Collision

17

Indonesia, Ten Years Ago

The man they called the Dragon hadn’t shown up for the rendezvous. Fine, Choate thought. He hated working with a partner and particularly disliked one being forced on him.

One more hour, he decided. Night began to fall on the park. The pond turned a hazy purple as the sun began to dip below the smoggy rooftops of Jakarta. Choate sat near the gazebo; a trio of young musicians, slightly drunk and out of key, sat on the steps and picked out Beatles covers on their guitars.

Choate’s orders from the CIA chief in Jakarta had been clear: We have a freelancer working for us. He has information on a financial trail to a terroristgroup here. You’re going to help him. Meet him at this park at seven this evening.

Choate waited as the park’s sunny-day crowd began to thin, just him and the musicians left and a couple of old sisters tossing scraps of bread into the water for the ducks.

He got up as the trio started on an off-key rendition of “Hey Jude.” Done. He walked past the gazebo, scattering a few coins into the open guitar case.

“He’s not coming,” a voice behind him said and Choate turned. The trio of musicians stood, smiling, one of them pulling a gun from behind his guitar, the other pulling one from a weathered knapsack.

Choate froze. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“Your friend the Dragon,” the guitarist said. He laughed. “Stupid name; is it supposed to make him sound fearsome? Dragons are false, they’re nothing. He’s gone into hiding. For good reason.”

“I don’t understand,” Choate said. “What do you want?”

“You’ll come with us,” the guitarist said. “Only to talk.”

Choate took a step back. One grabbed his arm. The shot rang out and the guitarist’s chest gashed a red fog and he collapsed onto the stairs. The crack of the shot was as loud as a whip.

The two old sisters at the pond screamed. They fell behind a bench, still screeching.

Choate slammed a fist into the second man’s face, spun him around. Choate closed hands over the man’s wrists; they grappled for control of his gun. Choate could smell the man’s breath, reeking of fish and garlic. Another shot echoed across the parkland. It caught the man’s head, a bare two inches from Choate’s, jerked him off his feet and spattered Choate with gore.

Choate yelled and dropped the corpse.

One left, the tallest musician. He turned and ran. No avenging shot from the distance rang out, so Choate grabbed the gun from his attacker, steadied his aim, and fired. Missed. His second shot caught the man square in the calf. He collapsed with a choking howl, clutching his leg.

Choate heard running feet behind him. He spun, leveled his gun at a man hurrying toward him, a sniper rifle in his hands. The man had a shaved head, was about ten years older than Choate, big-framed. He spoke with a British accent.

“Grab him. Let’s find his car. We need to know who he works for.”

“You’re the Dragon…”

“God, you’re green,” the man said. “Stupid of you to let yourself be followed here and listen to their bad music for two hours.”

“I wasn’t followed…”

“Clearly, asshole,” the Dragon said, “you were. Let’s go. The police are actually responsive in this part of Jakarta.” He grabbed the wounded man, hurried him to his feet, and spat words in Indonesian while pressing the barrel of the rifle against the man’s throat. The man gestured toward a parking lot on the east side of the park and gasped what Choate thought was a plea for mercy.

Choate fished car keys out of the man’s pocket and they rushed toward the lot, Choate pressing the auto-unlock button in wide sweeps. One of the car’s taillights blinked. They shoved the man into the backseat with the Dragon; Choate drove.

“Thank you,” Choate said.

“What?”

“Thank you. You saved my life.” He felt dizzy with adrenaline.

“Ah. Well. Of course.” The Dragon spoke as a man unused to niceties. In the rearview, Choate saw the Dragon watch the road ahead and behind, making sure they were not being trailed, and that Choate knew how to navigate the tangled maze of Jakarta streets. He asked the prisoner a question in Indonesian and got an reply in English. “Yes. A little English.”

“Who do you work for?”

The prisoner hesitated.

“I have one more bullet in my gun. Just for you. You talk, you live.”

The prisoner licked his lips, shuddered. Choate thought maybe he was nineteen.

“Blood of Fire. But I am new. Please. I don’t know names, I can’t help you.”

“Blood of Fire?” Choate said.

“Small terror cell. Big ambitions,” the Dragon answered. “And the target for the job we were supposed to discuss tonight is tied to Blood of Fire. Which means they know. We have a leak. They know we were rendezvousing and they tried to take you out.”

Choate’s throat went dry. Life was easier when the targets were unsuspecting.

“How did you know CIA’s after you?” the Dragon asked.

“I don’t know… My friend told us. He was the first one you shot. I just follow their orders. They feed me,” he added in a small voice. “I am a nobody.”

“You’re not convincing,” the Dragon said to the prisoner. To Choate he said, “Do you know where the Deepra garbage dump is?”

Choate nodded.

“Drive there.”

“Shouldn’t we take him to CIA…”

“No. I’m not official CIA, and on this job, neither are you.”

That was news to Choate, but he kept his mouth shut and put his gaze back to the road.

It is unholy the amount of garbage eighteen million people can produce. The junk dumps of Jakarta covered thousands of acres, populated by scavenger families wise in the ways of salvage. The Deepra dump loomed like a miniature mountain range, the discarded steel of cars purple in the starlight, flocks of gulls hovering over the waste, the smell of refuse like a slap from the hand of death.

They drove inside, Choate following the Dragon’s directions to a secluded area. Scavenger tents huddled on one side, but as the car approached, the waste-finders ducked back into their hovels.

“You know why they hide?” the Dragon said to the prisoner. “They hide because they don’t want to be witnesses. A nice sedan does not come here after nightfall to dump a ton of garbage. Nice sedans only come here to dump bodies.”

The prisoner made a soft, wet noise in his throat.

“We should take him back to CIA,” Choate said again. “They can interrogate him.”

“I don’t do interrogations on CIA property. I’m all about deniability.” He jerked the prisoner by the shirt. “How did you know about our meeting?”

The prisoner stared at the waste.

“Worst case isn’t killing you and dumping your body out there. Worst case is hurting you really badly and leaving you out there. To have all the flesh on your bones picked off by the birds. The scavengers won’t help you. No one will help you. Now. In an hour you can be free, with a doctor to tend your wound and a nice hot bowl of soup to eat. Your choice.”

The prisoner said nothing for thirty long seconds and Choate thought: Just tell him, answer his question.

“Gumalar knows that you are targeting him,” the prisoner said.

“Who is Gumalar?” Choate said.

“Financier. Got Allah in a big way and he’s the one funneling the money to terrorists,” the Dragon said. “His brother’s a big deal in the Indonesian government, so that’s why taking him down is such a quiet job.”

The prisoner said, “I require a doctor.”

“How does Gumalar know this?” the Dragon said. “Where’s the leak?”

“We found people working for you,” the prisoner said. “Over the past few days. Five of them. They gave us enough information to know about your meeting, to know where to watch for you.”

“Where are my people?” The Dragon’s voice went low and cold.

The prisoner shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You have a staff?” Choate asked.

The Dragon didn’t look at him, stare locked on the prisoner. “I have informants. Who feed me info I sell to CIA.”

“You had informants,” the prisoner said.

The Dragon gave the prisoner a jaw-snapping slap. “Where do I find Gumalar?”

“You can’t touch him.” The prisoner finally spoke with defiance in his voice.

On the radio, a news report began to play. Two men identified as agents of Badan Intelijen Negara, the Indonesian government’s intelligence service, had been found shot to death in a park.

“Oh, shit,” Choate said. “You killed good guys.”

“Good is relative,” the Dragon said. “Our target has the good guys on his payroll.”

“You can’t touch Gumalar and I don’t know where he is,” the prisoner said.

“Then what use are you?” the Dragon said. He fired once, the bullet making a hard, percussive noise in the tight confines of the car.

“Jesus, he could have told us more!” Choate yelled.

“Hardly,” Choate said. “Pop the trunk.”

Choate, hands shaking slightly, obeyed. The Dragon got out of the sedan, went to the back. Froze.

Choate hurried out of the car. In the truck was a large plastic bag. Inside of it, smeared with gore, were a bunch of severed hands. Big, calloused ones; smooth feminine ones; ones wearing rings; others bare of jewelry.

Choate leaned away from the car and fought down the urge to vomit.

“Ten,” the Dragon said after a moment. “There are ten. My five informants.”

“So… what do we do now?” They sat in the dark throat of a Jakarta bar, miles from the park, miles from the dump.

“Gumalar’s leak is because he has someone big inside BIN in his pocket. So this stays an off-the-books job for the Agency.”

“I was told to follow your orders,” Choate said. He wasn’t comfortable with this, but orders were orders.

“Then we stick with our original plan. We need to find the money trail this Gumalar fucker is using to finance terrorism. We find the money, we tie him to it, and we kill him along with his terror cell contact. We make it look like the terrorist turned on him. Keep CIA’s nose out of it.”

“And you need me to find the money trail.”

“Gumalar owns a large bank here. It’s going to undergo a cyber attack in twelve hours. You’ll be called in as a representative of the IT support company to repair and inspect the databases. You’ll need to run a query against the five aliases that Gumalar’s terror cell contact has been using. We’ll use that information to find him, so we can get him and Gumalar together for a meeting and take them both out.”

“Running a query will leave an electronic trace. Gumalar may have those accounts tagged to take note of a query.”

“You’re supposed to be smart. Deal with it.”

Choate said nothing.

“I’m not big on coddling, kid,” the Dragon said.

“Not expected or wanted.”

“You won’t have long to do the trace. Get the account information and then get out. I don’t want you stuck inside his bank all day; you’d be a target if they know your face.”

“How did you get these aliases?”

“My contacts.”

“Did your contacts know about our targeting his bank?”

“No,” the Dragon said after a moment.

“I really dislike the hesitation you just showed.”

“They didn’t know.”

Choate tapped fingers on the table. The adrenaline rush faded. “We need to report back to the Agency.”

“Of course. But the mission goes on.”

“That’s for the Agency to decide.”

“The Agency can decide what the hell they want. These bastards don’t get away with killing my people. I run my network like a nice little family business. I took care of these folks, their families. I had their loyalty. They have mine.”

“All very noble,” Choate said. “But I’m not going on a suicide mission.”

“Fine. Get Agency approval. Be sure and mention I saved your life.” The Dragon got up, finished his beer. They got up, left money on the table, went to a small house of the Dragon’s on a quiet street.

Choate called, got connected to the CIA chief in Jakarta. Explained. Listened. He hung up.

“We’re a go.”

“You forgot to mention I saved your life.”

“I’m not big on coddling,” Choate said. “When do we go to the bank?” The Dragon cracked a smile. “Tomorrow morning. Review the files. Get some sleep. You can bunk down at the room at the end of the hall.” The Dragon went into another room. Choate put an ear to the heavy door. Soundproofed.

He went to the room and collapsed on the bed.

He didn’t like this at all, but he had his orders. He curled into a ball and let sleep close over him, trying not to think of the bag of severed hands or the shocked face of the dead prisoner, staring up past the mounds of garbage toward the star-kissed sky.