by Philip Atlee
I pushed everybody, including myself, hard, and before we got the gold and silver bars and ingots melted and cooled in forms to fit the junk's keel, we were all hollow-eyed and jumpy. Finally it was ready and we took it north under darkness. The truck carrying the precious burden was flanked fore and aft by armored cars.
The delivery of the bullion went without incident, but that was only part of the problem. Colonel Hatta had the guards shifted to the dockside berth, and chain hoists had to be rigged in the junk to clamp the precious burden onto the huge keel that ran through the center of the vessel. Fortunately, keel of this type can be windlassed up into the belly of the ship, so that not much underwater work was required and the activity of placing the drop keel could not be spotted easily from the dock.
One loss I incurred because of this hectic double shift-and it was a loss that disturbed me-was an interruption of Katja Arnkloo's nocturnal visits to my apartment in the kraton. The shapely and exuberant little Swedish girl had been joining me almost every night for a session of snatch, grab, and tickle, and for the first few nights of my foundry work she had left scribbled notes of reproach, pinned to orchids, on my pillow.
When I tried to make up for my unexplained absences by swimming in the late afternoon with her, I sometimes glanced up to see her regarding me with unspoken question. That couldn't be helped, however.
***
On the eleventh night we cleared Semarang harbor and ran sea tests on the expensive drop keel. Fortunately there was a spanking breeze and Captain Ling maneuvered the big junk vigorously. Into and away from the wind and under full diesel power. His verdict was that she answered the helm more readily than before and under sail seemed more stable in light air. That meant the vessel could depart for Yokohama whenever we were ready.
When I walked back into my kraton apartment just before dawn, I was bone-tired and not really glad to see someone in my bed. Only the night-light in the bathroom was on and I walked over and lifted the shroud of mosquito netting.
My visitor was Katja Arnkloo, and she was sound asleep. As I stood gazing down on her my irritation vanished because the little blond girl looked young and defenseless. She was wearing a shortie nightgown, her face was scrubbed clean, and the light, shining hair was fanned across the bolster. One slender hand was on her cheek; she was smiling in her sleep.
Dropping the netting back down noiselessly, I went into the bathroom and closed the door. After I had showered and brushed my teeth, I put on my pajama pants and tried to edge into the bed on the other side. It was so wide that I thought I could do it without waking her, but no. The long lashes flickered and the sleepy blue eyes surveyed me.
"Min alskade," she murmured, and stretched languorously. "I waited a long time…"
I slapped her bare flank. "For what purpose, please?"
Katja squealed and threw both arms around my neck. "You're a bad neighbor! I only came to visit and make love."
"A lost cause, princess," I informed her. "I couldn't crush a grape with either hand."
She sat straight up and began to scold me. "You didn't eat; you are a bad person! You do not take care!"
"That's right," I admitted, flopping back on the bolster wearily. Katja swung her legs out of bed, still scolding, put on her slippers and my robe, and deftly twisted her long hair into a bun.
"I go to get you some sandwiches, some sate, skewered chicken. Will you have coffee with it or whiskey?"
"Where in the name of Beelzebub are you going to promote all that at this hour?"
"Pouf!" said Katja. "You know nothing. The cooks are already in the kitchens. And we have a great rapport, those cooks and I. They tell me about their children and other troubles."
"In that case," I said, "bring me two bottles of ginger beer, lots of ice."
"I hasten to obey, Tuan besar," said the little girl briskly, and I listened to her light footsteps echoing down the long hall. In a few minutes she was back, followed by two sleepy servants bearing trays. She had the trays put on the serving table, ordered the servants out, and, whipping the beaded cloths aside, began to arrange the repast.
While I wolfed away at the sate, which was hot and spicy, she had coffee and brought me up to date on the palace gossip. Emphasizing that the salacious and horrendous details I was getting were the gossip and not the facts. I grunted at appropriate intervals and tucked away an enormous amount of food.
Then, after I had belched with such ringing clarity that she clapped both hands to her ears in mock-shock, I brushed my teeth again and crawled back into bed. Katja kissed me good night thoroughly, and it was a pleasant warmth. As I fell asleep I could see her tucking the netting around the bed.
It was not my morning for sleeping, however. In what seemed only a few minutes the netting was jerked up again. I groaned and opened my eyes to see Colonel Hatta leaning over me. He was pale, agitated, and shaking.
FOURTEEN
I GROANED AND GOT OUT OF BED. Switched on the lights and told him to take it easy. But he could not take it easy. He paced the apartment and took two compulsive drinks from the bourbon bottle on my sideboard. I had a short one myself-he was making me nervous-and put on my dressing gown.
"Give it to me from the top, quietly, Abdul," I told him, "or I will deck you and go back to sleep."
He nodded vigorously and halted. Something big was happening in Djakarta, he said; perhaps a coup attempt. A warrant for his arrest, on treason charges, was being flown to Djokjakarta by a special Air Force flight. Serving of the warrant could mean his quick execution by a firing squad, with no trial or legal process.
"Tough," I said. "Are you a traitor?"
He ignored the question, stammering on that his was not the only warrant that had been sworn out. I was named in another, as were Katja Arnkloo and Harvard Frank. We were indicted as foreign agents, "enemies of the State of Indonesia." We were charged with working for a right-wing "Council of Generals," trying to remove President Sukarno. By a revolution favorable to the West. We, too, could expect summary execution, when the warrants arrived.
I smoked this palatable information over, staring down at unstrung Colonel Hatta. I was bone-tired, but my choler content began to rise. I jerked the Belgian machine pistol from his holster, put the front sight of it into his nostril, and tipped his nose up. He stared at me along the barrel.
"You lying bastard," I said, "you've put me in the switch, haven't you? I was hired for a stinking little smuggling job, which I have arranged, but that was just the come-on. Now you've sucked me into a full-fledged revolution with your nonsense…"
Colonel Hatta didn't answer. His eyes looked crossed, staring up at me along the pistol barrel.
"So let's try something new. You sing, Colonel. You sing like a fucking bird or I will end your sinus trouble by blowing your head off."
He tried to throw his head aside, but I probed up his nostril with the pistol sight. The cartilage ripped a little.
"Something new," I said harshly. "The truth, and tell it quick!"
"I do represent a group of generals," said Colonel Hatta. "They are headed by Nasution, the Commanding General. It has been obvious to this group for over two years that President Sukarno must be removed from power, or Indonesia will slide straight into an axis with the People's Republic of China."
I removed the pistol sight from his nose and tossed it onto the bed. It was heavy and bounced up onto the Dutch-wife bolster. "Don't stop," I said.
Colonel Hatta fingered his damaged nose tenderly and went on talking. Almost tonelessly but with great conviction. It bad been impossible for his group to approach my agency through conventional channels, he said; Sukarno's recent damnation of the western powers as NEOCOLIM (Neocolonial Imperialists) had slammed all the doors.
Lad MacBride had been hired by the cabal of generals because he had sworn he could enlist my services. Instead of even trying to recruit me, however, MacBride had gotten greedy and tried to shake the conspirators down for more money. So he had been gunned down i
n the street.
I considered this ambivalent compliment. I had known MacBride slightly, in Singapore and Hong Kong; at parties, playing the races, or tennis. Nothing more than that. He had been a boisterous loudmouth who flew better in bars than he did in planes.
"I suppose I ought to be flattered," I said slowly. "But why me? I'm just another bully-boy who has played shady games around the world. There are a lot of us available."
Hatta was touching his nose tenderly. "You're too modest, Mr. Gall. We researched your undercover activities with great care. General Ne Win of Burma, for example, was outspoken in praising you. He characterized you as ruthless but insisted you were also of the highest integrity."
I grunted and had another shot of Black Daniels. "Not many dictators will make that statement. Anyway, why should I give a fiddler's fart whether or not your fascisti group sidetracks Sukarno? I contracted to smuggle the bullion out of Java and I'm ready to do it."
"Sir"-Hatta's thin face tightened-"the same people in Djakarta who had warrants sworn out for us have been secretly training assassination squads at Lubang Buaja, a swampy region connecting with Halim Air Force Base."
"So?"
"Their targets are the eight senior military commanders in Indonesia, including Defense Minister Nasution. The units favorable to these plotters are now moving into Djakarta, supposedly to take part in the Armed Forces Day Parade marking our twentieth anniversary."
I stood staring out the deep-set palace window, smelling the fragrance of the waxy jasmine blossoms.
"These killer squads intend to murder our entire high command in one night," insisted Hatta hoarsely.
It did sound impressive when put like that. "When is all this to take place?" I asked.
"Tomorrow night or the next," said Hatta. I offered him a drink, but he refused it brusquely.
"Okay, Colonel. Let's suppose the worst happens. That these killer squads have been well-trained and they knock off all their targets, eight right-wing generals. Would that really be such a loss? I apologize for putting it so bluntly, but I have helped prop up so many right-wing governments… and seen their corruption continue-"
"Have you no heart, sir?" Hatta was impassioned. "The Dutch held us captive for three hundred years. The officers who will die are our national heroes; they won freedom for us. Indonesia has the third-largest Communist Party in the world; if these plotters win, my country will slide abruptly into Peking's orbit. Be forever lost to the West!"
I lighted one of the local clove-scented cigars. Patriots usually irritate me and this was one.
"In simpler terms, Mr. Gall," he added flatly, his anger subsiding, "unless we do something very soon, you and I will be taken out and shot."
"That," I said, "is an argument I can understand. What did you have in mind?"
"We must get to Djakarta immediately, before these warrants are served. I have a plane waiting for us."
I nodded and scribbled a hasty note to Frank, telling him to head for the U. S. Embassy in Djakarta. With Katja, upon receipt. Colonel Hatta and I went stalking down the darkened corridor. At the back gateway to the palace Hatta gave the note to a guard, who saluted and went running down another corridor. On the way to the airport the colonel had the Mercedes floorboarded most of the time and went sliding wildly around shadowy pedestrians and water buffalo.
A Hercules aircraft of ancient vintage was waiting for us, its props ticking over, and I hoped they had not been idling so long that the props were fouled up. We ducked aboard and the plane began taxiing. No stop for a magneto check, nothing. We took off into heavy ground fog and climbed up through the overcast. The small door to the pilot's enclosure was open, and over the intercom we could hear an Indonesian Air Force plane requesting landing instructions.
FIFTEEN
THE SEAT IN THE OLD PLANE FITTED ME like a metal body truss; it had not been constructed with my size in mind. As we circled for altitude Hatta began to brief me. His group was led by General Haris Nasution, Defense Minister, General Suharto, commanding the army's Strategic Reserve Forces, and General Sarwo Edhy, commanding the army's crack paracommando forces. I had never heard of the last two men, but Hatta assured me both were important and on the list of eight marked for death.
The opposition was headed by Dipa Aidit, head of the Indonesian Communist Party, Foreign Minister Subandrio, and Generals Supardjo and Dhani. Dhani was in command of the Indonesian Air Force, with headquarters at Halim Air Force Base, south of Djakarta. The warrants had been sworn out by Lieutenant Colonel Untung, commander of the Tjakrabirawa, the elite corps that guarded the presidential palace.
"Then Untung must be Sukarno's man," I interrupted abruptly. "Where does the Bung stand in all of this conniving?"
Hatta shrugged. "No one knows," he said slowly. "He plays each side against the other."
I stared at him, because for the first time the conviction had gone out of his tone. He fell silent, and in an hour we were landing on the airstrip beside the Senajang sports complex, outside Djakarta. This huge collection of barracks, stadiums, and pools had been built several years earlier by the Soviet Union, as evidence of their solidarity with Indonesia. That premise had been fractured by Sukarno's love affair with Mao.
The pilot of our Hercules had had to call several times for landing permission before the runway lights came on below, and immediately after our gear touched, the lights went off again. It was a moonlit night, but our pilot wisely stopped at the center intersection until a lighted jeep came out of the semidarkness to guide us to the parking area.
Everything was on schedule. Colonel Hatta and I stepped off the plane and were promptly arrested. Flanked fore and aft by leveled carbines, we were marched to a darkened barracks and locked in. Hatta kept growling considerable static, and after an hour an apologetic major released us and restored our side arms. We were taken to a communications room with a direct military line to General Suharto's KOSTRAD headquarters on Merdeka Square, opposite the presidential palace.
Hatta talked to General Suharto himself for several minutes, making notes. Then turned to me. He said that the coup instigators were assembling at the Halim Base, General Dhani's headquarters. That Subandrio, the Foreign Minister, General Supardjo, and Lieutenant Colonel Untung were all there. That Sukarno's private plane, a $2,000,000 Lockheed Jet-Star, had been taxied out of its hangar and its tanks topped off. The whereabouts of the president was unknown.
Earlier that night Sukarno had made a speech in one of the suburbs and was reported to have gone from there to meet his fourth wife, lissome Japanese beauty Sara Ratna Dewi, at the Nirwana Night Club on top of the Hotel Indonesia. She had left her party there, but neither she nor Sukarno could be located.
Colonel Hatta gave me all this in a clipped monotone, adding that roadblocks had begun appearing at all the outskirts of Djakarta, and between the city and the port. They were controlled by forces from Halim Air Force Base. What was my opinion? he asked. What should we do? A corporal brought in a tea tray, and I poured a scalding cup, thinking, "Good Christ, a man could get killed in this putsch for blotting his dance card." A Japanese cabaret entertainer had disappeared from a ball, the president was missing, and Indonesia was facing A Night of the Long Knives.
Hatta was called to the phone again, and talked to General Suharto again. Came back to confront me with more news. A roadblock of the insurgents had been overrun, and prisoners taken. The recognition signals and passwords of the rebels were known. I knew what that meant, too. Some poor bastard had decided he didn't like a blowtorch on his feet or genitals-not when he was making the glorious sum of $8 a month-and had spilled his guts.
By car, truck, or tank, the signal was flicking of the lights three times. The answer, four flicks. By daylight, two horn taps, with three for the answer. On foot, coup soldiers would raise their weapons overhead in the left hand, and the reply was the same, except that it would be executed in the right hand. The password was Ampera, or people's burden; the answer, Takari, a coined wo
rd meaning Year of Self-Reliance.
I drank more tea, cooling now, and listened to the phones jangling around me. And the jabbering, excited voices answering them. No one was in charge; they were just substituting action and noise for decision. Hatta came back and asked again what should be done? That it was definite now, the killer squads had left their marsh headquarters at Halim Base and were fanning out into the city. Seeking the generals, sleeping in their homes.
"Get the biggest force together you can assemble," I told him. "Put it in vehicle transport, with all the firepower you can muster, and try to beat them to the homes of the generals. Bring the generals here to safety."
"We can't break the roadblocks," shouted Hatta. "We've tried twice and lost a lot of men."
"Then excuse me," I said. "I've got to take a piss." I pushed past him, down the hall, and stepped out into the night air. Unzippered and relieved myself, thinking that I didn't know any of these people. When I went back inside to the communications office, they were still jabbering at each other. Not a brain cell working. I motioned Colonel Hatta away from the harangue.
I said that Djakarta was a big city and he must certainly know ways into it that had not been roadblocked. He nodded and I told him to get an armored car, pick ten of the red-bereted paracommandos, and we would have a go. Four of the men must have light machine guns, with plenty of ammo. He nodded and we were in business in another twenty minutes. As we crowded into the armored car, Hatta asked what our destination was. I told him Nasution's house and the driver nearly tore the clutch out of the heavy vehicle.