It was almost like God was punishing him for praying for a specific outcome.
Djoran had devoted his life to Sufism. His religion had taught him to transcend the physical world, detach from all desires and live on a spiritual plane. Yet here he was on Batak Island caught up in a life-and-death struggle for a cause he believed in.
It didn’t make sense, but Djoran had learned many years ago that nothing in the world made sense and all one could do was follow one’s heart and pray for divine guidance. God and his heart had led him to this point.
The helicopter door swung open.
Djoran saw a woman look around and then dive into the water, followed by a man. Both carried a small pack on their back.
They started swimming toward shore, stroking fast and smooth as if they were in an Olympic hundred-meter final.
The helicopter’s nose dipped under the water, lifting the rear end to near vertical.
In a blur of movement the great bird flipped over and crashed onto its back, submerging the rotors and exposing its landing gear.
Slowly the helicopter started sliding under the water.
Ten seconds later all that was left were a few bubbles.
From the other side of the headland two outboard engines started up.
Djoran turned toward the sound.
Eight men sat close together in two overladen boats, chugging slowly toward the crashed helicopter.
It would take them less than two minutes to reach the headland.
He glanced in the direction of the two swimmers, halfway to the beach by now, and willed them to go even faster.
7
At exactly the same time on the other side of the island, Thomas’s eyes snapped open. He was in a cement cell, flat on his back on a hard wooden bench, his wrists and calves locked in iron manacles.
He looked up through the grille of the high solitary window above. The sun broke through a cloud and shone in his eyes. The angle of the light told him it was midafternoon.
Something caused his heart rate to quicken. Carter was nearby – he was sure of it.
A psychic thread had connected them ever since Carter first slouched into his Bangkok dojo, an undisciplined, troubled teenager with a prodigious gift for the martial arts.
Their bond had been instant – yet they differed in so many ways.
Thomas’s mother had been a Chinese aristocrat; his father an American philanthropist. They had given him a life of privilege, and his upbringing had been rooted in Eastern religion and philosophy.
Carter’s father had abandoned him, and his mother was a drug addict. The chaos of his childhood could have destroyed the sensitive young boy, if not for his innate strength of character.
Thomas had worked hard over many years to help Carter find his center, quiet his demons and harness his talents. Though he’d been disappointed when Carter had left the order, he’d always known he would come back to the fold. The order was Carter’s spiritual home, and Thomas had been both father and mother to him.
A groan came from the adjoining bench, where Wayan, also restrained by iron manacles, drifted in and out of consciousness.
Earlier that morning four of Samudra’s men had beaten them with wooden batons and then chained them up like dogs.
Wayan had abused their attackers, causing them to give him an even harsher beating. They’d delivered vicious blows to his head and body.
Thomas, who had watched it, powerless to intervene, suspected they’d fractured the boy’s collarbone and jaw, as well as creating severe internal injuries.
Since the beating, they’d been left in the cell without food or water, suggesting Samudra considered them already dead.
The naive courage of the young man’s gesture had made Thomas want to weep. He saw Wayan, like Carter, as a surrogate son.
His fears for Wayan, the probable collapse of the order and the seemingly inevitable failure of his life’s work had taken their toll on his spirit. Despair had engulfed him – a feeling he had hardly known, till now.
If Carter was nearby, most likely Erina, his courageous and headstrong daughter, was near too, but even that thought failed to lift his mood. Stopping Samudra and his jihad should have been their number-one priority, not rescuing him and Wayan. They should’ve recognized that his and Wayan’s fate was ultimately unimportant, and that they were needed elsewhere. By listening to their hearts and not their heads, letting their feelings master them, they had failed him.
He adjusted his position slightly on the unforgiving wooden bench. His left ankle, which he suspected was fractured, screamed at the movement. Two broken ribs made breathing painful.
He let out a deep sigh.
The situation appeared hopeless. Even if Carter and Erina succeeded in freeing them from the cell, their actions, like Wayan’s, would most likely prove nothing more than a brave but futile gesture.
8
Carter and Erina ran down a dirt track through the jungle, Carter in front, their feet creating a rhythmical beat as they matched strides. A dense canopy of vines and leaves whipped them as they charged through.
Five minutes earlier they had reached the shore, sprinted across the narrow beach and burst through an opening in the dense vegetation, seconds before the approaching motorboats rounded the nearby headland.
The heat and humidity were intense, but their wet clothes clung to their bodies, providing some respite. Carter felt a heady mix of adrenalin and endorphins, a result of having survived the helicopter crash.
His plan to rescue Thomas and Wayan that night and get back to Bali by the next day, 28 December, now seemed impossible. Without the helicopter, they were going to have to come up with another way to get off the island.
Erina was behind him, not only keeping pace but pushing him to go faster. They’d covered a little over three hundred yards when they came to a clearing. He raised his right hand.
They slowed to a stop and stood next to each other, panting hard. He wiped the sweat dripping down his face from his eyes and listened.
The outboard engines had slowed to an idling putter, suggesting the boats following them had arrived at the site where the helicopter went down.
The fact that the bird had sunk without a trace would confuse their pursuers, making them suspect Carter and Erina might have been killed in the crash. But there’d been too little time for them to cover their tracks on the beach. It wouldn’t take long for Samudra’s men to figure out what had happened.
A distant sound caught Carter’s attention above the noise of the engines: the manic excitement of barking dogs.
He and Erina listened for a little longer. The noise intensified. The dogs appeared to be heading straight for them.
Erina pointed west along the track. “There’s a stream about a half a mile that way. I saw it on the map just before we got shot down.”
“You sure?”
“Carter, I may be a woman, but I can read a map.”
—
After roughly six hundred yards the track widened, allowing Carter and Erina to run faster through the dense jungle, away from the village and the sounds of the dogs on the hunt.
To their left, toward the ocean, came the now much louder rumble of two outboard engines. The villagers’ boats had started moving again, most likely patrolling the coast.
To their right the mountain range created a natural barrier that would make it impossible for them to turn inland and outrun the dogs. Finding the stream was their only option.
Carter grabbed Erina’s arm.
“Hold on a sec.”
He’d heard something – sensed it, almost – over the sound of the dogs and the motorboats and the rustling of the trees.
“What is it?”
He put his hand to his ear and pointed into the jungle.
Erina nodded and followed him into the thick undergrowth. They crouched down together, screened from the track by a shield of dense foliage, and listened to the steady beat of approaching footsteps.
He slipped his pack off. “Wait here and be ready to back me up.”
—
Twenty seconds later an Indonesian man with the whippet-thin build of a marathon runner charged around a bend in the path.
He ran past them barefoot, carrying a green cloth pack on his back.
Carter leaped out of the bushes, accelerated down the track after the man and caught up to him in half-a-dozen strides.
The man turned toward him, just as Carter launched himself through the air. He hit the guy with a flying tackle around the ankles and dropped him to the ground with a thud.
Carter wrestled him onto his back, pinned his shoulders with his knees, gripped his throat and clenched his right hand into a tight-coiled fist.
The guy grinned and said in English, “Mr. Carter – I am so very happy to have found you.”
“Djoran?”
“Yes, it is me. So sorry to startle you.”
Carter studied Djoran’s clear brown eyes and the expression on his handsome face. He was struck by the man’s openness and lack of guile.
He released his grip, stood up, put out his hand and pulled the guy to his feet.
Djoran gave him a broad smile. “Thomas says you are a very good man.”
“I have my moments.”
Erina stepped out of the bushes, holding a Glock out in front of her with both hands, pointing it at Djoran’s chest.
“And this is Erina,” Carter said.
He waved for her to lower the gun.
She hesitated, then did so.
Djoran held out his hand.
“I am so very pleased to meet you, Miss Erina,” he said. “I have heard very much about you.”
She shook his hand, but said nothing.
“We’re lucky you found us,” Carter said.
“Not luck,” Djoran said. “God’s will. And I have been watching very carefully. The wise camel driver trusts Allah, but hitches up his camel.”
“Too true,” Carter said. “Now tell me about Thomas and Wayan. Are they okay?”
“They are alive. Being held prisoner in a cell within the compound. And my very dear friend Kemala is under twenty-four-hour guard.”
“Can you take us to them?” Carter asked.
“Hey,” Erina said. “Shouldn’t we first be worrying about the dogs?”
The barking was getting louder and more frenetic.
Djoran reached into his pack and extracted a plastic bag full of bloody raw meat.
“Are you going to feed them?” she asked.
“Not exactly. The meat is full of poison.”
He flung pieces into the bush on either side of the track.
“I hate to hurt animals,” he said. “Even vicious beasts like these Rottweilers. But it must be done.”
He bowed toward the bush, where he’d thrown the meat. “May God bless their spirits.”
Djoran turned to face them. “Follow me, my friends. We must hurry.”
9
The three of them ran in single file at close to full pace along another dirt track that cut through the thick jungle. Djoran led the way, followed by Carter, with Erina bringing up the rear. The barking of the dogs had ceased.
Djoran guided them through dense rainforest and two fast-running streams, which provided some relief from the energy-sapping heat and humidity. They’d been too short of breath to talk at any great length. Still, Erina was unusually withdrawn, Carter thought. She probably still harbored suspicions about Djoran. She wasn’t one to trust people until they proved themselves. Then she was fiercely loyal.
From Carter’s point of view, Djoran’s timely appearance seemed a miracle, a gift from the gods.
After they’d been running for close to twenty minutes without stopping, they crested a small hill and Djoran raised his hand, indicating they should pause.
All three came to a halt. The sweat poured off Carter. He wiped it out of his eyes with the bottom of his T-shirt and looked down at the valley below, where a small village lay – half-a-dozen wooden huts with rough holes cut in them for windows. The sun lit up their rusted corrugated-iron roofs. Lazy wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys, the only sign that the village was inhabited.
“Please wait here,” Djoran said. “I must make arrangements.”
Carter nodded, feeling grateful for the opportunity to bring his heart rate and breathing under control. He inhaled deeply and watched Djoran run down the hill, a bundle of boundless energy in a state of perpetual motion.
Erina dropped her daypack on the ground and stood with her hands on her hips, her face glistening with perspiration. She bent forward, breathing deep and hard.
Down in the valley Djoran knocked at the door of one of the huts and went inside.
Erina’s breathing returned to normal faster than Carter’s. She stood up straight and said, “I’m still not convinced we can trust this guy. This could be a trap.”
“Djoran’s okay,” Carter said, still bent over and breathing hard.
He harbored no doubts about Djoran whatsoever. He’d only needed to look into Djoran’s eyes to see the goodness shining in him. It was something that couldn’t be faked.
“He’s a Muslim training to be a mujaheddin,” Erina said.
“We can trust him.”
“How do you know?”
“Same way I know the difference between a shark and a dolphin.”
“Nice metaphor, Carter, but when you see a fin in the water coming toward you in shark-infested waters, it’s prudent to entertain the possibility it might be a shark.”
Carter looked at her without saying a word.
“And,” she said, “how do you know he didn’t doublecross Jacko just like Peacock did?”
“I never trusted Peacock.”
“Let me remind you, we’re on a tropical island in the middle of nowhere. It’s governed by sharia law and hosts a terrorist training camp, which Djoran is part of. God knows who’s hiding in those huts. I mean, where the hell is everyone?”
“Hopefully we’ll find out very soon.”
After a silent minute they both watched Djoran walk out of the hut below, followed by two women wearing the white headscarfs known in Indonesia as jilbab and dark, loose-fitting dresses, covering them from neck to toe.
Djoran waved, beckoning them to join him.
Carter watched Erina reach into her daypack, take out her Glock, lift her shirt and stick the weapon in the back of her trouser belt.
Her eyes locked onto Carter’s as if daring him to challenge her. He shrugged and started walking down the hill toward the women, who looked like they were mother and daughter.
He stopped a few feet from them and bowed. “As-salamu alaikum.” May peace be upon you.
The older woman, carrying three large plastic bottles of water, returned the greeting and bowed her head. The younger one, who held a large cardboard box, gave him a shy smile.
Djoran held a cane basket in his left hand. “We have food, fresh water and clean clothes.”
Carter smiled at the two women and said, “Terima kasih.” Thank you.
They bowed and he watched them move away.
When they’d disappeared into one of the huts, he turned to Djoran and said, “We don’t want to put you or these people in any danger.”
Djoran grinned. “Thank you, Mr. Carter, that is very thoughtful of you. But we believe to live well we must live dangerously and trust God. Otherwise what is the point of this strange life he has given us? We all have the same enemy. That makes us friends. Friends help each other.”
“I thought Sufis didn’t have enemies,” Carter said.
“In theory that is very correct,” Djoran said, “but sometimes God moves our hearts in most mysterious ways.”
Erina stepped between them. “That’s all very interesting,” she said, “but I suggest we get out of here and save the talk for later.”
“Too true, Miss Erina,” Djoran said. “Come, I have a very good hiding place.”
10
They had to crawl by torchlight through numerous dark tunnels to reach Djoran’s hiding place, a dank, musty bunker the size of a double garage. The ceiling was just high enough to allow Carter to stand at the entrance without stooping.
Shadows from two hissing hurricane lamps danced like hypnotic snakes over the stone walls. Straw mats covered the earth floor. A low wooden table sat against one wall, surrounded by large dark cushions. A grey blanket hung over the opening to what was presumably another tunnel.
Carter felt himself relax. It was a good place to regroup before setting out for their assault on the compound.
Erina still seemed wary, he thought. She stood to one side near the wall. Her hand rested on her hip, near the Glock stuck in the back of her shorts. Maybe like him she was wondering who had lit the lamps and who was behind the blanket. He could sense another presence in the bunker.
“Is this what I think it is?” Erina asked. “A Japanese bunker from the Second World War?”
Carter was pleased to see that she was willing to engage with Djoran, though he knew she was most likely masking her true thoughts.
“I see you know your history,” Djoran said.
“My father told me about these bunkers, but I’ve never seen one myself.”
Djoran smiled. “During the Second World War, the Japanese built many bunkers throughout Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. The Allies never really engaged the Japanese in Indonesia, but elsewhere they had to dig them out one by one after much bloodshed. The Japanese soldiers preferred to die fighting rather than surrender.”
Carter wasn’t listening.
He was staring at the grim-faced Indonesian dressed in black who’d just stepped out from behind the blanket, carrying a short-barreled assault rifle in his right hand.
Carter recognized the weapon – an AK-90, developed by a Russian internal-affairs organization and designed to take out assailants wearing bulletproof vests in urban environments. At such short range it’d blow a huge hole in anyone who got in the way. Fortunately it was pointing at the floor.
Erina had also seen it.
Before Carter had a chance to say anything, she whipped out her Glock from behind her back and aimed it at the Indonesian’s head.
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