FUTURE
LP turned and walked away from the Bora Ring, pondering what to do next. Bear, Mason, Brownie, and Red followed him up the track, which wound through the banana plantation to the causeway where their van was parked.
LP picked up the laptop, and said to everyone, “We should keep George’s website up and running to keep the bastards honest – it’s what he would have wanted!”
There was also the possibility of using the surveillance camera to prove that the police commissioner had shot George. Until the guys could check if there was footage implicating him, they had no proof and no body. The commissioner and his officers would close ranks, and would certainly be tight lipped about what had happened that day. This could work to the guys’ advantage; the commissioner would prefer to ‘let sleeping dogs lie’, rather than have the truth come out. They suspected he would not trouble them anymore, even if he did survive the Hendra Virus the bats were carrying.
Mason grabbed the laptop and opened it as they walked. He found where the scroll was saved, then set up a password that only they would know.
“This will keep the scroll safe till the time arrives, when the numbers will align, as spoken back at the ancient Bora Ring,” Mason said.
The guys no longer considered what had happened back there a vision from smoking too much dope; it was the real deal.
They climbed into the van and left George’s mountain, protected by the Dreamtime spirits of Tibrogargan and his family.
It wasn’t long before they arrived back at the beach house, which needed some serious repair work. Bear instructed LP to organise the insurance claim and get the place fixed up. If there were any problems, they could ring him in Sydney.
Brownie wasn’t hanging around; he had an outback tour to finish with his German tourists. They were expecting to shoot and eat wild goat and boar. The Germans were good payers, and would pay a bonus of a hundred dollars for any wild goat shot that had horns over one metre across.
Mason went back to his Masonic Retirement Home, saying, “Don’t call me; I’ll be there when the numbers align.”
Red left Queensland, heading south to Bells Beach to chill out and surf. He decided he wanted no part of what might happen on New Year’s Day 2010.
After he had organised the repairs to the beach house, LP headed back to suburbia with George’s laptop. Over the next eight years, the news media reported the most disturbing events that grabbed headlines. Although the reports were without emotion, just matter of fact, behind the news was sorrow and despair. Over the ensuing years, the world they felt comfortable with started to look and sound like a disaster movie that might be called The Decade From Hell.
2002
Widespread drought and wildfires struck the US, causing twelve billion dollars in damage.
Rivers of molten lava from a volcano in the Congo destroyed dozens of villages and engulfed the city of Goma. Nearly twelve million people were displaced, and fled to Rwanda.
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Central Asia, killing nearly a hundred people in the Dakil-e-zeu village in Afghanistan.
Four typhoons swept through Japan and the Philippines in early July, killing about a hundred people.
In August, torrential rains resulted in floods and landslides in south-east China.
Monsoon floods and mudslides hit India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, resulting in nearly a thousand deaths, and destroying crops and livestock.
Hundreds of people died, and many more were wounded when two car bombs exploded in front of night club in Bali. Extremist Muslim group, Jemaah Islamiyah, was blamed for that act of mass murder.
Sixty-five wildfires around Sydney destroyed more than sixty homes and burnt out two hundred and ninety-six thousand acres of state forest and farmland.
2003
2003 fared no better. January was fatal for four hundred people who died from cold weather and icy conditions in an area bordering India and Bangladesh, where millions of people had no heat, electricity, or warm clothing.
The space shuttle, Columbia, broke up on re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.
SARS, a deadly form of pneumonia, killed seven hundred and fifty-five people worldwide.
A three week heat wave left twelve hundred people dead from sunstroke and dehydration in the Andhra Pradesh state of India. A similar heat wave had killed a thousand people the previous year.
A heat wave lasting for nearly a month hit Europe, causing fourteen thousand deaths in France. Fire raged in France, Portugal and Spain. Glacial ice melted in the Alps, violent storms hit England, and nuclear power stations had to be cut back due to overheated water.
Wildfires hit the US again. Hurricane Isabel caused widespread damage. Storms, tornadoes and hail resulted in twelve and a half billion dollars’ worth of repairs. More wildfires erupted in late October and early November. Fifteen forest fires burnt for two weeks. Eight hundred thousand acres were burnt, three thousand six hundred and forty homes were destroyed, and dozens of people were killed as fifteen thousand fire fighters fought to save lives and property.
Flash flooding near an Orang-utan reserve in Bohorok, Indonesia, killed a hundred and fifty people. The flooding was a direct result of heavy illegal deforestation, the world news reported.