A phone conversation with Rhonda whom he discovered had left a message for him at the Casino – had helped Cardinal make up his mind about his next stop: Jakarta. She had alerted him by talking about the so-called Kampuchean, and he had asked her to describe him. Cardinal had the sketches in front of him and felt certain that she was talking about the same person.
Flying over plush green and mountainous Java aboard a Qantas flight from Darwin, Cardinal was struck by the contrast with the brown, flat and parched land he had left two hours earlier. The difference did not end with the geography. Caucasian, European Australia at the bottom of Asia clung to most things western despite growing pressures on it to increase its intake of non-white neighbours. Its sixteen million people, although nominally Christian, were essentially materialistic and scientific in outlook. Indonesia, with ten times the population, was essentially mystic, and instinctively opposed to western values. More than ninety per cent of the nation professed Islam, and Cardinal was made aware that some professed it much more than others. The morning he took off for Indonesia, the Australian papers carried front-page stories about Moslem riots all over Java. Utun had reacted by enforcing a modified martial law. Indonesian newspapers were being shut down and night curfews had been introduced. The president had even threatened to take action against Mullahs who had been active in remote parts of the country’s archipelago. No one had proposed a new Iran, but the portents were there.
The clamminess and aromatic smells, nutmeg and cloves, it seemed to him, at Halim Airport added to his mixed feelings of apprehension. The immigration official mulled over his passport.
‘Where you get visa?’ the official asked.
‘Yesterday,’ Cardinal said, mishearing.
‘No. Where you get visa.’
‘Oh, Darwin.’
‘Why you travel to Russia, Poland . . .’ The official flicked over a few pages. ‘. . . Yugoslavia?’
‘I was in London for a few years. It allowed me to travel to these places.’
The official pouted and shunted him through to luggage inspectors. They came across Jimmy Goyong’s sketches of the Kampuchean, and his paintings.
‘What are these for?’ an inspector asked.
‘I’m an art dealer,’ Cardinal said, thinking quickly. He pointed to his immigration card.
‘What is that?’ the inspector said.
‘I deal in art,’ Cardinal said, eyeing the sketches. ‘You know, I buy and sell.’
‘You buy Indonesian art?’ The sketches and paintings were put in a side-pocket of the suitcase.
‘Maybe. I’m a tourist.’
Cardinal pushed his way through the throng and caught a taxi for the twenty-minute ride to Jakarta. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Then he lit a cigar and tried to relax as he watched the passing parade of honking and tooting pedicabs and trucks. Somehow the traffic managed order out of chaos.
Cardinal kept an eye on two open trucks that rattled by gorged with soldiers. His taxi stopped behind the trucks at an intersection where gauche advertising on billboards emulated the worst of western traditions. The taxi was forced to follow the trucks at reduced speed.
Tea plantations, farms and a military reserve quickly gave way to modern hotels, banks and office blocks, which dominated Jakarta’s urban skyline. Four Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald hamburger roadhouses presented a clue to which foreign ideology had predominated since a bloody coup led to the overthrow of Sukarno more than two decades earlier. Another even easier clue was provided by film and video advertising hoardings which proclaimed: ‘Rambo Five – The Final Revenge’. Yet despite the many flags of capitalism, Cardinal noted the still evident communist influence from the 1950s and 1960s. This was symbolised by grotesque monuments, including sculptures of frenetic figures, which reminded him of Moscow and Leningrad.
Cardinal’s taxi followed the soldiers’ truck, which swerved and blocked the road. Four soldiers jumped out of the rear and ran towards an intersection just ahead. A deafening staccato of machine-gun fire followed as they gave chase after two young men who had been painting anti-Utun and pro-Moslem slogans on walls. They tried to escape into a village not far in from the main thoroughfare, and Cardinal lost sight of them. He heard more weapons fire and a scream as if someone had been hit. Vehicles behind the taxi began honking horns and ringing bells. Cardinal could not tell if this was in protest at the vicious army action or because of the traffic hold-up. The soldiers responded by running along between the vehicles and firing off several rounds into the air.
Cardinal chomped on the cigar as he saw the soldiers, who had given chase after the graffitists, returning to the truck. They looked pleased with themselves, and Cardinal thought they behaved as if they had been on a rabbit hunt.
The truck drove off and allowed the snarled traffic to move on. Cardinal tried to make conversation with his Javanese driver about the shooting, but the man either didn’t speak English or was reluctant to talk about it. He did have the temerity to say, ‘Have a nice day’ to Cardinal as he got out of the taxi at his hotel, The Sari Pacific. A sign at its entrance said, ‘Welcome to Jakarta.’
Less than a kilometre along Jakarta’s main road, Jalan Thamrin, Rhonda hurried into the lift of her hotel, the Borobodur, to call Cardinal. At her suggestion, he had booked in at another hotel. She would have preferred him close, but realised she would be under surveillance the minute she came into the open after being with Perdonny. Rhonda did not want to expose Cardinal.
According to the receptionist at the Sari Pacific, he had not yet arrived. She rang the Australian Embassy, and after a short delay was put through to Ambassador Gosling.
‘You should have checked in earlier,’ he snapped. ‘The authorities said you did not book into a hotel last night.’
‘Do they monitor all places in the country?’
‘You don’t understand. I have had to battle to keep you from being held – possibly in prison.’
‘What the hell for?!’
‘They don’t have to give a reason!’
‘I don’t want to argue,’ Rhonda said, calming herself, ‘just tell me when I may leave.’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Tell me — a day, a week, what?’
‘I don’t want to give you false hope, Ms Mills.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Check in this time tomorrow.’
Cardinal was most thankful for six hours’ sleep before leaving his hotel to meet Rhonda and Perdonny at Glodock, the city’s Chinatown.
A calm freestyle swim finishing with a frenetic burst of butterfly refreshed him before he took a taxi from the hotel into the city centre. At Perdonny’s request, he was to make another taxi change to avoid anyone who might be tailing him before meeting one of Perdonny’s supporters at a statue out of town nicknamed ‘Hot Hands Harry’. Rhonda had warned him that Utun was expected to make a city appearance for the foreign media, and that this might precipitate riots.
Tanks and police were patrolling the streets when Cardinal left the Sari Pacific just before ten that night. At the main city square – Medan Merdeka – hundreds of Moslem students were on their knees facing Mecca. But the traffic stopped when two hundred police charged and attacked them with batons. More Moslems ran across in front of the vehicles pursued by soldiers. Cardinal sensed more danger than the incident earlier in the day, and he had no wish to get caught in the middle of a triangular battle.
Cardinal threw his fare into the front seat, jumped out and weaved his way through the traffic towards a bus depot where a crowd was gathering. He searched for another taxi. None was in sight. The congestion had blocked off arteries into the square. He was caught in a milling mass.
The bus depot had been cordoned off by barriers, so Cardinal pushed his way through, only to be stopped by police protecting TV crews who were setting up cameras and lights. He had run into an event involving Utun, which was being staged for the media.
Cardinal was about to take on the crowd again when he was distracted by police sirens. He was only metres from the barriers and could see a cavalcade coming around the square heading his way. Utun’s bullet-proof Ford limousine was driven right up to the buses opposite Cardinal. Scores of cameras clicked and whirred as TV and press people swarmed over the depot.
Utun bounced out and the crowd cheered on cue. He strutted over to a street vendor. He bought a sate, sat down on the kerb to eat it with a banana leaf.
‘This is wonderful!’ he declared to the scrawny, bow-legged vendor. Translators explained the president’s golden words to the media.
‘It’s magnificent beef,’ the vendor said, and Cardinal heard this mistranslated as ‘ham’ by an American commentator.
‘I will never let my people eat rat,’ Utun bellowed to the mob. The better informed media reporters elaborated on the translation of this comment and explained that it was a deliberate jibe at an infamous declaration by former President Sukarno. He had urged people to eat rat rather than starve.
The mob gave a moderate cheer, and the vendor overdid his performance by thrusting another sate at Utun. The crowd was building up. Cardinal could see some fights beginning between Utun supporters and Moslem students where his taxi had been. One vehicle went up in flames. Soldiers and police charged in and were scrambling over car roofs to join the battle.
In the distance along Jalan Thamrin, Cardinal could see scores of soldier reinforcements disgorging from jeeps and trucks. He glanced at the president and then his entourage near the limousine. He could recognise the long-haired figure of Dalan, the president’s mystic, opening the door to get out. He was gesticulating to someone in the back seat. Cardinal watched as Dalan directed the limousine towards Cardinal who could see in the rear. He caught a glimpse of Dalan’s companion.
It looks like the Asian who had been in Arnhem Land, Cardinal thought. He appeared remarkably like the face in Jimmy Goyong’s portraits. Cardinal elbowed his way to the second front row. He was ten metres from the vehicle. The profile is similar, Cardinal thought. If he would only smile. Bottles and rocks were hurled into the bus depot as the police and soldiers formed a phalanx between Utun’s supporters and the protesters. Cardinal took his eyes off the face in the vehicle as Moslem interlopers in the president’s well-organised crowd raised banners proclaiming Islamic slogans.
Fights broke out. It was enough for Utun. Flanked by a score of guards, he was bustled into the rear of the limousine with Dalan and the other man. The vehicle drove forward and collided with a barrier, then reversed, disregarding the swirling surge of bodies around it. Cardinal lost his footing as onlookers were jammed against the barriers. People began to panic as they tried to avoid being crushed.
Cardinal’s bulk helped him shoulder his way through the squeeze until he reached the edge of the crowd near the square. He turned to watch the retreating motorcade under seige from rocks and tomatoes, which splattered and stuck to its windows. Cardinal climbed a barrier to a side street and trotted along with hundreds of others who had broken free of the clog of bodies. He kept moving until he saw a taxi in a street a kilometre from the congestion. He broke into a sprint to beat other people to it. Cardinal tried to climb in, but the driver gesticulated when he saw him and put his foot on the accelerator. Cardinal was left holding the door as the car skidded away. He fell in a heap on the road and had to scramble for the footpath. Unnerved and with bruises for his trouble, he began hobbling away from the square and was overtaken by a stampede of students. Shots rang out. He did not wait to find out if they were warnings or not. A side street promised shelter but it took a second to realise why the students had by-passed it. A tank was coming his way in a tight squeeze against the walls of homes on both sides of the street. He judged that it could over-run him if he tried to retreat, so he threw himself into a closed gateway and squashed his body against it.
Six seconds later he felt the intense heat from the tank as it crashed its way past to the end of the street. He made a dash in the opposite direction. Cardinal glanced over his shoulder and caught his breath as the tank’s turret rotated. The flame-thrower mounted in it was aimed at him. Cardinal dived for an alley and rolled into it just as the weapon speared a throaty blast of napalm. It settled well short of him, but as he stumbled to his feet, he was enveloped by a rush of hot, suffocating wind. His nostrils and eyes stung as he charged along the alley to Baru Square.
Oh Jesus! he thought. The square had been turned into a makeshift detention centre. Army staff and police were interrogating demonstrators. Three bodies lay prone and bleeding in the gutter. A young soldier aimed a rifle at him.
‘ID!’ he screeched.
‘Take it easy,’ Cardinal said as he pulled out his passport. The soldier examined it upside down. An officer marched to them and gave the passport a cursory glance.
‘American?’ he said.
Cardinal nodded and was motioned away by the officer, who returned the document. Cardinal crossed the square and passed a man lying face down in the gutter. He had been shot in the back. The fingers of one hand still gripped a passport.
Cardinal reached a street that spoked out from the Merdeka Square. He was reluctant to return to it, yet he could see cars near the other end. He spotted a taxi and this time tore money from his wallet and waved it as the car sped past. It reversed up onto the pavement, forcing Cardinal to take some quick sidesteps.
He and the driver began a bizarre barter as shots were fired close by. Cardinal tossed twenty dollars on the driver’s lap, and jumped into the back seat. He told the driver to take him a roundabout way to the intersection containing Hot Hands Harry five kilometres from the mayhem in the city centre. On the way, Cardinal, hands shaking, had difficulty lighting a cigar. He looked in the mirror at his black face smeared with fall-out from the tank’s flame thrower. His eyes were wide from shock and fear, and he felt a tightening knot in his stomach he could not remember experiencing since his combat days in Korea.
Cardinal was sorry he had to leave the safety of the taxi when they arrived at Hot Hands. It was a five metre high muscular male figure holding a flaming torch. Some foolhardy person had painted the nickname across its base in ridicule of the fledgling nation’s symbol of uncertainty.
Cardinal paid the driver and dodged traffic to stand in the middle of the intersection under the statue. He had been there less than a minute when he noticed a vehicle parked down a side street. Its lights were dipped twice in a pre-arranged signal. Cardinal hurried across to it. The driver, called Bani, a lean, middle-aged native of Ambon with tufts of grey hair, threw away a cigarette.
‘Mr Carnal?’ he asked.
‘Goddamn near enough,’ Cardinal said, getting into the front seat. The man eased the early model Holden into the steady stream of traffic.
‘You rate,’ he said, ‘but you arrive.’
Cardinal wasn’t sure if the observation was that he had ‘arrived’ or that he was ‘alive’. He settled for either thought as the man threaded his way across the city to the Chinese section of the east city slums.
Following instructions from Rhonda, Cardinal left the car and the driver near a petrol pump and made his way on foot into the heart of Chinatown. He was an hour late when he arrived at the restaurant. By then he had been caught in a torrential downpour, which sent the locals scurrying to cover their barrows and stalls and slide out awnings.
Cardinal was searched by guards at the entrance and then ushered in. It was crowded and smoke-filled. Rain on the rickety tin canopy sounded like machine-gun fire. He squinted at the darkened interior and caught the welcome vision of Rhonda moving towards him. She smiled and gave him a warm kiss and a hug.
‘You didn’t need to tidy up for the occasion,’ she said, eyeing his filthy appearance.
She took him by the hand and led him to Perdonny, who was tucked away in the corner behind a mountain of half-eaten dishes.
‘You had us worried,’ Perdonny said. He pulled out a chair.
‘I had me worried,’ Cardinal said and then related the harrowing last hour.
Rhonda offered him tea and food. He declined for the moment.
‘The man needs whisky,’ Perdonny said.
‘The man needs scrubbing.’ Rhonda laughed.
Perdonny snapped his fingers and waiters ran to him. When the drink arrived, Cardinal poured himself a double, consumed it and then eyed the food. As the alcohol calmed him, he began to pick at some chicken.
‘We have some good news,’ Rhonda said, trying to humour him. ‘Robert has been able to get a file on the Kampuchean.’
Cardinal remembered he had one of the sketches with him. He pulled out the crumpled page and smoothed it on the table. Perdonny made room for photos he pulled from a pocket.
‘Where did you get these?’ Cardinal asked.
Perdonny explained how he had planted a contact inside the Khmer Rouge camp at the old Embassy building.
‘I think they are the same bloke,’ Rhonda said. Cardinal told them about the man in Utun’s limousine.
Perdonny poured them both more whisky.
‘You say you have a file on him?’ Cardinal prompted.
‘As yet, very thin,’ Perdonny said. ‘No one has much on these Kampucheans.’
‘ “These” Kampucheans?’
‘He’s a Khmer Rouge,’ Perdonny said, leaning forward. ‘One of their key people.’
‘Name?’
‘He is only known as Chan, although that may not be his Kampuchean name. He was one of Pol Pot’s right-hand men. In 1975 Chan was in charge of liquidating about one million of his own people, maybe more. They were the so-called professional classes, which included anyone who was basically literate. Chan is about sixty-five. He was trained in France in the early 1950s first as a scientist, then later in languages. We believe he studied at the Sorbonne. He got involved with Pol Pot in Paris where they were part of a small clique.’
Cardinal downed his fresh whisky.
‘China and the US have been supporting the Kampucheans against the Soviet Union, and the Vietnamese,’ Perdonny said. ‘The Kampucheans include a loose alliance of Prince Sihanouk’s forces and the Khmer Rouge.’
Cardinal began to fill his plate with food. His hunger for information quickened his appetite.
‘So you are telling me the US has a link with the Khmer Rouge?’ he said, with a glance at Rhonda. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘That’s because you’re an ail-American boy, Mom, apple pie and the flag,’ Rhonda said. ‘We did see Blundell meet this guy last night.’
‘I prefer pecan pie,’ Cardinal replied, keeping his cool, ‘but how could we get mixed up with people like that?’
‘Your country is so determined to fight communists it will use the worst elements of the ideology to do it,’ Perdonny said.
Cardinal didn’t like the remark. He began to eat.
‘Tell me more about your interview with Van der Holland,’ he said to Rhonda.
‘She’s not Utun’s biggest fan,’ Rhonda said. ‘Tien implied that Utun’s pressure on their business operations killed her husband.’
‘Then Hartina may be here against her will?’
‘Could be.’
‘I’ve got to speak with her.’
‘It’s impossible,’ Rhonda said, looking at Perdonny for support. ‘Her home is heavily guarded.’
‘But you got in,’ Cardinal said. ‘She is the only one who really knows what happened at Lucas Heights. Hartina could tell me if this guy Chan was involved with Harry’s death.’
‘There’s a chance I could arrange something,’ Perdonny said. ‘Each year Tien goes to the Soviet Union’s October Celebration at the Embassy. Perhaps if Hartina was to receive a special invitation, you could meet her there.’
‘How would I get there?’ Cardinal asked.
Perdonny worked up a smile. ‘I could arrange that.’
Perdonny organised one of his men to drive them to the edge of Chinatown where a taxi was waiting.
‘How well do you know Robert?’ Cardinal asked Rhonda. The taxi took them on a cautious route through the city which bore the scars of the night’s battles. Overturned cars were smouldering. Fire fighters and police were everywhere, and the streets emptied of civilians as they drove closer to the city centre.
‘I trust him,’ she said.
‘I can see that,’ Cardinal said, ‘but can I?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘As journalist and spy, you too can be mutually beneficial.’
‘Perdonny is no spy!’
‘Pardon me. Intelligence officer then?’
‘You didn’t like what he said about the Americans.’
‘True,’ Cardinal said ‘but that’s not what I mean.’
‘You can trust Robert.’
Cardinal lit a cigar.
‘Apart from Canberra, who else does he spy for?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘C’mon Rhonda! You must have some idea.’
‘I’ve never asked.’
‘I think he probably works for the Russians.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘For one thing, he is anti-American.’ Rhonda protested.
‘So how come he says he can arrange for Tien to be at a Soviet Embassy Revolution party, let alone me – an American?’ Cardinal said.
‘Does it matter?’
‘It may to me.’
‘Why?’
‘It depends on what I do here.’ The whisky had tired him. ‘Still, if he can get me to see Hartina, that will be a start.’
‘And if you do, and she confirms that Chan was responsible for your son’s murder, what then? What will you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can hardly go to your own Embassy.’
‘Well I sure as hell won’t be going to the Russians for help!’ he snapped.
Rhonda sensed a frustration in Cardinal’s mood, which she guessed might spill into desperation. She had not seen that side of him.
‘Would you want to see Chan dead?’ she pushed.
‘Sure, I would.’
‘Would you do it yourself?’
‘Hey, what is this?’ Cardinal said angrily. ‘You getting a great story?’
He had touched a sensitive issue. She was thinking ahead to a scoop. His insight disturbed her, for his elusive charm was somehow having an effect on her. There would be a conflict of interests if she got too close. She had his trust, and that was vital if he was going to co-operate in any news story.
The driver began to pull over.
‘Hey!’ Cardinal said, ‘we want the . . .’ He could see a police vehicle and a jeep with soldiers in it close behind them. ‘Shit!’
Two policemen yelled abuse at the driver, who bowed his head in apology.
‘The curfew,’ Rhonda whispered to Cardinal. ‘I think they’re angry because of that.’
‘Bastards,’ Cardinal mumbled and got out of the taxi before she could restrain him.
‘Anyone speak English,’ Cardinal said.
‘Me do,’ one of the soldiers said, as three policemen approached Cardinal.
‘Near enough,’ Rhonda said, with a nervous giggle.
‘Okay,’ Cardinal said to the soldier, ‘tell these guys, I hired this man. It was my fault he came through here at this hour. I was very late. Got it. My fault.’
The soldier explained. An argument began between the police and the soldiers.
‘Please,’ Cardinal said, addressing the soldier, ‘can’t you take us to our hotel? We want to get off the streets.’
The soldier waved him back into the taxi. He spoke curtly to the police and then motioned the taxi on. The soldiers’ jeep followed them on the couple of kilometres to Rhonda’s hotel.
‘Don’t come in,’ she said. ‘They’ll be monitoring my movements.’
Cardinal leaned towards her. ‘Sorry we argued. It’s just that I’m not prepared to trust any of these Intelligence people.’ He caught her by surprise by kissing her full on the mouth. She was embarrassed, and she began to get out.
‘I did that for the audience,’ he said. ‘Better they think we’ve had a good night out.’
‘Yes, but with a tongue kiss?’ Rhonda quipped. She gave him a whimsical smile and moved off to the front entrance. She turned to watch Cardinal’s taxi and its escort of soldiers and police crawl off along Jalan Thamrin. Rhonda pushed through the revolving door and headed for the lift. She was conscious of movement either side of her.
‘Ms Mills?’ a voice said from behind. She turned to see a thick-jowelled Javanese in dark glasses. Moments later she was surrounded by other men.
‘Yes?’ she said, feeling alarmed.
The man stepped forward and held up an ID that she did not recognise. She assumed they were police.
‘We would like a word, please.’
‘Who are you?’ Rhonda said, standing her ground.
She spoke loudly and looked around at the reception desk. One clerk had his head buried in a register. Other staff seemed to have made themselves scarce.
‘Police.’
Rhonda made a move towards the clerk and called for his help. Two of the men grabbed her by the arms and dragged her to the lift. The clerk watched but made no move to help.
The distant roar of engines shattered the stillness of the night. A Hercules transporter, winging low over Arnhem Land, aimed for the airstrip at Richardson’s Ginga mine. The hastily assembled runway lights were on full for the landing. A minute after touching down it nosed up to the building known as the vault. The hatch was lowered. Fork-lift trucks began hoisting steel drums into the plane.
Burra’s son Silas could see the activity from a vantage point high on the escarpment where he and four others had made camp. Burra had asked them to keep watch through the night because of unprecedented moves at the mine in the twenty-four hours since the trucking convoy had been turned away from the Aboriginal reserve.
Bididgee people had spotted the arrival of light planes and the coming and going of Richardson’s executive jet. Burra suspected that Richardson might try to get the yellowcake out by truck and roadtrain again, and he had kept fifty of his people on shift around the clock at Cahill’s Crossing to block any such move. An airlift had seemed unlikely because the runway had only been built for light planes. But just in case Richardson had become desperate, Burra had sent the observers.
They watched in awe as forty black uniformed figures filed down a ramp from the front of the cabin and formed a circle around the Hercules. They stood motionless with rifles resting on their hips as an equal number of Richardson’s mine staff filled the plane with the drums, which Silas and the other Aborigines knew contained the precious golden uranium ore.
Silas told his companions to keep watch while he made a fifteen kilometre dash by jeep to the Bididgee township to alert his father.
Burra collected his rifle and jumped into his ute.
‘Get Topfish, Blina, and Murra Murra,’ he ordered his son. ‘Head for the mine! Tell them to take rifles!’
‘I want to come with you,’ Silas said. Burra was alerted by the sound of a car coming uncertainly down the road. It was Tom Beena’s XJ6 Jaguar. It wobbled to a halt at Topfists’s shack about a hundred metres from them.
‘Get in!’ Burra said and drove up to the Jaguar. Beena was helping Topfist out. They were both drunk.
‘We’ve been celebratin’,’ Beena said as he shouldered the other man to his front door and dumped him on the doorstep. He began banging on the door.
Burra leapt out of the ute. He was furious. He pulled the bigger man around to face him. ‘Been at the club?’
Beena staggered towards his car to pull a second Aborigine out, another of his drinking companions. ‘You should have seen the crowd tonight.’
Burra stopped him from dragging the second black to the door. ‘You did this deliberately! You knew about the bloody airlift!’
‘Fuck you!’ Beena snarled.
Burra threw a punch that collected him on the jaw and lifted him off the ground. He fell hard against the wooden porch. Burra straddled him. Beena lifted his head once but then slipped into unconsciousness. Burra slapped him.
Silas ran to restrain his father. ‘Let him be, Dad. He’s pissed out of his brain!’
Burra brought the older man round. ‘Who else did you con into going to the club?!’ he demanded. Beena grimaced.
‘All your mates are there,’ he said. ‘None of them will be able to help. The bloody yellowcake is gonna fly off like a bird.’ He made a waving motion with his hands, and Burra grabbed him by the shirt.
‘You may not live to gloat over this,’ he hissed.
‘Let’s go,’ Burra said to his son. ‘We’ll have to tackle this alone.’
Burra ran to his car and drove to the mine road checkpoint. The barrier was down, and three armed guards challenged him as he wound down the window.
‘Bit late to come callin’, Burra,’ a man with a cork-rimmed hat on said.
‘I want to see Richardson!’ Burra said.
‘Didn’t see his name on the guest list tonight, did you, fellas?’
The other two didn’t reply.
‘Well?’
‘No boongs on the list, Dave,’ one said.
‘Boongs means all boongs, Burra,’ Dave said. ‘That means elders, police arse-lickers, the lot!’
Silas leaned over to his father. Take it easy, Dad. No use getting shot.’
‘Get in the back,’ Burra said under his breath. ‘Lie flat and hang on like hell.’
‘Dad, no!’
‘Do as I say.’
The boy obeyed. Seeing the movement, Dave stepped forward so that he was not far from the front of the ute.
‘What’s going on, Burra?’ he asked. ‘You up to your tricks there?’
‘We’re leaving,’ Burra said. ‘Just tell Richardson I wanted to see him.’
‘Better get your copper mates to do that for you,’ Dave said, ‘cos I don’t reckon Bull will talk to no boongs anymore.’
‘Just tell him,’ Burra said, his voice calmer, ‘nobody wants trouble. We must have dialogue.’
He began to reverse the ute. Dave lowered his rifle and laughed derisively.
‘Dia-bloody-logue,’ he said. ‘Bullshit!’
Burra pretended to turn the wheel and noticed the other two drop their hands too. ‘Stay down,’ he said to his son.
Instead of moving in a semi-circle as the guards expected, Burra put his foot down hard on the accelerator and rammed the boom gate. It cracked open. The three guards scattered to avoid being hit by the ute’s front bull bar, and the vehicle skidded through with Burra struggling to control it. Before the guards could recover enough to take aim, the ute was clear, leaving behind it a cloud of red dust.
The ute careered onto the mine’s bitumen road, which allowed Burra to move into top gear and gun the vehicle hard. Airport lights illuminated a makeshift control tower perched on a hill. The ute came round it as the lumbering plane built up speed for take-off. Burra made straight for it. The plane’s nose tilted up and missed the ute by only a few metres. Burra struggled to keep his vehicle upright before he could brake it to a standstill. Silas crawled into the front. He and his father watched the Hercules struggle for altitude as it lifted its heavy cargo into the clear night sky.
Vehicles, headed by Richardson in his jeep, converged from every point of the airfield. Lights went on high beam as he put a loudhailer to his mouth.
‘You’re on private property,’ he called and the words echoed to the escarpment. ‘I’m going to have you escorted out.’
Burra drove his ute up close to Richardson. ‘That was the dumbest move you’ve made yet, Bull.’
‘What move?’
Burra leaned forward and let his hands fall to the rifle under the seat. He squinted above the headlights and was soon aware of several rifles pointed at them. He put both hands on the wheel.
‘Like I said,’ Richardson growled, ‘you’re on private property!’ His right hand went up in a Hitler salute, which pointed to the direction of the road, ‘Off!’
Cardinal’s head spun as the nerve-tingling ring of the phone woke him. It was Rhonda.
‘What the hell’s wrong?’ Cardinal demanded. He scrambled for his watch. It was two-thirty.
‘I’ve just been picked up by the police and interrogated,’ she said shakily. ‘When I got back to the room, they had turned it upside down.’
‘I better get over there.’
‘No. It’s too dangerous. The curfew is until dawn. As soon as you’re seen here with me, you’ll be marked. They’ll follow you everywhere.’
‘The police who stopped us on the road would have reported us tonight.’
‘Doubt it. They were ordinary cops. The blokes here were the president’s Gestapo.’
‘I’m coming,’ Cardinal said. He hauled on clothes and took the lift to reception. The Indian clerk on night duty was doubtful about a taxi.
‘The police are very strict tonight, sir.’
‘I’ll pay double the rate,’ Cardinal said. ‘It’s urgent. I want a car right away.’
‘One minute,’ the Indian said. He dialled a number. ‘Can you pay in dollars?’
‘Sure, just be quick!’
‘Sorry, sir, it is dangerous tonight. He wants to know if you will pay twenty-five dollars.’
‘Will he bring me back here?’
The clerk nodded, spoke again and told Cardinal he would have to wait five minutes.
Cardinal sat on a couch and cracked a knuckle.
The clerk glanced at him. Cardinal cracked four knuckles, one after another. It disconcerted the clerk. He winced as Cardinal started on his other hand.
‘Could you send flowers to Bandung?’ Cardinal asked.
‘Of course, sir.’
Cardinal stepped up to the counter again and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.
‘Send two dozen roses to Hartina Van der Holland,’ Cardinal said, and showed him the address. ‘The message should read, ‘Please come to Soviet Embassy Party. Look forward to meeting you, Ken Cardinal.’ The clerk scribbled the details.
The taxi arrived up the hotel ramp, and Cardinal jumped in. The driver was also Indian. The clerk came out and chatted to him.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the clerk said. ‘Just telling my brother to look after you.’
The driver turned the car lights off as they drove down the other side of the ramp. ‘I shall take you an indirect route, sir, through the market, which will take you to the rear of the Borobodur.’
‘Okay, fast as you can, friend,’ Cardinal said. He reached for a cigar.
They drove at no more than thirty-five kilometres an hour with the driver stopping every few seconds to look for patrols. When they had gone about two kilometres, they encountered two army jeeps. The driver pulled over and switched off the ignition.
‘Head down, please,’ he whispered, but Cardinal was already stretched across the seat. The patrol sped past, and the driver edged out into the road. Another kilometre on, and they were in a deserted market. The driver pointed to a cylindrical building four hundred metres from them.
‘That’s the hotel,’ he said. ‘I must stop here. If you stay in the shadows, you will be okay, sir.’
Cardinal opened the door and flicked away his cigar.
‘Could you wait?’ he asked, peeling money from his wallet.
‘How long, sir?’
‘I don’t know. A half hour?’
‘No longer, please, sir. If I’m caught by a patrol . . .’
‘If I’m not here then,’ Cardinal said, looking around, ‘go’
He hurried from stall to stall, keeping in the shadows until he reached an alley. A police car, followed by an army jeep, drove past the other end, opposite the hotel. Cardinal pressed against a doorway as the jeep entered the alley a short distance, its lights on high beam. It waited a minute, and Cardinal could hear voices, then laughter. They had not seen him. The vehicle reversed and con-tinued on.
Cardinal ran along the alley, up some steps and onto a concourse that led to the front entrance. He looked down to see a tank lumbering along Jalan Thamrin, with soldiers perched on it. They yelled to him, but he did not acknowledge them as he stepped through the revolving door.
Two people at the reception desk challenged him, but he ignored them. One man came around the desk as Cardinal pressed the lift button. It took him to the tenth floor. He knocked at Rhonda’s room. He heard footsteps inside and then the sound of a safety chain being slipped on. Rhonda looked through the peephole, opened the door and unhooked the safety chain when she was sure he was alone. Cardinal stepped inside.
‘I’ve had a strange call,’ she said. ‘Someone spoke in Indonesian, then hung up.’ She sat on a sofa and held her head. ‘I’m petrified!’
Cardinal sat next to her. ‘Take it easy.’ He looked around. Rhonda’s suitcase was open, and her belongings were stacked beside it. He examined all the windows and looked down on the market below. He could just make out his taxi.
‘Only Spider Man could get in,’ he announced and sat beside her.
‘I should be so lucky,’ she said. ‘What was the call about?’
Cardinal shrugged. ‘Pressure. Maybe they just want to scare you.’ He touched her forearm. ‘What sort of questions did the police ask?’
‘They wanted to know if I was going to broadcast anything. Had I sent a report back to Australia. Had I been in touch with anyone. They threatened to intern me for insulting the President of the Republic. They claimed it was a serious crime. I was warned never to mention anything personal about Utun. They even said they would track me down in Australia if I stepped out of line there!’
‘How?’
‘I asked the same thing. They said they had a network of agents there.’
‘Have you ever had threats like this before in your work?’
Rhonda nodded. ‘A few. “I’ll make you sit on my face” type calls. But never anything as scary as this.’
‘I don’t know. I have to check with my Embassy tomorrow.’
She wandered to a cabinet. ‘My mouth is so dry. Want a tea?’
‘Please,’ Cardinal said.
‘You should get out too.’
‘But you said I should come here!’
‘I know, and now I’m sorry. It’s far more dangerous than I thought.’
‘I will stay for that Russian party in two days,’ Cardinal said, ‘just in case I can meet Hartina.’
Rhonda put a kettle on, and placed tea bags in cups. Her hands were shaking. She poured the water. Cardinal wandered to the window and looked down. The taxi was still there.
‘Do you think you’ll be all right?’ Cardinal asked. ‘I’ve got a car waiting down there.’
‘Could I ask a big favour?’ she said handing him a cup. ‘Could you stay the night? I’m frightened.’
Cardinal noticed her hand tremble as she filled the cup. ‘Sure.’ He sat down beside her again. ‘This sofa feels okay.’
‘I really appreciate that.’
‘Has anyone ever refused to stay the night with you?’
‘No,’ she said with a thoughtful frown, ‘but then again, I usually carry a sub-machine gun.’
Cardinal laughed.
‘I’ll get a blanket and pillow,’ she said, moving into the bedroom.
Cardinal could see a light in the sky. At first he thought it was a low-flying plane.
‘Could you turn out the light for a moment? I just want to see what what that plane’s doing?’
A helicopter was coming towards them. Rhonda came to the window. It vibrated as the helicopter flew closer.
‘We use those mothers in the Navy,’ he said. ‘They’re gunships. They have radar “guns” that can see shapes through walls. I didn’t know we had sold them to the Indonesians.’ He had to raise his voice as the chopper flew over the hotel. Cardinal expected the noise to diminish. But it didn’t. The helicopter circled lower and came around below their window level. Then again, above it.
‘They must be buzzing this place!’ Cardinal said in amazement.
They watched in silence as the black machine, gun-barrels rotating, lowered to their level and hovered about thirty metres away. The windows rattled from the vibration. They could just hear the phone ringing. Rhonda looked at him. She picked it up.
‘Who is it?’ Rhonda snapped. She had one hand to her ear as the gunship dived lower to about the seventh floor before drifting away to another building, which it also began to circle.
‘Thought you would like the company,’ the voice said. The phone went dead.
‘More heavy breathing?’ Cardinal asked. ‘They might have just seen the bloody thing in the air around here. They could have called just to imply that they had organised this little scare tactic’
The chopper swooped over in their direction once more and came level with the window. Rhonda backed away in horror.
Cardinal grabbed her. ‘Sit down and have some tea.’
The machine whirred off above them. Cardinal switched on the light.
‘Still think it wasn’t co-ordinated?’ she asked, distressed.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. The sound of the machine had died away. It was out of sight. They sat silently for several moments.
Cardinal looked at his watch. ‘It’s three thirty. We better try to sleep.’
Rhonda kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you for staying,’ she said and slipped into her bedroom. She left the door open and called him to make sure he could hear her.
Cardinal took off his shoes and socks and hung his feet over one arm of the sofa. He began to relax and drifted off until the room’s stillness was shattered by the sound of the phone.
‘I’ll get it!’ he said. Cardinal picked up the receiver. He could hear a telex machine chattering in the background and muffled voices.
‘Miss Mills?’ a male voice said. ‘We know you are there, Miss Mills. Just checking to remind you not to leave the hotel.’
Cardinal could see Rhonda holding the phone in the bedroom.
‘Miss Mills?’
Cardinal waved his hand. The caller rang off. Cardinal left the receiver off the hook and walked to the door.
‘They can’t get through again,’ he said.
‘What if they come here?’
He took her to the bedroom window and pointed at the market. ‘It’s four. Nearly dawn. You can see those guys opening up their stalls and barrows. No one’s going to come calling at this hour.’ He put his arms around her.
‘Stay in here with me,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I’ve never been so scared.’
Cardinal held her close, reached over and switched off the light.
‘Are you scared?’ she asked as they got into bed.
‘More sleepy than scared, but yes, a little nervous.’
Cardinal touched her affectionately.
‘Look, I feel the electricity,’ she said, ‘but I want to remain unplugged at the moment.’
‘I understand.’
‘I do want you near.’
Cardinal eased his arm from around her shoulders and lay on his back. He drifted off to sleep but was awakened by the grip of Rhonda’s fingers on his forearm.
‘Ken . . .’ she said, ‘I heard something. I think someone is in the other room.’
They both listened. There was an intermittent clicking sound. Cardinal eased himself out of the bed, pulled on his trousers and edged to the bedroom door. He caught a glimpse of moving shadows under the door to the hallway. He crept to the peephole. He could see the distorted faces of two men. One wore dark glasses. They both looked down the hallway and began to move off. Cardinal threw back the security chain, fumbled with the lock and rushed into the corridor just as the lift door closed. Cardinal returned to the room, and rang security. An officer promised to search the hotel.
‘If they detain you tomorrow night,’ he said, returning to the bed, ‘you better check out of here. Either stay with me or Perdonny.’ Rhonda snuggled close. They both lay in silence, alert to any noises in and out of the room. The airconditioner began making noises like a stifled cough. Rhonda started a couple of times. Then she settled down.
Cardinal turned to her, gently pushed hair from around the nape of her neck and kissed her. This time she responded more. They kissed and became lost to the terror that had brought them close.
‘Burra, I believe you.’
O’Laughlin got up from behind his desk and walked around to face him. The Aborigine had driven to Darwin for a meeting.
‘What are you going to do about it?!’ Burra demanded.
‘I have already been onto Canberra,’ O’Laughlin said. ‘They are going to send a government inspector to the mine to check Richardson’s inventory and stocks.’
‘So he claims it never happened?!’
‘He’s more subtle than that. He says no uranium left the mine. His public relations people have been lobbying on his behalf in Canberra.’
‘Then where did the Hercules come from and go to?’
‘Darwin airport.’
‘Bullshit!’
‘Look, Burra!’ O’Laughlin said, ‘the bloody thing is there. It’s at the hangar. One of my blokes inspected it at dawn today. Do you want to go with me now?’
Burra’s eyes searched O’Laughlin’s creased face. He trusted him but didn’t believe Richardson’s story. Burra had to see for himself.
‘It’s a con trick!’ Burra grumbled as O’Laughlin showed him the Hercules in Richardson’s hangar at Darwin airport. The plane was empty except for mail bags.
‘It’s a sting,’ Burra added angrily.
‘Well, you tell me how,’ O’Laughlin said, ‘and I’ll do something about it.’
‘I’m certain it was flown out of the country!’ Burra said. ‘My son and three other Bididgees watched those forklift trucks getting yellowcake barrels into the plane!’
‘If we had proof that he smuggled yellowcake out of Australia, Richardson would be up to his arse in crocodiles.’
‘Have you checked with Radar?’
‘This is supposed to have happened on Saturday night, right?’ he said.
Burra nodded.
‘Well, I hate to tell you, mate, but the coast guard and the army don’t run the radar stations on the weekend up this way . . .’
Rhonda awoke with instant memories of the night’s fears and a tumble of mixed emotions livened her face.
She looked at the puffiness and black barnacles under Cardinal’s eyes.
‘It’s nearly nine,’ he said. ‘You got some good sleep after all.’
‘Did you?’
‘Some. At least I didn’t dream.’
‘Since I heard about Harry. Hadn’t you better call the Australian Embassy?’
‘I should,’ Rhonda said sitting up. She rang and scribbled notes during a brief conversation with the ambassador’s secretary.
‘They’re letting me go!’ she said. ‘A flight this afternoon at four. Why don’t you come?’
‘Not until after that Soviet party, if Perdonny can get me to it.’ He smiled at her. ‘You’ve plenty of time if your plane leaves at four.’ Cardinal moved close and held her.
Rhonda searched his face. ‘Why did you come on to me last night?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘it was the moment.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t underestimate how much you attract me.’
‘Wasn’t it just an opportunity?’
‘Sure.’ Cardinal shrugged. ‘But it happens that I felt something very strong from the first time we met at the ferry.’
‘That’s what they all say at the ferry.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘You didn’t show it.’
‘I wasn’t feeling too confident then.’
‘I understood that,’ she said, touching his hand. ‘You did flirt with me at that first lunch.’
‘I have been pre-occupied with this business. You know that.’
He eyed her closely. ‘I don’t think I understand you.’
‘Not many people do. Just about everyone I meet thinks I’m a freak.’
‘The fat lady at the circus!’
Rhonda pulled his hair. ‘Yes! Just like that! People don’t know how to approach me.’
‘I didn’t know you from Eve when we met.’
‘You have never seen me on the box?’
‘Never,’ he said, looking closely at her. ‘Have you worked out of New York?’
‘No. So far I’ve had postings to Jakarta, Tokyo and London.’
‘New York or Paris would suit you.’ Cardinal leaned over and kissed her.
‘Are you teasing me?’ she asked.
‘About New York? It would be much richer if you were there. Have you been married?’
‘Seven years. We split two years ago. There were a lot of problems.’
‘Children?’
‘That was a problem. He wanted kids. I wasn’t ready to break my career.’
‘What does he do?’
‘That was another problem. He used to be my producer. We work at the same network.’
‘You see him every day?’
‘Not now. He sits at the right hand of the network god on the board, and as an adviser.’
Cardinal began to caress her back and neck. ‘I want to be inside you . . .’
Perdonny used a magnifying glass to examine the six aerial photos laid out on his desk before looking up at Myrta, his young Sumatran assistant. She was dark and thin, and had lost an arm in a Jakarta train accident.
‘It’s a Hercules,’ Perdonny said. He leant back in a swivel chair. ‘It has the same markings as the one we saw a few days ago at Ujung Pandang. Where did it come from?’
The girl swept her black hair from her face and sat for-ward. ‘We have a definitive report from our people on Timor.’ She tapped one of the photos. ‘It landed there the night before last and was camouflaged at a military airfield. As soon as it was dark last night it took off again and landed at Ujung Pandang.’
‘But where had it come from originally – before it arrived in Timor?’
The girl shrugged. ‘All we know is that it came in from a southerly direction, which indicates Australia.’
‘Has anything relevant been reported from there?’
‘Not publicly. We’re checking it.’
‘Do you think the plane was used for a hijack?’
‘A radio report from Australia says Aborigines in Arnhem Land believe yellowcake was airlifted out of there secretly.’
Perdonny shot forward. ‘That has to be it. A secret deal between Canberra and Utun to supply yellowcake!’
Myrta shook her head. ‘Australia would be just as paranoid about Utun getting fuel for nuclear weapons as we would.’
‘What about a secret deal between Richardson and Utun?’
‘More likely. Utun’s got the people to make bombs, now Van der Holland is in the country. All he needed was the sort of high-grade yellowcake Richardson could supply.’
‘Has there been any reaction from Chan at the Cambodian Embassy?’
‘Our plant says there was great excitement at the Embassy yesterday over a telex from Ujung Pandang. He could not get hold of it but thinks Chan may be flying there soon.’
Perdonny congratulated the girl. ‘There is some connection between Blundell, Utun and Chan over the yellowcake and Van der Holland,’ he said. ‘Could you get people working on that?’
‘Are you sure there is a three-way connection? You did see Chan and Blundell meet at the docks. Obviously they didn’t want Utun to know.’
‘Concentrate on the three-way link for a start.’
Myrta nodded. She handed Perdonny a letter. ‘From the Soviet ambassador, an invitation for Ken Cardinal to the Soviet party.’
‘Did they manage to get a reply from Hartina Van der Holland?’
‘Not yet. They couldn’t even tell me if her mother, Tien, was coming. But they expect her. She hasn’t missed a Soviet revolution party for a decade.’
‘So Mrs Rich-bitch is a Marxist at heart?’
Myrta nodded. ‘Especially when she makes such big aluminium sales to the Soviets.’
Perdonny’s grin evaporated. He stood up to his full height and looked out of his office to the villa’s pool.
‘This Chan link to Utun worries me,’ he said. ‘They are seen together often. He seems to have great influence over the president. He virtually “controls” Utun’s strike force. He seems to be displacing, or at least joining, Dalan as the president’s closest confidant.’
‘I’m more concerned about Utun getting nuclear weapons,’ Myrta said. ‘I find it hard to believe that the Americans would condone that.’
‘Why? Indonesia could never threaten the US.’
‘I just don’t think they would go that far in arming a surrogate. It would leak out. Then the Americans would be universally condemned. The Russians might be inclined to give its surrogates nuclear weapons.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Perdonny mumbled. He sat down again.
‘What can we do?’ Myrta said in frustration, ‘assassinate Blundell? If your theory is right, he must be masterminding the whole thing.’
‘No. We’ll need the US when Utun topples.’
‘Well, you can’t hit Utun. It’s been tried. He is so closely guarded.’
Perdonny agreed.
‘Which leaves Chan,’ Myrta said, ‘and he has his own highly trained commandos.’
‘But he is the most vulnerable,’ Perdonny said ruminating, ‘for our purposes.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Perdonny reached for his phone. ‘Our aim should be to sever the three-way links,’ he said, ‘build doubts in their minds about each other.’
A hundred refugee peasants from a flood two hundred kilometres east of Jakarta trudged with remarkable dignity and elegance towards the poultice hot city as Perdonny’s driver, Bani, took Rhonda and Cardinal to Halim. The peasants toiled with baskets balanced on poles across their backs.
Cardinal’s eyes fell on an army base opposite a tourist hotel, and the traffic was soon forced to slow down for a tank escorted by two army trucks. The tank squeaked along with its gun barrel thrusting ahead. Their vehicle was almost brought to a standstill.
‘Anything you want me to do in Australia?’ Rhonda asked.
Cardinal considered her for a moment. ‘If you could get hold of the autopsy report,’ he said.
Rhonda pulled a face. ‘And steal the crown jewels,’ she said, making a note on a pad. ‘I’ll try, but they aren’t made public’
‘I didn’t get a chance to go over Harry’s bank statements. I’ll write to the manager authorising you to have them.’
‘What should I look for?’
‘See if he went into debt. He was a gambler. He liked roulette. Used to spend weekends in Altantic City losing money.’
‘What about his girlfriend?’
‘I couldn’t work out how close they were. Maybe you could. She said she would move out of Harry’s house soon. I’m having it rented out for the next year until it can be sold.’
Rhonda scribbled as the driver overtook the tank. ‘Anything else?’
‘At the house,’ Cardinal said, ‘you’ll find photos of Harry taken by Kim. Could you check if he has a ring on the small finger of either hand?’
Rhonda frowned. Cardinal pulled out the photo of him with his son. ‘On this you can see it’s on his right hand,’ Cardinal said giving it to her. ‘On the corpse it was on the left.’
‘Any significance?’
‘I dreamt that it was on his right. It was in this photo, at least.’
She eyed him.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘I haven’t fully accepted his death.’
‘But you identified the body,’ she whispered.
‘Sure, and people who have to do that normally have no illusions that somebody is dead. But I guess because I couldn’t see his face, I still have doubts. I’m compelled to follow them through, for my peace of mind.’
‘You sure that’s all you want to know for?’
Cardinal did not answer. He was thinking beyond a meeting with Hartina.
‘If you learn anything,’ he said, ‘please let me know.’
‘I promise.’
Rhonda looked at her watch. ‘That tank! I hope it hasn’t made me miss my flight!’
Cardinal urged the driver to speed up, and he pulled out to pass other vehicles. Cardinal noticed him glancing in a side mirror. ‘Anything wrong?’ he said.
‘Red BMW,’ Bani said.
Another car was keeping with them. Cardinal kept his eyes on it and when it came close he could see the four occupants, all of whom were dressed in floral shirts and dark glasses.
‘Are they following us?’ Rhonda asked.
‘Think so,’ Cardinal said. ‘Utun has given you an escort.’
Suddenly the pursuit car overtook them. It cut in close. Bani was forced to swerve onto the roadside gravel. He had trouble controlling the car. The BMW stayed in front of them.
‘Get past them!’ Cardinal ordered. Bani, with his fixed grin becoming demonic, tried to overtake the BMW, but each time he pulled out it did the same. Frustration grew as the minutes slipped by and they were reduced to a crawl.
‘Look, we’ve got to get there.’
‘Let me drive.’ Cardinal said. The Ambonese pulled over to the left. Bani slipped over into the passenger seat as Cardinal strapped in. He bustled the Holden out into the traffic. The BMW had stopped up ahead, but it pulled out in front. Cardinal checked the rear-vision mirror and accelerated as if he was going to try to pass the BMW on the left. It pulled hard left. Cardinal spun the steering wheel right and slipped past. He put his foot down.
The BMW was soon on their bumper. Cardinal had his right foot flat to the boards. He eased his left foot onto the brake and then pushed it down without reducing speed with his right. The BMW braked and skidded into the gravel in a cloud of dust. Other vehicles overtook it as it slid to a stop, and then tried to get back into the traffic. Cardinal continued to gun the Holden until Halim was in sight. The BMW gained on them, but only caught the Holden as they arrived at the airport.
Cardinal ordered Bani to wait as he and Rhonda ran to the ticket counter. The red boarding light was on for her Qantas flight.
‘You might just make it,’ the receptionist said, with a look at her watch.
They dashed for the passport line. There were several people in front of them.
‘There was one thing I really wanted to tell you.’ Rhonda said leaning close to Cardinal, ‘Perdonny can help you. I know you don’t trust him, but he will help if you ask.’
Cardinal was watching the entrance. One of the floral-shirted ‘escorts’ was dodging his way through passengers towards them.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Rhonda asked.
Cardinal nodded.
‘If you have trouble getting out,’ she said, dropping her voice, ‘he can arrange things.’
Floral-shirt had positioned himself some paces from the passport official.
‘Forget me,’ Cardinal whispered. ‘Let’s get you out!’
Rhonda hugged him. ‘There’s a pilot at Bogor,’ she said in his ear, ‘an Australian working for Perdonny’s company. If I can’t get out today, Perdonny said he might take me early Friday.’
They reached the passport desk. Rhonda handed over her documents. The official nodded towards four men waiting to inspect luggage at his whim.
Cardinal stepped forward. ‘She’ll miss her plane!’ he said. He pointed at the departures board.
Floral-shirt took a few paces forward.
The customs official pointed at the inspectors and Rhonda was forced to open her case. There was a sharp exchange in Indonesian between Floral-shirt and the customs man. Her case was given only a cursory look before she was bundled through. Rhonda looked back once just before she disappeared.
Cardinal turned and was face to face with Floral-shirt, who touched the rim of his glasses and strode away. Cardinal walked up one flight of stairs to the main terminal lounge. He could see a bus pulling up at the bottom of the Qantas plane ramp, just as a steward began closing the front cabin door. It was shut firm. Cardinal watched Rhonda jump out of the bus. She hesitated and seemed uncertain what to do.
‘Go up!’ Cardinal hissed to himself, ‘get up those stairs!’
Rhonda hurried to the top of the ramp. She hammered on the door. Nothing happened. She took a few steps down the ramp. The door began opening. Rhonda turned and stepped into the cabin.
Cardinal had been uncertain whether he was under surveillance. But on the return to Jakarta, he had no doubts, as the BMW stayed close. His dilemma was whether to let them know he was staying at the Sari Pacific or attempt to give them the slip. He discussed it with Bani.
‘Robert say you no go to hotel,’ he said. ‘I meet you at Hot Hands Harry again in maybe two hour?’
Cardinal wondered how they would get away from the BMW. He suggested taking the wheel again, but the Ambonese was adamant: he was remaining in the driver’s seat.
‘Okay,’ Cardinal said. ‘Drop me at the Borobodur. I’ll pretend to be staying there and leave when I can.’
‘No risk, please,’ the driver said.
Cardinal got out in full view of the tailing car. It was Bakin, the Indonesian secret police.
Cardinal was alert to the subtle change in manner of Perdonny towards him at their second meeting, this time at his villa. There were no anti-American jibes, and he seemed concerned, in his laconic way, about Cardinal’s safety.
‘We are worried about Chan,’ Perdonny said. They strolled to the wall beyond the pool that separated them from a swamp. ‘We fear his influence over Utun.’ He told Cardinal about the Hercules at Ujung Pandang: ‘We have just heard that the yellowcake is to be taken to Bandang for processing. Utun is anxious to use it at the reactor.’
‘Could you do anything about Chan?’ Cardinal asked.
‘It’s not easy.’ The little man frowned. They looked out over the wall. ‘There are considerable risks.’
‘In what?’
‘In getting rid of him.’
‘You’re that worried about him?’
‘He represents the only vulnerability in some conspiracy we are certain exists between the CIA, Utun and Chan.’
They reached the wall overlooking the swamp. Perdonny pointed out monkeys in the jungle behind it.
‘It’s certain that Utun is developing secret weapons at Bandung with Hartina Van der Holland as chief scientist,’ Perdonny said.
‘But what’s Chan’s connection?’
‘One theory is that the CIA and the Khmer Rouge could be asked to experiment with some new weapon in the Kampuchean resistance against the Vietnamese.’
‘Not nuclear weapons?’ Cardinal said.
‘They could be small tactical weapons. It depends on what’s happening at Bandung. They may be special Star Wars developments your government wants tried in South-East Asia.’
‘Rhonda had an idea that the whole thing had been transferred to Indonesia.’
‘Utun would want a trade-off. It’s no secret in Jakarta that he is keen to have nuclear weapons.’
‘I can’t believe the States would allow even a “friendly” power like Indonesia to have the bomb.’
‘Perhaps Utun was going to get it, anyway,’ Perdonny suggested. ‘Someone like Blundell could do a deal to speed the inevitable along. After all, Indonesia, even under communist rule, would be no threat to your country.’
‘So are you going to try to assassinate the Kampuchean?” Cardinal asked.
‘As I said, there are difficulties.’ They strolled back towards the pool. ‘I hope you are staying for dinner tonight?’
‘Thank you,’ Cardinal said, trying to fathom his host.
‘Why not a swim beforehand?’ Perdonny said. ‘We have excellent girls to massage you. After last night you need to relax.’
Cardinal nodded.
‘Tomorrow I would like to drive you past the Kampuchean Embassy so you can see our problems at first hand.’