Authors: Geoffrey Archer
Java Spider
Contents
About the Author
Geoffrey Archer is the former Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent for ITN’s
News at Ten
. His work as a frontline broadcaster has provided him with the deep background for his thrillers – the bestselling
Skydancer, Shadow Hunter, Eagle Trap, Scorpion Trail, Java Spider, Fire Hawk, The Lucifer Network
and
The Burma Legacy
. A keen traveller, he now writes full time and lives with his wife and family in Surrey.
ALSO BY GEOFFREY ARCHER
Sky Dancer
Shadow Hunter
Eagle Trap
Scorpion Trail
Fire Hawk
The Lucifer Network
The Burma Legacy
Dark Angel
JAVA SPIDER
Geoffrey Archer
Author’s Note
The island of Kutu doesn’t exist. However, the events that take place there in this story will be familiar to islanders in some parts of the Indonesian archipelago, particularly in East Timor and Irian Jaya.
All of the characters and some of the companies in this work of fiction are invented. Any resemblance to actual persons or companies is purely
coincidental
.
To Eva, Alison
and
James
One
Jakarta, Indonesia
Wednesday 05.55 hrs
STEPHEN BOWEN DREW
back the curtains of his tenth-floor hotel room. The dawn sun sat on the city’s concrete horizon, the colour of a ripe guava, staining the city’s pollution haze a murky pink.
The Indonesian day began early. Already across the street he saw brown-backed men bolting the steel frame for another new bank. By midday the blazing sun would make such work impossible. By mid afternoon it would be raining – tropical torrents, silver rods of water bringing street life to a halt.
Bowen slid open the glass door and stepped on to the small, tiled balcony. From the road below came the putter of two-stroke
bajaj
tricycles, weaving their smelly way through the commuter traffic. Already the sun felt hot on his face.
He had patrician good looks, with peppery hair combed in lines neat as plough furrows. A man in control. His appearance had served him well. Politics, business, women – his looks had helped.
He leaned on the steel rail and gazed down at the crush of traffic. The country’s population was growing at two million a year, Jakarta almost choking with bodies. A tough place for foreigners, although many lived here, oiling the wheels to create business for their companies back home.
This was his fourth visit to Indonesia. He loved the
place
in the way he loved casinos. Men living by their wits, playing their cards right and winning big. The place smelled of banknotes.
His first two trips to the south Pacific had been as a backbencher, free to explore his own business interests. The third and this one had been official. Straitjacketed by being a minister of Her Majesty’s government. Publicly, at least.
He heard the door chime and let in the room-service waiter. The dowdily-dressed, brown-faced Javan eyed Bowen’s maroon silk pyjamas, set down the tray and grinned. Fruit, coffee and fried rice. Bowen gave him a thousand rupiah note. Big money here, thirty pence back home.
The waiter bowed, but his eyes mocked. Bowen closed the door and locked it. Always the eyes that gave away the Javans’ contempt for the pink-faced Europeans who’d once been their masters.
Bowen drank the fresh-pressed juice. Half an hour to go before the car came. Half an hour in which to be washed, dressed and checked out of this middle-ranking, characterless hotel. His case lay on the second bed, almost packed. He’d done it last night, several hours and a change of hotels after the final handshakes that had concluded his official visit.
The trip had been a success. The Memorandum of Understanding he’d signed meant the two governments were now firmly locked into the arms deal, with final terms to be settled between the British manufacturers and ABRI, the Indonesian military. The contract had been hard fought – they’d beaten the French by a whisker. Although the donkey work had been done by the UK consortium DefenceCo p.l.c., the clincher had come from him. A touch on the political rudder, a twisting of arms, and a high-stakes gamble that was set to pay out in style.
Bowen sat at the low table and ate the slices of pineapple and mango but rejected the
nasi goreng
. Greasy chicken-fried-rice was not his idea of a breakfast. He downed some coffee then removed his pyjamas and packed them, before stepping into the shower.
For a man of nearly fifty the Rt Hon Stephen Bowen MP, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, was fit, his muscles toned regularly in a Westminster gym. A mat of dark hair extended from chest to groin. As the water pricked his skin he felt a shiver of anticipation, like when entering a casino – the thrill of risk, the buzz that came with abandoning life’s safe zone. What he was about to do was, he knew, distinctly unwise – but it would taste like nectar.
Twenty-four hours ago he’d received a guarded invitation from an Indonesian friend, a lavish offer of hospitality. A child could have seen that accepting it would rate as ministerial impropriety if it became public knowledge back home – the personal bank account of his host was to benefit handsomely from the arms deal he’d just signed. If the London papers found out they’d chew him to pulp.
Stephen Bowen, however, was a man facing his second half-century, a man whose marriage survived in name only. What he’d been offered, few in his situation could resist – the promise of a few days on a luxury yacht and the intimate company of an exceptionally pretty woman half his age.
He’d convinced himself no one back home would ever know. Total privacy had been guaranteed by his host. He’d cut free from his Foreign Office minders in Jakarta, moving from the plush suite in a five-star tower where he’d spent the past few days into this more anonymous hotel. And he’d ignored the Ambassador’s demands to know where he was going for his ‘few days’ leave’.
He turned in the shower, letting the spray play on his chest and stomach.
Selina was her name. Working for the Indonesian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, she’d acted as social secretary for his visit. Only ever seen her in a smart business suit.
As he towelled himself down, he felt a moment’s guilt about Sally. Always did in the hours before an indiscretion. A twitch of regret at not having made a better fist of his marriage. His fault entirely, but too late to change.
He dressed quickly in clean, blue sports-shirt and buff, cotton trousers. Three days of bacchanalian pleasure on the big man’s motor yacht, a little light gambling – and Selina … Didn’t even know her second name. Knew her smile though, and her submissive eyes. Every man did in his dreams. And now the dream was being made flesh. A little thank you, a little
quid pro quo
for the way he’d fixed the arms deal.
And what a deal. Good for Britain, but above all good for
him
. As Bowen closed his Samsonite bag, he felt the thrill of the tightrope. One slip and he’d be finished. Never before had he staked so much. Never before had he
had
to. The arms deal he’d signed would not only benefit the nation he served, it would save him from bankruptcy. Unless he got found out …
He checked his watch. Time to go. Seven hours ahead of London. Still Tuesday there. He grabbed his briefcase, did a final check round the room, then wheeled his bag into the corridor and let the door click behind him.
Indonesia was another world from the one he’d cut his teeth in. Normal politics, normal business practice didn’t exist in a nation controlled by a single man, his family and his cronies. The key to business here was simple yet complex – knowing who to bribe. Dozens of
Indonesians
in the military and in government would benefit personally from the deal he’d just signed.
Bowen knew little of the details. DefenceCo handled it. In the company accounts the money would be listed as commission, a lump sum to a single agent, which would cascade down to the other beneficiaries. The choice of agent was crucial. DefenceCo’s man could not have been better placed.
Bowen emerged from the rattly lift and strode across the lobby to the cashier. Even at this early hour there was a check-out queue. He waited in the air-conditioned chill for a couple of minutes, glancing towards the swing doors for the limousine. Then he passed his Visa card to the smiling clerk and checked his bill. One night only, supper in the room, no phone calls.
‘You use minibar?’
He shook his head and signed the slip. Pocketing the receipt and his card, he turned – and almost collided with her.
‘Good morning, Mr Bowen!’
Selina. White T-shirt today, blue denim skirt, eyes as black as her hair, a face the shape of a heart and a smile as shy as a virgin’s.
‘Oh, hello! Hi …’ he floundered, his throat dry suddenly. ‘I … I didn’t realise
you
were picking me up. I was expecting some ugly driver.’
Heart pounding, he fell in love.
‘I the ugly driver,’ she grinned. ‘You ready?’
‘Ready, willing and able,’ he purred, stupidly.
The City of London – a few hours earlier
Tuesday 19.35 hrs
An autumn nip in the air. A London night black with gloom.
Nick Randall hated murder cases. They gave him a knot in the stomach and a feeling of guilt. Not to mention revulsion – particularly when the weapon was Semtex. No limit to the number of ways it knew to smash up bodies.
He stared broodily through the car window as the siren wailed them out of the Blackfriars underpass and into the clog of traffic the explosion had caused.
‘Damn!’
Every lane solid. Nothing moving. He leaned forward.
‘Turn that frigging siren off,’ he told the driver. ‘No way we can get through this, short of flying.’ He settled back in the seat, waiting for the jam to clear.
The attacks had begun in the summer. Crimes of
envy
the government called them. The targets until now had been the super-rich – company executives pilloried in the press for corporate greed. The terrorists had escaped detection so far, unknowns, cleanskins. They’d begun low key with a break-in at a rich man’s home – then graduated to arson and letter-bombs. And now an explosion in a City bar.
Randall was a detective-sergeant, known by his peers in Special Branch as an easy-going bloke, except when the ‘media’ got on their high heels, howling about the police’s failure to catch the terrorists. Tomorrow’s papers would be another uncomfortable read.
‘What gets me is the way they always demand resignations,’ the driver complained, as if reading his
mind
. ‘If we can’t find the buggers with the men we’ve got, how’re we goin’ to do it with fewer?’
Randall grunted. Not enough hours in the day. Earlier he’d rung home to tell his girlfriend Debbie he was going for a quick drink with the lads but would be back by eight. Ten minutes later he’d had to phone again.
The traffic crawled. Near the Bank of England, the Mondeo cut free and the driver banged on the siren again. Blue lights everywhere. Fire pumps, ambulances. Havoc, just when the City had been winding down for the evening.
