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Wilkes took a quick look at the exit wound and knew exactly how Joe would be feeling. He’d taken a bullet in almost exactly the same place when on patrol in the first days of INTERFET. He was up on the border of West Timor when the first round fired by the militia ambush had hit him in the chest and exited below his shoulder blade. A fusillade had then poured into their position. He could see men aiming their weapons and firing at him from thirty metres away, the dirt kicking up all around him. Miraculously, he wasn’t hit again. It all happened in slow motion. Then, suddenly, one of his men was on the ground, blood gurgling from both sides of his neck.

‘Got a time on that?’ asked Wilkes, getting his mind back on the job at hand.

‘Gimme five.’

‘What about that bloke?’ asked Wilkes, indicating the Indonesian soldier on the ground with the wild eyes.

‘Dunno, boss.’

‘He was bitten by a cobra,’ said Suryei, wiping her eyes, getting herself back under control.

‘He must have been given some antivenom or he’d have carked it by now,’ said Stu. ‘What’ll I do with him?’

The man was obviously in a bad way. There was not much more they could do for him. ‘Give him food and water and leave him for his own people.’

‘You’ve got food?’ grunted Joe.

Wilkes turned to Robson and Curry. ‘Sure. Cough up, you blokes. And don’t hog your chocolate,’ he said.

‘Already on it, boss,’ said Curry.

‘As in Cadbury’s?’ asked Joe. Curry found some chocolate in his pack and held it under Joe’s nose. He breathed deeply. It smelled glorious. But then the morphine kicked in and he vomited. ‘On second thoughts…’ Joe said between heaves, changing his mind. Robson shrugged and put his rations back in his pack.

‘James. Get on the blower and see if you can get us a lift out of here pronto,’ said Wilkes to Littlemore, who was already in the process of laying out the Raven’s aerial. It came wrapped tightly around a small but heavy lead sphere. He fired it up into the upper reaches of the canopy with a rubber sling provided especially for the purpose. The extended aerial gave the radio a phenomenal range. Without it, transmission was limited to a handful of kilometres.

* * *

The sound of the crack from the FNC80 that wounded Joe was carried up the ravine to the Indon force fanned across the ridge line. The shape of the valley guaranteed that there was no confusion over its point of origin.

* * *

Captain ‘Sandman’ Elliot shook his head with disappointment. Goddam it! The turnaround of the V22 Osprey and its AV-8 escort couldn’t have come at a worse time. The special ops boys on the ground must have completed their mission — whatever it was — in lightning quick time.

Sandman had taken the lead as the flight had penetrated Indonesian airspace. His job was to blast enemy radar with massive bursts of energy — weld them with electrons — so that it was blinded, allowing his flight to pass unseen into the viper’s pit. Only, there was a slight problem. His number two engine had just suffered an overheat with the needle going right off the dial, and he’d had to throttle it back to idle. There was no choice. He had to turn for home, whether he liked it or not. Correction. He’d have to plot a course to the Philippines. He’d never risk trying to limp all the way back to the Carrier Battle Group down in the Arafura Sea. It was just a little too far away on one engine, and he didn’t trust this bucket to keep him out of the water.

He cursed and slapped the Perspex canopy with the back of his hand. These Prowlers were great for prying but they flew like bags of shit. He called in his situation and reviewed his position in relation to the tanker, the V22 and the AV-8s. Having no electronic warfare on this sortie could get messy. The Indon air force would investigate the presence of foreign military planes in its airspace if it detected the incursion. He doubted the country had a full array of ground-based air defence radar, but Indonesia could certainly have some kind of coast watch. Whatever, like it or not, his countrymen were on their own.

Sandman was halfway through briefing his three-man crew on their situation when the AWACS informed him that there was another Prowler on exercise nearby. It was forty minutes away, and could replace him in the flight, giving the mission back its cloak of invisibility. Forty minutes. That wasn’t so bad. Those damn AV-8s were probably low on fuel. Again. Most likely they would need to RV with the KC-135 and take on a load. By the time they were back over Indon territory, the replacement EA-6B would have just about arrived. The AV-8s and Osprey would just have to fly low until it did. A slight delay. No sweat.

Sandman turned away feeling a little less glum. He was still pissed at having to bug out and miss the show, but at least he wouldn’t be leaving anyone in the crapper.

James Littlemore broke off the transmission. ‘We got maybe an hour to kill, boss.’