The Lost Forest

by John Francis Kinsella

Chapter 49

  STRANGE HAPPENINGS

  ‘Where’s Paul Suarez,’ asked Aris coming out the meeting room into the lift lobby where Ennis was waiting for him.

  ‘I haven’t seen him here,’ Ennis replied, he didn’t keep tags on the Forestry Department’s consultants.

  ‘Would you mind calling his room?’

  “No problem.”

  Five minutes later Aris came back out of the conference room; his head was bowed as though in deep thought, he pushed up his gold-rimed spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. Ennis recognised this as a sign of embarrassment.

  ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘No, no reply.’

  ‘This is silly, we can’t find him. He’s just flown in from in from Vancouver for the meeting with the Ministry of Forests and he’s lost. He’s supposed to present his research on the effect of logging on local tribes’ people in West Kalimantan.’

  Paul’s firm Enviroconsult Inc. was reputed for its excellent reports on the long-term effects on tribal life and the ecological consequences of forestry operations had prepared a study on logging in concessions that lay near the border area close to Borneo Gold’s concessions and the expedition’s camp.

  Suarez was known for his objective views, he was pragmatic, neither in the green nor the industrialist’s camp, and had always focused his attentions on real problems and needs.

  In recent reports Suarez had highlighted the effect of irresponsible logging techniques in Malaysian forests. Showing that though only three or four trees were felled per hectare they were all large emergents, with crowns of twenty metres or more across. As they fell, they smashed a considerable amount of the lower layers of the forest. It was the traditional logging method.

  Within the area where the tree was felled, ten percent of the timber was removed, fifty five percent was destroyed and only thirty-five was left undamaged. That was without taking into account the area totally destroyed by bulldozers and the heavy equipment used for access and extraction of the logs.

  The result was the destruction of the tribal people’s habitat with the growth of secondary forest which had a dramatic effect on the role of the flora and fauna, critical to the life of the forest and its equilibrium. The roads cut by the loggers in the forest were the highways, opening up vast areas for shifting cultivation and immigration from the crowed Island of Java.

  Suarez’s company recommended logging techniques, which combined conservation and lower extraction rates. These were violently opposed by the loggers for economic reasons. Many of the loggers were in reality subcontractors to the big exporters or to the plywood and sawmills. They had invested very heavily in machinery and equipment.

  These loggers were being progressively squeezed by new laws and regulations and had not enough capital to diversify into the wood transformation industries. They needed time to amortise their current investments and reduce their debt burden for the heavy investments they had made in machinery.

  ‘I’ll call the reception ask them to page him,’ said Ennis eager for Aris to finish with his meeting, they had planned lunch together to talk about the expedition’s progress and the discussions concerning Forbes investment in Borneo Gold.

  Aris returned to the meeting room and tried to continue, as best he could, with Rudini and his staff but he was no substitute for Suarez.

  ‘Gentlemen, I’m sorry to say that we cannot find Mr Suarez, I’ll have to ask you to excuse me for ten minutes, I think it would be perhaps a good moment to take a break, I’ve ordered some coffee that’ll be served in the next room if you would like to help yourselves.’

  Aris took Ennis by the arm and took the lift down to the fourteenth floor. They stopped at Suarez’s room. The ‘Don’t disturb’ sign was hanging on the doorknob. Aris knocked on the door gently calling Suarez’s name. There was no reply. He knocked harder and called louder.

  Ennis looked up and down the corridor, he saw the housekeeping trolley couple of rooms further along.

  ‘Call the maid. Ask her to open the door, maybe he’s ill!’

  Aris called the maid and after a short explanation she produced her passkey, turned it in the lock and gently pushed open the door.

  The room was dark, the blinds were drawn.

  The bathroom door was slightly ajar and the light shone through the door crack.

  ‘Paul?’ said Aris softly.

  He stepped gingerly into the room and walked across the small lobby. Looking towards the bed he saw that it was undisturbed, it had not been slept in.

  He turned towards Ennis who waited at the door and shrugged his shoulders.

  Aris knocked on the bathroom door and called, ‘Paul, are you there?’

  He then pushed the door gently, it opened slightly before snagging on something, he pushed harder but the door was held back.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ called Ennis in a low voice.

  ‘I don’t know, the bathroom door is stuck!’

  Ennis entered the room switching on the light in the lobby. He in turn pushed the bathroom door, it held, then he pushed harder. Something on the floor was holding it back.

  They both pushed together, the door opened with resistance.

  There was somebody lying on the bathroom floor.

  It was Suarez.

  He was fully dressed and face down.

  Ennis saw that his feet were tied together at the ankles and his hands were tied behind his back.

  ‘Quick call a doctor, call the manager!’

  They heard the room maid gasp as she backed hurriedly out of the room.

  Ennis tried turning Suarez over, he was heavy and the bathroom was narrow.

  He saw he was gagged; a broad plaster was stuck over his mouth.

  He was cold.

  Suarez’s face was purple; Aris pulled the plaster from his mouth that was slightly open, his tongue protruding thickly through his lips.

  A tie was knotted tightly around his neck, he had been strangled.

  Five minutes later the hotel security manager was in the room, he told them to touch nothing, the police had been called.

  Ennis saw that the room had not been disturbed; there were no evident signs of a struggle.

  Aris returned to the conference room shocked and explained quickly to Rudini. The meeting was cancelled.

  A barrel chested police officer in uniform questioned Ennis on the last movements of Suarez, and asked him to check the room for any missing items.

  Ennis could not verify Suarez’s personal belongings, but Aris quickly determined that his brief case and all documents concerning the Environmental Impact Study were missing!

  Ennis was relieved to have finally got away from the depressed and tense atmosphere that reigned in Jakarta following Paul Suarez’s murder. The police investigation seemed to have made very little progress, at least according to the little information that had filtered out. There were a lot questions about the type of company Suarez had kept, the type of women he had been with, or men, implying foul play following some kind of sex deal.

  Ennis was not at all convinced by such a theory, for one the Impact Study was missing. It could not have any possible interest, for the types of persons the police investigations were pointing at. It had been strange the way that Rudini had insisted on leaving the police to their job and not get mixed up with it. How could he not get mixed up with it, Suarez had been somebody that he knew and had worked with. Ennis had found it strange that Rudini had become uncharacteristically annoyed insisting that they lose no time and that Aris should provide logistical assistance to his men on the border area.

  They left for the Discovery site where the work was in an advanced stage, they wanted to check out some last details and discuss the data collected before declaring the end to the seasons dig before the rainy season started, breaking camp and leaving Putussibau.

  The political situation had become serious flights had been interrupted and daily rioting had occurred in towns along the route to Pontianak. Ari
s was afraid for himself, an ethnic Chinese, and the foreigners who could become a target of the mob and proposed they travel by speed boat down the Kapuas and along the sea coast to the Port of Pontianak to avoid any potential danger.

  He laid on a powerful seagoing outboard and crew, suitable for carrying five or six passengers with their baggage, equipment, samples and essential data. The three man crew consisted of the boat’s skipper, a mate plus a boy of about fifteen. The boat was designed more for speed more than comfort, motor cruisers had not yet reached Kalimantan, the local populations problem was getting from A to B, and as quickly as possible, the speed depending on the price the passengers could afford to pay.

  The boat was fitted out with two 200-horse power motors a third lay in the back as a spare; there was no taking chances alone in the South China Sea, and three one hundred gallon drums of fuel. A tube of transparent plastic piping connected the fuel supply from one of the drums to the motors.

  A bundle of life-jackets were piled in to one corner. Ennis realised that these were a special luxury added to the boats equipment because of the presence of foreigners. A canvas awning was stretched over the passenger area. The passenger comforts being simple, consisting of basic bench seats fitted into the sides of the boat.

  The skipper and his crew stowed the provisions in a forward compartment to one side and their luggage was piled into the compartment on the opposite side.

  They made themselves as comfortable as they could as the boat headed out into midstream at the junction of the Little Kapuas and Landak rivers, in the direction of the Kapuas Delta to the South China Sea. It took almost an hour to clear the mouth of the Little Kapuas reaching the open sea. The sea was relatively calm; there was a slight swell with a fairly strong breeze. The skipper maintained a smart pace causing the boat to buck violently in the waves. They were obliged to sit on the floor, which was hard and uncomfortable. They soon realised that the boat could only have held four or five without the spare motor and fuel drums.

  Once they reach the Kapuas delta the river conditions became rougher. It was difficult to determine from Aris’s translations the exact time needed to for the journey to Pontianak. He explained it depended on the conditions once they reached the open sea.

  It was almost impossible to talk above the noise of the motors, the pitch rising and falling with the waves once they left the river, and the constant thudding of the hull as it came down on the sea. They were low in the water and soon the shore was just barely visible above the waves a thin grey line on the horizon.

  The skipper navigated by view, following the coastline and the reefs, which could be distinguished by the line of white surf that flanked them. From time to time Aris looked at the map estimating the distance they had covered looking at his watch hopefully.

  The wind whipped the wave tops in around the awning and soon they felt the chill of their sodden cloths. They avoided the warmth of the sun, knowing that it would burn them like hotdogs on a barbecue if they exposed themselves to it.

  The skipper broke out the lunch, Bintang beer which was still cold, it had been packed in ice, cold chicken - always cold chicken - accompanied by pre-packed sliced bread. It was not easy to drink from the bottles with the buffeting, but they quickly got the hang of it by waiting for the calm between each series of waves.

  The skipper watched the sea carefully, on the look out for sand banks and above all submerged logs that had become detached from the forestry companies rafts, or natural hazards, branches and dead palm trees from the coastal mangroves, that could be seen bobbing on the waves from time to time on the seemingly never ending journey.

  There was not much else to do but occupy themselves with their own thoughts. Pierre Ros was evidently worried about his heavy desert boots, after Ennis had taunted him that he would sink if the boot overturned, he loosened the laces when their heads were turned away.

  More than four hours later they had made good progress and were again fairly close to the shore. They could make out the individual trees; they still had about an hour or two before reaching Pontianak. The skipper had reduced speed relieving the constant hammering on their sore backsides.

  During the previously four hours, they had seen only three other boats that had passed not nearer than half a mile. It was a lonely stretch of water. Aris had not frightened them by the stories of pirates that he had told to Ennis the previous evening. Twentieth century pirates were common in the Java and South China seas.

  Suddenly the boat heaved, it seemed to stagger, the motors stuttered and abruptly stopped. There was an intense silence except for the lapping of the waves against the keel.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  They leaned over the side of the boat; it seemed to be strangely high in the water. They looked at the skipper who had jumped onto the forward deck with his two men.

  ‘We’ve run aground, it’s a sandbank!’

  They tried to restart the motors, but it was impossible. They checked the fuel drum it was practically empty. The boy changed the plastic fuel pipe to the second drum and they tried again. The starter just whined, the motor did not even kick. They continued for ten or more minutes without any success, the skippers sniffed at the cap of the second drum.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘There something wrong with the fuel.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He says there’s water in it, he thinks it was tampered with.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know, he says if we can get of the sandbank we can probably paddle to the shore.’

  ‘How do we get off then?’

  The skipper smiled and said, ‘Push!’

  He slid into the water, his feet barely touching the bottom; he could not push the boat. Ennis then jumped into the water, it was warm, he was a head taller than the skipper and his feet were firmly on the sand. He pushed hard but the boat did not budge, he called to Pierre, who did not look very enthusiastic, to join him. Tegu jumped in and they both pushed hard. The boat moved a little, they waited for the next wave and pushed again, the boat floated gently off the bank.

  They clambered aboard and the skipper tried the motor again, without any better result. They started paddling. Half an hour later they were not making progress, in fact Ennis had the worrisome feeling that they had actually been carried further out by the current. They took it in turns to paddle, but to no avail, after almost one and a half hours the shore was clearly further away. They fell silent. Pierre suggested swimming to the shore, but the skipper refused, explaining that the coast was deserted, nothing but small beaches and mangrove, one person alone could do nothing.

  The sun was falling and they took some food and drink. The skipper inspected the life-jackets. There was a flare gun, it did not seem that it could serve any purpose if no other boats passed. They decided to wait, they had no other choice.

  They sat silently as the boat bobbed on the waves. Almost a half an hour later the skipper shouted ‘Angatan Laut’ and started talking fast in Indonesian, pointing towards the horizon. They could just make out in the half-light a plume of white spray, thrown up by the prow of a boat; the form was not that of a normal fishing form and it was heading in their direction, fast.

  ‘What’s that? What’s he saying?’ shouted Ennis.

  ‘The army, I think.’ replied Aris.

  ‘Why do you mean the army?’

  ‘The navy.... coast guard.... I hope!’ He said peering hard at the form of the oncoming boat.

  As the boat neared a semaphore lamp was flashed, a sign for them to halt, which was not difficult. They could now make out the grey form; it was a high-speed naval patrol boat, like one of those that the French had sold to the Indonesians. The patrol boat pulled alongside of them, armed marines stood on the deck and pointing their arms at them menacingly. An officer scrambled aboard together with an armed man. He spoke to the skipper, who pointed at the Europeans.

  ‘Passports!’ Aris said. ‘The
y want to see your papers.’

  The mate pulled out their baggage from the storage compartment, and they rummaged for their passports as the boat rocked on the swell. They presented their documents to the officer whilst the armed man searched in the other compartments for contraband or weapons.

  A long discussion ensued with officer Aris followed the officer onto the patrol boat, leaving the others without an explanation. Ten minutes later he returned with two of the patrol boats crew carrying jerry cans. They were soon on their way again.

  ‘What did they say?’ asked Ennis.

  Aris giggled pushing his glasses up. ‘Expensive fuel.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Four hundred dollars for thirty litres, enough to get us to Pontianak...we would have had to pay anyway. They said we were lucky, we could have spent the night there and at the worst never have been heard of again.’

  They all laughed nervously. They had paid the navy’s levy for their presence in the patrol boats area.

  ‘They told us to be careful, there have been problems in these waters, a couple of boats have disappeared, one with some Koreans on board, probably pirates.’

  ‘Pirates!’ exclaimed Pierre.

  ‘Yes pirates, Sea Dayaks!’ said Aris.

  At the hotel that evening, Aris told Ennis about his worries. He was not feeling happy and since the death of Paul Suarez, he was very worried. Amongst the people who would have wanted the Environmental Impact Study, were the loggers and their army concession holders.

  ‘You know the more I think about it, the more I’m suspicious about the problem with the fuel and that little boarding party this afternoon. One drum of fuel was just enough to get us here. I think they are watching us. It was a warning…we shall have to be careful. Don’t say anything to the others but keep your eyes open. It’s probably General Hartarto; he controls everything of this area.’

  ‘Hartarto!’ exclaimed Pierre.

  ‘Yes! Why? Do you know him?’ said Aris surprised by Pierre’s reaction.

  ‘No,’ spluttered Pierre, thinking of Xinxin.

  ‘Hartarto is a powerful man in these parts, I’ve had dealings with him for the forestry business and Borneo Gold, he’s very difficult, I know that Lawford has been involved with him.’

  ‘You think he had anything to do with Paul?’

  ‘I don’t know, there are two or three people who would like to get their hands on Paul’s report.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well as I said General Hartarto, then there’s Olsson and his group...’

  ‘Olsson, they wouldn’t do a thing like that!’

  ‘How do you know?’

  There was a silence as Ennis searched his mind; it didn’t seem to him that it was possible that Olsson would resort to such violence.

  ‘Then there’s Sudarman...why not? He’s not really our friend.’