that the pirates source their weapons through a well-known local arms broker based in Jakarta, Wong Xiang. We think that he might be able to help us locate their lair, and the hijacked ship.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘My men tell me he’s at home in the city, sir. They’re getting ready to move in. Special agents from the Third Bureau’s Singapore field office.’
A smile also broke out on the face of Lieutenant General U Chun-su. The Third Bureau’s special agents were possibly the most highly trained killers in the world.
‘Very good, Ho,’ he conceded, before his smile turned to a scowl. ‘But you’d better hope that our cargo is still on board that fucking ship, or I’ll be sending those agents to see you right away afterwards. And they won’t be after information my friend,’ U teased with a gleam in his eye, ‘they’ll be after your fucking heart.’
2
Vietopia was located in an early twentieth century Dutch colonial storefront on Jalan Cikini Raya in central Jakarta. Cars were parked haphazardly right out front, and a second floor balcony ran the length of the block.
Cole observed the building from the shadows which covered the other side of the street, his first look at the place a simple walk-by.
He had researched Vietnamese restaurants in the city on the internet back in Cambodia, ensconcing himself in an internet café in Phnom Penh for a couple of hours before flying out to Jakarta on a fake passport. He was glad he’d kept his false documents and papers, credit cards and cash from his previous life, and was again forced to admit that he’d only bee n hibernating these past months; he had always known that he would have to reemerge at some stage.
Vietopia was the only such place in the city, and although information was scant, there were some pictures he memorized, as well as online maps of the area. He had been trained to quickly pick up on key areas on maps – public transport locations, points of interest, major streets and travel routes – and was able to build a mental picture of the city with incredible speed. He knew from experience that sometimes his life could depend on it.
He had also managed to worm his way into the secure computer files of the Office of t he Director of National Intelligence. He knew – like Charles Hansard before her – that Catalina dos Santos, as DNI, would have access to the combined intelligence of the CIA, DIA, DEA, Secret Service, ATF and NSA. Her office was a clearing house for the intelligence services; and what was more, Cole knew how to break into her system.
He had been pleased to see that security hadn’t measurably improved from when he’d hacked into Hansard’s system on a previous occasion. In fact, it turned out to be an easy job for a man of Cole’s skills; skills which had been taught to him by the top experts at the National Security Agency, and had actually – and ironically, as it turned out – been insisted on by Hansard himself, who had believed that cyber hacking was a vital skill for an independent operative.
He had scoured the system for information on both Liang Kebangkitan and Wong Xiang, but it was woefully thin on the ground. The only thing he learnt about the pirate group was that it supposedly favored northern Sumatra, and was led by a charismatic lifelong pirate named Arief Suprapto, who apparently believed that he was the reincarnation of the famous fifteenth century pirate king Liang Dao Ming.
There was a little more in the files about Wong Xiang, including a set of black and white surveillance photos from an ultimately aborted attempt to arrest him on arms smuggling charges in the late 1990s. He would undoubtedly look different now, but the ATF had kindly supplied a few computer-enhanced images of how he might possibly look after aging twenty years.
Wong’s file described he had been an officer in the army of the PRC, before absconding with an entire tank regiment, which he subsequently sold to African
‘Where is he now?’
‘My men tell me he’s at home in the city, sir. They’re getting ready to move in. Special agents from the Third Bureau’s Singapore field office.’
A smile also broke out on the face of Lieutenant General U Chun-su. The Third Bureau’s special agents were possibly the most highly trained killers in the world.
‘Very good, Ho,’ he conceded, before his smile turned to a scowl. ‘But you’d better hope that our cargo is still on board that fucking ship, or I’ll be sending those agents to see you right away afterwards. And they won’t be after information my friend,’ U teased with a gleam in his eye, ‘they’ll be after your fucking heart.’
2
Vietopia was located in an early twentieth century Dutch colonial storefront on Jalan Cikini Raya in central Jakarta. Cars were parked haphazardly right out front, and a second floor balcony ran the length of the block.
Cole observed the building from the shadows which covered the other side of the street, his first look at the place a simple walk-by.
He had researched Vietnamese restaurants in the city on the internet back in Cambodia, ensconcing himself in an internet café in Phnom Penh for a couple of hours before flying out to Jakarta on a fake passport. He was glad he’d kept his false documents and papers, credit cards and cash from his previous life, and was again forced to admit that he’d only bee n hibernating these past months; he had always known that he would have to reemerge at some stage.
Vietopia was the only such place in the city, and although information was scant, there were some pictures he memorized, as well as online maps of the area. He had been trained to quickly pick up on key areas on maps – public transport locations, points of interest, major streets and travel routes – and was able to build a mental picture of the city with incredible speed. He knew from experience that sometimes his life could depend on it.
He had also managed to worm his way into the secure computer files of the Office of t he Director of National Intelligence. He knew – like Charles Hansard before her – that Catalina dos Santos, as DNI, would have access to the combined intelligence of the CIA, DIA, DEA, Secret Service, ATF and NSA. Her office was a clearing house for the intelligence services; and what was more, Cole knew how to break into her system.
He had been pleased to see that security hadn’t measurably improved from when he’d hacked into Hansard’s system on a previous occasion. In fact, it turned out to be an easy job for a man of Cole’s skills; skills which had been taught to him by the top experts at the National Security Agency, and had actually – and ironically, as it turned out – been insisted on by Hansard himself, who had believed that cyber hacking was a vital skill for an independent operative.
He had scoured the system for information on both Liang Kebangkitan and Wong Xiang, but it was woefully thin on the ground. The only thing he learnt about the pirate group was that it supposedly favored northern Sumatra, and was led by a charismatic lifelong pirate named Arief Suprapto, who apparently believed that he was the reincarnation of the famous fifteenth century pirate king Liang Dao Ming.
There was a little more in the files about Wong Xiang, including a set of black and white surveillance photos from an ultimately aborted attempt to arrest him on arms smuggling charges in the late 1990s. He would undoubtedly look different now, but the ATF had kindly supplied a few computer-enhanced images of how he might possibly look after aging twenty years.
Wong’s file described he had been an officer in the army of the PRC, before absconding with an entire tank regiment, which he subsequently sold to African
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