“It was the first and last time they were ever going to catch me red handed. At the time they tried their best to scare me with charges of espionage and fraud and anything else they decided to make up on the spot. Plus, they also held me in detention for longer than I think is legal, but in the end they had to let me go. I actually surprised myself with how calm I was throughout it all, all that fuss over me and a little programme.”
“I figured they were trying to keep the information from getting out, so no way were they going to charge me for that. I think they just wanted to scare me, let me know they were watching and could catch me whenever they wanted.”
“So that was the start, from there I decided to take a couple of weeks to sort my life out, before ‘disappearing’ myself. From there I figured if I’d pissed the government off enough to put me in jail with just one hack of their software, I’d better beef up my security. I knew they were watching me, so I decided to go dark.”
“When I was safe and setup in a new location, I searched for the programme again but this time I couldn’t find it. It was as if it’d disappeared from existence, because I couldn’t find it on any server in the world. I’m guessing they made a few changes to their operation after my discovery.”
“After I went to the online community to tell my story, to detail the discovery I’d made about the virus and my subsequent arrest.”
“... and that’s when I met Suni. She must’ve seen the post I made about the hacking software and managed to get in contact with me. It was she who told me about Destiny.”
“Suni.” Smith muses aloud.
“I was actually looking at trying to recruit people to my cause, I knew something was going on and I needed help to do it, so I went looking for recruits.”
“But it seemed she was actually looking for me.”
“Suni.” Smith says again.
“I’m sorry man what?”
But Smith offers no reply, just keeps his eyes forward, driving the car.
“Anyway,” Harrison continues, “this lady I met online, I ended up meeting with her. It was kinda scary doing it to, in case you hadn’t noticed I don’t really have the stomach for the live action stuff. And with the government trying to keep an eye on me I was sceptical about leaving my apartment.”
“But she convinced me to meet and we went to this little coffee shop, crammed in down some busy alleyway. There she told me about this place that she used to work, a place where she’d seen both terrible and amazing things happen.”
“I asked her about the bug, the programme and whether or not she knew what it was for. But she brushed off the question like it was meaningless.”
“Yes, but that’s only a mask to cover what they’re really doing there.”
“That was when she told me about Destiny … and it didn’t take much after that for her to convince me to join her and her team.”
Silence ensues in the car for a few moments, Harrison’s about to complain to Smith for not paying attention to his story when all of a sudden, he sees Smith’s head flick backwards, looking back to check what’s behind them.
Harrison sees the expression on Smith’s face as he too turns back to look around. “Oh shit, what is it man?”
“Sit and sit low.”
Harrison has no idea what they’ve done wrong, but Smith is a fugitive, on the run from his last bank job and Harrison too is wanted by both the government and Destiny. Whatever it is, it sends his heart rate sky rocketing.
Harrison pops up for another look, glimpsing a police car behind them with its lights flashing.
They’ve covered a lot of ground and made excellent time, surely no police officer would be looking out here in the middle of nowhere for either one of them, no it must be for something else.
“Were you speeding or something Smith?”
“Get down …”
Ping. A sound ricochets off the car.
“Whoa, what was that?” Harrison looks up and sees the police car close by. Even more concerning he sees the man at the helm has his hand out the window with a revolver pointed at them. “What the heck man?”
Smith doesn’t answer, only squeezes both hands on the wheel and floors the accelerator. They take off at lightning speed, pulling away from the police vehicle on the deserted country highway.
But the police car gives chase and the police car is faster.
Ping, ping. Bullets again ricochet off the rear window, followed closely by shots to the body of the car.
Harrison, ducking even lower in his chair, hears a loud smacking sound come from next to him and quickly looks over at Smith, to his horror seeing that Smith’s been shot through his coveralls.
“Holy crap! Are you ok? You’ve been …”
Pwoosh!
Air gushes loudly as it escapes from one of the tyres, the man following has shot out the front tyre and the air explodes outwards noisily. Smith remains undeterred. Keeping his foot to the floor, he grabs the steering wheel in a way that suggests it’s becoming hard to handle. The car begins to shake heavily in response to the lack of traction.
Pwoosh!
The sound of a second tyre being shot out sounds and now the car loses its momentum and starts in a tail spin, zig zagging along the bitumen highway. Smith struggles to control the car and realises he has no alternatives, he must pull over, otherwise he risks a more serious crash.
He eyes his rear-view mirror quickly and notices the car behind slowing at a distance. Smith pulls over to the side of the road, their car coming to a halt on the highway’s shoulder. “Stay here, get down, don’t move.” Smith warns, getting out of the car.
“Where are you …”
Smith slams his door shut and begins walking back in the direction of the police car. Up until now it’s been rolling slowly close by, but seeing him exit the vehicle it accelerates quickly towards him.
Smith, seeing the police car come charging forward, positions himself a few feet from the rear of the Falcon car and stands there waiting. Harrison, sneaking a peek through his seat, wonders what in the hell Smith is doing playing matador with an accelerating police car.
Harrison takes a deep breath and tries to think of what he can do to help, quickly he starts to rummage around in the car looking for some sort of a weapon. Surely, he thinks, a bank robber would’ve had a gun or something, but Harrison can’t even turn up a butter knife.
By this stage the police car is nearly upon them, it seemingly intent on ramming them or at least collecting Smith in its path. Smith stands still, waiting for the inevitable charge of the bull. Harrison crouches fearfully in the passenger seat in anticipation of what’s to come.
He hears bullets again, but instead of staying behind the seat for cover he sticks his head out to get a view of what’s happening. He sees the police car, coming towards them at lightning speed, Smith still holding his ground in spite of it.
Just as the cars about to cleave through Smith, he dashes to the side suddenly, as if he’s a famous Spanish bull fighter avoiding a charge from a frothing bull. But the driver has enough time to see him move and follows him with a sharp pull of the wheel.
Smith’s move has drawn the car’s path sideways, onto the shoulder and towards the edge of the road. His move causes it to avoid a direct hit with the car Harrison’s hiding inside. It’s a suicidal move from Smith, but he’s taken the danger away from Harrison. The car collects him and deposits him some twenty feet away in the shrubs.
The cars still impact, but it’s only a side swipe hit to the rear of the Falcon, sending Harrison’s car careening around upon itself in an almost perfect 180-degree spin.
The Falcon is intact.
The police car, however, continues its trajectory away from the road and after clipping the car Harrison is in, keeps going off the side of the road until it hits a sloping embankment.
The
car hits a culvert at well over 90km/hr, causing it to flip and roll over and over upon itself for a hundred metres. It comes to a halt inside a thicket of trees and bushes.
Harrison is knocked unconscious.
Smith lays unmoving in the dust that swirls above the scene.
- -
Catlin
If there was one weakness you could say of Peter Friendly, you would have to say it was Catlin Conley. Despite all arrangements made prior to her arrival he couldn’t have planned the next move, because he didn’t know he would crack under her spell.
The police had come for her, but rather than give up and surrender to the veritable army that was at their doorstop, she decided to flee. Peter would’ve objected but he couldn’t say no to her in the moment, the moment when desperation sunk in.
These moments were built for a woman like Catlin.
He led her downstairs to the carpark as instructed, allowed her to drive his car and let her drive like a crazed maniac as they fled from the police.
He had on occasion been witness to her in moments like this before, of high tension, and it was what he admired most about her. She would get in the zone, in the moment, when only her decisions at the time carried any importance. She was an absolute lion during this time, the omega.
All he could do was play the part of passenger as she busted through a police roadblock, sped up one way streets and manoeuvred his car around small streets in ways he didn’t think possible.
She was on a mission and the objective this time was escape. Catlin Conley seldom failed at anything she set her mind to.
After evading the authorities, they fled the city, up into the mountains.
They checked into a hotel, Pete making all the arrangements for the two of them as she waited with both hands still clutching the wheel of the car. When he returned with a smile and a key, she relented her hold on the wheel and decided to join him in the room.
Her adrenaline spent, she flopped onto the bed, face down.
Pete, looking about the room awkwardly for a moment, turned and looked at her, “I think I’m going for a walk Cat, might go and get a few things for us ... Is there anything you need?”
She looked up from the bed with big, beady eyes, she was thankful for his help but shook her head. “I think I’m going to have a nap.”
Pete walked over to the bed, sat down and took her arm in his, “You have no idea what it feels like to have you in my hands again, it just feels so ... You know I forgot what it was like to be with you, especially when your blood runs hot.” He breathed in deeply, his eyes transfixed on her.
“What happened to us Cat? You were everything to me, I loved you so much!” He stroked her hand gently.
She turned her eyes away from him, unable to meet his stare, but didn’t let go of his hand. The truth was she’d never lost her feelings for him or the lustful wanting he created inside her. As she lay down in bed she pulsated with love for the man, he’d created something deep inside her no other man had ever been able to satisfy. It tugged at her now, aching to be let free again.
But then she remembered why she’d left him, all those years ago.
They’d been working together for Greenpeace at the time in the Eastern Cape. A tribe in the area had been threatened with forced removal by a mining company wanting to dig up the earth. Greenpeace had promptly sent in the two of them, with a couple of others, to help support the tribe in protesting their removal. The tribe had roots that went back over a thousand years in the area.
They were only a small group of protestors, five in total. But they made an immediate impact, stalling for months the destruction that was scheduled to happen.
Cat had taken on a spokesperson role, dealing with the mining company on behalf of the tribe and of Greenpeace. The company had tried offering alternatives to Catlin, their first offer was to build a new camp for the tribe, 30km north of their present one. The company offered a brand new residential complex as compensation, Catlin flatly refused the offer.
Catlin rejected all subsequent offers and didn’t even deign to discuss it with the tribe’s elders, when questioned by Pete she’d gotten furious at him for not standing by his principles. She was steadfast in her resolution to keep the mining away from the area completely and didn’t want to disrespect the tribal leaders with offers of money.
The tribes only wealth was its heritage, and that couldn’t be bought.
As far as Catlin was concerned the land was sacred to the tribe and its ancestors. It was their place, not the mining companies and any offer of money was just an insult.
Soon thereafter the meetings ceased and so too the offers to negotiate, the mining company had engaged lawyers to settle the matter. This in time proved to be a fruitless endeavour as well for the mining company and so it was then they started resorting to more alternative tactics.
One night it was a fire in one of the school classrooms. Another it was dead animal parts that’d been strewn all over the encampment, consequently drawing lions into the camps. This then lead to several fatalities in the camp, the team even losing one of their own from a lion attack.
Catlin herself had encountered lions one night in her tent, one had grabbed her by the leg and dragged her from her bed. She screamed as it took her at first, but then calmed herself and tried to set her leg free by swatting at the lion’s head.
Despite her ferocious attacks the lion hadn’t relented and was swiftly carrying her away from camp. In the end someone had come to her aide, the lion was shot through the head with a single bullet. From where the bullet came she knew not, a mystery person had saved her.
She’d survived with just a couple of scratches, but it had sent Peter into a wild rage, the first time she ever saw him lose his temper.
By morning he calmed down, especially after noticing Catlin wasn’t injured at all in the incident.
Afterwards, it took the team days to resolve the issue, as they had to build improved fencing to bolster their security in case of further attacks. But no sooner had they solved the problem then another came up, no doubt courtesy of the now desperate mining company. She despised them for their inability to reason with a people’s heritage, so focused they were on their own greed. Greed for a piece of metal in the ground.
Catlin tried to take it up with the local police, who responded by saying they could do little without evidence proving the mining company was responsible of any wrong doing. Of course, they had no evidence, so the police had said they would monitor as best they could, Catlin suspected they may have been paid off.
From there Catlin raised her concerns with the government, appealing to the local member for the area to protect his heritage and that of the tribe. Initially she found success, as after her first meeting no incidents took place for two weeks.
Then when the incidents started back up again, Catlin returned to her government contact to make another complaint on the matter. Only this time, before she could even meet with the official, she was turned away at the door and abruptly told to leave. Catlin figured the mining company had bought out the government official now too.
The situation had become hopeless. With one tirade after another terrorising the small community something had to snap eventually. Not knowing what to do and with no end in sight, the tribe started to turn their aggression inward and began arguing amongst one another. Even Peter would argue on occasion with their fellow Greenpeace activists.
In the beginning they were only small disputes between the elders on what to do, but soon it evolved into full scale arguments involving everyone in the tribe. Everyone had been impacted by the events and wanted to take revenge on the mining company, but the elders wouldn’t condone any such violent behaviour.
Soon, one man in particular began to stand out amongst the people, a man named Jaarpiti. It was he who became a sort of leader for the minorities in the tribe and
one who was willing to take action on behalf of them. He would stand up aggressively at tribe meetings and suggest the tribe needed to strike back, that they needed to defend what was rightfully theirs.
He spoke with a great vengeance in his voice and it troubled Catlin, he was one of the unfortunate victims who’d lost someone in the lion attacks, a child, and this seemed to drive him forward aggressively.
Soon his popularity and voice took hold amongst the tribe and he mustered a strong support base. The tribe had grown tired of doing nothing, of letting a tribe of white men walk all over them.
Catlin, seeing this all happen, suggested to Peter that perhaps he needed to spend some time with Jaarpiti to help talk sense into him, to try and resolve his anger and help him understand the need to resolve things peacefully. Violence never solved anything and Jaarpiti was not going to avenge his child, he was only going to satisfy his rage.
“If you join them, you become them Peter.” she pleaded with him. “That’s why we can’t retaliate.”
But as time wore on, she started to notice Peter seemed more involved than he needed to be. He became distant from her, stopped checking in with her and they frequently spent nights apart.
When she questioned him, he answered with replies such as, “Its ok … I have it under control,” and “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine. I’m talking with him Catlin, we’re making progress.”
But it wasn’t and she should’ve known better, she wanted to believe he was doing the right thing, but deep down she knew something was up.
In the end it turned out Peter was helping Jaarpiti to get large quantities of explosives. From where he got them she did not know, but she did know they used them to get revenge on behalf of the tribe.
Jaarpiti and his followers had returned and boasted of their exploits to the tribe one night, claiming they’d done it for the pride of the tribe and that striking back was the best way to avenge their dead.
Recalling Destiny Page 10
