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hadn’t been locked—and the jeep rolled forward. As it passed him, he leapt back into the passenger seat, and at once Scooter stepped on the accelerator and they shot forward, bumping over roots and potholes.
    It had become very dark. The last of the daylight had slipped away without Alex noticing, and suddenly the trees seemed very close, threatening to block the way ahead. The surface was getting worse and worse. Alex had to cling onto the side as he was thrown around, the coolers lifting themselves into the air and hanging there before crashing down again. Leaves and branches flickered briefly, a thousand black shadows caught in the headlights, before they whipped into the windshield and disappeared behind. The track didn’t seem to be going anywhere and Alex was having to fight back a sense of unease, wishing he hadn’t come, when suddenly they burst through a clump of foliage and came to a shuddering halt with soft sand underneath the wheels. They had arrived.
    Scooter turned off the engine, and at once the gentler sounds of the evening surrounded them. Alex could hear the whisper of the breeze and the rhythmic breaking of the waves. They had come to a beautiful place: a private beach that curved around in the shape of a crescent with perfect white sand next to a black-and-silver sea. There was a full moon and a fantastic cluster of stars that seemed to go on forever, stretching to the very ends of the Southern Hemisphere.
    “Everybody out!” Scooter shouted. He kicked the door open and tumbled out onto the beach. “X-Ray…get me a Coke. Texas, it’s your turn to cook.”
    “I always cook!” Texas complained.
    “Why do you think we invite you?”
    X-Ray turned to Alex. “You thirsty?”
    Alex nodded, and X-ray threw him a can of Coke.
    Meanwhile, Texas had begun to unload the jeep. Alex saw that the SAS men had brought sausages, burgers, steaks, and chops…enough meat to feed a small army. But apart from a greasy, blackened steel grill, there was no sign of the promised barbecue. Scooter must have read his mind. “We’re going to build a bonfire, Alex,” he said. “You can help collect wood.”
    Sparks had taken the guitar out of the back. He rested it on his knee and strummed a few chords. The music sounded tiny, lost in the emptiness of the night.
    “Okay. Here’s the plan,” Scooter said. It seemed that he was the natural leader even if all four men were the same age and rank. “Alex and I will fetch firewood. Texas can start setting things up. Sparks—you keep playing.” He took out a flashlight and threw it to Alex. “If you get lost, just listen for the music,” he said. “It’ll guide you back to the beach.”
    “Right.” Alex wasn’t sure he would be able to hear the guitar once he was in the woods, but Scooter seemed to know what he was doing.
    “Let’s go,” Scooter said.
    He also had a flashlight and flicked it on. The beam was powerful. Even with the moonlight, it leapt ahead, cutting a path through the shadows. Alex did the same. The two of them moved away from the jeep, heading back up the track that had brought them here. The evening was warmer than Alex had expected. The breeze couldn’t penetrate the trees. Everything was very still.
    “You all right?” Scooter asked.
    Alex nodded.
    “We’ll build a fire, get things cooking…then we can have a swim.”
    “Right.”
    They were still walking. It seemed to Alex that they had left the beach a long way behind them. He could still hear the music—but it was so distant that the notes seemed to have broken up and he couldn’t make out any tune.
    “See if you can find any dead wood. It burns better.”
    Alex trained his flashlight on the forest floor. There were broken branches everywhere, and he wondered why they had come so far to collect them. But there was no point arguing. He reached down and gathered a few pieces, then a few more. It didn’t take him long to build up a pile…any more and it would be too heavy to