Rogue Element

‘What’s their bloody story?’ snapped Wilkes, annoyed. The MAG’s objective had been completed. It was time to go and every minute they spent loitering in enemy territory could be disastrous.

‘Gremlins,’ said Littlemore, still hunched over the radio. ‘One of the aircraft has had engine trouble. Plus the Harriers need juice. They’re RV-ing with a tanker in twenty minutes. It’ll take ten to fifteen for the lot of them to refuel… around fifty-plus minutes to get their arses back here.’

There was absolutely nothing Wilkes or anyone else could do about it. ‘Are they okay with our revised RV?’ he asked.

‘Gave them the coords, Sarge. They said no problem.’

‘It would be nice to know where those other Kopassus boys are at. Have we got any fresh intel on that?’

Littlemore shook his head. ‘Didn’t ask.’

The Americans would have passed on any further information for sure if they had it. Still, it often paid to check. Wilkes walked the inside perimeter of the clearing, focusing his senses on the jungle outside it, while Littlemore re-established communications.

‘That’s a negative on a fresh satellite pass, boss,’ said Littlemore, disappointed, when Wilkes returned.

Wilkes was not aware of the satellite’s period, but he was reasonably sure another pass would have been made by now so it was worth the ask. And they had to update Canberra when contact was made with any survivors anyway. ‘Give Canberra a call and see what they’ve got.’

‘The sat phone’s out, boss. Deader than Kurt Cobain.’

‘What’s the story?’ asked Wilkes.

‘Dunno. It’s not batteries,’ shrugged Littlemore. ‘The jungle canopy might be acting as a shield… Could be the phone, but I checked it twice back at Dili.’

‘Have you tried hitting it?’ Morgan chipped in.

‘Violence and microprocessors go together like fish and chocolate, Smell,’ said Littlemore. ‘But I did give it a little tap — nothing.’

The satellite phones were their only secure communications link. Wilkes was not keen about using the AWACS as a relay station. If anyone was listening in, their presence would be known. A message to Canberra would have to wait until they were outside Indonesian airspace.

Wilkes went through the odds of further meetings with the Kopassus in his head. In all, there’d been twenty contacts illuminated by the sat. Two were the survivors Joe and Suryei, the one with the odd heat signature must have been the man incapacitated by snakebite, and they’d just taken three more out of the game. That left a maximum of fourteen Kopassus troops to contend with. Nine against fourteen. Shit odds in a game of footie, but the difference here was that the Indons weren’t aware that the SAS were on the field.

‘Okay, let’s fuck off out of here,’ said Wilkes, getting edgy. ‘This place is soon going to be crawling with nasties.’ Every Indon soldier within earshot would be zeroing in on their position, and he was unsure of the direction they’d be coming from.

Wilkes had noted from the Indons already taken out that the Kopassus weren’t wearing comms, so it was likely that the rest of them didn’t know shit from shinola, but they would have heard the shot from the FNC80 just as they had. Wilkes’s Warriors should have been gone from this location already. ‘How you going there, Beck? Can we move out yet?’

‘Just about, boss.’

‘We’ve got to hoof it. If they can’t walk, carry them.’

Suryei’s cuts and abrasions were being seen to. The burns on her forearms had been bandaged in a way that would keep the insects off while allowing the air to circulate. Her forearms throbbed hotly under the bandages. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, finding that her smile came easily. Beck produced a hypodermic syringe and swabbed her skin before driving in the needle. ‘Antibiotics cocktail,’ he said. ‘The cut in your belly. You don’t know where that soldier’s knife has been, but you can bet it wasn’t sterile.’ Suryei nodded. ‘Those burns on your arms don’t look too good either.’

She crouched beside Joe, who was lying on a groundsheet. He had stopped vomiting. ‘How you going?’ Suryei asked.

‘Can’t feel a thing,’ said Joe dreamily. ‘My brain tells me I should be in pain, but nothing’s getting through. I know it’s there. Very weird. You should try this stuff.’ Joe brought his hand up to his face and turned it slowly in front of his eyes as if it was something strange and foreign. ‘Unreal…’ he said.

‘Can you walk?’

‘Baby, I can fly.’ Joe struggled to his feet, helped by Suryei.

LCPL Ellis came up to Suryei and held out his hand. ‘This might come in handy, Miss,’ he said. In his palm was the button the Indonesian soldier had sliced off. He’d found it next to the snakebite victim. ‘I’ve got a needle and thread too.’ He produced the items from one of the many pouches hung on his belt.