He turned to look at her. “You’re sure? We’ll have to make quite a mess here.”

She nodded.

“All right. Thank you.”

“What do you need?”

“Two things. The first is a distraction. Something that’ll get the policemen out of the station for a few minutes.”

Victoria picked up her phone and started scrolling through her list of contacts to find the one she wanted. She pressed the call button, and, a few seconds later, the man she had just spoken to picked up for a second time. His name was Bagas, and he worked with the Laskar Bali. Victoria told him what she needed. Bagas owed Victoria a favour and he agreed to help.

Victoria finished the call and turned to see that Milton was watching with one eyebrow cocked.

“What?” Victoria said.

“You’ve gone native.”

“What? The Indonesian? When in Rome…”

“Who was that?”

“A friend with connections. There’ll be a distraction in about twenty minutes. I wouldn’t expect it to be subtle.”

“How much is it costing you? I’ll cover it.”

“It’s not costing me anything.”

“Nothing’s free.”

“Well, no, but they owe me—I’m calling in a favour.”

“Okay,” Milton replied, but Victoria sensed that they would be coming back to the topic at some point in the future.

“What’s the second thing?” she asked him.

“Can I borrow your truck?”

“No.”

“Sorry?”

“No, you can’t. I saw the way you rode off on that scooter. You’re a liability. Where are we going? I’ll drive.”

“Around the back. Keep the lights off. No point attracting attention to ourselves.”

39

They parked in the parking lot of the restaurant, right down at the end next to the gate in the wall. Milton clambered over it again and picked the padlock that secured it. The rain didn’t help, nor did the rust that clogged the workings of the lock, but Milton had forced far worse than that before, and it delayed him for only a minute or two.

He had only just hauled the gate open when he heard the sound of automatic gunfire.

Milton hurried back to the truck. “That’s the distraction?”

Victoria had inched her window down. “I told you they wouldn’t be subtle.”

“They’re shooting up the station?” He shook his head. “Whatever—it’ll certainly get their attention. You ready?”

Victoria said that she was, and, as Milton stepped to the side, she rolled the truck through the gate.

* * *