Rogue Element

Jakarta, 0235 Zulu, Saturday, 2 May

A-6 was finished with this business. Maros in Sulawesi, and now Jakarta. Enough was definitely enough. She craved normality. But at that moment what she wanted even more desperately was sleep. It had been a long night and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been horizontal.

A-6 had arrived in Jakarta in the early hours of the morning from Maros, after being urgently summoned there to the Australian embassy. They briefed her on the coup. Indonesia, they said, was on the verge of falling to extremists in the military. They also told her about the plane, the Kopassus, the survivors in the jungle, each new twist and turn raising the bar of her astonishment considerably. When the briefing had finished, she was speechless. But once the reality of it had started to sink in, A-6 began to feel proud of the small but not insignificant part she’d played in helping to unravel the plot, and prevent it from coming to pass. The knowledge fortified her for the role the Australian ambassador, Roger Bowman, pressed on her.

She’d been asked to help take members of Jakarta’s powerful student body through an overview of the plot. A-6 was not a negotiator or a diplomat, but she had been drafted into this particular enterprise, she’d been told, because she looked and talked like an Indonesian, conveying the facts with an integrity that a white Australian public servant could never hope to match. She had conducted the meeting jointly with Achmad Reza, an Indonesian politician she’d never met or heard of before. The students seemed to trust him, however, holding him in high regard.

Achmad Reza sat somewhat dazed by events as he sipped sweet tea at a cafeteria inside the parliament and reviewed the last few hours in his mind.

Standing in front of the student delegation, armed with satellite photos and the alarming contents of the disk showing Australia redrawn as part of Indonesia, Reza had felt well out of his depth. At stake was nothing less than the future of Indonesia and even, conceivably, the stability of the world. Redressing this evil was too much responsibility for one man to shoulder. His countrymen had plotted and killed in an outrageous bid for power. The ultimate outcome of their actions was beyond his ability to predict. All that could be done now — all anyone could do — would be to ride events as they bucked and kicked sickeningly to a conclusion.

He had agreed with the Australians that the truth would have to remain hidden. Peace in the region depended on it. Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t taken much to convince the ruling party about the need for outright secrecy, because everyone was in a collective state of mortification at the evidence revealed. It gave Australia an upper hand in the relationship between the two countries, and that mildly concerned Reza, but then he realised that the two countries were entering into a conspiracy and each was dependent on the other. The Australians and Indonesians all agreed that the traitors had to be purged. The coup had to be made public. Using the student body as the conduit for this news had been his idea. It seemed logical. They were party neutral and, as such, regarded by the wider population as being concerned more for the welfare of their country than politicking.

The young Indonesian woman who’d assisted him with the briefing of the students had been extremely nervous. He wasn’t given her name. She’d been introduced to him as an Australian public servant. Quite obviously, she was a spy of some kind, but vastly different to the other young woman, the unnerving one called Elizabeth, who’d anonymously passed him the photo and later met with him in the village. This woman was refreshingly unsure of herself, almost frightened by the situation she found herself in. Reza had warmed to her instantly, because he knew exactly how she felt.

The angry noise outside the building reached in and bounced around the stone courtyard. Reza sipped his tea as various politicians and bureaucrats rushed past, for the most part no doubt hurrying to quieter, more secure places. The students had obviously decided that a show of solidarity, a stand against the forces determined to return Indonesia to the bad old days, was necessary. He was stunned at the speed of their reaction. They were well organised.

At first the student delegation he met with in the early hours of the morning had had trouble accepting what Reza revealed to them about Suluang and the rest. They preferred to believe that they were being used as unwitting pawns in some dangerous deception. But the taped interview with General Masri in his hospital bed was utterly convincing. Masri had been somewhat of a national hero and his confession shook them.

The police hadn’t been brought into the loop for obvious reasons. Lanti Rajasa, the country’s top policeman and a traitor, might have been tipped off and that would have been a disaster. The result was the conflict outside. Policeman versus student. Reza hoped that no one would get hurt.

He sighed and quaffed the remains of his tea. Perhaps the students were right and the demonstration outside was necessary, the open conflict a first important step in the healing process. Indonesia would never be the same again, of that he was certain. At the very least, the constitution would have to be redrafted to redefine the role of the armed forces. They could never again be allowed to act as financially autonomous satraps in far-flung provinces. The practice entrenched powerful expectations that ran counter to the nation’s best interests. Yet Indonesia needed a strong army if it was to prevent disintegration. How could they possibly afford it? The conundrum caused Reza to have a premonition of deeply troubled times ahead.

A roar spiked through the blanket of the chanting and the bullhorns. Reza decided to leave the security of the parliament’s inner sanctum and join the melee outside. The students believed in a free Indonesia, and so did he. That, at least, was simple, uncomplicated, noble; and his soul needed sustenance. Reza gently placed his cup on the delicate saucer and stood up gingerly. He knew it was risky, but his place was out front with the students.

Out on the street, A-6 was amazed at the speed of the student response. Hundreds of belligerent police with batons and riot shields were forming lines, eyeing ranks of students wearing crash helmets and scarves tied around their mouths. Just as frightening, many students wore no protection at all. Behind the student lines was the Indonesian parliamentary building. Angry young men and women with loud-hailers bellowed that the parliament needed protection. Police vehicles rushed back and forth in the no-man’s land between the opposing forces, rocks and other projectiles popping off their armour plating. She watched horrified as several students fired volleys of ball bearings at the police with homemade slingshots. Tear gas was returned. Things were spinning out of control.

A-6 glanced down at her foot. Under it was a flyer with the large black headline ‘Traitors!’ in Bahasa. Moving her shoe revealed mug shots of several high-ranking officers. More tear gas canisters were launched into the student ranks. It quickly became difficult to see anything clearly, as much for the tears that filled her burning eyes and throat as for the thick white smoke that swirled in the square. Several cars attempted to gain access to the parliament. The students were gathering excitedly around one of them.