‘Call yourself a soldier?’ Mia said angrily. ‘You miserable little coward.’

She thought he was going to strike her again. Instead, he pushed her to the ground and lit a cigarette.

‘No more childish games, Doctor Carter. Tell me where Frank Douglas is.’

They’re working with Sura.

Mia’s insides heaved and abruptly she threw up.

Oh God, what had she done? Because of her, Millie and Paomente were dead. And if these murderous bastards went to the village looking for Frank Douglas, they would surely kill them all, too.

Wiping her mouth, she looked Alatas in the eye.

‘Frank Douglas died on the journey from Hufi. We left his body in the forest. I can show you where if you like.’

‘Bohong bitch!’ Wrenching her palm up, he ground his cigarette into her flesh. ‘I can tell you are lying.’

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

On the pale water-worn limestone, they moved fast under the dense canopy. On either side of the dry river bed, trees as thick as a man fought for the light. Interspersed among them, like ghosts among the living, were the limbless white trunks of long-dead gigantic ancestors. Nash began to think about what he was going to do if the submarine wasn’t there, and his tension was mounting with every step.

‘I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t some desperate fantasy.’ Sura gave voice to her misgivings. ‘Why don’t you explain what this is all about?’

‘Do you see all the dead trees? Something killed them at the same time.’

‘No shit, genius,’ Boerman snapped from the rear. ‘The gorge flooded.’

‘But what caused the flood?’

Nash directed their attention back up the river bed. From where they were standing, only the top of the cave arch was visible. They could make out the faint white line on the cliff face, and another glimpse through the trees on the walls of the gorge.

‘Those mineral deposits prove that where we are standing was once more than twenty metres deep. Given the fall of the gorge, how is that possible? What could have contained that depth of water?’

‘This isn’t show-and-tell, Mr Nash.’

‘In Fürth’s account, he thought the submarine had reached the end of the river.’

Sura sighed. ‘And then he heard explosions and they continued on –’

‘But not for several days, quite possibly more, because he had no way of telling the time.’

‘And your point is?’ grumbled Boerman, slapping a mosquito feeding on his neck.

‘When we flew in, just after the gorge narrows, I spotted an old collapse, a huge landslide now covered in trees. The Hoosenbeck resurgence appears downstream of it.’

Sura nodded. ‘I walked right through it.’

‘What if the SS fixed explosives to the walls of the gorge behind the submarine?’

Sura’s eyes lit up. ‘To create a dam. It makes sense!’