Sorry for the delay. I worked out this week that I need to spend more time studying (especially Arabic) else my GPA will take a nose-dive. Also, recent event in this chapter- for those of you who read/watch the news. I couldn't help it.
Enjoy and please review.
Chapter Twelve
Kate couldn't work out why Raffy had picked such a public place to meet for lunch. The café was on one of Jakarta's busiest streets in its metropolitan, and most cosmopolitan, centre. Their driver dropped them off, no questions asked, and they only need to call for the transfer back to the airport, where, she guessed, the same helicopter was preparing itself for the journey back to Denpasar.
It sounded like Sydney—the tooting of horns gridlocked in immovable traffic, the jeers of people across the street, the incessant chatter of passers-by—but it couldn't have felt more different. There were a number of native English speakers, but they were by far outnumbered by the Javanese locals. At every turn, there was a foreign conversation, a foreign culture and a foreign lifestyle.
Mike was not being much company. Still brooding in a dark corner after their discussion with Don McAllister in the embassy, he sheltered his thoughts in a quiet, ominous manner and refused to broadcast anything that was going through his head. Kate was feeling alone again.
"Good meeting?" Raffy's voice startled her. He sat next to her other male partner who didn't perk up at the slightest when asked the question.
"Learnt a lot," Kate replied simply. "What about you?"
"Got a name I wanna check out tomorrow," Raffy answered. "I figured I might grab Dutchy and take him with me if that's alright with you. A bit of muscle."
Kate wanted to say 'no,' but she realised that her tall, strong and energetic buffer was probably driving himself crazy on the ship or acting as a tourist in Bali. Since departing the previous day, she'd spoken to her senior sailors thrice and they had all questioned what she was doing on land, with the appropriate provisions for authority, of course.
"Out of sight," she responded.
"We'll be in and out faster than…"
She glared at him.
"Never mind," Raffy said sheepishly. "We'll be fast. And invisible."
"What do you know about him?" Mike asked, hand on chin in a peculiar and reserved manner.
The new XO was confused. "Dutchy?"
"He means this name," Kate clarified.
Raffy was about to answer when Kate lifted a palm in front, indicating for him to stop.
"Is it safe to talk here? In public?"
"Safer than the embassy," Raffy replied.
"Won't we be overheard?"
He shook his head. "I can barely hear you two in this place, so I'll safely assume that neither can some eavesdropper or passer-by. Now, to answer your question, I know of the name. He works for POLRI."
"That's supposed to mean something to me," Mike retorted.
His reserved attitude was starting to annoy Kate. "Indonesian National Police," she clarified. Her tone mirrored her feelings.
"And that's not his only employer…" Raffy muttered suggestively. "I wonder if the tax department knows."
"Right," Kate commented, a little lost.
Raffy's misunderstood commentary went astray and he left it that way. "What did you two learn?"
"That the Jakarta station has not developed any way since October 12, 2002," Mike replied with antipathy.
"They're doing the best that they can do," Raffy said defensively.
Mike had had enough with that excuse. "Well, if the best they can is do three terrorists attacks in eight years, then frankly I'm concerned."
"Three?" Kate asked. "Last night you were all optimistic. What happened?"
"Yeah, I was optimistic that our meeting this morning would put my mind at ease but it did the exact opposite. Let's call spade a spade, here," Mike said bluntly. "We have no idea when this strike is going to happen except we know it's soon and we have no idea what the target is. Oh, and we've misplaced the camp. Have I summed it up well?"
"Yes, sir," Raffy replied. "You got it. We're screwed."
"Do you think we have time, Raffy?" Kate asked. Someone had to be at least a little faithful that they could still prevent the next attack.
"I think we're running out of time," he answered. "We've lost contact with those we were tracking—they've gone underground. An attack is definitely imminent; all the warning signs are there. And Ethan's informants have stopped talking. We need to get someone high up enough to at least cause them to rethink their timing."
"What? Like the recent arrest of JI's spiritual counselor, Abu Bakar Bashir?" Mike jabbed.
"Pfft, Delta 88 took out his group in Aceh," Raffy replied.
"And most of the other big guns are dead," Kate put in with a grim expression, and then, as an afterthought, added, "Thanks to Detachment 88. If they're using a highly explosive weapon to commit this deed, they're going to have to do it without their 'Demolition Man'."
Mike was shaking his head. "Who said they need an explosive weapon? Al-Qa'ida used a plane. Or two."
"But the missing chemicals are definitely suggestive of that thermobaric bomb we found in our waters," Kate said firmly.
"And we don't know how much of that is actually missing." Mike was right—they were screwed.
Ethan Saunders was waiting for them when they arrived back at the hotel. Raffy had excused himself and returned to his room alone, while Kate and Mike loitered in the grand lobby of expensive china, antique furniture and crystal chandeliers, expecting their driver to return with the car.
"I want to check on my crew," Kate told Ethan, firmly. "In person."
His constant assurances of her crew's wellbeing were not enough to sway her and, in the end, it was easier for him to give in and call the driver back. Mike insisted on accompanying her to the ship in a chauvinist fashion, but his lover didn't voice any objections. If it got her to the Hammersley, she'd let him bang on his chest and direct her in loud grunts like a caveman.
An anxious Swain welcomed his former CO and current one back with open arms, figuratively speaking, of course. His arms were crossed and his stance disenchanting. "Any news, ma'am?"
She should've known to expect that question from Swain straight off the mark. His concern for a colleague he'd never met was genuine, and she suspected that his worry was being broadcast across the ship. "Unfortunately not. Nothing regarding Lieutenant Commander Watson."
"Nothing?"
"It's a complicated situation, Swain," Mike told him.
The Petty Officer couldn't argue anymore. That had been Mike-speak for butt out and move on. There were dark places that the other Hammersley sailors just weren't supposed to be.
"The ship, Swain?" Kate asked pertinently before walking up the gangway.
"All fine, ma'am." He jogged to keep up with her as she made her way towards the bridge. "We've mainly been playing board games or enjoying our time ashore. Logs are up-to-date; all equipment has been checked and is in good working order; the –"
Kate cut him off. "Everything that needs doing has been done. I get it. You've done well."
"We want to feel useful," Swain said in a mellow tone.
"So do I," she muttered.
"Ma'am?"
Mike stepped in. "Security? No hassles?"
"No, sir," Dutchy said from the stairs. None of them had noticed him join the conversation until now. "The Indonesians have locked this port down and it's already got heightened security because of the airport."
"And the embassy staff have been taking good care of us when we go ashore," Swain put in.
"And we stay in groups when we leave the ship," Dutchy added. "Nobody goes anywhere alone."
Clearly, they had scripted this little role-play for her benefit.
"Very well. I guess – " She was interrupted mid-sentence by Mike's phone. Looking to his furrowed face for an explanation, she wasn't too impressed when it came.
"Text from Willis. He said that Ethan Saunders has requested our attention back at the hotel."
Willis, their driver, was waiting for them in the port's empty car park.
"Let's go, then," Kate announced. Something was off about it—if it was urgent, then why didn't Ethan call himself—but the bigger part of her was curious.
After some hurried words of encouragement and some rushed greetings and partings, Kate and Mike strolled speedily back to their waiting town car and climbed in. Willis had already gassed the engine and they were set to go. He drove at a more erratic pace on the narrow streets back to the hotel.
Kate was staring out her window. She watched as a mother pulled her two small children by the hand, keeping them off the road, an elderly man crept past a street vendor, a group of nine or ten year-olds played soccer in a side alley. But then, very suddenly yet almost in slow motion, as they passed through an intersection, she saw it coming. Coming towards her so fast that she couldn't cry out but so slow that she saw every single detail. The car did not stop.
The impact sent her hurtling towards Mike only to be pulled back by the seatbelt she wisely chose to wear. Her neck snapped back and her head hit the rest behind. Hard. She heard the screeching of tyres and the crack as metal collided and then… nothing. Her mind was so hazy that she could only think of the exploding pain inside her head. It was unbearable.
It took Mike by surprise. Unlike Kate, he had not been looking in that direction, and he had not seen it coming. It confused him at first, threw his sense of time and balance out of whack completely, but then he remembered what happened. And he remembered where Kate was. The accident had been on her side. He reached for her, but couldn't feel anything. His door was open—he didn't know why—and then, as sudden as the collision, a pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him on to the tarmac. He had almost scrambled to his feet when a boot met his cheekbone. Dazed and looking at the sky, he did not fight when those hands reached for him again.
Kate could not feel Mike beside her. She was afraid to look, so she chanced a glance in front of her. Through her blurry vision she could make out red. Blood red. The intact windscreen was covered in blood. Her door opened, a movement she did not do herself, and there were hands around her before she could question why.
"Do not move, or I will break your pretty, little neck."