Rogue Element

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.

‘If I were you, I’d strip down,’ she said. ‘You’ve been in the water. You’ve probably got these buggers all over you.’

Joe took off his shirt and pants in the confined space of the tunnel and inspected his chest in the shifting yellow glow. He counted a dozen leeches.

‘There are more on your back. Here…’ The woman carefully burned them off. ‘You’ve probably got some down there, too,’ she said, gesturing at his underpants. ‘But you can get them off.’ There was no smile accompanying that. She was all business.

‘Where did you come from?’ he asked over the sizzling and popping of the leeches.

‘Same place you did. I was in economy, down the back. I always travel down the back. Statistically gives you the best chance of surviving a crash. I saw the part of the plane I was seated in down the bottom of a gorge. I don’t think there would have been any survivors in it. So, so much for statistics,’ she said with the suggestion of a wry smile. ‘Anyway, I got lucky. I was thrown clear.’ The woman ran her fingers gently over the back of her skull, tracing the outline of a bump the size of a golf ball. The swelling was tender. She spied another crop of leeches behind her legs and the discovery distracted her. She forgot about the bump and went after them.

‘The noise of the choppers overhead woke me up. I must have been unconscious, or asleep, or in shock — whatever. When I saw those soldiers, I just couldn’t believe it. I was thrilled.’

Joe knew exactly how she’d felt.

‘And then I saw them shoot a couple of people and I just ran into the jungle. I thought I was it, the last survivor.’

‘In the tunnel… how did you know I wasn’t one of them?’ Joe asked, gesturing back behind him with a flick of his head.

‘I didn’t. You surprised me.’

Joe nodded. When the woman had broken through into the tunnel, he’d thought the worst too. ‘So, what’s your name?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked.

‘Um…’ Joe was confused by her reluctance.

‘Sorry. I’m just a bit… you know. I don’t know what’s going on. Why are we being shot at?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ said Joe. ‘I just keep thinking I’ll wake up, that I’m having a nightmare — too much MSG in the food or something.’

‘Why kill us? What possible reason… those poor people, shot in cold blood.’

Joe heard the woman take a deep breath.

‘Well, my name’s Joe. Joe Light.’ He offered his hand.

She took it, forcing a smile. ‘Suryei Hujan.’

Shaking her hand felt weird and reassuring at the same time. Introductions were gestures that belonged in the real world, like the pub or the office. But the contact felt good, like it was possible for things to return to normal.

‘Pretty name. Mean anything?’ he asked.

‘Sun and rain, a yin and yang thing. My parents are romantics,’ she said, checking around the tunnel walls.

Joe didn’t know where to go from there. The small talk evaporated.

Suryei had kept the flame on her lighter burning during this conversation. But now the flame had heated the lighter to a point where the metal was too hot to handle. She let out a quiet gasp. The light flicked off and she stuck her finger in her mouth to relieve the burning sensation. They were instantly swallowed by a blackness that swam with after-images of the flickering light. Night had fallen.

‘Better not waste this,’ she said, pocketing the Bic. ‘We should get moving. The soldiers…’ The sense of shared safety they’d felt huddled together in the friendly glow of the lighter was extinguished with the flame, and the atmosphere between them became strained and awkward.

‘What do you do, Joe, when you’re not dodging bullets?’ asked Suryei quietly after they’d crawled some way in silence.

‘Computer software. Games, mostly.’

‘Great,’ said Suryei, half under her breath. ‘That’ll come in handy here.’

Joe had never felt like apologising for his occupation before. Back in Sydney, it was mostly a pretty cool thing to do for a living.

Joe could hear Suryei breathing in the murk. He called up his last image of her before the lighter was extinguished. It was hard to tell exactly what she looked like with all the mud and gore that covered her face. With a name like Suryei Hujan, she had to be Asian.

‘Got some water here,’ he said, trying to be friendly. Despite the hot, close air, the ambience was frosty.

‘Thanks,’ she said, a little of the edge gone from her tone. ‘You’ve got a rucksack. What’s in it?’

He felt around inside it. ‘Some bottles of water, a couple of trays of aeroplane food, and a sort of axe.’ He rummaged through the contents again quickly. Something was missing. ‘Had a pair of binoculars… must have left them somewhere.’

‘More than I’ve got,’ she said. ‘The lighter. That’s it.’

‘Do you smoke?’

‘Did. Ran out.’

Joe held out a bottle to her ghostly outline. She took it. He heard her open it and drink.

She handed him the empty. ‘Put this back in your bag. We don’t want to leave those bastards any signposts.’

‘Sure… Hey, what was that thing that came down the tunnel?’ Joe was not keen on meeting another of the animals in the darkness.

‘A babirusa.’

‘Strange looking thing.’

‘Pretty rare.’

‘What were those growths on its face?’

‘Teeth.’

‘Eh?’

‘Its canines grow through its snout… God, I’m an idiot!’ said Suryei suddenly. ‘That tells us where we are!’

‘Yeah?’

‘The babirusa is native to Sulawesi.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Part of Indonesia, one of the larger islands.’

‘How do you know all that?’

‘I’m a photo-journalist. These days nature stuff, mostly. We’re lucky to have seen one. Wish I’d had my camera.’

‘The babirusa probably isn’t feeling too lucky at the moment,’ said Joe, remembering how it had died.

‘No, guess not. Anyway, at least we know where we are now. This tunnel was its highway through the jungle. Probably leads to a favourite food or water source. Which reminds me, we’re sweating heaps. We’re going to have to drink three litres each a day at least. If we’re here a while, we’ll need a good, clean supply.’

Joe was glad she’d cleared up the water consumption question for him, but the thought of being ‘here a while’ filled him with dread.