(eng) Navin Weeraratne by The Ice Moon Explorer

Author:The Ice Moon Explorer [Explorer, The Ice Moon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Four Hours Later, 50,000 feet

“This seat taken?”

Stockwell looked up from his tablet. Pirello settled into the seat across from him, drink in hand. He raised an eyebrow.

“Just soda,” she rattled the ice cubes in it. “That was quite a performance back there.”

“I don’t know about that. I spent most of my career studying ‘offbeat’ threats like Jemaat Ansar. Never imagined I’d end up on the Fly Team.”

“Excited?”

“I think terrified is a better word.”

She laughed. “You’ll do fine.”

“You seem pretty comfortable. I take it this isn’t your first time?”

“Third. Egypt in ’44. Nigeria in ’48. Counter terrorism, I get moved around as an advisor from time to time, too. Few months here, few months there. It all adds up.”

“The husband must hate that.”

“Hated, he certainly did,” she held up her ring. “I just wear this now to stop younger men from hitting on me in the bars.”

“I thought getting hit on by younger men was the whole point.”

“That’s ‘cause you haven’t dated one. It’s like babysitting. What about you, Stockwell?”

“Call me Evan. A dentist in Alexandria, but I don’t think I’m allowed to say we’re officially dating. Nice parents, though. I think they see me as a safe bet.”

“Are you?”

“Not once I got on this plane, no.”

“Well, dating a girl because of her parents may not be the best bet, either.”

“You got me there. This is my first time in the field, that isn’t research.”

“When was the last time you fired your gun?”

“The academy.”

“Well hopefully it’ll stay that way.”

“I was hoping to at least line up some bottles on a wall.”

“So you can tell your dentist-lady that you did some shooting?”

“It’s expected.”

“Would she approve?”

“Hell no. What about you? I bet you’ve shot hundreds of people.”

She laughed. “I don’t know about hundreds. But when you’re instructing foreign law enforcement, you can’t lead from the rear. If you don’t impress them, they won’t take you seriously. Especially if you’re a woman.”

“Do you find that leads you to take bigger risks?”

“No. But you do worry about the example you set. You end up representing more than just the United States, you know what I mean?” She looked over at his tablet. “What are you reading?”

“Country report for Indonesia. Chinese influence. Agreements with Australia. The movers and shakers in the Junta.”

“Anything that stand outs?”

“Only that they’re doing well. Rich country, booming population, and successive governments out to exploit them. Fast forward a few decades and you have a typical, Still Third World, country. A large, poor, illiterate, and bitter population. Now apply the effects of climate change.”

“You think they should be a bigger mess?”

“And they would have been. The obvious choice as things got worse, would have been to de-secularize. Indonesia has over three hundred ethnic groups. However, they’re almost entirely Moslem. De-secularization is the choice Still Third Worlds, typically make.”

“And Indonesia didn’t?”

“They tried. Then the military intervened.”

“I hear that’s a tradition of theirs. Wouldn’t that only encourage extremism?”

“It does. But no one wants a failed state of three hundred million, next door. Australia and Singapore give the Junta lots of tech and military aid.

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