The Fifth Season by Kerry B. Collison Read Free Book Online Page B

investigate the carnage, the entire American-trained squad had driven more than fifty kilometers back to their station, where they changed back into uniforms bearing the insignia of the 21st Battalion, before returning to their provincial Kopassus headquarters in Surakata, Central Java.

Chapter Three

    East Java – December, 1997
    Lily Suryajaya

As custom required, Lily worked together with the older women in silence, their grief not evident as they washed the bodies in preparation for the funeral. Tears would flow later, when their work was done; when their minister and his wife had been laid to rest in the sacred ground within sight of the fire-gutted church.
    Other non-Christian townspeople had demonstrated their deep-rooted apathy, electing to ignore the significance of the attack, silently pleased that the Chinese community had been punished for their apparent greed and commercial successes. Overwhelmingly, it seemed, even Christians not of Chinese extraction had elected not to attend their churches. They all now lived in a world filled with fear.
    The church’s destruction had been the twelfth in a series of mysterious events which had, until the evening before, not claimed casualties. With the death of the two whose bodies now lay before them, these provincial Chinese had legitimate reasons to become even more deeply concerned with the escalation in violence, which they believed to be part of some concentrated campaign to further intimidate their race. Although there was no evidence to support the wide-spread rumors, the Christian community feared that the provocation had been initiated by Moslem elements, and that the orders had come from those in Jakarta who wished to create civil unrest to support their own secret agendas.
    Whispered innuendo suggesting that men sporting typically military style haircuts had been seen at several of the churches before these were torched, had added to their fear. Such rumors were of great concern to the Chinese who suspected what this might mean to them, as it was common knowledge that the Indonesian army had often been deployed in the past, when the need arose to terrorize specific ethnic groups, for political gain.
    But the Chinese were confused as to why suddenly churches had become the target of marauding bands of arsonists. Could it be, they asked each other, that the attacks were really the responsibility of militant Moslem groups?
    After all, the Chinese communities only accounted for a small percentage of the Christian population. Surely, then, some argued, it was not the Chinese who were being specifically targeted, but Christians in general?
    Although graffiti found at the scene of each desecration indicated that this sectarian violence had been instigated by Moslem raiders, the Christian communities questioned these attempts to fuel existing animosities between the rival groups. Bewildered by the escalating violence, the general consensus grew to support the belief that Jakarta elements were behind the civil unrest in the area. And now these subversive actions had resulted in the loss of the minister and his wife to the small Christian community.

    * * * *
    When the alarm was first given signaling that the Church and its adjoining accommodations were burning, not one from the congregation went to the scene, fearing that the gang responsible might still be present, and would confront any foolish enough to intervene. Besides, they had justified, those inside would surely have already fled to safety.
    It was not until the following morning that evidence of the evening’s horrors became evident to all. The minister and his wife had perished, their remains found clutched together in scorched embrace. Too terrified to leave their premises, they had been overwhelmed by the heat and smoke and died. Their partly-charred bodies had been discovered amongst the smoldering ruins and taken to the rear section of the Apotik , the local, Chinese-owned pharmacy, until the