Chapter One - Richard Lewis

"Have her here at seven tomorrow morning. My pilot wants to leave as early as he
can."
"You don't want to go see her?"
"I have people to meet and," Bambang said, patting his leather briefcase, "bribes
to pay. You've taken good care of her this far, I'll trust to you to take care of her for
another night."
The clouds rolled down, tendrils of mist sweeping low, and the gloom thickened.
In an instant, the air burst like a balloon, and the windshield wipers barely coped with the
deluge. A flood took out the rickety bridge north of Tophati. With the chocolate water
raging and no way across, Reed backtracked to Denpasar and up toward Bedugul to cut
across a country road to Ubud. Even with rain easing to spatters, it was tortuous going
along the broken road. The blackness of this new moon night was thick enough to swat.
It was well past nine when the Jeeps' tires squished up his muddy lane. Reed
whistled happily. He'd make himself and Naniek a thermos of tea, and boil up a bucket of
water for a hot bath.
When he shut off the headlights, the bungalow shrunk into the blackness, with no
glow of the lanterns that Rusty usually set out. Rain dripped off the roof in steady splats.
Using the flashlight from the glove box, Reed shone its beam left and right. "Rusty?" he
called out. "Naniek?"
The only reply were the deep croaks of bull-frogs.
He raced up the steps to the verandah. A quick scan of the beam showed the
coffee table on its side, pillows ripped off the sofa. In the living room, a couple statues
had toppled, a pane of glass in the cabinet had shattered, and the rugs on the floor were
rumpled. The bedroom door was flung open, the bed sheets in disarray.
Naniek had been grabbed from the bed. There'd been a struggle. Reed forced his
sudden fear down to the bottom of his shoes. Turning off his flashlight, he stood very still
to listen.
In the soaked garden and pond, the choir of bull-frogs rose to full voice, a triple
forte of croak and throat booms. One frog was weak and off-tune, a strange ribbetting of
tolong, tolong, tolong. Somebody calling for help. Reed echo-located the sound to the
well behind the kitchen. Dipping his flashlight over the side, he saw fifteen feet below
the scared uplifted face of Rusty, who was clinging to the rough brick.
Using the bucket and rope, Reed helped Rusty haul himself out into the open.
"They threw me down the well," he panted.
Apart from scratches, Rusty was uninjured. Reed suspected that Rusty hadn't been
tossed but had purposefully skedaddled down the well to hide, but that wasn't the burning
issue at he moment. "Where's Naniek?"
"They took her."
"Who?"
"Ompreng and the nationalist boss from Batu Gede. The farmer with the loud
voice who sounds like one of these frogs."
On the Batu Gede hill, Reed pulled the Jeep over, pausing his hurtling rush.
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