No Man's Land - A Russell Carter Thriller (11 page)

1

Midair over the Indian Ocean heading for Denpasar Airport, Bali, 11.15 a.m. (Bali time), 26 December

Eight hours later, Carter and Erina sat next to each other in the packed economy section of the Virgin Australia flight from Brisbane to Bali. They were due to land at Denpasar Airport at 3.10 p.m. Bali time. Over thirty hours had passed since Erina had kidnapped him from the headland at Lennox.

There were just five days left until the end of the year. According to Woodforde, that was the time frame during which the clan were expecting a “great victory,” which fitted in with Thomas’s intel. Alex and his men were headed to Sydney with weapons and explosives, which meant this was a threat that had to be taken seriously.

Carter and Erina had figured that the most likely date of a planned clan attack was New Year’s Eve. It was an educated guess based on the available facts and their gut instinct. In a situation like this it was the only way you could operate.

On the surface they’d faced an impossible moral choice – either fly to Indonesia to rescue Thomas and Wayan or go to Sydney first to track down Alex and the other clansmen. But there was no option. Neither of them even contemplated abandoning Thomas and Wayan. Every decision flowed from that. There would be time enough afterward to fly back to Sydney and figure out how to stop Alex’s team.

Carter needed to get Jacko on the case ASAP and had tried to phone him at least a dozen times before they’d boarded the plane, but his calls had gone straight to voicemail and it had him worried. They needed Jacko to take care of the logistics, arranging for them to travel to Samudra’s island camp and setting in train an investigation into what was happening with Alex and his men – and it all had to happen without Trident’s knowledge. At some point they might be forced to hand the matter over to the Federal Police, but Carter didn’t want to do that unless he had to, as he knew he and Erina were best equipped to find and stop Alex.

He glanced to his right at Erina. Her head rested on a pillow against the window. Ever since they’d discovered that Thomas and Wayan had been taken out of the country, she’d retreated into herself and avoided all unnecessary conversation.

Carter figured she was either consciously or unconsciously blaming him for putting the order at risk by walking out. The unspoken rift between them threw him off center. To have any chance of succeeding they needed to be working as one mind, but shutting down was her way of dealing with uncomfortable emotions, particularly where he was concerned.

She’d drifted off to sleep soon after take-off, skipped breakfast and had barely stirred since. Like him, she’d learned to grab sleep whenever she could, no matter how she was feeling, realizing you never knew when the next opportunity might come. But he wasn’t prepared to switch off until he spoke to Jacko.

He’d give the flight stewards another five minutes to complete the breakfast shift before making the call. He swigged the last dregs of lukewarm water from the small plastic bottle provided by the airline and closed his eyes.

Sitting so close to Erina stirred memories of the good times as well as the bad. He recalled images of the two of them lying together on a carved wooden bed in a resort off Malaysia two and a half years ago – entwined, naked, her head resting on his shoulder and her breathing soft. The memory reminded him of just how close they could be.

For a long time, until Erina was in her mid-twenties and shortly after Carter turned thirty, they never crossed the line between friendship and romance, due partly to Thomas’s close oversight of his daughter, but also because of their loyalty to the order and obedience to its principles.

That all changed during a layover after a particularly tough assignment at the idyllic Malay resort. A mutual friend had been killed. They’d drowned their grief with shots of tequila. They’d wound up in bed and stayed there for five days. After that, Carter knew he could never be happy with another woman.

But as soon as they’d reported back for duty and it became obvious that Thomas was displeased, their relationship began to unravel. Carter started to wonder if he and Erina could ever find any kind of peace together. His bond with Thomas deteriorated, and the man he’d thought of as a father became cold and distant.

The woman to his left in the aisle seat unbuckled her seatbelt. His eyes flickered open and he watched the skirt of her floral dress sway as she headed toward the back of the plane.

He would let Erina sleep while he went and made the call. But first he needed to retrieve the satphone from her daypack, lying at her feet. She’d taken charge of it without offering any explanation, which was fine with him. He reached down slowly across his body toward it, trying not to disturb her.

His fingers touched the zipper a fraction of a second before her left hand clamped over his forearm. She was wide-awake in an instant.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to call Jacko.”

“Without me?”

“It makes no sense for the two of us to go.”

She reached into her daypack, pulled out the phone, unbuckled her seatbelt and stood up.

He did the same. They stood in front of their seats, neither budging an inch.

“Erina, wait here.”

“No.”

“There’s no need to draw attention to ourselves and cause a fuss.”

“What are the cabin crew going to do, throw us off the plane?”

“I’ll fill you in on every detail.”

“How about I call Jacko and you stay here?”

Carter sighed. Fighting her when she’d already made up her mind was a waste of time.

The woman in the floral dress returned from the rest room and stood by her seat in the aisle, waiting for them to make a move. He nodded at her and she stepped back, allowing them to move into the aisle.

“Some things never change,” he muttered.

Erina, who was right behind him, asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You won’t be told.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

—

Carter sat on the closed plastic toilet seat in the rest room at the back of the plane, breathing in the smell of human waste and cheap soap.

Erina locked the metal door and an exhaust fan whirred overhead. She handed Carter the satphone and leaned against the sink with her arms folded, their knees touching.

He dialed Jacko’s number.

On the sixth ring the line clicked. “That you, Carter?”

Jacko’s voice was music to his ears.

“Yep.”

He put the phone on speaker and held it so Erina could also hear.

“Thank bloody Christ,” Jacko said. “I knew you might be trying to contact me. But I’ve been running round all night like a blue-arsed fly. The officious pricks at the hospital make everyone hand in their cell phones at the front desk and somehow they managed to lose mine. I only just got it back.”

“So how’s everyone?”

“Hanging in there.”

“What about Josh?”

“He’s stabilized. Won’t know for sure whether he’ll pull through until later this arvo. Did you track down Thomas and Wayan?”

“Afraid not.” Carter looked at Erina. “Apparently they’re en route to Batak Island.”

There was a heavy silence.

After a few seconds Jacko came back on the line. “Where the hell are you?”

“The rest room of a plane heading your way. I’m with Erina.”

“Yeah? You aiming to join the mile-high club or have you two done the deed already?”

Erina rolled her eyes. “Good morning, Jacko.”

A cigarette lighter clicked on the other end of the line. Carter heard Jacko inhale.

“Hello, love, just wanted to hear your voice,” Jacko said. “Fill us in on what’s happening at your end.”

They told him everything that had gone down, finishing with Alex heading to Sydney with the truckload of explosives.

“I’ll line everything up so we can get you two guys to Batak Island first thing in the morning,” Jacko said.

Erina leaned over the phone. “We also need you to suss out everything you can about the Sungkar clan’s connections in Sydney and find out if the threat is real without alerting Trident to what’s going on.”

“Gotcha.”

There was a loud knock on the door.

“What was that?” Jacko asked.

“Someone wants to use the john,” Carter said.

There was another knock, louder still.

“Open up,” a high-pitched male voice said. “I’m in charge of the cabin crew.”

Erina turned to face the door and said, “And I’m a full-paying passenger. What’s your problem?”

“Are you alone in there?”

“None of your business. What’s your name?”

There was silence on the other side of the door.

“Just hurry up,” the steward said. “There are people waiting.”

Carter shifted the phone away from the door.

“Anything else you need to know?” Jacko asked.

Carter looked at Erina, who shook her head.

“Nothing that can’t wait until we land,” he said.

“Okay, call me when you touch down and we’ll meet at the Green Monkey Cafe,” Jacko said.

The line went dead.

—

Carter followed Erina down the aisle, ignoring the looks of several passengers standing at the rear of the plane. They edged their way past the woman in the aisle seat reading her Kindle and Erina sat down. He remained standing, waiting for Erina to put the phone back into her daypack and make herself comfortable.

She turned her body from him and stared out the window, a clear message that she didn’t want to talk.

He dropped into his seat. A wave of tiredness washed over him.

This wasn’t the time to push her. They’d done all they could for now. He pressed the button on the armrest, leaned back and stretched his legs under the row in front as best he could.

He closed his eyes, focused on the drone of the plane and felt himself drifting off.

2

Carter lay back with his head against the seat in a state of deep relaxation, somewhere between light sleep and meditation. It enabled him to refresh his mind, body and spirit while at the same time remaining attuned to any changes in the world around him.

The plane slowed and the angle of the nose dipped. They were starting their descent into Denpasar, the tourist gateway into Bali.

He turned his wrist and checked the time. It was 2.45 p.m., Bali time. He glanced at Erina.

Her eyes were closed, but that didn’t mean she was sleeping.

He took a long sip of cool water from a new bottle that a flight attendant placed in front of him. The Sungkar clan would, he felt sure, have people watching for them at the airport when they touched down in less than thirty minutes.

For most Australians, Indonesia conjured images of pristine ocean beaches, perfect barreling waves, majestic cloud-capped mountains and lush tropical rainforests – paradise. For Carter, it meant something more. The sprawl of islands had been his home for many years, and for him the landscape possessed an ethereal natural beauty touched by the hand of God. He felt a spiritual connection to the place, and it tugged at him no matter how far away he travelled or how long he stayed away.

He wasn’t blind to its flaws, though. Like many developing countries where a huge gap existed between rich and poor, Indonesia was riddled with corruption and vice. If you strayed too far off the beaten track, you entered a shadowy realm full of dangers. This was a parallel universe to the land he loved and worlds away from the picture-postcard images presented to pleasure-seeking tourists.

He’d read the figures. On average around forty Australians died in Bali every year and a hundred sought help from the consulate after being taken to hospital. Countless victims of assault and robbery failed to report such incidents to the local police because they believed them to be corrupt.

This violence and crime was not limited to tourist zones. With a population exceeding two hundred and forty-five million spread over seventeen and a half thousand islands, parts of Indonesia were out of control. In some remote or isolated areas Indonesian law enforcement had little effect, and traditional cultural or religious codes prevailed. In many villages chaos reigned.

Instinctively he knew that Thomas and Wayan were still alive and being held in just such a place.

—

They touched down at Denpasar Airport with a heavy thud. Erina opened her eyes but said nothing. Carter looked across her and out through the porthole. Tiny droplets of water from a light shower of rain raced across the window. The plane taxied along the runway, passing the familiar dark stone gate on which Hindu carvings and images welcomed visitors to the island.

While Indonesia had the world’s largest Muslim population, more Hindus lived in Bali than any other country outside of India. Unlike Islam, Hinduism didn’t have a single founder or prophet. And even though Hindus believed in only one god, their notion of god manifested in many forms and was both male and female. The Balinese strand of Hinduism was particularly flexible, offering its followers far more freedom than the Indian. They weren’t obliged to study sacred texts or follow any strict doctrine or scripture. There were no prescribed prayers or fixed moments of devotion, and they had no caste system.

Hindu spirituality in Bali embraced oneness and tolerance. Balinese Hindus were the polar opposite of monotheistic Muslim and Christian fundamentalists who maintained that anyone who failed to worship their god deserved to go to hell.

The plane slowed to a halt and the
fasten seatbelt
signs switched off.

—

Once Carter and Erina had cleared immigration and customs and retrieved their minimal luggage, they used one of the airport’s cash machines to withdraw five million rupiah each, equivalent to a little over four hundred and fifty dollars. Then they navigated their way through the stream of travelers toward the exit.

As they stepped out of the relative calm of the airport, the overwhelming heat and humidity of Indonesia greeted them, along with a swarm of taxi touts, all pushing, jostling and calling out to get their attention.

Carter and Erina walked through the crowd and climbed into the back seat of a beat-up taxi, the first in a long line of waiting cabs whose drivers sat patiently at the wheel. The vehicle reeked of stale body odor and clove cigarettes. They both immediately wound down the finger-smudged windows. The engine growled to life and the taxi moved into the traffic. Jacko was less than half an hour away at the Green Monkey Cafe.

The taxi accelerated through an orange light, turned left and came to a screeching halt behind a line of banked-up traffic.

Gasoline fumes and the familiar aroma of earthy spices cooking in hot oil hung in the stifling air. Carter checked out the sea of vehicles surrounding them. A dozen Honda motor scooters buzzed around them, dancing through the lines of cars.

Any number of them could’ve been Sungkar clan tails. Alex would’ve anticipated that they’d come to Bali and hook up with Jacko. Even though Carter had failed to identify anyone following them, someone would’ve been watching for them at the airport and was almost certainly tailing them now.

The taxidriver pulled into the left lane and turned off the main road into a side street. The cab dodged a group of bare-chested western men in their early twenties staggering across the road, swilling beer from giant cans of Foster’s. They turned to face the taxi, raised their cans above their heads and cheered.

The driver glanced over his shoulder. “You want hashish? Ecstasy?”

The phone began to ring in Erina’s bag.

“Just drive,” Carter said.

She pulled her phone out and put it on speaker.

“Jacko,” she said. “I was just about to call.”

“Listen,” he said, “I received an email from Samudra half an hour ago.”

Carter looked at Erina. “What’s it say?” she asked.

The taxi swerved to the right, just missing a bemo, a mini-van used to transport tourists. A series of horns blared. Someone outside yelled, “Ngentot lu!”
Fuck you!

Carter missed Jacko’s reply. He wound the window up.

“Come again?” Erina asked.

“Thomas and Wayan are alive,” Jacko said.

Carter watched Erina exhale, close her eyes and sink into the seat.

A wave of relief washed through him. Even though neither of them had talked about it, both knew Thomas and Wayan’s fate hung by the thinnest thread and there’d been every chance they were already dead.

“There was a photo attached,” Jacko said. “He’s definitely holding them prisoner on Batak Island.”

The taxi screeched to a halt at a set of lights, throwing Carter and Erina forward. The driver leaned on his horn.

“Mate, give it a rest,” Carter said. His meaning was clear, even though he spoke in English.

The driver stopped honking.

“What was that, Jacko?” Erina asked.

“He says if we contact the authorities, he’ll execute them immediately. If we do nothing, he’ll release them on the first of January.”

“In other words,” she said, “he’s sent us a written invitation to pay him a visit on Batak Island and will be expecting us.”

“You could say that. Listen, I’ve got another call coming in. I think it’s the helicopter pilot. See you at four.”