a mission, he invariably turned to Cowboy, as well as the pilot currently minding the Citation’s controls.
“Okay, boys and girls,” Jack Grimaldi called out over the intercom as the jet continued its descent toward the airport located six miles inland from Banda Aceh. “You know the drill. Seats up, belts on, and stash away anything you don’t want pinballing around the compartment should I suddenly forget what the hell I’m doing and wind up dribbling this sucker across the landing strip.”
Kissinger got up long enough to take his and Bolan’s breakfast trays back to the galley, then strapped himself in for landing. He saw the Executioner still staring out the portal beside him.
“Already looking for that needle in the haystack, eh?”
“Something like that,” Bolan replied.
In truth, though, the Executioner’s attention was focused on a flurry of activity around one of the far hangars, where a handful of armed men in combat fatigues were crossing the tarmac toward where crews were hastily fuelling what looked to be a vintage Vietnam-era Huey. A pair of military Jeeps had pulled up alongside the combat chopper as well, ready to take on a few more passengers. Kissinger finally glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of the pandemonium.
“That’s our hangar, isn’t it?” he asked Bolan.
Bolan nodded as he continued to monitor the activity. “I have a feeling they’re up to something besides rolling out the red carpet….”
“NICE TIMING, MATE,” Shelby Ferstera told Bolan ten minutes later as the Executioner deplaned. “You want to hit the ground running, you’ve come to the right place.”
Ferstera was a tall, broad-shouldered Australian in his early forties. A former member of that country’s elite Special Forces, Ferstera now served as field commander for Densus 88, eighty-eight being the number of Australians killed during the deadly 2002 bombings in downtown Bali. Ferstera had lost a sister in that bloodbath, so he’d been among the first to volunteer for the counterterrorist unit, joining forces with several U.S. Delta Force veterans and a handful of CIA operatives, who, with the help of well-trained Indonesian nationals, had been instrumental in thwarting Jemaah Islamiyah’s efforts to surpass the carnage wreaked in the Balinese incident. Their tactics over the years had been as effective as they had been controversial, resulting in the arrest of several thousand JI conspirators and the deaths of several hundred others.
Still, Ferstera knew the enemy was far from defeated, and he was not the sort of man to let pride get in the way of welcoming another ally in the fight. He’d been given the standard cover story that Bolan, under the alias of Matt Cooper, and his crew were special agents for the Justice Department, but the Aussie knew better. When told by his CIA colleagues not to pry into Cooper’s background, Ferstera felt certain that by sending these men to help with the situation in the islands, the U.S. had decided to play an ace stashed up its sleeve.
For his part, Bolan at first misinterpreted the commando’s greeting.
“You found Ryan?” the Executioner asked as he shook the Australian’s hand.
“We’ll give you a hand with that in good time,” Ferstera assured Bolan. “Meantime, how about a little warm-up exercise?”
Bolan stared past Ferstera at the Huey and the waiting Jeeps. If Ryan had not yet shown up on their radar, he knew enough about Densus 88 to know who they were preparing to go after. “JI?”
Ferstera nodded. “We’ve got an informant who says they staged a rally in town so they could flush the governor from his quarters. He’s on his way here, and he left without a full security clearance. Worse yet, he’s taking the back way to avoid traffic. My money says he’s heading for trouble.”
The situation seemed far afield from Bolan’s intended mission, but he wasn’t about to back away from Ferstera’s request. Once Grimaldi and Kissinger caught up with him, he quickly relayed the news, then turned back to Ferstera and asked, “Where do you want us?”
DUE TO THE LAST-MINUTE change in the governor’s itinerary, only two of the intended six motorcycle patrol officers were available to escort Noordin Zailik when he prepared to leave his government quarters in a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car. The police helicopter scheduled to provide aerial support at the original departure time was en route from an assignment in nearby Lheue. It was expected to catch up with the governor by the time he reached the back country road serving as his alternate route to the airport. In the meantime, the down-sized motorcade took a circuitous route through the city, taking care to avoid Baiturrahman Grand Mosque as well as main thoroughfares or any other area where protestors were likely to be gathered.
Zailik was too preoccupied with other matters to give much thought to his compromised security. He’d been on the phone since the moment he’d sat down in the car, and now, miles later, as he closed his cell phone after speaking with Provincial Intelligence Director Sinso Dujara, Zailik frowned to himself. Something about Dujara’s demeanor during the call had seemed off. Dujara was, by nature, both contentious and territorial, and Zailik had expected the man to bristle at the suggestion that not enough was being done to ferret out clues regarding the deadly incidents in Gunung Leuser. Instead of being defensive, however, Dujara had gone so far as to apologize for the lack of progress in the investigation and welcomed Zailik’s suggestion to allot more manpower to the task. An apology? A gesture of humility from the most arrogant man in his makeshift cabinet? It just wasn’t like Dujara. Something wasn’t right.
Or maybe I’m just being paranoid, Zailik thought.
He tried to put the matter out of his mind as he fished through his coat pocket, taking out the notes he’d been working on for his upcoming fund-raiser speech in Takengon. He was glad that he’d decided not to cancel the appearance, which he knew could have a strong bearing on the final stretch of the governor’s race.
Takengon, located in the center of the province on the shores of Laut Tawar Lake, had long had aspirations of becoming a tourist mecca, but most travel guides still balked at recommending the area based on years of bloody skirmishes in the vicinity, most of them involving GAM separatists. In truth, there had been no political violence in the area since the tsunami. But the stigma remained, and as such Takengon’s movers and shakers were adamantly opposed to the gubernatorial candidacy of Anhi Hasbrok, who’d commandeered GAM forces in most of the battles waged near the aspiring resort. And since third-party candidate Islamic cleric Nyak Lamm had denounced leisure pursuits such as water-skiing and sunbathing as degenerate Western vices, Zailik was certain he’d be able to replenish his campaign coffers by assuring the locals that he remained a steadfast champion of tourism as well as a foe of clerical involvement in regional politics.
The governor quickly lost himself in his speechwriting, and it wasn’t until his chauffeur cursed under his breath that Zailik took his mind off the task long enough to glimpse out the window. In an instant, he realized it may have been a mistake to take the back way to the airport.
The motorcade was passing along a remote, two-lane stretch of roadway that separated a partially completed low-income housing development from a rolling meadow overrun by tents and clapboard shanties where thousands of displaced residents of Banda Aceh had been living in squalor and discontent as they waited for construction on the new homes to be completed. The development was two years behind schedule, thanks largely to the former U.S. ambassador’s pilfering of tsunami relief funds. However, many of the indigents held Zailik responsible for their dire straits, and it seemed someone had leaked word that he would be passing through the area. Several dozen people had wandered out from the tenement and taken up positions along the road, where they jeered and waved their arms angrily at the
