After ten days in Paris Ennis had relaxed, things were quiet it was the summer lull. The office was half empty with the start of the vacation period. It was just after ten thirty, time to step out for a coffee and get some air. He strolled down Avenue Matignon to the Publicis Drugstore on the corner, bought a Herald Tribune and selected a table in the café that looked across the avenue to the gardens. He sat down and observed the movement on the opposite pavement where the stamp collectors and dealers had set up their small stalls for the weekly market.
Ennis ordered an expresso and unfolded his paper, keeping an eye opened so as not to miss any attractive girl that passed. It was early July, the weather was fine and clear, the normal urgency of the French had been suspended for two months. The office had been quiet since he had arrived in Paris and that was the way he wanted it to stay that way until it was time to return to Singapore.
The newspaper held no surprises, problems in Russia, Middle East peace plans, and the election campaign preparations in the States. He turned the pages, half glancing at the miscellaneous news; a small headline caught his eye in World Briefs, ‘Corporate Jet Lost in Borneo’. He immediately focused his attention on the details.
Searchers suspended their hunt for a twin engine Gulfstream II jet at nightfall Wednesday after it disappeared on a flight from Kota Kinabulu to Jakarta, aviation officials said. Air traffic control lost contact with the plane owned by Gunung Mas just after two in the afternoon Jakarta time. Indonesian Airforce jets and Army helicopters began a search for the jet. The plane was carrying high-level officials from the Ministry of Forests and businessmen. The search will resume early Thursday they said.
He quickly pulled some coins from his pocket, which he left on the table and hurried back to the office.
‘Look!’ he cried waving the newspaper at Axelmann and shouting to his secretary to put an urgent call through to Indonesia. It was five in the afternoon in Jakarta and he might just catch Riady before he left his office.
In less than five minutes Riady was on the line.
‘Hi, it’s John.’
‘You’re calling about Wihartjo!’
‘Wihartjo!’
‘Yes, his planes missing.’
‘Christ! It was his plane, what happened?’
‘Don’t know, he was flying back from a meeting in Kota Kinabulu and they went missing over Kalimantan.’
‘Who was with him?’
‘Rudini and Wolf.’
‘Jesus Christ! When did it happen?’
‘Yesterday midday.’
‘When will they have some details?’
‘You know what it’s like in that area, nothing, thousands of miles of forest, the army’s searching for them.’
Riady promised to let them know as soon as he had any news. Ennis was shaken, it was bad news, very bad, it could not have been worse, they were due to sign the agreements in less than two weeks, agreements with the concessionaires, which had been negotiated after so many difficulties. If Wihartjo and his team disappeared it would be a disaster, who would sign?
Axelmann lifted his hands and shook his head, more bad news; it was as though the project was jinxed.
‘That’s all we needed.’
‘Where’s Brodzski?’
‘Don’t tell him until there’s confirmation.’
‘Where is he?
‘I don’t know, he’s got a lunch appointment, it’s Thursday, after he’ll disappear for his weekly rendez-vous, he won’t be back today.’
‘Okay, let’s wait until tomorrow, maybe there’ll be some news then.’
Ennis knew that there was very little chance. The jet had disappeared over twenty-four hours previously. It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack; maybe a small prop plane could, with a good deal of luck, find a landing spot and survive, but not a jet.
He tried to analyse what it would mean, it was not too difficult. If Wihartjo and his close staff had been killed, the forestry department would be headless. A new minister would certainly be nominated within a couple of weeks, no doubt a politician, who would need time to study all the details before engaging his signature on a document that involved hundreds millions of dollars.
It would mean endless delays, probably renegotiation as the concessionaires had been practically forced into the agreement at gunpoint. It would depend on who was nominated as the new minister.
It was another three days before the scattered wreckage was sighted by an army helicopter, on a hillside near Mount Raya in the Schwaner Mountains in the dark heart of Kalimantan. There were no survivors.