The Jeneral:
A Synopsis:
"A self-made billionaire arms dealer, Indonesian JENERAL GUS PURWANTO BUDIWATI is a highly decorated retired soldier of the Tentara Nasional Armed Forces and a well-respected businessman. He lives in utter luxury, yet his daily preference in life has always been down-to-earth. A beer-guzzling calm soldier, he seldom exhibits a temper that borders on tantrum.
Gus is a doting brother to a sexually active sister, NURI, whose whole life depends on Gus' unending financial handouts and patience. A fiercely devoted husband, Gus adores his wife that he often puts the blame on his youngest daughter, SARA, for his wife's death during childbirth. But Jeneral Budiwati has a secret - a dark, deeply hidden secret; a mysterious series of undisclosed related events he tries to keep concealed, but despite a successful business and military career, a hidden life-altering resentment fuels a desire to exact revenge in a scheme of unprecedented madness.
When a Nigerian 'PRINCE' killed Sara, Gus spares no expense and mobilizes his global financial clout and connections and bankrolls an Interpol-sanctioned international manhunt headed by RON BELLO and his elite covert Blue Folder operatives to hunt and scour the criminal underworld in pursuit of Sara's drug-dealing murderers in a mission dubbed Operation Blue Folder. Sara's murder sparks a worldwide manhunt for the Prince and his goons, which takes the agents from Malaysia, to Hong Kong, China, The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India, Equatorial Guinea, Switzerland, Nigeria, Austria, The Philippines and Indonesia.
While in pursuit, Ron Bello's team of crack secret agents faces unexplained setbacks and manages little, to gain an advantage, in their quest to hunt down the perpetrators. Aided by modern technology, the operation invariably discovers they are often one-step behind their target. Eventually, the elite agents find one source of frustration when it becomes apparent that their protocol encroaches on another agency's dark operation performing the same tasks, but with a slightly different agenda. By joining forces, the competing clandestine missions take a drastic turn and unearth a more sinister series of events, which threatens the health of every person globally when the spooks start to unravel a darker secret that none of them has ever suspected. The combined operation stumbles upon a conspiracy of menacing worldwide proportions involving manufactured weaponized virus with the intent of maximizing profits while creating a pandemic condition of global infections. Originating from a microbiology lab in Canada with distribution connections in China and Indonesia, and with malicious testing performed on unsuspecting individuals in selected cities and small towns in Europe, Asia and North America, a huge pharmaceutical company embarks on creating a super weaponized virus, which would invariably make them the sole producer of a viable vaccine, yielding limitless profits.
With danger tugging at their heels at every turn, they find their targets heading closer to who or what was behind the curtain pulling the strings.
Will they be able to identify and arrest the mastermind?
An Excerpt from Chapter One:
"Inside a crumbling shack, the blistering July air was muggy as hell, undeniably seasoned by the scent of rotting blood. Across the room, incessant drips of a grimy faucet gave chase to a faint hum of an aging rusty refrigerator leaking brown liquid on a squalid cement floor umbered by years of neglect and crusted dirt. A muscular man sat on a dusty, weathered armchair, stained with sweat and reeking foul odor; the leather chair's distressed armrests were moth-eaten and frayed at the edges. Massive hands covered his scalp as he tried to re-assess a tough situation, bullets of sweat breaking loose through pores, fingers scratching and hunting for brittle scabs off a shaved ebony head.
At the entrance, a scarfaced sentry in camouflaged outfit sat on a rickety chair polishing an AK-47 assault rifle with a tarnished cloth. He looked bored.
The shack was hot and unventilated.
"Damn whore," the man in the armchair growled slowly, splitting the stale air, glancing over a shoulder; his dark unblinking eyes fixed, gazing at a shivering young woman scrunched at the far corner of a musty unsheeted mattress. She was terrified; throat bouncing, her intermittent breathing suppressed, sprinkled with pathetic wails trying to pierce an eerie silence. Her faint whimpers escaped through dripping nostrils; red eyes frowned while tears flowed along a narrow slope on her cheeks restrained only by a red cloth gagging her mouth; wrists and ankles bound with blood-encrusted nylon twine. Her soiled lavender dress, ripped at the shoulders, now caked with clotted gore around the genital area; her left breast partially exposed.
"Who you talk to?" He demanded emitting a low guttural sound, while yanking a filthy shirt off his back. The man's deep sinister voice reverberated as his dark skin glistened from the faint light of a yellow bulb, dangling from wires twisted together and hanging by a nail from a cobwebbed joist. The rust that formed on the corrugated steel roof was dimly visible.
The panic-stricken woman could not reply. Wide-eyed, she shook her head. The gag that muffled her wails also stifled her speech. The man snorted, turned to his left and signaled a head jerk, which for whatever reason quickly understood by his security at the door. The guard simply nodded once, settled the AK-47 on the floor, got up from the wooden chair, yawned, stretched and sighed mightily as if he had better things to do. The sentry ambled with an African trot toward the woman, spitting a chewed tobacco-scented concoction, splattering a far corner, terrorizing the roaches to scamper into a dark crevice. He stooped and forcefully jerked the kerchief off her mouth, pulling a few strands of hair. A stifled yelp followed; her eyes darted. He launched the gag toward the direction of his spit without looking at where it had landed. With a chuckle, the sentinel stomp-danced back to his post, picked up his gun and cradled it as if it would run away.
The dreadful man asked again, "Sara - ah said, WHO you talk to?" He poured a stiff drink in a filthy glass unaware a cockroach swirled at the bottom. Too scared, Sara did not answer. In a split, she was wearing the vodka. Sara choked a scream and yelled, "no one!" as the alcohol dripped down her face, stinging her bloated eyes and onto her smudged dress; the cockroach firmly settled in her matted hair either drunk or dead. The goon poured a second shot of vodka all the way to the glass rim, levelled a slow glimpse at Sara's direction and took a long pull on the alcohol until his glass dripped empty. The sentry asked for the bottle with precise hand motions. The black man nodded back, grabbed the bottle by the neck, tossing it to him. The listless guard caught it in mid air then rinsed his palate. The clear spirit warmed his body all the way down to his toes, grimacing while inhaling slowly through his teeth. "Ahhhhhhhhhh," he exhaled shaking his head, blowing excess alcohol off his breath, showing a gold-capped tooth just right of center.
The girl whimpered and sobbed furiously, quivering out of control. Why are you doing this to me? I didn't do anything. Sara's eyes wanted to ask. Sara couldn't or perhaps, she wouldn't. She stared weeping aloud instead, gasping convulsively; too scared to open her mouth. I thought you were my friend. Her mind pressed a need to scream while recollecting a recent past, but her mouth remained silent. Why are you torturing me? She pleaded a question, but she was unable to speak.
Three years earlier, Saraswati Sarwenda Budiwati, or Sara to family and friends, was a freshman at the University of Indonesia. A school friend introduced Sara to a Nigerian Prince, Babafemi Udegbunam, "Prince" or "Bubba" to close associates, for some profitable venture. Lured to work in Malaysia as a foreign worker during summer break, she ended up as a drug courier for the Nigerian Express, a notorious drug cartel and fraud artists. Bubba was not a real Prince. He just loved to pretend he was one. Sara enjoyed a champagne and caviar lifestyle with the Prince during regular trips to Hong Kong, but it made her visible as a prime drug-mule suspect by 'Operation Red Folder' operatives under Interpol jurisdiction. The undercovers, a collection of trusted Masonic secret agents plucked from a selected pool of spooks from various law enforcement agencies worldwide, started to move in against The Praying Mantis and his Pu Tang Clan; a notorious drug producer and supplier from Hong Kong and China. Sara was caught with a suitcase of dope at Kuala Lumpur airport as part of a worldwide sting and sent to the RIC for questioning. Requiring further evidence, the Royal Intelligence Corps of Malaysia released Sara when a Nigerian businessman posted bail. Immediately sequestered in a dilapidated shack somewhere in Kuala Lumpur, Sara was now in the Prince's bad books and given a third degree grilling. No more champagne and caviar.
How did my partners end up arrested after RIC picked up Sara? Bubba cracked his fists and viciously stared at Sara; gritting his teeth, eyes half-shut, fuming.
"So, WHO ah YOU in contact with?" Bubba yelled an octave higher, putting the screws on his alarming interrogation. This time, he found a crusty scab and picked it off his scalp; looked at it and lifted to smell the brittle skin up his nose as if it was vintage classic wine. His snout wrinkled.
"I-I swear I d-didn't talk about anything to anyone," Sara pleaded, her voice trailed.
Bubba stood, reached over and grabbed her hair twisting it toward her spine forcing her jaws to unfurl; neck outstretched. She mumbled something indistinctly.
He glared.
Bubba pulled out a switchblade and said, "Ah don't believe you, bitch!"
The camouflaged sentry stood and stomped near the door. He was delirious, egging his partner loudly, taking another swig of vodka and chasing it with another series of bouncing African steps.
A blood-curdling scream immediately followed.
The ecstatic guard whooped and convulsed improvising more steps and gestures while Bubba roared finishing off the alcohol.
"
