Alvaro Feng had been chief of the Kascan township police for nearly two years, and in the last week his out-of-the-way police force had gotten more attention from the media than it had in the last decade. Why, he'd heard that today, a camera crew from halfway across the world was coming to film a documentary in his little township in the very northern tip of North Kaijan province, and he'd been as excited as anyone to greet them and give them a tour. Why, he'd never even met anyone from Serriel before! He straightened his green police uniform and epaulettes as he walked out of the police station to greet them.
Standing in the gravel parking area in front of the police station were two people, evidently the Serrielans, with wide grins on their face.
"Hello, Chief Feng!" said the woman standing there. She was a shorter woman in her mid-thirties, with doeish brown eyes and dark hair beneath a turquoise hijab, like those many Kaijanese women wore. The man with her was a tall, balding man with deep-brown skin, holding a heavy movie camera and perspiring a bit in the tropical morning heat.
"Welcome to Kascan!" Chief Feng said. "You must be the crew from 4M Productions. I'm so glad that you've come all the way from Serriel to be here. I hope your trip wasn't too difficult?"
"No, not at all," said the woman. "We flew in to Kaijan City and took the train most of the way up the valley. It's been an adventure."
"Of course," Feng said. "A lot of the time we get adventure tourists, hoping to find some of our unexplored wilderness. If you weren't here on business, I'd recommend a motorcycle tour. There's some beautiful waterfalls nearby, in the jungle."
"Perhaps after we're done filming," the woman said. "I'm Meryem Gökmen, the chief documentarian. This is my cameraman, Serkan Açik."
"Hullo," Serkan said.
"Good to meet both of you," Feng said. "I'm Alvaro Feng, chief of the township police here in Kascan. But call me Alvaro. I heard you wanted to see some of the mountain villages, and maybe talk with some townspeople?"
"That's right," Meryem said. "There's a lot of interest in Serriel about foreign places, and the lives of the people who live there. We want to learn more about the tribal people here in Kaijan. The Muslim community here is very interesting to the people back home in Serriel, and so we're filming a documentary on their lives."
"Well, I can certainly help with that. I'm taking some supplies up into the town of Asalacca, about fifty minutes' drive from here. You can catch a ride with us, and then talk with the townspeople. There's a very pretty mosque up there, and some beautiful views of the mountain and jungle."
"Sounds wonderful," Meryem said.
Fifteen minutes later, Meryem, Serkan, and Serkan's massive movie camera were packed into the cab of a beat-up police pickup truck, along with Chief Feng and two of his officers.
"Why are your men carrying so many weapons?" Meryem asked from the passenger seat. "Is there anything to worry about?" From the backseat, Serkan panned his video camera to show the two police officers in the backseat with their machetes and rifles.
"The area was home to insurgents about a decade ago, during the war," Alvaro said from the driver's seat. "The NRK, terrorists who wanted Kaijan to be independent. The danger's passed, but we hold on to our guns just in case."
They were passing over a particularly bumpy stretch of road through the jungle, and ahead of them a lone motorcycle, the first vehicle they'd seen since setting out, sped up into the distance.
"It's a very pleasant area you live in," Meryem said. "I can't imagine that anyone would want to commit violent acts in such a tropical paradise! What sorts of issues does your department typically deal with?"
"Well, about a decade ago right after the war we were kept busy with confiscating the weapons of the NRK fighters, that sort of thing," Alvaro said. "I'd just joined the force then. Since then, we mostly deal with run-of-the-mill things. The occasional theft, lost children, occasionally domestic squabbles or that sort of thing. A lot of the time, we're just bringing supplies to the small villages, like the gas generators we have in the back. Mail and packages too."
"So it's like you're the face of the provincial government out here," Serkan said from behind the camera.
"You could say that, yes," Alvaro said. Just then, the truck pulled out from the trees and onto a cliffside road, and the Serrielans oohed and aahed at the mountain view.
"Let's pull over and take a look!" Meryem said. "If it's not too much of a delay, of course."
After the documentary crew had spent about twenty minutes taking video of the jungle vista and the officers had stretched their legs, they all piled back into the beat-up pickup for the drive to Asalacca. Apart from Serkan catching a glimpse of a beautifully-feathered tropical bird in the jungle canopy, the final stretch of the drive passed uneventfully.
Asalacca was a picturesque mountain town of maybe three dozen small homes amid the jungle, and a small mosque, just the size of a single house, that had evidently been kept up well over the decades. The documentary crew had scrambled out of the truck almost as soon as they had come to a stop, and were rushing about the village trying to strike up conversations with the villagers. Chief Feng could see them out by the mosque, talking animatedly with an elderly man in a vibrant patterned sarong. Alvaro himself was helping his officers unload the heavy gas generator, along with the sacks of food and small bag of mail, to present to the village headman.
Delivering the supplies to the villagers was always a process. The headman would always insist on inviting them in for tea, and then profusely thanking them for the supplies. The gas generator was meant to help keep the village's lights on even if a sudden storm knocked the power line to the village down, and the mail meant letters and gifts from the town's young people who worked in other towns or other islands. The headman was exceedingly pleased to have gotten a letter from his often-wayward son, now working as a peddler in New Brighton, and insisted the officers stay for longer. By the time Alvaro finally managed to extricate himself and his men, it had been almost two hours. The Serrielan documentarians were still filming, and were now interviewing a village child.
"Hey Chief," one of his officers said. "Can I borrow your mobile? Mine's not getting a signal."
Alvaro passed the officer his mobile, a sturdy flip-phone that could usually get a signal even in the rural highlands. A moment later, the officer handed it back to him. "I'm trying to call Nerang back at the station, but I'm not getting a signal. Text won't work either."
Alvaro looked at his phone. This was odd. Maybe this was why he hadn't gotten any messages while he was dining with the headman. "Probably just another outage. Signals get lost up here in the mountains."
"I don't want the station to get worried. You know how Nerang is."
"We've should have a radio back in the truck," Alvaro said. "See if you can get a signal on that."
The officer came back a moment later with the heavy radio, static emanating from the speaker as he turned the dial. "108.2, right?"
"Right," Alvaro said. "Here we go."
"Hey, chief?" Nerang's voice said. "Chief, is that you?"
"Hey, Nerang," Alvaro said. "Everything okay back at the station?"
"We've been trying to get reach of you," Nerang said. "The cell towers are down, it's the terrorists. You need to get back here, the mayor needs you. And there's soldiers here too? It's absolutely crazy!"
"Wait, terrorists? What terrorists?"
"Some soldiers are here, and they say it's the terrorists from the news. In New Liverpool? The seppies that were blowing shit up. They're here in Kascan, and they've been shooting up people's houses. You need to get back here, stat."
"Well, shit." Alvaro said. "Soldiers? From the government?"
"Uniforms and guns and everything!" Nerang said. "We need you down here right now, I don't know what to do!"
"Okay, okay!" Alvaro said. "Okay. We'll get back in the truck and be down there in forty minutes, inshallah. Just stay calm until then, okay? We'll be back in forty minutes."
"Godspeed, chief."
Alvaro handed the radio back to the officer. "Hey Rashid!" he shouted to the other officer. "Grab the film crew and get them to the truck! We need to go!"
Moments later, Alvaro, the officers, and the film crew had piled back into the police truck and were speeding down the mountain road back to the police station.
"Wait, explain this again," Meryem said. "You said there's terrorists? Here in Kascan?"
"That's right," said Alvaro, gripping the wheel as the pickup truck rounded a bend. "They're Kaijanese separatists. The same group you might have seen in the news, with the attacks in New Liverpool? That's them. And apparently they're here, and so is the army, and they want us all back at the station." The truck hit a pothole, and the entire cab shook.
"But I thought you said there was no danger here anymore!" Meryem said.
"Guess I was wrong!" Alvaro replied. "Look, we'll be back at the station in just thirty minutes. You can wait there, we're in no danger." The road was bumpy in this stretch as well, and the people in the cab were tossed about. Suddenly, there was a tremendous bump, throwing the passengers to the right. With a sudden lurch, the truck swerved off the road, ramming into a tree with a crunch.
Alvaro was the first to recover from the daze of the crash. He'd been thrown forward, but his seatbelt had kept him in place. The windshield had a large crack running across it, and the nose of the car had rammed into an immense tree; the front was noticeably damaged by the impact. Alvaro looked around. Meryem was whimpering in the passenger seat, but as Alvaro watched she moved her arms out from where they'd reflexively gone in front of her face. Alvaro looked to the backseat; the people there seemed okay.
"I'm going to go take a look at the damage," Alvaro announced. He unclicked his seatbelt, opened the driver's-side door and went to inspect the hood of the truck. The metal was crumpled at the point of impact with the tree trunk. "You think this is drivable?" he asked Rashid, who had come out to take a look.
"I dunno, chief," Rashid said. "It doesn't look good."
Alvaro got back into the driver's seat and turned the keys in the ignition. The engine stuttered, and kept stuttering. "Well, damn," Alvaro said. "Anyone here know how to fix an engine?" No one responded.
"Okay," Alvaro said. "We'll just radio down to the station for help. Rashid, try and reach Nerang. Tell him we need a pickup. Bassil and I will keep an eye out for any vehicles coming down the road. Meryem, Serkan, just stay in the cab."
He stepped out of the vehicle and onto the packed dirt of the road. Birds were squawking and insects chirping in the jungle, but besides that there was no noise. After staring out at the deserted road for a moment, he reached back into the cab and grabbed a rifle. A solid bolt-action, old but sturdy. "Bassil, head up the road about fifteen meters and keep an eye out for anyone coming. I'll head about that far down the road. Rashid, call for me as soon as you hear from Nerang back at the station." He took a look at the Serrielans, now presumably in a much more frightening situation than they'd been expecting. "Hey, Rashid," he said softly. "Try and keep the film crew calm, okay?" He picked up the heavy rifle and walked down the dirt road, until he was just around the bend from the crashed pickup truck. He leaned against a tree, cradling his rifle, and muttered a brief prayer that the other police officers would get here before any terrorists did.
