The nondescript dirt track was just one of hundreds running off the Eyre Highway between Caiguna and Eucla, but Nash would never forget it. Shifting down a gear, he nursed the Land Cruiser over a battered stock grid, the victim of too many road trains, and took a long, slow breath. It had taken fourteen hours of hard driving to get here from Margaret River, and aside from fuel and coffee at Esperance, he hadn’t stopped.

At least there had been plenty to think about. Shangri-La Productions were paying him a quarter of a million to lead the penetration, plus expenses and hire of his equipment, and he got to keep the rights to his own photography, which meant a glossy book down the track. It seemed too good to be true for an estimated one month’s work, but Nash had a 150,000 Australian dollar advance payment propping up his sagging mortgage account to prove it. Jacquie was ecstatic for him; she said it was the best medicine she could have hoped for and was making the chemo easier to bear.

He felt uneasy concealing the Hoosenbeck from his family, though. As far as they were concerned, he was heading back to the Kaiserin Grotto to pick up where he’d left off. According to Douglas, the Indonesian subterfuge was about avoiding trouble with OPM – the Free Papua movement – and their sympathisers in PNG. Nash was sympathetic to their cause, but not enough – he had to admit – to pull out.

Staring out at the wide Nullarbor landscape, it seemed inconceivable that he would be exchanging it for tropical jungle in just two weeks. His equipment was already on a container ship headed for Port Moresby, but there was something important he needed to do here first.

The sun was low in the western sky when Nash passed the familiar outcrop of limestone rocks. A corrugated iron gate peppered with bullet holes appeared, and he felt his trepidation harden into something more. Had it really been a year since that dreadful day? The track descended into a depression dotted with saltbush and bluebush scrub. He was relieved to see there were no other vehicles present. Pulling up by a rough, barbed wire fence strung with ominous ‘keep out’ signs, he cut the engine. A glint of bright blue water marked the entrance pool.

Life and death. Once they’d been abstract concepts, one taken for granted, the other deferred. This place, the Octopus, had taught him they were cold, hard reality.

The cave got its name from its profile, which resembled an upside-down funnel with several arms radiating from its base. It lay ten kilometres south of the vast chambers of Cocklebiddy Cave, and many suspected a connection to that system lay hidden somewhere within the rockfall at the end of the longest tentacle.

The light was fading fast. Too late to set up camp. He would sleep in the car tonight and get started early the next morning.