by Barry Heard
To Wally, the big man certainly didn’t look like a taxi driver. But this was Indonesia, a land of endless surprises. In fact, Wally couldn’t visualise this man behind the large glasses, which were almost a mask. With ease, the driver picked up Wally’s suitcase and placed it in the boot, and then opened the rear passenger door. Wally hopped in, put the window down, and looked back along the empty driveway at Steve’s house while the Audi reversed out. The huge steel gate rolled and then clunked shut. Wally put the window up and enjoyed the cooler air inside the luxury vehicle. The driver indicated that Wally should help himself to the drinks in the car fridge behind the driver’s seat. His English was almost perfect.
Within one and a half hours, Wally would be on the train, waiting in anticipation for the loud honk or hoot indicating he was on his way — aboard a first-class train on a trip across Java. On that first evening, when the tourist train stopped at the next major station, he would meet up with a group of like-minded travellers (some on this train already, he guessed). This was a group he knew only from the internet, though not from social media. Their love of plants and nature wasn’t just a passion; all possessed real knowledge and qualifications in the subject. He’d been a member for over a decade.
The Audi crawled down street after narrow street, the driver humming a tune and tapping the wheel. Suddenly, like a scene change in a movie, the car moved onto a road that offered a mayhem of movement unknown in Australia. This way and that, the car navigated small traffic jams and rushes of confusion. Horns blared and scooters passed within inches of Wally’s window. Animals lined the streets and monkeys sat on low branches, while old men wobbled along on pushbikes. Road rules seemed superfluous, yet this irrational conglomeration somehow worked. Wally busily clicked his camera.
At last, they reached a four-lane road. The Audi sped up — only a little, but still too much. Wally stowed the Nikon, clutched the door handle, and wrapped his other hand around the seatbelt, the extra speed a worry. This was crazy.
After half an hour, the Audi decelerated, veered left, and entered another enclave, cordoned off by high walls and a wide entrance. Wally stared in amazement. This suburb was even wealthier than Steve’s. He sat back and admired the scenery of tall palm trees, banana plants, and vines, backed by high walls and large steel gates that couldn’t quite obscure the massive mansions behind them.
With a burst of speed, the taxi driver turned through an open gate. Wally frowned, then nodded. This long driveway must be the laneway to the train station, he thought. Then again, that didn’t seem right as the laneway narrowed between gardens, beyond which lay immaculate lawns and a grand house. The taxi drove around a circular driveway up to the house, entered a garage, and stopped. The roller door came down, and a light went on.
The first thing Wally noticed was the pistol pointing at his head.
Fascinating facts about Indonesia
Today, ask your average American for something important or interesting they know about Indonesia. Most are likely to say, ‘Don’t know where that place is, man, but it’s where our President Obama grew up.’
Partially true. As a young boy, in 1967, with his mum and stepdad, Barack Obama moved to Jakarta, where he attended school for four years. His Christian name at the school was Barry.
Now ask your average Australian the same question.
‘Bali, mate — great place for a holiday. And isn’t that where that damn terrorist bomb blew up, I think?’
Most commonly, outsiders have a vague idea that Indonesia has a large population and many islands. However, the actual statistics have people shaking their heads, almost disbelieving the facts.
If you were asked to print in capital letters the name of every island in the Indonesian archipelago using an A4 lined book, a pencil, and an eraser, how long do you think that would take? Allowing ten to twenty seconds to carefully spell out and print each name —
A week of full-time work and long hours.
More — allowing for constant rubbing out (as some names are difficult and very long), sharpening the pencil(s), and the occasional burst of frustration and snapping of grey-leads. The overtime would be worth it if you were getting paid.
Yes, Indonesia boasts well over 17,000 islands, of which over 900 are inhabited. Indonesia is an amazing place. It has over 100 volcanoes, and a lot of them are ticking time bombs that at any given moment might blow their tops. In a country where over 700 languages are spoken, everyone speaks one common tongue — Bahasa Indonesia. This same country has the fourth largest population in the world — its largest island, Java, where Jakarta is located, has over 140 million people.
Certainly, continuing natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions and the like wreak their appalling havoc on Indonesia. The destructive tsunami of 2004 along with more recent major earthquakes and eruptions have sadly seen human losses at numbers one normally associates with a major war.
Still, the uniqueness and marvels of this beautiful nation are simply astounding. It’s a tourist bonanza, a cultural smorgasbord, a land of wealth, and a nation where 25 per cent of the population have escaped slum living in the past twenty years, though the extremes of living standards remain well entrenched.
Chapter 5
The recently developed building in South Jakarta was huge, modern. The dozens of classy offices and exclusive clubrooms housed companies with connections in Indonesia and overseas. The upper floors boasted balconies, which overlooked a magnificent lake and gardens. The top floor was home to the Indonesian animal-welfare administration. It dealt with veterinary matters in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture, only a fifteen-minute drive away.
The person in charge of this administration had a large office, beautiful views, and an impressive brass insignia on his door indicating authority.
Senior Veterinarian
Dr Rio Su
MD, DVM, Dipl. ECVDI
At 8.00 a.m., inside this office, Dr Rio Su and one of the many horse owners under his jurisdiction were smiling. Dr Su had just signed the form verifying that a horse was correctly registered, its bloodlines were confirmed, and it was now free of a virus that had been detected in the horse recently. Dr Su was highly respected in the equine field, but his duties also took him to veterinary hospitals in South Jakarta, the Ragunan Zoo, and the ministry’s impressive Agribusiness Information Centre. His staff was made up of veterinarians, veterinary nurses, administrative personnel, and, of ever-increasing importance, IT workers.
After the owner had left, Dr Su woke his computer and checked his email inbox. Good — every member of the team would be attending the special meeting. This team, his hand-picked team, Rio had contacted prior to meeting the horse owner. All had been reminded their next assignment was due, and a meeting organised for today, 3.00 p.m.
Rio Su was a dapper man in his forties. From the age of thirty-five, he had held this senior position in animal welfare, overseeing all health issues for the West Java and Banten provinces — from injuries to a cat on the set of a TV show, to the declaration that a horse was beyond care and to be euthanised. According to the government’s Annual Verification and Standards Assessments, he applied world’s best practice. Mind you, Rio wrote this annual report himself; upon signing it, he sent the report to the appropriate minister’s office to confirm the industry’s integrity. As usual, the assessment acknowledged that Dr Su ran ‘a professional team with strong embedded strategies that endorse the ongoing vision of customer satisfaction and animal-owner scrutiny, and diligence that endorses the highest standards’. No one questioned his conclusions. Included with this annual report was an invitation, asking the minister to a sumptuous luncheon.
Day to day, Dr Su was always on the move, arranging for and delegating his staff to perform regular visits to veterinary clinics, zoos, horse farms, holding yards, training paddocks, and so much more. Dr Su himself had many hours away from the office, but, as expected, these wer
e mainly spent at business functions, corporate-collaborative meetings, and standards hearings with government officials.
Prior to his job as senior veterinarian, he had practised as a medical doctor. His change of career came about because of two enticing elements: money and connections. Though he had been wealthy before, his income now reached that rare scale awarded to major CEOs.
As the day progressed, Rio’s thoughts returned to the afternoon team meeting. He contacted Bagus, one of the team. No, not one of his work staff. Bagus was part of a team operating outside the law. You might think this a risky conversation to have during work hours on work phones. No, both Bagus and Rio were using phones that were very secure. The IT crew just down the passage gave Rio’s team phones that couldn’t be tapped by any but the highest military operatives or rarest computer hacker.
Four hours later, his team members started to file into the boardroom beside Rio’s office. To an observer, this meeting oozed wealth. All had arrived at the office building in ostentatious cars driven by chauffeurs, who, after letting their suited passengers out at the entrance, moved to reserved parking. In the natural light of the boardroom, many a finger featured large gold rings, while wrists bore heavy gold bracelets and Rolex watches.
Before such meetings, Rio instructed his immediate senior staff — the secretary, vets, nurses, and personal assistants — to vacate their offices for the remainder of the day, telling them that this meeting was a monthly get-together for the Professional Regional Team and that their services were not required. He hinted, on the rare enquiry from his secretary, that members attending this important forum were not to be disturbed, their meeting being critical to ‘welfare continuity’.
That was rubbish. Put simply: they were a gang. Their goal: get money, any way possible, the law irrelevant.
They had one scheme going so smoothly that it dominated most meetings, and so this arranged get-together had more of an air of celebration than work. Glasses of the best spirits on the rocks, the odd cafe latte, delicate snacks, and high-tea cakes greeted every participant. It was an all-male gathering. As they arrived and chatted, Rio offered the warmest greetings and laughed a lot. Talk was lighthearted, laced with bragging and name-dropping. Rio beamed with pride as his office filled with smoke. Always their meetings began this way.
The boardroom now held twelve men. The main chitchat during the first twenty minutes centred on the never-ending saga of child jockeys in Aceh. Chorus-like, they groaned, bantered, and sledged those cultivated morons and do-gooders who opposed such riders. ‘Surely anyone will tell you an eleven-year-old can ride?’ Yet in recent years, the use of under-age riders was becoming ever more politicised as the world media paraded horrific images of crushed tiny bodies and reported on horrendous accidents involving small children.
After an adequate amount of easy conversation, Rio stood, adjusted his expensive glasses, glanced at his huge wristwatch, and cleared his throat. Silence. Rio was the leader of this meeting, no question. After wiping some ash off his bespoke silk suit, he called the meeting together.
‘Okay, time to get down to business. How many names, Joko?’
Joko opened Hanif’s laptop and glanced at the prepared report. ‘Five for this month, all in Jakarta right now, two not leaving Jakarta soon, the others leaving soon on tours across Java. I have put them in order of easiness to handle, and arranged for only three to be targeted for the moment. I will elaborate on the other two after these projects are completed, say in five days.’
Rio turned to Bagus, the second in charge.
‘You have organised the handouts and timetable, Bagus?’
‘Initially, we will target them by these methods. One at a village dinner, one on a train, and the other on the yacht cruise around the bay. Again, we have control of the security cameras at the village dinner, at the reserved table.’
Bagus stood out in this group. In fact, Bagus stood out in most places. His presence demanded attention. Tall and in his late thirties, he modelled that heavily styled Elvis Presley look. In his normal day job, he was the director of a large commercial real-estate syndicate.
Rio nodded, thanked Bagus, and returned his attention to Joko.
‘You have all their addresses, accommodation details, and movements, of course?’
Joko was thin and short, like most Indonesian men. He held the powerful position of sourcing information for this corrupt team. A computer expert, he had full access to a trove of international databases. Some of that was legitimate access via his work for Rio; some was access granted by his crew’s ability to penetrate security systems with ease. The secret to their success was Joko’s offsider, Hanif, who had a genius for numbers, algorithms, and discovering the flaws in other people’s security systems. At meetings, Joko carried Hanif’s laptop; Hanif never attended. Comfortable among machines, he was an introverted mastermind, unable to explain his methods or results to an audience. Translation was one of Joko’s many gifts.
‘Yes,’ said Joko, ‘all printed out. Necessary details noted, and photos to make identification easier.’ He lifted a large bag, pushed it towards Bagus. ‘They are all on Facebook.’
Rio nodded, then asked Bagus, ‘Those involved, and backup if needed — you have that ready?’
Bagus nodded in return.
Rio clapped lightly, and Bagus began distributing the handouts, his own and Joko’s.
Their business, for want of a better word, involved kidnapping innocent travellers and then demanding a payment well within the means of the victim’s family or friends. Perhaps $100,000. This small payment from the tourist’s family worth more in Indonesia’s economy. And small payments soon added up to big money. After the victim’s family settled the payment, Rio would order his team to release the petrified holiday-maker. End of story.
Between the twelve members, they spoke nine languages. Every member of the team maintained powerful political contacts in the Indonesian government. Furthermore, all of them were involved in some way with the animal industry, at board level or similar. Finally, all those in attendance in Rio’s office could manipulate their work hours and time off to suit their extracurricular timetable while retaining an alibi.
This kidnapping scheme was not merely well planned and researched; to date, it had always found success. About once a month, this group of professional businessmen-cum-criminals plied their highly researched information to target a few innocent arrivals to Indonesia. Annually, they seized up to eighty people.
It all began in selected venues, mainly in West Java, where the victims were cleverly filmed performing criminal acts involving drugs — usually the selling of large quantities in exchange for considerable sums of money, American dollars. All activity was limited to the island of Java, an island smaller than the Australian state of Victoria, but with a population, you recall, of 140 million. That number eighty on a kidnap list — irrelevant to the authorities.
Chapter 6
Rio’s scheme rested on Hanif. How had this secretive man come to work for such a high-powered team? Many years back, Hanif and Joko, along with Joko’s twin brother, Gus, attended the same school. All three had outstanding academic abilities, but between the two look-alike brothers, Joko and Gus, there was one major difference.
Twin 1, Gus, stuttered, was shy, and had few friends. Even his brother ignored him. His spare time at school was spent sitting alone, in a far corner in the library, reading.
Twin 2, Joko, was a more active nerd, and enjoyed chess, Scrabble, and the like.
They were never close, Joko and Gus. The two boys rarely shared a lunch or a chat in the corridor. Instead, Joko made friends with the young Hanif. The two spent most lunchtimes in their empty classroom. Always, several students stood by watching as these two ‘stars’ played chess or card games like bridge — played so quickly that most onlookers found it hard to follow. Only the duo broke the silence, with a compliment, a giggle
at the other’s cunning move, or a card slapped on the desk.
Joko was smart, but Hanif had a rare attribute that filled teachers with admiration. He excelled in his classes, like the reincarnation of Albert Einstein and Aristotle combined. If his class were given a book and asked to prepare an essay due in four weeks, Hanif would give the book back within two or three days, along with the essay. Always the best essay, A+. In mathematics, teachers sometimes asked him how he managed to find an answer so quickly, but he could never explain. Teachers often discussed Hanif over morning tea: where was he going, this brilliant young student?
At fifteen, Hanif left school. The teachers were baffled, the students stunned, and, more than anyone, Joko was lost for words. But Hanif left school early for a good reason — he was bored and had found a job that suited his skills: an assistant in a shop that sold computer games. In this role, he helped run gaming nights, set up online battlefields, and display fantasy models, all of which saw the shop become one of the most popular.
After only five years, he was considered one of Indonesia’s best games geeks. Typically, Hanif became bored and accepted a job as the design specialist for a geek clothing company.
Gus and Joko completed school and went their own ways. Maybe once a year at a family celebration, the brothers would have a chat, but otherwise there was basically no contact. Only once did Joko make the effort to see Gus, after he’d had a serious road accident. Gus survived but suffered many injuries, lost the ability to drive his taxi, and set up a cigarette stall.