Rogue Element

The general knew that the lives of his men would depend on his next words. ‘I can speak for Sergeant Marturak, but of the rest, I can’t be certain.’ After a moment’s pause, he continued. ‘As for the pilot who fired the missiles…’ He shrugged. The unfinished sentence, together with the questioning tilt of the general’s head, was a death sentence.

The police chief pulled a pad from his top pocket and made a notation on it. Suluang found Rajasa’s attention to detail reassuring. ‘We’ll need to keep security as tight as possible. I believe a certain Bali air traffic controller is no longer with us.’

‘We had to act fast,’ said the general.

‘I agree. Have you heard from your men at the crash site yet?’

Here it was, the question Suluang had been dreading. ‘No,’ he lied. ‘But they are due to report soon,’ he said after checking his watch. ‘I take your point about continuing the disinformation,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘But we can’t control the knowledge of the crash site for too much longer.’

‘Because?’

‘Sulawesi is rugged and largely uninhabited, but it’s not the moon. There are mining interests on the island — logging, tourists. But the main reason is spy satellites.’

‘Australia doesn’t have them.’

‘No, but its allies do and they’ll find the wreckage of a burning 747 in an instant. In the short term, though, we have a window,’ said the general, thinking aloud. ‘It is up to us to make the best use of that. But we’ll have to be careful, and stay on our toes. Events are going to be difficult to control when the truth is known.’

‘We should meet with our comrades,’ said Rajasa, his tone resolute.

‘Yes,’ said the general. ‘But if time allows, I would prefer to defer any debriefing until I have a report from the site. What about Mao? Is he committed?’

‘I believe so.’

‘That’s not the emphatic answer I was hoping for.’

‘General, you know Kukuh Masri better than me. He is always considered, rarely excited or excitable. I’m as sure as I can be that he is with us one hundred percent.’

‘Okay, Lanti, but do me a favour and keep an eye on him.’

‘His driver is one of my people.’

The general patted him on the shoulder. ‘As always, you’re ahead of me in many things.’

‘Doing my job, General.’ Lanti felt energised. His fingers tingled. They were poised on the very knife-edge of history. ‘So we go?’

‘Yes, old friend. There is now no turning back.’

‘God is great!’ said Suluang

‘Allah Akbar!’ agreed Rajasa.

The two men paused at a satay stall and bought some sticks from a young man fanning the coals with a scrap of cardboard. They turned and began the walk back to the car, both, for a time, lost in the minutiae of their own plans. A woman drifting by on a Yamaha scooter wearing Western clothes caught the general’s eye. She smiled at him, reminding him of Elizabeth, his mistress. There was something about her hair, or the dress she wore. He glanced at his Rolex. Plenty of time to make their rendezvous at the Hyatt. The other night she opened the door for him wearing something short and tight and vaguely transparent. Perhaps tonight she would greet him wearing nothing at all…

Parliament House, Canberra, 1325 Zulu, Wednesday, 29 April

Niven woke exhausted after a brief catnap and sat upright on his couch. He checked the time: almost half past eleven. He’d desperately wanted to sleep, to curl up under the warmth of the covers at home, and wake up to find the whole Qantas mess a bad dream. But the situation was real, and he knew that he’d never get any worthwhile shuteye so he hadn’t bothered trying.

He’d requested a briefing on Sulawesi, but nothing much of practical use had turned up. It was an island covered in volcanoes, formerly known as Celebes, and very inhospitable. A small mountain of largely useless reference material sat on his desk and spilled onto the carpeted floor.

There was a knock on his door. ‘Come,’ he said. Griffin walked in, looking dishevelled, tie off and top button open, and flopped onto the CDF’s sofa. ‘Hey, Griff, I see you live here like me,’ said Niven. ‘What’s up?’

The ASIS chief held up a folder and waggled it, expelling a lungful of air noisily as his body sank into the cushions. ‘A DOD briefing on Hasanuddin AFB, Sulawesi, its strategic importance — the usual.’ He tossed the cream manila folder onto the pile on Niven’s desk. ‘You turn up anything?’

‘On Sulawesi? We’ve got nada on the place, and neither does Foreign Affairs. Can you believe I had to send someone down to the local library and travel shop? Once you leave the population centres on the coast, it’s a mystery island. There’s bugger-all on the place in these books. A bit of history — it was once the capital of the Dutch Spice Islands. There’s the occasional picture of a prahu, a local teak schooner with a high sweeping bow, and a mug shot of a Bugis, the people who sail them. Oh, and the Toraja, a tribe who bury their dead in limestone caves tunnelled into cliff faces. That’s about it.’