Cave Diver Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Copyright

  For my wife, Cathy.

  For everything.

  Prologue

  Sepik River, Papua New Guinea, January, 1946

  Carving a long white furrow, the Australian patrol boat prowled her designated section of the great river: a thirty-mile stretch below Ambunti. Despite the oppressive glare and hammer-like heat, her bare-chested, sunburned lookouts were on full alert, scanning the dense, riverine forest lining the banks through powerful Zeiss binoculars. The war had ended six months ago, but there were still plenty of Japanese soldiers who preferred to rot in the jungle rather than face the shame of surrender. Operation Housekeeping was the reluctant Allied response. No one wanted to get killed rounding up fanatics but, as colonial overlords, the Australians had a responsibility to protect the locals from theft, murder or worse. Keeping our cannibals from being eaten, or so the joke went.

  Just two days ago, the patrol boat had surprised a ragged band of Japanese crossing a shallow creek mouth. The skipper blasted the horn three times and, over the tannoy, ordered them to drop their weapons. The skeletal-looking men raised rusting rifles in a weak show of defiance and began screaming ‘banzai.’ If they wanted to die, HMAS Bowen was happy to oblige. Her 20 mm Oerlikon cannons unleashed a withering burst that shook the boat to her keel. The heavy shells blew the screaming men into conveniently sized pieces for the ever-present crocs, who were enthusiastically cleaning up before the cordite smoke cleared.

  The skipper, a twenty-five-year-old accountant from Melbourne, flinched as an engorged mosquito punctured the tanned skin of his forearm. It zipped away before he could swat it. The little bastard was probably teeming with malaria or dengue fever – one of the many hazards in this voracious country which would swallow you whole at the slightest opportunity and not even bother to belch. At least in the navy you only had to deal with it from the relative safety of a thirty-tonne patrol boat. Not like those poor sods in the infantry.

  Suddenly, a lookout on the bow screamed, ‘Hard aport . . . object dead ahead!’

  Floating debris was a constant hazard on the Sepik. Mostly it was great clumps of vegetation uprooted from the riverbanks by floods, which could easily foul a prop. But, occasionally, it was a hardwood log washed down from the great forests of the mountainous interior. One of these could rip the boat open in an instant. The skipper flung the helm over without question.

  Avoiding the object by half a length, the skipper slowed the boat. Something about it had caught his eye. About four yards long, grey in colour, it was too uniformly shaped to be anything but man-made. In a wide churn of coffee-coloured foam they came about alongside the object. The mate struggled to snag it with the gaff. Finally, he located a tear in the upper surface and hauled it to the gunwale.

  Closer inspection revealed it to be a battered aluminium cylinder, tapered at one end. A thick coating of slime and finger-like tendrils of weed growing on the bottom suggested it had been in the river for some time. A long-range fuel tank? Perhaps a parachute supply canister? A panel on the top was loose, hanging on by just one rivet.

  ‘Better look inside, Smithy,’ the skipper ordered. ‘You never know, it might be full of grog!’

  ‘Keep an eye on the bloody crocs then,’ the sailor muttered under his breath. While his mates held on to his legs, he leaned out over the murky water and swung the panel out of the way. With a gasp, he reeled back as a wave of hot, putrid air punched him in the face. ‘Stone me sideways, that bloody reeks!’

  The cylinder had become a casket for a human body. Baked under the tropical sun, the skin of the corpse was a dark mummified parchment stretched tightly over protruding bones. Big white teeth grinned malevolently. Only the blond hair told them that he had been white.

  ‘Thinking of inviting him on board?’ some wag commented.

  The crew laughed uneasily. A European corpse had rights, even in this godforsaken place. But they were a day from Wewak, and in this heat the boat would stink for a month.

  ‘Bring him around to the stern,’ said the skipper. ‘See if you can find some identification.’

  He held the boat steady in the current, as the men manoeuvred the cylinder around to the transom step.

  The luckless Smithy tried not to breathe, as he gingerly searched the tattered remains for dog tags.

  ‘Skip, you’d better take a look at this.’

  The skipper stared in wonder at the silver objects. One was an Iron Cross with ‘M. H. 1941’ engraved on the back. The other was the unmistakable grinning death’s head badge of the Waffen SS. It didn’t make sense: German forces hadn’t been seen in Papua New Guinea since 1914, when Australian troops invaded the Kaiser’s colony at the outbreak of World War I.

  The skipper sought the bosun’s advice. At thirty-one, he was the oldest man on board, and the only one who had encountered German troops while serving in the Mediterranean. The thickset man scrutinised the items intensely. Turning the medal over, he gave a low whistle.

  ‘It’s not an Iron Cross, Skip, it’s a silver Knight’s Cross with oak leaf cluster. They didn’t hand out too many of these.’

  An extensive and unpleasant search revealed nothing else about M. H. There were no weapons, dog tags or a wallet, just a pair of huge size fifteen jackboots complete with femur and foot bones. Someone suggested the cylinder was a float from a seaplane. It seemed plausible; there were Japanese characters on one of the panels.

  ‘Skip,’ whined Smithy, ‘for the love of God, can we let him go now?’

  The sun beat down as the skipper weighed his options. Whoever this SS hotshot was, he was long dead, just like his boss back in the rubble of Berlin. As for what he’d been doing in this hellhole, the evidence suggested he had been an adviser to the Japs and, sure as shit, he didn’t deserve a funeral. The skipper nodded to himself. Yep, he’d hand the medals over to the adjutant in Wewak, along with his report. Let the navy figure out what, if anything, should be done. Meanwhile, his boys needed clear air and the cold ale awaiting them back at base.

  ‘Let him go, Smithy. Let the river have him.’

  Chapter 1

  Cowaramup Bombie, Margaret River, Western Australia, present day

  Whipped by howling gales across the lonely wastes of the intercontinental fetch, the massive winter swell bore down on the rugged coast still hidden in the darkness. A crimson band in the eastern sky heralded dawn, soon to crest the hills overlooking Gracetown where street lights twinkled insignificantly. Come daybreak, a handful of international big wave surfers and film crews would ride out from its protected bay on jet skis to
greet these monstrous waves as they struck a submerged platform of limestone the size of an aircraft carrier. But for now, there was just one figure in the gloom.

  Powering through the water on his custom big wave, stand-up paddleboard, Rob Nash maintained the robotic cadence that had propelled him from his home in Margaret River, twenty kilometres to the south. Long of limb and 1.93 metres tall, Nash was a formidable physical specimen, with years of surfing, swimming and sailing hard-wired into his DNA. A renowned waterman in the Western Australian aquatic fraternity, his cave-diving exploits had propelled him into wider public consciousness, yet the last two years had hardened him in such a way that even those who knew him best had to look twice. A diet of obsessive, big wave surfing and open sea paddling had excised every gram of fat from his frame. His once open, boyishly handsome face was now a gaunt mask. Tendons stood out on his muscled arms like steel cords, and the clinical resolve which had underpinned his success in the life-or-death stakes of cave diving had devolved into the psychological equivalent of a white-knuckle joyride. Deep down, Rob Nash was looking for the release of death, but the sea had stubbornly refused to give it to him.

  He scanned the Cow break with intense green eyes, hungry for the narcotic release of extreme danger. Three hundred metres ahead, a huge set was building. Suddenly, the leading waves broke through into an oblique shaft of sunlight. On their towering crests, the spindrift blown back in streaming arcs by the offshore wind looked like a high-altitude blizzard, wreaking havoc on a distant mountain range.

  Taking up station in the deep channel beside the break, Nash calculated the period – the time taken for each wave crest to traverse a given point. As each breaking wave detonated, it sent shock waves through the air, followed by the pungent odour of kelpy brine, as trillions of airborne water droplets fell in a cold mist. Its chill cleared his mind. By jettisoning the debris, everything was reduced to cause and effect, now and forever, in this moment . . .

  Nash flexed his powerful shoulders, digging the blade of his paddle into the water, bracing himself on bent knees to transfer force to momentum, as the next set began to form. Entering the break zone, he calibrated his run for the last and most ominous-looking wave. Knowledge, experience and instinct guided him, as he turned and built up the speed of the SUP to match that of the gigantic black wall towering above him.

  The wave was reaching amplitude – critical mass. Now, timing was everything. Too slow, and he risked a late take-off with a sickening drop, perhaps getting caught by the crest and sucked over the falls. Too fast, and he would lose precious velocity gained by a steeper angle of descent and be run down by a fifteen-metre-high wall of white water. Either would lead to a horrifying hold-down and the certain loss of his board in shark-infested waters. The stakes were high . . . way too high. But for Nash, losing himself in the moment meant exactly this.

  Some part of him began to hum, as the irresistible energy of the wave took command. A cavernous stomach-churning lurch marked the point of no return. The SUP hung in the air at the very crest, and then, like an elevator cable snapping, plunged down the near-vertical face. Feet splayed like a boxer, Nash braced against the wind buffeting under the nose, angling his body to offset the forces trying to bury him in the trough three storeys below. With a vicious thud, the bottom of the SUP reconnected. Nash transferred his weight to his back leg to dig in his rail for a bottom turn. Simultaneously, he leaned back hard on the paddle, using it as an extended rudder to carve purchase in the face towering above him. Finessing the torque through heightened nerve endings, he made the turn as sharply as he dared. Water contrails hissed off the embedded rail. In a heady rush of elation, he flattened out his trim.

  Now, it was about using his wiles to outrun a wave with forces approaching six tonnes per square metre. Off his right shoulder, he could feel the maw of the beast, gnashing its foamy jaws as he skipped along at more than forty kilometres an hour. Like a sardine surfing the bow wave of a blue whale, he was insignificant. And in that moment of total commitment and connection, the man known as Rob Nash and all his worldly problems ceased to exist.

  He surfed three more giants before the first jet-ski team arrived. As he cut across its bow, its stunned driver and tow surfer stared at him in disbelief.

  A SUP all the way out here? Man, this guy is fucking insane!

  Nash made it back to the Margaret River mouth by 10.30, caught a long blue peeler into the river, and fifteen minutes later was paddling up to his home on the riverbank.

  Once a 1960s brick box, his architect brother-in-law’s design had extended it to maximise the river views, best enjoyed from a large, cantilevered deck, which sat among a canopy of mature peppermint gum trees. He hadn’t spoken to Jonathan in months – not since the edition of The World Tonight which had hastened Nash’s descent into the abyss.

  After sluicing himself and the board under the outdoor shower, Nash made his way up the boat ramp to the expansive basement under the house.

  Here, the concrete floor was thick with dead gum leaves, blown in on the prevailing westerlies. They crunched underfoot as Nash replaced the SUP on its rack. Threading his way through the rows of underwater equipment – tanks, scooters, sleds, light arrays and a portable decompression chamber – he was all too conscious that this gear gathering dust, once so integral to his identity, now made him feel like a fraud. Despite all the emblazoned sponsors’ logos, it had the aura of a self-indulgent hobby, long forgotten. He wasn’t yet at the point of being able to make a decision on selling it. He wasn’t at the point of being able to decide on anything.

  At the top of the stairs, he paused before opening the living room door. It was his practice to inhale deeply here and, for a brief moment, open an olfactory portal to the past. But Natalie’s smell had faded. Recently he’d moved most of her things to the spare bedroom. He wasn’t trying to forget, far from it. But every knick-knack, every book, every article of clothing generated myriad associations, and the memories kept flooding in and drowning him. One day he would work out what to keep.

  In the kitchen, he threw oats, salt, raisins and water into a saucepan and flicked on the gas. After nine hours on the board, Nash was both dehydrated and ravenous, and he downed a litre of water and three bananas while he stirred. He was spooning the steaming porridge into a bowl when there was an all too familiar brusque triple knock on the front door.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered. Wasn’t she supposed to be coming tomorrow?

  Padding across the jarrah floorboards, Nash went to let his sister in.

  Only it wasn’t Jacquie on the doorstep.

  Nash’s eyes widened in alarm as a heavily made-up woman thrust a long black microphone at him. Behind her were a burly cameraman and another man in a black T-shirt. It was not the local news mob, but a city outfit.

  ‘Rob Nash? Tracey Burnshore from Tonight. Can you explain to our viewers why you left your wife to die?’

  Nash couldn’t slam the door because she was already half inside. Over her shoulder, the eye of the camera bored accusingly into him.

  ‘Get out of the way,’ he told her. ‘I’m closing the door.’

  ‘Why won’t you answer our questions, Rob? People want to know your side of the story.’

  ‘I said, get out.’

  ‘Rob, was it really an accident?’

  Nash leaned his weight against the door until she was forced back onto the veranda and had to retract the microphone for fear of having it cut in half. He crouched down on his haunches as she began authoritatively pounding on the door.

  ‘What about Natalie’s family? Don’t you think they deserve some answers?’

  It was the third such ambush in as many months. Ever since The World Tonight had gone to air, the tabloid press had been stalking him. He’d hoped the inquest, which had exonerated him from legal culpability, would have put an end to it. No chance. There was nothing more newsworthy than a high-profile fall from grace, and in a small-population state like Western Australia, they were d
etermined to milk it for all it was worth.

  Burning with shame, he listened through the door as they wound up the segment.

  ‘Natalie Nash . . . drowned in suspicious circumstances . . . suggestions of foul play for financial gain . . . problems in the marriage.’

  The reporter reeled off the collapse of their sponsorship deals and reiterated a breathless call for justice – at the very least, a civil case. Finally, they packed up, got back in their van and drove off. Nash realised he was shaking.

  A few moments later, another vehicle pulled up. Heart pounding, he peered out through a crack in the blinds. This time it was Jacquie, and he opened the door before she got to it.

  ‘You look bloody terrible,’ she said. ‘Were you out there all night again?’ Scrutinising him with eyes uncannily like his own, she took his hand and saw how badly it was shaking. ‘Oh God, don’t tell me. That van – was it the press again?’

  He pulled her inside and quickly shut the door.

  ‘Oh, Rob, the bastards.’ She hugged him tightly for a long moment. Then she looked around the room. ‘Christ, what a mess! I hope you didn’t let them see this?’

  He managed a smile. Classic Jac, one minute picking you up off the floor, the next kicking your ass. His little sister was irrepressible, a twenty-nine-year-old live wire who ran a highly successful boutique travel company. From deserted islands in Indonesia to shady hotels in Marrakesh, she had carved out an original niche in a crowded online market.

  She smiled back at Nash with perfect white teeth. Sassy and vivacious, Jac was an attractive woman with no shortage of admirers, but she had never been able to put up with a man for long, the standard complaint being that they slowed her down. Her self-confessed major weakness was idolising her big brother. And Nash’s apparent indifference to the demise of his illustrious career was driving her crazy. She’d been bombarding him with books and DVDs on post-traumatic stress syndrome, trying to tee up shrinks, offering him work as a travel guide for her air safaris . . . anything to get him up and firing again. Today, he was relieved to see she was carrying nothing but her handbag.