“Love you more.”
Katie had no cat.
Seven minutes later, Roarke’s phone rang again.
“Hon,” Katie said over the noise of traffic.
Roarke heard the cars. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, probably nothing, but….”
“Where are you?”
“A phone booth at Cambridge and Charles.”
Roarke closed his eyes and pictured the spot. It was just outside of a drugstore, near the Longfellow Bridge.
“You called from a phone booth before, too. What’s the matter?”
“Scott, would I know if my phone was being tapped?”
“Tapped!” He suddenly bolted upright from his chair.
“Does it have a different sound?” she wondered.
“When did you notice?”
“Two days ago.”
Roarke mentally reran their conversations together. Two days ago? What the fuck did we talk about? Two days ago?
“Maybe I’m imagining things…”
He raised his hand to stop her, even though she couldn’t see him. “Hold it!” He quickly organized his thoughts. “Tomorrow, you’re going to get a flower delivery. The people will fuss all over you, and it’ll take a little time. You’ll invite them into your office. Casually close the door. They’re going to check the phones. They can do it very quickly. They’ll do the same at your home, so don’t alarm your apartment.”
Katie became more nervous. This was real. “I don’t know,” she said nervously.
“Everything will be fine. I promise. And you can keep the flowers. They’ll be from me.”
Roarke’s father used to joke that his boy was like a salmon — always forcing himself through the surging current. That current took on many forms.
As a kid, Roarke stood up to the gangs in his neighborhood. Having a black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Master Jun Chong worked in his favor.
Years later, his Special Forces training made him lethal. Anyone who didn’t get out of his way never got a second chance.
Now, Roarke’s instincts were taking him upstream again, into more troubled waters.
Roarke called his friend Shannon Davis, who quickly and easily arranged for an FBI team, disguised as florists, to go in and sweep Katie’s office. When they finished there, they’d do the same thing at her apartment.
Assuming that she was right and her phone was tapped, Roarke had three immediate concerns: Who? Why? And what did they expect to find?
Chapter 19
Nutmeg and cloves. The exotic spices could have been the Holy Grail, considering what nations went through to locate their source.
Indian, Javan, and Arab traders introduced the spices to Medieval Europe. They were valued for more than merely the flavors they added to food. The cloves, called cegkeh in Indonesian, are the pungent-scented, pale-green flower buds of the syzigium aromaticum tree. Picked and left to dry to a dark brown, their chemical properties preserve meat. Therein lay its real value. As a result, in an age long before refrigeration, every major seafaring nation of Europe sought to locate the natural growing grounds and control the market.
The quest sent Columbus in search of the fabled Spice Islands. But, of course, he ended up in the New World. The Portuguese, credited as the first actual Europeans to set foot on the South Pacific islands, couldn’t hold onto their spoils. Other sailors, under the flag of Spain, moved in. They introduced Christianity and terror. In 1861, Holland took control, establishing the United East Indies Company. The Dutch mercilessly ruled the islands, killing the indigenous people, leveling plantations where natives rebelled, and enslaving those they kept alive. The Dutch subsequently drove out foreign rivals, thus delivering huge profits home in their monopolistic, dictatorial exploitation of the Spice Islands.
The Dutch strongly believed they had made a lasting conquest. However, years of warfare, starvation, and depopulation accompanied the autocratic Dutch rule. Their dominion continued until they presided over most of what eventually became the Republic of Indonesia. But it was the marketplace that unseated Holland’s ruthless monopoly of the Spice Islands, not a coup. Gradually, smugglers managed to ship the islands’ seeds overseas. In time, the world no longer needed to rely on Banda, Ternate, Ambon, and Maluku for the answer to food preservation. They could grow the spices closer to home.
What little trade remained into the 20th century virtually disappeared with the Japanese occupation in World War II.
The Japanese ousted the Dutch in just under ten days. Initially the conquerors were welcomed. But Japan immediately established an even more brutal rule, marked by further famine, slavery, and executions.
Two days after Japan surrendered to the Allies, Indonesia proclaimed its independence. The government was loosely held together by an unstable coalition dominated by the Socialists and the conservative Muslim Masyumi party.
Sukarno emerged as the first president. He established a “guided” democracy, which fell apart through regional and factional problems. In 1959, he assumed full dictatorial powers, and four years later anointed himself President for Life. He cozied up to Communist China and withdrew Indonesia from the United Nations.
Despite his self-proclamation, Sukarno did not remain president. A 1965 coup d’etat led to the military takeover by General Suharto at the cost of between 500,000 and a million dead. Suharto had opposed the pro-Communist policies, and became first acting president and then president in 1968, supported by students, the Army, and Muslim factions.
He remained in office, re-elected every five years, until he resigned in 1998 amidst allegations of corruption, which were later dismissed.
In recent years, Indonesian governance has changed numerous times. As a result, good PR alternates with reports of terrorism; adventure travel features compete for print space with stories chronicling human rights violations. As for Maluku’s two million inhabitants — they largely live in poverty.
To this day, cloves and nutmeg remain a limited export of Maluku. Commander Umar Komari sowed other seeds — seeds of terrorism. He was driven by personal devils: the desire to punish the world for exploiting the Malukus and slaughtering its people. He was also determined to establish complete Muslim control over the Christian non-believers.
He examined the weapons from the last transaction.
“Pitiful. Barely bows and arrows,” he told his subordinate, Musah Atef.
“Shabu production will pick up. Soon, the Chinese will deliver our missiles. Jakarta will tremble and tumble. We shall have our way.”
“Allah be praised,” the terrorist proclaimed.
His men echoed their reverence with the same words.
Komari had made promises to hungry men: men who followed him for food and believed in his cause. Word spread through the islands. More recruits came daily. His ranks had swelled. Komari scattered his camps and supplies over dozens of islands on the east side of Halmahera and throughout the coves of Maluku’s peninsulas. His enclaves were invisible to many probing satellites, but not all. Arms and food remained the only obstacles between Komari and the coup he planned. Komari would secure both.
When Henry Lamden ran for office, he had no real conception of how much bad news presidents had to hear. Now, five months into the job, the next phone call was not entirely unexpected.
“Mr. President.”
“Mr. Prime Minister,” Lamden replied. “It’s good to hear your voice. I look forward to meeting you in August.”
“Quite right. I understand we’re to have dinner.”