No Man's Land - A Russell Carter Thriller (3 page)

8

Thomas led Carter through the sparsely furnished house into an old-style kitchen at the rear. He gestured for him to sit on one of four wooden chairs placed around a rectangular table, bare except for a pile of documents and a slim MacBook Air sleeping at one end. A cool breeze drifted through the sun-filled room.

“I’ll make some tea,” Thomas said.

Carter settled into his chair, stared out the window at the grey ghost gum standing alone against the pale blue sky and suppressed a sigh.
Accept what is, is
, he told himself. It was the first of the order’s principles and one he had always struggled with. Another was
Expect the unexpected
. As he considered what had transpired that morning, Carter smiled wryly to himself. He’d clearly let that one slip over the past few months.

The order was based on the thousand-year-old White Pole school of martial arts. It’d been established in 1937 by a consortium of wealthy Shanghai families to protect Chinese citizens from being victimized by Japanese aggressors during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Its initial charter was to serve the weak and vulnerable, regardless of their ethnicity, financial status, political orientation or religious persuasion.

Over a number of decades the order’s role had expanded and they began to operate throughout South-East Asia, guided always by spiritual and altruistic values. Carter’s jobs had included smuggling refugees out of volatile border regions, rescuing women from slavery in the sex industry, cracking pedophile networks and intercepting drug and weapons shipments across unpatrolled seas.

The landscape had changed in the late nineties after the Asian financial crisis. Many voluntary supporters of the order could no longer donate regularly to keep it running. The society was forced to become fully self-supporting and obliged to work for business and government organizations to survive.

Further change had come after the first Bali bombing in 2002, when two hundred and two people, many of them young Australian tourists, were killed at the Sari Club in Kuta. The order had moved its primary base from Bangkok to Bali and started working with the Trident Bureau, an Australian government agency set up to run covert operations to fight terrorism in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. After the second Bali bombing in 2005, the order entered into an exclusive government contract with Trident, even though they did the occasional pro bono case on the side.

The lucrative agreement came with strict guidelines and reporting protocols. Political decisions were made in Sydney and Canberra with little or no regard for the needs of the operatives risking their lives in the field.

Carter glanced over at Thomas, who stood with his back to him, measuring precise quantities of tea into the pot.

After signing off on the Trident contract, Thomas’s approach had changed. He’d always been the leader of the order, but now he became far less inclusive of the team when running operations, adopting a military style and imposing a clear chain of command to make sure that Trident policies were implemented.

Whenever Carter had voiced his concerns, Thomas patiently heard him out, but he never shifted his views or altered his leadership style. He claimed he always did what was best for the order to safeguard its survival. Carter understood where he was coming from but didn’t agree.

And then there was the unwritten principle – no emotional attachments on the job. That one had done Erina’s head in.

She and Carter had first become romantically involved when he was in his early thirties and she was twenty-six. She’d felt guilty about betraying her father and his code. Thomas had been too smart to forbid them from seeing each other, but he never sanctioned the relationship either. He avoided teaming them up on assignment wherever possible and refused to discuss it with Carter, except to say that the order’s principles, including the unwritten one, were there for a reason and it wasn’t Carter’s place to question them.

Ultimately, it was these changes to the order’s modus operandi, Thomas’s increasingly autocratic style and Carter’s torturous relationship with Erina that caused him to walk away and stay away. They’d stopped being romantically involved nine months before he left. He’d felt much better being out of her orbit, even though he knew he’d left the order short handed. At the time of his departure there had been just fifteen active members, including two support staff and four trainees. Before the Asian financial crisis there’d been over two hundred members, many of whom had been volunteers.

Carter heard the back door open and close and a set of light footsteps tread across wooden floorboards toward the kitchen.

The kettle boiled. Thomas bowed his head over the pot.

9

Wayan Gusti, Thomas’s latest protégé, stood in the doorway holding his head high. When Carter had last seen him a year and a half ago, Wayan was a shy, slightly built sixteen-year-old Balinese boy. He’d developed into a fine-looking young man. He wore loose black trousers, a cutaway white cotton T-shirt and a black bandana wrapped around his forehead. His cheeks shone with a light sheen of sweat, suggesting he’d been working out. The muscle definition of his arms and chest was impressive. He’d developed strength and power to complement his natural agility and speed.

Wayan looked at Carter with a mixture of judgement and censure, suggesting he hadn’t forgiven him for disappearing without saying goodbye.

Physically he looked ready to become a sanjuro, the name given to the order’s elite field operatives. But Carter, who’d been the youngest member to graduate as a sanjuro in the order’s history, wondered whether he yet possessed the emotional and spiritual maturity required. They were a warrior’s most important qualities and were the hardest to master.

In his left hand Wayan carried a staff made from bamboo, a batang, the most versatile of the pencak silat weapons and a favorite of Carter’s. Wayan held it like it was an extension of his body.

A good sign.

Carter stood up and was surprised at how tall Wayan had grown. He was nearly six foot, only a couple of inches shorter than himself.

Carter extended his hand. “Good to see you.”

The young man shook it without enthusiasm. “Thomas says you’ve become a full-time surfer. You like that?”

“It has its moments.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I needed some space.”

“You could’ve at least said goodbye.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

They stood in an uncomfortable silence. Carter knew how much the younger man had looked up to him and understood his disappointment and hurt.

“Has Thomas sent you into the field yet?” Carter asked.

“He says I’m not ready. But I’m in the process of proving him wrong. Are you coming back?”

“That wasn’t the plan when I woke up this morning.”

“So you’re just going to keep drifting like a surf bum when there’s important work to do?”

Carter didn’t know what to say to that.

“We need you,” Wayan told him.

“Enough,” Thomas said, walking toward the table carrying a wooden tray with a Chinese teapot and three small cups on it. “Fetch Carter a T-shirt. We need to get down to business.”

Wayan left the room. Thomas placed the tray on the table and turned his attention to Carter. “As Erina has undoubtedly informed you, changing fortunes and the alignment of the stars mean your services are again required.”

Carter sat back down and rested his forearms on the table. “Whether I like it or not?”

“I believe I have your best interests at heart.”

“Really?”

“Your trouble is you’ve lost your faith. You are no longer governed by your duty and the flow of the universe.”

Carter folded his arms and said nothing.

“Rather,” Thomas continued, “you give every indication of following only the dictates of your ego. The order’s principles apply to every aspect of your life, not just when you’re on assignment.”

“The reason I left had nothing to do with me questioning the principles,” Carter said. “It was the way you tried to impose your will on me and force me to do things I didn’t believe in. You’re still doing it, even now.”

“There is something much bigger going on here. The order needs you. This work is your calling, whether you realize it or not.”

“And you still won’t listen to a word I say.”

“There has to be a chain of command. We each have to know our place within the chain. Life without faith, duty and discipline is meaningless.”

Thomas had been saying much the same thing since they first met at his Bangkok dojo when Carter was fourteen years old. The young Australian boy had been rebellious on the surface, but deep down, an insatiable hunger for guidance and order drove him. The dojo became his sanctuary, the only place in the chaotic city where he felt safe and at peace.

Up until then he’d been an outsider in Bangkok. The local kids had found out about his mother and called her a filthy junkie. Carter felt compelled to defend her honor, like he had at Lennox, and constantly fought against bigger and older local boys who saw him as a loner and a soft target with no one to back him up.

After a few months of intense training he began to combine what he learned at the dojo with his natural talents and instincts on the streets to stunning effect. The boys soon stopped taunting him about his mother and his attackers left him alone. But he made no friends.

Thomas poured the steaming tea into each cup with silent reverence. The powerful aroma of fresh ginger and aniseed and the formality of Thomas’s ceremony brought back a flood of memories.

Moving to Bangkok and meeting Thomas had changed his life forever. His mother had instigated the relocation from the country quiet of Lennox Head to the sleaze of the Patpong district – officially to teach English as a second language, unofficially for the smack, which was pure and cheap. More than once he’d come home to find her passed out on the couch with a needle sticking out of her arm. Two days before his fifteenth birthday she took an overdose and died.

As Carter had no living relatives in Australia, Thomas used his influential government contacts to become his guardian and introduced him to the order’s strict training regimen and full range of mystical arts. It was a comprehensive and very different education to what he would’ve received in Australia.

On his eighteenth birthday, he became a fully fledged member of the order and was inducted as the youngest ever sanjuro.

Thomas placed a cup in front of Carter. “Every disturbance has a spiritual cause. A man isn’t an island. Tell me, how have you been faring on your own without a connection to a higher source?”

Wayan walked back into the kitchen and handed Carter a grey T-shirt.

He put it on, then took a sip of hot tea, savoring the sharp taste of his favorite blend, and said, “Let’s move on from my moral and spiritual shortcomings and get to what this is about, shall we?”

10

Carter placed his cup back on the table and asked, “Has someone issued a fatwa against the order?”

“Indeed they have,” Thomas said. “The Sungkar clan have issued an edict saying the order is guilty of murder and we are enemies of God and Islam. A clan-controlled mufti has issued the fatwa, meaning a death sentence hangs over every one of us.”

In his last few years working for the order, Carter had plenty to do with the Sungkar clan. It was one of many powerful family organizations in Indonesia; such clans had controlled large sections of cities and entire villages for hundreds of years. It was impossible to sell a cup of tea in a clan’s domain without paying a protection fee.

This wasn’t a big deal in Indonesia, where petty extortion and corruption were an ingrained part of society. For the most part the clans were relatively harmless and fulfilled the useful role of maintaining law and order.

For twenty years Aamir Sungkar, a moderate Muslim, had led his clan and gathered significant wealth through traditional means – mainly protection and minor corruption. But when his oldest son, Arung, took over after his death, he had pushed the boundaries of tradition and law, expanding the Sungkar clan’s interests to include drug trafficking, prostitution, gun running, piracy and people smuggling.

Arung was corrupt and ruthless, but he certainly wasn’t a religious fanatic prone to issuing fatwas.

“Remember your last assignment with us?” Thomas said. “You intercepted a shipment of the clan’s guns being run across the Strait of Malacca from Indonesia to Malaysia?”

“Of course.”

Just thinking about it stirred a rush of anger in Carter’s gut. As well as transporting weapons, he discovered, the targeted boat was also carrying five frightened young Hindu women from Bali, who he suspected had been kidnapped. He’d argued with Thomas, saying they should abort the operation, as the risk to the women was too great. Thomas had overruled his objections in no uncertain terms and ordered him to proceed.

Later he found out that Detachment 88, the brutal Indonesian anti-terrorist unit, had discovered the boat was also transporting C4 explosives to Malaysia. They, along with the cache of weapons, were being delivered to a known terrorist cell in Kuala Lumpur. When the Trident Bureau heard this, they insisted the operation be carried out and Thomas had complied.

“As you know,” Thomas said, “one of their boats was blown up in the process, killing a number of crew and clan members.”

“Don’t forget the five young women. You should’ve listened to me.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“It actually is the point as far as I’m concerned—”

“What you don’t know,” Thomas said, cutting him off, “is that Arung Sungkar was killed in the explosion.”

“Can’t say that upsets me. I’ve met sewer rats with more humanity.”

“That may be so, but every action creates a reaction. They now have a new leader.”

Thomas nodded at Wayan, who sat down at the table and clicked a key on the laptop’s keyboard. An image of a slim Indonesian man in his mid-thirties appeared. He wore a white skullcap and flowing white robes. A wispy moustache and wiry goatee framed perfect white teeth and a smile full of mischief.

Carter remembered Arung’s younger brother Samudra. His expression reminded him of one of the Bali bombers, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, who, on hearing that he’d been sentenced to death, had welcomed the news with a huge smile and a thumbs up, saying, “There will be a million more Amrozis to come.” He’d been executed in 2008, unrepentant to the end.

“Samudra Sungkar took over as leader eleven months ago,” Thomas said.

Carter knew the thirty-nine-year-old’s history. He’d had a privileged upbringing and studied engineering and information technology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. From what Carter had heard, Samudra, like Amrozi, had for many years strayed from the strict moral tenets of Islam. He drank, had sex with prostitutes and paid scant attention to the principles of his Muslim faith. Three years ago he had disappeared off the radar.

“He’s a dangerous man,” Thomas said. “He believes he knows God’s will.”

“Not another one,” Carter said. “I thought he was a party boy.”

“He was, but now he says he was corrupted by the decadence and moral depravation of life in Sydney. And that Australians are racist and treated him like a second-class citizen.”

“Something else must’ve turned him to the dark side, though?”

“Yes – it started when his younger brother was killed in Afghanistan in 2009 by Australian special forces in Helmand Province. It pushed him into the arms of the Islamic fundamentalists – his wealth and position meant they targeted him and gave him the full treatment.”

“I bet they did.”

“For two years he attended training camps in Malaysia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where his instruction covered military tactics, propaganda, weapons and explosives, as well as extensive religious study. And now that Arung is dead, he’s in charge.”

“Sounds like he’s following in the footsteps of his grandfather.”

“So it seems,” Thomas said, topping up Carter’s tea.

Samudra’s grandfather, Fajar Sungkar, had been a member of the radical Indonesian fundamentalist sect Darul Islam, established in 1942 by Muslim militia. Its sole aim was to create an independent Islamic state where the only valid source of law was sharia, a legal code based on a strict interpretation of Islam.

They fought an armed rebellion against the Sukarno government in the 1950s and ’60s. Later, a number of them travelled to camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where battle-hardened mujaheddin trained and inspired them to commit to a life of jihad.

The “Afghans,” as they called themselves, became the leaders, ideologues and commanders of Jemaah Islamiah, the violent extremist group responsible for the Bali bombings and other terrorist activities led by Abu Bakar Bashir.

One of their goals – introducing sharia law into Indonesian society – had met with partial success. The northern Indonesian province of Aceh was now legitimately ruled by sharia, its legal code based on their own interpretation of the Koran. He’d heard reports that people had been caned and even stoned for adultery.

Carter knew that the jihadi extremists were very much in the minority. The vast majority of Indonesia’s Muslims were good, friendly people who contributed to society in a positive way – like the majority of people belonging to any other culture or religion. But Indonesia had the world’s largest Muslim population – over two hundred million – which meant that even a small percentage of them represented a sizeable number.

“So what’s God telling Samudra?” Carter asked.

“He’s publicly declared that there is no nobler way to die than as a martyr. He’s called on the members of the Sungkar clan and its international affiliates to pledge every cell of their being to wreaking God’s vengeance on Australia and the order before the new year, less than a week away.”

“All because we killed Arung?”

“That was the tipping point that took him from being a radical fundamentalist to initiating a jihadist call to arms.”

“So you reckon Samudra sees himself as what? The next Osama bin Laden?”

“Correct.” Thomas took a delicate sip of tea and placed it on the table. “And you are involved whether you like it or not.”