The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,96

re-emerged, they were both carrying shovels. They walked in a straight line away from the house towards a cluster of palms and stopped in the shade of the trees. Waru dragged the tip of his shovel across the surface of the earth, making a rectangle. They began to dig, the soft reddish brown soil flying in the air.

In a few hours she’d be on a plane back to Hong Kong, back to a different reality. Surabaya and Andy Cameron would be behind her. But had she really purged herself of him? Maybe not completely, but enough that she knew she could move on.

Ava looked at her watch. If Perkasa’s schedule was accurate, she could get to the airport with enough time to get caught up with the rest of her life — a life she hadn’t thought about since Saturday morning, a life she now felt the strongest urge to reconnect with. She needed things to be normal; she wanted to be surrounded by familiarity.

Then, as if on cue, her phone sounded. The caller ID showed a Chinese area code — Wuhan. May Ling Wong. Ava let it ring through to voicemail. The job isn’t done, she told herself. May would have to wait until the job was done.

In the distance she could see the brothers in the hole, their heads bobbing up and down as they bent to dig and then popped up to toss dirt over the side. She thought about telling them that the hole was deep enough, but then realized they might know more about that kind of thing than she did.

She closed her eyes and thought about Hong Kong. She’d spend a few days there. See her father. Congratulate Amanda and Michael. See Uncle. Should she contact his doctor? If she did, what story could she possibly tell that would get him to disclose Uncle’s medical condition? The last time she had talked to Sonny, it seemed clear enough that it was the right thing to do. Now she wasn’t so sure. Everyone had secrets, and they were entitled to keep them.

Her attention was drawn to the sound of voices. She looked up and saw Waru and Prayogo walking back towards the house. They had left the shovels by the side of the hole. Then her phone rang and she recognized Perkasa’s number.

“I have the gift and the suitcase,” he said.

“Passport?”

“It’s in the case.”

“Any problems with the housekeeper?”

“No.”

“Good,” said Ava. “The boys have just finished here with that piece of work we needed done and are almost back at the house. I’m going to pass my phone to Waru. Tell him to give me that equipment I need.”

He hesitated. “Ava, are you sure you want to do this? I don’t mind doing it myself.”

“My job, my decision,” she said.

“Then give him the phone.”

As the two men spoke, Ava approached Cameron. He wasn’t moving. She shook him by an arm until his head lifted from his chest. “Can you hear me?” she said.

He nodded.

“Okay, we’re going to be leaving here in a minute. We all can use a little air conditioning. I have to keep you blindfolded but I’ll take the tape from your mouth, and I’m going to free your legs so you can walk. When we get to where we’re going, we’ll get your money organized, and then we’ll be on our way,” she said, reaching out and tearing the tape from his mouth. “Now, Andy, you aren’t going to do anything stupid, are you?”

“What do you mean?” he croaked.

“Go to the police.”

“And tell them what, that I was kidnapped by the police? Good luck with that.”

“Or talk to your bosses.”

“Never,” he said.

She believed him, or at least she believed that in that moment he meant what he said.

Waru stood in the doorway, the gun in his hand. The sight of it made her shudder. A memory from Macau crashed into her head. She went to the door and took the gun from him. It was a Glock 22, as close to standard police issue as you could get. She’d fired one before, but never in these circumstances.

“I’m going to sit inside for a moment,” she said to Waru, gesturing to make herself understood. “Watch him until I come back.”

She sat at the kitchen table and tried to steady herself. In Macau she had shot Lok, a Triad member, in the head at close range. It was the first time she had killed anyone for any reason other than immediate self-defence. It had bothered