Power and Empire

The sorghum was thick enough now that he had to drop back down and belly-crawl. The tops of the plants rattled and hissed when they brushed together, brittle and heavy with grain. He moved as quickly as possible, taking care not to disturb the stalks any more than necessary. Only a trained observer would be able to see the ripple of his approach by watching the tops of the plants.

Clark heard the distant splash of someone taking a morning swim in a pool. He estimated the house to be less than a hundred meters away now. Crawling, he tapped the Wilson Combat with his elbow, habitually making sure it was still in the holster where he’d left it. Ahead, the plants began to thin and Clark found himself entering a small clearing. A mound of fresh earth, roughly two feet high and at least eight feet wide, blocked his path. Beyond the dirt pile, at the far edge of the clearing, rutted tracks ran between the grain rows toward the house.

Clark dropped flat, his chest to the damp earth, scanning the edge of the clearing. He turned his head as he looked, knowing from experience he could miss important elements of danger if he moved only his eyes. Searching inch by inch, foot by foot, he searched for anything out of the ordinary — game cameras, tripwires, fishhooks strung at eye level.

Just inches from his nose, half an earthworm hung from a ball of roots and sod, exposed to the air, cut in two by whatever tool had been used to turn the clods. The worm was still moist, telling Clark the dig was recent, probably during the hours of darkness. Small piles of tiny white pellets were visible here and there among the clods of rich black soil. At first glance he took the white stuff for fertilizer, but he inched forward, getting a closer look. He rolled one of the gray BBs between a thumb and forefinger — he moved forward immediately, scuttling around the edge of the piled dirt, dreading but knowing what he would find. He fought the urge to vomit as he came to the lip of a hole dug in the middle of the clearing, eight by eight feet square and four or five feet deep. At the bottom of the pit, from beneath a layer of dirt and pellets of kitty litter, the pale fingers of a delicate hand reached toward the sky.

26

Mamat bin Ahmad sat on an overturned wooden crate with his back to the trunk of a tall coconut palm, gazing out to sea, when the satellite phone in his lap gave a startling chirp. He and his men were on the southern shores of the Indonesian island of Buru, within easy pouncing distance of any passing pleasure craft — if one would only pass. The window for their operation was small. He’d already received an earlier call informing him that the USS Rogue had passed Timor-Leste hours before. The American Cyclone-class patrol ship was steaming north from a recent stop at HMAS Coonawarra, the Australian naval base in Darwin, where it would join the Philippine and Malaysian military vessels in a joint antipiracy patrol of the Sulu Sea.

Mamat had been expecting the second call and kept the satellite phone’s plastic antenna extended and oriented toward the sky. Even so, the sudden noise made him jump and he very nearly dropped the device in the sand. All his men were jumpy — it was understandable, considering their mission — but they needed leadership and, mercifully, did not seem to notice his fumbling.

Mamat was a young man, not yet twenty-five years old. Had he been a happier sort, his intensely white teeth would have shone through a broad smile. But since his father had died, his family had known nothing but poverty. His older sister had run off with a Dirty Joe — one of the older American or European men who came to Southeast Asia looking for a wife. His mother cleaned hotel rooms for wealthy tourists in the Indonesian city of Manado — but she was perpetually sick. Mamat’s father had fully expected his son to follow his path. Men in his family had fished for generations. Mamat learned about boats and became a better-than-average sailor, but the tenets of Jemaah Islamiyah lured him away while he was in his teens. JI provided stability — and, even more important, a cause higher than living hand-to-mouth as a simple fisherman. Mamat’s parents were both devout Muslims, observing a strict Ramadan or meticulously making up missed days when illness made fasting impossible. But even they saw things in moderation.

Moderation bored Mamat almost as much as fishing did. The leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah taught him that the one path lay in complete devotion — a religious zeal that allowed no room for moderation or compromise. Yes, Mamat knew boats, but his true skills lay in other areas. Recent interactions with members of Abu Sayyaf had made him witness to enough bloodshed that a surprise chirp should not have startled him — but it did, because this was no ordinary call.