Harper sat on the side of his bed, the room very dark and stuffy and the sheet clinging to his thighs. He was still sweating from the sudden awakening. ‘If there’s an extraction plan, I can arrange it,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ve got the contacts.’ Perhaps if he was adamant enough he could convince his boss the clients were being melodramatic and he had it all under control.
‘It’s a long time since you’ve had to organise anything like that.’
Why not just say it, Harper thought. I’m old. I’m unreliable. You don’t trust me to manage an emergency. ‘I’m on the ground, and I have Wahid to help.’ He wasn’t going to lose this battle without arguing back.
‘Henrikson will be on the ground too, later today. Wahid has booked the car from the airport, he’s going to check into Le Méridien first and he’ll be at the office for a briefing early afternoon. We’ve told the clients to prepare their staff.’
‘We’re going to need SUVs, lots of them, there’s no point in trying to be discreet, people are getting carjacked, that’s why I haven’t. .’
Jan was in no mood to acknowledge Harper’s expertise. ‘Wahid is on the case with transport. Henrikson will do security. Your job is to liaise between them.’
‘But this. .’ Harper began.
‘Give him all the assistance he needs,’ his boss snarled then, dropping any pretence that this was a collaborative discussion. ‘Don’t get in his way. You’ve been telling us for weeks to sit tight, well the clients won’t sit tight any longer and now we’re having to extract them in an emergency situation. They’re not happy and neither am I.’
Henrikson showed up at the office later that day, in chinos and a polo shirt, fresh from his power shower at Le Méridien. He was medium-height and medium-build, white, brown-haired — everything about him was medium. He looked like a man designed by a committee whose specification was someone who would never, ever stand out in a crowd. The committee had got one thing wrong though: the directness in his grey-eyed gaze. When he greeted you, it was obvious he was just a little too well trained to be real.
‘Henrikson,’ Henrikson announced, to each staff member in turn, shaking their hand and looking them right in the eye.
‘Henrikson,’ Henrikson said to Harper, and when he shook his hand, he placed the other hand on top, to demonstrate a special affection — but only briefly. He didn’t want to come across as creepy. Harper imagined his boss telling Henrikson, ‘Harper might be a little funny about you taking over there, he’s old-school, so just go in slow and get him on side.’
‘Well,’ Henrikson said, after he had greeted them all, lifting his hands a little either side of his body in an expansive gesture and letting them drop, ‘it’s so good to meet you all. I hear you’ve all been doing terrific work out here.’ Harper was reassured by the certain knowledge that every other person in the room had taken an instant dislike to Henrikson as well.
In Harper’s office, Henrikson sat the other side of Harper’s desk and nodded very sincerely while Harper went through their client list, telling him which ones had already left. When it came to diplomatic staff, each government’s special forces had dealt with their own people, of course, immediately after Trisakti. The remaining clients were all commercial. Priority was getting families out. They debated whether spouses should be discouraged from giving press interviews when they arrived at their airports in London or Sydney or New York. Nothing made a better news item than an attractive and distressed wife clutching a child in her arms and talking about burning buildings. The media adored a white, articulate refugee.
Harper’s view was, let them talk. ‘You can hardly suppress the news coverage of what’s happening here. There’s nothing we can do about that.’
Henrikson placed the fingers of both hands to form a pyramid shape and nodded very sincerely. ‘Well, you’re the local expert,’ he said. Oh fuck off, Harper thought. ‘But I have to say that we had this discussion back in Amsterdam and company policy now is firm discouragement of anybody talking to the press; staff, clients, families. The potential for misrepresentation is just too high. We don’t want our client base thinking we let this become an emergency.’ The criticism of Harper’s sit tight policy was clear.
He chose to ignore it, thinking, he even talks like a training manual. I can’t believe I have to play these games at my age. ‘Well, the press can be very useful too.’
‘Agreed, agreed. .’ Henrikson nodded, firmly and repeatedly, quite dogged in his insistence on how much he agreed. ‘You’re quite right there. Well, I guess I’d better find me a desk and a phone so I can get going calling the clients.’ He clapped both of his hands on his knees, clamping down firmly. Harper noticed how muscled Henrikson’s legs were beneath his trousers. On one side of his neck, a thick vein pulsed and the purposefulness in his grey-eyed gaze was touched with the smallest hint of psychosis. God help us, Harper thought. This is what the Institute produces these days.
There was a light tap at the door and Wahid opened it. ‘Boss?’ he said to Harper.
‘What is it?’ Henrikson asked.
Wahid said to Harper, ‘Amber says we should go and take a look from the roof.’
Amber stayed in the office fielding calls while Harper, Henrikson, Wahid and two staff from the other team traipsed up the interior staircase until they reached the top floor. Wahid pushed open a blank door to the service corridor, where the pretence of the building’s painted walls and tiled floors fell away to reveal breezeblocks and a short iron staircase leading up to the roof. The light was bright white as they emerged, blinking. Wahid pointed and Harper saw immediately, looking north, the palls of black smoke rising from Old Jakarta, four columns, huge and black and billowing. To the right, further in the distance, was the blur of many more.
‘Amber took two calls at once,’ Wahid said. ‘Doesn’t sound all that spontaneous.’
‘Doesn’t look it either,’ Harper replied. ‘More than yesterday, you think?’
‘Lot more.’
Henrikson hitched his trousers, clapped his hands together, leaned towards them, then actually said, ‘Right, team.’
It was a week after the students had been shot. The shopping centre riots had died down, it seemed, but rumours were rife that soldiers were going round in plain clothes killing Chinese and raping women in gangs. They were saying hundreds dead — Harper’s staff thought it was far greater. Most of the families of their clients had been extracted and only essential personnel were left: even they were on standby. The Institute was taking the precaution of closing the office and moving ops to Le Méridien, a move that Harper thought a colossal waste of money. They were all working round the clock now.
As Harper came into Wahid’s office that morning, closing the door behind him, Wahid was standing by his desk, holding a claw hammer. He waved it at Harper.
Harper pulled a face. ‘As personal protection goes, that looks a little basic.’
‘It’s strong enough for a skull — but in fact, it’s for these.’ Wahid gestured with the hammer at his desk, which was scattered with floppy disks in blue plastic cases.
‘Is that necessary?’ Harper asked. They weren’t very big. Surely they could be hidden somewhere?
‘Henrikson’s orders,’ Wahid replied, tipping his head on one side and pursing his lips.
‘Where is that lump of meat this morning?’
‘One of the embassies or banks, he wouldn’t say.’
Harper and Wahid looked at each other then and both tapped the sides of their noses — a gesture Henrikson used when he didn’t answer a question.