Rogue Element

When rescue comes… Joe also wanted desperately to believe in rescue. Someone had to come and pluck them from this nightmare. It was the one thought keeping him going, except for the ever-present threat of a bullet between the eyes if they didn’t. Perhaps a search was underway right now, only looking in the wrong area. That happened sometimes, didn’t it? Okay, so Suryei was right. Again. They needed to get back to the plane. That in itself was troubling: not that Suryei always seemed to have the answers, but because if their only option was so obvious, the soldiers would probably come to the same conclusion about their likely movements. Joe looked around. He had no idea in which direction the plane lay. Somehow they had to get their bearings.

Joe imagined what it must smell like back at the 747 with all the bodies bloating in the tropical heat. The memory of that awful smell found its way back into his nostrils and it took all his will not to gag on it.

Parliament House, Canberra, 2145 Zulu, Thursday, 30 April

Blight hoped he wasn’t overdoing it as he thumped the table a third time, but lack of sleep always made him more aggressive. The Indonesian ambassador flinched visibly.

‘Our air force has committed every available resource to the search, Mr Prime Minister.’ Parno Batuta was shaken. Receiving a summons at sunrise from a Prime Minister was usually a bad omen. He was right.

‘It has now been two days. Why haven’t you found the damn thing?’ hammered Blight. He was tempted to shove the photographs in the man’s face, just to see his reaction. But that was an ace Blight had decided was best played in another hand.

‘I totally reject your tone and manner, sir,’ said the Indonesian, trying to maintain his poise. ‘Sulawesi, as you know, isn’t like one of your deserts. If the plane has gone down in a valley, it may never be found.’

Interviewing Batuta had been Griffin’s idea. Lean on the man, he’d suggested. Try to get a feeling for whether the ambassador knew what was going on back home.

‘Mr Ambassador, I will say this just once. Guaranteeing the security of international passenger aircraft overflying your bloody airspace is one of the cornerstones of modern civilisation! If you don’t do everything you can to search every square metre of that jungle until you find our plane, then you’re setting a bloody dangerous precedent.

‘If it was a Garuda plane — or any goddam plane for that matter — that had gone down over Australia, we wouldn’t be having this bloody conversation because all our resources would be employed. And willingly!’ Thump number four. The Prime Minister was shouting, his face puce.

Batuta found the Australian PM a prickly character at the best of times. The anger and the language the consul could handle, but not the accusation that Indonesia had something to hide on the issue of this plane crash. The suggestion that it might indeed do so caused the vessels in his temples to pound. Having his country’s integrity questioned was more than a diplomatic slight, it was a personal injury. ‘This is not a case of Jakarta stalling! I am deeply troubled and personally offended by your assertion. I reiterate, we have no idea where the aircraft came down! You will have to accept that because it is the truth.’ It was Batuta’s turn to thump the table.

‘Perhaps our experts are right and the plane has come down somewhere else, not in Sulawesi as was first thought. We have a possible time when the plane disappeared from one radar screen, but that information was not corroborated. Given the aircraft’s height and speed, our air force people tell us the plane could just as easily have come down somewhere in Malaysia —’

‘Mr Ambassador, someone’s filling your head with crap,’ Blight said, arms folded, emphatic and implacable. The notion of the 747 flying on to Malaysia was a fantasy. ‘Get yourself some new experts. Aircraft do not just “wink” out of electronic existence, and then fly on into the sunset. Something on that plane went seriously and catastrophically wrong.

‘Our plane is on your soil, so don’t try and tell me otherwise. Obviously, we cannot go to Sulawesi and search for it without your permission. Now there’s a thought — why don’t you extend us that invitation?’ Blight wasn’t finished. There was something else he wanted to add, but he was nervous about doing so. Don’t overstep the mark. Blight shrugged mentally. This was a game and he had to drive the ambassador to the brink if he was to be absolutely certain. ‘Mr Ambassador, if the reason you won’t extend us that invitation is because the majority of the people on that plane are Australian, then God help you.’

Personally, Blight didn’t believe that racism was behind the reluctance to invite Australian participation in the search, but he was nonetheless keen to see the man’s reaction to such a repugnant suggestion.