Rogue Element

Despite the exertion required to climb, it had been Joe’s decision to again strike for the higher ground. He had his reasons and he still thought that they were sound. They had no compass and therefore no means of orientation. Beneath the jungle canopy it was easy to wander around in circles. If they were to arrive at a specific point in the jungle, namely, the 747 crash site, they would need to continually check their bearings against features that rose above the canopy, such as the volcano and the escarpment now at their back and curving around to the right.

The visibility was very much better than it had been when he had first opened his eyes in the middle of this bad dream. The clouds had rolled away and the air was clear of the mist that had shrouded the horizon. They were a good 500 metres below the crest of the ridge so there was still plenty of climbing to be done. The realisation made him light-headed with frustration. He wondered what they would see when they reached the top. He hoped they would be looking down on the remains of QF-1 and a rescue team sifting through it, rather than the bunch of killers trying to turn them into fertiliser.

He wondered what had happened to the soldiers. If the theory he and Suryei had pieced together was true, very likely they were still on their trail. But where the fuck were the bastards? He wished he’d had some military training, some kind of knowledge that would allow him to predict the soldiers’ behaviour.

‘They’re still out there looking for us,’ said Suryei, reading his thoughts.

Joe nodded while he stared, trying to pierce the canopy spread out around them with the force of his gaze. Somehow, they had managed to slip away from professional killers, men who were no doubt trained in jungle warfare and survival. It was pure fluke. But they couldn’t just continue to blunder around, and perhaps making a beeline for the 747 wreckage wasn’t so smart either. It was difficult to think straight with, among other things, the cloud of mosquitoes swarming about him, buzzing, humming, biting, distracting him, pissing him off.

What to do, what the fuck to do? And where, exactly, was the plane? They could guess, but that was all. The soldiers had seemed to know the general bearing Joe and Suryei were taking. They probably knew that their quarry would run into the mountains and that scaling them would be impossible. Would they then assume that they would double back and make for the wreckage? Without maps, guides or supplies there were really no other alternatives. It was likely, then, that the soldiers would just lie in wait for them somewhere.

‘Suryei, where do you think the plane is from here?’ Joe asked.

Suryei thought about it for a few seconds. She raised her arm and pointed in a direction roughly forty-five degrees to the left of their current line of march, up and over the ridge. ‘Over there, I reckon, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.’

Joe didn’t agree. Before the soldiers arrived and added to this nightmare, he remembered surveying the horizon with binoculars. A flash of memory, like a moving postcard, flared in his mind. In the picture he clearly saw the volcano and the escarpment, and suddenly he knew exactly where the plane was. He just had to reverse the positions of those two dominating features, and put them behind his back. ‘I think it’s more in that direction,’ he said, holding his arm out like a street sign forty-five degrees to the right of Suryei’s reckoning. ‘You’re going to have to trust me, but I’m sure I’m right.’

‘I’m worried that we’re not on the same page about this,’ said Suryei.

‘I know, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure.’ He squatted on his heels and smoothed a square metre of mud with his hand, flicking off the excess that stuck to his palm. He then sketched out a map using a small stick.

Suryei crouched and scowled at the ground.

‘Look, we’ve been wandering around in a natural kind of bowl with the plane wreckage here. The snake and camp we ran into was here and here,’ he said, marking various points with crude icons. ‘And this is our track so far.’ Joe etched their wanderings with a dotted line. ‘All of it’s contained within this escarpment, the hot springs, and there’s the volcano.’ Their situation presented by the mud map was suddenly obvious.

‘If you were to set an ambush for us,’ Joe continued, ‘where would it be?’

Suryei considered the lines and squiggles in the mud. Then she took Joe’s axe and scratched a few Xs on it. ‘Here,’ she said, simply.

‘I agree.’

‘How nice. Only, we’re trapped,’ she said.

‘Well, the scale of things on this map is deceptive, but I think if we’re not careful we could walk into one.’

Suryei nodded.

‘Those mountains, the volcano, they’re a natural barrier. The soldiers must realise that. We’re just edging around the base of the really difficult steep country because we don’t have any other options.’ Joe stood before continuing. ‘Those soldiers are just waiting for us.’