No Man's Land

by Roland Fishman

  He could feel Erina’s heartbeat too. It was relatively steady.

  Her hands squeezed his forearm, reassuring him.

  He returned the gesture and clamped down on his breathing device.

  Bloody sharks, he thought to himself and focused all his attention on the flow of his breath.

  24

  After what seemed an extraordinarily long time, but in reality was less than a dozen heartbeats, there was a surge of water up ahead of them, indicating that the shark, whose massive body displaced a large volume of water, was moving toward them.

  The shark had a simple choice to make. Either it’d strike them hard and fast or swim straight for what was left of the dying fish outside the cave, oblivious to all else.

  The moving wall of current pushed against them with greater intensity. The shark was accelerating.

  Carter tensed his stomach and shoulder muscles. Erina gave his arm a reassuring double squeeze.

  He hugged her even harder. The worst-case scenario, he told himself, was that he’d get to die in the arms of the person he cared most about in the world.

  Then the current jammed them hard against the roof.

  He held his breath in the darkness, bracing for a ferocious strike when …

  The current receded.

  Followed by a profound and beautiful stillness.

  He expelled the air he’d been holding in and started counting.

  One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three …

  He released his grip on Erina and pushed her away from him. They separated slowly, like two isolated probes in deep outer space connected by an invisible bond.

  He switched on the flashlight and the bright beam cut through the clear water.

  The cave was empty – they seemed to be alone.

  His gut and shoulder muscles relaxed. For now, the watery nightmare was over.

  He shone the flashlight on Erina, who was already stroking toward the bottom of the cave.

  She turned and gave him a thumbs-up sign, as if to say, “I told you so.”

  He reciprocated the gesture.

  —

  They swam through the dark tunnel. The only sign of life they encountered was a handful of crabs scurrying across the bottom.

  After nearly ten minutes, the cave widened and the floor fell away another fifteen feet. The temperature dropped and Carter’s buoyancy decreased, suggesting less salt in the water.

  He stopped swimming and pointed the flashlight upward. The light refracted into the open air above them, indicating a large pocket. He swam toward it.

  His head burst through the surface. He trod water and shone the flashlight about him. They’d reached the end of the tunnel and had entered the large rock-walled cavern Djoran had told them about.

  To his right he heard running water and the hum of an electric motor, both impossibly loud after the underwater silence.

  He switched off the flashlight, spat out his breathing device and turned toward the sound.

  A weak light lit up six men dressed in army fatigues standing along a rock ledge, each pointing an Uzi at his head. His concern about the sharks suddenly seemed like a distant memory.

  Erina’s head breached the surface just in front of him.

  She gave him one of her half-smiles. “We need to discuss this issue you have with sharks,” she said.

  “It’s not our only problem.”

  Erina looked up toward the armed men and said, “You’re right.”

  A spotlight snapped on, filling the cavern with bright light.

  He squinted.

  “Out of the water,” a loud voice barked from above. “Keep your hands where we can see them.”

  Carter saw only one option.

  He pulled himself out of the pool and raised his hands.

  Erina followed his lead.

  “Turn around,” the voice said. “Put your hands on your heads.”

  Carter and Erina did as they were told.

  He sensed someone approaching from behind and braced himself.

  BOOK FIVE

  1

  Samudra’s compound, Batak Island, 2.40 p.m., 28 December

  Kemala Sungkar pulled her long black cotton skirt from under her knees and adjusted the multicoloured embroidered prayer mat beneath her.

  She knelt upright and stared at the shadows thrown against the wall by the bars that secured the only window in her room.

  By order of Samudra, her younger brother by seven years, she was being held in a small wooden bungalow at the back of his island compound, furnished with only a thin mattress and a single wooden chair.

  How she detested him and everything he stood for. She had tried hard to focus on her prayers, but her constant anger made it impossible. One question consumed her: How had it come to this?

  She was forty-six years old, and throughout her entire personal and professional life, the cornerstone of her daily existence had been her duty to family and her beloved religion, Islam. Now she was imprisoned by her own brother in the name of the God she loved.

  She closed her eyes and focused on calming her racing mind. The problem was, when she became quiet – when she tried to pray – she had to face the undeniable and disturbing truth that she herself was in part to blame for this diabolical situation. Her own behavior, her lack of action, had made it possible.

  It was easy to see with the clarity of hindsight that growing up in a family with power and influence had made her ignorant and complacent. She’d been blind to the corruption and graft that were such an integral part of life in Indonesia, and to the suffering of the large mass of those less fortunate. But the clan’s true rot had started with Arung, her older brother, after her father’s death.

  Like many women in her position, she’d never questioned the source of the family wealth that made her privileged lifestyle possible. For the last six years she’d been too busy flying between Jakarta and Palo Alto, completing an MBA at Stanford University, to think about who was paying for it, and how.

  A sweet, pungent aroma drifted toward her from under the thick wooden front door. On the other side, one of Samudra’s mujaheddin sat smoking a clove cigarette, no doubt cradling a standard-issue automatic rifle in his lap.

  Earlier that morning her dear friend Djoran had taken a huge risk when delivering breakfast to her bungalow. Under the bamboo cover of her tray, next to her orange juice and fresh fruit, lay a large metal key, a small handgun, a silencer, a roll of black packing tape and a folded note.

  The note lay open on the wooden floor beside her. She picked it up and re-read it for the third time.

  My dearest Kemala,

  It pains me to inform you that Thomas has been captured and badly beaten, along with Wayan. Carter and Erina were captured this morning also. They are all being held in the cell on the compound’s western perimeter.

  I am most saddened to say Samudra is planning to execute them early this evening and film the event.

  The key I have provided will open the door to their cell.

  You must free our friends, take them to the hidden bunker that I informed you about and flee from the island.

  This is, I believe, your sacred duty.

  My role is to stay close to Samudra and discover exactly what he is planning for Sydney. He has not as yet informed us of his intentions. Except that seven of us depart for Australia tomorrow.

  Finally, I have provided you with a handgun and silencer. I know how much you deplore violence. But these are desperate times and we are called upon to perform desperate duties that go against our true nature and the highest calling of our faith.

  Pray to God, but please do whatever it takes to free these people and get them and yourself to safety.

  Have strength, my sister, and may God be with us all.

  Your most loving friend,

  Djoran

  The key now hung around her neck, hidden under her loose-fitting garments, and she clutched it as her thoughts turned to the four peopl
e held prisoner by her brother.

  Wayan was an ambitious boy, with the potential to bloom into a fine man and leader of his people.

  She’d never met Carter. Though Carter had left the order, Thomas often spoke of him with warm affection, saying that if he reconnected with his spirit and true path in life, he was capable of greatness.

  Erina remained an enigma to her. She felt the younger woman had never trusted her, always questioning her motives for befriending Thomas. Kemala often felt Erina was judging her and became very guarded, almost secretive, in her presence. She admired the younger woman’s spirit and skill nevertheless, and hoped one day to be her friend. She saw much of Thomas in her.

  Thomas was without doubt the finest man she’d ever encountered, the one she’d been waiting for all her life. She still remembered the moment when she recognized the stillness and compassion in his soft brown eyes.

  She had loved him ever since that first fateful meeting in Jakarta, sharing tea after they met at a talk about Sufism in the modern world. For the first time in her life, and from that day on, she felt connected in mind and spirit with another human being without any reservation.

  Her family hated the order, so a true relationship between them was impossible. Thomas, recognizing the threat he posed to her safety, had never initiated any inappropriate contact. Still, she’d often thought longingly of how she might be with him.

  Thomas lived a principled life – it was what had attracted her to him. He inspired her to look again at her own life, her own beliefs, and remove the blinkers from her sheltered eyes. Because of him, it became increasingly impossible for her to ignore the reality of her family’s activities.

  When Samudra became clan leader and his agenda became evident, she could no longer remain loyal to her family. Nine months ago, after much angst, she had taken Thomas into her confidence and told him everything she knew about her brother and the clan.

  To her great relief, he recognized the enormity of the threat and together with Djoran constructed a plan to discover Samudra’s true intentions and stop him.

  Five days ago Samudra’s chief lieutenant, the vile westerner Alex Botha, who they called by the Muslim name Abdul-Aleem, had kidnapped her from the family’s compound in Jakarta and brought her here. She had been kept locked up in the bungalow ever since.

  In that time, she had not laid eyes on Samudra and remained ignorant of what he intended doing with her.

  For all she knew, he might wrap her in a sheet, lay her in a shallow grave and have her stoned to death, an archaic form of execution favored by some Islamic fanatics. According to their strict interpretation of Islamic law, by stoning a sinner to death, the executioner cleansed the sinner’s soul, thus allowing their spirit to enter heaven despite their moral transgressions.

  The irony of murdering another person to cleanse them of their sins was not lost on her and brought the weakest of smiles to her lips. Her brother, in his self-righteous arrogance, would believe he was doing her an immense personal favor by killing her in this manner. To him, she was a delusional whore who deserved no mercy.

  She was grateful for one thing: Her mother and father were no longer alive to witness the shameful turn the family’s business had taken, and its tragic fallout. Yet while they would have been appalled at where Arung and Samudra had taken the clan, they would never have forgiven her for moving against her younger brother.

  Regardless of what her parents might have thought, she knew now what she needed to do, even if it threatened to destroy the Sungkar clan.

  She stood and walked toward the thin dirty mattress on the floor, knelt down and lifted the top corner, exposing the handgun and silencer.

  Samudra’s fanaticism was like an incurable disease, festering and spreading. Ultimately, it would prove fatal for him and many others. She needed to put an end to the madness. Faith without action meant nothing. Her time had come.

  She picked up the gun.

  The metal felt cold in her hands. She observed the details of the small wooden handle, then checked the magazine and counted six bullets ready for duty.

  Her heart started to race and her chest flushed with adrenal heat.

  She placed the weapon back on the bed with the awe and care accorded a sacred icon. It both scared and excited her.

  From this moment forward she knew nothing would ever be the same for her again.

  2

  On the other side of Batak Island Samudra sat upright on his hammock at the rear of his five-bedroom property in the lush hills looking over the ocean. He threw his legs over the side and attempted to push the dark thoughts of his sister out of his mind.

  His son, Osama, was playing with Ali, his pet monkey, a six-month-old long-tailed macaque, at the far end of the garden.

  Praise be to God for the next generation.

  The comfortable home was a short helicopter ride from the compound and had been built by his late brother Arung. It provided a constant reminder of Arung’s untimely death at the hands of the order.

  The sound of a fast-approaching helicopter shifted his attention to a far more pressing matter.

  At the compound the night before, two of his men had demonstrated worrying signs of doubt about carrying out the planned jihad in Sydney, putting their families and existence on earth above eternal salvation.

  Doubt was a spiritual malaise that would not be tolerated or allowed to spread through his men under any circumstances. His years of training with veteran mujaheddin in Pakistan and Afghanistan had taught him the necessity of eradicating such contagion.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the aroma of warm chilli spices and fried chicken drifting across the humid air.

  “Samudra! Osama!” his wife called from the kitchen. “Lunch is ready!”

  He stepped off the hammock and glanced over his shoulder toward the house.

  The sound of the approaching helicopter would displease his wife greatly. For Premita, family lunch on Sunday was a sacred event. Particularly as he’d only returned last night from business and this would be his last meal with them before his departure for Sydney the next day.

  If the helicopter brought the news he expected, he’d need to return to the compound without delay. It pained him to disappoint his very good wife. As befitting her role, she never questioned his duties as clan leader, even when he operated well outside the bounds of man’s laws. But inside the family confines she saw herself as the undisputed ruler – making her the one person on earth whose wrath he feared.

  A cry came from the far end of the garden.

  “Gotcha!”

  He turned toward his son, who was clutching his monkey by the tail.

  The monkey shrieked and Osama squealed with excitement. “I have you now!”

  “Samudra! Osama!” Premita called again in a much sharper tone.

  Samudra pointed his finger at Osama. “You heard your mother. Leave Ali alone and wash your hands for lunch.”

  “No!”

  “You dare question your father?”

  The monkey jumped up and down on the spot and started clapping.

  Osama burst out laughing.

  Samudra couldn’t help but grin. He controlled the destiny of his clan and was the sole architect of the most audacious and holy plan for God and Islam since the attack on the Twin Towers. Like his hero, the great Osama bin Laden, he saw his life’s purpose as striving to unleash death and destruction upon the enemies of Allah. When it came to his family, though – his son, his daughter and his wife – he was powerless.

  Still, weakness was the wrong message to pass on to his son.

  He glared at him. “You want to experience the joys of God’s heaven and live in paradise forever or burn in the fires of eternal hell?”

  “Paradise, please.”

  “Then do as you’re told.”

  Another call came from the back of the house, full of anger and impatience, causing them both to look around.

  “Hurry up! Lunch is getting cold!”
r />   Osama turned and ran toward the house.

  Samudra looked up at the approaching helicopter and wondered how far the situation on the compound had deteriorated.

  He reached under his white robe and ran his finger over the smooth handle of his sheathed kris, which he carried with him at all times. Then he patted the Beretta Bobcat, a small semiautomatic pistol, tucked inside a leather holster strapped under his armpit.

  He thought of his beloved grandfather, Fajar, who had fought on the battlefields of Afghanistan, witnessing the defeat of the Russians. The great victory had galvanized Fajar and his Indonesian comrades, who saw themselves as fighters in a global struggle for Islam. By defeating the might of the imperialist Soviet superpower, they had proved themselves capable of achieving anything in the service of God.

  On returning to Indonesia as highly disciplined and highly trained devotees of jihad, they continued the great work by carrying the flag of Islam and vowing to create a unified Muslim state worldwide.

  Samudra had sworn on Fajar’s deathbed that he’d pursue his grandfather’s holy fight, striking fear into the heart of his enemies, no matter how long and difficult the struggle might be.

  As much as he loved his wife and family, he needed to remember who he was and where his true duty lay.

  3

  Samudra strapped himself into the passenger seat of his Robinson R22 Beta helicopter, placed the audio headset over his ears and scrutinized his second-in-command, Abdul-Aleem, who was absorbed in checking the controls.

  At thirty-seven years of age, Abdul-Aleem was at the height of his physical powers, possessing the strength of a mighty elephant and the agility of a wild monkey. His extensive military and martial-arts background and inside knowledge of the order were most impressive.

  He’d organized the placing of a GPS homing device inside Erina’s computer at the film shoot near Boggabilla, enabling them to track her and Carter’s movements every step of the way. They, along with Thomas and the young boy, would be executed at dusk.