He tapped away furiously on his phone. A moment later, the search results for Kings Canyon appeared. He scrolled through some of the images, nodding with every one that passed.
Reece had been to Kings Canyon many times throughout his life. It was a place he knew well. He took tour groups there from time to time.
He stopped on one of the images of a waterfall that spewed into the canyon basin. Where the water flowed over the rocks, the ravine curved around sharply like a boomerang.
Reece's eyes widened. "That's gotta be it. The boomerang, the waterfall, that has to be the place."
He spun around, full of excitement. He wanted to wake the others, but as he looked through the window saw they were still asleep. How they slept in a car like that, he didn't know. Just as the thought occurred to him, Tommy roused in the passenger seat. His eyes pried open and blinked wearily.
He saw Reece standing outside the car with his phone and flashed a curious expression. "What?" he mouthed.
Reece couldn't keep it in any longer. He quietly opened the door and motioned for Tommy to get out.
Tommy shook his head slowly back and forth and opened his door. Sean and Adriana didn't move, though he had a feeling Sean was wide awake and simply faking sleep. Something about his friend was always on full alert, even when he was "resting."
"What?" Tommy asked as he continued rubbing his eyes.
He stepped around to the front of the car and met Reece in front of the hood.
"I've got it, Tom. I know where we need to go next." He could barely contain his excitement.
"Really?" Tommy perked up.
Reece raised his phone and showed the screen to Tommy. It took a couple of seconds for Tommy's eyes to adjust to the bright screen, but when they had, he narrowed his eyelids and stared at the images.
"Kings Canyon," he said quietly. "So we were looking for two wrong things."
"Seems that way. I got to thinking, the bloke that left these clues wouldn't be so direct to tell us the name of the place to go next. Where's the fun in that?"
"Good point."
"So I thought of what royals are called or what they do."
Tommy grinned at his friend and slapped him on the back. "Well done, mate," he said in a terrible fake Aussie accent.
Reece raised an eyebrow. "Don't do that again."
"What? I do pretty good accents."
"Nah, mate. You sound too Pommie."
"Pommie?"
"Yeah, you know. You sound British, which is fine if you're hanging out in London. Here in the outback, though, you sound like a bit of a fool."
Tommy appeared crestfallen. "Really? I thought it was pretty good."
"Let it go, Tom. We've got bigger things to think about. Gotta get a move on if we want to reach Watarrka by midmorning."
"Watarrka?"
Reece flashed a playful smirk. "That's where the canyon is."
The drive west took the companions through the Northern Territory high desert. It reminded the Americans a little bit of Arizona in some places.
Sean had spent much of their travel time trying to figure out how someone had tracked them once they left Milbrodale. Once they were out of Alice Springs, he took fifteen minutes to do a thorough sweep of the vehicle to make sure there were no homing devices attached. He also went through the extra step of switching off the car's satellite connection as well as making everyone turn off any kind of GPS on their phones.
There was another possibility that he considered, but that would take some resources. Then again, if someone was paying men to kill them, that was just the kind of person who might have that kind of wallet.
Fortunately, the Americans had someone like that on their side, too.
"Hey, Alex," Sean said. "How's the vacation?"
"It's fine. You do realize the time difference between where you are and where we are, right?"
"Yeah. I know."
"Must be pretty important, then," Alex yawned.
"I'll get right to it." Sean stepped away from the car and walked toward an outcropping of shrubs. He stared out at the rolling high desert and then took a look back at his friends to make sure they were out of earshot. "I think someone might be tracking our credit card use. There any way you can figure that out?"
Alex paused as he considered the question. "You mean, someone is following you by looking at where your cards have been used?"
"Yeah, maybe. Not sure yet. We had a run-in with some guys, a couple of incidents."
"Did you pick up a bug?"
"I checked the car. No homing devices on it. And nobody has followed us. Trust me, I would have noticed. Out here in the outback, there isn't exactly a ton of traffic."
"Okay, so I can do a check on that and see if there were any anomalies with your transactions. Might be that someone did a periscope on you."
"Periscope? Like the app?"
Alex chuckled. "No, although I do like that app. No, a periscope is what a hacker does to see if an account is worth tapping into or not. When you use a card, it sends a signal to the bank, they send one back, and information is exchanged. Even though they use some of the best security in the world to protect their customers, whenever there is a transfer of signals, that transfer can get a hole poked into it. When that happens, a hacker can periscope in and have a quick look. It doesn't take long. They just get in, see what they want, and then pop back out again."
"But that leaves a trail, right?"
"There's always a trail. Some trails are harder than others to find, but yeah, we can check it out for you. Haven't been doing anything else down here."
Sean still had a beach house in Destin that he'd let the kids use for their vacation time.
"Sounds like you're having a good time. Do yourself a favor and go to The Donut Hole for breakfast in the morning before you head out to the Caribbean. You won't regret it."
"I don't really care for donuts," Alex said.
"Neither do I, but trust me. Their breakfast is worth it. Let me know what you two dig up."
"Okay, will do."
Sean ended the call and glanced back at the others. They were staring out at the spectacular view of red rocks speckled with green bushes and patches of grass. Down in the canyon, thick stands of trees sprouted up, providing a beautiful contrast between the red desert stone and dirt and the lush emerald leaves. A small river flowed through the canyon's bottom, cutting around piles of fallen rock and trails for hikers.
One side of the canyon looked like it had been sliced off by a huge blade, its colorful strata not unlike the Grand Canyon, which had eroded over time and gradually revealed layers upon layers of sedimentary rock.
Sean walked back to the car and looked out at the setting. "Pretty view," he said.
"Yeah," Reece agreed. "I've come camping up here lots of times. Tourists are always pleasantly surprised when I bring them here. They didn't know such places existed down here."
"Australia is a big place," Adriana said. "It's full of all kinds of beautiful things."
Tommy had a sense of urgency to his tone when he spoke. "So where, exactly, are we supposed to go to find the next clue? You said there's a waterfall and we should look there first?"
"Right," Reece said. "We'll head down the canyon trail and then make our way to the falls. Shouldn't take us long to get there. Once we're there, we can have a look around."
"When you say it shouldn't take us long, are you talking about five minutes or two hours?" Tommy asked. "Because I get the feeling it's closer to the latter."
Reece laughed. "No, it's about a thirty-minute hike in from here. So relax, Tom. It's mostly downhill, too."
"Coming back won't be," Tommy muttered.
Everyone grabbed their gear bags and an extra bottle of water they'd picked up at a gas station before entering the national park. Reece warned them that the air in the high desert was pretty dry, so staying hydrated was of utmost importance.