by Ty Patterson
He had barely hung up when Beth snatched the phone from him, scrolled furiously and turned the screen to Zeb. Meghan craned her head over her shoulder. Bwana, Broker and Roger joined Zeb to see what the message was.
There’s an Arab buyer for the twenty girls. How much should I ask for them?
The beast didn’t roar. It didn’t growl. It flooded Zeb instantly with cold fury.
‘It came when you were interrogating him,’ Beth said softly. ‘I traced the sender’s phone. It’s in a house in East Jakarta, a man suspected of being a Garuda member. In fact, he was arrested once but released almost immediately.’
Twenty girls.
Zeb couldn’t look beyond the two words. He knew his hands were trembling, the way they sometimes did when a killing rage took over him. He tried to breathe. He tried to summon his control and it was only when Bwana placed a hand over his shoulder and Meghan clasped his forearm did the beast subside. Not by much, but it brought back a semblance of clarity.
He thrust the phone to Keling, who mouthed the words silently. The Garuda boss blanched when he looked up and saw the expression on Zeb’s face.
‘It’s…just…business,’ he stammered.
‘Where are they?’ Zeb asked in a distant voice.
‘I…can’t…tell…you. This is my-’
‘Where are they?’
The sound of harsh breathing in the van. The slap of tires on road. Wind rushing past the van, outside. The vehicle’s shocks creaking, its body shuddering on its wheels as Chloe drove at speed.
‘The docks,’ the Indonesian replied, unable to meet the implacable eyes facing him.
‘Where in the docks.’ Monotone because if I raise my voice, I’ll lose control.
‘A container. Two containers. But I’ve got customers-’
‘Where are those containers?’
‘I’ll lose my-’
‘Last chance.’
Keling paused then recited the location.
‘Bwana?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That truck’s still behind us?’
‘Yeah.’
‘No, please-’ the gangster pleaded.
Zeb grabbed him by his shirt, dragged him, kicking and resisting, across the face of the van as Bwana opened the rear doors and flung Keling out in the night, twisting his wrist at the last minute so that the gangster fell by the side of the road.
‘Should’ve crushed him under the truck,’ Bwana said unsympathetically.
Zeb brought out his phone and sat heavily on the bench seat as the beast dissolved in his body.
‘Daritan,’ he said, when the BIN Director came online. ‘Listen,’ he said cutting off his friend’s questions. ‘Don’t ask anything. Don’t say anything. You’ll find Lot Keling by the-’
‘Sungai Kendal Road,’ Meghan told him.
‘By the Sungai Kendal Road. Yes, he should be alive. Injured, don’t ask me how. You’ll get a recording,’ he nodded when Beth gave him a thumbs up, ‘It’s a confession by the gangster. See how you can use it. There’s something else,’ he said, feeling empty, ‘two containers in the docks.’ He gave their coordinates. ‘There are girls in them. Keling was going to traffic them. No, don’t ask me how I know.’
He hung up and took the bottle of water that Roger offered. Drank, until his insides cooled and his shakes disappeared and chi, the life force inside him that balanced him and made him who he was, reasserted itself.
‘Tomorrow,’ he wiped his mouth. ‘We take down Zhen and List Asia.’
Chapter Sixty-Three
Slum tourism. It was a thing.
Zeb followed Beth, who in turn was behind her sister, as the operatives, part of a larger group, were led through the Cakung slums by an English-speaking guide.
Many Westerners, European, American and Australian, a few Asians. They want to see how the poor live. He shook his head immediately, annoyed with himself. That was a lazy judgment. Sure, there were many better-off tourists who were curious to see how those in the slums lived. But there were also many who were genuinely interested and who tried to help those less privileged.
Beth had come up with the idea. Join a slum tour and get as close a view of Zhen’s base as possible. She had found a tour that went near the Cakung gang’s territory, made calls in the morning, and had booked them places.
They stuck to their cover. Americans, working in technology, first-time visitors to Indonesia. They used their disguises, and at ten am, the day after taking down Keling, they were traipsing through the Cakung slum.
Small lanes. Corrugated aluminum sheets for roofing, that almost touched each other, providing partial shelter from rain and sun. Washing hung out to dry on cables that ran from one house to another. Stench from the river that overpowered sensitive noses.
Children playing, very few gawking at them. Women cooking, visible through open doors and windows. A few men helping in the house. An elderly woman sweeping a few tiles in front of her door that made her porch.
Many in the tour group gasped and murmured in surprise at the poverty in display. Not the Agency operatives. We’ve seen such scenes, in many countries, Zeb thought grimly, as he stepped over a puddle of urine.
‘What’s there?’ Meghan flashed a brilliant smile to the guide as he turned before reaching the river.
There, was more slum. More narrowly-spaced houses, TV antennas jutting from their roofs.
The Indonesian seemed to melt at her attention. ‘Redevelopment, ma’am. No one’s allowed to go there.’
‘I don’t see barriers. Look, there are a few men.’
‘No, ma’am. We can’t go there. Out of bounds,’ he replied firmly and led the group away from Zhen’s base.
The gangster’s paid off everyone. Made sure no one visits his hideout. That dude over there, Zeb surveyed a man sitting on a chair, yawning lustily. I bet that silhouette under his shirt is a gun.
He had to admit it was an ingenuous hide. No one would expect a highly sophisticated network to be housed in a slum. No one will think this place will have some of the best programmers in the world, influencing Asian men to kill.
He wiped sweat from his face as he took in the gangster’s base. There was that road to the west that they had seen on the map. It was the edge of the slum and had a steady stream of foot and vehicular traffic. In the distance he could see the bank of the Cakung River. A crumbling, concrete wall, garbage piled up against it, a narrow path separating it from the slum.
‘Keling was right,’ Bwana spoke through their earpieces. ‘Entering this place undetected is difficult. Getaway is impossible.’
‘Yeah,’ Zeb replied, distractedly. He had the glimmering of an idea.
Chapter Sixty-Four
That night they rafted down the Cakung River. Eight of them in one large boat, Bear and Roger powering the craft at either end with long poles. Picnic baskets, beer and wine bottles, plastic trays and cups, to give the appearance they were tourists, exploring the city’s waterways.
Beth and Meghan launched the drones as soon as they came within sight of the slums. Zeb trained his NVGs as water slapped softly against the boat’s hull.
‘What’s that thing there?’ Broker bent over Meghan’s screen as the birds sent their feeds. More heads joined her as they contemplated the short, stubby object in silence which was barely visible from the river.
‘It’s a pump,’ Zeb said finally as he focused his binos on the object. ‘A water pump. The river floods often and probably fills the slum. Residents use it to remove the water. It’s got long hoses.’
They could see it, now that he had explained. The vessel drifted. The sisters called out positions and landmarks softly.
And then Zhen’s stronghold arrived. Another pump, right at the end of the small passage, directly facing them.
‘Lots of bodies inside,’ Beth said, excitement spiking her voice, as she checked out the thermal images in the video feed. ‘That house that faces the river, five shapes, men. Lot of heat signatures. Th
at’s the computer room, I bet. Meg?’
‘Yeah. I agree. I count four bodies in an adjacent house, three in the one next to it and three more in a third house. Then, there are the sentries outside.’ She fell silent as she counted. ‘Two in that front passage, where that pump is. Oh, two in the alley parallel to it, next to the house. Do you call them alleys in a slum?’
No one answered her. Water sloshed around a dead tree trunk that floated past. A head on the bank, a man, staring at them. Probably wondering about foolish tourists. Who else will go out in the middle of the night?
‘How do they get a network there?’ Bwana wondered aloud.
‘Fiber optic cables,’ Meghan said, ‘buried underground. Zhen’s smart, very smart. There’s nothing to show that that house has got a sophisticated tech room inside. There’s a TV dish there, but I betcha it’s a real one. If these dudes are anything like the ones in Chernihiv, they too are trapped in that house. TV and games are their only outlets.’
They were at the middle point of the block of houses that Zhen occupied. Nothing remarkable from the outside. Shutters closed in the night. Washing hung outside one residence. The walls gleamed in the dim light, some painted white, others, in different colors.
‘That bank, rising from the river,’ Zeb said conversationally. ‘It’s brick as far as I can make out. Y’all agree?’
A chorus of yeahs.
‘Why?’ Beth asked and then clicked her tongue in exasperation when he shook his head without answering.
‘That place is a fortress,’ Chloe said, subdued. ‘It won’t be easy to breach. Those small passages, the shooters inside, the innocents in the other houses…. we’ll be sitting ducks, Zeb.’
‘Besides,’ Bear said, ‘They will be expecting us. There won’t be any element of surprise.’
‘What would you do if you were Zhen?’ Zeb asked his friends.
‘Do exactly what he’s done!’ Meghan looked up from her screen. ‘Load up with shooters. We’ll have to take every one out, whereas they’ll have to get lucky just a few times. This place is nothing like Chernihiv.’
Heads nodded, agreeing with her.
‘That computer room,’ Zeb pointed at it with his shoulder, ‘you’re sure that’s the one facing the river?’
‘One hundred percent,’ Beth nodded vigorously. ‘The heat print, the bodies, that’s proof.’
‘Why would he have it there? It could be attacked from the river.’
‘Except that Zhen would see it coming a mile away,’ Roger replied. ‘Look at us! We’re in the middle of the river. They’ve probably got eyes on us. They figure we’re a bunch of dumb foreigners.’ And to reinforce their cover, he took a long drink from a beer bottle.
‘What’s on the road at the end?’
‘That’s where the slum ends,’ Meghan said. ‘A few parked vehicles. But that’s now. There will be more traffic in the day time. That road dead-ends at the river, and on the opposite side, joins Sungai Kendal Road.’
Zeb visualized a map of Cakung in his mind. That road, that’s the same one we were driving on, yesterday. It’s a long stretch. They’re right. It’ll be difficult to take them out inside the residences. But what about that idea I had?
The slum was receding in the distance as their boat sailed down the river. It was a dark smudge against the night sky.
‘You’ve got a plan, haven’t you?’ Meghan read his expression.
‘Zhen will have a getaway vehicle on that road,’ he mused.
‘There are several,’ Beth peered at her screen. ‘At least two SUVs, though I don’t see any bodies in them.’
‘It’s a short sprint from the houses to those vehicles,’ Broker, leaning over her shoulder. ‘He won’t need guards in those rides. Assuming they’re his.’
He straightened and steadied himself as the vessel rocked. ‘Spit it out. What do you have in mind?’
Zeb grinned at their impatient expressions. ‘If we can’t go inside that house, we get them to come out.’
‘But how?’ Meghan snapped.
Chapter Sixty-Five
‘You’re a devious man,’ Meghan whispered in admiration, the next night.
Three am. Two to three at night was Zeb’s favored time for an attack. It was when the human body’s rhythm was at the slowest.
He smiled as the two of them crouched low and ran along the river, the rest of the operatives behind them.
A narrow strip of mud separated the water from the brick wall. It was firm in parts, slushy in others, and they had to tread carefully to avoid squelching sounds.
Jaws had dropped when he had explained his plan to them and then Bwana had burst into a chuckle and Bear had grinned.
‘It’ll work,’ the ebony-skinned man chortled. ‘Heck, if I was holed up in that house, I would react in pretty much the same way you figure they will.’
The plan required a stealth approach along the muddy stretch. All of them armed with HKs, stun grenades, night scopes, their handguns and a various assortment of weapons, blood packs and compresses.
Zeb looked up every now and then from his run, orienting himself. That overhanging tree up ahead, that was where Zhen’s part of the slum finished. So, the computer house had to be ahead of it. He looked back once and got a finger from Beth who was close behind.
‘I don’t like muddy boots,’ she hissed and shoved him.
They pressed forward. Eight dark shapes, barely visible against the darkness of the brick wall. They stopped when Zeb raised a hand.
Meghan climbed the wall swiftly. Its crumbling structure provided sufficient toeholds and finger grips. She peered cautiously over the top and then dropped down.
‘A few more feet,’ she ran forward. Repeated her maneuver. ‘Bingo,’ she muttered when she checked their position. ‘We’re right opposite that passage. Pump’s fifteen feet away.’
The rest of the operatives swung into motion.
Bear, Chloe and Roger went further, and positioned themselves opposite the second alley that paralleled the one Meghan was facing. The computer room was nestled between the two paths.
Bwana, Broker and Beth scaled the wall where Zeb was and found toeholds. Each one of them fastened one end of a belt to the brickwork. Wrapped it around themselves, with Meghan helping, and attached the other end into the wall.
They strained back against the belts. They held.
‘Good,’ Bwana grunted and at that, Zeb went to the second team and helped them attach similarly to the wall.
The six operatives unloaded their HKs when they were in position, adjusted their night scopes and cautiously pointed the weapons over the wall.
‘I can see the sentries,’ Broker.
‘Me too,’ Beth. She reached behind her and removed the drone from her backpack. Assembled it swiftly. Fastened her screen to the wall in hands free mode. Launched the craft and navigated it until it flew in a holding pattern over Zhen’s houses, its feeds coming to her tablet.
‘I’m set,’ she whispered.
‘Ready,’ Broker barked.
‘We’re good,’ Chloe echoed.
Zeb was counting on the fact that anyone looking from the slum, in the direction of the river, would see the dark shadow of the wall and the shade of the opposite bank. Any heads poking out wouldn’t be obvious. Only a body at full length height would stand out.
He and Meghan climbed over the wall, bent so low it hampered their speed. That was okay. Stealth mattered, not pace.
They reached the pump cautiously, knowing their friends would warn them if any of the sentries turned around in their direction.
That’s the second thing I was counting on. That Zhen’s men would be focused on an attack from the inside of the slum. Not from the river.
He unrolled one large hose as Meghan knelt to the pump, opened its fuse box, removed a battery pack from a thigh pocket and attached wires.
She and Beth had researched the pump once Zeb had outlined his plan. It was controlled by a switch from inside one of th
e houses, but its fuses were mounted on the device, which made it easy for them to take control.
Zeb took the free end of the hose and made his way back to the wall. Climbed down and yanked it slowly until it was stretched to its full length and inserted it into the river.
Meghan had unfurled the other hose when he joined her and the two of them wrestled it to the computer house. To a window that they had identified earlier.
Let there not be any CCTV. Let it open easily.
He breathed in relief when the older twin opened the sash easily. No creak. A quick peer inside.
‘Curtain,’ she whispered. ‘Can’t see anything.’
That’s okay, too.
He helped her insert the hose inside the room, as far as it would go. They froze when his knee knocked against the wall. But no yells sounded, no feet came running.
‘You’re getting old,’ she muttered angrily.
‘And clumsy,’ Beth, joined.
They lowered the window sash and jammed it firmly against rubber. Released it and held their breath. The hose stayed in position. They secured it further, against the side of the house with gorilla tape and sped back to the wall and dropped to the sidewalk.
‘Do it,’ Zeb commanded.
Chapter Sixty-Six
The pump was surprisingly silent when Beth jabbed the remote that activated the battery pack.
It sounded like a car engine. The river hose flexed as water filled it. It tightened and straightened and then it was the second hose’s turn as liquid flowed through it.
Will it hold against the house?
It bulged and for a moment looked like it would rip off the binding tape, but then it relaxed as water burst from it and spilled inside the house.
They could hear it splashing on the floor from where they were, twenty feet away.
That’s a lot of water, Zeb thought. It’s bound to make noise. It’s one of those quick acting pumps. Needed here, because of the floods.