Snakehead

with traffic even at this time of the night. Squinting over the driver’s shoulder, Alex barely saw anything until, at last, Jakarta came into sight. It reminded him at first of Bangkok, but as they drew closer, he saw that it was uglier and somehow less sure of itself, still struggling to escape from the sprawling shantytown it had once been.
    The traffic was horrible. They were carried into Jakarta on a concrete overpass, and suddenly there were cars and motorcycles above them and below them as well as on both sides. Skyscrapers—bulky rather than beautiful—rose up ahead, a thousand lightbulbs burning uselessly in offices that must surely be empty, coloring the night sky yellow and gray. There were brightly colored food stalls— warungs —along the sidewalks. But nobody seemed to be eating. The crowds were drifting home like sleepwalkers, pushing their way through the noise and the dirt and the heat as the storm clouds closed in overhead.
    They turned off the overpass and seemed to leave the main sprawl of the city as quickly as they had entered it. Suddenly the van was rumbling over a dirt track, splashing through puddles, and weaving around loose bricks and rubble. There were no streetlamps, no signs, no illumination from a moon that had been blocked out by cloud. Alex saw only what the headlights showed him. This was some sort of suburb, a slum area with narrow streets, houses with tin roofs and corrugated iron patches, walls held up by wooden scaffolding. Strange, spiky shrubs and stunted palm trees grew out of the side of the road. There was no pavement. Somewhere a dog barked. But nowhere was there any sign of life.
    They came to a gate that seemed to have been bolted together from pieces of driftwood. Two words—in Indonesian letters—had been scrawled across it in red paint. As they approached, the driver pressed a remote control in the van and the gate opened, allowing them into a large, square compound with warehouses and offices, lit by a couple of arc lamps and fenced in on all sides. The van stopped. They had arrived.
    No one else seemed to be there. The doors of the van were pulled back, and the two men led Alex and Ash into one of the warehouses. Alex saw crates piled high, some of them open, spilling out straw and plastic toys. There was a pile of scooters, tangled together, a Barbie house lying on its side. A furry monkey was slumped with its legs apart, foam hanging out of a gash in its stomach, staring at them with empty glass eyes. Alex hoped it wasn’t an omen. He had never seen a collection of toys that looked less fun. From the look of them—dusty and dilapidated—they could have been here for years.
    Two thin mattresses spread out on the floor told him the worst. This was where they were supposed to sleep. There was no sign of any toilet or anywhere to wash. Ash turned to the men and signaled, cupping his hand against his mouth. He was thirsty. The men shrugged and walked out.
    It was to be the longest nine hours of Alex’s life. He had no sheets or blankets, and the mattress did almost nothing to protect him from the stone floor underneath. He was sweating. His clothes were digging into him. The whole of Jakarta was in the grip of a storm that refused to break, and the air seemed to be nine parts water. Worst of all were the mosquitoes. They found him almost immediately and refused to leave him alone. There was no point slapping at his face, and after a while Alex stopped bothering. The mosquitoes didn’t seem to care. The only escape would be sleep, but sleep refused to come.
    Ash couldn’t talk to him. There was always a chance there might be microphones in the room. Anyway, he was used to this. To Alex’s annoyance, his godfather was asleep almost at once, leaving him on his own to suffer through every minute of the night.
    But at last the morning came. Alex must have drifted into some sort of half sleep because the next thing he knew, Ash was shaking him and gray daylight was seeping in through the windows and the open door. Someone had brought them two glasses of sweet tea and a basket of bread rolls. Alex would have preferred eggs and bacon but decided it was probably better not to complain. Squatting on his mattress, he began to eat.
    What was going on? Alex realized that the false passports they had been given in Bangkok had been enough to get them into Indonesia but that Australia, with far stricter border controls, would prove more difficult. The island of Java was