‘Now, listen to me very carefully. You will release our guests at once. Then you will apologise to Miss Suyanto for the inconvenience you have caused her.’

‘But, sir –’

‘You will then confine this stowaway, Doctor Carter, and the troublesome Mr Nash to quarters, while your men burn all the bodies. As soon as possible, you will refloat the ship and continue with the mission. Are we clear? The mission is paramount.’

Years of ingrained cynicism could not have prepared Kaboro for such an outrage. He realised it was the end of his seventeen-year military career.

‘What you’re asking me to do, sir, is illegal. I won’t be party to it, and that is final. I will go on record and resign my commission.’

There was a long pause. Michaels’ next words chilled him to the bone.

‘Your son Toby is currently serving time in Goroka jail for a drug-related offence, is he not?’

Toby had run wild after his parents’ bitter divorce, and joined a raskol gang before being arrested with a carload of ganja. Kaboro had spent his life savings on bribes to cut his son a deal: fourteen months of a five-year sentence in minimum security. A condition of early release was that Toby would enlist in the PNGDF on a degree programme. Kaboro had been counting the months down to the day his boy walked free.

Michaels’ high-pitched voice snapped him back into the present.

‘Lieutenant, if you refuse to obey my orders, I will contact the Attorney General and by this afternoon your son will be transferred to Bomana maximum security prison to serve out the rest of his sentence. Do I make myself clear?’

The arrow had punctured through the pectoral muscle into the pectoralis minor beneath, and possibly a rib. Mia figured the point probably hadn’t penetrated or collapsed the lung, but it was impossible to be sure. What she really needed was an X-ray to determine the location of the arrowhead, its shape and composition, whether it had detached or fragmented – even better, an MRI to evaluate nerve damage.

Oh, for Gods sake, she chastised herself, how about a fully equipped operating theatre, too?

At least Douglas had passed out again. She could only hope he stayed that way, because there was no anaesthesia either.

Tentatively, she pulled the arrow stump with the pliers to assess its grip. She knew these kinds of penetrations were much harder to treat than bullet wounds. Arrowheads were usually attached with dried tendons or naturally derived glues, which became sources of infection. In contrast to the smooth track left by a bullet, the jagged edges of an arrowhead created wounds the body found difficult to wall off. Again, lethal infection was almost guaranteed. Without antibiotics, this fate almost certainly awaited Douglas.