Indonesian Gold (12 page)

Later that day, when Jonathan Dau informed senior members
of his council that he would be absent for some days, the villagers understood – and went about
their ways as the shaman trudged off into the jungle.

****

Angela arrived in Samarinda at the end of her third day,
rested overnight, then proceeded to Balikpapan by minibus where she boarded a Garuda flight to
Jakarta. Once in the nation's bustling capital, Angela continued her long journey by train to
Bandung, where she would commence her first year studying at the Institute of Technology,
founding President Soekarno's
alma mater.

****

Sharon Ducay removed her shoes and tiptoed along the
corridor, entering General Narciso Dominguez's room without making a sound.

‘How is he?'
she asked
the attending nurse, her voice but a whisper.

‘He rests,'
the
middle-aged woman replied,
‘the doctor says that he was lucky – this time.'

Sharon
moved to the side of
the bed, leaned down and kissed her uncle on the forehead, then took a seat alongside to wait for
him to regain consciousness. She settled back into the deep, cushioned chair, resting tired eyes
after the long, anxiety-filled journey back from London. The General had suffered his second
stroke.

Her eyes drifted around the all too familiar room with its
rich furnishings, the presence of cigar smoke still evident in the air and, when she recognized
the photograph which had been moved closer to her uncle's side, she shed a tear. Sharon knew that
this would have been Alfredo's handiwork, and she muttered a silent prayer of thanks that
Dominguez's trusted aide had been present when her uncle had collapsed. Suddenly, she felt cold,
the threat of Narciso Dominguez dying gripped her with the reality that the ageing General lying
there was her only remaining family, and that with his passing, apart from Alfredo, she would be
completely alone.

****

Sharon
's parents, along with
her two brothers and a sister, had died when the Hercules transport carrying them to Hong Kong
had crashed over the ocean, ten years before. Sharon had been devastated at the time, returning
home immediately to attend to matters of estate. Since the tragic incident, Sharon had become the
daughter General Narciso Dominguez could never have. Now, the old man and his niece were the
sole, remaining members of what was once a most influential, Filipino family.

Although her parents had not been overly wealthy Sharon's
inheritance provided her with the capacity to travel freely for two years, by which time the
therapeutic journey had not only diminished her funds, but had given her a greater appreciation
of the power of money.

Whilst touring South Africa she managed to secure a
position with Anglovest Reef Mines in Johannesburg, during which time she acquired considerable,
practical field training under the guidance of more experienced geologists. Sharon learned
quickly, enjoying the frequent field survey trips, the magnificent country and its flora and
fauna. But, after three years, she yearned for a change of scenery and, touched by an occasional
bout of homesickness, wrote to her uncle advising that she wished to come home. She had returned
to the Philippines and accepted the General's offer to live in his sprawling, Manila mansion,
grateful for his support and introductions to the wealthy and influential powerbrokers that ate
off President Marcos' table in
Malacanang
Palace
.

Sharon's most recent visit to London had been to
investigate avenues whereby some of the General's associates', illicitly acquired wealth, might
be converted into American dollars. She had been unsuccessful, and had been preparing to fly to
New York to meet with a number of brokers when Alfredo had called, summoning her home to
Manila.

Now, as she rested alongside her uncle, Sharon prayed for
his recovery.

****

Heavily armed, blue-beret soldiers stood guard on both
sides of Jalan Cendana preventing access to the well known address, those permitted to pass
through the heavily cordoned street were either members of the First Family, or those closely
associated with the Suharto regime.

A red Lamborghini roared around the corner from Jalan
Waringin, the driver laughing as he drove the Italian racer directly at the guards, forcing them
to leap sideways, and away from his path. With a squeal of burning rubber, the car turned into a
driveway, the air suddenly quiet as the President's son killed the engine and climbed out of his
machine, then strutted arrogantly past a black Mercedes-Benz limousine with its ‘RI-1' plates,
into his father's principal residence.

Inside, he paid his respects to his mother, before
wandering through to the rear of the well-fortified compound, where he found a number of his
siblings holding court.

‘
It could only have been you, with that noisy car!
'
an older sister complained.

‘You should be grateful that I get to use the city's
roads as much as I do,'
he retorted, referring to the fact that
this sister had managed to convince their father to place tolls on the capital's highways, the
company appointed to collect the revenue, one of hers.

‘What's wrong with them?'
he asked, nodding in the direction of his two brothers who appeared to be in heated
discussion.

‘Same problem as before,'
she replied, clucking as their mother would whenever her children fought. Acrimonious,
behind-thescene battles for power were becoming increasingly frequent in this household. Their
first public dispute, almost a decade before, over who should be given the LNG shipping monopoly,
severely embarrassed Palace circles. The President had finally decided in favor of one, offering
the other an additional monopoly with the
cukong,
Liem Sioe Liong who never failed to
contribute considerably to the family's collective coffers.

****

The children were all well versed in the importance of the
cukongs
– their father, Suharto, had been instrumental in paving the way for the Chinese
to take control over the country's economy, through which the First Family greatly
benefited.

Suharto and Liem Sioe Liong had been financial companions
dating back to the days when the former general commanded the
Diponegoro
Divisions in
Central Java. Since ascending to the Presidency, the first major deals the partnership produced
were the Bogasari flourmills in Surabaya and Jakarta in 1972, to mill US PL-480, foreign aid
wheat. Now, after twenty-six years at the nation's helm, the First Family controlled more than
twenty foundations which owned stakes in a plethora of large corporations such as cement
factories, timber concessions, oil palm plantations, fertilizer factories and even the country's
largest private bank. And, this was still not enough.

The President controlled the Judiciary, Parliament, and
the Military. He personally appointed the Central Bank Governor, the Chairman of the Security and
Exchange Commission and the CEOs of state-owned companies. And he wanted more.

Such was the power and extent of the Suharto Empire, the
children entered adulthood distanced from reality, oblivious to the groundswell building against
their family, unaware that their country had become a tinder-box of poverty and bitterness, ready
to erupt.

More recently, the family had consolidated its interests
in Timor, determined to control the oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea, and in Natuna's
gigantic gas fields in the South China Sea. Now, after thirty years of Suharto rule, they had
accumulated tens of billions of American dollars in wealth, owned a sprawling array of businesses
from satellite communications to airlines, plantations, vehicle assembly plants and even public
utilities. The children had acquired luxurious mansions, ranches and hotels in Britain, Bermuda,
Hawaii, Germany, Australia and Singapore, their lifestyles a far cry from that of Indonesia's
landless peasants and slum dwellers, who, even if they were successful in finding work, would be
forced to survive on as little as a dollar per day. With numbered bank accounts in Switzerland,
Austria and Singapore, to hide their billions, the First Family went on the international
acquisition trail purchasing fine art, golf courses, condominiums, yachts and private jets, the
latter used to ferry the sons to casinos in Australia. And still, this was not enough. With his
eyes firmly fixed on the mining sector, the younger Suharto had decided to ask for his father's
intervention, to enable him to acquire holdings in foreign mining joint ventures that had
commenced production in Indonesia.

And, when this was granted, the son went after
Kalimantan's gold.

****

Stewart Campbell shuffled through the committee welcoming
line, past an array of flowers that were shaped more like the traditional, Western funeral
wreaths than celebratory or welcoming arrangements, and entered the Grand Hyatt's Sir Stamford
Room function venue on the first floor. He accepted a cocktail from one of the many waiters
weaving through the assembly, smiled, acknowledged a number of associates and friends, then eased
his way through the sea of locally tailored, black-tie dinner jackets and cocktail dresses to
join a group of Asian engineers he had met earlier that day.

A banner dominating one wall welcomed delegates to the
14th South East Asian Mining Conference, the elegant setting and surrounds standing in
contradiction to the theme-decorated ballroom, the three meter, black and white photographs
depicting mining scenes on the opposing wall in brutal contrast to the original designer's
perception, of a fine-dining venue.

Campbell leaned closer to the young woman offering an
opinion as to why Singapore had achieved recognition as the only, real safe-banking haven in
Asia, the crowded room's chatter reaching deafening levels with inhibition-reduced, alcohol
levels loosening tongues and raising self-import. Waiters glided past carrying silver
hors
d'oeuvres
trays laden with smoked salmon
coq au vin
, pickled quail eggs dotted with
neon-green
Tobilko
caviar, butterfly prawns, and miniature spring rolls, the guests
washing these down with generous swills of
Clos des Goisses
champagne with little, if any
understanding of the gift offered by the preciously-nurtured grape. Campbell continued to listen,
politely, to the soft-spoken Singaporean delegate as she struggled to be heard above the
competing rabble.

‘…and, added to which, the incredible inflow of funds from
Indonesia contributed greatly to Singapore's prosperity,' she paused, losing the opportunity to
another and more verbose government type, whose dominance over the conversation had already
driven others away.

‘In my opinion, …' the bureaucrat started. Campbell,
feigning having caught the attention of a familiar face across the room, used this pretext as an
excuse to move away. He edged his way through the gathering, now determined to touch base with a
number of colleagues then escape to a lesser-congested environment. He squeezed through the
throng towards a more subdued group, the noise level abating considerably as he distanced himself
from the bar service area.

A hand touched the small of his back and he turned, the
tall and long-waisted woman confronting him so breathtakingly beautiful that, for an
uncomfortable moment, Stewart Campbell was struck speechless.

‘Mister Campbell?' Stewart's surprise turned to acute
embarrassment when his tongue failed to respond, so stunned was he with the stunningly, graceful
creature standing before him. ‘I'm Sharon Ducay. You
are
Stewart Campbell?' the woman
challenged, the suggestion of her beguiling perfume momentarily confusing Campbell even
further.

‘Yes.' He managed an awkward smile then, near apoplectic
when a guest behind stepped back inadvertently nudging him forward, causing Campbell to spill his
cocktail onto the Filipino beauty's full-length, pink, beaded cocktail dress.

‘Oh, God, I'm so sorry!' he exclaimed, weakly, the damp
patch spreading down the woman's front from breast to thigh. For a moment he imagined her eyes on
fire, the ever-so-brief flash of anger evident, before misinterpreted dismay transposed to
grievous surprise.

‘
Mister Campbell!'
Sharon Ducay raised her hands, palms opened as if in religious gesture, first looking down at her
stained,
Javier Larrainzar
gown, then up into his eyes as if he had committed the most
heinous of crimes.

‘I'm so sorry,' Campbell offered, lamely, conscious of
having attracted the attention of other guests in close proximity, ‘but I was bumped.' And to
substantiate his claim, Stewart turned and glared at the responsible but inebriated guest
alongside, hoping to apportion blame. Then, ‘I'm deeply embarrassed,' he offered, truly
distressed at his clumsiness, even though responsibility for the accident lay
elsewhere.