Emanuel opened it, found a picture of a somber-looking, dead, white American named “Franklin” in an oval frame in the middle.
“Gracias, amigo.” Emanuel stashed the hundred-dollar bill in his pocket. “I’m not supposed to do this.” He gave a wink and a nod. “The owner says if we open early for one customer, we must open early for them all,” he said. But one hundred bucks would go a long way in the frozen food section of Wal-Mart, where you could buy a pizza or a TV dinner for a buck. Señora Gonzales would be very pleased tonight. That thought brought a big, cheesy grin to his face. “But under the circumstances, we can accommodate. What are you here to pick up?”
The man smiled. “You should have three crates of bottled water.”
“Ah. The mysterious boxes of bottled water.”
“Mysterious? Why do you say that?” the man asked.
“No reason. Except that they were dropped off after hours last night, with enough cash to store them for a year, and with a note that someone would come to pick them up soon. I guess that’s you? No? I would say that’s soon, all right.”
“That’s us, amigo. We are in a hurry.”
“Okay.” The call of nature, though mounting now, could wait. “Bring your trucks around this way.” He pointed to the chain-locked gate that separated the parking lot from the main warehouse entrances. “Meet me around there. I’ll unlock the gate.”
Key rings still jingling, Emanuel jogged over toward the gate at the entrance to the loading area. At the gate, he fumbled through the key ring, found the right key…the silver one…and inserted it into the heavy-duty dead bolt lock.
The lock opened, the chains dropped off, and within a few seconds, he was waving the trucks through the gates. A minute after that, the three U-Hauls were backed up to the entrance of the warehouse. A few minutes later, the drivers were loading the three crates of bottled water into each of the three vans.
By ten ’til nine, they were gone. Two other trucks were now in the parking lot. More eager beavers. Emanuel locked the gates again.
He had a hundred bucks in his pocket and tonight would be his lucky night.
The trucks could wait.
The call of nature could not.
Merdeka Palace
Jakarta, Indonesia
1:20 p.m.
Dr. Guntur Budi checked his watch. Good. Still ten minutes before the president’s physical was officially scheduled to start, and probably twenty minutes before it actually started. The timing should be perfect.
He felt well, considering the unsanitary plastics stuffed in his ribcage, and thanks to the antibiotics administered intravenously until just moments ago, when Anton had dropped him off in front of the palace.
He had stepped out Anton’s car, walked through the bright afternoon sun, crossed the street, and entered the inner sanctum of the palace as usual.
Rank had its privileges, and in this case, rank included being recognized as the president’s personal physician. He was waved past the first two checkpoints, with a few friendly greetings of “Good afternoon, Doctor” from several of the all-too-familiar security guards who nonchalantly motioned him through.
Now for the first big test.
The high-intensity metal detector was located just outside the corridor leading to the president’s office. He had been waved past the other metal detectors before, but never past this one. Everyone, including the president’s family, was required to walk through this machine as a matter of routine.
“Good afternoon, Doctor,” the first security guard said. The guard, a muscular, stocky fellow with a mustache, wearing pistols on each hip, was a member of the president’s personal security detail, as were all of the guards on the other side of this final metal detector. “I see you are here for the president’s physical.”
“Yes.” Guntur tried to mask the nervousness flashing throughout his body. He stopped just short of the metal detector. “Here is my bag with my examination equipment.” He handed his medical bag to the guard. “Just the routine stuff. Blood pressure machine. Stethoscope. EKG machine and equipment. That sort of thing.”
The guard rummaged through the assortment of medical equipment in the bag.
“You should know that I have just gotten out of surgery.”
“Ahh.” The guard showed genuine concern on his face. Or perhaps a look of suspicion? “I hope you are all right, Doctor.”
“Yes, I am fine. They inserted a pacemaker to regulate an irregular heartbeat.”
The guard went back to his mindless examination of the instruments. He seemed fascinated by the ophthalmoscope, and was holding the instrument up against the light, looking through the glass.
“Just a routine thing,” Guntur said. “I wanted to alert you in case the darn thing sets off the metal detector.” Guntur forced a chuckle, trying to appear to make light of it. The guard did not smile as he put the ophthalmoscope back into the bag.
“Very well, Dr. Budi. Step through the metal detector, please.”
One step forward, and then…a rapid and shrill beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.
“Step back!” the guard ordered. His hand gripped his right pistol, which was still holstered.
“I was afraid this might happen,” Guntur muttered. “Darn pacemaker! I’ll have this thing in my chest the rest of my life.”
“All right. Let us have a look.” He waved Guntur back into the X-ray scanner. “Just a routine procedure as you know, Doctor. We would do the same thing if you were the president’s wife. Let’s hope you are not the first lady.” A terse chuckle. Finally, a semblance of something other than iron. “Stand here.” The stern tone returned. “Be still for a moment, Doctor.”
The guard squinted his eyes and examined the screen on the monitor beside the X-ray machine. “That’s an odd-looking pacemaker, Doctor. Hmm.” He eyed it for a moment. “I’ve never seen one like it before.” More squinting. “Rahmat! Check this out.”
“It’s a brand new design. Just imported from America,” Guntur said. “It is supposed to go fifteen years without a battery replacement.”
“Hmm.” The two guards crowded over the monitor. Guntur held his breath.
“Very well, Doctor. You may proceed. The president is running about fifteen minutes early today because the Chinese ambassador canceled his meeting due to illness.” The guard motioned Guntur through. “Take good care of the president.”
“He will be in good hands.”
Gag Island
3:25 p.m.
Captain Hassan Taplus, army of the Indonesian Republic, was wearing dark sunglasses and standing on the shores of the beach with his back to the sea.
Light swells lapped just a few feet from where he had buried his heels partially into the sand, and he brought his hand up to his eyebrows, palm down, almost in the gesture of a salute to shade his eyes from the bright overhead sun.
The ugly monstrosity standing against the island’s luscious, tropical beauty rose perhaps fifty feet in the air, and closely resembled a rapidly erected observation tower. Four gray steel poles dug deeply into the sand made the corners of a square at the base, and looking something like a giant erector set, rose into the blue sky and supported a square steel platform at the top.
On the platform, electronic equipment and an arming mechanism had been bolted in place. Suspended in the air below the platform, about fifteen feet from the top, the bomb hung from four thick chains. An array of cords, bound together in a single strand by some sort of heavy-duty duct tape, hung down from the center of the platform.
One nuclear engineer was standing on a catwalk perhaps thirty-five feet off the ground, making an adjustment to the bomb with a screw-driver.
The other engineers were standing on the beach, pointing toward the tower, laughing and carrying on as if they had just passed their final examinations before graduating from university.