Rogue Element

East Timor, 0155 Zulu, Friday, 1 May

Sergeant Tom Wilkes’s section was patrolling the West Timor border when the call came over the VHF. They immediately broke off the patrol, found a spot under a tree and made a brew. It was time for smoko anyway. The light was grey and cool in the hill shadow.

Long after its independence from Indonesia, East Timor was still quietly hosting soldiers from Australia’s Special Air Services Regiment, men like Wilkes and his section. Neither East Timor nor Australia entirely trusted the Indonesian military to live up to its government’s word of nonintervention in the new nation.

‘In country’ was the ideal advanced training facility, great for the sharpening of battle senses. The bullets were real and border tensions regularly ebbed and flowed. Those tensions had lately increased somewhat since the proclamation of independence. The East Timor militia, now no longer supported by the TNI, had splintered into bandit groups that conducted vicious raids across the border from the old refugee camps in Indonesian West Timor. They had lost their war but continued the battle, a spiteful murderous rabble.

The United Nations soldiers of ETFOR on the ground knew what needed to be done to end the menace once and for all, but didn’t have the mandate. Where the UN soldiers had rules of engagement under which they could fire only when fired upon, the local fighters had a Swiss cheese of opportunity. That was how the United Nations men and women saw it anyway — Swiss cheese because it was full of holes and it stank. Still, Wilkes’s Warriors were having fun. This was what you joined up for. Exercising with the Yanks or one of ‘our Asian neighbours’ or the Kiwis in the north of Australia was clean and tidy compared to some of the things that had to be done when there was ordnance pointing in your direction that could put holes in you. Wilkes’s Warriors had learned plenty up in these hills.

It was different up here, away from the cameras that sent mostly sanitised images back home, if they sent anything at all. The world had largely forgotten about East Timor, only someone had forgotten to tell the desperados along the border that the cause was lost. Wilkes and his men had seen plenty of action that was never reported. The battles were often a one-sided affair. The bandits sprayed their bullets, often just holding their weapons out from a wall or a tree while firing off a full clip without looking where or what they were shooting at. The tactic had worked perfectly effectively against unarmed civilians. Wilkes’s Warriors liked to be more frugal. Pick a target and launch a round humming on its way. One target, one bullet. Ammo lasted longer that way.

Just recently, though, several lone UN soldiers had been ambushed and killed by gunmen who got lucky. Something subtle had changed in the attitude of the other side. It was like going back to the bad old days at the beginning of the conflict. It was becoming an increasingly dangerous world, and it didn’t pay to be cocky.

The cooler morning air lifted the thump of the rotors, carrying it echoing up the valley — a harbinger of decent food and a shower. It belted up through the trees and throbbed in their heads like a pulse. The helo’s dark green paint scheme appeared black in the frail light of the morning as the Black Hawk swung out from behind a ravine.

This Black Hawk was a gunship. It had a nasty sting with rocket launchers (empty) and mini guns on either side. The mini gun’s rate of fire was so rapid and intense that at night it appeared as a solid spike of yellow-white metal. As the helo orbited the target, it seemed tethered to the ground by the glowing spike. The Black Hawk was a frightening piece of hardware to be on the wrong side of, which, in this instance, wasn’t the case.

The helo passed through the green smoke of the flare that marked the RV, and settled on the gently sloping grass of the hill’s crest. The men swung aboard with practised ease. The loadmaster handed Sergeant Wilkes a pair of ’phones which he slipped over his head. ‘Wilkes’s Wankers, eh? Welcome aboard, ladies!’ The LM flashed the sergeant a phoney smile and batted his eyelids.

Wilkes gave him the finger in return and shouted, ‘This is for you, now.’ Then he made a fist and added, ‘And you can use this later in the privacy of your home.’

The banter was good-natured between the small numbers of Yanks and the Aussies in the UN force. Occasionally it became aggro but there wasn’t enough nightlife in Dili — women or alcohol — for anything serious to develop. The Americans regarded the Aussies highly for their craft in the field. They also appreciated the fact that, for once, another country’s armed forces were first on the beaches, getting their hands dirty, something the Americans were usually stuck with as the world’s policemen.

There was a fair bit of mutual admiration between the two countries’ soldiers — the American equipment and resupply particularly impressed the Australians. Those guys didn’t want for anything. The only thing that gave Sergeant Wilkes the shits was the way the Yanks said ‘mate’. They just couldn’t get it right. It always sounded forced and try-hard. ‘Mai-yt’ was the way the Yanks said it, somehow managing to put extra syllables into it that he couldn’t identify. When they added a ‘Ger’daiy’ to it, well, that was the fucking end. For Wilkes, it was like someone dragging their nails across a blackboard, which he didn’t mind half as much.

Wilkes and his men sat in silence and watched the countryside slip by beneath them. Remnants of villages trashed by the militia back in ’99 could still be seen. The weeds had reclaimed some of them, particularly those built with wood, fibro and dried grasses that had been burned to the ground. Other villages were still just a mess of broken buildings, abandoned to scavengers. From altitude, they had the appearance of smashed teeth set in rotting green gums. The poor countryside eventually gave way to the relative order of Dili, which had been transformed over the initial occupation by INTERFET and subsequent UN forces.

The leaders of Dili’s independence movement had returned soon after the Australians had secured the country from the militia attacks. The capital of East Timor quickly regained the daily routine of a country at peace, despite the thousands of East Timorese reportedly slaughtered by the TNI-backed militia. Now there were friendly soldiers in town, and soldiers meant money and money meant commerce. Trade was a wonderful balm for the country’s wounds.

But lately the bombings had started anew, along with what appeared to be organised raids. UN forces would secure an area and then leave. Soon after, the bandits would march back in and make horrific examples of the locals who ‘cooperated’ with the foreigners. Rather than pulling back, it soon became apparent that, if anything, the UN command would have to step up its operations. Of course, the Indonesian military denied publicly that they were assisting the militia from West Timor, but the Australian DIO thought differently. Factions within the Indonesian military appeared to want to cause trouble. East Timor could not be allowed to go quietly into nationhood. It had set an example for other disgruntled peoples within the sprawling archipelago to follow.

The Black Hawk landed at the airport and a couple of Land Rovers took Wilkes and his section back into Dili. The men all had showers and some food at the mess tent. Ratpacks were okay but nowhere near as good as tucker cooked on a proper stove. They then headed off to the briefing. The men laid bets on what their next mission would be. No one would pocket the money.

They entered the demountable and felt the tension in the air. There were a number of grim-faced officers present who they’d seen about Dili but never met, and a few types in civilian clobber who had to be spooks — CIA or possibly ASIS. No one had to tell the SAS section that what they were about to hear was highly classified, because just about everything the SAS did was black. Even the fact that they were in East Timor was supposed to be a secret, albeit one of the ADF’s worst kept. The lights flicked off and a satellite photograph of an aircraft crash site illuminated a wall.

Wilkes’s mouth dropped open. The briefing left all the men stunned, and that was not easily done. They had no mission, but they were told the situation might change. They had to familiarise themselves with the crash site of the Qantas plane and the terrain surrounding the area so that if they were called in, they would know it intimately. When the spooks and officers had cleared out, they were given the briefing tent in which to spread out WACs of the area and hard copies of the satellite pass. They discussed their equipment needs for a two-day infiltration, made lists of ammunition, communications, first aid, food and other bits and pieces and discussed the situation. A Qantas 747 shot down by Indonesia with more than 400 people aboard… all dead? Wilkes whistled silently.