Rubble Trouble

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Tucked away in a remote village in mountainous northern Bali, 23-year-old Rimbawa attempts to remember the disaster that changed his life. He gently strokes his arm, wrapped in a grubby bandage that protects the third-degree burns beneath, and stares into the middle distance where his mother and two sisters are busy preparing banana-leaf offerings for a Hindu cleansing ceremony. Minutes pass. Tears well in his eyes. Then slowly, painfully, Rimbawa rises from his seat on the stone step in front of the family home and shuffles into his bedroom. The interview is over. Not a single word has been spoken. "Rimbawa must rest now," says Sukarya, his brother.

Indonesian police investigating the bomb blasts that tore the heart out of Bali's Kuta tourist district on Oct. 12, killing around 200 and injuring hundreds more, believe Rimbawa may hold the key to identifying at least one of the killers responsible. Rimbawa was a sweeper in Paddy's Irish Pub, and witnesses say he was standing near a 1-kilogram TNT bomb that detonated on a table inside the popular bar. That explosion sent scores of frantic patrons rushing out?into the range of a far more deadly bomb packed inside a white Mitsubishi minivan parked outside the Sari Club on the opposite side of Jalan Legian, the district's busiest street.

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But if Rimbawa saw who placed the explosives inside his pub that night, he isn't telling. The bomb has made sure of that. Apart from burns that cover almost half his spindly frame, Rimbawa's proximity to the blast has left him profoundly and perhaps permanently deaf. Worse, his mind is so scrambled, so traumatized, by what he witnessed that he has refused to speak to his family and has been unable to help the police. His mother, Griya, hopes the cleansing ceremony will rid her son of the horrors in his head. "It is our only chance to save my son and find out who did this," she says.

To solve the Bali massacre, the police could certainly do with some help. They are desperate for a breakthrough. The investigators are still a long way from naming a suspect, establishing a motive or connecting the deadly strike to jihadis. "Our net is still cast very wide," says Major General I. Made Mangku Pastika, the Balinese-born police chief appointed by Jakarta to head the investigation. General Pastika occupies one of the hottest seats in Indonesia. Getting some solid arrests?none have been made so far?will reassure the international community that President Megawati Sukarnoputri is serious about the need to reverse her country's image as a haven for terrorist groups. "My credibility, the credibility of the Indonesian police, and the credibility of Indonesia are all wrapped up in this case," Pastika admits.

One positive sign is that the man hailed by Australian police as the best cop in Indonesia has shown no sign of succumbing to outside pressure. Last week there were fears that hasty arrests would be made to appease Jakarta and an outraged public in Australia, which suffered an estimated 96 casualties. Instead, the investigation has been characterized by patience and precision. With the support of the Australian Federal Police and counterterrorism and forensics experts from Scotland Yard and the FBI, Pastika has methodically assembled evidence from the crime scene. The picture he has painted so far is chilling.

Investigators are now certain that there were three bomb blasts that evening, two of them on Jalan Legian. The first, a half-kilogram bomb made from TNT and detonated by remote control from a mobile phone, exploded near the U.S. consulate in Bali in the city of Denpasar, not far from Kuta. Ten minutes later, a second bomb, also packed with TNT, went off beside Rimbawa as he worked in Paddy's. Minutes later the payload bomb, its exact makeup still to be confirmed, erupted on the crowded street outside the Sari Club. (Investigators believe that both of those bombs were also detonated by remote control.) "There is no doubt that this was a sophisticated attack," said an Australian Federal Police investigator. High-level police sources tell TIME that one Islamic group is of particular interest: Sulawesi-based Laskar Jundullah, the same group al-Qaeda whistle-blower Omar al-Faruq told the CIA he'd helped establish with Agus Dwikarna, an Indonesian businessman. Dwikarna was arrested last March at a Manila airport after security guards found plastic explosives and detonation cables in his suitcase. He's now serving a minimum 10-year sentence in the Philippines.

Police on the ground in Kuta believe the attackers were Indonesian nationals. A woman inside Paddy's claims to have seen an Indonesian man in a brown plaid shirt carrying a plastic bag into the club. She was evacuated from Bali and is now in an Australian hospital with extensive burns. The Australian quoted her as saying, "I will never forget his face as long as I live." Perhaps, locked inside Rimbawa's tormented mind, is a vivid picture of that same murderous face.