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‘No. I’ll explain when I come back. Jock, I’m sorry but can you please cancel my ten o’clock . . . and get the team at the medical centre briefed. Pregnant woman. We might need a medivac.’

‘All right, I’ll brief them. What’s your destination?’

‘Two kilometres south of Black Jungle Springs out on the Old Jim Jim Road. Next to the river.’ A red light on the dash caught her eye and Ellie craned forward. The low fuel light had come on.

‘Bullshit,’ Ellie muttered beneath her breath. With a full tank and with only her light weight in the bird, the twenty-gallon tank should have given her at least two hours flying time.

‘What’s wrong, Ellie?’ Jock’s voice faded in and out of her earphones as she leaned forward looking for a clearing. She knew she had five minutes of flying time after the light came on.

‘I’ve got a problem here, Jock.’ She kept her voice steady as she searched the ground for somewhere to bring the bird down. The small settlement of Black Jungle Springs appeared below and she lowered the front of the helicopter as she flew over it. There were too many trees and the flat ground near the river was still covered with water. The wetlands were still drying out after the late wet.

The engine power decreased as the fuel flow lessened and Ellie pushed the collective all the way down to reduce the drag on the rotor blades.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’

‘Ellie, what is it?’ Jock’s voice amplified her distress.

‘I’m in autorotation, Jock. Mayday, mayday, I’m taking her down.’

Ellie searched desperately for a flat, clear spot below. Trees filled her vision as far as she could see. If the chopper came down there, she’d have no chance. Her heart lodged in her throat. She’d only ever practised an autorotation in the simulator at pilot school and had never done a real controlled crash landing before. The ground inched closer as the engine cut out. Now the whoosh of the air from the spinning rotors was the only sound and she gritted her teeth, fighting to control the bird in the descent without an engine.

The scrubby forest stretched all the way to the river. The road wound through the forest and the small fishing hut appeared through a gap in the trees; a dark vehicle was parked at the edge of the fence. She smiled grimly. At least she was coming down close to her destination; someone was looking after her today.

She pulled back on the cyclic and the main rotor blades picked up speed as she scoured the ground below. Levelling off, she pulled up on the collective and prayed. As Ellie brought the chopper in over the river, she noticed the rocks in the grass in the small clearing. She pulled back to slow her forward speed and glanced down to the other side. There was a small patch of pure white sand directly beneath her; holding her breath, she levelled the helicopter.

‘Oh, God. Yes.’

Thirty feet to go. Enough to kill you dropping from that height. At least there was no fuel to burn. She overshot the clearing and banked the chopper to come back around to the small sandy patch by the river.

‘Come on, baby,’ she whispered as the clearing loomed ahead again.

Her control held as the chopper got closer to the ground. ‘Almost there.’

She jerked back and the T-bar suddenly whipped from her hand as a sharp crack broke the silence and the helicopter shuddered – she’d clipped a tree. A massive branch whipped across the side of the machine and the canopy split, blocking her vision of the clearing beneath her

Ellie screamed as her bird flipped sideways in one swift movement. The seatbelt held her pinned against the seat as water sprayed in a huge arc around the helicopter. A loud screech of grinding metal mixed with the splash as the passenger side scraped on the rocks on the bottom of the shallow river. Her head ricocheted off the metal panel beside her as the helicopter came to a sudden stop.

*

Kakadu Highway

Kane and David were just a few kilometres south of Jabiru when Kane’s phone beeped with an incoming message. He pulled it out of his pocket and listened to his voicemail.

Hitting the brakes, he checked for traffic in the rear-vision mirror before swinging the car around and heading back the way they came.

‘That was Ellie. She must have found Gina. She said we’re going the wrong way.’ He flicked a glance at David, who’d been staring silently out the window for the past half hour as they’d headed north. ‘The message was garbled at the end. All I could pick up was black something. Bloody phone service here is shocking.’ He pressed the keypad to return the call.

‘Is Gina all right?’

Kane shook his head. ‘I don’t know. That’s all she said. I’ll call her.’

The call went to voicemail and Kane swore and passed the phone over to David. ‘Keep calling till she picks up.’ He changed back a gear and floored the accelerator. If they copped a speeding fine, so be it.

David pressed redial until the phone service dropped out again. It was only fifteen minutes until they reached the Yellow Water turn-off which led back to Makowa Lodge.

‘Phone service should be okay now,’ Kane said.

David lifted the phone to dial again but it rang before he could press. He answered and listened intently, and Kane took his eyes from the road, slowing the car as they approached the lodge.