Java Spider (34 page)

‘You’re not going back to Piri?’ Charlie asked.

Bawi stared through the window, seeing nothing, his mind in the back of that army truck on Monday night, looking back at his house, picturing with vile accuracy what Captain Sugeng was doing to his wife.

‘No,’ he murmured. ‘We shall stay in the valley that is to be filled with water. With the people who live there, and if it is the will of the spirits we will die there.’

Charlie’s jaw dropped. ‘That’s awful,’ she breathed.

Bawi turned away so she wouldn’t see his eyes.

The track became rougher. The forest began to envelop them, intensifying the sense of gloom and despair which Bawi’s brooding presence cast upon them.

‘Soleman Kakadi,’ Randall asked gently. ‘You and he were close friends once?’

Bawi stared ahead. For a moment Randall thought he hadn’t heard him.

‘It was four years ago that geologists discovered Kutu is rich with gold and copper. When the news spread, village headmen came to Piri to see the island’s leaders,’ he began, as if it was a well-rehearsed speech. ‘They knew there would be a problem. The Kutuans in authority on the island had been put there by the Indonesian governor as puppets. Men who were told what to say and were paid for it. Those so-called leaders of ours said Kutu people wanted the mine, despite knowing that most islanders were against it.

‘So the villagers who feared they would lose their land decided they must find another way to oppose the mine. They came to see us at the university – I and some colleagues, we were well known for defending the Kutuan culture and language against the Indonesian president’s wish to make us like Javans.

‘One of those village headmen who came to see us was Soleman Kakadi. He was a little older than me and he was strong. When he spoke, people stopped what they were doing and listened. He and I had many long talks. Out of them was born the idea of Organisasi Kutun Pertahanan with the two of us as leaders, he representing the farming people and me – well, representing the intellectuals, I suppose. The OKP was a
cultural
organisation. It had to be. Real political activity is banned in Indonesia, as you know. We gave ourselves the task of trying to make environmentalists around the world understand how much of Kutu would be
destroyed
by the mine. We had some success. But the pressure was not enough to change anything. A year ago KUTUMIN was given the rights to develop the mine.

‘Something else happened at that time. Soleman Kakadi was having much trouble from ABRI. The soldiers used to search his village for weapons – he had none then. But they would break things and search the women by making them undress in front of all the men.

‘Then Kakadi was told that his village which was close to the sea must be evacuated, because KUTUMIN needed the land for the workers coming to build the mine. Soleman refused to allow this. He was arrested and beaten. While he was in prison, ABRI burned down the village. Kakadi’s people were given some money as compensation and taken to another island. Some, it is true, were happy to go – in every community there are people who can be bought – but many were not.

‘When Soleman was released from prison and learned what had happened, he came to see me. He was on fire with anger. His lands were gone and his family too. The money given for his crops was an insult. He came to me and said, Junus we must now fight. Talking is no good. We are losing. The only way to stop the mine is with guns and with explosives.’

Bawi sighed. It had been a policy of madness and desperation that Kakadi had embraced. But he now understood the passions that had driven him to it.

‘He asked me to get help from my contacts in other countries. Asked me to arrange for weapons and uniforms to be smuggled into Kutu so that he could create a guerrilla army. I told him this was impossible. That nobody would help us that way. And that it was not right. Fighting, killing was never right. He was angry. He said I was like the rest. That I had been
bought
by the Indonesians. Then he left. That was the last time I saw him.

‘One month later an ABRI supply convoy was ambushed. Crossing a bridge in the open country – Kakadi and his men had weakened it. The trucks fell into a river. That’s how the OKP guerrillas got their first guns.’

He fell silent. There was no more to be said.

But there
was
more. Randall sensed it. Some other clue in this.

‘You said it was ABRI that took away Kakadi’s land,’ he asked softly. ‘What did they do with it? They
gave
it to KUTUMIN?’

For the first time, Bawi allowed a smile to cross his lips.

‘No,’ he muttered. ‘They don’t give anything. They sell. The commander of KODAM Twelve –
he
sold Kakadi’s land to KUTUMIN. People say he made millions of dollars for himself.’

‘General Sumoto …’ Randall breathed.

‘Oh. You know of him?’ Bawi asked, surprised.

‘Beginning to …’

Charlie put a hand on his arm. ‘Please tell me, Nick …’ she begged. ‘Just who is this guy Sumoto?’

Suddenly they were hurled forward as the priest braked sharply. Through the windscreen they saw the trail in front was blocked by logs.

‘Christ, it’s an ambush!’ Randall growled, ducking instinctively.

Father Naplo looked unperturbed however. He killed the engine, then held up a hand for silence. Forest sounds replaced the grind of the motor; leathery leaves rattled, birds shrieked high in the canopy. Beyond the barrier, Randall spotted the conical muzzle of a machine gun poking through the scrub, and behind it, a pair of eyes.

Naplo listened through the open window, his ear turned the way they’d come, listening for some noise that would say if they’d been followed. Nothing. After more than a minute, four men in combat fatigues rose from the foliage clutching rifles.

The priest turned to his passengers in triumph. ‘These are Soleman’s men,’ he beamed.

One came forward to shake the priest’s hand, his wild black eyes firing darts of suspicion at the two white passengers. His face was thin and aboriginal, his features half hidden by hair and beard.

Naplo explained in Kutun who the strangers were, then the patrol leader grinned, exposing teeth stained red with betel juice. He reached in through the windows with rough, earthy hands.

‘We can get out now,’ Naplo announced, opening the driver’s door.

Dr Junus Bawi was welcomed by the guerrillas with an embrace he seemed reluctant to accept. For a year he’d opposed what these men were doing. Now he was as much an outlaw as they were, but the fact of it would take some getting used to.

Suddenly a shout cut short the reunion. The guerrillas’ smiles vanished, replaced by fear. The machine-gunner jabbed a finger at the sky, then with his fellows fled the open ground for the protection of the trees.

‘Back in!’ the priest shouted. ‘Quick.’ He scrambled into the driving seat.

Then the sound that had alerted the more sensitive ears reached the rest of them. The roar of a jet.

One foot on the step of the minibus, Randall held back and caught a glimpse of the small, grey dart flashing overhead. A British-built Hawk fighter.

He swung himself on to the seat next to Charlie. ‘What’s happening?’ she hissed. ‘Why are they so scared?’

‘Frightened of being bloody bombed, that’s why,’ he growled.

Within seconds of the jet’s passing, two of Kakadi’s men rolled aside the logs blocking the road. The priest wound up the engine, then gunned through the gap and accelerated away in a cloud of dust.

Naplo half-turned his head. ‘Maybe plane come back to attack,’ he panted in explanation. ‘OKP men they very scared.’

‘Photo-reconnaissance more like,’ Randall whispered to Charlie.

‘Don’t care what it’s doing, if it comes over again, I need it on tape,’ she whispered, lifting the grey holdall on to her knees. She unfastened the hidden pocket and pulled out the Handycam.

Naplo was driving like a madman, the suspension crashing and banging. Hot air and dust blasted in through the open windows.

‘First time I see fighter plane here,’ he told them nervously, half-turning his head.

As the track climbed, it narrowed so that branches scraped both sides of the vehicle. The path ran parallel to a boulder-strewn river, the water a trickle now, but it would be a torrent in the rains.

Ten more minutes and they emerged on to a plateau no wider than a football field. Maize grew in strips between banana plants, and pigs lay in the shade of acacia trees. Straight ahead where the road ended, was a handful of low buildings clustered round a tin-roofed church. The tiny, isolated settlement lay in a gap in the hills. Beyond they could see a wider valley and on the far horizon the simmering bulk of Mount Jiwa.

Relieved to have arrived unscathed, Naplo stopped the bus in front of a long, wood-framed building encircled by verandas, its roof daubed with a large red cross. At the side, fenced off from animals and children,
Randall
noticed two satellite dishes, a large one for TV reception, a smaller version for a satellite phone. Communications. Could prove extremely useful.

From the buildings and the planted areas, faces began to appear, alerted by the sound of the motor. Most were adults, some moving with difficulty, their limbs misshapen by leprosy.

‘They will be curious,’ Naplo stated. ‘Not many visitors here.’

They got out and drank from their water bottles. ‘Where do all the patients come from?’ Charlie asked. A small crowd gathered at a respectful distance. Three children put hands to their mouths, awed by Charlie’s blonde hair.

The priest swept an arm towards the volcano. ‘Between here and Jiwa are many villages. And much disease. But soon no more. KUTUMIN will make this a lake. They build barrage here between the hills where it is narrow.’

Charlie decided she’d need some shots of this place. She switched on the Handycam and videoed the people who were to be driven from their homes.

Father Naplo led Bawi into the mission hospital. ‘We’ll find out if there has been word from Soleman,’ he called over his shoulder. Bawi’s son walked with him, wincing with pain. Charlie panned the camera over to them. The back of Obeth’s shirt was criss-crossed with blood.

She switched off, sickened. ‘That’s horrific,’ she murmured, sweating profusely. Randall nodded. ‘My God! It’s so unbelievably hot,’ she went on a few moments later. She was beginning to wilt.

‘Get in the shade and keep an eye on Bawi,’ Randall told her. ‘See what the news is of Kakadi. Give me the camera. I’ll do some shots for you.’ It was about time he gave her a hand.

‘Well thanks. You know what I want?’

‘Wideshots, close-ups and faces of villagers. Right?’

‘That’s about it.’ She drifted away, glancing behind a couple of times to check that he knew what he was doing.

Randall took pictures of the valley, the hills and the church. Then he crossed to a grass-roofed hut where giggling children were helping their mother grind maize.

Suddenly, from behind him he heard a low rumble that built quickly to a roar. The Hawk was back.

Ducking for cover under the roof-overhang, he swung the camera towards the sky, the lens on wide. A black dot appearing above the trees, the fighter hurtled towards him, low this time, not more than five hundred feet up.

Eye to the viewfinder. The plane’s dart entered the frame as if aiming for it. He zoomed in, following the Hawk across the sky, then pulled wide as it banked over the wooded peaks and climbed like a toy into the sun.

He ran back to the hospital. Around him the village stirred with nervousness.

‘Get it?’ Charlie came running out towards him.

‘Yes.’

‘Great.’

‘Kakadi’s blokes are already here,’ she told him. ‘And they’re in a hurry.’

‘Good. So am I.’

He packed the camera into the holdall. An ominous feeling gnawed his guts.

That was twice the Hawk had buzzed them. Twice. Dead overhead.

As if it were following them.

Seventeen

IT WAS THE
minibus the fighter had tracked, Randall decided. Followed the priest’s dull green vehicle up from the coast like a beacon.

Why?
That was what worried him. Because of
them
? Or because of Dr Junus Bawi?

They were on foot now, a small crocodile with Kakadi’s men at front and back heading for the dense forest where ABRI’s foot-soldiers had never ventured. Under the thick tree canopy they should soon be safe from the watcher in the sky.

In single file, they climbed the side of the fertile valley that was to become a lake – towards the distant hills that were to be blasted into fragments for the ore they contained. From the position of the sun, Randall knew they were moving east. He slung the camera bag round so that it nestled in the small of his back.

The narrow, winding track skirted terraces of rice, bananas and cabbages. Coconut palms rustled in disorderly clumps, and huge green fruit hung from
nangka
trees. In the paddies men and women bent over their work, their brown legs caked with mud, their heads shielded from the sun by hats of straw.

Heavy clouds massed round the distant peak of Jiwa, but the sky above remained scorchingly clear. The rainy season which was in full spate elsewhere in the archipelago was still more of a threat here than a reality.

Kakadi’s men were nervous. Just two of them, boys almost, with wild eyes and heads of stringy black hair,
their
bodies had been reduced to skin, bone and sinew by the deprivation of life on the run. One carried an assault rifle, the other a machete. Dressed in stained dark green, their rolled-up trousers exposed wiry, muscular calves. The man at the rear kept turning round to scan the ground behind with binoculars.

Before they’d begun their march, Randall had stuffed a hiker’s compass into his shirt pocket. He took it out now to check their direction.

Charlie was glad of the walking boots she’d put on that morning. A twisted ankle would be no joke. Glad too of the long-sleeves that protected her arms from the sun and the sharp-edged scrub they were walking through. She slowed her pace until Nick drew level.