Rogue Element

NSA, Helemanu, Oahu, Hawaii, 0705 Zulu, Wednesday, April 29

In the cool underground cubicle, Ruth examined the brief report. Her radar and that inner voice of hers were working as one now. Was the air traffic controller murdered, or was it just an accident? Ruth didn’t believe in coincidences. She sent on the report and wondered, what next?

Parliament House, Canberra, 0730 Zulu, Wednesday, April 29

There was a gentle tap on the door. A lance corporal entered and, with the grace of an excellent waiter at a three-hat restaurant, handed a sheet of paper to the ASIS chief.

Graeme Griffin read it and immediately snatched up the phone. ‘Spike, just got something from our NSA friends at the US embassy here. They thought it might be of interest. The air traffic controller in Bali who first reported QF-1 missing was found dead in his car at the bottom of a gully a short while ago.’

‘Shit…’ Niven said.

‘Yeah, I know. Look, I’m not sure what it means. Maybe nothing.’ But the feeling in Griffin’s gut told him it meant a hell of a lot of something.

Hasanuddin Airport, Maros, 0730 Zulu, Wednesday, April 29

After phoning in her earlier report, A-6 went home, parked her motor scooter, showered, changed, and took a taxi to Hasanuddin Airport. She had the appearance of any number of the welcoming friends and relatives milling about the airport. She noted that a few children besotted by aircraft even had binoculars, like her, with which to watch the takeoffs and landings, and that relaxed her a little. She doubted, though, that any of them had a satellite phone on them, as she did.

She further observed that there were quite a few police and security officers around, but there was really nothing about her outward appearance that would attract their attention. A couple of aircraft had been late, so even the fact that she had lingered for hours at the observation deck, watching through her binoculars, passed unnoticed.

A-6 kept her binoculars trained on the air force side of the facility, and even that failed to raise an eyebrow, although A-6 thought it might. She’d begun the stakeout nervously, but soon relaxed. There were at least a thousand people in the place, coming and going, and she was just one woman amongst them. No one special.

Eventually they arrived, as she knew they would. The Super Pumas came in low from the north and settled over the other side of the airport on the air force apron. The doors cracked open when the rotors started to slow, but only the crew jumped down onto the tarmac. Other than their crews, the helos were empty. They had gone out with soldiers and come back from places unknown without them. It might be nothing, she thought. But there was something about the urgency of their departure that had attracted her attention in the first place. The helos had been gone around three hours. Was it worth reporting or not? She decided to call it in anyway. Too much information was always better than not enough.

The Tannoy announced that a Garuda flight from Jakarta had been diverted due to weather. A-6 feigned disappointment and, shoulders hunched, joined the grumbling exodus from the terminal.

Central Sulawesi, 0730 Zulu, Wednesday, 29 April

None of this made any sense to Joe. Why were these people trying to kill him? It was bizarre. They should be bundling him up and taking him to a hospital so that he could start recovering from the shock of the air disaster. What the fuck was happening here? And who was this woman who’d appeared from, well, nowhere, and rescued them from certain death with her cigarette lighter, like some female McGiver?

‘We’d better not hang around,’ she said, interrupting his train of thought. ‘They’ll come to investigate for sure.’ She stood, turned her back on Joe and the foul stench of sizzling flesh and kerosene, and made her way to the relative security of the tunnel. Joe got up and followed, somewhat dazed. It was mid-afternoon and surprisingly dark under the canopy, the light reduced further by the smoke. When the sun set it would be pitch black. Complete darkness would bring a mixed blessing. It would hide them, but it would also cover the approach of more soldiers.

The all-pervading screeching sound he assumed was made by some kind of bird had stopped. In its place was a vast number of chirps, squeaks, grunts, rustlings and chatterings. The jungle was waking from the sleep induced by the heat of the day.

Joe joined the woman in the tunnel. Given what had just happened, he was reluctant to crawl back into the hole, but he had nowhere else to go. The gloom was suddenly lit by a glow. The woman was burning leeches off her legs with the lighter. In the light provided by the single flame he saw that his own legs were covered in the things, as well as cuts and bruises.