Rogue Element

Joe whistled softly. ‘Jesus, the shit-fight that must be going on… My guess is that if the Indonesians aren’t letting our blokes in to help with the search — and why would they, given what we know? — then Australia will probably put it on the Yanks to get a spy satellite on the case. It’s the obvious thing to do. But if they know the plane was shot down by Indonesia then, shit… maybe we’re already at war with them!’ Joe thought about that and shuddered.

‘Maybe that explains the soldiers shooting at us,’ said Suryei.

‘Or maybe they’re trying to stop us because we’re just loose ends.’

Selatan Irian Jaya. Joe thought about what they knew for sure, and what was pure speculation. ‘It’s unlikely they’ll know the whole story back home. I just hope they know enough to send our own people here with guns to come get us.’

Sydney, 0705 Zulu, Friday, 1 May

ABC Radio 702: ‘And something just to hand… The crash site of Qantas Flight 1 has been located. A spy satellite photo, showing the 747 crashed on a ridge line in central Sulawesi, Indonesia, has just been released in a joint press conference given by the Minister for Defence, Hugh Greenway, the Australian Defence Forces Commander, Air Vice Marshal Ted Niven, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service Director-General, Graeme Griffin, and the Indonesian Ambassador Parno Batuta.

‘It is believed the photo was released a short time earlier to a stunned Indonesian parliament. Questions were raised in the Indonesian parliament about whether the Indonesian army had prior knowledge of the existence of the photo.

‘The Indonesian air force officer heading up the search, Colonel Ari Ajirake, has denied that the military had been keeping the photo secret. He said that, now the exact coordinates of the downed plane were known, a rescue team could immediately be dispatched to the site. He also said it wasn’t surprising that the site hadn’t been located sooner, given the remote nature of the plane’s location.

‘Just to repeat the news: the crash site of the Qantas 747 that went missing in the early hours of last Wednesday morning Eastern Australian time in Indonesian airspace, has been located…’

Central Sulawesi, 0705 Zulu, Friday, 1 May

That uneasy feeling was again building within Sergeant Marturak. He had deployed his men and the waiting game had begun. At the core of his concern was a complete lack of intelligence. He had absolutely no idea what the two survivors were up to. For all he knew, they were indeed trying to scale the impossible heights of the almost vertical escarpment rising like a painted blue wall from the jungle beyond. He knew he was up against just two people — a man and a woman — but who were they? He doubted that two ordinary civilians would have been capable of enduring three days in the jungle, let alone be able to outmanoeuvre and escape him and his men, and on more than just one occasion.

He dredged those moments of contact up from his memory and replayed them. He would have liked to believe that surviving the encounters with his men was pure chance, and if that’s all it was then the survivors were extraordinarily lucky indeed. It was not reasonable to assume that people with no training could keep themselves alive for three days and two nights in an environment that was as dangerous and inhospitable as Sulawesi. Especially when one or both were wounded, had no food, no shelter, and were probably in shock.

Perhaps they weren’t alive. Perhaps they were already dead, or dying somewhere of exposure, a fall, dehydration or poisoning, or any one of countless ways the jungle could take a human life. If they hadn’t walked into his ambush by the appointed time at around four hours from now, he would assume them dead and notify Jakarta of the fact, then sweep the jungle for their bodies.

The unexpected boom of an explosion interrupted this thought, followed by another thunderous blow. His men were up and racing towards the area mined by the claymores. The jungle filled with automatic fire. Marturak began constructing the radio message in his head, one that would please the general, as he ran towards the source of the noise, all self-doubt erased by the deafening thunder of the exploding PE.

The staccato automatic fire petered out just as the sergeant converged on the narrow passage formed by the trunks of two massive hardwoods. On the floor of the jungle between the two giants, carpeted by leaves and mosses and spongy fungi, was a large four-legged black body with a thick crimson pool where the head should have been. One of Marturak’s men walked into the clearing with the missing part of the animal — its head — one side of it a stew of red flesh, white bone and congealing blood. The soldier smiled as he held the head high. His expression of delight changed when Marturak caught his eye. The soldier dropped the trophy on top of the carcass and melted back amongst his comrades.