FIVE WASTED YEARS

CHAPTER 6: TRUTHS FROM THE PAST

Pak Hendra had long since moved to a desk job at headquarters, but he still answered his phone on the second ring, the way he always had when he was Arga's commander.

"Arga. It's been a while." His voice was gravelly, warm. Then, when Arga explained what he needed—a copy of the operation report from the Bekasi warehouse fire—the line went quiet.

"Bima Mahendra," Pak Hendra repeated slowly when Arga said the name. "I remember that case. It never sat right with me."

He explained what Arga only half remembered. The preliminary report stated that Bima had left the scene before casualty registration was complete. That was all. No hospital admission that night. No police statement. No official record of where he'd gone. A man who had been screaming for his son simply walked away into the dark, and no one ever asked why.

"There were a lot of loose ends that night," Pak Hendra said. "We lost Fajar. Everyone was… We weren't thinking about paperwork."

Now that the door to that night had been forced open, Arga remembered something else. A small child found near a resident's car at the edge of the compound, coughing, lips gone grayish. A medic had scooped him up and carried him to an ambulance for oxygen, while all around them people ran back and forth searching for relatives they'd lost in the chaos.

But Arga couldn't be sure it had been Alif. Dozens of victims had been taken to different clinics and hospitals that night. Faces blurred. Under soot, every child looked the same.

He had carried that night inside him for two years without ever looking at it directly. After Fajar's funeral, he had gone back to work the very next week, because that was what you did. Nadira had told him then, not unkindly, that he should stop talking about it at dinner—that it made the food taste of smoke. So he had stopped. He had folded the whole night up small and put it somewhere he didn't have to see it. Now it was unfolding again, corner by corner, and every crease held something he had missed.

"Don't investigate this on your own," Pak Hendra warned. "I mean it. I'll put you in touch with the officer who handled victim registration. But anything you ask for, you ask for through proper procedure. Understand?"

"I understand, Pak."

And he did. He was beginning to understand that the truth would be worthless if he got it the wrong way. A stolen file, a forced confession—Rendra's lawyers would tear it to shreds, and Alif would be the one who paid.

That evening a car pulled into the yard. Arga recognized the engine before he looked. Nadira.

She came alone. No Rendra. No suitcases. She stood on the porch in a plain gray cardigan, without the careful makeup she had worn to the press conference, and for a moment she looked like the girl he had married—younger, tired, uncertain. The haughtiness she'd worn for weeks had slipped from her shoulders like a coat.

"Can I come in?"

He stepped aside.

She didn't sit. She stood in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed, as if holding herself together. "I need you to stop," she said. "All these questions about Alif. Calling agencies. Meeting people." Her voice wavered. "He's a little boy, Arga. He needs stability. Not some conflict that's going to ruin his future."

"You think I want to hurt Alif?" He shook his head. "I don't. All I want is to make sure no one is deciding his whole life for him by hiding a family that might still be looking for him." He held her gaze. "Can you tell me, honestly, that isn't what's happening?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then she sank onto the arm of the sofa, and the fight seemed to drain out of her all at once.

It was Rendra, she admitted. Rendra had introduced her to Alif. He'd told her the boy had no family capable of caring for him—that he needed help, a chance at a decent life. She had felt sorry for him. She'd started visiting on weekends, bringing picture books, a little red toy fire engine. And somewhere along the way, without quite noticing, she had become entangled in the foundation's business—signing things, attending meetings, lending her name—in ways she didn't fully understand.

"Rendra said all the documents had been checked," she said, her voice trembling. "I believed him. He always knows what to do. He always has an answer." She pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes. "And I just wanted to give Alif a family."

"Then why didn't you ever tell me?" Arga asked. "Any of it?"

She was quiet for a long moment.

"Because I was afraid you'd say no." She laughed, a small broken sound. "Rendra kept saying it. Over and over. That you'd never be able to give a child a good enough life. That you'd only hold us back. After a while…" She trailed off. "After a while I started hearing it in my own voice."

The confession didn't erase anything. The hotel, the restaurant, the lie about Bandung, the suitcases rolling out the door—none of it disappeared. But as Arga looked at his wife hunched on the arm of their old sofa, he began to see something he hadn't let himself see before. Nadira had betrayed him, yes. But she might also have been shaped, slowly and deliberately, by a man far more powerful than either of them.

When she rose to leave, he walked her to the door.

"Nadira." She turned. "Don't sign anything. No matter what Rendra tells you. Not until everything's been checked by someone who isn't on his payroll."

She didn't answer. But for the first time, he saw it plainly in her face: she was frightened. Truly frightened.

The door closed behind her. Her car backed out of the yard, its headlights sweeping across the wall and then gone.

Arga was still standing in the hallway when his phone rang. It was Dimas, and he sounded out of breath, as if he'd been walking fast.

"Ga. We found them." A pause. "Alif's family. They're real, they're alive—and they want to meet."