What they saw in the clearing was a packing shed with no walls, and a banana plantation disappearing down the mountainside.
“What are you lot doing here?” asked George, appearing from behind the shed.
LP asked, “Where’s your house?”
George replied, “See the cave?”
It was the kind of thing you would expect to find in Coober Pedy, where opal miners made homes from disused mining tunnels to escape the heat.
George said, “Check out inside the cave; you’ll be surprised.”
The old gang walked inside what, at first glance, appeared to be a ledge overhanging on the side of a mountain. George had transformed this hole in the volcanic rock into something very liveable. The floor was covered in large stone pavers, and the cave walls had been sprayed with some kind of glow in the dark pigment, which was recharged by sunlight each morning.
George explained how he had come by this property. “I had a twenty thousand-dollar insurance payout when the van was burnt back at Bells Beach. Actually, I only had it insured for two thousand dollars, but there had been a miscalculation, and I’d been paying the premium for twenty thousand-dollar cover. The cheque arrived in the mail, and that’s how I bought this property. I turned it into an organic banana farm. If I built a house first, I would not have had enough cash to start this farm, and I would be called a blockie by the neighbouring farmers. Being called a blockie is a put down; it’s what the locals call those who bought forty-acre blocks of rural subdivided land from Washington Developments back in the seventies and eighties. I spent every cent on starting up this farm. There was just no spare cash to build a house. I made the right call, and now sell truckloads of bananas over the border. No quarantine restrictions apply like in the old days.”
George had been motivated to buy the property by the haunting images of the Glass House Mountains, and what they represented, told by the Kabi Kabi descendents of Dreamtime.
The mountain, Tibrogargan, had once been a man. Coonowrin was his son, with his crooked neck, and Beerwah his wife, the tallest mountain. In Dreamtime, they were giant ancestors that turned to stone and now look down, protecting their descendents. What was not well known was that, within the state forest, was an ancient Bora Ring. George had discovered its location by accident when looking at buying his farm. He had trekked south through the state forest that backed onto the land, and, to the east, was a small remnant of rain forest. That’s why he had come to live on the mountain.
“After a few years living in the cave with just the basics, I figured that material things are not what they’re cracked up to be.”
Bear said, “George, you need to get out more. Cut the bullshit; now where’s the bloody coins?”
“What coins?” George replied.
“Think about it. Thirty years ago, you had those coins in your backpack when you went to the airport. What did you do with them?”
George paused and thought. “Oh, yeah, I think Mason painted them with that silver line marking paint.”
“Yeah, that’s the ones,” Bear stated. “You didn’t sell them at the flea market to get some cash, I hope.”
“No, they’re in the cave here somewhere. Have a look for the backpack. It hasn’t been touched since I came back from Bells Beach.”
Bear and Mason started rummaging through the stuff that had been stored away in nooks and crannies in what he called a home.
Mason yelled, “I’ve found it!”
Bear replied, “Open it.”
As Mason unzipped the backpack, his heart was pumping with the possibility of hitting the jackpot. He pulled out a bag, and said, “This must be it. It’s got a bit of weight in it. Hey, what’s that scroll doing here?”
“‘Don’t open that. I kept it because no one else wanted anything to do with it. Mason, you remember, we found that at the female Bora Ring after you made it through the night without carking it.”
They all started to recollect what had happened that night, nearly thirty years ago.
“I don’t know if it’s a curse or a blessing!”
“George, you’re dreaming again. We all agreed that didn’t happen. The women weren’t real, and we smoked too much weed that night.”
George asked, “Well, where do you think that scroll came from? The moon?”
Brownie suggested the flea market. Bear offered garage sale, and Mason suggested it might have been a door to door salesman.
George said, “Think what you like, but we were told to keep it safe until the word was a process. Has anyone figured that one out yet?”
Bear said, “I don’t give a shit about that; show me the gold.”
Red opened the bag and poured the coins out. “Once we clean off the silver paint, these gold Krugerrands will be as good as new.”
“Okay, now I understand why you are all here. It’s the gold. Not a reunion,” said George with disappointment. “Now that you’ve got what you want, leave me in peace on my mountain.”
Bear said, “It’s not that simple. The Bad Meadows bikie gang are back in town, and they want their coins back.”
George said, “Then give them back.”
“Do you know how much they’re worth? Thirty years ago, gold was worth thirty dollars an ounce, the same as an ounce of weed. Now, the gold price is nine hundred and thirty-seven dollars. I looked up on the Internet the year the Krugerrand was minted. It turns out they’re collector’s items worth ten times their weight in gold. That, my friends, equates to one and a half million dollars – split six ways – that’s like winning Lotto.”
Brownie said, “Nutter and his mad mates are not going to stop until they get what they came back for. They are their coins; just give them back.”
Bear said, “I told Nutter what would happen if I ever saw him again. He didn’t listen, so he and his bikie mates were blown away back at the beach house. They won’t be following us any time soon.”
“Don’t you think that was a bit extreme, blowing up our holiday house?” asked LP.
Bear replied, “The old place needed a facelift; we can finish the reno job when we get back.”
While Bear carried on about how he would fix the place up, George went over to his computer and looked at his surveillance camera, then said, “Those bikies you’re talking about… Well, they’ll be here soon. Have a look at this.”
Although George was a bit of a loner, he did his bit to protect his patch of land from wildfires by yearly burn offs, and was a member of the volunteer State Emergency Service. Also, not far from his property, the dirt road dipped like a roller coaster, allowing flood waters to go over when the drain below could not carry the torrent coming off the mountain. The State Emergency Services had provided George with a surveillance camera aimed at the trouble spot. It was his job to move the yellow barriers on to the road to stop anyone from driving into a flooding causeway.
Nutter and his bikie mates had stopped at the barriers. Nutter indicated to Porky to remove them, which he did. The flood waters had now fallen, and were flowing under the roadway.
“What’s your plan now, Bear? This time, there’s nowhere to run. There’s only one way off this mountain, and it’s back the way you came.”
Bear looked down the mountain and asked, “What’s that cleared area down there?”
George replied, “That’s a small subdivision of three cul-de-sacs. I had to do that to pay for land taxes and rates. I didn’t want to, but had no choice.”
Bear asked, “Is there another way out?”
“Nope, the road leading to the cul-de-sacs is the only way in and out. You could walk back to your vehicle, but you’ll still have to drive past everyone.”
“Wait, there’s more,” Bear exclaimed.
“More what?” George asked.
“More trouble coming!”
As they looked again at the camera, some police vehicles and a tactical response van were about to cross the causeway.
LP said, “They must be after the bikies.”
George said, “Maybe not. My website has been under surveillance for posting government documents on my blog. I got them through freedom of information. You might think you have free speech in this country, until it goes against the government’s slant on things. I had been warned by a whistle blower to be careful or I’d end up in jail.”
“George, that’s not a crime,” LP said.
“Well, tell that to the coppers who are on their way,” George replied.
“You’re paranoid,” Bear blurted.
“If I am paranoid, who’s the other group heading this way in those hotted-up vehicles?”
George zoomed in on the driver, who would not be out of place in Afghanistan, with his long, black beard and traditional headwear.
Not far behind was a large group of mountain bike riders wearing black and white Lycra.
The guys had more trouble than they could handle.
“Okay,” Mason said. “I know who the bikies and cops are, but who are the others arriving now?”
George said, “They look like a mixed bag of religious zealots. They’d be after the Fleece and the Scroll. They must have tracked me down through the website. Now I regret posting how I came to have that scroll and fleece.”
“Have you got the fleece here, as well?” Red asked.
“You’re standing on it.”
Red looked down, and memories came rushing back of the goat skin turning a golden colour from being on the roof racks in the blazing heat.
“Shit, George, you’ve still got it.”
“Yeah, I use it as a meditation mat at sunrise every morning. It gives me inspiration for the rest of the day.”
Mason said, “Well, that’s easy to fix. Just give those religious nutters what they want.”
“Yeah, but we’re not handing George over to those coppers, and there’s no way I’m giving up that bloody gold,” said Bear.
“You haven’t thought this through. Give the gold to Nutter, and there’s a good chance they’ll leave. Give the goat skin and scroll to those religious fanatics, and they can fight each other over them, and not us.”
LP said, “We need some insurance before we give all this away.” He unrolled the scroll and placed it face down on George’s scanner, then downloaded it to a document file.
Bear said, “I’ll go down and talk to Nutter. I’m sure I can convince him to pack up and leave.”
He pushed the gold back into the backpack, threw it over his shoulder, and started walking down the mountain to the first cul-de-sac.
George yelled, “Come back; tell Nutter something from me.” He whispered a message into Bear’s ear.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just pass that message onto Nutter when you give him the gold.”
Bear confronted Nutter at the first cul-de-sac filled with bikies.
Nutter spoke first. “Have you got anything to say before we pay back you and your mates for the shit you guys have put us through over the years?”
“Just two things. Look across at the cops in the other cul-de-sac. Step out of line, and they’ll arrest the lot of you. And George said to tell you this.” Bear moved close to Nutter and whispered in his ear.
Nutter shook his head and asked, “Is that it?”
“Yep, it’s your call. Here’s the gold; now piss off.” He handed over the backpack.
Nutter called over to the police commissioner, “Hey, Jack.”
Nutter then threw two gold coins through the air, and the commissioner caught them.
“We’re square,” he said to the commissioner. Then, to the rest of his gang, he said, “We’re out of here.”
Two hundred bikies started revving their engines and, two by two, followed Nutter off the mountain.
Bear looked across to the other cul-de-sac where Brownie was standing, confronting a rabble of religious fanatics.
One of the mountain bikers spoke in an American accent. “We are the rightful custodians of the scroll and golden fleece. It is written in prophecy. Hand them over, and we’ll be on our bikes and out of here.”
Brownie held the rolled-up goat skin in one hand, and, in the other, the scroll.
All eyes were fixed on what they had come for. “Whoever is left standing takes the fleece and scroll.”
The ensuing brawl that erupted between these two highly charged groups triggered a response from a van of coppers, trained in how to handle riots and terrorist threats. They reacted swiftly, with batons in hand, to break up the rabble and send them on their way as quickly as possible. Their mission was to back up the commissioner, who had taken it upon himself to arrest George personally. His aim was to send a message that no one spoke out against the police or the government.
Time seemed to stand still as George looked down from his mountain. What he saw was not the cul-de-sacs, but what they represented: the numbers ‘666’. This was not a good sign. He pointed to several bunches of his award-winning bananas, and said to Mason, “Take them down to that bunch of coppers, and give them a taste of my success.”
George and Mason walked down the mountain to the clearing, where the subdivision was.
Mason confronted the coppers first, and offered a peace offering by handing them something to munch on while standing in the hot sun. Two battered and bruised guys stood close to them.
George whispered the same message Bear had passed on to Nutter.
They both asked, “What does that mean?”
“If your leaders are smart enough, they’ll know, pass it on.”
George then walked over and joined Jack Herbertsin and his coppers.
“I hope you’re enjoying my organic bananas. They’ve been a nice earner, selling by the truckload over the border.”
“This’ll be your last day as a banana farmer. You’re under arrest for inciting terrorism,” said Jack
George replied, “That’s bullshit. How do you figure that?”
“We’re closing down your website. We’ve got new laws that cover just about everything. It’s called the Terrorism Act, so you’re under arrest.”
“I don’t think so; the information on my site has all come from government agencies, through freedom of information. How can it be a crime?”
Jack responded angrily, “It doesn’t conform to government policy. Under the new laws, we can arrest and hold anyone indefinitely – that’s the law.”
Mason interrupted, “So what is it you don’t want the public to know?”
“Well, since you ask, it’s about prisons and crime. Eighty percent of all people in prison are directly or indirectly in jail due to illegal drugs, soft and hard, and nothing has changed in forty years. That makes us either incompetent or complicit in the status quo. So give yourself up now, or none of you will be leaving this mountain alive.”
“My website’s got nothing to do with terrorism. I’m not going anywhere with you. I suggest you all leave, or bad shit will happen to you.”
The commissioner said to his subordinate, “Handcuff him. If he resists, shoot him. If you don’t, I will.”
The officers were bad apples from back in the early seventies. They were the ones who had arrested and almost killed the Westie after surviving the flood waters.
George had to act fast. He took his Shu-Roo from his pocket, put it to his lips, and blew. The Shu-Roo emitted a high frequency sound that only some animals responded to.
By this time, it was dusk, but the sky suddenly darkened much faster than normal. Within seconds, you could not see the sky. It wasn’t night falling, but thousands of fruit bats descending on the law enforcement group.
“Don’t panic; they’re only here to eat those bananas you’re holding. If you shoot, they’ll go into frenzy and peck you to pieces.”
George had discovered when driving through his banana plantation that the bats seemed to follow him, and were making a meal of the banana crop. He had finally realised that it was the sound the Shu-Roos made on the front of his four-wheel drive that attracted the bats.
He had modified his harvesting to allow twenty percent to be eaten by the bats, using the Shu-Roos to control what the bats ate. One extra bonus was the droppings the bats left behind, which became organic fertiliser. So that’s how he had become an organic banana grower.
George spoke with confidence. He had the coppers beat. “One other thing: the bats carry the Hendra Virus. There is no cure. It’s okay for bat shit to fall to the ground, but don’t get it on your skin. You’ll have a good chance of being infected,” George advised. “Your best chance to survive is to run over to the paddock and jump in that dam. Good luck.”
Bear, Mason and Brownie stood several metres away, watching George control the situation.
George whispered the same words to Jack that he had repeated to the others. Jack pulled out his revolver, and pointed it at George’s stomach. “If I’m going to die, so are you.”
The sound of the gun exploded through the valley, and caused the bats to take off. Like a squadron of planes, they dropped bombs of droppings as they left.
George fell to his knees, blood seeping through his fingers where he held tightly to his side.
The commissioner turned and ran with the others to the dam, and jumped in.
Bear said, “We’ve got to get you back up this mountain. You’re losing a lot of blood.”
Bear and Brownie picked up their mate and carried him back up to the plantation. They laid him down as the sun became a huge, orange glow on the peak of Mount Beerwah.
George needed medical help urgently; his wound was life threatening.
Bear said, “We need to get him off this mountain and to hospital, or he’s not going to make it.”
Nutter had already left with his gold coins. The religious fanatics had ridden off on the mountain bikes.
LP remained back at George’s property, and had watched everything that had happened on the surveillance camera, which were positioned at the cul-de-sacs.
In the distance, several new uninvited visitors were walking up from the east ridge of the plantation. They came over to the packing shed where the guys were huddled around George.
One spoke. “You need to leave this mountain with us now. There’s little time to waste. Your government has ordered the mountain to be destroyed. George will not survive, nor will you.”
“I don’t know who you guys are, but you’ve got it completely wrong; the noise you hear are Black Hawk helicopters on a training exercise over the Glass House Mountains,” Brownie said
He was well aware of the ancient legend of the Glass House Mountains, and believed Tibrogargan would not allow anything to happen to his family.
“There’s no time to explain. Follow us to the Bora Ring. It’s just past the plantation and a short distance into your state forest.”
George was still conscious, but time was running out for him.
LP asked, “How do you know George’s name? We don’t know you guys.”
“Don’t ask questions; there’s no time to waste.”
The visitors walked over to Brownie and formed a circle around him. They placed their hands on his shoulders and, together, repeated the words ‘awake, Tibrogargan; your family is about to be destroyed. Protect them from destruction. Awake from Dreamtime’.
Bear was watching George’s laptop, which was showing a black cloud heading their way, but he could not make out whether it was a storm approaching or something more sinister.
Rocks started to dislodge and roll down the mountainside. Tremors were increasing. Tibrogargan was awakened and, with a mighty explosion from the east face of the mountain, ash and smoke plumes bellowed out.
On the laptop, Bear saw a rolling cloud of smoke and ash about to engulf a black cloud. A squadron of Black Hawk helicopters armed and ready to fire. Radar had not picked up the impending danger on board, but visual sight had. The squadron leader gave the order, “Turn back. Take evasive action, land immediately.”
Bear remarked, “Good one, Brownie; you’ve got good contacts in Dreamtime. Now tell these guys to piss off. We’ve got to get George off the mountain quick smart, or he’s not going to make it.”
LP wondered, are these guys paramedics and part of the training exercise?
One of the visitors spoke again. “George will not survive. We will look after him; his time on this mountain is at an end.”
Another reached down to pick George up. As he did, George said, “Thanks, son.”
At that moment, George realised who the strangers were. What had happened back at the Bora Ring in outback Queensland was not visions or from smoking weed. The women from the Bora Ring must have been real. Bear and Mason also realised they weren’t strangers. They were their sons. Words said back then flashed through their minds: DNA; renewed life; keep the scroll safe; etched in time.
George’s son carried him down through the banana plantation to the Bora Ring. Those from another place and time stood within the ring, and one of them said, “What was foretold is almost complete. Protect the scroll until the numbers align. It will give all warning when time re-aligns.”
Without warning, George and the others vanished into the night.
Bear, LP, Brownie, Mason, and Red were left to figure out what had happened to George, and what to do next.
The guys now knew what the numbers meant, and that it was a date in time – midnight, January 1, 2010, and 1:01 a.m., New Year’s Day. Although they did not have the scroll in their possession, they did have it saved on George’s hard drive. All was not lost. LP had placed it face down on George’s scanner before giving it to those religious fanatics. No one looked directly at it as it was scanned. It revealed the image within the scroll, which had been spoken of nearly thirty years ago. There was no problem with loading it onto his computer. LP remembered more about that night. He started to recall what one of the women had said: ‘in one hand, you will hold the knowledge of thousands of years, and, in the other, the word of a thousand light years’.
The Rev Heads, who loved their cars as much as Allah, were part of a sleeper cell that would do anything asked of them by Al Qaeda. Their leader, clutching the rolled-up fleece, was on a plane to Pakistan, and headed for a mountainous region bordering Afghanistan. He believed that possessing the Golden Fleece would enhance their leader’s right to rule over all nations.
The word soon spread that a man from Oz had something important to give to their spiritual leader, and it wasn’t long before he was face to face with Bin Laden himself. His devout follower handed him the rolled-up fleece. Bin Laden put down the AK47 he always carried with him. He reached out with both hands, grabbed the parcel, untied a small piece of string, and unfolded it to reveal a goat skin.
“Look around, you fool; don’t you think I have enough goats? I don’t need another one.”
“But this one is special. The Golden Fleece has been used by another man on a mountain on the other side of the world for spiritual inspiration. I considered you as the rightful one to possess its power.”
“Come closer. Tell me more about this Golden Fleece.”
His follower moved closer and repeated, in a soft voice, the words said back at George’s mountain. His spiritual leader became agitated, raised his rifle into the air, and fired a round of bullets, yelling, “No! No! No!”
The words were like daggers to his heart. He realised at that moment that his jihad, delivered by his unquestioning followers to the Great Satan America, had failed. His vision of the future with all nations united under Islam and him being supreme spiritual leader were coming to an end.
As for the scroll, it ended up in Brisbane in a cathedral built of marble – a testament to the success in bringing new believers to their faith. A man wearing black and white left his mountain bike chained to the front gate, and walked in through the large, open doors. He walked down the long aisle past all the pews and stood before the elder’s alter. The elder was anxious to be the first to look upon the image handed to him in the scroll. He believed it would give him absolute power over his flock.
He wasted no time unrolling the scroll. Darkness descended upon them both as the elder was stricken face first to the floor, convulsing. It was as if he’d been hit by a fifty thousand-volt stun gun.
As the scroll coiled back, the guy in black and white lycra picked it up and walked back out through the cathedral doors. He unchained his bike, mounted it and rode towards the city through peak hour traffic. Outside a ten story building in the heart of Brisbane, he chained his bike to a lamp-post and walked towards the main entrance. After pressing an intercom button, a man answered with “What do you want?’’
The guy in lycra replied “I have something valuable to leave with you.” He was instructed to enter through two glass doors and was met in the foyer by a man named Steve. They shook hands and walked over to a wall of lifts. Steve entered a security card at one of the lifts, and they headed down to basement level two. The men walked out of the lift into a secured area. The guy in lyrca walked through a security scanner carrying the scroll. He was instructed to place his thumbs on a small scanner and then filled out some paperwork before entering a vault. As the door was pushed open, he looked around and saw safety deposit boxes as well as rows of gold bullion.
Ahead was another security door. In here, controlled ventilation kept moisture from damaging the valuable works of art inside. He went through the door and placed his delivery on a rack. Now the scroll was in a safe place, he turned and exited exactly the way he came in, walking out through the glass doors. The guy in black and white lycra unchained his bike and rode out of the city.