Mia put her chilled lips against his.

‘I thought I was dead.’ She stared into his eyes. ‘When you grabbed me, I was gone.’

He kissed her several times. ‘I’ve got you now and I’m not letting go.’

He felt her stiffen. ‘Boerman . . .?’

‘Will never hurt you again.’

She nestled in more tightly before looking up at him again.

‘I’m sorry about Frank.’ Nash listened to her account of his final moments. Seeing the pain in his eyes, she pushed her frozen cheek against his. ‘He really loved you.’

‘I know.’

The water was now lapping their feet, and Nash pulled Mia to her feet.

‘We’ve got to keep moving.’

For the next hour they kept ahead of the fast-rising water, making their way along the steeply sloping catapult ramp, until they were standing on the very nose of the I-403. Although the exertion had temporarily warmed Mia, it would still be a long while until the sinkhole filled, and now there was a greater threat. In the swirling water, the log jam had become a deadly unstable mass of shifting tonnage.

‘What are we going to do?’ Mia asked fearfully, as one of the massive logs thudded against the hull, rolled over and slid under another. ‘We’ll be crushed.’

A voice echoing down made them flinch.

‘You mekim wanem?’ What are you doing?

Above them, a young Papuan man was clinging onto the edge of the block and tackle. He was dressed in old khaki trousers, a grubby blue T-shirt and a bandana, and his expression was somewhere between fear and curiosity.

‘Indonesian soldia putim hia!’ Mia yelled, miming the act of shooting. She then interlaced her fingers and held her hands up. ‘Plis helpim!’

The Papuan was joined by an older bearded man in a Free Papua T-shirt, with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. They conferred for a moment before the older man bellowed ‘Husat?’

‘Dokta Mia Carter, America.’ Mia put her hand on Nash’s shoulder. ‘Dispela hia Rob Nash, Aussie.’

‘Yu wok Ford Misin?’

‘Yes!’

Another giant log crashed against the submarine and rolled in the grinding chop. Mia pointed to the suspended cargo net on the other side of the sinkhole.

‘Plis move hia and pullim ap!’

As the men fanned out along the sinkhole edge, Nash counted at least ten of them, armed with a hotch-potch of rifles and shotguns.

‘They’re OPM,’ Mia confirmed.

‘By the time they set it up over here, we’ll be paste,’ he told her.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Run!’

Taking Mia by the hand, Nash stepped onto a log facing that direction, a twenty-metre giant with a remnant canopy still locking it to the western edge of the pile. Although a good metre wide, it was slippery as hell and they ran in awkward baby steps to maintain balance.

‘Keep going!’ roared Nash as he saw the next route opening in the shifting pile.