The Fifth Season (25 page)

Water cannon forced the remaining rock-throwing demonstrators to retreat, creating a clear path for the advancing soldiers, called in to support the anti-riot squads. Mary Jo watched, continuing to document the events as the heavily-armed militia swept through the street, leaving no doubt as to who was in charge. She moved back across the street, taking care not to impede the soldiers as they continued in pursuit of the fleeing students. There, alongside the footpath, Mary Jo knelt to examine one of the victims. She checked for a pulse and discovered that the girl was still alive. Rising to her feet, Mary Jo scanned the area anxiously, relieved to discover Anne standing beside one of the foreign cameramen across the street. She knew that it was dangerous for her Indonesian assistant to be present and waved, indicating for her to remain where she was, concerned that she could easily be mistaken for one of the demonstrators should she attempt to cross the street at that moment.

Mary Jo remained standing beside the unconscious body as soldiers continued to fill the area. Finally, when first aid teams arrived, she left the girl in their care, confident that she would survive her ordeal, and went in search of her assistant.

‘Are you all right?' Mary Jo asked again. She could see that her assistant was suffering from shock.

‘Yes, thanks Jo,' Anne answered, grateful that she'd had the sense to remain with the foreign cameraman when the shooting commenced. ‘Did you get what you wanted?' she asked, but somehow it just didn't come out the way she meant.

‘Plenty,' was all Mary Jo said. She understood; she'd been there herself.

The shock of being trapped amongst the panicked crowd as bullets flew overhead was not something she would easily forget. ‘Let's get back to the villa.'

They drove in silence, each captured by their own thoughts and fears.

Mary Jo knew that she would remember that day for the rest of her days: the terrified young faces; the mayhem as the first shots rang out; and the body of a student lying dead with his head half-blown away. She had no idea how many had been killed and injured. It was impossible to know as many would have been dragged to safety by their comrades. As for the bodies of those killed, Mary Jo knew that the police and military often disposed of these to avoid public outcry at the real numbers killed during such confrontations.

‘Take Miss Anne home,' Mary Jo instructed the driver as she climbed out of the car. There was nothing more that Anne could do; it was obvious that she was still suffering from shock. Her assistant's face suddenly changed, her eyes opening wide.

‘No, please Jo,' she pleaded, ‘may I stay?'

‘It's okay, Anne,' Mary Jo replied, misunderstanding the young woman's intentions, ‘I can finish up by myself.' This was greeted by Anne's shaking her head.

‘Please, Jo,' she asked again, ‘I don't want to go back out on the streets just yet. The police will surely stop and check incoming city traffic. I would be alone, Jo, and they would know that I work for the media. It's on my identification pass.'

Mary Jo immediately understood, annoyed that she had not recognized the obvious. It would not be safe for Indonesian journalists to travel alone.

She knew that this country had an extremely poor record in relation to its Press. Many had died; many more had just disappeared. The police involvement in the shooting of students would guarantee that there would be a cover-up. They would move quickly and efficiently, removing whatever evidence there might be, and this would surely include detaining local journalists.

‘Stay here for the night,' she said, forcing a smile. Anne climbed out of the vehicle and placed her arms around the American woman, squeezing her affectionately.

‘Terima kasih, Jo,'
she said, gratefully. They moved inside, met at the door by an anxious team of servants whose knowledge of the shootings had somehow preceded their
nyonya's
return. Mary Jo had never ceased to be surprised by the servants' communication network. With their masters absent, the telephones would have rung continuously, passing news and gossip through their amazing network.

‘Madame has a message,'
her housekeeper explained. This had not been written down, having never learned how to do so.
‘Mister telephoned from
his hotel,'
she relayed, and Mary Jo knew that this would have been Hamish, and went to return his call in the privacy of her bedroom.

‘Are you okay?' she detected his concern. ‘It's already on CNN,' he informed her, ‘and I was worried.'

‘I'm okay, thanks Hamish. In fact, we've only just returned to the villa.

Anne is still with me, and she's pretty well shaken by what happened.'

‘CNN says that there were something like six killed, but it looked like many more than that from the coverage.' He left the statement hanging, hoping she could add more.

‘It's hard to tell, Hamish. There were thousands running in all directions. Once the shooting started, we all went for cover. No one expected the police to open fire, at least not with live rounds!' Scenes flashed across her mind as she visualized the chaos she'd witnessed.

‘Are you coming in?' he asked, ‘the place is abuzz here at the moment.'

‘Give me a couple of hours to file, then I'll phone. I might try and get some other coverage on the way, if I come down.'

‘Jesus, what a job!' he complained, immediately regretting the statement.

‘Yes,' she retaliated, her nerves still shot, ‘but it's my job,' with which, she hung up and went to complete her outstanding tasks, wishing she had not been as brusque as she had. Mary Jo set about writing her story while Anne downloaded the photographs in between answering the many calls they received concerning the Uber Sakti incident. They checked these together, the colored still-frame scenes coming alive on her computer monitor for them to relive those dangerous moments of just hours before.

Satisfied with her coverage of the student shootings, she connected to New York and sent the material to her editor via the Internet connection.

Mary Jo then returned her calls, agreeing to meet with other journalists who were to gather for drinks downtown. She looked up at her Seiko wall-clock hanging over the printer, and was pleased that she would have plenty of time to shower and change without the usual rush. It was just after five, and Mary Jo asked her staff to call a taxi for six o'clock.

At seven she was still sitting, waiting impatiently for a driver to come; at eight she flung the book she was reading angrily across the room and undressed. At nine o'clock, a faint glow over Jakarta could be seen by air-crews more than one hundred kilometers out over the Java Sea and, by midnight, the blazing sky surrounding the Indonesian capital signaled the world, that the once stable archipelago had now commenced its slide, into the darkness of anarchy.

* * * *

Tuti tried to recall when the family had last gathered in crisis, deciding that she could not remember, only because this had never happened to them before.

‘We should all leave,'
Timmy Suhapto declared. He, more so than the others, had borne the brunt of the latest accusations to appear on placards which, to their dismay, had been televised, worldwide.

‘We must wait for Bapak to return from Egypt before taking any decisions,'

Nuri announced. She stared accusingly at her youngest brother, Timmy, as if he had been entirely responsible for their dilemma. The students and foreign media had again targeted her brother's car import activities, citing the favorable conditions relating to duties and other government charges as an excessive display of nepotism. Timmy's fully imported cars were permitted into the country in direct opposition to his elder brother's assembled models, and those built by other organizations which had invested hundreds of millions of dollars to create local employment, and save the country's foreign exchange. Timmy had called his car the ‘East Wind', and these were sold at a price considerably below that of similar models assembled locally. Thousands of his fully-imported vehicles now stood idle in warehouses around the city as the economy collapsed. He simply permitted the company to collapse, leaving huge debts owing to the Korean sup-pliers. Even though the ‘East Wind's' floor price had plummeted to less than one third of their cost, nobody would purchase the cars, fearing that these would soon be targeted by roving rioters. Insurance companies had refused to provide civil unrest cover due to the breakdown of order, and apart from military jeeps, tanks, armed personnel carriers and fire engines, the streets were now all but devoid of most vehicular traffic.

‘You want us to wait another week?'
another brother asked, fearful of the growing disdain for their family. Two weeks ago what was taking place now would have been considered unthinkable; impossible. For more than thirty years they had all enjoyed a most privileged life-style as members of the First Family. He looked around the rather austere setting of his father's home, wondering how this could have happened, now that they were virtually prisoners in the President's castle. He observed his older brother sitting almost aloof besides Nuri, and felt a twinge of envy as he was reminded of the number of occasions they had taken sides against him. Their joint holdings were at least five times that of the other children.

Most of these assets, he knew, had been cleverly hidden from the people through a myriad of off-shore shelf-companies, nominees, and tax-havens such as the Channel Islands, and would easily exceed twenty billion dollars. But it was the sizable amounts of cash on deposit in Switzerland and Singapore numbered accounts, which played with his mind, as he had estimated that the older children must have gathered more than another thirty million dollars, all of it untaxable, and untouchable.

‘Why did Bapak have to leave when the situation was this bad?'
Tuti asked, addressing none in particular.

‘You know why!'
Nuri snapped,
‘and he should never have left considering
his health.'

‘Do you think the Arabs will help?'
Timmy asked, hopefully. He understood that his father had flown to Cairo to attend a conference which might result in its members pressuring the IMF not to dally any further.

‘The Foreign Minister is now with Bapak. I think he is going to ask him
to return to Jakarta before the conference ends,'
the only non-family member present advised. They all turned to look at the newly appointed Vice President, looking ridiculous, as usual, his chair appearing oversized under the man's small frame.

‘Pak Hababli,'
Nuri asked,
‘what is happening with the military? Why hasn't
General Winarko moved against the students and put an end to this disgraceful display against the Bapak?'
L.B. Hababli beamed at this opportunity to demonstrate that he was, in fact, a member of this elitist group. Sitting there amongst the six Suhapto children, he was not an unfamiliar face. Nuri had never really understood how Fortune had continued to smile on this little man, although he had repeated the story so many times over the years, she accepted that truth or fiction, most now believed the fable relating to how he came to enjoy his favored position with the President.

Nuri was not convinced with Hababli's favorite tale; that his father and the then young General Suhapto were close friends; that at the time of his father's death Suhapto had visited and paid his last respects, then taken Hababli under his wing. Nuri preferred to believe that her father had most probably entered into some commercial relationship with the Hababli family as, at that time, General Suhapto was the regional commander for the province in North Sulawesi where L.B.'s family lived. Nuri recalled that, during the Soekarno years, the military commanders had often been obliged to search for their own funding, to feed and clothe their troops.

She was also aware, that it was those very conditions which had also thrown the now powerful Salima group together, a relationship which had evolved from the time her father had been commander of the Central Java
Diponegoro
divisions. With this recollection, the President's eldest daughter's face tightened, and she frowned. Her father had been dismissed from his command, his career in tatters. Had it not been for his bravery in Sulawesi and later, in Irian, Nuri had no doubts that they would not be sitting where they were, today.

She preferred to believe that L.B. Hababli's position had been more a result of her father's confidence in his technical expertise, than that of an adopted younger brother as he so annoyingly claimed. Nuri snorted softly at L.B.'s meteoric rise, recalling also the number of damaging decisions her father had made to support the self-proclaimed technocrat. Nuri looked at the man her father had selected as his Vice President, still curious as to why he had done so. L.B. had continued to embarrass the family, the government, and the country.
Why then
, she asked herself silently,
had
Bapak chosen this man?

L.B. Hababli's nomination had caused the currency to implode; this much was evident to her. In her mind she counted the number of occasions when L.B. had unwisely chosen projects to enhance the nation's image, only to preside over the eventual collapse of these, at the expense of those around him. Nuri was uncomfortable with the knowledge that he did not even have the support of the military, something she considered a prerequisite to holding the position he now enjoyed. She remembered how he had lost their support, casting her mind back to when her father had foolishly agreed to L.B.'s acquisition of the entire former East German fleet.