Death is Forever

unfenced country.
    The rust-red road flew beneath the Rover’s wheels. The vehicle flashed past the dry ravine at the bottom of the crease and started up the long incline on the opposite side. Gradually the incline began to win. The Rover’s speed dropped.
    He kept the accelerator hard against the metal floor. With quick glances he kept track of the dashboard temperature and oil pressure gauges, found the smoothest part of the dirt road, watched the shoulders for wandering wildlife.
    The Rover topped the second crest before the dust cloud reappeared in the rearview mirror. Cole kept the accelerator floored. The road flattened out, then ducked around a small outcropping of rock. It was the first thing Erin had seen in Australia that resembled a hill.
    Cole had the Rover to the edge of its resources and held it there without mercy. The spur road to Windjana narrowed rapidly. Ruts appeared and the shoulder looked like a mixture of rust and sand. The spur snaked off into more sparse woodland and grass, but there were enough broad twists and variations in elevation that the Gibb River Road was soon out of sight.
    Erin hung on to the shotgun with one hand and braced herself with the other. Like Cole, she watched the gauges on the dashboard constantly.
    “How long will the Rover take it?” she asked.
    “Not long enough. I’ll bet he knows it, too. He’s playing us like a bloody fish.”
    “What are we going to do?”
    Cole smiled grimly. “What fish have always done—grab the line and run with it.”
    “What if it’s all a coincidence and he’s not really following us?”
    “I’ll shave my legs and wear a tutu.”
    The Rover jerked as he slammed through gears over a rough patch of road. She braced herself all over again as they rocketed along the increasingly rough route. Time after time she was sure that they were going to crash, but he pulled them through at the last instant.
    The Rover hammered through dry ravines and skated eerily over sandy spots. For several miles the only sound was that of the laboring vehicle. She kept looking at the temperature gauge.
    “We’re overheating,” she said finally.
    “I know. If there are any tourists or campers around Windjana, we’re going to stick to them like a bad reputation.”
    “Why?”
    “Killing people is easy,” he said flatly. “Getting away with it is a lot harder, especially when one of the corpses is the daughter of a highly placed CIA officer. ConMin won’t want witnesses.”
    He kept one eye on the temperature gauge and the other on the landscape. Both were hot. The ground was rusty. There were more trees here than near Derby, bigger trees, but still not a forest. There were a few very low hills with small outcroppings of rock at their crests.
    Nothing was big enough to hide the Rover.
    They burst from the sparse open woodland onto a sandy floodplain. Beyond it a ridge of rock rose like a dark wall into the sky. After the absolute flatness of the land they had come through, the limestone ramparts seemed unreal. The Lennard River had cut a wide slice through the limestone. The river itself was invisible, but the gap of Windjana Gorge was silent evidence of the raging power of the wet.
    “Can you see any vehicles ahead?” Cole asked as they raced toward the gorge.
    “No, but there must be someone. It’s a national park.”
    “In the middle of bloody nowhere.”
    “What about park rangers?” she asked.
    “This is Western Australia, not the U.S. Out here, tourists are on their own.”
    Erin shaded her eyes and looked harder as they flashed by a faded sign stating they had entered Windjana National Park. The park was deserted, as empty of people as the land around it. There was nothing but an ill-defined parking lot and a few open, sun-bleached outhouses.
    No place to hide. No witnesses to carry tales.
    The road forked. Cole followed a track that veered away from the gorge and the park entrance. The track paralleled the south face of the ancient reef. Fingers of water-eroded limestone fringed the cliff face and created deep, very narrow canyons. Tall trees grew in a true woodland that followed the shade and runoff line of the ridge. Smaller gums and spinifex grew in cracks and crevices on the cliff, wherever the wind had deposited seeds and enough debris to create soil. Cattle trails were everywhere.
    The dirt track bent slightly, following an irregularity in the cliff, cutting off the view behind. Cole swung the wheel hard to the left,