Ninety-Five: Influence

The fire had already been put out. It died down not long after the explosion, because there was little in the warehouse to burn besides the munitions. The firefighters extinguished it in no time, and then they, together with the police who arrived afterward, gathered up the shattered remains of more than a hundred Indonesian soldiers scattered everywhere by the blast.

The sight was so grotesque that the firefighters and police on the scene all vomited. Even many of the military police who arrived later retched on the spot. The atmosphere there was unbearably vile. One foreign journalist who had been present later said, “At that moment, I felt as though I were in hell.”

General Bondi Avalon looked over the scene of utter ruin and asked an Indonesian major in charge of security:

“No surviving soldiers?”

“Report, sir! So far, we have not found a single survivor. By my judgment, we are not likely to find any. I have roughly examined the blast site. The explosion was deliberately caused by human hands. There were more than a dozen blast points, arranged very skillfully, and they destroyed the entire warehouse with ease. I believe someone attacked our guards, then slipped inside and set off the explosion. In an explosion this massive, no one within two hundred meters could have survived. The shockwave would have killed them with ease. And the blast happened exactly when the soldiers were resting, so I do not believe these men had any chance of escape. Sir, I think someone has declared war on us! We were ambushed! We just do not yet know who our enemy is!”

“Search for every possible clue that might lead us to the culprit. I will report this to the Minister of Defense at once. Recover the bodies of all the fallen soldiers, and bring me the full records on this munitions warehouse. I will need them shortly. Drive away the police and the firefighters. Tell them this is now under military control. Send the foreign journalists away too, but be careful not to use force against them, especially the Americans. General Yabu, do you have any orders?”

“No,” General Yabu answered in a dull voice.

The major saluted both men, then hurried away.

“General Bondi!” General Yabu said softly, “We are in serious trouble.”

“You may not know this, but this warehouse is the largest military munitions depot in Jakarta. It held the new American equipment we had just received from the United States government, intended to rearm the Presidential Guard. And now it has all been blown to pieces. I do not even know how I am going to explain this to the President. That equipment cost him a great deal of money. My friend, you have to help me now. Helping me now is the same as helping yourself. Neither of us can escape responsibility. The munitions depot falls under logistics administration, yes, but the soldiers assigned to guard it were yours, my friend. So your share of the blame is no small matter.”

“I know that. But what can we do now? What has happened has happened. We can only leave it to fate. I need to go back, sort out the records, and then see the Minister. I will not keep you company.”

“What am I supposed to do here alone? I might as well go with you to see the Minister and save us some trouble,” General Yabu said with a bitter smile.

Under the escort of their soldiers, the two generals left the blast site in heavy silence.

Wei Hua sat on a crate of munitions, idly and cheerfully toying with an M40 sniper rifle while considering his next move.

The enormous explosion he had set off had, in fact, worked against his next plan, at least by delaying it. According to his original intention, once he had acquired the explosives, he would send extortion letters to plantation owners of every size in and around Jakarta, giving them a deadline to come up with varying sums of U.S. dollars to buy their lives, his own life, and his family’s as well.

In the letter, he had made one thing especially clear: he wanted U.S. dollars only, not Indonesian rupiah. At the end, he had added that gold would also be acceptable.

By Wei Hua’s estimate, no one who received that first extortion letter would likely pay. Most plantation owners would not take it seriously. The more cautious ones might report it to the police, but Wei Hua was certain nobody would obediently hand over the money. That was exactly what he hoped for, because money was not his real aim. What he wanted was to make these plantation owners afraid.

Once the deadline he had set expired, he would choose several especially vile plantation owners and make an example of them by sending them straight to hell.

But now the streets of Jakarta were full of police and soldiers, and he could not move about freely. His plan could not be carried out. He would have to wait until the police and soldiers outside had withdrawn before he could begin his extortion campaign.

On May 14, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry held a press conference and released the details of the bombing to the public, with special emphasis on the losses the Indonesian government had suffered. The ministry spokesman said that the Indonesian government had come under a terrorist attack, that it would soon find those responsible and bring them to justice, and that the government reserved the right to retaliate against the organization that had planned and carried out the bombing.

In truth, this was a deeply humiliating statement. Three days after the attack, no terrorist organization had issued any declaration claiming responsibility.

All of Indonesia’s law enforcement agencies were fully mobilized. After more than ten days of intensive searches, they still found no useful clues about the bombing. The only result was that public order in Jakarta improved considerably.

Seeing this, Suharto ordered the case transferred to the intelligence branch of the Indonesian military, to be handled by military intelligence. Their analysis concluded that this had been a long-planned terrorist attack, carried out by highly trained professionals after long and specialized preparation. There was no such organization in Indonesia itself, so the culprit had to be from a foreign terrorist group, and the attackers had most likely already left Indonesia.

Thus, after more than ten days of anxiety and fear among the citizens of Jakarta, the city gradually returned to its former bustle and noise.

Readers, please keep your support coming!