WALKABOUT 2 - The Back of Beyond (Part 10)

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55

I can’t say what Baron Wilder would do, but I stayed. It wasn’t long before Peter and Archer came to my room and tossed my clothes on the bed. “Get dressed,” Peter said. “We have men outside. This time you are coming with us.”

Outside the hotel, a Holden driven by a woman pulled up alongside the curb. “Here he is, Simone,” Archer said as he shoved me roughly into the back seat. They had taken the precaution of cuffing my hands together at the wrists with zip ties before taking me out of my room. “Jared Mulligan. He don’t look such a badass now, does he?”

“Archer,” Simone said, “shut up and get in.” I made eye contact with her as she appraised me in the rearview mirror. She was one of the most beautiful women I ever laid eyes upon. Long, black hair, worn in a ponytail, a colorful doo rag, hooped earrings and lipstick. I couldn’t help but notice the long scar on the side of her face, but somehow, it only added to her allure. Gave her a bit of mystery. Peter and Archer joined me in the back seat, one on each side. The stale odor of Archer was overwhelming.

56

We’d left the Adelaide city limits and were now several miles out into the countryside. “Where are we going?” I asked.

Archer elbowed me in the ribs. “Shut up, arsehole!”

Simone eyed the two of us in the rearview mirror. “Enough of that, Archer.” Archer opened his mouth as if to reply, then thought better of it.

“Mr. Mulligan, to answer your question, we are traveling north, into the Outback. To a place known as Coober Pedy.”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said, remembering the conversation with the bartender and the old man back in Sydney. “Don’t know much about it, other than it is all underground.”

Before I could ask why we were going there, Simone said, “Flynn wants to see you. And it’s not entirely underground.”

“Look,” I said. “This is all a big misunderstanding of some sort. I don’t know Flynn and Flynn doesn’t know me.”

Simone did not reply. We drove on. Peter had moved to the front seat, giving Archer and me more room. I watched the countryside go by. Simone tuned the radio to a satellite station featuring soft jazz music. I nodded off.

I awoke sometime later, just as Simone was pulling into a service station. The sun was dipping lower on the western horizon. Archer had fallen asleep as well, with his head resting on my shoulder, drooling on my shirt. The cigarette stench on his clothing and skin was unbearable. Knowing there would be consequences, I banged his head with my shoulder anyway.

“Huh!? Wha. . .” he mumbled. After first taking a moment to orient himself, he moved to hit me in the balls.

With my hands still bound together by zip ties, I blocked the blow, grabbed his wrist, and twisted. Archer yelped in pain. Simone slammed on the brakes, tossing us both forward against the front seatbacks.

“Archer, you fill the tank while I go inside,” Simone said, ignoring the commotion.

Peter remained seated in the front passenger seat as Simone walked away from us.

“Is this Coober Pedy?” I asked Peter.

“Not even close.” Peter replied.

“Where are we, then?” Archer asked as he pulled out his cell phone.

“Port Augusta,” Peter said.

Archer paid no attention to me as I watched him enter his PIN. I recognized the pattern. 273437. He typed his name. Not very original. Archer stepped out of the car to pump the gas. I listened as he left a message. “Yeah, baby, it’s me. Won’t be home tonight. Call you tomorrow.”

“Hey, I need to go inside, too,” I said.

Peter replied, “You’ll have to hold it a while longer, mate. At least until we get out of town. Can’t have you making a scene, trying to make folks think you’ve been kidnapped, now, can we?”

“I have been kidnapped,” I said, but Peter showed no interest in debating the issue. I had made my point, but he still wasn’t letting me out of the car.

There is something about thinking you are about to have an opportunity for a bathroom break, only to have it denied you, that makes you need to go that much more. I sat there in the back, squirming, unable to think of anything else as one by one, my abductors went inside to use the facilities. I weighed the odds of my being able to escape, run inside the building and shout for help. And someone would call the police. And nothing good could possibly come from that. I would have to wait for a better opportunity.

57

Archer was the last to get his bathroom break. When he came outside, he stopped just outside the entrance doorway and lit up, then took his sweet time smoking his cigarette down almost to the filter before returning to the car. With their bladders emptied, Archer’s nicotine craving satisfied, and the Holden’s fuel tank full, we were on our way once more. But only for a couple of minutes. Simone spotted a McDonald’s—I don’t know why I was surprised there would be one there—and went through the drive thru. I was surprised again when I was handed a bag with a hamburger and fries. They might be kidnappers, but they at least weren’t going to let me starve.

A mile or so outside of town, Archer was making noise with his straw, all for the purpose of making me miserable, considering the fact I still hadn’t emptied my bladder.

“Look,” I said. “I can’t hold it any longer.”

Simone glanced at Peter, who nodded. She pulled over to the side of the road. Peter got out, came around to open my door, opened his shirt just enough for me to see the gun in his waistband. “Don’t get any clever ideas,” he warned.

A couple minutes later, feeling much better, I was once again in the back of the car. Peter switched seats with Simone, taking over driving duty. Before buckling up, he removed the gun from his waistband and placed it in the center console.

I would have preferred to take my time eating what might very well turn out to be my last meal, but Archer stole my fries while I was taking a leak, and I had to wolf down my burger or risk losing it to him.

58

With Peter at the wheel, we proceeded at a much higher rate of speed than with Simone. I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. There wasn’t much to see. No city lights. Just a vast darkness. In the distance, I could see lightning to the north. In the east, the moon was rising.

I kept thinking of Shelby. As her father, even though she never knew me, I instinctively wanted to help Shelby, but I was half a world away, and handcuffed. I couldn’t do a damned thing. All I could think of was to find a way, somehow, to get a message back to Sheriff Bridges. He was her uncle. And he was the only one in a position to do something.

What had I done that would result in her being abducted, and what was the connection to these people? These Death Adders. They’d been dogging me on the cruise, and now I was being taken to the Back of Beyond, as they’d referred to Coober Pedy a few days ago in Chauncey’s Basement back in Sydney. Nothing made any sense.

59

We stopped again for gas in a place called Woomera. Not much of a town, size-wise, but when you are in the Outback, everything seems bigger than life, I was beginning to believe. There was a pub, a hotel, and a caravan park with several campers spending the night, most still hitched to the cars that pulled them there. Like before, I wasn’t allowed to get out of the car, but they did stop later for me to relieve myself alongside the road. Given our remote location and the late hour—it had been dark for some time now—it was highly unlikely anyone would drive by and see me.

With the absence of city lights, the night sky was covered with stars. In the darkness, it was as if I was in space, and could reach out to touch them. “Hurry it up mate,” Peter said. “We don’t have all night.” Apparently the beauty of it all was lost on him. I concluded my business, shook out the last few drops, and zipped up.

Back in the car, Archer was looking at his cell phone. He glanced up at me. “About time you came back,” he growled as Peter put the Holden in gear and pulled back onto the road. Archer tossed the cell phone down onto the seat, and it bounced onto the floor at my feet. “No bloody signal out here,” he complained.

“You won’t get any coverage until we get near Coober Pedy,” Simone said.

Archer shook his head, sighed heavily. “Why the hell anyone would live in this God-forsaken place is beyond me.”

We stopped yet again in a place called Marree, about same the size as the previous town. Same routine. Fuel, bottled water and snacks, bathroom. Cigarette. Archer had not bothered to retrieve his cell phone from the floor. This might be my only opportunity. While he stood several yards away, enjoying his cigarette, Peter and Simone remained just outside the car, one on each side, preventing me from trying to escape.

This man in the back seat, Mulligan, presented a problem. She needed him, Simone thought as she stood next to the Holden. And she needed to be rid of him. Mulligan had been hired to kill Dexter Flynn. And he failed to do it.

“What’re we to do with this bloke, Sis?” Peter said.

Simone glanced toward Peter, then back to the car. With its blackened windows it was impossible to see the occupants. She returned her gaze to Peter. “We have to play along,” she said. “Flynn will be suspicious if anything happens to him.”

“If Mulligan talks . . .”

“He can’t say anything that would implicate us, Peter,” Simone said. “We’ve planned for every contingency.”

“Jocko?”

“Yes,” Simone said. “Jocko. He takes the blame, whichever way it goes.” She reached out, placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It won’t be much longer now. You will replace Flynn. The Death Adders will be yours. You deserve it.”

Peter nodded. “I suppose. I just—I mean, it’s dangerous enough crossing Jocko, with his temper.  But to play him and Flynn against one another?”

“Shhh,” Simone placed a finger on his lips. “Hush now, Waddle-bum.”

“I told you,” Peter said in a hushed tone, “Don’t call me that! I didn’t like it when we were kids, and I don’t like it now.”

I reached for the phone without drawing attention to what I was doing. I activated the vibrate mode. Didn’t want the phone to ring in my pocket once we were back in an area of coverage.

60

At some point, I must have drifted off again, because when Peter hit the brakes and screamed “Shit!”, I nearly did. We hit something with a hard thud, ran off the road, down a steep embankment, and rolled a couple of times, finally coming to a stop, upside-down against a boulder. I smelled gas.

Once his airbag deflated, Peter managed to squeeze out the driver’s side window, then reached back in for Simone. “Give me your hand, Sis,” he said.

Simone was likewise saved by the front and side airbags, and was relatively unscathed. She took Peter’s hand and was out in seconds.

I’d been wearing my seatbelt, and I suppose that is why I hadn’t been hurt. Archer, on the other hand, shunned the seatbelt. He was dazed, and a small stream of blood trickled over his good eye and down the side of his face. “Get me out!” he screamed. “Get me OUT!”

“Relax, mate,” Peter said. “I’ll help you.” He stepped up to the car, grabbed the rear door handle, gave it a yank. “Looks like your door’s jammed, Archer.”

Archer was in full-blown panic mode now, squirming and thrashing his hands and legs like a child throwing a tantrum. “GET ME OUT!!!” More thrashing and hitting the back of the driver’s seat. “GET ME OUT!!!”

Peter hustled over to pick up a rock, about the size of a grapefruit, and came back to the car. “Cover your faces mates,” he said, then proceeded to break the rear window. “Get out while you can,” he shouted over Archer’s screams. There’s petrol all over the ground.”

As I moved toward the opening, I felt Archer grab my belt and pull me back. “Outta my way, Mulligan,” he said as he pushed me aside.

The going was not easy, and it took him a full two minutes two squeeze out. “Bloody hell!” he complained, “There’s lots of jagged glass. It’s ripping me apart!”

By the time it was my turn, the gas fumes were strong, and there was a large puddle accumulating on the ceiling of the inverted car. As I was squeezing through the opening in the rear window, I watched in horror as Archer lit a cigarette.

Peter rushed over to him, “Put it out, you idiot!”

Archer, tossed the cigarette to the ground, not bothering to first extinguish it. The car erupted in flames, with me still inside it from the waist down. I could feel the heat intensifying as I extricated myself and rolled away, stopping at Archer’s feet. I pulled myself up, stood eyeball to eyeball with him as the heat from the car became unbearable. I wanted to hit him, but decided instead to put it on my to-do list and save myself from the fire. We all scrambled up the hill to the side of the road. The only other source of light was from the occasional lightning in the distance, and the orange glow of the moonrise to the east.

“Here’s what you hit, mate,” Archer said to Peter. Lying there in the middle of the road, was a camel, twitching, suffering.

“I never even saw it,” Peter said.

“Not your fault, Peter,” Simone said. “It’s dying, but it will take a while. I don’t want it eaten alive by the dingoes.” She reached with her right hand to her hip, found nothing. “I didn’t get my handbag,” she said. Give me your gun, one of you.”

“I left mine in the console,” Peter said, casting a glance toward the burning Holden.

“I’m not giving mine up,” Archer said. “Not to you or anyone else.”

Simone whipped out a knife, faster than I could see where it came from, walked over to the camel and slit its neck, hitting an artery and allowing the animal to quickly bleed out, ending its suffering. We men stood there, eyes wide, mouths agape as she wiped the blood from the blade on the camel’s hide, then returned the knife to its sheath on her belt.

I did a quick assessment of my situation. Simone had the knife, and she knew how to use it. Neither she nor Peter had guns. Only Archer. I would not likely get a better opportunity. I pivoted to my left and slammed my shoulder into Archer, knocking him into Simone, and took off at a dead run into the desert, toward the rising moon. Archer was quick to his feet, firing three rounds in my general direction. I ducked and kept running.