Indonesian Gold (74 page)

‘
I don't understand, Papa.
'

‘At this moment, neither do I. What would the government
do in the event of a foreign employee being killed?'

Angela rubbed her tired brow.
‘I don't know what the
requirements would be under the Foreign Investment Law. My mind is too confused to
think.'

‘If this woman… Sharon?'
he peered up and his daughter nodded.
‘If Sharon dies, someone else benefits. But, if
Sharon is only thought to be the one to die, then it's she who benefits. There can no other
logical explanation.'

‘
What should we do?
'

‘I don't know. Let me think.'

‘What about him?'
Udir
asked, panic deepening in the soldier's belly – he sensed they were discussing his
fate.

‘
Wait. He might still be useful.
'

****

Longdamai Mining Operations

A mood of restlessness permeated the camp. Campbell, still
troubled by his recent near-death experience was amongst the first to rise when the Moslem
laborers' dawn call to prayer sounded, depriving all others of sleep. He bathed, bucketing water
over head and body, then dressed and wandered over to the mess in search of coffee, surprised to
find Sharon Ducay already there.

‘Can't sleep?' he sat down beside her.

‘Just waiting for the others to come alive so I can bid
everyone farewell.' Sharon deliberately projected herself as deeply depressed; it was part of the
game.

‘Farewell? What, now?'

‘I have temporary use of the chopper. I'm leaving in
another hour or so.'

‘You're packed?'

‘Ready to load,' Sharon's nervousness was not evident.
Tired, from having not slept for days, her final exit from the scene was almost
anti-climactic.

Campbell
was shocked by her
appearance. Her clothes had that crushed appearance of having been slept in. ‘Are you okay?' he
asked, genuinely concerned – it looked like she'd been crying.

Sharon
sighed heavily, the
actress in her taking charge now. She cast a despondent look around the camp then surrendered her
hands

to the air. ‘No, I'm not okay.'

‘What is it?'

Nestling chin on palm, her glum expression disguised the
spark behind her eyes. ‘It's nothing.'

‘Can't be nothing,' he insisted. ‘I know we haven't gotten
along over the past weeks, but that was professional. Tell me, what's the problem?'

Sharon
lowered her eyes and
shook her head slowly. ‘It's stupid.'

‘So, okay, it's stupid. Still, might help if we talk about
it.'

Misty-eyed, she lifted her chin. ‘Guess I've been a right
bitch, huh?'

Campbell
smiled comfortingly.
‘I've met worse.'

‘Stewart,' she opened, following with well-rehearsed
lines, ‘have you ever wanted something so desperately that it completely consumes your life,
everything you do, your thoughts from the moment you wake, until the day is finished? Then, when
it's finally in your grasp it just slips away and there's nothing you can do to prevent what's
happening? It's as if, suddenly, everything you've worked for has had no meaning, that you've
been traveling down the wrong road all of your life and come to a dead end – left with nothing
but a sense of failure?'

Since the takeover announcement, Campbell had regretted
Baron's refusal to retain Sharon Ducay's services. At this precise moment, he felt deeply
sympathetic towards her. Even though Longdamai was her discovery, it would be others who would
benefit from the accolades and, with time, Sharon's name would be forgotten. ‘I don't think any
of us could begin to understand what you've been through – how you feel, particularly today. For
what it's worth, Sharon, you go with my respect – for what you've achieved, here, and for the
professional that you are. And, I'm sure that I'm not alone in expressing these
sentiments.'

She touched the corners of her eyes with the cuff of a
sleeve. ‘Thank you, Stewart, that means a great deal to me.' ‘Hey, look on the bright side,' he
attempted lightly, ‘by tomorrow you'll be sitting in a cozy tub with a drink in one hand
thinking

about your future, while we're still standing around
concrete slabs throwing buckets of cold water over ourselves, one eye on the soap, the other on
the lookout for snakes!'

Her pretense at a smile was superb; Campbell thought he
saw her bottom lip tremble. ‘Guess you're right. I'm being stupid.'

‘Hey, Sharon,' he tried to grin, ‘no one's ever gonna
accuse
you
of that!'

She thanked him with another nod. ‘Make sure you're
standing there waving when I leave. Who knows, you might be the only one.'

‘To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind joining you,
Sharon,' Campbell's remark causing her to choke on the coffee.

Sharon
recovered from her
coughing fit, moving quickly to prevent this possibility from eventuating. ‘Well, if it were up
to me, I wouldn't mind having you, Stewart,' she offered, sweetly, ‘but, unfortunately, there's
no space available.' Her mind raced. ‘The Colonel wants the pilot to pick up some of his men and
ferry them downriver.' On a roll, her confidence sliding up a gear, she continued with the
fabrication. ‘I'm lucky to have been given a ride. Besides, aren't you now locked in here until
Baron restarts the drilling?'

‘With what's happening, they're likely to put everything
on hold until the locals are sorted.'

‘You'll be okay,' she reached over and patted his hand
patronizingly; the American failing to observe her missing rings. ‘Anyway, you have your little
woman to watch over you, don't you?' Smug, Sharon could not resist, wondering how Campbell would
react if he knew what was actually on her mind.

Campbell
let the sarcasm ride.
He was not in the mood, especially so early in the day. ‘Where do you go from here?'

‘I don't have any immediate plans other than to get on
that helicopter, go to Samarinda and catch the first flight out of this country.'

‘Take my advice. Go home. Spend some time with your
family. It usually works.'

Sharon
couldn't believe her
luck. Her face fell, her shoulders slumped, and she looked away, willing the tears to flow. ‘I
don't have any family. They're all gone.'

‘Everyone?' Wishing he'd kept his suggestions to himself,
Campbell felt the lead form in his stomach. ‘You have no one at all?'

‘My parents and the other children died in an aircraft
accident. My uncle raised me. He passed away about the time you arrived here on site.'

Campbell
now believed he
understood the reason for her aggressive behavior from the moment he'd set foot in camp. His
timing could not have been worse. She had been grieving and, to compound her loss, she had been
formally advised of her termination as chief of operations and senior geologist.
No wonder
she'd been pissed!
‘Jesus, Sharon, I'm sorry. Why didn't you say something?'

Sharon
's demeanor assumed the
persona of an abandoned urchin. She rose, found a handkerchief in her jodhpurs and commenced
dabbing at eyes and nose. ‘I'm going to spend some time alone,' and walked away towards her
cabin, leaving Campbell convinced that she was, indeed, seriously depressed.

****

‘Have you seen Mardidi anywhere?' Baird, frantic that his
partner might have fallen into the river, skidded into uncertainty. ‘No, can't say that I have,'
Campbell was now halfway through a combination of fried rice and eggs. ‘Why, what's the
problem?'

‘It's just so out of character for him not to wake me in
the morning,' Baird's eyes continued to search. ‘Do you think he might be with
Angela?'

‘Could be,' Campbell was aware that Mardidi often spent
time looking after her chores. ‘Why not ask?'

Baird headed for Angela's cabin, Campbell still too tired
to smile at the geologist's early morning antics, expecting that Mardidi and the Australian had
another lover's tiff, and the young, Javanese lad was off in sulky silence, somewhere. With
heavier concerns burdening his mind, Campbell revisited his relationship with Angela, confused
with her recent and strangely erratic behavior.

****

Word of Sharon's imminent departure swept the mining camp,
many, delighted with the news. At precisely 0600 she surprised the Madurese laborers by dividing
her remaining possessions amongst their women, then, her head covered with the familiar,
wide-brimmed Akubra hat, she walked solemnly towards the
Kopassus
Airborne Iroquois
helicopter, and boarded. Investigators would later note that the Filipino had given away even the
most personal of items, adding to the speculation that she had climbed into the aircraft with
every intention to jump.

Sitting alongside the pilot, Sharon Ducay gazed
despondently from the cabin, an unseen hand stroking the Captain's thigh whilst the other waved
dramatically at those she'd left behind. One of the expatriate drillers gave her the finger,
which she ignored, blowing Stewart Campbell a kiss before turning away, with a white handkerchief
to an eye.

The air churned and the engine whined – the helicopter
rocked on its skids, dust driving the onlookers away. Suddenly, the machine rose and hovered with
uncertainty, the rotors lifting the chopper a few meters off the ground as it turned towards the
river, and commenced to climb.

Eric Baird followed the helicopter's ascent as it rose
over the coconut palms, squinting into the sun when it turned east. Sullenly, he kicked at the
ground, and swore. ‘I'm going to have Mardidi's guts for garters. If he'd been here in time, we
could have been on that flight.'

‘You haven't found him yet?' Campbell didn't feel the need
to explain that Mardidi's presence would have made little difference. Sharon had been explicitly
clear – space had already been allocated to others, downstream.

‘No. Stuffed if I know where the hell he could be. Checked
Angela's cabin, he wasn't there.'

‘Had she seen him at all?'

‘Who, Angela? Hell no. She wasn't there
either.'

Campbell
felt the grip on his
heart. ‘Have you checked everywhere around the camp?'

‘Everywhere except in the drillers' quarters. Do you think
he might have gone over there?'

Campbell
was not so certain.
‘I'll ask.'

As an experienced hand, Campbell knew that in mining
communities, nothing ever really went entirely unobserved. He spent the next hour talking to both
the Indonesian and expatriate drillers, checked their accommodations, and walked through the
galvanized iron-roofed dwellings that posed as housing for the Madurese laborers and their
families. By eight o'clock, he had already arrived at the conclusion that Angela Dau had returned
to her people and, for whatever reason, had taken Mardidi with her. They had been seen, together,
making their way towards the jetty – and one of the longboats was now missing.

****

Chapter Twenty-seven

 

Longhouse
Village
Island

 

Jonathan Dau cautioned the
Penehing
warrior.
‘Undo the laces first!'
The younger man nodded, turning back to the task of removing the
dead,
Kopassus
soldier's boots.

‘Bring the other one over here.'

‘Are you sure we can get away with this?'
Angela asked. At first, she had been mystified by her father's instructions,
watching with morbid curiosity as the dead soldier had been stripped of his camouflaged uniform,
then with alarm when the chief dressed in the man's clothes.

‘
Of one thing I am certain,‘Gela. They intend for you
to die. I don't understand what it is that makes this so important, but I do know that this
Filipino woman, Sharon, is obviously responsible for your demise. We must be as clever as
she.
'

‘
I never liked her from the start.
'

‘If you'd trusted your intuition more, perhaps we wouldn't
be here today?'

Angela quietly accepted the admonishment.
‘What do you
have planned for her?'

‘
Some of that old Dutch justice – an eye for an
eye.
'

‘You are going to kill her?'
Angela was not really surprised.

‘
She's deserving of the same end she'd planned for
you.
'

‘
How?
'
‘
Sharon
will take your place on the helicopter.
'
‘
How can we possibly arrange such a
switch?
'
‘That's where he
comes in.'
She followed her father's eyes to the
prisoner.