Rogue Element

Joe shrugged, spinning around, unsure, rattled. It had been more than twelve hours since their last contact with the soldiers and the rubbery dimension time had taken on added to his disorientation. It felt like they had been wandering around in the jungle forever, certainly more than three days, perhaps because surviving the jungle was a moment-by-moment proposition that took every ounce of concentration, obliterating any other reality. The crash of exploding ordnance was a blunt reminder that their pursuers were determined. And close.

To make matters worse, if that were possible, Joe and Suryei were running on empty. They had slept very little and eaten next to nothing, which had brought them to the brink of physical and mental exhaustion. If giving up had been an option, they would gladly have taken it. But it wasn’t.

‘Come on, this… way,’ said Suryei, panting, sucking in the hot, wet air.

Whether or not he agreed with the direction, Suryei wasn’t sure. Joe was also too tired to argue. Any decision could be wrong. Any decision could be right. Frowning, Suryei picked her way soundlessly past Joe towards a dense thicket of matted tree ferns. She ducked low with a grunt and disappeared inside.

Java, 0745 Zulu, Friday, 1 May

Achmad Reza pulled in to the centre of a small village. There was an open concrete building with seats inside where an old lady sat mending clothes. Several small children played noisily with a plastic missile, making loud rocket-type sounds. Scrawny chickens scratched for food on the ground around them.

The building, painted various shades of dirty white, green and blue, as if the people who had applied the paint had been unable to make up their minds on the colour, matched an adjoining shop. Bottles of water, Coca-Cola and Heineken beer lined the shelves outside. A blue light set in an electrified grille hung on the wall beside the darkened doorway and fried insects that became too adventurous. Several other small buildings with dark, glassless windows sat beyond. A small group of men squatted in a wired enclosure and fussed over a large rooster, cooing and patting it. The animal seemed comfortable with all the attention, holding its proud head high, red neck stretched.

As he drove slowly past, Reza saw a young woman leaning on the outside corner of the building occupied by the old woman and the children. He gathered from a slight movement of her head that he was to follow her. He glanced in the rear-view mirror. He saw a couple of bikes carrying laughing children, but nothing sinister.

Reza parked his old Mazda beside two other equally decrepit vans in a cleared area by the roadside, and cautiously walked towards the building the woman had disappeared into. He paused at the doorway, wiping the sweat from his forehead with an old, folded handkerchief he always kept in his pocket for the purpose, and stepped nervously into the dark interior.

His eyes adjusted slowly to the dimness. The small, oneroom house was home to a family. Inside, there were two sets of bunks, a table, matting and cushions on the beaten earth floor. The aroma of potent spices filled the air. The home was neat but there was little room to spare for anything other than the people who occupied it.

A very old woman sat on some cushions in one corner. She sang quietly and tunelessly to herself and seemed oblivious to his presence. The young woman kneeled beside her. She wore a thin, bright yellow cotton sundress that complemented the copper colour of her skin. Her hair was thick and black with highlights that caught the sun pouring through the glassless window. A hint of lavender underpinned the smell of chilli and dried fish.

‘Don’t mind the old bag. She has Alzheimer’s,’ said the young woman in a disrespectful way that took him by surprise and threw him even more off balance.

‘Were you followed?’

‘I don’t think so.’

She looked Indonesian yet spoke English with an Australian accent. Her black almond-shaped eyes never left his. Reza wondered if this woman was as dangerous as she was beautiful.

She answered his questions before he had time to get them out. ‘My name is Elizabeth. I work for the Australian government. I sent you the photo.’

At that moment, Reza knew he’d been set up, used as a pawn in a game he had no knowledge of. He’d thought the photo had originated from within the TNI, but now he knew it had not. The questions lined up in his head, each fighting so hard to be asked first that none succeeded. ‘What… what is this all about?’ he stammered lamely.

‘You tell me. We know your air force shot down a Qantas jumbo. We know the air traffic controller, the man who first reported the disappearance of the Qantas plane, Abe Niko, died in a wonderfully timed accident yesterday,’ she continued. ‘We also know that there are Indonesian soldiers in the jungles of Sulawesi trying to kill any Australians who might have survived the crash of the Qantas plane.’