Sedona AZ (January 7, 2015) – The following has been taken from Collins Rhōg’s private journal, and reproduced exactly as it was written, by his own hand. The date has been omitted, at his request, but Collins view is always captivatingly honest, full of depth and color, heart and perseverance in times of struggle. Collins spills his soul and captures his feelings with vivid imagery and heart felt emotion that oozes from the pages of this historic text.

The following is but a portholes view, from across the room of “The Life and Times of Collins Rhōg“:

If you are new to the story, it all begins at this link (click here). In previous weeks, our readers were introduced to Rhōg’s story as written in his journal. Join us as we return to the Life and Times of Collins Rhōg, now 38, while he surveys the gates of Hell:

– Cambire, The Story Part 11 –

From the air I spotted the lake, roughly 15 miles away as we approached from the northwest. We had caught a great tailwind, burning 32 gallons of fuel flying from my cabin to Lake Albert, arriving just ahead of some cloud cover and just before sunset. That would be our refueling site, however I didn’t have any fuel waiting for us. What I did have was a Land Rover parked within the shabby tin hangar at the end of the dirt strip. I figured that Shugo and I would spend the night in the truck and then use it the next day to drive to Valley Falls, a relative ghost town, to get fuel before meeting Reegan.

The sliding door to the old hangar offered resistance as I pulled to break it free. With a forceful tug I walked the door open, its steel wheels liberated of the previous year’s oxidation while squealing a chilling chorus. Light spilled into the hangar divulging the classic 1964 Land Rover that I had always planned to restore.

A thin film of fine, tan dust covered everything within the building, giving its contents a look of antiquity. Making way to the old truck, my boots left perfect footprints in the dust atop the cement slab flooring. The Rover was a barn find, and had suffered years of neglect from abandonment. Her beaten body bore sizable rashes of dents, as well as a few lacerations to her aluminum skin. A thick brown furrow of dead moss was growing, where once was window felt, and parts of her floorboards were absent, allowing mice in residence to come and go as they pleased. Much of her bakelite was missing from the steering wheel, exposing the steel skeleton and rebar in a crumbling bridge that led to the hand painted map of the globe atop the oversized horn button. She was an awful sight, and yet she was so beautiful.

“Here’s our ride Shug…” He looked up from investigating around the rear tire and then turned to scrutinize the sky outside. Following his gaze, the sun was hanging low beneath the clouds, roughly the length of my thumb above the horizon as I sighted down my arm. The two of us stood beside the old Rover, bathing in the glowing splendor that soaked the hangar’s interior with a vanishing whisper of warmth as the sun slowly descended.

Opening the door to the Land Rover, I inhaled the stale air, it tasted terrible. Finding a mangled straw broom I swept the dust and mouse feces from the dash, seats and floorboards. Pausing to notice the sky wearing brilliant blue hues flanked by splinters of red and purple, tightly framed within a sea of clouds that sluggishly moved East like a battle worn army marching from defeat, I felt small.

With the seats cleaned up enough, I hollered “Oy!” for Shugo who had disappeared outside. Walking out into the fading light, I instantly heard rustling in the underbrush beside the hangar, its dry foliage so thick I wondered how the hell he had gotten into it. The rustling drew closer and became louder, then I saw the hound bounding through the parched vegetation faster than a stallion faultlessly jumping fences and vertical spreads on a tight course. With ears folded back Shugo’s tiger-striped face was streamlined, while his flowing body rippled in waves as he launched from the undergrowth to freedom. Just then his left front leg snagged an outreached branch, and like a jet hooking the flight deck’s cable, Shugo slammed to earth with a thud. Quick as lightning, within the cloud of dust, he righted himself and sprang to his feet, turning to see if I had witnessed the events.

“Nicely done, Shugo!” and laughed out loud, grabbing my rucksack from the plane. The evening darkness was skulking in with a chill. I felt a shiver in my heart, a sixth sense of a hungry wolf on the scent of a broken winged raven.

Was I the raven? I set to work preparing a bed for the night.

The next morning, my breath spilled and condensed in the cool air as I pushed open the east facing hangar door. Reaching inside the Rover to release the hood, it popped with a clunk producing a halo of sparkling dust slowly fading and mingling with the morning light. The greasy, mouse infested engine compartment was littered with a spilt helping of loose wires running awry. Hooking up the old black battery, I was surprised to hear the truck’s mechanical heart click away empty, beating frantically without petrol. A few moments later, the fuel pump clatter softened and smoothed out.

“She’s got petrol,” I told Shugo, fixing my eyes upon the clear fuel filter. My anticipation was rewarded as a Guinness brown varnish, once gasoline, flowed into the empty chamber. I smiled with excitement as Shugo stood by my side, ears at attention, head craned, aiming amber eyes brimming with curiosity into mine. Once the vacant catacombs of the carburetor were filled with fuel, the pump stopped and all was quiet.

Following Shugo into the Rover, it would be exciting to hear the old girl run. Pulling the choke discharged a powdery plume of rust red dust into the cab. The mystic looking vapor caught Shugo’s attention as it hovered and churned in the morning air before fading away. Shugo’s gaze moved from the vanished plume to the ignition switch, and then to me. His eyebrows undulated while his stare stayed fixed on me.

“Cross your fingers, Shug…” I stomped the accelerator pedal twice with a “clank thump, clank thump” that echoed off the back of the cab. Turning the ignition key, the fuel gauge snapped to attention with a momentary tremble just above the empty mark. I looked at Shugo still looking at me, “Here goes nothing…” Engaging the ignition, the engine laboriously turned over with a groan. Shugo cocked his head as I feverishly stomped the accelerator, “Clank thump, clank thump, clank thump…” The engine tiredly turned, and let out a sputter. Then it began to slow…before stopping dead on the compression stroke.

“The battery’s juiced, Shugo.” He turned away and exhaled loudly.

With my wounded shoulder, I didn’t want to start the truck using the hand crank. It took me about ten minutes to pull the battery from the Super Cub and hook it up in the Rover. Engaging the ignition once more, the engine spun and whined for a few seconds…then letting out a sputter, it started.

The Rover idled sluggishly in the bracing dawn air so I gave a bit more choke and she perked right up. Cranking the heat to full and switching on the fan, a plume of dirt belched from the vents. Shugo didn’t move but just closed his eyes appearing to be annoyed with the situation. I released the e-brake, climbed out of the truck and pushed her from the hangar, so not to fill it with exhaust while loading the Rover with empty Jerry cans. Looking back, I could see the numerous sets of footprints on the dusty floor as well as the tire tracks leading out of the hangar. By now the heater vents were spilling a generous helping of warmth which felt absolutely marvelous as my body soaked it in. With Shugo curled in his seat, I notice a dust covered Al Green cassette wedged in the upholstery.

“We’re in luck!” Shugo looked up as I pulled the tape out from under him. The cassette slid into the old player beneath the dash. I flicked the silver stubby toggle to hear a high frequency hiss spill from the old speakers. There was a crackle before the hiss was replaced with the blare of the horn solo in the middle of “Love and Happiness.” Shugo, who had put his head back down, watched as I jammed to the music while we lumbered across the airstrip on our way into the little town of Republic.

The town was mostly empty. After filling the Jerry cans, I shuttled them back to the airplane and filled up her tanks. I spent the rest of the day tinkering on the old aircraft until late afternoon when a pint sounded nice. So Shugo and I piled back into the old truck and headed for town. We pulled into a little dive of a pub aptly named “The Dodge.”

“Stay Shugo!” He looked disappointed as I climbed out of the truck.

The waitress was cute, a blond about five feet seven. I ordered a pint and noticed her noticing me before letting my mind drift to nothingness. I was enjoying a Guinness when the biker walked in, a patch holder. He could be trouble, I thought.

“What are you looking at?” he belted out as I sat sizing him up.

These guys can be dangerous, but not usually one on one, and not if you can handle yourself. Safety is in numbers and gangs are all about being “Brothers.” If you’re in a gang, you’re part of “The Brotherhood.” Like a pack of wolves, if you fight with one you are fighting with all, and they’ll all jump in and hurt you.

Standing up I looked right at him. “I’m looking at you,” I replied, pausing to allow a heavy silence while keeping an eye on his hands before looking up to meet his eyes. “Just like yourself if you were the one suckin’ down a brew and I walked in.”

I turned and sat back down. The bloke knew I wasn’t afraid to dance, but he also knew that I had nothing to prove. By all rights, if it would have come to blows, I would have mopped the bloody floor up with this guy and he’d go home in a pine box, but it wasn’t necessary.

The fellow sat down and introduced himself, “Deacon…” then extended a hand sheathed in a dirty, fingerless glove with stitching coming undone. I grabbed his hand firmly and looked him in the eyes.

“Shaun,” I  replied, not wanting to give my name to a stranger.

Always a good ice-breaker, patch holders love to talk about their bikes, I lifted my pint at the rigid framed Harley parked outside the Dodge and asked, “Is that your scoot?”

“Yea, that’s my ride.” He wore a prideful grin, peering out at his bike. I noticed the funk of engine grease and second hand smoke that oozed from his ragged leathers. The scent was disgusting.

We talked Harley’s for several minutes, Deacon enthusiastically moving  his hands about while explaining how he just replaced the lifters and then moved onto other bike crap. Deacon turned out to be an alright dude, maybe a bit of a lost ball in high grass, but aren’t we all.

“Why do women wear make-up and perfume?” Deacon asked loudly, his hands shrugging as the waitress passed by.

“Why’s that?”

“Because they’re ugly and they stink!” he belted out an earsplitting laugh that filled the Dodge to capacity. I shook my head, smiling out of courtesy and disbelief. Deacon was his own greatest fan. In conversation the biker would let out a fake chuckle, not unlike a “laugh-track” on a sitcom cuing me that he had said something funny.

After a while, several more patch holders walked in, trouble with a capital “T.”

Deacon introduced me while I nodded and held my silence, looking at each and every bloke. I’d nod on occasion and say something smart-ass.

“How do you feel about the damn smoking ban in bars?” a biker named Candor asked me. I just looked at him.

“Do I have something on my forehead?” I asked Candor while leaning in and pointing to it.

“What?” he replied uncomfortably. Everyone got quiet and tuned into our conversation.

“I said…Do – I – have – BITCH written on my forehead?”  I just peered at him, finger still pointing. There was a thick silence for a few seconds while Candor fidgeted a bit, then everyone started laughing.

Candor shook his head while repositioning his stool, “Naw man!”

With that it was time to go. Leave on a good note, a bit of showmanship. I ordered another round for the lot and picked up the tab. I shook everyone’s hand, got a few hard pats on the back, and knew it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Before leaving I leaned into Deacon’s ear and whispered, “That bloke, over there in the corner nursing the Miller Light…don’t look…he’s a Fed…been eying us the whole time. I caught a glimpse of a Sigma nested in his shoulder rig. Watch your back, my friend.”  I turned away, but Deacon grabbed my arm.

“Thanks, brother.” His eyes peered into mine, sincere and grateful. “If you get into trouble, we’ve got your back.” He pulled out a dirty receipt and scribbled down a phone number, then crumpled it up and stuffed it in my hand with a nod. I nodded back, turned and left.

Walking back to the Land Rover, I saw Shugo patiently waiting in the cab, still seated at attention when I heard the order.

“Get in,” a voice firmly instructed with a Russian accent.

Turning…the command had resonated from a hulk of a man, shaved head, broad shoulders sheathed with a military sweater, driving a dark black Chevrolet Suburban.

“Excuse me?”

“Get – in!” Louder and slower, he raised a Glock G22 handgun over the Suburban’s open window. Saying nothing, I moved towards it.

“You drive.”

The Suburban’s engine stopped and the stranger climbed out, his barrel directing me to its driver’s seat. I thought of making a move, but noticed the bike jockey on the Kawasaki Ninja, just behind the Chevy. It would have to wait.

Climbing into the warm seat as the Russian went to the other side, I wished I had strapped on my Beretta before driving into town. The keys landed on the dashboard as he reentered.

“Drive.”

I started the vehicle. “Where to, Mate?”

“Drive.” His gun buried into my ribs.

Shugo turned in the parked Land Rover’s seat and watched me pull away with the stranger. The motorcycle followed as we left town.

I said nothing for several minutes knowing that we were driving deeper and deeper into the remote area. I needed to make a play.

“Who are you?” I asked. The man had removed the gun to his lap, still pointing it at me.

“Shut up.”

I slammed on the brakes sloshing us forward, let go of the wheel, and reached for the .40 caliber which I seized over his hand. As we rebounded to a stop, I let off the brake and guided the gun’s momentum into his jaw. Squeezing the Russian’s trigger finger, his cry of “Wait!” was interrupted by the G22’s explosion. I hammered the accelerator as the Chevy’s V8 roared a throaty rumble and squeezed his finger again, causing the stranger to shoot another round into what was left of his shattered face. The Suburban sprang to life, dropping the disfigured Russian back in his seat, still clutching the Glock. The tach climbed in sync with the speedometer while the Kawasaki remained tight on my six. I could see the rider’s face shield reflecting the greenery blazing past. There was no feasible way I could shake this fellow, it couldn’t be done.

Then the Ninja jockey pulled a gun and prepared to come alongside for the hit. I pitched the Chevy left, forcing the rider to retreat his assault. He couldn’t shift his clutch and hold the gun so he slowed to avoid being forced off the road. Accelerating out of the corner, the fellow began closing on me again, though I had a bit of distance, not much, but a chance for me to make a play. With one eye on the rear view, I wrenched the .40 from the dead Russian’s hand.

The bike was exiting the corner, heeled over like a sailboat on a broad reach. Just as I saw him launch forward, I stomped on the emergency brake and spun the wheel hard left, the rear of the car advancing forward while the tires screamed. The bike’s front suspension dove as he rode the brakes, but it wasn’t to be. I could almost see through his face shield as the rider impacted into the side of the Suburban, just behind the B pillar. The Chevy shook violently and spun another few feet while I leapt from the cab with Glock in hand. The car came to a halt as if shaking water off its back. I peered down the fixed sights at the frayed rag doll slumped beside the idling Suburban. He was a slim bloke, small like an ice skater, frail with smooth lines.

“Don’t F-ing move!” spit spraying as I screamed. The rider moaned, lifted his head, still hidden by the pockmarked helmet.

“I told you not to move!” The Glock erupted with a gasp and a hop as the rider’s knee cap flashed to blood and flesh resembling a messy jump cut in an indie film. The rider thrashed with a shriek and sobbed like a little girl. Smacking up his visor with the gun barrel, I exposed a pair of coral blue eyes peering at me…the rider was a woman…but that didn’t change the fact she was trying to kill me.

“Who sent you?”

There was nothing.

“Who sent you!” I screamed and felt pulse racing anger fill my core, knowing I would snap soon, woman or no woman.

“Who sent you?” I firmly asked again, appearing to show a bit of compassion. She just stared back at me, looking through me. I used my free hand to unbuckle my belt, while keeping a square bead on her head through the gun sight. Her eyes moved to my midsection and widened when my belt flopped loose with a clatter. “Relax, that’s not my style.”  I ripped the belt free in a sweeping movement and tossed it to the ground beside her ruptured leg. “Use that as a tourniquet above your knee or bleed to death.” Returning her gaze coldly, she wrapped the belt around her leg and cinched it up, stopping to gape at me. Reaching down I gave the end of the belt a fast hard jerk and cinched it two more holes until she screamed.

The woman lay motionless in her own blood. Pulling off her helmet I growled, “I will ask you one more time, and if you don’t answer me, I’m going to blow your brains into the ground and leave you where you lay.” Moving the .40 to her forehead and pressing its barrel between her eyebrows, I took a long, deep breath of air, then said for one last time, “Who sent you?”

She blinked and looked at me, not through me this time. She knew I meant what I said, “Tristan,” she replied with a Russian accent.

“Tristan?”

The wheels in my head began to turn. A hungry wolf will always spot opportunity.

“How do you contact him?”

She blinked slowly, saying nothing.

“How do you contact Tristan?!” I screamed. As I was about to squeeze the trigger, she quietly answered, “I don’t contact him, he contact me.”

“How?”

“He find me.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“He find me when he want to speak…”

“How much to take me out?”

She just stared at me.

“How much?” I yelled as my anger grew.

“One million Euros…alive.”

“How do you contact him once you have me?” I buried the gun deeper into her forehead, leaning forward, hatred spilling into our stare.

“I have phone!” she blurted. “I text him!”

“Spasibo!” I replied.

Just then she grabbed for the Glock which howled in a flash of flame that ghosted her ass.

“Bitch,” I whispered to the corpse.

Searching the woman produced a thin leather wallet, a cell phone, cigarettes and a lighter. The billfold contained a single credit card that was wrapped in a piece of notepaper with the English words  “collins rhog  –  military container  –  €1,000,000  –  alive” written on it. On the other side of the paper was a hand drawn bio-hazard symbol with the words Ebola, Ezadeen, and Blue Sky M scribbled between its horns. If the Russian Ninja jockey was telling the truth, it was clear that Tristan wanted the case I had smuggled across the border. But why did my mentor want me alive…respect or sentiment or another reason?

It was obvious to me what Ebola meant, but what does Ezadeen and Blue Sky M stand for? Were they viruses as well? This job had become messy.  Shoving the lot into my pocket, I picked up the dead woman and belted her into the driver’s seat beside the other Russian. Wiping down the Glock, I put it in her hand and popped off two rounds before closing the Suburban’s door. Further down the road, I located her Makarov .380. Returning to the truck, I emptied its clip into the Suburban’s fuel tank. As gas puddled beneath the Chevy, I searched the dead man, finding nothing but a set of keys. Just then my pocket vibrated…a text message on the woman’s phone…it was the address of my Vancouver condo. My anger deciphered the text to read that I was about to do a whole lot of killing.

Picking up the spent cartridges, I dumped them with the gun into an empty pocket. Righting the battered motorcycle, it fired up. I steered towards town and rolled on the throttle. The engine’s scream epitomized the rage that was erupting in my soul as the Suburban exploded in my wake.

– Collins Rhōg

Cambire, The Story continues in the SedonaEye.com. Some SedonaEye.com scenes have been edited due to content. Look for the unedited Cambire, The Story, available at booksellers and retailers in the spring of 2015.