‘What about the BusWay, Edwin?’ asked Mac, referring to the Jakarta bus system where buses had their own lane – the idea being that if the buses had an express lane and priority at intersections, it would encourage car owners into public transport.
‘It good idea,’ said Edwin, ‘but this is Jakarta. People see empty bus lane and they drive in it.’
Diane and Mac laughed. Jakarta was like that.
‘Yesterday, I am driving hotel guest and other driver has tried to get over the kerb, into bus lane! But he get car stuck on concrete divider and so no bus can get down BusWay lane! And there traffi c jam in his car lane!’
Diane giggled.
‘So two POLRI come, scratch head. Ten POLRI come, scratching head. Not knowing. So I get out of this car,’ he said, gesturing to the dashboard, ‘and I yelling, Push the car off the divider! And fi nally, they pushing it off, and by now there twelve bus waiting to go through.’
Edwin shook his head, sighed. ‘Jakarta is like diffi cult woman.’
They dropped Diane outside one of the huge shopping emporia and took off. Mac hadn’t wanted her walking around Jakarta on her own while they were doing an op, but she showed him the little chromed Colt Defender she had in her clutch bag and it made him feel better. Besides, Mac had an appointment with someone he didn’t want Diane knowing about.
They continued into a district with wide boulevards and trees in south Jakarta, turned off into one of the dusty but stately side streets and stopped at the corner. Mac hefted the backpack containing his laptop and asked Edwin to meet him at that same corner in one hour.
He walked up the street, taking basic counter-surveillance precautions.
Crossing the road, he ducked into a fruit shop and waited, bought a mandarin. There was no tail, no eyes and no cars with magazine-readers, so he continued up the street and went into a place called Konstelasi Komputer – Constellation Computers.
Pushing into the cool dimness, a brass bell rang as Mac clocked computers, servers and laptops arranged down the sides of the store, some of them running. A young local with a Metallica T-shirt slouched behind a glass cashier desk, reading a PlayStation magazine.
‘Richard Davis here for Charlie, thanks,’ said Mac, giving the bloke a wink.
Stretching, the youth walked to the beaded curtain and yelled something at it. By the time someone had yelled back at him, the youth was slumped back on his stool, investigating SmackDown! vs Raw.
A face appeared behind the beaded curtain, paused for a second and then pushed through. He was in his late thirties, round-faced and had all his hair, with a pair of sunnies pushed up into it. Glancing over Mac’s shoulder, he jerked his head sideways.
‘Macca, how you doing?’ asked Charlie, giving Mac a palm-grip handshake after they’d passed through the curtain.
‘Can’t complain, Charlie, you know how it is.’
‘Hungry?’
‘Sure,’ smiled Mac. Charlie was big on food and any invitation to dine with him was an experience.
‘We’re sitting down for lunch,’ said Charlie, easing into a torrent of Bahasa and then a bow. The Javanese were ritualistic about inviting people to eat in their home and offi cially inviting a guest was a part of the process.
They ate in the backyard, under a thin tarp, Charlie on the barbecue cooking a special octopus recipe from his mum in east Java. Charlie’s wife, Marika, rolled her eyes as she poured tea for Mac. ‘Charlie think his mum makes best cooking,’ she said to Mac conspiratorially, ‘so I say, Fine – go and live with Mum, but if you live in Marika house, you get what Marika cook! ‘
‘Don’t listen to her,’ yelled Charlie from the barbecue as he waved smoke away. ‘She don’t cook anyhow.’
Charlie had been a whiz-kid at BAIS and one of the fi rst intelligence people Mac knew of who had tried countering the Chinese in cyberspace. At a time when the Aussies, Poms and Yanks thought the internet was for war-gamers and propeller-heads, Charlie had found what the Chinese were using the internet for and was taking the ball up to them. He was so far ahead of the curve that when he pulled a stunt of opening a couple of dam gates on the Yangtze River hydro system, the Yanks took notice and seconded him into Langley.
Like many spooks, Charlie had walked away when he’d had kids.
But he still did a lot of contract work for the Indonesian intelligence services, which was what Mac was after when they adjourned to Charlie’s offi ce after lunch.
‘What’s up, Mr Mac?’ he asked, leaning back in his leather executive chair.
‘Need to defeat a password key. What are you charging these days?’
‘What have you got?’ asked Charlie, lighting a smoke.
Pulling out his cash, Mac made a quick calculation of what he had in his hand. ‘Four fi fty, fi ve hundred US?’ he said, putting the cash on the desk.
‘Sounds fair,’ said Charlie, exhaling smoke at the open window that looked over the backyard.
Mac told Charlie about the Apple laptop on Grant’s desk at the Lar, and how much he wanted to get in there, have a nosey-poke.
He handed over Alex Grant’s business card and Charlie looked at it, turned it over and made a face. Then he put it on his desk, turned forty-fi ve degrees to his keyboard and screen, and tapped a key. The screen lit up and he looked back at the business card.
‘So, what have we got here? A website – a dot com, that’s always a good start. And an email address, a business domain address.’
‘That good?’ asked Mac.
‘It’s not good that this person is staying at the Lar. They have a government-level VPN – a virtual private network – and people sweeping it, looking for people like me.’
‘So it’s not just marketing?’
‘No – Shangri-La hotels are owned by the Kwok family and they use the same contractors that embassies and politicians use. Very paranoid. But fortunately, I know how to defeat most VPN walls,’ added Charlie, pointing to lines of white code on a black screen. ‘See, here are some rooms – ports – that are open and connected, and others are not.’
Mac leaned over, saw the code with the room number down the left-hand side of the list. ‘Where is this?’
‘Systems. We’re in the server that runs the hotel’s backbone and VPN. It’s the heart.’
‘Okay, let me think,’ said Mac, shutting his eyes for two seconds.
‘Room twenty-two-oh-two.’
Charlie scrolled down the lines of code and shook his head. ‘He’s not connected, not much we can do.’
‘Can’t you wake up his computer or something?’
‘Not in this hotel. You’re thinking about the old American phone network that let you do that. Besides, I don’t think our target is even plugged in.’
Mac nodded. ‘You’re right, he unplugs his computer when he fi nishes.’
Standing, Mac made to go. Investigating Naveed and the true ownership of NIME was going to have to happen the hard way.
‘I can’t take this, Mac,’ said Charlie, nodding at the cash.
‘Have it,’ said Mac, his mind now elsewhere.
Charlie dragged on the last of the cigarette, stubbed it in the ashtray and leaned forward with enthusiasm. ‘You say this Mr Grant has an Apple, right?’
‘Yep,’ said Mac.
Charlie typed on the keyboard as he looked at the business card.
‘What’s up, Charlie?’
‘Had an idea.’
Walking around the desk, Mac looked over Charlie’s shoulder.
‘There’s another way?’
‘If he’s got a Mac, then he might have a. mac account for his personal email, and his business mail might be linked to it when he travels.’
