Bongo.
‘How would Bongo get bank codes for the North Korean Department of Defense bank?’ asked Haryono, pointing the SIG at Simon. ‘Unless you gave them to him? Bongo pretends to be homosexual at the Lar, he drug passenger in first class and then search their bags. Bongo not the computer thief, Mr Simon. That you.’
‘It’s them,’ spluttered Simon, sweeping his arm at Mac, Tommy and Jim. ‘They’re spies, they set this up!’
‘Really?’ asked Haryono.
‘Yes – they traced Lee Wa Dae through the Koryo Bank.’
‘You know how I know you the liar?’ asked Haryono, his face impassive.
‘No, I -’
‘Look at where the money gone!’
‘To the Sentosa Pacific Bank in Singapore,’ said Simon, having seen the transfer. ‘It’s one of McQueen’s accounts!’
‘Really?’ asked Haryono. ‘So the spies steal forty million dollars from me, and then they travel all the way here, into army compound in East Timor – four against two hundred – to say hello to me?’
‘Well…’ said Simon.
‘But it the insult,’ said Haryono, doing a big Javanese shrug. ‘You had to send my money to these people?’
‘What people?’ asked Simon, confused.
‘Look at the account,’ instructed Haryono, grabbing Simon by the hair and forcing his face at the screen.
‘It’s… I… I don’t know any Santa Cruz Trust,’ said Simon, looking at the details on the screen, tears streaming down his face. ‘What is -’
‘Santa Cruz Trust Number Three,’ snarled Haryono, cocking the SIG with his thumb. ‘Think – what communist organisation in Tim-Tim would name their bank accounts after the Santa Cruz cemetery?’
Simon wiped his tears and looked up at Haryono. ‘Look, Ish, I -’
‘Which organisation?!’ screamed Haryono.
‘Falinitil?’ asked Simon quietly.
‘Correct,’ said Haryono, shooting the American in the face. ‘And do not call me Ish.’