Blood Is a Stranger (9 page)

Cardinal found Digex's hangar where the company's private jets, light planes and helicopters were housed. He introduced himself to Richardson, who asked him to climb into a two-engine Cessna. Inside were the two geologists who were apprehensive about Richardson piloting the plane. With a minimum of words they were soon speeding along the runway and airborne.

A strong wind bounced the light plane as it climbed to eight hundred metres above the Arnhem Highway, which led to the Aboriginal reserve and the Digex Ginga mine. A snake of stationary trucks could be seen parked at the start of the highway.

‘They're mine,' Richardson said, glancing at Cardinal.

‘When do they roll?' one of the geologists – called Herman – asked. He was tall and muscular, with a crew-cut that contrasted oddly with an unkempt dark beard. It could not hide an out-sized jaw.

‘Tomorrow,' Richardson said. ‘They're going to deliver the biggest drill you ever saw to my mine. They'll return loaded with super-yellowcake.' The Germans laughed.

‘I'm fair dinkum!' Richardson said. ‘Normal yellowcake refers to uranium ore that has been milled once at a mine.
It looks like yellow sand. But we use a special process to concentrate it. It feels more sticky, although it is still like gold grain. That's why I have buyers lined up all around the world. We have the best high-grade uranium you can buy.'

On the horizon was a flat, washed patchwork of brown and yellow, broken by the Wildman and West Alligator rivers.

A half-hour later they could make out a formidable brown and purple rock escarpment that lurched from the vast plain.

‘Let's look at Brockman,' Richardson said as he accelerated south-west. Minutes later a solitary proud massif loomed beyond the cloud.

‘A terrific ore-body is under that,' he shouted above the engine. ‘We're going to get at it.'

Close to the mountain top, he dipped a wing. ‘The Abos believe those boulders are sacred,' he said sarcastically. ‘They're green ant eggs according to their Dreamtime legend.'

The plane swooped low across the mountain face and over the six metre-high rocks.

‘The story, gentlemen,' Richardson continued, ‘is that if anyone goes near the place, the rocks turn into monsters and destroy everything.'

‘It's a Bad Dreaming area isn't it?' Hans, the other geologist commented. Richardson nodded.

‘All the Bad Dreaming places just happen to be where the biggest uranium-ore bodies have been located,' he said, ‘which means we have a little trouble from time to time.'

‘Have you ever been stopped from a venture by the Aborigines?' Cardinal asked.

‘No,' Richarson said. ‘At the moment the local Aborigines say we can't drill under Brockman. But you must understand them. They're not dumb natives. No, sir! They make threats. We make an offer for increased royalties
to each member of the tribe, along with a little cream for the elders.'

‘Cream?' Cardinal asked.

‘You'll notice some of them have nice cars, nice homes in Darwin . . .'

The three passengers held on as Richardson swooped low over the boulders once more.

‘Have you much radioactivity?' Hans asked.

‘No,' Richardson replied.

‘Gabon has an almost identical geological formation to this area,' Hans continued undaunted. ‘I wondered if you ever had natural chain reactions?'

Richardson shook his head, and Cardinal asked what he was talking about.

‘Natural chain reactions can cause nuclear explosions,' the geologist explained.

‘A natural bomb?' Cardinal asked, incredulously.

‘Equivalent to the one dropped on Hiroshima,' Herman remarked. ‘It occurred in the early 1960s.'

They were flying over Richardson's sprawling mining town dominated by a gaping open-cut hole with an inwardly spiralling staircase. Near it were mills and tailing dams, which held the mine wastes after the uranium ore had been extracted and milled. The Aborigines claimed that seepage of radioactive waste from them had begun to destroy streams and land.

Hans asked if they could see Rum Jungle. Inside twenty minutes they were circling over a group of abandoned buildings – the remnants of a once-thriving mining town.

‘Nothing grows there, I am told,' Herman said. ‘The area was so polluted in the 1950s that nothing could live there in streams or on the land for 10,000 years at least.'

‘We know how to handle waste now,' Richardson said. ‘We will be able to restore our mine area.' He did not see Hans shake his head and wink at Cardinal.

They flew back towards Darwin, but Richardson detoured to his mine again and skimmed low over a long
red building. He dipped his wings. A few men in front of the building waved.

‘In there,' Richardson said, ‘is the greatest single stockpile of high-grade uranium on earth. Enough to make a hell of a lot of bombs!'

As they approached Darwin, Cardinal wondered how he should tackle Richardson about his recent visitors.

‘Are the Indonesians customers of yours?' he asked.

‘Why do you ask?'

‘I read about their visit here.'

‘They want me to get involved in joint oil exploration on our two countries' boundaries,' he said. ‘I'm not that interested, but my wife arranged it.' He glanced at Cardinal. ‘She's Javanese.'

Cardinal was in two minds about asking anything else.

Richardson turned his attention to the geologists and spoke to them about his plans for new mines.

‘Were there any women in the Indonesian delegation?' Cardinal asked after a pause.

Richardson was disturbed by the query. ‘What do you want to know that for?'

‘A newspaper report suggested that an Indonesian scientist may have been abducted when the delegation was in Sydney.'

Richardson was distracted as they got the all-clear for a landing at Darwin. He worked hard at the controls and made a poor approach. The undercarriage dipped as they crossed a road close to traffic beneath them. The Cessna skidded in unnervingly.

After they had taxied to a stop, the geologists thanked Richardson and left.

Richardson took Cardinal aside. ‘Where did you read that report?'

‘One of the Sydney papers.'

Richardson looked directly at him. ‘I'll have to ask my wife if there was a woman in the entourage,' he said. ‘She entertained them.'

They began to walk towards the terminal building.

‘I still want to know why you would be interested.'

‘My son worked with her,' he said, staring at Richardson.

‘Is this really why you're here?'

‘Let's just say it coincided with my other interests,' Cardinal said, reaching out a hand. ‘I'll be in touch, just in case your wife remembers anything.'

The eight Indonesian paratroopers floated down like leaves. They had been ejected by static line from a CI30 Hercules. A hidden group of onlookers, including Rhonda, used binoculars to watch the activities of the country's strike force – Kopasanda – at a secret airbase near Ujung Pandang on Sulawesi Island north-east of Java. A mock hijack was in progress. The target was a plane loaded with forty-four gallon drums filled with sandrock.

Rhonda had arrived in Bali after an eight-hour overnight flight from Melbourne, which was going through an early October cold snap. The moment she stepped from the plane's cabin at Denpasar airport she was suffocated by the cloying humidity. The pungent smell of cloves was distinctly familiar from her tour of duty as a correspondent in Indonesia two years earlier.

As the airport bus approached the terminal, she could see hundreds of locals jostling behind barriers. They were eager to offer the new arrivals baskets, trinkets and clothes, or rides in taxis and bembos. It made Rhonda claustrophobic. She had lived as a child in the Victorian countryside, and even when she left it permanently at seventeen for study in Melbourne, she was never entirely comfortable with city crowds. But Indonesia's population was another dimension.

She was met by Peter Perdonny, a diminutive Balinese
with strong blood ties to the small island of Ambon near West Irian where his mother had been born. He had large intense eyes, a splayed nose and a huge mouth.

Perdonny ran an Australian exploration group operating in the seas around the eastern part of the country's thirteen thousand island chain. He also belonged to a banned political party.

He had been preparing to spy on the special military activity at Sulawesi and had suggested she join him. Rhonda did not hesitate. He had been a useful source when she was last in Indonesia, and she wanted to see if he could help her with Van der Holland.

From Ujung Pandang, they had been escorted by two armed bodyguards in a Mercedes along a narrow track deep into the dense jungle. Creeping vines, acting like tripwire, impeded the vehicle, and twice the bodyguards had to use machetes to hack it free. The undergrowth's acrid smell irritated Rhonda and the damp heat forced her to take shallow, forced breaths.

Perdonny wanted to watch the early afternoon military exercises from a hill-top above the training area on an abandoned airfield.

He grinned reassuringly as he handed Rhonda binoculars. She panned away from the paratroopers. On the flat range to her left she could see a group being instructed on the General Purpose Machine Gun, the M60, and Sterling sub-machine guns, which were fitted with silencers.

Rhonda flinched as the staccato sounds of the weapons echoed across the field. Suddenly US Sea Eagle military choppers with their frightening gun mounts emerged from behind a hill and flew over the hill-top.

‘Christ!' Rhonda hissed, ‘are they looking for us?'

Perdonny shook his head. ‘They're going to make hot extractions.'

The choppers sent dust flying as they hovered and lowered
ropes. Fully kitted armed paratroopers dashed for the ropes, harnessed themselves, and in seconds were hoisted away.

Perdonny guided Rhonda to a point where they could see a cliff-face opposite them about a hundred metres away. Paratroopers were diving down the cliff using fast, controlled, roping movements. But some were less in control than others. They moved too quickly and had to brake hard. This caused them to bash against rocks. Others were over-cautious and finished up suspended thirty metres down and going nowhere. Instructors could be heard yelling abuse at them as they hung twisting and struggling.

Rhonda focused on barracks at the far side of the field, where a squad of fifty was being given unarmed combat lessons.

‘Only half of them are Indonesians,' Perdonny whispered in her ear. She looked at some of the faces.

‘What are they, Vietnamese?' she asked.

‘Kampuchean,' Perdonny replied.

Rhonda lowered the binoculars.

‘Any significance?'

Perdonny was about to answer when their two guards dropped down beside them and hissed warnings. They pointed down the other side of the hill. An armed convoy could be seen weaving its way towards them. Perdonny ordered one of the guards to roll his vehicle well off the road.