Elliott Strong had his faithful in the palm of his hand when he answered the caller’s question.
“Goodbye, Mr. President,” Lynn Meyerson said as she left the president’s suite at Los Angeles’s Century Plaza Hotel. It had been another tiring day — her fifteenth in a row. But she ate it up. In a very short period of time she had earned access to Henry Lamden and now enjoyed what few others in the entire country could claim: The President of the United States appreciated her advice, and he shared his thoughts with her.
Meyerson was a staffer in the White House Office for Strategic Planning. She typically focused on project research that could culminate in pro-administration policies. This allowed her to be hands-on when it came to developing White House strategies, making her an obvious “inside source” for anyone on the outside. Not that she really touched much that was sensitive. Not yet. But other people didn’t know that. Nonetheless, she had been fully briefed on how they’d try. Reporters would strike up conversations, build on seemingly chance encounters, and pull her into the young Washington social scene. It was all part of the game. And she would make great company. At 25, Lynn Meyerson had exceptional poise, genuine sincerity, great looks, and distinctive curly red hair that made cameras and men turn. She stood out of any crowd — a 5′ 7″, 118-pound beauty.
The FBI had cleared Meyerson into the White House and, even further, into the Oval Office. Each personal reference reinforced the view of the last. She’s dynamic. She has the political know-how to go far. She’s a budding superstar, a natural-born politician. President Lamden clearly liked the young woman’s energy and enthusiasm and her willingness to express unpopular opinions.
Meyerson made it no secret that she wanted to work in government, especially the White House. She’d admitted that to her closest friends at Wellesley College. Her zeal earned her an interview her senior year. But what really counted was how she befriended then-President Morgan Taylor’s secretary, Louise Swingle. It was the number-one rule to crack any company. The White House was no different than Microsoft. Make friends with the boss’s secretary. Swingle took a liking to her and set up meetings with a variety of White House offices. Following the inauguration, she got an offer with the Office of Strategic Initiatives.
Meyerson tried to send Swingle an exquisite assortment of exotic flowers. That’s when she learned that things were as tough to get into the White House as they were to get out. The flowers ended up at Swingle’s home.
President Lamden, nearly forty years Meyerson’s senior, talked with Lynn about her goals, but always kept everything on a business level. He agreed with the written assessments. She would go far. Perhaps make Congress by her mid-thirties. He heard that her friends were already egging her on about going after a Maryland seat in a couple of years. And she’d probably win, he thought. She had that much potential.
Meyerson paused for one more look around the suite at the hotel, named for Ronald Reagan. It was impressive. So was the president who now occupied it.
At first she laughed at the Stetsons he wore and the Montana stories he spun for her in their free time. Then she recognized that Lamden, like Lyndon Johnson, used his cowboy charm to make more important things happen. The lanky 67-year-old lawmaker could bring down a calf in a rodeo ring. She trusted that he had done the same with many a political opponent. Lamden was shrewd, tough. She was careful what she said to him. Still, she was impressed by the trappings and the access.
This is good. This is really good. She’d made it. She was traveling with the President of the United States, staying at the Century Plaza Hotel on Avenue of the Stars, and meeting some of the real stars who populated the avenue.
Most of all, she was thoroughly aware of the security measures surrounding the president with Secret Service agents always close by. Marksmen on the roof. The “football" — the attache case with nuclear weapons codes and plans — always within reach. Bulletproof glass in the hotel suite and even the undisclosed evacuation routes through the Century Plaza’s unpublicized secure corridors. When she really stopped to think about it, she truly was on the “inside.”
Since she joined Lamden’s administration, Meyerson spent nearly every day at the White House. This was her first trip away.
Henry Lamden was taking off shortly, but Meyerson wouldn’t be on the plane. She’d requested a few days in L.A. “Well deserved,” the president acknowledged.
“Good night, Lynn,” the president said without casting eyes on the redhead. “See you back at the ranch Monday. We’ll work on the first town hall meeting. When is it?”
“Fourth of July.”
“I can just imagine the fireworks,” he joked, not at all referring to the celebration. “Now enjoy yourself.” He returned to his reading. “Go.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. I will.” She lingered for a moment. He’s looking tired. Hard week. “You take care, sir.”
He didn’t hear her. Lamden was already deeply absorbed in a summation of upcoming legislation.
Meyerson smiled at the agents standing vigil at the door. “Night.”
“You going for your run tonight?” one Secret Service agent asked.
“Yup. Then I’m cutting loose. Doing Melrose and catching a friend from Vassar at the Sunset Marquis Whiskey Bar.” She didn’t let on that it was really a blind date with a presumably drop-dead handsome aide to the governor of California. But a smile curled over her lips that might have given her away.
“That’s all?” the agent asked like a friend.
She raised her shoulders and gave a coquettish shrug as if to say, it’s too early to tell. Then she told herself, I might not say no to anything.
Nat Olsen sat facing one of the three basketball courts. A pickup game was in progress on the court closest to him. Probably lawyers and agents, he thought. If they were star players in high school, they didn’t look it here. Though it appeared he was following the game with great intent, Olsen didn’t really care. He was focused well beyond the court, to the entrance of the park off Motor Avenue. He checked his watch. A young woman jogger would be along very soon.
Chapter 2
Indonesia, in all its exotic beauty, is also viewed as an outlaw’s paradise. It is the world’s largest archipelago, sitting astride the equator between the Asian and Australian continents. The sprawling nation covers some 3,200 miles of ocean.
The name Indonesia has its roots in Greek: “Indos” meaning Indian and “Nesos” for islands. Two hundred twenty million inhabitants make it the fourth most populated country and the most populous Muslim nation on the face of the earth. More than 17,500 islands rise above the tide. Some are no bigger than a few yards. Others are the size of Spain and California. Only 6,000 are inhabited. Most have little or no infrastructure. Many have yet to be explored.
Indonesia is the proverbial haystack. Anyone trying to hide among its islands becomes the needle.
The southernmost part of Indonesia, the province of Maluku, is comprised of 1,027 volcanic islands and fewer than 1,700,000 people. The vast majority are Muslim.
Not long ago, entire portions of Maluku were “cleansed” of Christians in a holy war staged by a terrorist group known as Laskar Jihad. At its height in the late 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, the movement had 10,000 followers actively engaged in arms smuggling, sniper attacks, forced conversions and circumcisions, and massacres. An estimated 10,000 people were killed in the process. Another 500,000 were displaced. Maluku is now strictly segregated along religious lines.
Today the most feared terrorist network is Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiyyah or JI. The group routinely preys on “soft targets”: places where Westerners tend to congregate. It came to international attention after bombings at luxury tourist hotels in Bali in 2002 and Jakarta in 2003, and the Jakarta airport, also in 2003. Hundreds were killed in the name of Islam, mostly Australian and other foreign tourists.
Other terrorist groups also thrive in the region: the Philippines’s Abu Sayyaf, with solid ties to al-Qaeda; a Malaysian Islamist group, the Kumpulah Mujahedeen Malaysia; and homegrown insurgents who operate among the islands with little fear of ever being discovered.
None of the individual cells had the economic or military resources of a country, but for at least ten years, this was not a problem. Strategic strikes throughout the world had proven that open and tolerant societies were extremely vulnerable. Indonesia included.
Although the U.S. State Department designated JI as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, attacks in Indonesia are generally viewed as terrorism only if the victims are foreigners. Assaults against locals don’t receive the same attention from the police, courts, or government, partially out of the belief that further reprisals from Islamic extremists will be worse.
However, the U.S. did send troops to Indonesia to help train the Indonesian Army (TNI) in counter-terrorism techniques. As a result, the TNI intensified offenses against JI strongholds. Laskar Jihad ultimately disbanded, but Jemaah Islamiyyah and other splinter groups continue to thrive, killing and scattering into the thick, mountainous jungles and dark, dangerous caves too numerous to catalogue.
The terrorists live on ransom money, drug sales, and cash from the global terror network, including al-Qaeda sources.
Widespread poverty contributes to further corruption. The police and military are regularly bought off. Lawlessness rules many of the islands. Kidnappings, bombings, extortion, and torture remain the terrorists’ principal tools.
Americans interested in exploring the famed coral reefs of the Maluku Islands are urged by the State Department to seriously reconsider.
Umar Komari, commander of an emerging terrorist fragment October 12, is one of the reasons.