Eyes of Destiny

By G.R.R. Restivo

Caesar is thrown into chaos and needs to find his friends and Master Gallo through a long trek that he discovers many adventures and compassion. Finally, he meets the pestilence that he swore to kill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669866800

G.R.R. Restivo

G.R.R. Restivo has again written another mystery/adventure novel of the detective-architect Nick Cook and his girlfriend. Mr. Restivo has written all his novels part time and continues to live on Long Island.

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Copyright © 2023 by G.R.R. Restivo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/10/2023

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Epilogue

Novels by G. R. R. Restivo

Eyes of the Innocent

Eyes of Revenge

Interior Darkness

Hunters Point

TO

Charles J. Campo

In Memorial

A True Hero

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

—Jean de La Fontaine

PREFACE

I wanted to complete the third saga of Caesar the cat and his friends because the last novel left the story open. This story of mine was building in my head for some time, and I had to write the continuing and third saga. Since I write these stories part-time, it is difficult to keep all the entwined characters and their treks and stories merge into one climax. Yet perseverance held out.

Again, I wish to thank my wife for her help in typing this novel, and the various animal true stories I have researched. These animal stories influenced me for this novel, and I merged the story with current affairs. I think the reader will appreciate animals after finishing my three books with this cast of characters.

If the reader loved the first two books, they would recognize the previous characters once again and, in addition, the new characters in this novel. I tried to make all the animals with personalities that I thought would be perfect either mammal or bird maybe even matching their species. Again, the ruthlessness and compassion of the humans come through while the animals and the birds work together in many ways to survive.

I wish to thank everyone for purchasing the books over the years and hope the reader enjoys this novel as much as they did in the past novels, especially the Eyes of the Innocent and the Eyes of Revenge.

Happy reading!

G. R. R. Restivo

December 26, 2022

CHAPTER 1

S and rolled across the desert floor as it did eons ago. Cactus lined a dirt sandy road going north and south. It was late at night with no moon, and the truck’s lights were off. The sand whipped into the half-open window of the truck, hitting the younger man in the passenger seat.

Bitch! the younger man yelled out to the annoyance of the driver.

Shut up! You should be used to this by now, Ricky. After three years of smuggling these peasants into the States, you think it wouldn’t bother you.

The young man shook his head. It’s not the smuggling or the risks that bother me. It’s this damn sand and this dead desert. I don’t want to be here anymore. I think after this, I will stop. I saved enough money to get away to Costa Rica or to some Caribbean island.

"Really, you would quit, amigo, and leave me. I am sorry, but I need you more now. We have a real paying customer willing to pay for eight people to cross over.

I will need you to come with me after we drop this load in Texas.

Pay good?

Very good. More than we ever had before, and then if you want, leave then.

Hmm. Si, si, I will, Jorge.

The truck started to ease slowly toward a sign. It was the border. The driver let up on the brake and scanned the area. No border patrol SUVs in sight.

The truck pushed into a valley away from the US border road built by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. The truck’s engine went dead, and the two men got out. Quickly they opened the drop-down door on the back, and Mexicans jumped and ran into the desert.

Jorge the driver was pleased. He had made many a shipment without getting caught by the Americans. He motioned to Ricky to get back in the truck as the last of the peasants ran into the darkness.

The truck silently pulled into the dirt border road and across the border.

Well, Ricky, next stop is our money bonanza.

Ricky smiled and laughed as the truck picked up speed into the Mexican desert.

* * * *

She was a true believer in Islam, and since her father and mother were killed two years ago by American drones, she joined the extremists in Syria. Her father was a bomb expert, and her mother, though part Turkish, believed in the one caliphate for all mankind. They were deeply rooted in Al-Qaeda and forced her brother and her to be a part of the movement too.

Fatima was more into education at that time, and her brother, two years younger, was more into football.

When their parents were killed in a drone attack, she swore to devote her life to killing Americans. Her brother, Ahmad, was not as fanatical as her at first, but these next two years, he grew into being a first-rate bomb expert like their father.

As they learned the use of weapons and navigation, the Middle East grew unsteady. Iran was vying for a leadership role in the region while ISIS was taking over large sections of land.

Fatima was not concerned with politics or about how really far the caliphate stretched. Her one goal was to make America pay, and the only way to do that was to volunteer to get into the USA from a cell and plan an attack she would devote herself to.

In order to sneak into the United States with her brother, they needed credentials and a job.

Al-Qaeda leader Hussein el-Alderi was to furnish the way and the means to go to America; however, they would need to prove themselves here in Syria first before such a trek is to take place. Fatima and her brother then would need to kill Syrian soldiers and capture a truck with armament, and the two would be joined by six other extremists who would like to join ISIS.

The mission would be to stop the Turks in northern Syria that are supplying the Syrian army, kill the two soldiers, and drive the truck to ISIS headquarters a hundred kilometers away. The problem with the plan was the Syrian army would be guarding the truck as it traveled.

Her brother, Ahmad, would plant bombs on the most deserted roadway, and the team would kill all the soldiers still alive. Ahmad had to be careful not to destroy the munitions truck they needed while blowing up the infantry truck.

Fatima couldn’t wait. It would be a test for the future and how she would work with the cell and her brother. Her plan would kill thousands, maybe a million in the United States. It was doable.

* * * *

Fletcher groaned on his perch above the nest. It was bad blueberries.

He had visited old man Lockwood’s yard and spied the packet of blueberries. He should have figured the old man would not leave fresh fruit on his table.

Fletcher needed water and flew down to the nest. Abigail was getting herself up for an egg-laying day.

Fletcher hated egg-laying days or, as Abigail called it, the birth of the blues. Abigail’s personality changes from the egg-laying day until the hatchings break through their cage as it were.

Abigail, I’m going over to the old birdbath at the Scussels. I have to get some water. My stomach is sick.

Serves you right. Stop stealing from the old man. I’m going to be busy so go ahead.

Fletcher flew away toward the water’s edge.

The human nests or homes as they called them were closely put together. The Scussel family had the largest yard, and their birdbath was always full.

Fletcher flew over some roofs and spotted the birdbath. He swung down and landed on the bath’s edge. There was no bird in sight. Strange because this was a popular stop for the aviary.

Fletcher took a drink, and his feathers alerted him. There was a strange movement in the yard. He turned and saw the cause of his inner voice alerting him. It was an animal he had never seen before. It looked like a raccoon. He met one in the green fields nearby about a year ago, yet it was bigger than the raccoon and it looked mean and it spoke in a bad common tongue.

Get away from my bath, blue one.

Fletcher sat on the edge, not moving.

And who are you?

I am the master here of all you see west of the great human path. Get off my bath.

How could this be yours? You can barely fit in it, and you can’t jump up here, or can you?

The animal jumped and landed near the bath. The marble ledge supported him surprisingly.

Fletcher flew off the bath to the nearest tree branch.

So you chased all the birds away for your selfishness of the bath.

That’s right, blue, and don’t come back.

But I will return. I don’t understand something. Tell me. How did you get here? Why are we so lucky?

Listen, if I catch you, I will have a snack of blue feathers. I don’t know where it was. The humans were in a cage and then in a moving den that smelled. The moving den fell over, and I escaped to the woods nearby. Since the great badger in the sun Taxius has dropped me here, this is my territory and only mine.

Fletcher knew where he was. Humans have areas with animals in cages for other humans to watch. It was a human thing, and according to what he heard, the animals are not from this territory.

You were a captive animal for human enjoyment, for all to see your white-and-black stripes and pointy nose. Did you draw many onlookers, selfish one?

"Enough. I just got an urge to eat you, blue. Come on down.

You know I ate some of your cousins yesterday.

Sorry, pointy nose, not today, but I will see you soon. With that, Fletcher flew away.

So that’s a badger. I have to ask around about him. I’m sure the aviary has some gossip on that ugly thing. Well, at least my stomach is better. I hope the pointy nose ugly one gets a stomachache from the birds he has killed. Maybe I can get the humans to capture him again. I will work on that.

Fletcher flew east to his tree nest and thought of ways to get rid of the pointy-nosed one.

* * * *

The tall man sat in the hospital bed for weeks. He looked out the window and cursed to himself. It was six weeks since the fight in Cat Cay Island, and he reviewed it in his mind.

His leg was chewed up well by the shark, and if he didn’t fight off the shark with his other leg, he would be dead.

The doctors at Miami University Hospital saved his leg, but his left leg was now shorter than his right leg. The muscles were gone on the leg which at first he had to use a walker. After extensive physical training, he was able to use a cane. He swore he would rid himself of the cane, and these past two weeks, he succeeded. His leg was stronger; he could walk without an aid, but he had a distinct limp.

With the left leg limp and an eye patch over the right eye, his facial scar gave him a menacing look and demeanor. Nurses in the hospital were scared to be near him alone; his mouth didn’t help either. He would curse at every fall or setback.

The nurses and doctors would hear, I’ll kill them and that damn cat.

It was a routine rant for him. Revenge was his cure and hate his driving force to his ultimate goal.

The hospital was to transfer him to a rehabilitation center for three more weeks.

He would stay one week and leave without any notice. His mind had one ambition—to kill the ones who did this to him.

* * * *

Mark Gallo sat in his apartment in Brooklyn Heights thinking about all the publicity Caesar had gotten. The cat was beyond famous. Everyone wanted him. His story was covered on every network news channel, cable news channel, and the Internet. Friskies and 9Lives wanted him for a commercial.

FOX and CNN had him on their shows these past weeks. Jimmy Fallon let him sit on his desk on The Tonight Show. He had become the most famous cat since Felix.

People magazine and Redbook did stories on him with Caesar on the covers. Gallo was told it was a first for these magazines to have an animal on the cover.

Needless to say, all of them—Tony, Libby, and Gallo—became semifamous when the stories came out about the drugs at Cat Cay Island in the Bahamas.

It worked for Libby with her acting career. She was asked to do commercials and then an off-Broadway play. Libby loved the live theater, so she said yes to a play she loved. The theater was run by a group of thespians called City Smarts who produced multiple plays in a year. Some plays made it to Broadway and were still playing.

The group was made up of many different types of actors. Some actors were from other countries while some did have some Broadway experience.

Libby was expected to join, and immediately she was cast in the play A View from the Bridge by the playwright Arthur Miller. It would open next Saturday after some weeks of rehearsal. The director loved her.

Tony for his part stayed at the architectural company, but his fame followed him everywhere. From contractors to architects and owners, they all asked questions about the voyage of Caesar and his part in the adventure. He was getting tired of the fame.

Gallo retired from the Nassau County Police Department and joined a private detective firm. The largest detective firm in the business was always sending their private eyes to different parts of the country. The head of the firm welcomed him with open arms. It was not every day the firm added such a famous person to its stock of detectives.

Gallo mulled over the requests for Caesar, and one caught his eye. It was from Hollywood. One of the big producers wanted Caesar for his action flick with Mark Wahlberg. It would pay a million dollars and all expenses. Caesar would need an agent and a manager. Gallo couldn’t manage him. He knew nothing about the movie business or their ways.

Gallo promised he would call back the agent in NYC who was calling every day. He checked out the agent, and he represented many famous actors and actresses.

Caesar sat on the windowsill looking out from his second-story vantage. The world of humans was always crazy. They did show much love to him when Master Gallo took him across the great old bridge. Caesar noticed at the time there were many bridges across the water to the crowded human city.

He liked the attention, but he missed his life here. He was happiest around his friends like Sam, Arthur, Fletcher, Max, and Clay. He hoped nothing would change that, but he had a feeling it was still there from the past. A gut feeling, a knot in his stomach. Was the rat dead?

Little did he know destiny would take charge.

* * * *

Fatima sat in a hut built by the Syrian army. The ten Syrian soldiers died defending the area while Fatima’s group was able to save the munitions truck. Ahmad had done a great job. He killed only the driver and the guard.

Ahmad came