The Malacca Conspiracy (14 page)

Authors: Don Brown

BOOK: The Malacca Conspiracy

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General Suparman Perkasa’s voice boomed loudest. He was laughing and kept saying, “We’re rich.” The other voices were not as clear.

She took one step down the staircase. Then another. An invisible magnet was drawing her, inexplicably, closer to the foyer. She did not know why, but she sensed that danger lurked behind that door. Yet something would not let her turn around.

Her foot touched the bottom step. The cold chill of the tile sent a prickle up her calf and leg.

“Let’s get some more liquor!” the general said. The door, now just three feet from her, started to move. She darted into the black crevices of the dark dining room, just across the foyer from the study.

A creaking sound, the sound of the door to the study being slowly pushed open, cut through the foyer. Kristina wedged her body into the front, upper corner of the dining room.

The clicking of leather shoes across the tile floor.

“I will try some more of that Russian vodka!” a voice demanded. Clinking. Clanking of bottles and glasses.

“Then vodka it is!” The voice of the general.

“How nice of you to give your staff the night off, General!”

“They are members of the army,” General Perkasa said. “Their loyalty may still be with Santos. For now, he is still their commander in chief. We cannot risk having anyone outside of this circle hear anything. They will all know soon enough. There’s plenty of vodka. Anybody want rum?”

“Scotch, please,” a voice said.

“Coming right up,” the general said.

“Thank you, General.” The voice of the doctor.

“Thank you, General.” An unfamiliar voice.

“We can discuss the Santos problem later. But for now, I propose we have a toast,” the general said. “To one hundred million dollars apiece!”

“To one hundred million dollars apiece!” said another voice.

“And to millions and billions for our cause!” another voice said.

“To millions and billions!” More clanking glasses. More laughter and revelry.

“Yes, to our cause!”

“To the Islamic Superpower of Indonesia!”

The clanking of glasses. More laughter. A moment of silence.

“General.” The voice of Perkasa’s sidekick, Dr. Guntur Budi, struck a solemn tone.

“What is it, Guntur?”

“I know that we had agreed to discuss this later, but an overwhelming foreboding compels me to bring this up now.”

“My dear Guntur. You sound disappointed that you have become one of the richest men in Indonesia.”

“I am a physician, my general. My commitment is to a greater cause. I wish to give my money to our cause.” A pause. “Perhaps we could close the doors again.”

Thank God.
The doors creaked, and she heard them shut. Perhaps she should scurry back up the steps. But she could not go. Not yet.

“You were saying, Guntur.” The general’s voice was muffled, but still audible.

“I was saying, General, that I am aware of the strategic military plans to attack the presidential palace with our own forces, but I wish to present a better alternative.”

“A better alternative?” Perkasa raised his eyebrow. “Doctor, I know that you are brilliant, but in addition to being Indonesia’s finest physician, are you now telling me that you have also become a military strategist?” Perkasa asked this in a half-mocking tone, chuckling as he appeared to pause and swig down liquor, and eliciting the laughter of others at his mock indignation.

“My dear general,” Budi was saying, his voice solemn, obviously not acquiescing to the collective joviality of the moment. “The problem is that if military action is taken directly against the presidential palace, and you ascend to power in the wake of such action, then you will be viewed as the head of a military junta that could damage your credibility with a number of nations around the world.”

“Doctor,” the general shot back, “if you are suggesting that my credibility would be damaged in the eyes of the Americans and the nations of the West, well not only do I not care about that, but I would think that
this would bolster my allies among the only nations that count, namely our Muslim brothers.”

“Perhaps,” Budi said, having sucked the general from frivolity to at least a serious conversational mode. “But what about in debates involving nations of the third world in the forum of the United Nations and other forums? Would it not be better to preserve as much credibility for you as we can upon the international stage?”

There was a slight pause. “Bring me another drink,” Perkasa snapped. “Ahh, Guntur, I see that not only are you a physician, but also a military tactician, and now a diplomat. To Dr. Budi!” Perkasa said, and from what she could hear, they appeared to be drinking a toast. “Now then, Guntur, since you have become not only a physician, but also a military tactician, and now a diplomat, I must confess that you have piqued my curiosity. So tell me…what is this better way that you would propose? Hmm?”

There was a pause, and then the doctor spoke up again. “General, I wish not only to give my money to our cause. But I also wish to give of my body.”

Grave silence followed that comment. “Are you suggesting martyrdom, my friend?”

“I am. And I am ready.”

More silence.

“No one has asked you to do this.”

“No one but Allah the Merciful.”

“Well.” The general’s tone grew somber and deliberate. “Not even a general of the army can argue with Allah.”

“No, General.”

“Tell me, Dr. Budi, has Allah given you specific guidance on how you are to sacrifice your body?”

“He has,” the doctor said slowly. His voice trembled with emotion.

“And how has he directed you, my friend?”

Another pause.

“I now see the reason he has given me direct access to the president. This…my destiny…was preordained from the beginning of time. The president has had many opportunities to repent of his ways and return to the Great Faith. I have access to him at will. He has a physical scheduled in only a few days.

“My brother is also a physician, a surgeon, here in Jakarta. We are of like mind. He will assist me. A trust will hold my money after my martyrdom. Funds from it shall be used to buy weapons of freedom for our cause.”

Kristina’s stomach knotted. Were they talking about murder?
About murder of the president?

“That is noble of you, Dr. Budi, but we shall consider your offer as a group—”

“But, General, I—”

“As a group, Doctor. We have come this far as a group. We will decide together. But I thank Allah for your bravery.”

“General.” This was another voice that she did not recognize.

“Yes, Colonel.”

“I also commend the doctor for his bravery. But that begs another question. What about the vice president? Should we not make plans for him as well?”

There was a pause, as if the men had not thought of this question.

“Actually, I have been thinking about the vice president,” the general was saying. “The vice president is weaker than the president. It seems that the vice president could be useful in legitimizing the new government. I believe he can be persuaded to throw his support behind our cause and to declare us as the new ruling government.” A pause. “Do you know what I mean?”

There was laughter.

The general continued. “Vice President Magadia is vacationing at Istana Bogor for the next ten days. Once this operation begins, we sequester him there. If he decides not to cooperate…Well, that will be his unfortunate choice.”

“I agree.”

“Excellent idea, General.”

The general spoke again. “Colonel Croon, you are in charge of that phase of the operation.”

“Yes, General.”

Kristina could not listen to any more of this. If someone even suspected that she had heard this information, not even General Perkasa could protect her. In fact, he would probably kill her himself.

She covered her ears, prayed that God would send an angel to bar the door to the study, and then stepped into the hall.

She started to run back up the stairs. “Did you hear something, General?” the doctor asked.

She turned the corner at the top of the stairs and ran toward the bedroom.

“I’ll check,” the general’s voice boomed.

She heard the door open, the sound of the squeaking hinges echoing up the staircase.

Kristina jumped into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Click. Click. Click.
The sound of patent leather boots echoed against the tile foyer. A pause.
Click. Click. Click.
Now the sound of boots coming up the staircase.

Another pause.

“I don’t see anything,” the general’s voice boomed.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound of boots stepping from the wooden staircase to the tile floor of the foyer.

Creeeak.
A door closed.

Kristina buried her head in the pillow. She felt her pulse pounding against the silk sheets.

She closed her eyes, turning and twisting. Had she just overheard a plot to assassinate President Santos?

Turning again under the covering, it was as if someone had dumped bags of ice all over her body. She felt clammy under the sheets.

Lying there, under the covers, the images in her mind faded in and out.
President Santos that day at Merdeka Palace…The first time she saw the general sitting near the president…Policemen with fire hoses…Bleeding knees and crying children…Elizabeth Martin’s kind face…

“Jesus,” she whispered, though she had not been to Mass in years, “please help me get out of here safely.”

A supernatural peace of sorts fell over her. She closed her eyes and soon began drifting off to sleep.

A while later, her eyes opened to the sound of the general’s loud snoring. She squinted at the digital alarm clock beside the bed.

Four
A.M.

She’d been sleeping a little less than an hour.

He’d probably just come to bed. He had not touched her. Good. That usually meant he had drunk at least four glasses. Sometimes she would pour another glass to make him leave her alone.

She pulled sheets from over her legs and slipped off the side of the bed. Tiptoeing across the floor to the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom, she conducted her business, but did not flush for fear of awakening him.

She finished and stood at the door looking toward the bed.

The snoring stopped. Perkasa rolled over. A cough. Another cough.

A deep swallow.

The sound of the general licking his chops, like a bulldog about to pounce on a piece of raw steak. And then, even louder.

She looked at the clock again. He would be up at five o’clock, if he didn’t awaken before then. That’s when he always woke up. She had less than an hour.

Kristina slipped on a bathrobe, then quietly tiptoed toward the nightstand on her side of the bed. She unplugged the cell phone and stuck it in her bathrobe pocket. Moving noiselessly across the floor, she pushed the bedroom door open and stepped into the hallway.

The house was dark, except for dim light from the stars streaming in through the windows high in the foyer. She flipped open her cell phone. Using its pale, incandescent glow as a dim flashlight, she headed down the winding staircase.

The rhythmic sounds of the general’s deep snoring reverberated throughout the house, but when her feet again touched the cold tile floor of the first-floor foyer, the snoring was more distant.

Kristina held her cell phone in the direction of the general’s study. The ghostly light revealed that the door was closed. She placed her hand on the brass doorknob. The cool sensation of it against the palm of her hand seemed to wake her a bit, and to embolden her.

She turned the knob and pushed the door.
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak!

Woof. Woof.
The bark of the general’s German shepherd, Salim, cut through the outer stucco walls of the house. Kristina pressed her back hard against the dining room wall, then eased down onto the floor in a sitting position, wedging her body into the corner.

BaWoof. Woof!

Then silence. Kristina exhaled.

She crept from the dining room back into the foyer. The soft light from her cell phone reminded her that the door from the study was still partially open. The squeaking from the door had set the dog off.

Holding her breath, she pushed the door open and stepped into the spacious study. This time no squeaking.

The computer’s screen saver, which featured a photograph of the Merdeka presidential palace, cast enough light in the room to reveal a slew of empty and half-empty liquor bottles, shot glasses, and wine glasses.

The only noise within the room was the hum of the computer.

Kristina walked toward it and sat down on the leather swivel chair. She tapped the space bar. The image of Merdeka Palace disappeared.

A word processing file materialized.

THE MALACCA PLAN
TOP SECRET