The Timor Man (45 page)

Seda acknowledged that he had very little time. The opportunity would not last, he knew, as he understood how these Javanese and Sumatrans thought. He could predict exactly how they would react.

First, they would talk. Then they would ask to meet with all the groups with vested interests. These would consist of companies and individuals with existing contracts with the government. Together they would evaluate the financial benefit of agreeing to support any proposed invasion. Future timber concessions would be promised.

Infrastructure contracts, perhaps supported by future international aid funds would be pledged and ownership of cement plants and rice silos would be agreed. Only when the Chinese money men were satisfied that their sector would maintain their monopoly of any future expansion into the new territory would they throw their economic support behind the government's leader.

Seda smiled.

There would be, of course, a substantial increase in military supplies required to match whatever the Indonesian forces encountered. This would further swell his coffers. And Coleman's.

He thought about the Australian. Their relationship had been very rewarding. The General had clearly believed, however, that the foreigner would always be the one weak link which could compromise the security of not only his person but also the complicated strategy he had embarked upon years before. This was the primary reason for the ongoing surveillance.

It hadn't been difficult. Not in his capacity as the head of the military's intelligence services. After all, any foreigner involved in supplying the Armed Forces with weapons and other equipment could jeopardize national security at any time. Coleman was watched around the clock seven days a week by a now, expert surveillance team which reported only to the BAKIN office. Umar Suharjo kept a close eye on the reports and advised Seda whenever anything unusual occurred.

The General was sceptical about the need to employ another foreigner, but Coleman had insisted that Hart was not only competent but essential to their overseas dealings. They had agreed that Hart's access to the more sensitive workings of their
kongsi
remain restricted. The General reminded his associate that should anyone else become aware of their relationship then they would both suffer the consequences.

“
You wouldn't even get to the airport, Mas,
” he had warned, “
they would have you picked up and secreted away in some unknown place. They'd have you locked tight where even your Embassy would never find you. As for me...
” he did not finalize, leaving the words hanging in the air.

Seda was pleased to see Coleman shudder at the thought of being incarcerated in some secret place miles away from any possibility of assistance from the Australian authorities. It had happened before, during the post
coup
period. Many thousands had disappeared.

Seda's thoughts returned to the Timor border. He considered the likely reaction of the Indonesian leadership to any provocative or threatening action. Fearing that the small population would swing completely to the Left and threaten the Republic's internal security could, he knew, provide sufficient justification in their minds to strike first. They would panic and move the troops into the Indonesian, and western, half of the island.

World opinion would prevent Indonesia from crossing the border, but would not prohibit Timor from standing up for itself against its giant neighbour.

He extracted a file from his briefcase and opened the aerial reconnaissance reports. Seda brooded over the map. He considered the shipments that were to be increased in frequency now unforeseen events had almost overtaken his own well-laid plans.

Already Umar had positioned more than twenty substantial caches in the rugged eastern part of Timor near the foot of Ramelau Mountain. As many again had also been distributed to the guerrillas. The remaining weapons would be secure, as local inhabitants rarely ventured up into these difficult areas. Only occasionally did the villagers scratch around in the jungle in search of the wildlife for food. The hills were abundant with deer, monkey and the cuscus, which were trapped for sale to the occasional tourist as foreigners were fond of the marsupial.

Afurther fifteen caches of supplies had been hidden on the slopes of the hilly island of Kambing, almost within view of the fishing village. The small airport had been considered should airdrops become necessary, but Seda vetoed his own idea as the runway would attract too much scrutiny. The new series of Hughes'satellites were now keeping the regional hot spot under close surveillance for the American intelligence community.

He realized that additional shipments needed to be delivered without delay. As the separatists had only now being given limited supplies from some of his secret hoard, he estimated that to arm at least five thousand men would take a much greater logistical effort and a sizable portion of his funds.

Thinking quickly, Seda commenced organizing shipments in his mind, calculating the fire power he could arrange for delivery to Dili, Manatulo and Tutuala over the following weeks.

The company had offshore stockpiles ready for shipment but these would need to be replenished as the number of supporters grew.

‘
The Cuban weapons will be very appropriate
,' he decided.

Ever since Angola fell to the Marxists, Cuba had sent, not just sophisticated weaponry to assist with the civil war now well under way in the former Portuguese colony, but also more than five thousand Cuban special forces who had trained in the jungles of South America.

 

The weapons Seda considered Cuban were actually Russian and Czechoslovakian in origin. These were not made in Cuba, merely shipped via the Communist country. The Cuban negotiators had also offered to send their own advisers and, at the time, Coleman had burst out laughing thinking that the offer had been made in jest. He was not aware of the intended destination of the weapons under negotiation. Coleman was later surprised to discover that the Central Americans were extremely serious with their offer to provide highly trained soldiers to operate the more sophisticated equipment.

Privately, they had also negotiated directly with members of the Front for the Liberation of Timor to provide five hundred experienced soldiers, directly from the killing fields of Angola. The funding for these advisers was to be provided by the Castro regime as a gift of friendship to fellow Revolutionary Freedom Fighters working together against the Neo-Colonial Powers. When the original offer had been made, one of the misinformed negotiators had incorrectly assumed that Coleman was aware that these shipments would be sent to Dili and other East Timor destinations. Fortunately the Australian had replied, unaware that the arms dealer had committed a serious error.

“Not really applicable, gentlemen,” he had explained recovering from a coughing fit, the result of suppressing a laugh, “it is unlikely that the Indonesians would accept assistance from your country at this stage. ”

One of the team had stepped forward and jabbed the errant speaker, warning him sharply in Spanish to hold his tongue or lose it. Fortunately Coleman had not picked up on the man's
faux pas
.

Seda had smiled when Stephen had met briefly with him in Bangkok and related the incident, but was immediately concerned with the possibility of foreign nationals, particularly soldiers, entering the game. The General realized that this could be enough to force the Indonesian military to occupy East Timor should they discover the existence of Cuban troops on their borders.

“
Could you believe that these guys were deadly earnest?”
he had said to the General,
“they actually believed that they could just drop a hundred or so of their troops into Indonesia if you gave them the order.
”

Nevertheless, Seda needed the Cuban shipments and ordered Stephen to finalize the transaction then ship the weapons to Macau pending on-forwarding instructions. Seda had never felt the need to explain the nature of the orders to the Australian and had suggested during the embryonic development of their business relationship that for Stephen to have such knowledge of Indonesian military affairs would not be appropriate.

Stephen had always been under the impression that all of the shipments left Macau for Jakarta. When orders were placed, his instructions were explicit. The consignments were to be broken into smaller shipments for Umar.

The rest had been relatively easy. Seda now had sufficient firepower already in place to start his own civil war. But not enough to prevent one of the scale that was imminent unless he moved quickly. Assisted by the skilful Umar Suharjo and his uncanny ability to select the right time and place to move the secret cargo, the staggeringly expensive cashes of weapons had grown dramatically. The profits from the HANKAM contracts had mounted until even Coleman's share exceeded his expectations. He had become an exceedingly wealthy man. Over five years they had shared rewards of a scale so great even many major companies would have been pleased to see such profits posted in their balance sheets.

And it was all tax free!

This was to be Seda's new war chest.

 

The General phoned Stephen in his office, his impatience causing him to violate one of his own strict rules relating to their covert activities. Coleman was not available. Annoyed, he summoned Umar. His partner had been enjoying himself in the Captain's Bar of the Mandarin Hotel when the assistant front desk manager approached and discreetly passed the message.

He phoned immediately. Stephen listened attentively to the instructions and closed the connection by simply answering ‘yes'to the other party knowing that this would be sufficient. He disliked using the hotel phones. They were rarely secure. As he turned back to his friends a burst of raucous laughter exploded from the men he'd been drinking with minutes before.

“Missed a good one, Stephen,” the burly red-faced insurance consultant belched, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes to remove tears of laughter.

“Tell it again, Alister, we won't mind,” urged one of their number.

“It's okay, fellows,” Stephen offered, looking at the time, “probably heard it before anyway. ”

“Give us another round,” he ordered casually, drawing an imaginary circle in the air with his finger indicating to the barman that everyone at the bar should have a drink on his account.

Immediately several of the drinkers changed from beer to scotch or other expensive spirits. Stephen didn't care, he knew most of them reasonably well and it was more or less expected of him. His success over the years had its down side. Petty jealousies and the occasional snide remark no longer offended him. He accepted that this occasional reaction went with the territory of being wealthy. After all, he was born in the country with the worst ‘tall poppy' syndrome in the Western world.

He observed Greg Hart. His assistant seemed to be doing really well these days. Stephen appreciated the importance of sound administration but readily admitted his lack of interest in what he described as ‘day to day drudgery'. Fortunately Hart's expertise and willingness to focus on the mechanics compensated for Stephen's indifference. Since Hart appeared to relish the monotonous regularity of compiling statistical reports day after day, Coleman was content to leave it entirely to him.

He caught Hart's eye and indicated by tapping his watch that he would soon leave the gathering. The man acknowledged with a slight nod then turned his attention back to the end of yet another story, this time related by one of the better raconteurs their expatriate community offered.

Having missed the story's beginning, Stephen was content to stand back and view their reactions to each other as the foreigners participated in what was almost a tribal tradition, practised during the extended lunch hour. He recognized that most of those gathered around the bar were no longer just social drinkers. They had passed those acceptable barriers years before. Without any self-imposed limitations regarding their consumption the majority were not concerned with the volume of alcohol which passed their lips in an almost dedicated fashion. Every day they would meet, drink furiously, while only consuming a limited volume of solids, and then leave for yet another and probably less respectable drinking hole to fill in their otherwise empty afternoons. And empty lives.

Many of these men had been employed on a two or three-year contract knowing that the clock had started and already their time was running out. Most were unemployable in the more normal working environments. They had developed the skills of the permanent expatriate and with these skills the knowledge that they would never achieve their long forgotten ambitions. Consequently, they were content to float along as the ‘token' foreigner, often employed only to make up the foreign investors' numbers required by law to sit on their management boards.

As the noise level had risen somewhat he knew that the group wouldn't miss his presence. Following another peal of laughter Stephen excused himself with a half-hearted wave and called for his car. He was surprised that the General had, in fact, breached their established system of contact. The General had never attempted to contact Stephen, directly, before and he was anxious to discover what Seda considered so imperative that the security of their relationship could be ignored. Agitated by the breach and annoyed at the distance he would now have to travel, he climbed into the red Mercedes and prepared for the long drive.