Black Water

by Louise Doughty

  He picked up the phone and tried to get through to Wahid: he tried the office line but there was no answer, then tried him at home but his line was engaged. All this was going to make a nervous client base very unhappy – there had been stories of people fleeing to the airport and getting carjacked by looters on the flyover. Failing to reach Wahid, he wondered if he should check in with Amsterdam. Then he had another beer and went to bed.

  He knew, as he turned off his light, that that was not what he should be doing: but he told himself that what was going to happen would happen, and the best thing was to get a good night’s sleep, then call Wahid for an update as soon as he woke up.

  His pager went off before dawn. As soon as he heard the beep, he knew he had made the wrong call the night before. He called the office back home, as the message demanded. Jan – solid, unflappable Jan – was not happy. He wanted to know what the hell Harper was doing in his apartment, why hadn’t he gone straight to the office as soon as word of the riots got out? Why hadn’t he spent the night at the office on the phone? There had been an emergency meeting of the Asia Department, he told him. They were sending in an extraction team for the clients. It would be led by an Extraction Specialist, Henrikson.

  Harper sat on the side of his bed, the room very dark and stuffy and the sheet clinging to his thighs. He was still sweating from the sudden awakening. ‘If there’s an extraction plan, I can arrange it,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ve got the contacts.’ Perhaps if he was adamant enough he could convince his boss the clients were being melodramatic and he had it all under control.

  ‘It’s a long time since you’ve had to organise anything like that.’

  Why not just say it, Harper thought. I’m old. I’m unreliable. You don’t trust me to manage an emergency. ‘I’m on the ground, and I have Wahid to help.’ He wasn’t going to lose this battle without arguing back.

  ‘Henrikson will be on the ground too, later today. Wahid has booked the car from the airport, he’s going to check into Le Méridien first and he’ll be at the office for a briefing early afternoon. We’ve told the clients to prepare their staff.’

  ‘We’re going to need SUVs, lots of them, there’s no point in trying to be discreet, people are getting carjacked, that’s why I haven’t . . .’

  Jan was in no mood to acknowledge Harper’s expertise. ‘Wahid is on the case with transport. Henrikson will do security. Your job is to liaise between them.’

  ‘But this . . .’ Harper began.

  ‘Give him all the assistance he needs,’ his boss snarled then, dropping any pretence that this was a collaborative discussion. ‘Don’t get in his way. You’ve been telling us for weeks to sit tight, well the clients won’t sit tight any longer and now we’re having to extract them in an emergency situation. They’re not happy and neither am I.’

  Henrikson showed up at the office later that day, in chinos and a polo shirt, fresh from his power shower at Le Méridien. He was medium-height and medium-build, white, brown-haired – everything about him was medium. He looked like a man designed by a committee whose specification was someone who would never, ever stand out in a crowd. The committee had got one thing wrong though: the directness in his grey-eyed gaze. When he greeted you, it was obvious he was just a little too well trained to be real.

  ‘Henrikson,’ Henrikson announced, to each staff member in turn, shaking their hand and looking them right in the eye.

  ‘Henrikson,’ Henrikson said to Harper, and when he shook his hand, he placed the other hand on top, to demonstrate a special affection – but only briefly. He didn’t want to come across as creepy. Harper imagined his boss telling Henrikson, ‘Harper might be a little funny about you taking over there, he’s old-school, so just go in slow and get him on side.’

  ‘Well,’ Henrikson said, after he had greeted them all, lifting his hands a little either side of his body in an expansive gesture and letting them drop, ‘it’s so good to meet you all. I hear you’ve all been doing terrific work out here.’ Harper was reassured by the certain knowledge that every other person in the room had taken an instant dislike to Henrikson as well.

  In Harper’s office, Henrikson sat the other side of Harper’s desk and nodded very sincerely while Harper went through their client list, telling him which ones had already left. When it came to diplomatic staff, each government’s special forces had dealt with their own people, of course, immediately after Trisakti. The remaining clients were all commercial. Priority was getting families out. They debated whether spouses should be discouraged from giving press interviews when they arrived at their airports in London or Sydney or New York. Nothing made a better news item than an attractive and distressed wife clutching a child in her arms and talking about burning buildings. The media adored a white, articulate refugee.

  Harper’s view was, let them talk. ‘You can hardly suppress the news coverage of what’s happening here. There’s nothing we can do about that.’

  Henrikson placed the fingers of both hands to form a pyramid shape and nodded very sincerely. ‘Well, you’re the local expert,’ he said. Oh fuck off, Harper thought. ‘But I have to say that we had this discussion back in Amsterdam and company policy now is firm discouragement of anybody talking to the press; staff, clients, families. The potential for misrepresentation is just too high. We don’t want our client base thinking we let this become an emergency.’ The criticism of Harper’s sit tight policy was clear.

  He chose to ignore it, thinking, he even talks like a training manual. I can’t believe I have to play these games at my age. ‘Well, the press can be very useful too.’

  ‘Agreed, agreed . . .’ Henrikson nodded, firmly and repeatedly, quite dogged in his insistence on how much he agreed. ‘You’re quite right there. Well, I guess I’d better find me a desk and a phone so I can get going calling the clients.’ He clapped both of his hands on his knees, clamping down firmly. Harper noticed how muscled Henrikson’s legs were beneath his trousers. On one side of his neck, a thick vein pulsed and the purposefulness in his grey-eyed gaze was touched with the smallest hint of psychosis. God help us, Harper thought. This is what the Institute produces these days.

  There was a light tap at the door and Wahid opened it. ‘Boss?’ he said to Harper.

  ‘What is it?’ Henrikson asked.

  Wahid said to Harper, ‘Amber says we should go and take a look from the roof.’

  Amber stayed in the office fielding calls while Harper, Henrikson, Wahid and two staff from the other team traipsed up the interior staircase until they reached the top floor. Wahid pushed open a blank door to the service corridor, where the pretence of the building’s painted walls and tiled floors fell away to reveal breezeblocks and a short iron staircase leading up to the roof. The light was bright white as they emerged, blinking. Wahid pointed and Harper saw immediately, looking north, the palls of black smoke rising from Old Jakarta, four columns, huge and black and billowing. To the right, further in the distance, was the blur of many more.

  ‘Amber took two calls at once,’ Wahid said. ‘Doesn’t sound all that spontaneous.’

  ‘Doesn’t look it either,’ Harper replied. ‘More than yesterday, you think?’

  ‘Lot more.’

  Henrikson hitched his trousers, clapped his hands together, leaned towards them, then actually said, ‘Right, team.’

  It was a week after the students had been shot. The shopping centre riots had died down, it seemed, but rumours were rife that soldiers were going round in plain clothes killing Chinese and raping women in gangs. They were saying hundreds dead – Harper’s staff thought it was far greater. Most of the families of their clients had been extracted and only essential personnel were left: even they were on standby. The Institute was taking the precaution of closing the office and moving ops to Le Méridien, a move that Harper thought a colossal waste of money. They were all working round the clock now.

  As Harper came into Wahid’s office that morning, closing the door behind him, Wahid was standing b
y his desk, holding a claw hammer. He waved it at Harper.

  Harper pulled a face. ‘As personal protection goes, that looks a little basic.’

  ‘It’s strong enough for a skull – but in fact, it’s for these.’ Wahid gestured with the hammer at his desk, which was scattered with floppy disks in blue plastic cases.

  ‘Is that necessary?’ Harper asked. They weren’t very big. Surely they could be hidden somewhere?

  ‘Henrikson’s orders,’ Wahid replied, tipping his head on one side and pursing his lips.

  ‘Where is that lump of meat this morning?’

  ‘One of the embassies or banks, he wouldn’t say.’

  Harper and Wahid looked at each other then and both tapped the sides of their noses – a gesture Henrikson used when he didn’t answer a question.

  ‘Amber said he left some instructions for me, with you?’

  ‘Oh yes, this.’

  Wahid put the hammer down and unlocked a small drawer in his desk. He withdrew a black, hardback notebook. ‘Client list, handwritten, did it last night. We’ve wiped the computers and the floppies are going.’ He gestured at the floppy disks with his hammer. ‘You’ve to take charge of this, Henrikson wants you to keep it at your apartment and take it to the hotel tomorrow, where he will personally place it in the safe inside his room.’

  Harper groaned. ‘Why didn’t he just take it with him?’

  ‘He said he wants to interview hotel security before he lets the notebook into the building.’

  ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Wahid tapped the side of his nose again.

  As Harper turned to go, the notebook in his jacket pocket, Wahid added, ‘By the way, there’s an Englishman here. He’s been waiting for you over an hour. Amber made the mistake of saying you’d be in at some point. He asked for you by name.’

  ‘What sort of Englishman?’

  ‘A client-type sort. But local commerce, small.’

  ‘Extractive industries or import and export?’

  Wahid frowned down at the floppy disks. ‘Do you think this will damage my desk?’

  ‘Well, you aren’t going to damage the disks if you don’t.’

  Wahid lifted a finger. ‘Good point,’ then picked up a handful of the disks, bent to put them in a neat pile on the floor and knelt beside them. ‘Extractive,’ he said, ‘but small-time and nearing his pay-off, I would say, I’m not even sure if he’s still paying subs.’ He brought the hammer down on the disks and the top one skidded across the room and smacked into a wall where it span and came to rest, undamaged.

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Harper said, as he reached for the door.

  The Englishman was waiting in the small, empty room they used for meetings and interviews. The only decoration was a crispy-looking cactus plant in a red bowl on the windowsill – the window was frosted; it looked out over the internal corridor of the building – and a tattered, bleached map of Indonesia hanging from two bamboo poles and a piece of string slung over a nail on a wall.

  In the middle of the room was a rectangular table with four chairs and the Englishman, whose stomach put his suit jacket under a certain degree of strain, was leaning back on one chair with his feet up on another. He had his eyes closed. On the table was a bottle of cheap whisky and two glasses, one half full.

  ‘Have you been waiting long?’ Harper asked politely. Damn, what was the man’s name?

  The Englishman sat up quickly, put his feet down and shook his head as if he had been asleep. ‘Oh Harper, there you are, what took you?’ His voice was very slightly slurred.

  ‘Small matter of the city in uproar,’ said Harper, sitting down on a chair opposite, pouring himself a whisky and topping up the Englishman’s glass. ‘You want some coffee with that?’

  ‘Terrible habit,’ the Englishman replied, ‘very bad for you. Only drink green tea now.’

  Harper half-turned back towards the door but the Englishman said, ‘Don’t bother your young ladies, they have enough to do tearing all those papers up.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Harper asked. They had met three or four times, he remembered now. He was a local vice president of some company or other, did he export sandalwood?

  ‘I’m just here informally,’ the man said, sipping his whisky. ‘Just informally, as, you know, just wondering what your opinion is on the way things are . . . going, you know,’ he waved a hand in the air, ‘going.’

  Ah, free information. That was why the man had brought a bottle of whisky, a gesture from one chum to another.

  ‘Well, let’s just hope that whatever the outcome is, it leads to improved stability for the Indonesian people,’ Harper said, in a tone formal enough to indicate that he had no intention of giving anything for nothing. If this man wanted a report, his company could pay for it.

  The Englishman groaned. ‘C’mon Harper, you’re an experienced man, don’t go sentimental on me, I have decisions to make. You like fishing?’

  He’s more drunk than I realised, Harper thought. Ten minutes of politeness, no more, then he would have to lever him out of the door. ‘Yes, don’t get much time for it, but yes.’ He had never fished in his life.

  ‘Well, you have a bag of big fish, I don’t know, some large trout or something, and there’s one fish you want to let go, maybe it’s small or sickly, but even so, you’re hardly going to make a hole in your net, are you? Next thing you know, all the damn fish are going to wriggle out of it.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you.’

  ‘Well, the big man is hardly going to let the protestors have their way. You’ve heard Kopassus is involved?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Oh c’mon, Harper, there’s a few too many “students” with military haircuts milling round, don’t you think?’

  The Englishman suddenly bent forward and clapped his hands on his knees. ‘Right! Right you are!’ as if he was replying to something Harper had said, rather than just agreeing with himself, as if he had got the information he came for. He stood, a little unsteadily, his centre of gravity shifting over one foot so that he tipped into a slight diagonal before righting himself. He turned, and Harper thought, great, but instead of heading for the door, the Englishman wheeled round to the wall to face the faded map and stood there, waving his glass at it.

  ‘It looks as if God just took a few rocks and a load of pebbles and went . . .’ The Englishman made a sweeping gesture with the glass. ‘But beautiful. A whole country made of islands. Fifteen thousand . . . can’t exactly . . . push them all . . . together I mean.’ He turned to Harper and gestured with his hands, holding both palms apart then pushing the air between them, as if Harper was personally responsible for making sure that the islands of the archipelago did not drift apart in different directions, floating off irresponsibly to join other continents. His tone was a little accusatory. ‘How do you expect to hold it all together?’

  It was seventeen thousand islands, actually. Harper wasn’t sure if the man was just stupendously drunk or discovering his mystical side. He must hide his drinking from his firm back home – not hard to do when you were thousands of miles away – but even British firms were getting better at sacking drunks these days. Harper made a mental note, just in case the information should prove useful. He would have to check what the man’s name was when he was gone, what relationship, if any, Harper’s firm still had with his.

  ‘I thought God had abandoned me back then . . .’ the man mumbled, looking down into his glass, ‘. . . they believe in so much here, you know, sure not what we believe but at least . . .’

  Next he was going to start telling Harper how Timor was created by two small boys and a crocodile.

  Instead, the Englishman took a vicious swig of whisky, turned and glared at Harper, his voice becoming harsh. ‘Now the great Soeharto, Sustainer of the Universe, is on his way out, they are all at it.’ He coughed heartily. ‘Face it, Harper, these people just like killing each other.’
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br />   It occurred to Harper to remark that, in actual fact, they weren’t killing each other, not really. The people being burned alive in shopping malls in the north of the city weren’t burning anyone back. When an elderly woman got lynched for being a witch in East Java, she didn’t lynch another person in return. This was the way killing worked: there were perpetrators, and there were victims. It wasn’t a two-way process.

  ‘You think he is on the way out?’ Harper asked politely. ‘Then who is giving Kopassus their orders?’

  The man looked down. ‘No you’re right, he’ll never go, not without a fight anyway, not without a few more thousand bodies piling up in the streets.’

  Harper stood up. The man’s voice had lost its energy. Harper needed to get him out of the office before he sat down again otherwise they might never get him up. ‘I have to agree with you there,’ he said, moving to the man’s side and gently placing one hand beneath his elbow, to edge him towards the door.

  ‘You think so, really?’ the man said, looking at Harper earnestly. He looked down again. ‘You’re the expert. Well, thanks for the drink.’ He put his glass down then unbuttoned his jacket and used both hands to hitch his trousers before buttoning his jacket again.

  Harper got the man to the corridor and administered a small shove. The man paused, swayed, then gave a farewell salute by touching his own forehead and flicking his hand upwards.