Leaving her lover sprawled in bed like a fallen colossus, Sura Suyanto wrapped herself in a silk sarong and padded across the mahogany floorboards to her 350-year-old Javan desk. Taking a seat, she opened the well-thumbed dossier. Although she had practised her pitch for weeks and committed to memory every detail of her momentous two-year quest, even a shuddering orgasm had not helped her sleep. It was hardly surprising. The man she was going to see was a dangerous and unpredictable foe, the second most powerful man in Indonesia. He was also her father and would spot any inconsistency in the story she was about to tell, so once again she prepared to tell it the best way she could.

Methodically, she ran through the maps, ledgers and historical documents, cross-referencing facts with scripted and memorised anecdotes, using skills she had picked up at Cambridge University and refined through ten years of top-flight investigative journalism. Only when the flowerpecker birds in the moon orchid grove outside her window trilled the coming of dawn, did she reach for the rosewood presentation box with her father’s carved initials embossed in pure gold.

Its contents had cost her a quarter of a million US dollars, and one awful night in Sydney with an obese collector of militaria. But this was a fraction of its potential value and well worth the sacrifice. Opening the box, Sura felt the same tingle of anticipation all over again. Dazzling against black velvet padding, the grinning death’s head badge and Knight’s Cross in pure silver gleamed as brightly as the day they’d been minted in 1941.

‘My lucky charms,’ she murmured, unnecessarily repolishing their faces with a fold of silken fabric. ‘Bring me good fortune, won’t you?’

There was a murmur from the bed, and Sura quietly closed the lid. Best to let Jaap sleep. When she needed to be focused and calm, he tended to provoke the exact opposite.

Inside the cavernous wet room, enormous jade tiles ran floor to ceiling, gold-plated tapware gleamed, and a bespoke porcelain bath emerged like a white lotus flower from the floor. Conspicuous consumption was intrinsic to the Suyanto dynasty. No matter how humble the object, it must dazzle and amaze. Not that this bothered Sura. The problem was it all belonged to him.