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in the half-light and swirling water of the storm, but he must have recognized something. “This is Kota. The old city. We’re heading north.”
“Is that good?”
“The port is in the north . . .”
They had joined the morning traffic, and now they were forced to slow down, falling in behind a line of cars and buses. All the food stalls had disappeared beneath a sea of plastic sheeting, and the people were crowded in doorways, squatting under umbrellas, waiting for the storm to pass.
The driver turned around and shouted something.
Even if it had been in English, Alex doubted that he would have been able to hear.
“He’s taking us to the boat,” Ash explained. “He wants us out of here.”
“You speak Indonesian?”
Ash nodded. “Enough to understand.”
The van emerged from a side street and cut across a main road. Alex saw a taxi swerve to avoid them, its horn blaring. Behind them, an old house loomed out of the rain. It reminded him of something he might have seen in Amsterdam, but then the whole city had belonged to the Dutch once, a far outpost of the East India Company.
They crossed a square. It was lined with cobblestones, and lying in the back of the van, Alex felt every one of them. A crowd of bicyclists swerved to avoid them, crashing into one another and tumbling over in a tangle of
chains and obscenities. A man pushing a food stall threw himself out of the way with inches to spare.
Then they were on another highway. There was more traffic here—an endless procession of trucks, each one piled up with goods that were concealed beneath garish plastic tarps. The trucks looked overloaded, as if they might collapse at any time under the weight.
Finally, just ahead, the buildings parted and Alex saw fences, cranes, and ships looming high above them. There were warehouses, guard posts, and offices made of corrugated iron, huge gantries, and great stretches of empty concrete with more trucks and vans making their way back and forth. It was almost impossible to see anything through the endless rain, but this was the port. It had to be. There was a security barrier straight ahead of them and, beyond, a stack of containers behind a barbed wire fence. The van slowed down and stopped. The driver turned around and shouted something in a torrent of Indonesian before stepping out of the van. Then he was gone.
“Ash—” Alex began again.
“This is Tanjung Priok Docks,” Ash cut in. “They must be taking us on a container ship.” He pointed. “You see those fenced-off areas? They’re EPZs. Export Processing Zones. Stuff comes into Jakarta. It gets assembled there, and then it’s shipped out again. That’s our way out of here. Once we’re in an EPZ, we’ll be safe.”
“How do we get in there?” Alex had seen the barriers
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ahead of them. There were guards on duty, even in the driving rain.
“We pay.” Ash grimaced. “This is Indonesia! The docks are run by the military. But the military are in the pay of the
You can do anything so long as you pay.” Ash got to one knee and peered out of the window. There was nobody in sight. He glanced back at Alex. “Thank you for what you did back there,” he said.
“I didn’t do anything, Ash.”
“The colonel was about to shoot me. You stopped him.” Ash grimaced. “That’s Kopassus for you. Kill the wrong guy and send flowers to the funeral. Really charming.”
“What happens when we get to Australia?”
“Then it’s over. I get a pat on the back from Ethan Brooke. You go home.”
“Will we see each other again?”
Ash looked away. Like Alex, he was completely drenched, his clothes dripping and forming a pool around him in the back of the van. They both looked like ship-wrecks. “Who knows?” he growled. “I haven’t been much of a godfather, have I? Maybe I should have sent you a Bible or something.”
But before Alex could respond, the driver came back,
and this time he wasn’t alone. There were three men with him, their faces hidden beneath the hoods of their plastic anoraks. They were all talking at once, jabbing their fingers at Alex and Ash, gesticulating wildly. Slowly their meaning became clear, and Alex felt a chasm open up beneath him. They wanted Alex to come with them. But Ash was to stay behind. The two of them were being separated.
He wanted to cry out, to argue—but even one word would be fatal, and he forced himself to keep his mouth shut. He tried to resist, pulling away from the hands that grabbed at him. It was useless. As he was bundled roughly out of the van, he took one last look at Ash. His godfather was watching him almost sadly, as if he had guessed that something bad was going to happen and knew that he was powerless to stop it now that it had.
Alex was half dragged onto the road. Ahead of him, a gate had swung open, and he was marched through with a man on each side of him and one ahead. A security guard appeared briefly but the men shouted at him and he quickly turned away.
