Recalling Destiny

by Michael Blinkhoff

  They attacked a compound belonging to the mining company, with high explosives.

  They were met with quite positive replies, for the tribe had been itching for revenge and to hear of blood satiated their thirst for vengeance.

  But their joy was short lived, for within twenty-four hours the South African military turned up on their doorstep and forcibly removed the tribe from its land. Apparently a security guard had died during the explosion, prompting the authorities to respond.

  Catlin and her Greenpeace counterparts were arrested and placed into detention, separated from the tribe. The compound had video surveillance of the attacks and it gave the authorities the evidence they needed to act.

  The mining company had won.

  Remembering that was why she left him, she pulled her hand away from his, saddened by the memory of the past.

  “You know why I can’t anymore, you know what you did Peter. You sold that tribes heritage and homeland for a taste of revenge. You helped them commit a crime that saw their downfall, that saw them lose their homeland.”

  “Catlin, are you blind, those people had been abused for months on end because of that bloody mining company. You were nearly killed by lions! And you know, you should’ve told them about the offers for money to leave, then none of that would have happened.”

  “There were things happening there you didn’t have an understanding of. At least I gave them something, I gave them a little pride so that they could strike back and stand up for themselves.”

  “That’s the working of an egoic mind Peter. No problem is ever solved with violence.”

  This time she pulled away from him fully.

  Pete sighed heavily, looked away from her and rather despondently, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em till you can.”

  She looked up at him, searching in his eyes, willing herself to believe he was just looking at things wrong, but the veil had come off long ago and she no longer looked at him like a lost puppy. She saw him for something else and turned away from him.

  Pete wasted no time in consultation, he promptly stood up and left the room, slamming the door shut behind him and leaving Catlin alone.

  - -

  harrison

  Smoke, dust and dead silence filled the air around the scene where two cars collided on the side of a highway.

  One thing that can be said of the Australian outback is the feeling of desolation, nothing but wind and heat in this great expanse of land. The scene now is reminiscent of that, it is dry, windy and isolated, a heat haze rises from a deserted bitumen highway.

  The police car, after collecting Smith and clipping the car Harrison was in, continued at speed down a slight embankment on the side of the highway. With its speed unchecked it hit a small culvert causing it to flip, roll and break apart over a hundred meters, its progress only halted by a large gumtree nestled amongst bushes.

  The other car which Harrison’s in, having been clipped in the rear, remained in the exactly the same position it was originally, except it now faced the opposite direction. The impact from the police car spun it on its axis and left it, and the passenger, reasonably undamaged. Harrison lay unconscious in the front seat.

  Smith bore the brunt of the impact from the police car after drawing its path away from the vehicle Harrison was in. For his actions he was deposited off to the side of the road and now lay still, face down in the dirt.

  The scene remained as such for at least three hours with no movement from the three people involved. Harrison was the first to move, eventually poking his head up and noting the occasional car going by, but there was no other sound, nothing else around.

  He wondered to himself why no cars had stopped to look as they drove past the scene, then he realised there was nothing unusual to see, the police cars completely out of sight from the road and his car just looks as though it’s parked on the side of the road, albeit the wrong way round. Nothing suspicious about any of it.

  Oh geez, my head hurts. What the hell man, what was that cop doing? Damn where’s Smith? Where am I?

  Soon though, a black SUV slowed and pulled up on the side of the highway a short distance from Smith and Harrison’s vehicle, coming to a stop twenty metres away. Two men exited the black vehicle and moved toward Harrison’s car, each pulled a revolver from their side and raised them as they approached cautiously.

  The first man was tall and skinny, had wispy hair and a crooked nose. His colleague, the driver of the vehicle, was tall also. But he wasn’t skinny like his counterpart, quite the opposite, he’s a great bear of a man. Dark haired, tall and with muscles bulging, the man was a unit.

  The two approached stealthily towards Harrison’s car. As they reached the rear of the Falcon the big man branched off, choosing to follow the path the police car carved off the side of the road.

  The skinnier man made his way to the passenger’s side of the vehicle and noticed the front window cracked but not broken. Carefully he placed his hands over his eyes, like a visor, to peer in through the front windscreen.

  Squinting he recognised the person in the seat and called out in surprise, “Harrison? Are ya awake? Can ya hear me?”

  “Hey, hey what the hell?” the voice of Harrison croaked inside the car.

  “Aha, so ya be alive then matey!” came the call back, the accent English in origin.

  Harrison looked up, instantly recognising the skinny man from his accent. “Pigeon!”

  “You ok dere liddle fella?”

  “What the hell man, oh my head hurts bad Pigeon.”

  “Well, let’s get ya outta there and ‘ave a look at ya then!”

  “Ok.” Harrison complied, opening his door.

  “Duddnt look to bad yung fella” the skinny man smiled, helping Harrison out of the car.

  “Oh man, it hurts!” Harrison touched a bloody spot on the top left of his head.

  “Wait here, I’ve got a first aid kit in da car,” he hopped up and shuffled back towards the other car. “Back in a sec ‘Arry, goin ta get ya some medicine.”

  What the hell, where did you come from? Man I thought I lost you guys back in Sydney. Wait ...

  “Where’s Truck?” he screamed after Pigeon.

  “I’m over here.” a deep voice sounded in response, from afar.

  Harrison looked to his right and saw his friend, with gun raised, moving to where the police car had come to a halt. Truck didn’t take his eyes off the target but did manage to speak up to Harrison, “Are you ok?”

  “I think so,” Harrison replied. “I got a knock on the head!”

  “Hang tight Harry, Pigeon there will fix you up. I need to see if this cop is alive.” He continued following the trail of debris in the dirt, stepping forward slowly with handgun raised in readiness.

  Damn, who was the cop? And what was he doing chasing after us? I’m thirsty. Is there any bloody water around here?

  “Ok, let’s see wat we can do for ya,” Pigeon returned with a small tackle box marked with a red cross. He opened it and immediately handed some pills to Harrison, “take deese ere pills while I fix ya head.”

  “Thanks man, have you got any water?”

  “Yup.” Pigeon responded, handing him a water bottle and proceeding to clean Harrison’s wound with alcohol swabs.

  “Ouch!” Harrison can’t help but to flinch at the sting.

  “Quite a battering you’ve taken there, should we call the ambulance Harry?” Trucks voice sounded, coming back to join them.

  “Oh Truck ole boy, it’s even wurse dan dat!” Pigeon mocked jokingly. “I don’t thunk he goin ta make it.”

  “Shut up!” Harrison snapped back, not liking being poked fun at.

  “You might get a scar out of that one.” Truck leant in, eyeing the wound.

  “Really! You think?” he piped up, excited at the prospect of havi
ng a scar. Truck had scars and was tough, Harrison liked the idea he now may have shared the same feature.

  “Who knows mate, who knows. But if you do, it will make you more fearsome!” Truck tried to make him feel better. “Sorry we were a bit late getting to you, we lost you back there.”

  “Back there? Where?”

  “Yeah, in Sydney.”

  “That was ages ago.”

  “Well you did just disappear on us all of a sudden.”

  “How did you find me then?”

  “Who else but our man on the wire. Pigeon here kept an eye out over the Destiny channels and sure enough you popped up on their radar, once they had you, we knew where to find you thanks to a mobile phone call.”

  “Wat appened anyways ‘Arry?” Pigeon asks, still attempting to clean the wound on Harrison head.

  “Oh man, oh man have I got a story for you two!”

  “I fully smashed into this guy’s car, like right through the windscreen, wow. You wouldn’t have believed it if you saw it, I literally smashed right through his windscreen and went into his car! I don’t even remember it, just remember those Destiny guys following me and then smash!”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Then I woke up in this place, oh man you should have seen it! We were in the Sydney tunnels man! Like underground and stuff! This guy had this fully sick hideout and everything, oh but also we did this really cool escape …”

  “Seddle down ay!” Pigeon complained as he tried to apply a bandage to the excitable Harrison, whose hands now flapped about as he retold his tale. “I ain’t Doc rememba.”

  “Yeah, sorry old chap.” Harrison mocked him back in his own accent. “Anyway, we did this whole commando thing through the tunnels and nearly died and then we survived somehow and made it back to land and then got a car and then …. oh dang, then this bloody cop comes along, W.T.F man!”

  “He was a Destiny man, he wasn’t no cop.” Truck chimed in.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Pigeon?”

  “Yeah, I gots to trackin dat fool and his Destiny mates.”

  “Right, really?”

  “Really. He Destiny alright.”

  “Sounds like you’ve had quite an adventure?” Truck breathed a heavy sigh.

  “And then some.”

  “Ok, we got ya patched up for now ‘Arry.” Pigeon says, leaning back and observing his patient. “Best we get goin now ‘ay?”

  “Definitely, that was no cop back down there, but the car is real ...” Truck motioned over to the car wreck.

  “Is he alive?”

  Truck shakes his head, “No he’s dead, neck’s all twisted and shit.”

  “Gross man.”

  “Better that he is kid, otherwise he’d have me to deal with.” Truck moved in.

  “Hey! Wait a minute.” Harrison protested as Truck went to collect him from the car. “What?”

  “What about Smith?”

  “Hoose dat?” Pigeon asked.

  “I suppose that’s him over there?” Truck motioned to a body laying awkwardly strewn alongside the path the police car had dug up.

  “Yes, yes that’s him, he’s Smith, he’s the one who saved me and helped get me away. Well until now of course, is he ok?” Harrison asked, genuinely concerned.

  “He’s dead” Truck pays no heed to Harrison’s protestations and scoops him up like a baby in his giant arms.

  He’d known Truck and Pigeon for years now, it was they who he was meant to rendezvous with after getting the data that was stored on the USB. They were his friends, his brothers and he felt safe now they were all back together. But there was something about Smith, his new friend, he just couldn’t let slide.

  Harrison struggled like a baby in Truck’s arms trying to get free, his concern for Smith genuine. “Wait, we can’t just leave him there.”

  “Best we do Harry, there isn’t much good in us hauling his dead body around.”

  “I agree.”

  “Well screw you both I don’t care! Truck let me go!” he struggled again to be free of Truck’s grip, but it was futile, Truck was too strong and held him tightly.

  Although a former soldier, Truck got his strength from another hobby, the gym, and it made his strength impossible for Harrison to match.

  “I wuudn’t tink too kindly on da chap anyway ‘Arry, it was im that caused all this ya know.”

  “Rubbish, he was helping me!”

  “Some help he was. Him and that mobile phone almost cost you your life you know? Destiny was tracking his phone, and then traced a call that came from it after, that’s how they must have tracked you down.”

  “The phone call.” Harrison remembered all of a sudden. “The phone.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He took a call from some mob guy,” Harrison wondered for a moment, until a thought struck him. “But hey, it meant you guys found me too right?”

  “You know Pigeon keeps his eyes on Destiny’s trace program.”

  “Well.”

  “Well what?”

  “Well you can’t tell me it means he’s bad, because if he didn’t take that phone call then you wouldn’t have found me man, right?”

  “Well, yes, but …”

  “No buts, he took the call, you found me right?”

  “Yeah but …”

  “Please, Truck, Pigeon, we have to. Please we have to take him. There’s something about him. Are you sure that he’s dead? Can you please check him again?” he pleaded.

  “I did, he’s gone …”

  “Please, just double check for me. And if he’s dead then we have to bury him, I owe him that at least. Please guys, he saved my ass back there.”

  Pigeon and Truck exchanged a look, nodded to each other in acquiescence and shrugged their shoulders. Harrison smiled with the small victory as Truck put him back down and walked slowly over to the body of Smith, still resting in the dirt.

  Truck moved over and quickly checked the body of Smith, stood up and scratched his hair. Shaking his head, he knelt back down and seemed to check over the body again.

  “What’s going on?” Harrison asks.

  “He’s alive.”

  “What, he’s alive?”

  “Strangely enough, he is.” Truck replies, collecting Smith’s body in his hands. “I could’ve sworn he was dead.”

  “Well then.” Harrison smiles.

  “What?”

  “Best we be off then.”

  - -

  Catlin

  She woke with a start, sitting up on the bed and wiping the sweat from her forehead as she broke from a nightmare. She realised she couldn’t see, as it was dark in the room, and wondered for a moment where she was, flailing her hands in front of her.

  Then the memories of her nightmare came flooding back, the horror of seeing her brother die in her arms.

  She decided to get out of bed and fumbled her way over to the bathroom, slapping her hands all over the walls in an attempt to find the light switch, trying in vain to stop the images of Mark’s dead face flashing in her mind.

  Thankfully she reached the bathroom light and with relief, returned the room to brightness. The images dissipated from her mind as she shielded her eyes from the bright light.

  She stood, staring into the mirror for a while and began to analyse herself. Her hair was in slightly better condition than when she arrived, but underneath her eyes dark circles had begun to form. She’d never been a big sleeper, always wanting to stay active, but now she knew she had some catching up to do, too many things were getting the best of her.

  Suddenly she felt her stomach roll and thought of Mark again, the horror of his death creeping back in. Her thoughts turned to her parents, Martha and Henry and what they might be thinking. In her desperatio
n to get away she’d failed to contact them and let them know what’d happened.

  Without another thought she instinctively moved over to the hotel phone and dialled their number, knowing they needed to know what was going on, they needed to hear it from her.

  As the phone rang she thought perhaps they’d already been informed of what had occurred and most likely had been fed some bullshit story about what happened by either police or media. She didn’t want them thinking she was at fault and hoped at least to tell her side of the story, to tell them the truth.

  “Hello?” a voice sounded on the other end.

  ”Mum!”

  “Catlin? Is that you?”

  “Yes Mum its me.”

  “Where are you dear?”

  “Mum, I’m with ...” suddenly the phone went dead.

  She hung up the phone, sat down on the bed and checked the phone was connected properly. Satisfied, she picked up the phone and dialled the number again, it rang like normal.

  “Catlin?”

  “Yes, mum, it’s me, I ...” again the line was disconnected.

  “What the hell!” she said aloud, returning the headset to the receiver. But before she could answer her own question the phone rang on its own. “Mum?” she answered instinctively, assuming the line had been reconnected.

  “Cat, it’s me, you’ve gotta get out of there, get out of there now!” the voice of Peter whispered frantically on the other end.

  “Pete?” she fretted suddenly. “What? What the hell’s going on?”

  “You need to get out of there, get down to the 7-11, I’ll be waiting. Get out, NOW!” And then he hung up the phone.

  Her heart thumped inside her chest, the adrenaline kicked in.

  She didn’t have a choice, by the sound of Pete’s tone she needed to leave and in a hurry. She didn’t waste time in thought, nor did she bother to put on shoes. The adrenal gland dumped its load and she rushed straight to the door, opened it and hurried out into the motel carpark.