Rogue Element

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 blunt. ‘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?