‘They need him to work the tracker,’ said Nina. She turned back to Sandra as she finished her urgent call. ‘I know this is hard, but we need your help. Are you up to it?’

Sandra clenched her lips, then nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I am.’

Eddie spotted more footprints in the dirt. ‘They went towards the rock.’

‘Then let’s go find these bastards.’ She set off, Nina and Eddie exchanging concerned looks before following.

They collected Cheng and Macy at the dry river and continued across the desert landscape. Before long, a rising plume of orange dust signalled a vehicle’s imminent arrival. Sandra climbed a mound and waved. A white Land Cruiser pulled up and a paunchy middle-aged Anangu man in a ranger’s uniform climbed out, donning a cowboy-style hat. ‘Heard you on the radio,’ he told Sandra with alarm. ‘Rosie’s dead?’

‘Yeah,’ was her terse reply.

‘Where’s her body? Her family’ll want to—’

‘There isn’t a body. There’s nothing left.’ She went past him to the truck. ‘You got your rifle?’ He nodded.

‘You’re armed?’ asked Nina, surprised.

‘We get dingoes out here, and kangaroos can mess you up if they’re in a bad mood,’ said the new arrival. ‘Better to be safe. Who’re you?’

She made the introductions. The ranger, whose name was Barney Jungala, was not impressed. ‘An archaeologist? What’s that got to do with one of my mates being killed?’

‘She thinks there’s some kind of ancient prison buried under the rock,’ said Sandra, returning with a hunting rifle. ‘I didn’t believe her at first, but then we found a flying saucer, so now I don’t know what the hell to think.’

Barney regarded her with a fixed expression. ‘A flying saucer,’ he said flatly.

‘I wish I was joking. But whoever or whatever came out of it killed Rosie, then headed for the rock – so I want a rocket up the arse of every single tourist to get them out of the park, fast. We’ll bring in outside help as quick as we can, but it’ll take a while for anyone to get here, so for now it’s up to us to keep everyone safe.’ She inserted the rifle’s small magazine and chambered a round.

The ranger shook his head. ‘This is a load of Pine Gap conspiracy crap, Sandra. I don’t know what you found, but it can’t be a flying saucer! There’s not a single bit of proof that space aliens are real.’

‘Actually, there is,’ Macy piped up.

Everyone looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’ asked Nina.

‘There’s a carving of a giant alien skull on Uluru’s side,’ she said. ‘I saw it in one of my para-archaeology videos!’