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There had been fuck-all planning on this op. Usually, every detail within reason would be thought through and shit still happened often enough even then. Shit happening looked likely on this one from beginning to end.

Lack of knowledge was the biggest killer in the field and a severe lack of it was gnawing away at the pit of his stomach. He felt like doing a nervous crap but couldn’t. Black Hawks were lacking in passenger comforts. Questions swam around in his brain that he knew he’d get no answers to. He didn’t even know how they were going to get into the middle of Indonesia in time, let alone get out in one piece. The whole business was one big shitty question mark.

He jacked into the helo’s intercom and tipped his forefinger to his brow in a casual salute at the LM securing the Black Hawk’s human cargo. The LM checked Wilkes’s seat-belt, no more than webbing fastened into the floor of the aircraft, and then went on to secure the next trooper. When the soldiers and their kit were secured, the LM indicated as much to the two pilots on the flight deck, and the pitch on the rotor blades changed, carving deep into the air. The Black Hawk lifted positively, climbing rapidly, nose low. The helo banked as it climbed and turned through a steep 180-degree arc. Wilkes felt his cheeks being sucked down and his arms grow heavy with the gs.

As the helo gained altitude, Wilkes forced his mind to focus on the immediate issues. He scanned his men, receiving grins from most. But there was tension in the hot, cramped confines of the Black Hawk. Not the usual tension before a mission, the sort of fear checked by an innate belief in their training and ability. The atmosphere here was one of uncertainty, coupled with a sense of being up against it — time, stupid odds, and a situation that seemed, to put it bluntly, plainly fucking bizarre.

A voice in the headphones pierced Wilkes’s concentration. ‘Hey, Sarge. Lieutenant Harvey. I’ve been your taxi before. Up in the hills? I medivacked you and your mate after that firefight back in ’99. How’s your shoulder?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Wilkes, recalling the pilot’s face as he turned around and waved. ‘Never got to thank you.’

‘No wukkas.’

‘Well, thanks anyway,’ said Wilkes, dialling his brain back to the skirmish with the militia.

‘What about the other bloke?’

‘He lived.’

‘Looked pretty bad.’

‘Bad enough.’ Wilkes changed the subject. ‘So what you doing back here?’

‘Exchange program with the States. Six months into it my Yank squadron got seconded to UN duty and here I am, back where I started.’

‘Groundhog Day,’ said Wilkes.

‘You know it, girlfriend,’ said the Royal Australian Army lieutenant in his best white trash American accent. ‘Only there’s probably some American lying in my bed back home screwing my missus, while I’m up here chewing dirt.’

Wilkes laughed.

‘Nice to see you guys back to your old tricks. Ever landed on an aircraft carrier?’

‘Nope.’

‘Well, today’s your lucky day.’ The lieutenant didn’t bother asking specifically what mischief these SAS boys were up to because he knew it was none of his business, and trying to make it so would get him nowhere.

‘What’s the flight time, ace?’

‘There’s a touch of headwind so, providing that’s constant, I give us twenty-five minutes airtime.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Sweet. Just sit back and enjoy the kind of service our competitors shoot at us for.’

Wilkes smiled and let his mind wander.

On a mission, the rigid formalities and observances of rank dissolved. They were just men doing a job, a job that could get them killed. On this kind of sortie, the SAS carried no rank or indication of nationality. They were going in to a foreign country, one considered friendly, yet they would very likely leave a number of dead Indonesians behind them. In the event of capture, all hell would break loose. It would be highly embarrassing for both countries. Australia would cut them adrift. What they were about to do never happened. It was a hazard of the job — not all jobs he’d done as a member of the SAS, but definitely a hazard of this one.

Wilkes reflected on that, and the new information just passed to him through his phones from the flight deck. The Americans were involved. An aircraft carrier, for Christ’s sake! Somehow the Yanks were going to get them into the middle of Indonesia in double-quick time. That kind of joint operation was rare, especially when the op had been put together on the fly as this one obviously was. So the S70 A9 Black Hawk wouldn’t be making the insertion. He wondered what would.

The sergeant closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the bulkhead and he tried to separate the known from the speculation. Indonesia had shot down a Qantas 747 and denied doing it. Why? It made sense to lie about something so heinous. They had then sent in Special Forces troops to kill any survivors. Again, why? That fitted with something they wanted to keep hidden.