The Atlantis Legacy - A01-A02 Read Online Free Page A

shoulder boards, stepped out and sauntered over. He was a slim young man in his twenties. Behind him straggled an older, bloated Caucasian civilian, whom by his lethargic and nervous demeanor Serena guessed to be the site’s token American oil executive.
    “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.
    “The infamous Sister Serghetti,” the colonel said in English. “You speak Acehnese like a native but certainly do not look like one. Your pictures in the media don’t do your beauty justice. Nor hint of your skills as a pilot.”
    “I learned on the job, Colonel,” she said dryly in her native Australian accent.
    “And which job would that be? You seem to have so many of them.”
    “Dropping food and medical supplies to the poorest of the poor in Africa and Asia because their governments are so corrupt that U.N. shipments rarely make it to their intended villages,” she said. “They either disappear or rot on the docks because the roads are impossible to drive.”
    “Then you’re in the wrong place, ma’am,” said the American in a southern drawl. “I’m Lou Hackett, the chief executive for this hereoperation. You should be in East Timor helping the Catholics stand up to Muslims. What the hell are you doing here in a pure Muslim province like Aceh?”
    “Documenting human rights abuses, Mr. Hackett,” she said. “God loves Muslims and Acehnese separatists too. Maybe even as much as American businessmen.”
    “Rights abuses? Not here,” Mr. Hackett said. He was keenly watching her chopper, now being stripped by a crew of Kopassus technicians.
    Serena looked him in the eye. “You mean that’s not your oil slick out there soaking the local shrimp farms, Mr. Hackett?”
    “I would hardly call an innocent accident a human rights violation.”
    Mr. Hackett wiped the sweat from his brow with an old, worn handkerchief. Serena had to remind herself that he was an exception to big oil’s remarkable progress in recent years.
    “So your company didn’t build the military barracks here at Post Thirteen where victims of human rights abuses claim to have been interrogated?” she went on, glancing at the Indonesian colonel. “Or provide heavy equipment so the military could dig mass graves for its victims at Sentang Hill and Tengkorak Hill?”
    Mr. Hackett looked at her as if she were the problem and not his oil discharge. “What do you want, Sister Serghetti?”
    The Indonesian colonel answered for her. “She wants to do to Exxon Mobil and PT Arun what she did to Denok Coffee in East Timor.”
    “You mean break the grip of a cartel controlled by the Indonesian military and let the people sell their goods at market prices?” she asked. “Hmm, now that’s a thought.”
    Hackett had clearly had enough. “Hell, if the East Timorese want to be slaves for Starbucks, that’s their business, Sister. But when you threw the military out of the coffee business, they took a special interest in mine.”
    “Here’s another thought, Sister Serghetti,” the colonel said, handing her a sheet of paper. It was a fax. “Leave.”
    She looked the fax over twice. It was from Bishop Carlos in Jakarta, winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize. It said she was urgently needed in Rome. “The pope wants to see me?”
    “The pope, the pontiff, the Holy See, whatever the hell you call him,” said Mr. Hackett. “Just call yourself lucky to walk out of here.”
    She turned toward her chopper in time to see several soldiers carry away the dismantled cameras from its belly.
    “And the people of Aceh?” she pressed Mr. Hackett as the colonel nudged her toward his jeep. He was apparently keeping her chopper. “You can’t pretend this isn’t happening.”
    “I don’t have to pretend anything, Sister,” Mr. Hackett said, waving her a smug good-bye. “If it ain’t in the news, it ain’t happening.”
     
    Twenty-four hours later, Serena leaned back in the rear of the unmarked black sedan as old Benito nudged it through the