“Yes, commander.”
“And then we all would have been arrested, tried, and executed.”
“Truly.”
Komari was simply reciting Indonesia’s laws regarding capital punishment, inherited from their former colonial ruler, the Dutch. It remains the mandated sentence for drug trafficking, whether opium, morphine, cocaine, or methamphetamine — the Shabu.
Komari was trumped this time. In turn, he would pay his factories less. Commander Umar Komari engaged the safety on his gun and holstered it. Atef took a long, relieved deep breath.
“You may stand.”
Atef came to attention.
“And take off that hood, but remember how it feels.”
The soldier complied, relieved to breathe in fresh air again. His mouth was filled with blood from a broken nose. His beard, shorter than Komari’s, smelled of vomit from his beating.
“We shall check with our labs to see if this is true. Perhaps we shall make a quick, visible ‘corrective step’ to one worker for all to see. What do you think, Atef?”
The man was grateful to have his own life. He knew the best thing now was to agree with his commander.
“Whatever you choose, sir.”
Komari slapped his man on the back. “Ever the diplomat. You shall praise Allah that you have lived to see another day. While you are the messenger with the bad news, you are not responsible for the message. At least not today. We must keep our Chinese friends happy. It is their trade that funds the purchase of our weapons. And soon we will be powerful enough to deliver a message ourselves: a message that will make news, free us from our oppressors, and give Maluku our long-sought independence.”
Atef bowed, patted his heart a few times in thanks, and backed out of Komari’s cave, into the thick of the island jungle. The 2 2-year-old soldier felt the burning stare of his commander as he made for a waterfall to clean up the stench and wash away his fear. He would return. He believed in Komari and the cause of October 12, the date commemorating the glorious attack on Bali. If anyone would lead the charge to Maluku’s independence, it would be Komari. He prayed he’d be alive to see it.
Lynn Meyerson laced up her sneakers and checked herself in the mirror. Her bright green eyes sparkled. She widened them to see whether she wanted to touch up. Nah, she thought. Fine for now. She reached for her favorite barrette, one made out of an exotic blue-green oyster shell. She twisted her hair into a ponytail, shaped it into a bun, and clipped it up. Finally, Meyerson grabbed some crumpled bills from her purse along with a few other necessities. She stuffed them in her running shorts. The young woman looked in the mirror one last time, searching for the commitment she had made with herself. She saw her own strength and confidence reflected back.
Lynn Meyerson was ready.
So was a man in the park.
Chapter 3
Immediately after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, the Australian government invoked the 50-year-old ANZUS mutual defense treaty. ANZUS, an anagram for the three signatory nations — Australia, New Zealand, and the United States — considers an attack on one nation an attack on all. However, the actual status of the treaty has been in question. New Zealand’s refusal to permit U.S. nuclear-powered or armed ships in its ports resulted in the United States revoking its reciprocal ANZUS obligations to that country. Meanwhile regional terrorist attacks in Bali, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and activity in the Solomons, underscored the need for ANZUS protection.
Fear that the discovery of a bomb at Ville St. George might be merely a portion of a larger attack, the prime minister called an emergency cabinet meeting. Depending upon the success of the bomb squad, now at work at the hotel, ANZUS might be activated again.
The Sydney police bomb demolition team was in the storage room. The electrician had been dead-on. The container was suspiciously wedged in the crawl space. Black electrical tape covered what appeared to be a cardboard box. The LED fired a red burst every thirty seconds. There was no reason for it to be transmitting. The device was waiting for a signal.
The first question was, how long? They wouldn’t know until they peered inside through a portable X-ray to determine the power of the storage batteries.
There was another, more critical question: What did the batteries power?
The next steps were textbook. Evacuate the building. Secure the site. Assess the immediate threat. Shield the radio from incoming signals. Disarm the bomb. Remove the explosives.
Space was limited. After the X-ray, it would become a two-person job.
The bomb squad used a Dynalog portable X-ray machine patched into a Sony laptop. It took a non-invasive video in wide angles and close-ups. The first scan, starting from left to right, revealed a package of twenty silver oxide, 1.55 V watch batteries with wires leading to a compact circuit board — instantly recognizable as a receiver. A lead went right to the antennae.
The officer at the monitor shook his head. “This thing could last for years.” That was the unspoken good news. It probably wasn’t intended for detonation tonight.
The next scan showed the really bad news: twenty soft, chalky bars, with the consistency of modeling clay, wrapped in cellophane. Each bar was twelve inches long, two inches across, and one inch thick. No one watching needed any explanation. The contents were comprised of cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine (C3H6N606). Properly manufactured, it went by a much easier name to remember: C-4. There was enough power in the plastic explosives to shoot a fireball through the elevator shafts, weaken the structural integrity of the new hotel, and bring it down.
“Okay, get the shield up, and absolutely no radios in here.”
The SAS commander, Colonel Randolph Tyler, had quietly stepped into the room. He and his men came in unobserved in unmarked vans. The chief of the bomb squad nodded to him and gestured to the screen. They both knew how to read the information. No words were necessary. No one wanted to hear them anyway. The local police and the Australian special forces had trained together.
Tyler signaled to the chief. He came to the opposite corner of the room.
“We’ve got to get a little smoke circulating out in the ether. There’s a lot of press.”
“Yeah,” the Sydney officer noted.
“Let’s cut the electricity to the hotel, starting at the top floors and working down. The emergency lights will go on for anyone still coming down. Then you get word out that a water main has broken under the building. We’ve turned off power simply as a precaution.”
A cover story. Hopefully it would convince anyone with a finger close to the trigger to relax and stay with the plan — whatever it was.
“Good idea.” the officer said.
He spoke to one of his men. Word quickly relayed through the chain of command. While the bomb squad worked to set up the radio shield, Tyler stepped out to make a call of his own. His message would be carried to headquarters, and on to Washington.
Barely two hours after the box was discovered in the basement of the Ville St. George, and only fifty minutes following the first news report, Jack Evans was on the phone with the head of the Secret Service at the White House. He went right to the point.