Rogue Element Read online

  Joe was surprised by the detail that came back, as if he was watching himself viewing the incident on the video back in first-class. Like all Australians, he’d seen plenty of images of the suffering of the East Timorese, the former twenty-fifth province of Indonesia. He had thought himself immune to them but there was something vividly pathetic about the old lady, standing by the well’s edge, waiting for the body of the little boy to be retrieved. Joe had been deeply affected by it.

  Joe hadn’t believed for one moment the Indonesian army’s assertion that they were ignorant of the carnage. He’d heard it all before. The general in the news piece had shiny, sweaty skin, wore old-fashioned Elvis-style sunglasses, and his uniform was so tight that the fabric at his shirt’s buttonholes was scalloping with the strain. Joe took an instant dislike to the man. He wanted to strike a blow, even just a small one, for the old lady and her dead child.

  ‘I was watching the news in the plane,’ he said, almost whispering. ‘There was a report of a mass grave in West Papua. One of the victims . . . a four year old child in a well. I wanted to get even, make someone pay. So I hacked into an Indonesian general’s computer, copied a few files and left a virus. Nothing serious.’

  ‘And for that, you think they shot the plane down?’

  Joe didn’t answer.

  Suryei analysed what he was saying, chewing her lip. Civilian jets weren’t blown out of the sky as a regular occurrence. Something had prompted the military into an act of desperation. Something terrible. ‘What sort of virus?’

  ‘Pretty childish, really.’

  ‘And you think they traced you back to the plane?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘No. Too many different networks, switches. And I decoy my own computer’s IP broadcast.’ He thought about that. It used to be impossible to trace a break-in, but he’d been out of hacking for a couple of years now, lost touch. Things move fast. Maybe . . . Joe felt an enormous weight settle on him. Guilt.

  ‘I thought you did computer games.’

  ‘I do. Now. But I used to do a bit of industrial spying. Nothing too serious . . . perfume formulas, carbon fibre applications, that sort of thing.’ Joe sat slumped, round-shouldered.

  ‘Do you remember what files you copied?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you must have taken something pretty bloody important.’ Suryei’s mind raced. Even then, would they shoot down a 747 full of innocent people to protect it? ‘Think, Joe. Can you remember anything about the files? What the hell did you see? What did you take?’

  Joe again forced his mind back to the recent past. He had checked the protocols available from the aircraft and noted that WASP was on tap, the new Wireless Application Satellite Protocol that allowed wireless Internet access anywhere under a satellite footprint. He’d opened up his browser, found the phone directory for Jakarta, and noted the forty different numbers for the TNI. They appeared to be grouped in five distinct number series. He had had his computer ring all the numbers. Within a few minutes he knew which were old analogue and which were newer, digital phone numbers. Joe’s computer then called the digital numbers, adding and subtracting extra digits either side of the original phone numbers until his system noted the familiar return signal of a file server.

  Joe easily cracked the server’s low security files. He remembered noting with satisfaction that the four digits of the carpark space reserved for the Indonesian general also matched his internal office phone extension. Recurring patterns of numbers were good news for hackers. It meant that whoever set the system up was careless. The time he’d spent hunting around inside the server amounted to a handful of minutes. He certainly hadn’t loitered.

  To an observer on the plane, it would have appeared that Joe was merely tapping away at computer keys, perhaps writing a letter. But Joe’s mind saw it differently. He didn’t see the keyboard at all. He became melded with the computer’s hard-drive, sucked into another dimension that blotted reality from his mind. This was a black, light-less world where he existed as pure thought. There were objects in the blackness that appeared only semi-visible, mere shapes shrouded in black velvet. These objects were program spurs. To find them, Joe had to feel around until he sensed the shapes as ripples in the void. Joe had quickly discovered what he was looking for – the sophisticated, secure software program that ran the Indonesian army’s computer network.

  Fortunately, the system was a good three years out of date. That kind of time frame was an eternity in the world of software design. But while the operating system was old, it was incredibly complex. He remembered thinking that he had no desire to spend the rest of the flight carefully picking the matrix apart. He’d been after something familiar. Sometimes companies low on funds would augment their old enterprise software with something relatively cheap and off the shelf, just to keep the system more or less current.

  But while Joe had been inside the general’s computer disturbing the regular flow of electrons, the system’s Watchdog had picked up his ‘scent’ and it had padded off unseen, backtracking to the origin of the call barking its silent alarm.

  And then Joe found what he was after; the ubiquitous operating system he knew like an old friend. It was running the Indonesian army’s internal mail. He thanked the declining value of Indonesia’s currency for the country’s willingness to cut corners, and hitched a ride on an internal memo. An instant later, Joe found himself on the general’s hard-drive, the place he’d gone looking for.

  He remembered being confused by what he found because he couldn’t speak or read any Indonesian, and so couldn’t understand the unfamiliar language strings. He’d moved through the space, shouldering the unfamiliar words and sentences aside. That’s when he’d seen the safe. Not a real safe, of course, but a virtual one. It had immediately captured his interest. A safe meant secrets. So the general had files he wanted to keep off the army’s tailored operating system, for extra privacy and security?

  This was what hacking was all about, Joe remembered thinking at the time. Secrets were extremely tempting, even now when he was no longer hacking. There was something sexy about revealing them. He’d examined the box, walked around it in the black room. In the real world, it would have been made of hardened tool steel. Indeed, even in the virtual world it had appeared formidable, unbreakable, impregnable. But to someone like Joe, the safe might as well have been carved from balsa. He’d tapped out a coded sequence, the equivalent of a virtual shaped charge, lit the fuse and stood back. The ensuing explosion peeled the door from its hinges.

  Inside the vault, Joe had hoped to find more than the general’s Christmas shopping list, but he’d not been able to make sense of any of it. Disappointed, he nevertheless thought what the hell and burned the lot onto a beer mat anyway.

  Joe seemed to wake from a trance. ‘There were a few papers.’

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Suryei.

  ‘The general had made an attempt to keep them hidden. But, now I think about it, there was something weird.’

  Joe stood and walked slowly about the small clearing, piecing the fragments of the memories together, shoulders hunched, drawn into himself. ‘There was something . . . I didn’t think much about it at the time. Australia was part of a map . . .’

  ‘A map?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s odd.’

  ‘Why? How?’

  ‘The names of all the countries. I remember now because those names were the only words I could understand. They were written in English. Except Australia. It was called something-or-other Irian Jaya.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Suryei, standing up, hands on hips, facing him. ‘Can you remember what that something-or-other was?’

  ‘I’m trying.’

  ‘Try harder.’ The blood had drained from her face.

  Joe ignored her impatience. ‘There was another word that prefixed Irian Jaya. Like Salute, or Salami . . .’

  Suryei’s face felt cold yet hot at the same time. The tips of her ears burned. Could it possibly be . . . ? No way. The
Indonesians would never conceive . . . It was too outrageous. Yet, they had been in a Qantas 747 that had been blown out of the sky. And now they were being hunted by Indonesian troops. Maybe it wasn’t too far-fetched at all and Joe had actually found something incredible, something so big that perhaps a plane-load of people had to die to prevent it being brought to the world’s attention. ‘Joe, think hard now. Was the word possibly . . . Selatan?’

  Joe tried to visualise the map. ‘Yes,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I think that was it. Yeah, Selatan Irian Jaya. Why, what does that mean?’

  Christ, thought Suryei, her stomach twisting. This was something she didn’t want to make a mistake about. ‘The word Irian means “high” in Indonesian. Jaya means “victory”. And Selatan means “southern”. Selatan Irian Jaya – Southern High Victory. Whose computer did you hack into?’

  ‘A general. A bloke called Soo-ang.’

  ‘You mean Suluang. He’s the Mr Big of the TNI.’ At that moment, Suryei saw it all clearly and a painful anxiety gripped her chest. She sat heavily on the ground, just as Joe had earlier. ‘I think what you might have found was part of an invasion plan.’

  ‘What . . . ?!’

  ‘It seems bizarre, but the facts fit – the plane, the missile, the soldiers trying to kill us. The Indonesians trying to keep some sort of invasion of Australia secret. Something like that is big enough to make sense of everything.’ Suryei stared at the ground at her feet, in shock.

  ‘That’s why there’s been no rescue. I’ll bet the Australian authorities don’t even know where the plane is,’ Suryei said.

  ‘Then we’re fucked,’ said Joe quietly.

  ‘Is it possible they – the soldiers – know they’re chasing the person who uncovered the plan?’

  ‘I don’t know how they could.’

  ‘But if they did, it would make them pretty damned determined to put a bullet in you . . . us.’

  Joe paced nervously and started towards the trees. ‘Come on. Let’s get moving. We can’t stay here.’

  ‘Hang on a sec. What are we going to do? We need some sort of plan here,’ she said to his back.

  He stopped. ‘You’re right. We can’t go much further this way.’ Joe looked up at the escarpment towering above them.

  ‘I think we should head back to the aeroplane,’ she said.

  ‘Sure. And let’s put big red targets on our chests for those nice men in khaki.’

  ‘We’re not getting anywhere wandering around in circles,’ said Suryei, allowing his sarcasm to pass over her.

  ‘Aside from whether going back to the plane’s a good idea or not, I don’t know where we are, or where the plane is in relation to us. So how do you propose we find it?’

  ‘I don’t know, but we have to try. When rescue comes, it’ll go there, not out here. And there are plenty of places we can hide close by the wreckage until it does.’

  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.

  Batuta took several deep breaths to calm himself. It required willpower not to return the Australian’s ugliness in kind, and this conversation was in danger of getting completely out of hand. ‘I reiterate that we are looking for your plane with all available aircraft,’ he said softly, his jowls quivering with the supreme effort required to stay in control.

  The ambassador stood abruptly, his face flushed red. The Prime Minister’s tone and manner were far too bl
unt. ‘And I remind you that, as you have observed, we are a sovereign country and our airspace is not – I repeat not – open to the prying eyes of Australian search aircraft.’ Batuta felt himself giving in to his own anger as a rising indignation took hold. The audacity of these people! The arrogance! It was better to leave before he said something he might later regret. ‘Good morning, Mr Prime Minister.’ With that, he flung open the door and stormed out.

  Blight was relieved. He sat heavily and replayed the meeting in his mind. He thought himself a good judge of character and his gut told him Batuta was ignorant. He’d pushed the man. Hard. If anything, the ambassador had been disinformed. And if that was the case, then it followed that the whole Indonesian government probably was too. Blight continued the logic and his relief was quickly replaced by anxiety. That disinformation had to be coming from somewhere. Who or what was the source? And the biggest question of all was still unanswered – why?

  Central Sulawesi, 0155 Zulu, Friday, 1 May

  Joe and Suryei’s presence disturbed a large family of monkeys in the trees overhead. They reacted by screeching, whooping and leaping about the canopy, thrashing leaves, baring their teeth and carrying their young into the highest branches. And then objects like footballs covered in small spikes rained down.

  ‘Jackfruit!’ said Suryei. She laughed and picked one up. It was rotten, covered in thousands of tiny brown ants. She hunted about until one came to hand that had the right firmness. She checked by flicking it with a fingernail. ‘They make a special sound when they’re ripe,’ she said in response to the puzzled look on Joe’s face. Suryei dug her thumb in under the skin and peeled off the spikes. She bit into the pale orange fruit and juice dribbled down her chin and she gave a grunt of satisfaction.