Rogue Element

‘Then why has it taken so much time to get to us?’

‘Hang on, you asked how long it has been since we knew the plane was shot down. Not how long we’ve known about survivors.’

‘Okay, then when did you know about us?’

‘About as long as it takes to stuff us into a plane and get us here — a few hours, no more.’

Suryei chewed her lip. ‘Are you here because of Joe?’

‘Eh?!’ He looked at her, puzzled.

Suryei desperately wanted to tell the soldier everything, but she was afraid. Perhaps if they knew what Joe had done, these men would be less inclined to bring them to safety.

Wilkes felt she was holding something back. Suryei had become silent. ‘If you want to talk to anyone in Australia, you’ll have to wait. We’ve got a satellite phone but it’s not working. Something to do with interference from the canopy.’

Suryei had no reason to doubt the man. He was on her side. Still, a powerful feeling of unease swept through her. How much time did they have? Or had time run out? And who was she going to call anyway? It wasn’t as if she knew the Prime Minister…

Suryei watched Joe pick his way carefully through the jungle, leaning on a soldier. The morphine had wrapped him in its protective sheath. ‘How long will the morphine last?’ asked Suryei.

‘Depends on the person — their sensitivity to the drug, body weight, the level of pain. I’d say Joe’s got forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, before he comes back to earth. And he will land hard. That wound is going to hurt.’

Central Sulawesi, 0930 Zulu, Friday, 1 May

The steep bow of the prahu sliced through the murky brown coastal waters just beyond the reach of the mangrove trees. Wyan, one of three Wyans on the pirate vessel, was counting the number of sharks churning the water in the boat’s lazy wake. He lowered the bucket into the water to give it a rinse. It had contained various scraps from the kitchen and it was coated with a layer of evil-smelling slime. No sooner did the bucket touch the water than he had to yank on the dirty orange nylon cord it was suspended on, lifting it out of reach of snapping grey heads.

Wyan almost lost his footing as the captain turned the wheel sharply to port to keep the prahu hugging the edge of the mangroves. Something was wrong with the boat’s radar. It had mysteriously stopped working. One minute it was fine, the next it presented a barrage of static. One of the other Wyans, the one from Bali and the boat’s electrical expert, pronounced that something was terminally wrong with the unit’s sealed components, so they had turned it off. A pirate vessel without radar was naked, so they were lying low, hugging the coast. It would be bad to run into an Indonesian patrol boat. His brother in the air force wouldn’t be able to help him then.

Wyan thought about that. It was funny; two brothers, both so different. One a pirate, the other a pilot, an officer in the air force. And so serious his older brother was too. It was almost like his little brother Wyan was an embarrassment. But who, at the end of the day, brought home more money? Wyan thought that that was the reason his older brother was always so angry with him. It wasn’t because he was a pirate. It came down to money. Everything always did. A large tiger shark bit one of the smaller grey-blue ones and blood swirled through the brown murk. The water boiled with swishing tails and fins and teeth.

The prahu rounded the point just clear of the mangroves and the air was full of mechanical thunder. Wyan ducked as an aircraft roared low overhead, barely clearing the boat’s stubby radio mast. The plane was gone before anyone in the wheelhouse or below decks could run out and see what all the noise was about. Wyan had seen it, though. He’d seen enough to know that it was a military plane. He recognised it. His brother had spent most of their childhood collecting photos and books of warplanes, and the strange-looking aircraft made an occasional appearance in these as an experimental concept. What in Allah’s name was it called?

The small dish on the wheelhouse caught his attention. Wyan decided to call up his brother and ask about an aircraft that appeared to be part helicopter, part fixed wing plane, that had just flown into Indonesia from the sea. Wyan pulled the satellite phone out of his back pocket, checked for signal strength, and dialled the number. The greatest pleasure about being successful, thought Wyan, was being able to afford the latest gear.

* * *

The MAG made its way cautiously to the edge of the clearing around the giant fallen tree. This was their revised RV with the V22, but they wouldn’t move into its centre until the transport home arrived. They would be asking for trouble out there in the centre of the clearing. The group took a few minutes to thoroughly reconnoitre the area from the cover of the tree line.