Rogue Element

‘This baby’s got keyhole resolution in the visible light and infrared spectrum. It also has x-ray capability. It can map radio waves, even do a spectroscopy analysis. This is one serious motherfucker piece of equipment.

‘What we got here is an infrared image of your search area. The satellite has been programmed to scan for temperatures up to and including one degree either side of 98.4, emanating from sources within a certain mass range; the idea being that you’ll get a photo that will register human presence without it being cluttered by hotspots or ghost images that turn out to be monkeys, pigs, and so on. Anyway,’ said the captain, handing him the photo, ‘take a look.’

Something told Wilkes he wasn’t going to like what he was about to see. The worry creasing the captain’s forehead told him as much. Within a couple of seconds of examining the photo, Wilkes was wearing a similar expression.

The photo was extraordinarily clear. The satellite it came from was indeed an astonishing piece of equipment. He took the black and white A-4 photocopy of the pic he’d been shown at the briefing back in Dili out of his top pocket, and compared it. The information presented by the new, colour A3 had totally and utterly changed. If the identical lat and long coordinates hadn’t been in the left of the new photo, he would have sworn that it was a view of a completely different area.

The smudged dots previously identified as the Kopassus soldiers waiting in ambush for one of the two sets of contacts had disappeared. The jungle was now alive with pairs of distinct, hard-edged markers. Now it was impossible to tell which of the contacts were his survivors. Wilkes studied the two utterly different photographs and couldn’t make sense of the information.

He shook his head. ‘Jesus… Can we get another pass at this before we go in?’ he asked hopefully.

‘No, I’ve checked on that already.’

Wilkes had half an idea. ‘Can you blow this one up to A3?’

‘That I can do,’ nodded the marine, taking the creased A4 sheet of paper up towards the aircraft’s comms suite.

Wilkes glanced up from the A3 sheet on his lap. The men were all looking his way. ‘What’s happening, boss?’ said the expression on Ellis’s face beside him.

Wilkes gestured that he wasn’t sure.

The captain returned with the old A4-size image blown up to A3 and handed it to Wilkes. He laid the new satellite intel over it. He lifted the top sheet up and down a few times and the hint of a smile curled his lips. ‘You got a pen or pencil?’ asked Wilkes. He took the pencil and drew a series of arrows and circles on the photos.

‘Okay,’ said Wilkes, ‘I think I’ve made a bit of sense out of this.’ McBride sat in the vacant seat beside Wilkes. ‘This is the first photograph. We started with this bunch of contacts here, assuming that it was an ambush line. These two contacts over here were apparently on the move, and these two over here weren’t.’ He indicated the position on the old photo.

‘Let’s take a look what’s happened.’ Wilkes lifted the top photo up and down and the photos came alive. Now the captain could suddenly see which of the contacts had moved, and had a few hints about the direction they had moved in, since the first photo was taken.

‘The ambush has broken up. The Indons are now fanning out across the jungle in twos.’ Arrows Wilkes had drawn on the photos showed the direction they were headed in. ‘These two sets of contacts here, and here, are the mystery players,’ he said, circling each pair with the pencil and doodling several question marks. ‘One set is friendly, the other is not. Trouble is, I’m still not sure which is which. All I can do is take a punt. Keep your eye on these two, the pair down the bottom,’ he said as he did his little animation trick again, lifting the top sheet up and down.

‘Yeah, ’observed McBride,‘ they’re stationary.’

‘The only contacts that are,’ agreed Wilkes. ‘Any idea why one of the two dots that make up this stationary duo down the bottom would be fainter than the rest?’

The captain shook his head. ‘Can’t say with any certainty. It’s a temperature thing. Could be someone who’s sick enough to put his or her body temperature almost out of the scanning range, accompanied by someone who’s okay. Could also be someone who has recently died where the core body temperature hasn’t dropped completely out of range.’ The marine considered the information presented. ‘Could be your people. The jungle’s murderous. Maybe one of your passengers is on the way out.’

‘Yeah,’ said Wilkes, ‘so they’re the most likely good guys — this pair here,’ he said, tapping the other circled contacts with his pencil. ‘These fellas aren’t following the pattern either. And they’re just to the north-east of our most likely survivors.’

‘Could be Indon scouts?’ said McBride.

Sergeant Wilkes was not too keen to make assertions about who was friend or foe on such scant information, but he had to make a decision. ‘How long till you set us down?’