Rogue Element

Niven twirled a pencil around his thumb. ‘In my view, yes. The 747–400 has two transponders. As I said, a transponder is something that belts out an aircraft’s sign to air traffic radars. The controller at Bali central said both transponders went out at the same time. I believe that means disaster struck the plane. It came to earth somewhere near that point on Sulawesi.’

Griffin stood up and stretched. ‘Call me when you get some hard evidence, mate,’ he said.

‘Would you settle for circumstantial corroboration?’ asked Niven, smiling.

‘No,’ said Griffin, smiling back. ‘But tell me anyway.’

‘Okay, that report you gave me last night about the Super Pumas…’ Niven sifted through the pile of books and notes on the table and pulled out the WAC of Sulawesi on which he’d marked the track of QF-1. He passed it to the ASIS Director-General.

‘I’ve seen this, haven’t I?’ asked Griffin, frowning, concentrating.

‘The report says the Pumas went somewhere with a load of Kopassus and came back three hours later, empty,’ said Niven.

‘Yes…’

‘Those helos cruise between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and thirty knots. So, assuming nil wind, it could have flown a maximum distance outbound from Hasanuddin of around a hundred and eighty nautical miles before returning.’

Griffin was still frowning. ‘You’re grasping,’ he said.

‘The red grease pencil is QF-1. The black line is a possible track for those Pumas.’

Griffin saw that the black line ended with an X almost on top of the spot Niven had marked for the crash site of the Qantas plane. ‘You really want to believe the worst, don’t you?’ he said.

‘Griff, I know this is not something we want to face as a possibility, particularly as there’s no supporting evidence yet, but the fact that the Indonesian air force wants to stop looking in Sulawesi and start looking somewhere else entirely… well, that is highly suspicious to my mind.’

‘And I’d rather believe the tooth fairy spirited the plane away. Sulawesi is not Sakhalin Island. Those Pumas could just as easily have flown their load of Kopassus troops to a piss-up on some deserted beach twenty klicks down the coast and partied for a few hours before flying home.’

‘Look, I know that. As I said, circumstantial corroboration.’ Niven stretched his aching back and rolled his head a couple of times. There was a tickle in the back of his throat. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with something. Not now. ‘You think I’m just being a bloody hawk and, because we’ve known each other so long, I think you should know better. There’s something smelly about this and while I hope I’m wrong…’

‘Sorry, Spike. I don’t want you to be right because, if you are, well, we’d all be in one big fucking mess. Also, I can’t believe you’re right because we have absolutely no information to go on. And I’ll remind you, I’m in the intelligence business, not the speculation business.’ Griffin rose to leave.

‘Before you go…’

Griffin raised his eyebrows, pausing at the door.

‘There’s a twist to the Sakhalin Island story.’

‘Which is?’ Griffin was drawn in despite himself.

‘You’d expect that the Soviets would have denied shooting the plane down, but they didn’t. They actually released the voice tapes from the fighter pilot’s cockpit. The tapes from the air traffic controller in Japan were also released. You can hear the Korean pilots informing ATC that the plane had suffered rapid decompression and that they were descending to one-zero thousand feet — 10 000 feet. Then, nothing. Gone. The Russians said it crashed. The Americans hurried to agree. But strangely, out of 258 PAX on board, and over half a million pounds of weight, only two bodies and a few small bits and pieces of KAL Flight 007 were ever found. Those statistics were completely at odds with what the experts would expect from a plane supposedly blown out of the sky — there should have been bodies and wreckage everywhere.’

‘So… what are you saying? The Soviets spirited the plane away somehow, in collusion with the US?’

‘Strange that there was no Mayday call, nothing. Why? Because the plane was obviously still under control and still flying, despite the missile hit. I believe it landed on Russian soil.’

‘The Americans do love a conspiracy,’ said Griffin as he crossed to the door.

‘And sometimes the facts shouldn’t be ignored, no matter where they take you.’

Griffin shook his head.

‘Griff, a bit of paranoia in these uncertain days is good for the health. Just keep an open mind. I think we’re in for some turbulence on this one.’

The ASIS chief smiled, shook his head and closed the door.

The phone rang. Niven answered it. ‘Okay,’ he said, and hung up. Greenway had said to turn on the news. He tapped the button on the remote and the screen warmed, the picture resolving rapidly into focus. Virtually a full-blown riot was in progress at Sydney Airport. Terrified Indonesian staff from Garuda Airlines were being evacuated by security staff. One of the women had blood streaming from her nose.