The Nemesis Program

Chapter Forty-Nine

The force of the crash landing hurled them harshly against their seatbelts as the aircraft’s nose cleaved the lake like a bullet and the cockpit windows were plunged underwater. For a fraction of an instant Ben thought he’d touched down at too steep an angle, and that they were going to flip over and break apart.

But no, the plane’s nose surged up and they managed to stay level, their wings ploughing the surface in a storm of white spray. The roar of the water bursting against their sides was enormous and it seemed impossible for the juddering aircraft to hold together. Out of the cockpit window, Ben caught a glimpse of one of the lake’s volcanic islands looming horrifyingly close towards them as they skimmed across the water, and braced himself for the crunch against the rocks.

It never came. The crashed plane quickly slowed to a halt a few metres from the island and the churned-up surface of the lake settled around it, immediately beginning to suck it down. Still half-stunned, Ben looked down and saw the water pouring into the cockpit, rising fast.

He hammered his seatbelt release button with his fist and twisted round towards Roberta, who was hanging limp against her belt, her eyes half shut. The warm, foaming water was up to the instrument panel now, the electricals sparking and popping as they shorted out. Ben released Roberta from her belt and shook her by the shoulders. Her eyes opened and looked at him.

‘Are you all right?’ he yelled, but his words were drowned out by a deafening screeching roar as the F16s swooped down low over the lake and passed right overhead, holding their fire. In an instant they were gone, two black specks streaking into the distance.

Roberta nodded. ‘I’m okay,’ she murmured.

Now that they hadn’t been pummelled to pieces by rotary cannon munitions, Ben focused on getting himself and Roberta safely out of the sinking aircraft. And Daniel, too. He was struggling in a panic to release his seatbelt clasp as the water level gained. Ben opened it for him and hauled him roughly out of his seat. ‘Move,’ he grunted. Spotting his old green bag, he grabbed it and slung it over his shoulder. He and that bag had travelled a long way together and he wasn’t about to be parted from it, even if it hadn’t contained the best part of fifteen thousand euros.

The front of the plane was going down first. Already the cockpit was almost completely submerged, and the mid-section of the slanting fuselage was thigh-deep as they waded towards the hatchway. Ben yanked the emergency lever and shouldered the door open against the weight of the water. Torrents cascaded in through the open hatch. Ben grabbed Daniel and the Swede was forced out first with a squawk and a splash. Then, keeping a tight grip around Roberta’s waist, he jumped with her into the tepid water.

Foot by foot, the ST-1 slipped underwater behind them as they struggled the short distance to the island. Ben pulled Roberta clear of the water and went back for Daniel, who was floundering a few yards away, gasping and choking. As he dragged him bodily up onto the black lava rock, Ben glanced back to see the tail of the ST-1 disappear with a final gurgle and a surge of bubbles.

The three of them sat on the rocks, dripping. Above them, the volcanic island loomed a hundred feet up, patchy vegetation and trees shading them from the sun.

‘There goes Ruth’s plane,’ Roberta said wistfully, gazing at the spot where the aircraft had sunk.

‘Yup,’ Ben said.

‘It was worth a lot of money, wasn’t it?’

‘Yup,’ he said again.

‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting it out of there, is there?’

‘Nope.’

‘I guess we’re stranded here now,’ she said glumly. ‘Who knows when anyone might come to pick us up.’

Ben scanned the sky. ‘I don’t think we’ll be waiting long. Those pilots will have radioed in to report that we went down. The military won’t waste time coming to scoop us up.’

Daniel had gone very quiet, sitting with his arms clasped around his knees.

‘What do we do? Make a break for it?’ Roberta pointed across the lake. ‘It wouldn’t be a problem, if I could swim.’

‘Not much point in trying,’ Ben said. ‘Even if we could all make it across to the other side, we wouldn’t get far before they caught up with us.’ He felt in his sodden pockets, took out his cigarettes and tossed the saturated mess away with a sigh. Turning instead to his bag, he undid the straps and took out the components of the AR-15 rifle. The plastic-wrapped stacks of banknotes at the bottom of the bag were still dry.

‘You’re going to make your stand here?’ Daniel said, like a line from a movie, looking up with a frown as Ben got to his feet holding the dismantled weapon.

Ben smiled coldly. ‘I’m not expecting a whole regiment of crack troops,’ he said. ‘But even so, I don’t think we’d come out of it so well, do you? The last time we were in a fight, you ran away.’ He stepped up onto a large, flat rock that overhung the shore and hurled the rifle’s curved black magazine as far as he could into the lake. It hit with a splash, followed by two more splashes as the weapon’s lower and upper action segments went the same way. ‘Now your pistol,’ he said to Daniel, extending his hand for the Colt Commander.

‘I lost it in the crash,’ Daniel said.

Ben nodded. ‘Fine. Then all we can do now is wait.’

They didn’t have to wait long. Less than half an hour went by before the silence of Lake Toba was broken by the thump of an approaching helicopter. Ben shielded his eyes and looked up to watch it coming: an obsolete French Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma troop transport in Indonesian Air Force markings. Like most of the tin-pot military forces of the world, the Indonesians cobbled their armament together out of whatever old iron other nations cast off.

The helicopter descended into a low hover fifty yards from the island, creating a broad circle of choppy water. An outboard dinghy splashed down from its open hatch and four soldiers were lowered on board toting their Pindad assault rifles. The dinghy sped towards the island.

‘For better or worse, here we go,’ Ben said, standing up.

The soldiers piled out onto the shore, weapons shouldered. Ben, Roberta and Daniel were forced at gunpoint into the dinghy. The outboard rasped them back to the hovering chopper, where a rope ladder dangled for them to clamber up.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ Ben said in Roberta’s ear over the noise of the rotor blast. She smiled uncertainly, then brushed her wind-tousled hair away from her face and unexpectedly leaned forward and kissed him before grabbing hold of the swaying ladder.

Ben felt helpless and anxious as he watched her climb up towards the waiting hands of the soldiers who pulled her on board the Puma. Daniel was next, Ben last, prodded in the back by a rifle barrel. One of the soldiers snatched up his green bag. The ladder was retracted, the dinghy winched up; then the helicopter climbed, turned and flew away towards the command base at Pekanbaru.