Behind the newsstand, a commuter train crept into the station. It was packed to the walls with Indonesian workers coming into the Capital from the outlying cities for the day’s work. Passengers hung out of every set of sliding double doors, middle-aged men mostly. On the roof of the train, teenagers and young adults sat, squatted, and stretched out, reading newspapers, fiddling with smart phones, and talking. The bursting commuter train was a symbol of Jakarta itself, a city bursting at the seams with a growing population struggling to modernize. Mass transit was only the most visible sign of the city’s struggle to accommodate the 28 million people in its metro area.
The commuters were fleeing the train now, swarming the station like shoppers on Black Friday in America. It was non-controlled chaos. Workers pushed, shoved, and shouted as they ran out the station’s doors, while others fought to get into the station. This happened here and in other commuter train stations throughout the city every day. It was the perfect place for a meet.
David kept his eyes focused on the newsstand. His ear piece crackled to life. “Collector, Watch Shop. Be advised, we’re zero-hour plus twenty.”
The contact was late. The team was growing nervous. The unspoken question was: do we abort?
David raised his mobile phone to his face. “Copy, Watch Shop. Trader, Broker, report.”
From his vantage-point, David could see the two other operatives. One sat on a bench in the middle of the bustling crowd. The other man was working on a light near the restrooms. Both reported no sign of their anonymous informant, a man who claimed to have details of an imminent terrorist attack called The Toba Protocol.
The operatives were good, two of Jakarta station’s best; David could barely pick them out of the crowd. But as he surveyed the crowd, something unnerved him slightly, like the tingling when the hair on your arm stands on end. Or more like the sensation you get when you realize a bug is crawling on you, those few seconds before you see it, jump up, and either run or start swatting furiously.
The ear piece crackled again. It was Howard Keegan, the Director of Clocktower, the counter-terrorism organization David worked for. “Collector, Appraiser, it seems the seller didn’t like the market today.”
David was Jakarta Station Chief, and Keegan was his boss and mentor. The older man clearly didn’t want to step on David’s toes by shutting down the operation, but the message was clear. Keegan had come all the way from London, hoping for a break. It was a big risk given the other ongoing Clocktower operation.
“Agree,” David said. “Let’s shut it down.”
The two operatives casually vacated their positions and melted into the throngs of scurrying Indonesians.
David took one last look at the newsstand. A tall man with a red windbreaker was paying for something. A newspaper. The New York Times.
“Standby, Trader and Broker. We have a buyer looking at merchandise,” David said.
The man stepped back, opened the paper, and paused for a few seconds to read the front page. Without looking around, he closed the newspaper, tossed it in the trash can, and walked quickly toward the loaded train moving away from the station.
“Contact. I’m engaging.” David’s mind raced as he bounded from the shadow and into the crowd. Why was the man late? And his appearance — it was… wrong. The overt red windbreaker, the posture (a soldier’s posture, or an operative), the way he walked.
The man pushed onto the train and began snaking through the thick crowd of standing men and sitting women. The man was taller than almost everyone on the train, and David could still see his head. David squeezed onto the train and stopped. Why was the contact running? Had he seen something? Been spooked? And then it happened. The man turned, glancing back at David, and the look in his eyes said it all.
David wheeled around and swept the four men standing in the doorway out onto the platform. He pushed them away from the train as more anxious commuters poured onto the train in the hole he had made. David was about to shout when the explosion tore through the train, spraying shards of glass and metal into the station. The blast threw David to the concrete floor of the platform, sandwiching him between bodies, some dead, some writhing in pain. Screams filled the air. Through the smoke, pieces of ash and debris drifted down like falling snow. David couldn’t move his arms or legs. His head rolled back, and he almost lost consciousness.
For a moment he was back in New York, running away from the crumbling building, then he was under it, trapped, waiting. And arms were on him, pulling him out. “We got you buddy,” they said. The sirens from FDNY and NYPD rang out as the sunlight hit his face.
But it wasn’t an ambulance this time. It was a black delivery van outside the train station. The men, not FDNY. The two operatives, Trader and Broker. They hoisted David into the van and sped away as Jakartan police and fire teams filled the streets.
CHAPTER 3
Autism Research Center (ARC)
Jakarta, Indonesia
Playroom four was buzzing with activity. The scene was typical: toys strewn everywhere with about a dozen children scattered throughout the room, each playing alone, focused intensely. In the corner, an eight-year-old child named Adi rocked back and forth as he built a puzzle with ease. When he placed the last block, he looked up at Ben, a proud smile on his face.