Chapter 14
Canberra to Sydney - Monday: September 27
I was happily snoozing in the front seat as Steve drove down the Federal Highway when, out of the blue, he elbowed me in the side and said, "you? are not going to believe this."
"What?" I said rubbing my eyes and straightening in the seat.
"You are definitely not going to believe it," he repeated.
"What? For fuck sake, what's up?" I said becoming impatient.
"Some dude's following us," he said.
"No way," I said
"Yes way? take a look," he said. I moved the rear view mirror and studied the cars behind us, but it all looked normal to me.
"I don't see anything apart from some fellow travelers, nothing that stands out," I remarked, turning to face him. He moved the rear view mirror again so that he could see for himself, then he nodded,"yeah, there he is? do you see that brown V8 Commodore about five cars back? that's him ? or them, actually. I can see a driver and a passenger," he said with 100% confidence in his tone. I took another look and spotted the car he was referring to.
"Yeah? I see it? what makes you think they are following us? They could be just going to Sydney like us," I said, but I knew that when Steve said someone was following us, someone was following us. He has some sort of freakish sixth sense.
"They could be? but they aren't," he said, "I can feel it. They are following us, and you can take that to the bank."
"Well, who the fuck are they? I don't think it could be any of Robyn's men. There was no mention of a third party being involved," I said.
"Many people want that information, Louie," Maria's voice piped quietly from the back seat.
"So you do have it," I said turning around.
"Yes, of course I have it. Brenda sent it to me the night before she died? she was afraid that she had been betrayed and that they were going to kill her, Steve.She was right - her accident was no accident at all," she said, with emotion. Tears forming in her eyes as she mentioned her dead twin sister's name.
"I am so sorry, Maria, I didn't even know you had a sister, let alone a twin. I guess as twins you were pretty close, I am very, very sorry," I said, turning around to face her, and stretching a hand to hold hers.
"Louie, we were as close as two people could be while in two different bodies. When we were little girls we were never apart, if one got hurt, both of us felt the pain, it was uncanny, magical," she said, remembering. And then a dark cloud passed her face as she remembered more, "the night Brenda died I had to be taken to hospital with this incredible pain in the chest. It was unbearable. And then, all of a sudden, I felt nothing? a vacuum. It was like the light on my life had gone out, like I'd suddenly gone deaf or blind. I knew then? that she was dead. At that instant, I thought I would go insane," her eyes had lost focus and her expression had gone from one of terrible sadness to absolute blankness
"When her letter arrived," she continued, after catching her breath as if she had just surfaced from a deep dive, "I could feel her aura on the letter and it made me feel a bit better, but it was the information it contained that snapped me out of it, completely. I knew that it was dynamite. Before I could take it anywhere, Robyn found me and then it was just a matter of a hide-and-seek game, which I now believe was mostly orchestrated by Robyn herself," she finished, once more exhausted. The emotional journey through her worst memories having taken a heavy toll on her already exhausted body and mind.
"Rest now Maria, we can talk about all this when you are more up to it.Just lie down for a little longer and rest," I said noticing the drawn look on her pale face. She smiled, even her smile had lost some of its power, and then she lay down and was once again completely out of it.
"Well, this is a fine mess you got us into this time," Steve said.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Well," he hesitated, "is she asleep?"
"Out like a light," I confirmed.
"I didn't want to mention it while she was awake? but," once again, he hesitated.
"But what?" I said.
"You see that helicopter, way back there?" He said pointing out of his window to a black object in the sky, about a kilometre away.
"No fuckin way! We are not being tailed by a helicopter too?" I said with disbelief.
"Call me paranoid, but a helicopter going to Sydney would fly as-the-crow-flies and not hug the highway. Secondly, it's bloody big and black and are those gun turrets I see?" He said.
"Fuck!" I said
"Ditto!" He said
"Hard to lose a helicopter," I said.
"No not hard: impossible; especially on the highway," he said
"Fuck!" I said
"Ditto!" He said
"You are not back to saying 'ditto' all the fucking time, now, are you? Last year was bad enough. If you start it again, I am going to have to shoot you," I warned.
"What's wrong with ditto?" He asked
"I don't like it," I said
"You don't like ditto? It's just a word," he pointed out.
"Yeah, I hate it," I said
"I happen to like it. It's brief, clean, sharp and sounds like a gun shot through a silencer: ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto? see?" He demonstrated. I decided to either shoot him or ignore him. When Steve is worried about something, he becomes so annoying that you want to stab him several times. The more he notices that he is succeeding in annoying you the more he will persist. I think it takes his mind off the problem. So I shut up and closed my eyes feigning sleep.
"Ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto?" he went on slowly decreasing in volume until I could just hear the 'tt' sound'. In this way, we raced toward Sydney. Maria asleep in the back, Steve being obsessive compulsive in the driver's seat and me? me just sitting like a vegetable, mind empty, my eyes closed and wondering why we were being tailed by a Seahawk helicopter.
We found out pretty soon.
"Oh, Oh," Steve said.
"What now?' I said, carefully opening just one eye, as if that helped in getting only half of the bad news I knew was coming.
"Something is about to go down. The pricks behind us are overtaking every car separating us from them. And coincidentally almost exactly at the same time, the helicopter has changed direction and is coming this way. I don't fuckin believe in coincidences," he said.
"You can't say 'almost exactly' and coincidentally is really enough," I commented.
"Yeah I can, if I want to," he insisted.
"Maybe it's nothing, and you're just paranoid," I said with no conviction at all.
"Something is definitely going down, and I am pretty sure it's us. Shit! Here they come!" Steve said, alarmed. He did not have to be told to speed up. But the little, four cylinder that we had rented was no match for the awesome V8 of the Commodore.
Suddenly, it was alongside us. Before we could do anything about it, it hit us broadside with all of its two tons, there was a loud 'crunch' and then, we were literally sailing off the highway, down a steep grassy embankment toward what seemed to be a little creek, a 100 or 200 meters below us.
Steve tried his best to slow us down, but the Commodore was right there behind us, pushing us down the slope. Steve was too much of a good driver to be tempted to turn the car - if he had, we would have rolled all the way down and into the creek. Meanwhile the helicopter was making a real racket as it was coming in for a landing right beside where our direct trajectory was taking us. Twenty metres from the creek the Commodore stopped pushing us and as the incline had flattened out, Steve was able to stop the car.
We were greeted by four men in uniform, armed with submachine guns, they had obviously arrived in the helicopter, and they meant business.
"Robyn?" Steve asked.
"Not her style, besides she would not use a Seahawk helicopter with an American flag on it. And these guys are Marines or Seals," I said now well beyond being surprised.
"What the fuck? First, it was the Russians, then our own Aussies and now the Yanks. We are i
nternational fuck-ups, it's official," he said, almost pleased with our promotion.
"Don't know what they want, but they look like they are serious. I get the feeling that?" I hesitated.
"What?" He asked, as we watched a man of about seventy exit from the helicopter and walk toward us, using an ornate walking stick and a limp, as if from an old war injury.
"That everyone has been lying to us?including Maria," I said grimacing.
"Great! That is just great! What a fucking week," was all he could say.