Rogue Element

Suryei watched him drag himself up on an elbow, grunting in agony. She didn’t know what to do. Should she hit him, kick him? Beat him with the empty rucksack? Why did I throw away the gun? And then Suryei saw the knife speared into the ground. She ran to it and picked it up as the man got to his feet. He approached her, staggering. What do I do with this thing? Suryei had never killed a man. She froze. The soldier slowly peeled the blade from her grip, each finger giving up one at a time.

And then the soldier did something unusual. He grinned. Not at her but past her, over her shoulder. Suryei followed his line of sight, knowing that she wouldn’t like whatever it was that could be so good it cut through his pain and put a smile on his face. Two Indonesian soldiers stepped into the clearing and began scouting around the edges, weapons up and ready. They moved quickly through the area, searching for anything hidden. When they were satisfied that the people in the clearing were isolated, the soldiers returned to their starting point, a little more relaxed but weapons still on Joe and Suryei. Suryei looked at Joe. There was nothing more they could do. The soldiers’ eyes were vacant, black, reptilian. There was death in them.

Suryei didn’t feel panicked about dying. It was like being back in the car with the lights coming over the hill, moments before impact. There was nothing more she could do to prevent it happening. She was resigned to it. They had fought well, and lost. Suddenly, a small red dot appeared like a third eye in all three of the soldiers’ foreheads and the men crumpled to the ground as if their bones had been sucked clean out of their bodies.

A small movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. Another two soldiers stood up in a thick clump of bush that bordered the clearing. There was no one there, and then there was. And there was something different about these two men. They wore different uniforms and their faces were heavily painted in camouflage colours. She recognised the helmets worn by the troops in Dili — the Kevlar ones. One of the men wore a floppy hat made from camouflage material. And then she realised. They were Australians. Australian soldiers. Suryei didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. One of the men put his finger to his lips for her to be quiet.

Suryei turned to look at Joe, to see whether he’d also witnessed what she’d just seen. He hadn’t. He’d slumped forward and was leaning against a tree for support. She noticed that the man with the broken jaw now had the same red dot between his eyes, and he was lying sightless on the ground. He was dead, and that made Suryei feel good.

Within thirty seconds, the little clearing seemed surrounded by soldiers. She counted nine of them. A stocky, powerfully built man strolled up to her and smiled.

‘Sergeant Thomas Wilkes. We’re Australian. Your name, please.’ He was friendly but efficient — businesslike. Perhaps it was the hard battleship grey colour of his eyes, but something in her was aware that this man was perhaps even more dangerous than any of the Indonesians. She hoped knowing her name wouldn’t put him offside.

‘Suryei Hujan. The man on the ground there is Joe Light,’ she said. ‘We were both passengers on the Qantas plane. Joe’s been shot.’ Her potted history seemed stupid when she heard it — terribly inadequate — but she didn’t know what else to say. Two other soldiers were already kneeling beside Joe, assessing his wound. The sergeant pulled a wad of paper from a shirt pocket and checked her name against it.

‘Suryei Hujan, seat 51F. Joseph Light, 5A. Any other survivors that you know of, Suryei?’

‘No, we’re it. There was an old couple but these bastards,’ she indicated the Indonesian soldiers lying inert on the ground, ‘shot them.’

Suryei realised that she was blubbering. The tears streamed down her cheeks and out through her nose. Standing there in the jungle, hungry, half naked, every inch of exposed skin cut and bleeding, the burns on her forearms now weeping suspiciously with a yellowish fluid, swaying with exhaustion, was the happiest moment of her life. She put her head on the soldier’s shoulder and cried tears of release.

Wilkes put his arm around the woman and squeezed her reassuringly. Her small body heaved with sobs.

‘How’s he doing, Stu?’ asked Wilkes, wanting an answer on the condition of the other plane survivor, sitting on ground stained red with his clotting blood.

‘Okay, I think, boss. The bullet has worked its way through. The exit wound’s messy. Broken a rib… lung is only nicked. Lucky fucker — could be a hell of a lot worse. Going to hurt like crazy, but. Given him a shot of morphine, some antibiotics. He’s a fit bugger by the looks of him. Should be able to move with a bit of help after I strap him tight.’