Rogue Element (18 page)

Inside the vault, Joe had hoped to find more than the general’s Christmas shopping list, but he’d not been able to make sense of any of it. Disappointed, he nevertheless thought what the hell and burned the lot onto a beer mat anyway.

Joe seemed to wake from a trance. ‘There were a few papers.’

‘Is that all?’ asked Suryei.

‘The general had made an attempt to keep them hidden. But, now I think about it, there was something weird.’

Joe stood and walked slowly about the small clearing, piecing the fragments of the memories together, shoulders hunched, drawn into himself. ‘There was something . . . I didn’t think much about it at the time. Australia was part of a map . . .’

‘A map?’

‘Yeah, it’s odd.’

‘Why? How?’

‘The names of all the countries. I remember now because those names were the only words I could understand. They were written in English. Except Australia. It was called something-or-other Irian Jaya.’

‘Okay,’ said Suryei, standing up, hands on hips, facing him. ‘Can you remember what that something-or-other was?’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Try harder.’ The blood had drained from her face.

Joe ignored her impatience. ‘There was another word that prefixed Irian Jaya. Like Salute, or Salami . . .’

Suryei’s face felt cold yet hot at the same time. The tips of her ears burned. Could it possibly be . . . ? No way. The Indonesians would never conceive . . . It was too outrageous. Yet, they had been in a Qantas 747 that had been blown out of the sky. And now they were being hunted by Indonesian troops. Maybe it wasn’t too far-fetched at all and Joe had actually found something incredible, something so big that perhaps a plane-load of people had to die to prevent it being brought to the world’s attention. ‘Joe, think hard now. Was the word possibly . . . Selatan?’

Joe tried to visualise the map. ‘Yes,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I think that was it. Yeah, Selatan Irian Jaya. Why, what does that mean?’

Christ, thought Suryei, her stomach twisting. This was something she didn’t want to make a mistake about. ‘The word Irian means “high” in Indonesian. Jaya means “victory”. And Selatan means “southern”. Selatan Irian Jaya – Southern High Victory. Whose computer did you hack into?’

‘A general. A bloke called Soo-ang.’

‘You mean Suluang. He’s the Mr Big of the TNI.’ At that moment, Suryei saw it all clearly and a painful anxiety gripped her chest. She sat heavily on the ground, just as Joe had earlier. ‘I think what you might have found was part of an invasion plan.’

‘What . . . ?!’

‘It seems bizarre, but the facts fit – the plane, the missile, the soldiers trying to kill us. The Indonesians trying to keep some sort of invasion of Australia secret. Something like that is big enough to make sense of everything.’ Suryei stared at the ground at her feet, in shock.

‘That’s why there’s been no rescue. I’ll bet the Australian authorities don’t even know where the plane is,’ Suryei said.

‘Then we’re fucked,’ said Joe quietly.

‘Is it possible they – the soldiers – know they’re chasing the person who uncovered the plan?’

‘I don’t know how they could.’

‘But if they did, it would make them pretty damned determined to put a bullet in you . . . us.’

Joe paced nervously and started towards the trees. ‘Come on. Let’s get moving. We can’t stay here.’

‘Hang on a sec. What are we going to do? We need some sort of plan here,’ she said to his back.

He stopped. ‘You’re right. We can’t go much further this way.’ Joe looked up at the escarpment towering above them.

‘I think we should head back to the aeroplane,’ she said.

‘Sure. And let’s put big red targets on our chests for those nice men in khaki.’

‘We’re not getting anywhere wandering around in circles,’ said Suryei, allowing his sarcasm to pass over her.

‘Aside from whether going back to the plane’s a good idea or not, I don’t know where we are, or where the plane is in relation to us. So how do you propose we find it?’

‘I don’t know, but we have to try. When rescue comes, it’ll go there, not out here. And there are plenty of places we can hide close by the wreckage until it does.’

When rescue comes . . . Joe also wanted desperately to believe in rescue.
Someone
had to come and pluck them from this nightmare. It was the one thought keeping him going, except for the ever-present threat of a bullet between the eyes if they didn’t. Perhaps a search was underway right now, only looking in the wrong area. That happened sometimes, didn’t it? Okay, so Suryei was right. Again. They needed to get back to the plane. That in itself was troubling: not that Suryei always seemed to have the answers, but because if their only option was so obvious, the soldiers would probably come to the same conclusion about their likely movements. Joe looked around. He had no idea in which direction the plane lay. Somehow they had to get their bearings.

Joe imagined what it must smell like back at the 747 with all the bodies bloating in the tropical heat. The memory of that awful smell found its way back into his nostrils and it took all his will not to gag on it.

Blight hoped he wasn’t overdoing it as he thumped the table a third time, but lack of sleep always made him more aggressive. The Indonesian ambassador flinched visibly.

‘Our air force has committed every available resource to the search, Mr Prime Minister.’ Parno Batuta was shaken. Receiving a summons at sunrise from a Prime Minister was usually a bad omen. He was right.

‘It has now been two days. Why haven’t you found the damn thing?’ hammered Blight. He was tempted to shove the photographs in the man’s face, just to see his reaction. But that was an ace Blight had decided was best played in another hand.

‘I totally reject your tone and manner, sir,’ said the Indonesian, trying to maintain his poise. ‘Sulawesi, as you know, isn’t like one of your deserts. If the plane has gone down in a valley, it may never be found.’

Interviewing Batuta had been Griffin’s idea. Lean on the man, he’d suggested. Try to get a feeling for whether the ambassador knew what was going on back home.

‘Mr Ambassador, I will say this just once. Guaranteeing the security of international passenger aircraft overflying your bloody airspace is one of the cornerstones of modern civilisation! If you don’t do everything you can to search every square metre of that jungle until you find our plane, then you’re setting a bloody dangerous precedent.

‘If it was a Garuda plane – or any goddam plane for that matter – that had gone down over Australia, we wouldn’t be having this bloody conversation because all our resources would be employed. And willingly!’ Thump number four. The Prime Minister was shouting, his face puce.

Batuta found the Australian PM a prickly character at the best of times. The anger and the language the consul could handle, but not the accusation that Indonesia had something to hide on the issue of this plane crash. The suggestion that it might indeed do so caused the vessels in
his temples to pound. Having his country’s integrity questioned was more than a diplomatic slight, it was a personal injury. ‘This is not a case of Jakarta stalling! I am deeply troubled and personally offended by your assertion. I reiterate, we have no idea where the aircraft came down! You will have to accept that because it is the truth.’ It was Batuta’s turn to thump the table.

‘Perhaps our experts are right and the plane has come down somewhere else, not in Sulawesi as was first thought. We have a possible time when the plane disappeared from one radar screen, but that information was not corroborated. Given the aircraft’s height and speed, our air force people tell us the plane could just as easily have come down somewhere in Malaysia –’

‘Mr Ambassador, someone’s filling your head with crap,’ Blight said, arms folded, emphatic and implacable. The notion of the 747 flying on to Malaysia was a fantasy. ‘Get yourself some new experts. Aircraft do not just “wink” out of electronic existence, and then fly on into the sunset. Something on that plane went seriously and catastrophically wrong.

‘Our plane is on your soil, so don’t try and tell me otherwise. Obviously, we cannot go to Sulawesi and search for it without your permission. Now there’s a thought – why don’t you extend us that invitation?’ Blight wasn’t finished. There was something else he wanted to add, but he was nervous about doing so.
Don’t overstep the mark.
Blight shrugged mentally. This was a game and he had to drive the ambassador to the brink if he was to be absolutely certain. ‘Mr Ambassador, if the reason you won’t extend us that invitation is because the majority of the people on that plane are Australian, then God help you.’

Personally, Blight didn’t believe that racism was behind the reluctance to invite Australian participation in the search, but he was nonetheless keen to see the man’s reaction to such a repugnant suggestion.

Batuta took several deep breaths to calm himself. It required willpower not to return the Australian’s ugliness in kind, and this conversation was in danger of getting completely out of hand. ‘I reiterate that we are looking for your plane with all available aircraft,’ he said softly, his jowls quivering with the supreme effort required to stay in control.

The ambassador stood abruptly, his face flushed red. The Prime Minister’s tone and manner were far too blunt. ‘And I remind you that, as you have observed, we are a sovereign country and our airspace is not – I repeat not – open to the prying eyes of Australian search aircraft.’ Batuta felt himself giving in to his own anger as a rising indignation took hold. The audacity of these people! The arrogance! It was better to leave before he said something he might later regret. ‘Good morning, Mr Prime Minister.’ With that, he flung open the door and stormed out.

Blight was relieved. He sat heavily and replayed the meeting in his mind. He thought himself a good judge of character and his gut told him Batuta was ignorant. He’d pushed the man. Hard. If anything, the ambassador had been disinformed. And if that was the case, then it followed that the whole Indonesian government probably was too. Blight continued the logic and his relief was quickly replaced by anxiety. That disinformation had to be coming from somewhere. Who or what was the source? And the biggest question of all was still unanswered – why?

Joe and Suryei’s presence disturbed a large family of monkeys in the trees overhead. They reacted by screeching, whooping and leaping about the canopy, thrashing leaves, baring their teeth and carrying their young into the highest branches. And then objects like footballs covered in small spikes rained down.

‘Jackfruit!’ said Suryei. She laughed and picked one up. It was rotten, covered in thousands of tiny brown ants. She hunted about until one came to hand that had the right firmness. She checked by flicking it with a fingernail. ‘They make a special sound when they’re ripe,’ she said in response to the puzzled look on Joe’s face. Suryei dug her thumb in under the skin and peeled off the spikes. She bit into the pale orange fruit and juice dribbled down her chin and she gave a grunt of satisfaction.

‘What’s it taste like?’ asked Joe.

‘Heaven!’

Joe picked one up that looked about right and smelled it. He reminded himself that he was hungry enough to eat bark. He peeled it and bit deeply into the flesh, the sweetness enveloping his senses.

After he finished, Joe began filling his rucksack with them.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Suryei.

‘Lunch.’ The rucksack bulged and sagged heavily on its straps.

‘Forget it. They’ll only get mashed up. Besides, these things have probably been all around us – we just haven’t been looking in the right places.’

Joe unzipped the rucksack and let the heavy fruit fall to the ground with successive thuds. ‘Can you find a yoghurt tree too, please?’

Suryei allowed herself to smile openly. He was good company, or would be if the circumstances were different. Joe returned her smile. The whiteness of her teeth contrasted with her dirty brown skin, making them seem almost fluorescent.

‘You need another bath,’ she said.

Joe was caked in grime, and his hair was matted against his head. Jackfruit juice and pulp coloured yellow the dark stubble on his chin. ‘Have you looked in a mirror lately?’

‘Let’s go,’ said Suryei turning away, smiling, her fingertips tingling.

Sergeant Marturak had made a mistake. They should have overtaken the two survivors by now. Certainly by morning. He was now sure he’d lost them. The blood trail that had been so generous had quickly disappeared. Their wounds must have been superficial. The men had found no footsteps, no faeces, no broken vegetation and certainly no more empty water bottles to indicate their passage. It was too easy to miss people in the dark, even with the NVGs. The jungle had given way to forest and there had been enough light to use them but there were still far too many places to hide. The last thing he wanted was for the fugitives to slip around to their rear.

He stopped his men beside a small stream and took out a map of the area. The plane wreckage was marked on it, as was the loggers’ camp and their course through the bush. The two survivors had headed away from the hills, towards the low country.

Could they have doubled back and made for the escarpment instead? Even climbed it? He cursed their lack of personal radio comms. If he’d had them, this job would’ve been over. He’d have sent a few men forward to track the man and woman and then easily coordinated an ambush. Instead, he’d had to keep his force together and virtually within line of sight of each other. And the camp had had to be effectively dismantled – they couldn’t have left it intact behind them. That had given the people he was tracking a head start. And they didn’t seem to be playing by the rules, stumbling and bumbling along the established trails, leaving signposts of their passage. This whole business was getting frustrating. He swore and spat on the ground. His men tried to ignore his anger. But they too were getting edgy, feeling the tension.

The sergeant took a deep breath to steady his temper and surveyed the map again, attempting to see it with fresh eyes. The stream wasn’t indicated on the map but that didn’t mean anything. There were hundreds of millions of litres of water still draining off the mountains and hills after the monsoon. Water was everywhere.

He took out his GPS and marked their position on the map. A fresh plan was forming in his head. He interrogated it and decided it was sound. They would set up an ambush . . . here.

At their backs was the plane wreck. Away in front and to the left was the high, rugged country. It was an obstacle that only well-equipped, experienced climbers could tackle. Desperation and determination could overcome many equipment deficiencies, but he seriously doubted that his two adversaries, wounded from the crash or their exertions in the jungle, would attempt sheer volcanic faces.
There was an extremely good chance that they would stroll into his trap if he set it right.

Then, once contact was made, his men could pull back and converge to form a funnel that would catch his quarry in a killing zone. Marturak deployed lookouts, ordered his men to have their rations and take several hours rest. It would be a long day and an even longer night.

He checked the time. Allah! He was due to make a situation report. It was not something he could avoid any longer. His superiors back in Jakarta needed to know what was going on. The message he would send was in his head. Marturak knew it wouldn’t be welcomed: site unsecured, two survivors, in pursuit. No, the general would not be pleased.