Don Pendleton - Loose Cannon

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 approaching motorcade. The crowd was made up primarily of men, though there were a handful of women and several boys in their early teens. As the car drew closer, they collectively drifted out onto the road, forming a human barricade.

“So much for avoiding demonstrators,” Zailik mused as he eyed the throng. The chauffeur slowed the car and the patrolman who’d been riding behind them pulled around to the front, joining his counterpart. They stopped their motorcycles at an angle, forming a protective V behind which the governor’s car eased to a halt twenty yards shy of the protestors. Beyond the demonstrators, Zailik saw two cars approaching from the direction of the airport. Apparently dissuaded by the commotion, both drivers slowed and made quick U-turns, leaving the confrontation behind.

Zailik fumed. He wanted to get out and confront his detractors. What business did they have making him a scapegoat for their miseries? The tsunami hadn’t been his fault, and when Ambassador Ryan’s wholesale embezzlement had come to light, it had been Zailik who’d spearheaded efforts to secure relief funding elsewhere. If not for him, the lot across the road would still be nothing more than a pad of dirt instead of a development where there were at least signs of forward progress.

The governor’s indignation was quickly tempered when a piece of rotten fruit splattered against the tinted windshield he was looking through. Zailik instinctively recoiled, then let out a gasp when the next projectile—a rock the size of a baseball—struck the window. The glass was bulletproof and the rock left only small, weblike cracks, but Zailik suddenly realized he was facing more than a mere inconvenience. Casting aside his speech notes, the governor quickly grabbed his cell phone. Too flustered to dial a number, he instead pressed Redial, putting a call through to Intelligence Director Dujara. The official had little to do with the governor’s security arrangements, but Zailik was desperate.

“There’s a mob on the road to the airport!” he bellowed once Dujara picked up. “They’re after me…!”

The two motorcycle officers were brothers. Muhtar Yeilam, the oldest by three years, had joined the Banda Aceh police force straight out of college and distinguished himself as a patrol officer during the tsunami, saving a handful of lives and helping to maintain order in the storm’s traumatic aftermath. Muhtar’s example—along with the ceremony where he’d been decorated for heroism—had inspired his younger brother to follow in his footsteps. In three months Ashar would have his first year under his belt.

Muhtar had pulled strings to get his brother assigned to the governor’s detail, and this was the first time they’d worked together. Escorting Governor Zailik to the airport was a routine, inconsequential assignment. While waiting for the motorcade to get underway less than an hour earlier, the brothers had been joking with one another, enjoying their sibling camaraderie as they argued over who would be the first to get laid after they hit the discos later that night.