The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,74

I won’t be seeing him again, and that our company will not be doing business with his bank.”

“So he did try something?” Fay asked, with more interest than Ava thought polite.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“I did try to warn you.”

“And thank goodness you did,” Ava said, putting down a crab leg. “This food is excellent, but I seem to have lost my appetite.”

The waiter had just brought the bill to the table when Perkasa called her cell. “Waru and his brother are here already,” he said. “Where shall we meet?”

“Are you in the lobby?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you find a corner where we can talk privately?”

“I’m in one now.”

“Stay there. I’ll be about fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“Who was that?” Fay asked when Ava hung up.

Ava knew her end of the conversation must have sounded strange. “One of my associates from Hong Kong has flown over to assist with this project. We’re going to meet and then have dinner.”

“That’s too bad. John was hoping we could eat together again tonight.”

“Give him my apologies.”

( 26 )

Ava took the information that Indra had given her and put it in her bag with her notebook. She had thought about downloading and printing a map of Citraland and the area around the Paradise Run Golf Club, but given that Waru was a policeman she didn’t think it was necessary.

It was a ten-minute walk to the plaza from her hotel, and then another ten minutes to find her way to the Sheraton. As she walked, she thought about what she would be asking them to do and knew there would be questions in their minds about the why of it. But if they were anything like the men she usually worked with, no one would actually ask. Still, it would never hurt for them to think they were on the side of the good guys, and Ava didn’t want any personal motives clouding the action.

Perkasa stood waiting for her by the front desk. “They’re over there,” he said, pointing towards a nest of alcoves at the far end of the lobby.

“Are they curious about the nature of this job? Have they asked any questions?” she asked.

“No. We’re paying them enough that it doesn’t matter.”

“You should know anyway, and if you want to tell them it’s okay by me. The banker I’m after ripped off thirty or forty Canadian investors for more than thirty million U.S. dollars. Two men who knew how it was done were murdered. A lot of lives have been damaged in one way or another. We need to do what we can to mend them.”

Perkasa shrugged. “If it comes up, I’ll tell them. Otherwise they don’t need to know.”

“Then let’s go talk to them,” she said.

The brothers were of medium height and muscular and had round faces, small noses, and broad, bony chins. They stood up as Perkasa introduced Ava in Indonesian. Waru, the more confident of the two, held out his hand, while his younger brother held back. “His name is Prayogo,” Perkasa said.

The alcove held two sofas separated by a coffee table. Ava sat next to Perkasa, opened her bag, and extracted a piece of paper. “Do you want me to go through this bit by bit, or would you prefer for me to explain the whole thing and then you can translate it as you see fit?” she asked.

“Give me the big picture,” Perkasa said.

“Well, his name is Andy Cameron and he lives in Citraland, at this address,” she began, passing the information to Perkasa. “It seems to be part of a substantial urban development, so I’m sure he has neighbours. He also has live-in domestic staff. So for starters, unless you and the guys think otherwise, I don’t think trying to grab him at the house makes much sense unless we want to draw a lot of attention to ourselves — and I can’t think of anything positive coming from that,” she said. “Now, he’s playing golf today and tomorrow at his club, Paradise Run, but there’s security there, so I’ve eliminated that location as well. His office is about two hundred metres from this plaza, which also makes it a non-starter . . . So that pretty well leaves us with the job of plucking him out of his car.”

“Without attracting attention?” Perkasa asked.

Ava heard the doubt in his voice. “Well, with as little attention as possible. Waru should be able to help us figure out if that’s at all doable. I figured if we do it tomorrow then we don’t have