James Calderwood

The Opal Dragon James Calderwood

Ali lives on a small island in the Philippines with his mother. Zeena. Zeena is one of the town's prostitutes. Ali works in the market and quite often pimps for his mother. Zeena is losing her looks due to her volatile lifestyle and beatings from abusive customers. One night Ali robs and stabs an old jeweler with his kitbag filled with the week's takings and bars of gold and silver. The police are chasing him. He escapes to the mountains and lives with Zeena's sister gentle Sasha for almost a year. He enjoys this simple life living with the village people, He has found love with a young girl. His world crashes down when the village is attacked by terrorists. his girlfriend is raped and killed. Ali rushes back to Sasha to find her murdered, he discovers her killer and slays him with a knife, Ali has his cheek cut to the bone by the terrorist. He returns to Zeena's city and they both leave for Manila. There are two parties in this story Ali and Zeena and a farming family in Kimba in South Australia.. Ali has been trying to get in the drug trade in Manila. He hears from a man the local Mafia is going to catch him and Zeena and teach them to swim off the wharf with heavy chains around their legs, They travel on an old ship to Australia where Ali sees his first opals, He starts to trade in opal and heads to Coober Pedy opal fields. John Helen and Tony Nickols are experiencing the third year of drought on their farm John and Tony have no way of paying the bank so they follow two old friends to Coober Pedy to search for opal. The two guys they travel with have found a lot of opals and have paid the greedy bank debt. the Nickols men find a huge pocket of opals with millions of dollars. Ali and his gang of thieving try to steal the opal and money in an old safe in the dugout home they are renting