‘Forget it. You couldn’t have seen this coming. I can’t believe it myself. What the hell were they thinking?’ He glanced at Mia, who had the good grace not to say I told you so. ‘I’m glad you’re OK.’

Her beautiful eyes assessed him. ‘Is anyone else hurt?’

‘Captain Goki seems to have knocked himself out on the bridge.’

‘On my way, then.’

‘Hold on a sec.’

Nash turned and called out to Sergeant Singkepe, who was mustering his squad on the foredeck.

‘Can you send an escort to the bridge with Dr Carter?’

‘Moses, get up there!’ Singkepe barked. ‘The rest of you fan out – port, stern and starboard. Keep your eyes peeled, you hear? Stay sharp.’

‘You were right,’ Nash said quietly to Mia. ‘There’s something dodgy going on. Don’t be alone with them, OK?’

‘Sure.’

She smiled and touched his hand lightly before leaving.

Ensign Mohli and an armed sailor arrived to mount the search for survivors. Nash and Douglas helped them climb into the aluminium tender and cranked it down, a job made awkward by the off-centre davits. After firing up the outboard, the tender motored out into the river.

‘Think they’ll find anyone?’ Nash asked Singkepe, who had just joined them.

‘We’d better hope not.’ The sergeant’s eyes were troubled. ‘If they get back to their village, we’ll have a war on our hands.’

Payback was the muscle that underpinned the wantok system in PNG. It was why people didn’t stop after road accidents; trying to negotiate reparations with a machete-wielding avenger was a good way to lose your head.

It was only now that Nash thought to check his mobile phone. No satellite. How appropriate for such a fuck-up that they were in a black spot. He went down to the stern to check the status of their most obvious means of escape, and found Ricki Hartono had beaten him to it.

On the angled landing pad, the tail rotor of the multi-million-dollar Jet Ranger was now just centimetres above the water. That the straps had held, and the machine had not budged, crumpled or cracked under the impact, was something of a miracle.

‘Looks OK,’ said the pilot, flexing the drooping rotors, as if the circumstances of the situation were unrelated to his negligence.

‘No thanks to you,’ Nash told him bluntly. ‘Be ready to fly. We may need to evacuate.’

Hartono looked surly behind his Ray-Bans, but held his tongue.

Kaboro returned from his survey.

‘No sign of a hull breach,’ he reported. ‘Saworno says the engines are OK. A lot of the gear has been flung around, though.’ He led Nash away from Hartono and dropped his voice to a murmur. ‘The nearest police are in Pagwi. But there’s only three of them, and they don’t have a boat.’

‘And the military?’

‘Our closest troops are in Wewak. Currently, there is no air support.’