‘You’d have to be a monk not to react to that.’ Douglas returned his attention to her. ‘Listen, we may not have much time to talk. I’m getting stronger, but not enough to run. You have to take off at the first opportunity you get. Don’t go back to Kinsame’s village – it’s the first place they’ll look. Head north till you hit the river. Find a village. Beg, borrow or steal a way downriver, just get across the border –’

‘But what about you and Rob?’ She was trying to keep her voice light, but the thought of leaving them was abhorrent.

‘We’ll scoot as soon as we get the chance. Right now, you’re our best shot at getting the word out.’

‘But what good will that do? Someone high up in the PNG government is already involved, and I doubt our authorities will do anything more than make overtures. By then it will be too late for you.’

Douglas acknowledged this with a solemn stare. ‘Mia, would you rather we all just conveniently disappeared? If you get word to the embassies, maybe it will put the pressure on the Suyantos, muck up whatever grubby scheme they’ve got going. We’ve got to find a way to push back or they win.’

‘OK,’ she nodded, thinking of the jungle trails she had walked to the river. ‘I’ll do it, Frank.’

‘Good girl. We’ll wait until dark. If necessary, I’ll create a diversion.’

Sounding tired, Douglas lay back with one arm under his head and ran his eyes over the old world books and paintings scattered over the floor.

‘Say, how the hell did you ever find this place?’

Mia smiled as she remembered her first visit. How bizarre it had been to find an archaic chunk of European culture transplanted to the tropics, for the mission website had given no indication she would be stepping back in time. Paul had welcomed her with a gin and tonic, invited her to sit down in a rattan chair on the wide veranda, then talked his head off while a cooling zephyr from the distant mountains blew the humidity away.

‘Fate, I suppose. But none of this makes sense, Frank. Work was Paul’s life, and he worked non-stop every day of the year. I can’t believe he was interested in money.’

‘Takes a lot of money to run a hospital, though.’

‘Yes. And there are sister hospitals in Africa and South America, too. But who keeps gold under their bed in this day and age? Especially in a place as tumultuous as Papua?’

Douglas raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘Hate to say it, kid, but usually it’s someone with something to hide.’ He sucked on his mangled lower lip for a moment. ‘What I don’t get is how the Hoosenbeck fits in. No one in their right mind would stash gold up there, surely?’