alongside the road, back to Angela, then threw one leg over his machine and nodded.
‘Come on,‘Ni,’ she called, affectionately, helping her friend straddle the bike.
****
In her two years attending the Bandung Institute Angela had avoided forming intimate relationships, remaining dedicatedly focused on her studies. In consequence, she was branded cold and distant, the many, rejected young men on campus confused by her apparent lack of interest in their sex. Angela had been tempted – the campus was studded with handsome, young men, but she remained on track and, apart from occasional, group casual outings, was rarely seen in the company of boys. Apart from occasional visits to Jakarta during semester breaks, when she would travel to the capital together with Nani by train, Angela remained in Bandung.
She had returned to the Longdamai, Mahakam village only once since commencing her studies and as the end of the second year came to a close she became impatient to be reunited with her father, and extended Penehing family. Contact with the village had been maintained via weekly radio hookup, courtesy of the Dean. Communication was invariably difficult, interrupted when weather conditions deteriorated, their conclusion often leaving Angela angered by the absence of more modern facilities to link the isolated communities in Kalimantan to the outside world. With a growing awareness of the disparity between the wealthy, Javanese elite and their provincial cousins, Angela realized that the Penehing people would remain neglected and without adequate representation as long as their voice went unheard. Wise beyond her years, she also understood that there was little that the Dayaks could do to rectify this situation, against the powerful, centralist government in Jakarta.
As she matured, so did Angela’s appreciation of the special gift she had inherited, the ‘tenaga-dalam’ or inner force phenomenon always evident in her family line. And, under her father’s guidance and instruction, she had acquired a sound awareness of the responsibilities she would one day assume. Introverted and calm, coupled with a strict and rigid temper, Angela emulated Jonathan Dau in every way, her devotion and commitment to the Penehing Dayak as determined as her father’s. Inseparable in mind and spirit, Angela became a perfect copy of the mould; her father’s philosophies, spiritual and metaphysical beliefs, all becoming her own.
As a teenager, Angela had already understood that her people and their environment were clearly under threat by the destructive forces of commerce, and centralist government policies. When she first saw the devastation visited upon Dayak traditional lands, she’d cried, the imagery contributing to her decision to follow her father’s footsteps in the fight against those who would destroy the pristine forests and fields. She sought her father’s advice and decided to study those disciplines associated with the earth sciences, believing that this direction would not only enhance her understanding of the issues, but would provide her with credentials for the future when she took up the fight against those who would destroy the Dayak environment.
Angela had learned that annual, widespread forest fires, blanketing most of Kalimantan and reaching as far as Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, were primarily the result of the expanding, Indonesian palm oil industry, controlled by the First Family and their business associates, Borneo’s corporate arsonists. Prior to her departure from Longdamai, millions of hectares of forest and grasslands had been burned to clear land for the planting of palm. In private, many amongst her fellow students discussed how firmly ensconced all three generations of Suharto’s family had become within the industry. The state-owned, palm oil plantations sold their production of crude palm oil to the state logistics agency, BULOG, at incredibly low prices. In turn, this organization made substantial profits from sales of its cooking oil, the benefits flowing to Suharto-linked conglomerates owned by Sino-Indonesian businessmen, and generals.
But, of even greater concern to Angela, was the systematic destruction of her environment’s tropical peat land. Central government policies promoting the conversion of peat, swamp forests to agriculture had significantly reduced Kalimantan’s natural ecosystem. She knew, that at current levels of conversion, millions of hectares of peat land swamps would be devastated at the expense of the Dayak people – and the myriads of wildlife, not least amongst which was the orangutan.
During her years studying away from home, Angela’s commitment to her people had never swayed, her determination to return to the Mahakam to assist the Dayak communities foremost in her mind. Determined to maximize the benefits of her academic achievements for the betterment of the Dayak people, Angela Dau continued her conscientious role as an honor student and, to the dismay of the community of male undergraduates, remained aloof to their persistent advances.
Chapter Six
November 1993
Perth – Australia
Sharon Ducay’s eyes ran over the headlines again, the tingling sensation she experienced one of acute excitement. She stared at Alexander Kremenchug’s photograph, convinced that her choice had been appropriate, her investigations suggesting that this man had more skeletons than cupboards to hide them in. Sharon finished dressing and, while waiting for him to call from the hotel lobby, browsed the articles again.
Newspaper headlines reported that trading in Pursuit Minerals had been suspended. The publicly-listed company owned controlling stock in the Meekatharra gold leases which had, over past weeks, been the darling of the West Australian stock exchange. Suddenly, it was all over, the suggestion that arrests would be made sufficient to cause the shares to collapse within minutes, photographs of Kremenchug and the two prospectors accused of spiking the original drilling samples, splashed across the front page. Accusations of insider trading, criminal conspiracy and gold fraud were raised in the press and on television and, based on historical evidence, Sharon surmised that Kremenchug had been behind the ambitious scam. That he had been the one to alert the authorities with respect to the fraud had, at first, puzzled her. Then, as the story unfolded in the press, it became clear that Kremenchug had bailed out of the scheme, when falsified documents and tainted soil samples extracted from the Meekathara tenement had come to light. In the days preceding the suspension of Pursuit Minerals shares, millions had changed hands. Now, it would seem, Kremenchug had decided to forgo further participation, the paper losses he would incur, enormous. For Sharon, the timing could not have been better.
Sharon had spent most of November and early December preparing the ground for her approach to Kremenchug. Information she had gathered over the past year had led her to believe that he would be the perfect choice for the project she and the general had in mind. Sharon had finally caught up with Kremenchug in Perth within days of her arrival from Manila. Arranging an introduction had not been difficult once Sharon had alluded to the strong interest her Filipino associates had expressed in Australian and Indonesian gold prospects. They had met at his Dalkeith home in Circe Circle, Sharon’s beauty and practised charm captivating Kremenchug from the start. Their initial discussion had led to others over a number of weeks, during which Sharon laid the groundwork for Kremenchug to visit the Philippines and meet the General to discuss their proposition. She was quietly confident that he would take the bait; particularly now he had come unstuck with this latest venture in Western Australia.
The phone rang; it was Kremenchug.
‘Shall I come up?’ he tried, pleased when she agreed.
‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I’m in 1109. I’d prefer to have this discussion away from the general public, especially as you have your charming face on most of today’s tabloids. We can have coffee and sandwiches in the room if you wish.’ Sharon checked her makeup one more time, the door chime announcing Kremenchug’s arrival as she finished touching up. She showed him in, her guest nodding approval at the junior suite’s view.
His eyes fell to the bed. ‘Don’t believe everything
