With the air thick with the smell of guts and cordite, we checked the damage. Eight natives dead, one commando speared badly. We were much faster going back than we had been on the way from the boat, but the injured soldier died of his wound not long after we arrived back.

After a few more days, we finally stumbled on something solid. Peter came across a tribe that was an enemy of the tribe we were seeking. Our quarry was just a couple of days away.

We continued up a tributary of the river in our inflatable dinghies until Peter made contact with the tribe and we travelled to within a short distance of the village of Fos, where Michael Rockefeller had made his fatal error. I decided that Dieter and I would go into the village alone. We were now armed with Kalashnikovs, but I was under no illusion as to what would happen if the natives all decided to attack us.

Fos consisted of bamboo and vine huts built on stilts. Peter led me to the chief and a witchdoctor. He had said what we wanted when he first made contact, but the witchdoctor didn't seem too cordial. Through the guide, he kept asking me: "What will you do with the man if you find him?" They always speak about the dead in the present tense.

I told the witchdoctor that I would take the man back to his family. The witchdoctor clearly didn't want to hand back any of Rockefeller's remains, but the chief was more pragmatic. He wanted to know if we would trade our outboard motors. I offered one in return for the skull of Michael Rockefeller. Then the witchdoctor got going again. He thought we were associated with the Indonesians and wanted no part of us. Peter explained that we weren't like the others at all.

Finally, the chief told us that it was his predecessor, now dead, who had killed Rockefeller. This chief had a totem pole, a special relic with the bones of all the important ancestors of the village on it. Rockefeller had wanted to buy it, but the chief would not sell. Rockefeller, according to this chief, simply took it, just pulled it out of the ground in the middle of the night, and ran for the boat. Rockefeller was dragged off the boat, there was a struggle and some of the relics were damaged. Then Wassing managed to start the boat and took off. Rockefeller was kept alive and hidden while the Asmats decided what to do with him. It was when the ships and planes started to search the area that they decided it was safer to kill him.

The story coincided with what Father Peters had told me. It was also possible that they had attempted to con Rockefeller by selling him the relic even though they had no intention of parting with it. Perhaps he caught them unawares by actually removing the pole, meaning to take what was rightfully his. The exact trigger for Rockefeller's death could stay a mystery as far as I was concerned, as long as they gave me the skull. That's what I'd been paid to get.

In fact, they gave me three skulls. The chief explained that these were the skulls of the only white men the tribe had ever killed. Which one was Rockefeller's he wasn't sure.

It was too late to make the transaction that day. I spent the night in the long hut waiting to lose my head. I woke up the next day to find it still attached.

Finally, when they had been given the motor and shown that it worked, the Asmats handed me the skulls. They looked like any other skulls, though brightly painted. They stank, even though they had been stripped of any flesh. To transport the skulls, I wrapped them in leaves and put them in a gym bag.

It took us nearly two days to get back to the boat. I should have felt some sense of satisfaction. But all I felt was exhaustion.

Carrying the skulls in his luggage, Monte flies to the US, but he's worried about customs finding them. He gets lucky when the woman at the immigration booth is too distracted by some long-haired musicians to pay much attention to the well-dressed businessman with the holdall. Gross has the skulls picked up at Monte's hotel and Monte is invited to dinner with Mary Rockefeller, who wants to thank him personally.

A big limousine arrived and drove me to Fifth Avenue. Mrs. Rockefeller had her apartments on the top floor. As soon as I walked in the door, I felt years of wealth pressing down on me like a heavy fur coat. Led by a man I guessed was the butler, I walked along the corridor past busts of blank-eyed Romans on tall pedestals. He showed me into a drawing room. Gross was waiting in his tuxedo, like Bing Crosby waiting for Grace Kelly in High Society. He greeted me, formally thanked me and sat me at a table. Across the polished ebony, he slid over some papers for me to sign. I read them quickly. It seemed the main thing was that I was not to talk about the assignment for 10 years. That was fine by me. I signed with a fountain pen he supplied me with. I calculated that the pen alone was worth a house in one of Sydney's humbler suburbs.

I asked him if they had identified a skull as Michael's. Gross confirmed that they had, but cautioned me to say nothing about the skulls themselves to Mrs. Rockefeller. Instead I was to talk about the body as if it had been one whole unit.

Gross said we should dine and led me to a dining room where the clan had assembled. Mary Rockefeller introduced herself. She was in her early 70's, but looked younger. She was quiet and genteel.

Mary Rockefeller asked what had been the most difficult part about the trip and I told her of the tension, the weather, the natives and the mosquitoes. She asked me to stay for a private chat after dinner.

At this stage, of course, I was still waiting for my money. I knew it would be impolite to bring it up in conversation and I knew these people were supposed to be far too wealthy and refined to renege on a debt of $67,000.

Mary Rockefeller wanted to know exactly what I had learned of the last moments of her son. I told her that a fight ensued in which he had defended himself, ultimately in vain, against a number of warriors. I did not mention that he may have been held captive and then killed only because of the rescue operation.

She handed me an envelope. Inside was a cheque for the full amount.

And I'd earned every cent of it.

Edited from The Spying Game,by Frank Monte with Dave Warner, published in July by Pan Macmillan Australia, rrp $30.