In front of the Pediatric ICU, Lula still stood frozen in place. Her puffy eyes were hidden behind oversized sunglasses, contrasting sharply with her paling white skin.
A senior nurse approached her with slow steps. “Ms. Lula? Mrs. Andien is conscious upstairs now. She’s made it through the critical stage of shock. If you’d like, you can go up and see her.”
Lula slowly turned her head. Her hand clenched the strap of her luxury handbag until her knuckles turned white. Her mind returned to the stream of vicious news reports and insane conspiracy theories flooding social media. If she entered Andien’s room now, she knew her defenses would collapse. She didn’t want Andien to see her best friend crying in frustration, and she didn’t want to bring this aura of anger into the recovery room.
“No,” Lula replied, her voice hoarse but firm. She shook her head slowly. “Not tonight. Please protect her and Baim with your lives.”
Without waiting for the nurse’s response, Lula turned and walked down the hospital corridor. The click of her high heels echoed coldly through the silence of the night. She chose to go home—not because she didn’t care, but because she realized tears wouldn’t win this war. She had to find another way to silence the vicious mouths out there.
At exactly two in the morning, the hospital was completely swallowed by silence. In the VVIP room, the mother had fallen into a deep sleep on the sofa, exhausted after days of being consumed by grief and tears. On the bed, Andien opened her eyes.
There were no tears left, only a hollowness that seemed to freeze the flow of blood through her veins. Her maternal instincts rebelled, refusing to let her body rest while her child struggled alone downstairs.
Moving with agonizing slowness and enduring the pain coursing through her entire body, Andien pushed aside the thermal blanket. She carefully removed the oxygen sensor clip from her index finger so it wouldn’t trigger an alarm, then lowered her feet onto the ice-cold porcelain floor. The chill spread to the soles of her feet, still wrapped in thin bandages from the scrapes she’d suffered breaking through the emergency stairs the other day.
Andien forced herself to stand. Her head throbbed violently, and her vision spun for a moment, but she gripped the wheeled IV pole beside her for support. Slowly, she stepped out of her room.
The hospital corridor felt like a long, endless tunnel. Dim night lights cast elongated shadows across the white walls. Every step Andien took felt impossibly heavy, as though she were dragging invisible iron chains. The corridor’s silence became a dramatic stage for the devastation inside her. She kept moving, stumbling past the nurse dozing at the administration desk, then rode the staff elevator down until she finally reached the Pediatric ICU block.
Her steps stopped. Through the thick soundproof glass wall, she saw him. Baim. Her little angel lay there, weak and helpless. Andien moved closer to the glass. Her trembling hand rose and touched the cold surface, as though she could caress her son’s pale face. Baim’s small body was covered in tubes, and the rhythm of his breathing depended entirely on the ventilator, which rose and fell mechanically.
The sight struck Andien in the pit of her stomach like a giant hammer. Her already fragile defenses shattered into pieces. This was all that remained of her world—the last fragment of Bisma’s love, now balanced on the brink of life.
A sudden tightness locked Andien’s throat. Her lungs refused to work. Her knees gave out completely. Srrk...
Andien’s body slowly slid down, following the glass wall until she finally slumped onto the cold corridor floor. Her hand remained pressed against the glass, leaving a patch of condensation from her ragged breath. She cried in silence, without a sound, drowning in absolute despair.
“Mrs. Andien! Oh my God!” A duty nurse who had just stepped out of the medication room was startled to see the VVIP patient collapsed in the corridor. She half-ran over, immediately crouching down and holding Andien’s violently trembling shoulders.
“Ma’am, you shouldn’t be here. You could collapse!” the nurse said in panic. She immediately called for assistance, and within seconds, a wheelchair arrived. Andien didn’t resist at all as her limp, rag-doll-like body was slowly lifted into the wheelchair. Her eyes never left Baim’s figure behind the glass until the elevator doors closed and blocked her view.
Far from the despair blanketing Jakarta, the night in the interior of Kalimantan was thick with the smell of mud and the metallic stench of blood.
The pitch-black swamp water moved peacefully, but beneath its surface, a struggle between life and death was underway. Beams from the three high-powered flashlights carried by the executioners swept across the water, cutting through the thick fog hovering over the swamp. “Target not in sight! Did your bullet hit him?” one of the armed men shouted from the wooden pier.
The man in the black leather jacket leading the execution aimed his flashlight at the red froth floating on the water. “I see blood. My shot hit his back or shoulder, at least. The current beneath this swamp connects to the main river, which is fast-moving and full of crocodiles. That old man won’t last more than ten minutes with a gunshot wound and hypothermia.”
The man lowered his weapon. “Let’s go. We’ll search the downstream area tomorrow morning to confirm the body. The President doesn’t like unfinished business.” The three men turned and disappeared into the darkness of the pier, leaving behind ripples that slowly settled.
Yet beneath the tangle of a giant mangrove’s roots jutting into the swamp, Professor Denny was still alive. The old scientist was only five meters from where the assassins had stood, hiding directly beneath a gap in the roots that formed a natural air pocket. His body was submerged in muddy water up to his neck, masking his body heat from any thermal sensors the assassins might have been carrying.
The bullet had hit him, but only grazed his left shoulder. The excruciating sting of dirty water entering the wound forced Denny to bite down on his own collar to keep from groaning in pain.
Once the sound of the assassins’ combat-boat engines had truly faded into the distance, Denny slowly surfaced. He spat out the muddy water he’d accidentally swallowed, breathing hard and fast. His body shook violently from the freezing water. With the last of the strength possessed by a middle-aged man who refused to surrender, Denny hauled his mud-covered body onto the swamp’s shore. His right hand clutched the waterproof plastic pouch beneath his jacket, where Bisma’s memory drive was safely stored.
Professor Denny’s eyes stared sharply into the impenetrable darkness of the Kalimantan forest. He had survived, and now it was time to turn the tables. What kind of shocking discovery would Professor Denny find inside Bisma’s memory drive—something that could become the ultimate weapon against President Kaesang?