Choices. Jeff Edwards

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СКАЧАТЬ the lively banter continuing between them, the trio turned a corner and headed down the town’s main road toward the sea. Ahead of them twinkled the bright lights of Murphy’s Bar which was located in a prime location overlooking the beach and from where the sound of loud music and laughter beckoned.

      Their steps quickened in anticipation, but were forced to step aside when a small delivery van sped past them and squealed to a halt at the bottom of the street.

      ‘A bit late for a delivery,’ commented the largest of the Australians gruffly.

      ‘Shit!’ cried his friend, as the driver of the van threw open his door and sprinted away, abandoning his vehicle with the door wide open. The same awful thought occurred instantly to each of them.

      ‘Oh Christ!’ yelled the third surfer as the van exploded.

      Murphy’s Bar and everyone inside caught the full force of the blast.

      The explosion blinded and deafened the three friends. They were knocked off their feet, and as they staggered to rise they became aware that they were now covered with their own blood from a myriad of small cuts. But not even these stinging wounds could distract them from the scene of carnage that the quickly settling dust now revealed to them.

      Silently praying that reality might prove less horrible than what they imagined, they hobbled toward the pile of rubble that had been Murphy’s Bar where flames now replaced the welcoming lights and screams of distress and agony the former sounds of music and laughter.

      ONE YEAR LATER

      The surfer lay down on his stomach and paddled for a short distance. On his right was the Balinese beach of Bingin, and off to the left the Indian Ocean stretched away to infinity.

      Satisfied that he was now in the right place, he sat up and scanned the ocean through eyes that were slitted against the sun’s reflected glare. Out to sea he noted the sets of waves as they took shape, and allowed those that did not satisfy him to pass as a swell beneath his board.

      Further out a new set of waves formed, and the surfer nodded to himself as he noted their size and potential power. Not the first, he thought to himself. Possibly the second? No. The third, he decided.

      He lay down as the first two swells passed, and then began to paddle strongly toward the sandy beach. With his speed building he suddenly felt the power of the third wave catch him and he leapt onto his feet. With a deceptively relaxed turn of his body he slid down the face of the cresting wave, trailing his nearside hand in the liquid mountain that now towered beside him.

      With a further turn he allowed the wave to catch up and carry him back to its crest where he turned once more and slid down its face. Twice more he repeated the manoeuvre before flipping out over the back of the wave. He smiled as it closed out behind him and crashed onto the beach.

      A feral yell of triumph erupted from the surfer’s lips as he swung his board once more toward the endless horizon and paddled out to find his next wave. Seven seconds of utter bliss had been his, and he craved more.

      * * *

      Watching from the garden of his compound the Muslim cleric Din Nassir Abbas’ face betrayed a look of utter loathing for the foreigners frolicking in the surf and flaunting their near nudity upon HIS beach.

      ‘How dare they!’ he cursed under his breath. ‘They are an abomination to all that is holy.’

      His hatred of all foreigners ran deep. Abbas loathed the way they brought their foreign faces, their foreign ways, their foreign ideas, and most importantly their foreign money, to his homeland.

      The money they spent seduced his countrymen into believing that foreign ideas were preferable to those espoused by him each day in the mosque. The simple workmen saw what could be bought with this money and how easy it could be earned, so they gravitated to the jobs where they would work closely with the foreigners. Now, it seemed, everyone in Bali worked for the tourists and were acting more and more like the foreigners every day, from the clothes they wore to the way they talked, what they chose to watch on television and the internet, and how they treated one another. Balinese women were becoming less acquiescent and even demanding to be treated as equals.

      Abbas had railed against this state of affairs in his speeches at the mosque as well as in the local papers, but it seemed that no one had been prepared to heed his warnings, and so he had decided to take matters into his own hands. He had decided that the foreigners must be driven from Balinese soil and that it had to be done by force.

      Fortunately there were still some among the population whose religious beliefs were deep enough that they had not yet been seduced by the foreigners, and he was able to gather together a group of young men to enact his plan.

      Abbas allowed himself the indulgence of a small smile as he recalled the group’s initial success. The destruction of the foreigner’s drinking place a year ago had made headlines around the world, and sent a pointed message that the people of Bali were not all prepared to welcome foreign ideas.

      He had planned that he would follow up the initial attack with another shortly after, but his public stance had labelled him as a prime suspect for the bombing, and he had been forced to not only deny his part in the plot but had to appear to condemn such acts of random violence.

      Abbas knew his cause was just, and that God was on his side when the driver of the van carrying the bomb and the only person who could link Abbas to the killings, had inextricably disappeared without a trace.

      Now with the police looking elsewhere for suspects, Abbas was free to plot further attacks, and tomorrow would see his next triumph. An attack upon the Australian High Commission in Jakarta was due to take place. Everything was ready. Nothing could stop them. Not even the disgusting sight of the cavorting tourists in the sea before him could stifle Abbas’ feeling of anticipation and wellbeing.

      As Abbas was about to turn away from the beach he felt a sudden stinging jab to the back of his neck. Instinctively he reached up to swat at the annoying insect but was surprised to find something protruding from his exposed flesh. He grabbed at the small object and found to his surprise that it was a small dart. Confused, he studied it momentarily before turning to see where it had come from. Abbas was about to call out to his security guards when he saw that the dart had obviously been delivered by a foreigner standing a short distance away with a long tube in his hand.

      The man gave Abbas a toothy grin as the cleric tried to summon the words needed to call for help from those inside his house. But try as he might his lips could not form the cry of alarm, and to his horror he also realised that his arms and legs were acting as though they had a mind of their own.

      Not fully understanding what was happening to him, Abbas crumpled to the ground and he found himself lying on his side, facing the grinning foreigner.

      Taking his time to make sure there was no one else around, the foreigner strolled over to Abbas, speaking quietly as he did so. Fully conscious but totally paralysed, Abbas was able to tell by the man’s accent that he was Australian, and his disconnected mind told him that this was an important fact, but with the drug delivered by the dart now flowing through his body he could do nothing with this information.

      ‘Din Nassir Abbas,’ the attacker began, ‘you have been found guilty of murder.’

      What? How? screamed the mind of Abbas, but his lips refused to form the words.

      ‘One СКАЧАТЬ