Flight Risk Page 4

  But this is what I do. Nothing beats the unknowable. Nothing beats being unaware of what is coming around the next corner—even if it is a bloke with a gun and bad attitude. Boredom is bad for me. I look for my fun in other ways, occasionally drinking ways, and that never ends well.

  It’s 9.30 p.m. local time when we touch down at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. I’m doing my best to look inconspicuous, which is not that easy when you’re a shade over six foot four inches. I walk with the other Australians from the plane, trying to stay close enough to make it look like I could be part of a group, but not so close that they take me for a pervert or a thief.

  Back in Perth Airport I had a costume change. I wanted to look less like a potential drug smuggler so I picked up some conservative chino pants, a long-sleeve blue polo shirt, a plain lime-green jumper and some lovely tan shoes with those tassels on them. Clearly this is an outfit I would normally vomit over rather than parade in public, but so be it. Such are the sacrifices you make in the defence of your nation. I bought a small suitcase and another change of clothes. This is my version of being undercover.

  I needed the suitcase as there was no way I was abandoning my beloved leather jacket. But, more importantly, nothing alerts your average customs official to something odd about you than trying to get into their country with no luggage. I didn’t really want to end up having to explain myself to an over-inquisitive official and end up on the Indonesian equivalent of Border Patrol. I think we all know that this a big no-no in my line of work.

  I progress through customs with no drama. A little man behind a desk takes my passport, which is under the name of Sean Docherty, and waves me into the country. And, by the way, it’s not accurate to say I’m travelling under a false passport as it came off the official government printing press, just like all the others I own. The better news is that it comes with another matching government Visa card. I always like to give that a bit of bash if I can. I had left all indications of my true identity back in the government jet; I didn’t want to be searched by customs and have them finding how I prefer to travel with multiple personalities.

  I emerge from the airport into the drenching humidity. Even well into the evening the temperature is above 30 and the moisture settles on you like a second skin. Jakarta is not a lovely city. Tourists here are sparse, but expats are everywhere. There are quite a few Australians who work and live in this monstrous city. The money is good and, like many other third world cities, those of a certain disposition can indulge their colonial-master fantasies by riding roughshod over the poverty-stricken masses that cram into every space Jakarta has to offer. They spend their weekends in their little expat enclaves having dinner with each other. Or they play golf at some of the city’s beautifully manicured golf courses, throwing out a few rupiahs here and there to pay for someone else to carry golf clubs worth more than these servants will see in a decade. They play footy and cricket against each other, drink and eat with each other, have local drivers and maids. Some of the blokes will have local girlfriends. Some acknowledged, some not. In some ways, it’s probably like living a privileged existence in Australia a century ago.

  There’s a peculiar and unlovely tang to the air tonight. Some expats call this place the Big Durian in tribute to the world’s worst-smelling fruit, which doubles as a local delicacy. Like Jakarta, I guess, it’s a bit of an acquired taste. The ever-present clove cigarette, permanently attached to millions of mouths, the fuel of fleets of taxis and cars with poor combustion belching fumes into the air, and the canals built by the long-departed Dutch oppressors that have been turned into open sewers all lend to the odour of Jakarta being more or less out of control. But it does give the joint a bit of an edge. Like you are leaving one world—a safe, knowable, friendly place—and entering another, a dangerous, swirling mess where anything is possible.

  In theory, none of the locals should know I’m here. But neither are they daft. It wouldn’t take a lot of thought for them to imagine that we might send someone up to have a poke around. The early thoughts in officialdom may still be leaning towards this all being one big accident, but they must know we are going to be suspicious of the airline, the pilots, the passengers on the missing plane. Given most of the principal players have direct links to Indonesia, there is a fair chance that whatever answers there are to explain this mystery will be found here. The fact that there is possibly 154 dead Australians means they also know we’re not going to leave it to them to discover what happened.

  I have no doubt they will have people posted at the airport looking for suspicious types. People like me. Lone travellers, speaking to no one, travelling light and appearing to be in a hurry. My build and military haircut may not help either, but I didn’t have time to grow my hair before I left.

  Still, I’m hoping my faux-business attire is mild enough to let me escape any close scrutiny. My Sean Docherty passport is also clean, but not too clean. Its history will show a trip to Los Angeles two years ago and a visit to Singapore six months ago. Not that I took either of these journeys, but someone, somewhere, was kind enough to enter them into a computer. I am the ghost in the machine.

  The military goons dotted around the airport with machine guns casually hanging off shoulders don’t give me a second look as I stroll towards the exit. But they are not the ones I’m worried about.

  Eventually I emerge into the Jakarta night. I join the queue for the taxis. I plan to head for the Marriott. It was a place that was blown up in 2003 and then again in 2009, so on the assumption that lightning won’t strike three times I settle on going there. It’s also not too far from the Australian Embassy in case I need to make a quick departure or require refuge. It’s not the hotel I told customs I was staying at, but if they ever come looking for me it won’t take too long to unravel that tiny ruse. Still, as I have discovered in this game over the years, sometimes a matter of seconds really does count.

  It’s while waiting in that long line of tired travellers that I become aware of an Indonesian man leaning against the wall near one of the airport’s exit doors, newspaper in hand. He wasn’t there a moment ago and I can see no reason he should be there now. He is dressed in the local garb—long linen trousers and a short-sleeved shirt. He has no baggage and he has no one with him. I try to keep an eye on him without looking at him, but I get the sense he’s trying to do the same to me.

  The taxi crowd shuffles slowly forwards, doing its usual impersonation of an asthmatic caterpillar. The bloke by the door doesn’t move. Finally, it’s my turn and I prepare to jump in the waiting Bluebird taxi.

  From behind I hear a voice. An American accent.

  ‘Buddy, where you off to?’

  I look around. A tall, rake-thin man. Blond hair. Maybe late thirties, wearing a crumpled linen suit. I comfort myself with the thought that at least I’m not being picked up by the Indonesian cops. But it’s worrying that I hadn’t already noticed him waiting in the taxi queue.

  ‘Hotel’ is my one-word answer. He may be harmless, but I’m not here to have long conversations or make new friends.

  ‘Yeah, but which one? Maybe we can share a cab. This heat is killing me.’

  In the background, I can see the bloke who first grabbed my attention taking an intense interest in this conversation. He has come up out of his slouch against the wall, newspaper down by his side.

  ‘Sorry, I’m at a different place,’ I shout and jump in the back seat and slam the door.

  I hear a plaintive ‘Fella, but I didn’t say …’ through the window as the driver takes off like every other Indonesian driver: at high speed and with little regard for whoever else may be wanting to share our island of tarmac. But as we bolt into the traffic, I twist around in my seat trying to spot my shadow. He’s lost in the crowd. I have been in Indonesia for about half an hour, but there is a strong possibility they already know I’m here. Maybe not who I am, but certainly what I represent. A foreign agent landed in their country unannounced and is here to hav
e a poke around in their backyard. Clearly my powers of disguise aren’t as good as I thought.

  The taxi driver, talking on his phone, lighting a cigarette and changing the radio station simultaneously as he drives, looks around to me in the back seat and asks, ‘Where to?’ as we rocket out of the airport and onto the highway. I’m starting to think just getting into the centre of Jakarta is going to be the most dangerous part of my mission.

  ‘Marriott,’ I reply. ‘And can you please watch where the fuck you’re going?’

  * * *

  Even at this time of night, it will take a good 45 minutes to get to the Marriott, so I settle into the journey, try to tune out the awful Indonesian pop music belting out from the tinny speakers, and begin to figure out what is going to happen next. When we swing past the enormous Merdeka Square with the 132-metre-high National Monument poking into the permanent smog and lit up against the darkness, I know I’m getting close to my destination.

  I’m not being followed. Paranoia can help keep me on edge, but it can’t stop me doing what I need to otherwise I’ll never leave the hotel. Still, I find it a useful emotion. As long as I keep thinking they’re all out to get me, I won’t be disappointed when it turns out to be true. It’s also better than the alternative: not being paranoid. Feeling comfortable and believing everything is under control can only lead to a sense of complacency, swiftly followed by crushing failure.

  The Marriott is more heavily fortified these days. Getting bombed twice will do that to you, I suppose. There are now blast walls and gates with armed security guards holding those mirrors that look under your car. There are sniffer dogs on patrol and you have to show ID before you’re allowed in. I suspect if you weren’t nervous before you checked in, you certainly would be by the time you had been through all this rigmarole.

  I pay the cab driver, thanking him for getting me here in one piece, despite the best efforts of most of Jakarta’s drivers to run him off the road. Unusually, we have made it this far without having to sling one of the local cops a few thousand rupiah just to use a slip road, make a U-turn, or sometimes just turn a corner. Maybe my luck is on the improve.

  I had made a call from the airport to book in at the hotel, figuring it would help smooth my way through security if they already had my name on file. Like every other five-star place, the Marriott likes to project an air of calm superiority. This extends to the staff, who seem to believe ‘unflappable’ is the best adjective to describe their approach to the job. You could ask them to send a sheep, three bottles of gin and the Sex and the City box set to your room and they would undoubtedly reply, ‘Yes, sir, we’ll see what we can do. White sheep or black sheep?’

  The immaculately groomed Indonesian woman standing behind the check-in counter greets me with the kind of smile I would expect from my mother if I hadn’t seen her in a decade. Clearly, my checking-in is the highlight of her day.

  ‘Sean Docherty,’ I say cheerfully. ‘Just checking in.’

  ‘Mr Docherty,’ she effuses in lightly accented English. ‘Welcome to the Marriott and to Jakarta. I do hope you enjoy your stay with us. Is this your first time here?’

  ‘Yes, to both,’ I say. It’s certainly the first time I have been here as Sean Docherty.

  ‘Well, you are very welcome and I hope you enjoy your stay. You will let us know if there is anything we can do for you. Now, how many nights will you be staying?’

  It’s a good question. In an ideal world, it will just be the one, but there are so many things I don’t yet know that it’s hard to predict how long I’ll need.

  ‘Three,’ I say, figuring if I’m here more than two I will probably be either dead or locked up somewhere. ‘Is it too late to get something to eat?’ It’s now after eleven and I’m starting to feel the onset of hunger.

  ‘Not at all, sir. The restaurant has just closed for the evening, but room service runs 24 hours. You will find the menu in your room.’

  As I leave, I notice a pile of Jakarta Posts lying on the marble top with the headline Mystery of Missing Garuda. I snaffle a copy and head up to my room.

  6

  The room is on the fourteenth floor and looks out over the front of the hotel, but apart from that it’s the usual bland, anonymous room with the ghosts of its thousands of previous inhabitants assiduously wiped away.

  I figure I better check in with Bob. It’s after three in the morning in Australia, but there is every chance he will still be sitting at that desk where I left him nearly a full day ago. I fetch the iPad from the suitcase and turn it on, perform the eye security check, select the secure transmission channel, and press the name Bob Sorensen.

  The link bounces off one of our satellites in the heavens and I am soon staring at Bob. He is still in that chair, although he appears to have changed suits, so I assume he has been home in the last few hours. This one looks charcoal with a hint of chalk lines, and he is wearing a red tie. He seems grumpy.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he demands. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you for the last hour.’

  ‘Lovely to see you too, Bob. Just got here. An hour ago I was standing in the taxi rank at the airport. I didn’t think whipping out an advanced piece of telecommunications equipment was the way to go. Sorry about that, chief.’

  ‘Don’t be a smartarse. Another plane has fallen off the radar. We don’t know what to think. It’s possibly a coincidence, more probably it’s not. All I am asking you to do is keep an open mind at this stage. Ted, you know this: there are 100,000 commercial flights every day around the world. When you think about it, it’s not even that much of a stretch to believe that two of them could crash on the same day.’

  There is a momentary silence as I try to take this in. I understand the words Bob has just used but for some reason my brain won’t accept their meaning or his rationalisation.

  ‘What are you telling me?’

  ‘A Lufthansa A340 flying between Munich and Singapore has disappeared. Somewhere near the border between Turkey and Iraq. As with the Garuda, everything seemed normal right up until the point it wasn’t. Communications with traffic control. Normal. Transponders. Normal. Then nothing. Three hundred and three people just gone and no evidence left about what might have happened.’

  Apart from two missing planes, I think to myself. But instead I just ask, ‘When did it disappear?’

  ‘I found out about 90 minutes ago. It went AWOL about fifteen minutes before that.’

  ‘Has anyone claimed any responsibility for this? I hear what you are saying about keeping an open mind, but let’s be realistic. This is no coincidence.’

  ‘Nope, no one has owned up. Which is one of the reasons why we’re not ruling out that it’s all a coincidence.

  Bob’s tone is puzzling me. I understand the risks of leaping to obvious conclusions, but sometimes there are reasons the conclusions are obvious.

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ I say. ‘Everything is pointing to someone systematically taking planes out the sky. We don’t know why. We don’t know who. We don’t know how. And we don’t know if it will happen again. So unless we start to get serious about finding out who is behind it, more are bound to go.’

  ‘We need to keep a level head and keep all options on the table, Ted,’ Bob says sharply. ‘Planes have been known to go missing before. You’re there because we need some eyes on the ground. As I said, I’m not ruling anything in or out at this stage. We need to remain calm and rational. What do you want to do? Shut down the global aviation industry? The economic consequences of that would be appalling.’

  ‘But imagine all the greenhouse gases we could save.’

  ‘Don’t be glib,’ says Bob, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes, something he always does when he’s feeling the stress of the moment and that makes him look about ten years older.

  ‘I’m not talking about shutting the whole thing down,’ I reply. ‘That’s the sort of cause and effect the people behind this would be aiming for. For the West to look weak and inept. But you c
an’t seriously be saying this is a coincidence. Bob, it’s not. And don’t tell me the Yanks are sitting idly by, watching this unfold. I’d have thought they would be big-footing everyone and everything in sight by now.’

  ‘Well, there are rumblings the agency isn’t buying the official line and has gone stratospheric on this one,’ Bob admits. ‘They have field agents in every city across South-East Asia, the Middle East and Europe investigating who might be responsible. They think all those recently vacated cells out at Guantanamo are about to be filled again.’

  ‘Fucking marvellous,’ I say.

  When the CIA is in this sort of mood it does nobody any good. Let’s just say they don’t tend towards subtlety. They will kick down any doors, smash as many heads, and threaten as many women and kids as they deem necessary to get the job done.

  Look. It’s a bad world. I know that. And I’m not adverse to a bit of the old ultra-violence if the situation demands it. But I don’t think it should be the first sock out of the drawer—first time, every time. There’s still a lot to be said for a more sophisticated approach. Occasionally you can do better by knocking on the door rather than kicking it down.

  ‘What do you want me to do over here? Or is there even any point in me staying? Because if you really think those planes have crashed, that it’s all an accident, why not leave it up to the experts and I’ll catch the next flight home? Wouldn’t mind a snooze in my own bed tonight.’

  Even as I say the words I know I am not going anywhere—not yet. It’s just a matter of office politics. A calm Bob is more pliable than an angry Bob.

  ‘You stay, Ted,’ the boss says. ‘There has to be at least part of the answer in Indonesia. They have a dodgy safety record, after all. Remember the AirAsia plane that went down a few years back flying from Surabaya to Singapore? One hundred and sixty-two souls were lost that day. So it’s not like it hasn’t happened before …’