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Marturak worked his way backwards to the trees on his stomach, as quietly and as quickly as he could. The chest-high growth was good cover. His feet pushed against something immovable. Swinging himself around, Marturak came face to face with two more of his men. He couldn’t recognise either of them because their faces were missing. Marturak was cornered and he knew it. It was pure luck that had saved him from sharing the fate of the handful of men now lying silently in the grass around him.

It was the first time in his career as a soldier that he felt helpless. Worse than that, he was paralysed with fear. If he stayed where he was, he would be surrounded — if he wasn’t already — and slaughtered. If he tried to fight it out, he would end up like the rest of his men. When he realised exactly how limited his choices were, Marturak’s temper snapped, breaking his paralysis.

He had been after two pathetic survivors, civilians, for well over forty-eight hours. They were unarmed, untrained (as far as he knew) and they had managed, somehow, to make him look like an amateur. He had failed in his mission. If he ever made it back to Jakarta alive, he was certain he wouldn’t stay that way for long. The men he worked for would see to that. Marturak thumbed the selector switch to single shot. He couldn’t remember how many rounds were left in his magazine; in the excitement, he’d lost count of the number of shots he’d fired. He expelled the magazine, placing it inside his shirt, and fitted a fresh mag with one oiled movement.

Marturak bit a large chunk out of his lower lip and blood filled his mouth. The pain worked. It sent him into a rage. The scream filled his throat and he sprang to his feet, weapon ready for killing. But just as quickly, the scream died, strangled. Marturak was surrounded, literally ringed by soldiers, high-tech camouflaged warriors, weapons zeroed at his head. Suicide suddenly seemed a pointless option. Marturak flung his rifle away from him as if it was poisonous. Holding onto it would definitely end his life. It was bald reaction.

One of the soldiers moved forward. His weapon was different to the others’. It was a sawn-off shotgun and blue smoke snaked lazily from the black pit pointed at his head. Shotgun blasts. Marturak realised now why he couldn’t recognise the mashed faces of his comrades. He raised his hands slowly, interlocking his fingers behind his head.

He examined the soldiers who had so adeptly surrounded, cornered and slaughtered his men. They were young, serious, but far from nervous, as his men would have been if the roles had been reversed. These soldiers were cool, calculated professionals. No emotion, just business. It wouldn’t take much for one (or all) of them to pull their triggers and kill him in cold blood. Again, if the positions had been reversed, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it and he didn’t expect them to either. His hunch was right. They were Australian SAS. The way they carried themselves and did their job made them instantly recognisable. Marturak had trained with these people before, and even fought against them in a skirmish on the border of West and East Timor. He remembered that battle vividly. He’d managed to shoot one in the head as the man stood over his fallen comrade, yet still the soldier had stood his ground and kept firing. He’d been fighting against the Australian occupation forces with the militia and had barely managed to escape with his life. Yes, they were good.

Marturak talked to them, quietly at first. He knew they probably wouldn’t understand Indonesian but if he somehow forced his humanity on them, there was a slight chance that they would find it harder to kill him. That’s what the TNI psychs said. Now he played that card for all it was worth.

Marturak clasped his hands together in front of his face in the universal gesture of prayer and babbled pathetically, beseeching, pleading. He almost made himself sick grovelling like this. Such antics had never deflected him from a chosen course of action, namely, to pull the trigger. But he needed time. It was all about time. The stocky soldier who appeared to be the leader — he couldn’t be sure because none of the men carried any insignia of rank — ignored his pleas. The soldier stuck the barrel of his shotgun above one of Marturak’s wrists and forced it down, gesturing at him to put his hands behind his back. Another soldier, one he couldn’t see, held his fingers interlocked together and secured his wrists tightly with a nylon lock-tie while a third soldier patted him down, removing his sidearm, grenades and knife. A muzzle jabbed him in the back and he was walking forward, a captured prisoner in his own country.