Chapter 104: The Chain Explosions
Wei Hua watched the approaching vehicles, a chilling sneer playing on his lips. The faster they drove, the faster they would die. That was Wei Hua’s verdict for these men, for he had mined the road leading to the shipyard. As expected, the lead vehicle exploded instantly, bursting into flames. Startled by the blast, the following cars slammed on their brakes, causing those at the rear to pile into one another. The occupants scrambled out, drawing their weapons and searching the darkness for their assailant.
"Amateurs!" Wei Hua thought. He began picking them off with his M16A2. Illuminated by the fire from the wreckage, the reinforcements were nothing more than sitting ducks; Wei Hua struck seven of them within a single second. Once they found cover, he switched to his M40 sniper rifle, loaded with armor-piercing rounds. Wei Hua had prepared thoroughly for this operation; armed with the knowledge and experience documented in the many books of the future, he had accounted for every possible contingency. Using an infrared scope, he located his targets one by one, eliminating them systematically. At first, the men below assumed Wei Hua was firing blindly, but once their comrades began dropping, they finally realized the gravity of their situation.
"That guy is using armor-piercing rounds! Watch out!" A man shouted, intending to help, but his words only shattered their resolve. Some began to retreat quietly. Wei Hua continued to pick them off, unhurried. These men were not his primary targets; if they chose to flee, he would not waste the effort to chase them down. He was waiting for Hudomo. In the end, a third of them escaped, while the rest died under Wei Hua’s fire. Sometimes, Wei Hua wondered why he could kill so many without hesitation. Was he a psychopath? Yet, he felt no such thing. The people he killed were either Japanese or Indonesian, and his ultimate conclusion was that he did not consider the Indonesians to be human. Half an hour later, through his binoculars, he spotted a much larger convoy—over twenty vehicles, including two large buses. Wei Hua judged that Hudomo had arrived.
Carrying a 150-kilogram pack, Wei Hua leaped from the three-story rooftop of the shipyard. It was time to welcome Hudomo. As the lead vehicle approached the site of the previous explosion, Wei Hua aimed a rocket launcher at the rearmost car. With a press of a button, the rocket streaked toward its target. A thunderous roar turned the last vehicle into a massive fireball. With the path ahead blocked and the road behind sealed by the burning wreckage, the vehicles were trapped. The occupants had no choice but to disembark, and so began a firefight between one man and nearly a hundred. Wei Hua utilized pistols, assault rifles, and grenades in tandem. He treated it like a war, but his opponents’ mindset remained stuck in the realm of gang warfare; they were woefully unprepared. The scene devolved into a one-man hunt against a hundred. In just over half an hour, Wei Hua routed Hudomo’s guards and caught up with the frantically fleeing Hudomo. Wei Hua took him away, and from that day forward, no one ever saw Hudomo again.
On November 14, 1981, a deputy minister of the Indonesian government and his three bodyguards were killed by a pre-planted bomb while dining at a high-end restaurant. The explosion resulted in fifteen deaths and over forty injuries. On November 21, 1981, a bomb detonated inside a police station in East Jakarta, killing twenty-one officers and wounding over seventy, including the station chief and two deputies. On December 1, 1981, the car carrying General Yabu Suriho, head of the Indonesian military’s logistics department, exploded, killing the general, his secretary, and his driver.
Three bombings in less than a month, all targeting high-ranking government officials in busy city centers, caused massive turmoil for the Indonesian government. They initially blamed the attacks on the same terrorists who had blown up the arms depot months prior, leading to a new wave of comprehensive searches. Jakarta was placed under martial law and a curfew, but Wei Hua showed no signs of stopping; he was already planning his next strike. Protected by the darkness, the curfew had little impact on him. He did not need to walk the streets; he could move across rooftops. Of course, he only did so when necessary, as only monkeys chose to travel by leaping across the heights.
Wei Hua’s next target was a frigate at the Jakarta naval base. He was running low on C4, and he felt that after being away for several months, it was time to check on his wives. Christmas was approaching, and it would be inexcusable not to return. Being a terrorist was merely a side job; being a businessman was his true profession. Though these days had been exciting and enjoyable, Wei Hua decided that once this final operation concluded, he would return to Hong Kong.
Late on the night of December 10, 1981, a Fatahillah-class frigate at the Jakarta naval base exploded, snapping the ship in two and sinking it. The blast killed over a hundred sailors and left more than twenty missing. The Indonesian military was thrown into a state of panic. If a frigate at a secure naval base could be attacked, would the terrorists target other military camps? The military intelligence department in charge of investigating the previous bombings faced immense pressure. Clues gathered from all sides indicated that the explosive residue matched that of the arms depot blast. This meant the C4 used in these attacks was the same stock once stored in the depot—a specific batch provided by the United States to Indonesia exclusively, which could not be purchased on the black market.