Kane was heartbroken to see it happening in his beloved Bali, an island he had first discovered in 1994 as a young backpacker himself and an island he’d returned to often since. After what had happened today, he doubted he’d be returning any time soon.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time they’d negotiated Kuta’s notorious traffic, and after dodging in and out of cars and trucks along the grid locked Sunset Road, they eventually made their way into the Poppies Lane district, parked their bikes and hustled into the dim alleys.

  “Hey, handsome… massage? I give you cheap price.”

  Kane turned to see a rotund middle-aged woman smiling at him.

  “You want massage, mister?”

  Kane didn’t answer and turned back. Hiram knew there was a big massage culture in Bali, and knew you could get a legitimate, good quality massage for just a few thousand rupiah, the price of a pint in his native England. He was also aware that many of the massage ladies offered extra ‘services’, and one often heard the infamous phrase, ‘massage… happy ending’, when walking around popular tourist areas.

  Kane walked away.

  “Hey, mister. You want boy?”

  He cringed and walked on.

  “Maybe a little girl?”

  Kane gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to throttle the woman, the image of young Ayu keeping him focused. Putu was adamant he wasn’t involved in any such business and Kane believed him.

  Up ahead Putu paused, and when Ketut and Hiram caught him up, he put his finger to his mouth to silence them.

  “Nyoman… an associate… is usually lazing just around this corner. It is near where I played the poker game. He is probably there now, guarding something or other. Wait for me here.”

  Ketut and Hiram nodded and watched on in silence as Putu edged round the corner. A second later, he poked his head back around and beckoned them quietly forward. Ten yards ahead of them and apparently fast asleep while perched on a stack of Bintang crates was a young man, covered in tattoos and wearing shades and a bandana. Kane wasn’t much for stereotypes, but one look at the lean, well muscled guy before them screamed mafia.

  Putu crept to within reach of the man and grasped his shoulder.

  “Hello, Nyoman.”

  Nyoman jumped, suddenly roused from what was likely a dope induced slumber. When he recognised Putu, his face dropped and he sprang to his feet like a cat and sprinted off down the alleyway. Unfortunately for Nyoman, his sudden action had knocked over the beer crates and roused an equally startled stray dog, who leapt up and snapped at Nyoman’s legs as he passed, causing him to swerve and stumble, and before he could regain his feet Putu was upon him.

  “Putu, my… my friend,” he stuttered. “What… how can I help you, brother?”

  “I think you know.” The threatening glare in Putu’s eyes convinced Nyoman not to run again.

  “No… I do not kn—”

  “I am not playing games. Where is Jago?”

  “Jago? I do not know, man. I am only a—”

  Putu tightened his strong grip around Nyoman’s neck and slammed him against the corrugated iron wall of a shabby building, bending it inwards and knocking the wind from Nyoman’s lungs. He wanted answers. And he wanted them now.

  “You know they took my niece, Ayu. She is only six-years-old. Tell me where to find Jago. Now!”

  Nyoman glanced up at his former colleague, fear and dilemma etched into his face. He knew well that either way, which ever man he betrayed now was going to cost him dearly. He had always liked Putu, though, and what his boss Jago had done was just wrong. He closed his eyes and said a quick silent prayer to Ganesh, Hindu bringer of luck, and decided to tell Putu just enough to send him on his way. He might even live to see another day… at least until Jago learned he’d crossed him.

  “The Mother Temple,” he stuttered. “Besakih.”

  Putu understood Nyoman’s dilemma. He knew the kid had nothing to do with the kidnapping and understood he was risking his life telling him anything at all. It was enough.

  Five minutes later they were tearing back east across the island towards the most important Hindu religious complex on Bali, Besakih temple, the Mother Temple, with only one thing on their minds.

  Finding a stolen little girl.

  *

  Despite the advances of the volcanic activity detection systems in place on the island, and in part due to more than half a century of inactivity, Bali was still someway behind the rest of the world when it came to accurately predicting an eruption. The volcanologists in Rendang, a tiny village eight miles south of the mountain, had been issuing escalating warnings for weeks, but they were still being largely ignored by the local inhabitants.

  Deep below Mount Agung, however, things were getting serious. Fifty-three years of passivity had lulled those locals into a false sense of security, and despite the agency’s warnings the villagers were waiting it out. There had been false alarms before. This was probably just another.

  The men at Jago’s compound, though, were in a panic. A lot of The Rooster’s precious product had been destroyed, and tensions were beginning to boil over.

  Jago himself wasn’t there, and the men left in charge were terrified of their boss’s imminent arrival. The Rooster had a short temper at the best of times, and the moment he learned that a batch of his valuable product was ruined, whether it was the fault of the volcano or not, they all knew one of them would be getting the blame.

  That usually resulted in one outcome, and all thoughts turned to the hungry tiger Jago kept nearby.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was late afternoon under a darkening, humid sky, and Kane and his two friends were making rapid progress east across the south of the island, zipping through Kuta’s abysmal traffic, bypassing the sleepy resort town of Sanur on the east coast then speeding north past scuba diving mecca Padang Bai, all the while with the panoramic view of Bali’s mountainous interior guiding them on.

  Kane had once ridden a mountain bike down the rugged slopes of Agung. After he and his old mate Evan Craft had were dropped near the summit, the pair of them careened down the slopes under the powerful forces of gravity, making up the route as they went and relishing the freestyle nature of the ride. But that was twenty years ago, when rules were meant to be broken and they weren’t afraid of a few broken bones. Hiram knew tourists could still rent bikes, but on strictly guided trips only and on much safer trails. What’s the fun in that? he thought, and cast his eye north to Mount Agung.

  Kane had read in the news that volcanic Agung was a waking giant, but had heard that before and didn’t expect it to amount to anything soon. Sure, he could see a wispy trail of smoke rising now in a coiled puff from the volcano’s towering cone, but that didn’t mean an eruption was imminent. And anyway, that was the least of their worries, and he re-calibrated his focus on keeping up with Putu.

  So much had happened, and Ayu’s smiling face back at the temple seemed a long, long time ago. Kane could hardly believe it was only this morning, barely eight hours ago. Where was she now? Was she safe? Had they hurt her? He had no way of knowing and his heart ached for the poor kid when he imagined how scared she must be. What cowards, he thought, to rip an innocent child from her family, his anger rising a couple more notches. Is this what the world is coming to, when men have the power to use children as commodities? “Bastards!”

  Kane was now a man on a mission.

  And he wasn’t the only one. Ketut too seethed, his eyes wild with focus and his mind racing as to what might have happened to his niece. Ayu was such a bright little thing, a ray of sunshine to anyone that met her. Ketut didn’t have kids of his own—not by choice, his wife Komang unable to conceive—but he was okay with that and they cared for Ayu as if she was their own child. That’s how it worked in tight communities like the Nyuh Kuning banjar, which was why this morning’s events had been felt so deeply and so strongly by so many people. Banjar suka duka. And just like Kane, Ketut was driven by thoughts of what they might have done to that sweet little girl who called him uncle.

  “If they have hurt her, Putu,” he said through gritted teeth as he leaned forwards on his motorbike, “then you and I are no longer brothers.” He pulled harder on the throttle, and Ketut and his bike surged north just a little faster.

  If Kane and Ketut were struggling to come to terms with the day’s terrible dramas, then Putu could barely contain his emotions, the heady mix of guilt, rage, betrayal, remorse and heartbreak pushing him to the brink. He rode with wild abandon, taking crazy risks on the roads, dodging through what Kane thought were impossible gaps, almost as if he himself had a death wish.

  You should feel guilty, Kane thought, but killing yourself isn’t going to help anyone.

  But there was no stopping the man. He ignored traffic lights, rushing headlong into the oncoming traffic in a desperate attempt to get to Ayu sooner, and, Kane thought as he struggled to keep up, exorcise some guilt. But still he surged on, and it seemed to inspire Kane and Ketut to push themselves and their own bikes to the limit.

  The ride felt strangely surreal to Kane. He was used to crazy Indonesian traffic, and had ridden his motorbike all over Bali, Java, and in the mountains of Sumatra, where he’d once almost died when his headlamp failed at night on a narrow, high rocky trail around Lake Toba. He’d even once rented a car in India, thus had driven on probably the most dangerous roads in the world—though he swore he’d never do that again. But this somehow felt different, almost as if the traffic was an organic entity, and somehow knew Putu’s plight, understood Ayu’s dilemma, and did its best to assist them on their passage north east, opening gaps where there appeared none, changing red lights to green just as they approached.

  Kane knew Bali was a spiritual place and he knew to expect the unexpected every time he visited. Well, he’d certainly got more than he bargained for on this trip.

  Still they flew north east as the sun began to dip over their shoulders, sinking slowly towards the horizon over the west coast beaches, ready to cast its blanket of shade down onto the Indian Ocean, and in a staggeringly swift time of eighty-five minutes since leaving Kuta, Putu, Ketut and Hiram Kane were suddenly pulling into the parking area of the mother of all Balinese temples; Besakih.

  Chapter Twelve

  Despite the sun still hanging at quarter mast in the western sky, dusk drew ever closer, though that was as much to do with the storm clouds gathering with mounting menace above them. The temple was still open, and groups of tourists and locals milled around enjoying the outdoors for as long as possible before the inevitable daily assault of the monsoon hit.

  Putu steered them over to the far back side of the car park, kicked his stand down, and stepped off his powerful machine. The other men did the same and huddled closer to him.

  He looked at them calmly, despite the death-defying race across the island they’d just endured, and nodded at each in turn.

  “I am sorry I have gotten you into this. I truly am. Thank you both for coming with me. But I want to let you know I would understand if you decided to leave. It will be dangerous, and I—”

  “I am staying,” interjected Ketut. “Do not question it.”

  “Me too,” added Kane, catching the drift. “You are my friend. I’m staying.”

  Putu nodded. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “What is the plan, brother?” asked Ketut.

  “We have to assume they have taken Ayu to lure me here. Jago wants to know where his merchandise is, and by threatening to hurt Ayu he hopes I will just tell him. But it is not as simple as that.”

  “Why not?” asked Kane. “Why not just tell him? Surely he wouldn’t hurt a child?”

  “Like I said, my friend, it is not that simple. Jago is crazy. He will never accept that I betrayed him, never listen to an apology, even if I tell him what he wants to know. He is not wired that way. He wants—”

  “What about if we storm the Chinese base, steal the stuff back and hand it over to Jago?” ventured Ketut.

  “No, brother, though I did consider that. He wants to get his stuff back, of course he does. It is worth a fortune. But equally, if not more, I believe he wants revenge.” He paused, sighing, as if making a decision that sounded crazy to him, despite being the best option.

  “I do not believe that will be enough. So we only have one course of action to take. We have to find their compound, sneak in and find Ayu, then leave before anyone even knows we are there.”

  The temple remained open after dark, the nightly light show a popular event with tourists and Indonesian pilgrims alike. But with a monster downpour looking more imminent by the second, the men doubted there’d be many people hanging about for the show that evening.

  Kane bought his entry pass from a hunched old man in the ticket booth, that entrance bypassing the huge and impressive iconic split gateway, and made his way into the sprawling complex of Besakih Temple.

  Kane had little time for organised religion of any faith, and had never understood how and why, since evolution had been so thoroughly proven over the last century and a half by the likes of Darwin, Wallace and Lamarck et al., that a huge percentage of the world’s ever growing population still subscribed to the fairy tales and creation myths of the multiple monotheistic religions.

  However, what Kane could not deny was the wonders of religion inspired art and architecture. The Mother Temple of Besakih, for example, was another magnificent product of what he knew was man’s unique talent to build such inspiring monuments to their deities, in this case the Hindu God Acintya, the only Hindu deity unique to Bali. Kane had read somewhere that the name Acintya, when translated literally from Basa Balinese, meant ‘The Unthinkable’. Well, what these lowlife scumbag criminals had done when they stole a little girl was definitely that, and it seemed nefariously appropriate they had brought her to Acintya’s temple.

  As a rare sliver of late afternoon sun finally slipped over the western mountains and the temple courtyards were plunged into a stormy dusk, Kane felt the ethereal presence of spirituality so prevalent across the Island of the Gods, and whether or not he believed in supernatural deities—he definitely didn’t—there was certainly something mystical in the air around the world’s great religious structures. And yet, he mused, as he walked deeper into the complex, if the Balinese are so spiritual then why are there so many examples of crime, corruption and deceit on the island?

  Though he hated to admit it, Kane knew the answer was an easy one. Quite simply, humans were greedy for power and wealth, and in many cases would stop at nothing to get it.

  Even Putu, a kind-hearted and loving family man, had succumbed to the lure of an easy score. Which of course was the very reason Kane was now strolling among the monuments searching for any sign of an illegal trading operation. And so far, it appeared they were in completely the wrong place, as Kane could see nothing that suggested such an endeavour could be run from this peaceful, not to mention important, location.

  Keeping his distance Ketut also made his way around the vast temple complex, his eyes more on the people than the striking architecture he knew so well. They were looking for men who stood out, not genuine worshippers or tourists. There were few of either about at this later hour, especially as the storm was about to strike.

  Putu had remained outside the temple walls and had positioned himself in the shadows of a mature frangipani tree fifty yards from the entrance gate. From his concealed position he could monitor anyone who came and went from the temple… anyone involved with Jago. If he did spot someone he recognised from Jago’s crew, then he could safely assume they were in the right place to find Ayu. Putu planned to grab the man, and in his hidden spot, and in his own special way, demand answers. Putu was not a violent man by nature, at least that’s what he told himself, but in this time of crisis he pitied the first man to feel his wrath.

  Ayu. The thought of her instilled in him a sense of determination he had never felt before. His complete shame and remorse meant he would do whatever it took to return her safely to Nyuh Kuning and her family. Whatever it took. And although he hadn’t mentioned it to his brother Ketut or his friend Hiram, he believed they both knew the real risks they were taking being with him today.

  The chances were high, Putu was certain, that before the end of the day many people would die.

  *

  Ayu set to work. She knew her big uncle Putu was coming for her, she somehow sensed it, and she had to help however she could. The volcanic rumblings that had so frightened her in the first few hours of her captivity had continued sporadically throughout the day, but they no longer scared her. Instead they’d become an inspiration, something that might actually help her. The crumbling old red bricks that formed the wall of her pit cell were weak, and the trembling of the ground and the walls had loosened some of them from their cement. The pit had no doors, the only possible way in or out through the trap door above.

  So, she had to climb.

  But Ayu was just a little girl, and the top of the cell was at least three times her height… about twelve-feet. Dropping to her knees, she scraped her fingers along the wall in search of a loose brick, one she could pull from its position, essentially creating a step. She found a good candidate, and though it was pitch black in the pit she believed she could do it. She tugged at the brick and wiggled it back and forth, but it refused to come free. If she could just get that one out…

  As she worked, her fingers scratched and raw from the rough brick work, she wondered what she would do if she managed to climb out. She had no idea where she was, and if she got out, then what? They would probably find her and just dump her back down the hole. Or worse.