The Scottish Banker of Surabaya

( 27 )

They drove twenty kilometres, almost straight west of the city, in Waru’s Pathfinder, Perkasa and Ava riding in the back, Prayogo up front with his brother.

CitraLand — “the Singapore of Surabaya,” as sign after sign proclaimed — was a grouping of developments. Cameron’s house was in CitraGarden, Lampung. The roads were beautifully paved, divided by landscaped meridians that must have taken an army of labourers to keep so immaculate.

Ava looked out at row after row of white stucco houses with red-tile roofs, wooden trim, single-car driveways, and small front lawns. She had seen developments like this outside of Bangkok. It was the Asian interpretation of a North American subdivision, its focus on clean, new, and organized.

Waru led them through the grid, the houses getting gradually larger and beginning to show some variety in architecture. When they reached a street where the houses sat on quarter-acre lots, he slowed down but didn’t stop, pointing left to a two-storey building behind a four-metre brick wall. Ava glanced at the pale blue stucco house with its swooping red-tile roof. Then her attention was drawn to the interlocking stone driveway, where a black Porsche Targa was parked. It was the only car in sight. The licence plate matched the number Indra had given her. The son of a bitch is home, she thought. The wrought-iron gate fronting the driveway was agape. How easy would it be?

Perkasa looked out the back window in the direction they had come from. “There’s only one road out of here that leads to the highway. We can wait for him at any spot between here and there.”

“I don’t want to take the slightest chance of losing him,” Ava said. “So we’ll wait down there, at the end of this road, with the car facing him. We should be able to keep him in sight without getting too close.”

“Ava, have you given any thought to what we’ll do if Cameron doesn’t follow our script?” Perkasa asked.

She glanced at him. He was looking out the window. “What do you mean?”

“What if he has a passenger in the Porsche? What if he leaves the Porsche here and takes a cab or limo? What if he catches a ride with a buddy?”

“All I care about is that he leaves the house to go to the golf course. How he gets there doesn’t matter. Ideally it’s by himself, in the Porsche. If some other scenario presents itself, we’ll deal with it. You’re okay with that, I hope.”

“I’m okay, but I know the boys will ask the question and I didn’t want to guess at an answer.”

“We’re going to get Cameron one way or another.”

“Like I said, I’m okay with that, and they will be too.”

He’s only being thorough, Ava thought, aware that she might have sounded defensive, and worse, as if she hadn’t thought things through. “I don’t mean that I would ask anyone to do anything reckless,” she said. “We’ll get here early tomorrow and see how Cameron intends to get to Paradise Run. If there’s any dramatic change, we’ll discuss it before committing.”

“That’s fine. Now what?”

“Let’s drive the route to the course. We need some idea of timing, and I’d like to see where Waru intends to intercept him.”

Perkasa spoke to the men in front. Waru nodded and drove back the way they had come. When they reached the highway, he took a cut-off about halfway back to the city. There was a service station and a cluster of small houses near the exit, and after that nothing but rice paddies on both sides of the road. The road was straight for the first half-kilometre and then began to wind. About another half-kilometre along, Ava saw a small hill. It wasn’t much of a rise, just enough to hide a car on the other side. Waru drove over it and then stopped about fifty metres further on. He parked by the roadside.

They all got out of the vehicle. Waru pointed at the hill and then turned and looked in the other direction as he spoke to Perkasa.

“He thinks this is the best spot,” Perkasa said to Ava. “The banker won’t see him until he comes over the rise, and if he blocks the road here, Cameron will still have time to stop. The good thing is that it won’t give the banker time to think about anything other than stopping.” He looked down the road. “And we can’t see the golf course from here, so no one is going to see us from there either.”

“I like it,” said Ava.

“We still have to worry about other cars on the road.”

Ava shrugged. “It will be early. And even if someone does see us, Waru will be in his uniform and it will all look official.”

“When should we be in place?”

“I think we need to be at Cameron’s house before dawn.”

“Okay.”

Ava asked, “How far is it from here to Waru’s house?”

“About a thirty-minute drive straight west.”

She looked at the hill, at the cars. “I have a good feeling about this.”

“Yeah, it seems to hang together.”

“Well, if you can’t think of anything else for us to do, I guess that’s it for today. I’d like to go back to the hotel,” Ava said.

“Dinner?”

“If you want to take the guys, go ahead. I had a very late lunch and I can’t eat another thing.”

Perkasa’s eyes shifted away from her, and she sensed he was disappointed. “I may do that,” he said.

“My treat.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

Ava shrugged. “Let’s head back, shall we? I have some phone calls to make.”

“Do you want the boys to meet us at the hotel in the morning or do you want them to come directly here?”

“We’ll meet at the Sheraton. Say, five a.m.?”

“Perfect,” he said.

“And make sure they have the picana.”

“It’s at their house. They told me it came with a transformer of some kind.”

“It sounds like they bought the right thing. They can leave it at the house — I won’t need it until I get Cameron there.”