A Dubious Race: The Phoenician Stones (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 14)

by Gerald J Kubicki

  He watched with amusement as Mandy went to grab one particular sandwich on the plate. It consisted of hard Italian salami, red onion and mustard on a Kaiser roll. The sandwich was Steve’s favorite. He growled at the young woman.

  “Get your hands off my sandwich,” he threatened seriously and pulled the plate away from her.

  Banyon knew Steve was performing the service function only because he wanted that particular sandwich and was hungry himself. He wasn’t going to let anyone else have it. He had called the caterer and had made the special request from the office.

  Mandy smiled at him. “I’m only messing with…,” but she didn’t get to finish. The captain interrupted and told them over the speaker system that it was time to fasten their seat belts — they were about to take off.

  “Okay,” Banyon said out loud and clapped his hands as soon as he was buckled into his seat and the plane was taxing to the runway. “Give me your attention. As soon as we are in the air, here are your assignments. We have ample phones and on board Wi-Fi.” The other people in the cabin looked at him like he was completely crazy. They had other plans on their minds.

  “We want to hear about the Cherokee Indians first,” Mandy pleaded. “We’ve plenty of time before we get to Las Vegas.”

  Banyon, as he sometimes did, ignored her request. “Mandy, I want you to call Chase in Nevada and tell him that the next attack from Goblin will be at nine o’clock tonight. Tell him that we will be there well before then, and we should consider evacuating the ranch. They will have twenty men and two Cobra gunships.”

  “Wow! That’s a lot of firepower,” she commented with surprise. “I’ll call him, but if I know Chase, he has a plan of his own.”

  Turning to Lisa he said. “I want you to call your two colleagues at the school and tell them to not mention the stones to anyone. Tell them something has surfaced and you now think the stones are a hoax.”

  “But they’re not a hoax,” Lisa said indignantly as she sat up straight. “I have tons of evidence,” she protested.

  “Ah, but we want them to think they are a hoax,” Banyon explained calmly as he pointed in the air with his finger. “They will surely call everyone they told about the stones so they won’t be blamed for being part of a possible deception and have their reputations tarnished. It will also scare them from publishing anything on the stones because of the chance they might be phonies. This will give us some time until we get to them.”

  After a few seconds she answered. “That’s pretty clever actually,” Lisa said as a compliment. “I’ll do it.”

  “You,” Banyon pointed at Steve. “Get in touch with Timmy. I want to know everything he can find about this address.” Banyon passed him the address of the Goblin warehouse. “I want to know what their security set-up is and if he can hack into their systems and shut them down. See if he can take over their computers.”

  “How did you get this address?” Steve quickly asked with surprise.

  “It was texted to me,” Banyon replied deadpan and continued. “Heather, I want you on the internet. Joey Brownwater has a twin brother. He is a long term criminal and just got out of prison. Find out what you can about him.”

  “I didn’t know he had a brother!” Lisa gasped.

  “Since he is a hardened criminal, I don’t think Joey would mention it much,” Banyon explained.

  “I’ve brought my laptop,” Heather positively replied. Banyon liked that Heather didn’t ask too many questions when it came to marching orders.

  “Then I want you to email Previne the directions to the Vril site in Wisconsin. They’re going in tonight to pick it up.” Banyon said. He handed her another sheet with the exact directions.

  “I’ll also call her and tell her that they are in her email,” Heather quickly replied efficiently.

  “I’ve got one question?” Mandy suddenly asked.

  “Shoot,” Banyon responded.

  “We all are going to be busy. What are you going to do?”

  “That’s simple,” Banyon said with a chuckle. “You can do it if you want.”

  “Do what?” Mandy asked curiously.

  “Tell the President of the United States that he has a huge problem,” Banyon uttered.

  “No thanks. I’m going to be very busy,” Mandy said in fright.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Kayah dialed her phone and waited impatiently as it rang several times before the old man picked up the line.

  Before he could even say hello she yelled into the phone. “Why didn’t you tell me that the stones weighed forty pounds each,” she spat accusingly into the phone.

  “An oversight, I assure you” the elder replied weakly. “If I had sent a man he wouldn’t have needed to complain.” His reply stung as she knew it was true. “Do you have all three stones? Have you completed your mission?”

  “I was only able to carry one,” she spat back sarcastically. “It’s in the trunk of my rental car.”

  “When do you expect to get the rest of them, Kayah?” The elder inquired. “Time is short.”

  “And why didn’t you tell me that Joey Brownwater lives there?” She continued with a rant.

  “We know he is your ex-boyfriend. We didn’t want you to know because it might cloud your judgment. You were not supposed to come in contact with him.”

  “Why not? Isn’t he an elder now?” Kayah asked.

  “The rest of the elders have not approved him yet,” the man replied. “Only his grandfather has approved him for the position. We now believe that it is an unwise move to leave the stones in his hands. We have decided to keep the stones here in Oklahoma.”

  “Why not just tell Joey to bring them to you?” Kayah asked in confusion.

  “It is too late for that. There are too many people who know about the stones. We need to make them disappear. Joey is also under physical attack and may not survive. Then we stand to lose everything.”

  “Who is attacking him?” Kayah blurted out. We most certainly don’t want him dead. She still pined after him. She knew that if he hadn’t accepted his grandfather’s invitation to become and elder and moved to Nevada — they would still be together.

  “There are people who are after his land. With Indians, it is always about someone wanting our land,” the voice on the phone replied.

  “He needs help,” Kayah exclaimed. “I’m going to help him.”

  “You’ll complete your mission first,” the elder replied forcefully. “If you don’t, you have no chance of becoming an elder. Do I make myself clear?”

  Kayah said nothing for a few seconds and then replied. “Then I’d better get to it,” she said with determination and slammed the end call button. Then I’ll help Joey, she thought.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The elder placed the phone back on the cradle and leaned back in his chair in thought. He wondered if he had done the right thing. He was sure Kayah stilled cared about Joey, but the stones were the first priority. She had to get them first. They had to be made to disappear before anyone else found them hidden in the tunnels. The survival of the Cherokee Nation depended on it.

  He thought about their dire situation. The tribe had always believed the remote Nevada ranch was a good place to hide their secrets, but now the elders were no longer confident that they were safe there. The problem for the tribe had to do with the land. Always the land, he thought and shook his head. While the Nevada site was listed as sacred land, it still fell under the jurisdiction of the state and Federal Government. That meant that they could search and seize anything they found on the land legally.

  However, the Oklahoma site was granted to the Cherokee Indians at the turn of the 20th century around 1898. The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma became a sovereign state and has its own government and laws. In today’s world, the Federal Government has no jurisdiction on Cherokee land and as a result could not search or seize anything without the permission of the Cherokee Tribal Council. We should have moved the stones years ago, the elder thou
ght. We could have kept them out of reach. And now the stones were threatening the very existence of the tribe.

  He thought about how the crisis started. A week ago the elder had received a phone call from a Professor Manson from UNLV in Nevada. She asked him what he knew of the stones. She said she had a translation of the writing and it was definitely Phoenician writing. He, of course, had denied any knowledge of the artifacts.

  Then a few days later, he had received a called from a friend at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The man, a Cherokee, said the head of the bureau had been called by the same professor, who posed a question.

  “She wanted to know if there was any precedent for a tribe to lose their land,” the contact had told him.

  “Why would she ask such a thing?” the elder replied in horror.

  “She said she had evidence that the Cherokee tribes were not actually native to America, but had come to America from the Mediterranean thousands of years ago as traders,” the contact continued. At that point the elder was paying full attention.

  “And what did the head of the bureau tell her?” The elder asked with his heart in his throat.

  “He said they would look into the allegation and they have had documented instances where the land had been confiscated back to the government. Several of the incidents involved groups that applied as Cherokee tribes, but were proven otherwise.”

  The next day, Federal agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs began nosing around Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation and asking questions about any ancient documents.

  Through their legal counsel, the elders discovered the true threat. The team of lawyers explained that if the Federal government decided the Cherokees had no more rights than someone who came over on the Mayflower, they would lose their Nation status. The land would be put up for auction. The casinos would be closed and all Cherokees would be reissued with their minority group status removed. They would become just ordinary America citizens and forfeit all their rights as an Indian.

  That was when the elders summed Kayah Lightfoot and gave her the assignment to grab the stones.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  At the same time that Kayah and the elder were hanging up their phones, Bobby Brownwater, Joey’s twin brother, was leaving a dark building not far from downtown Pahrump. He had just finished having some fun.

  He pushed open the large door and stepped into the bright afternoon sunshine. The glare made him squint. He quickly searched for his sunglasses before the relentless sun added to his already pounding headache. He had been drinking since noon. When his eyes finally adjusted once he placed them over his eyes, he noticed four men standing beside his stolen car in the parking lot.

  “And my day was going so well,” he muttered to himself as he tensed and took up a defensive stance near the men. His answer to conflict was to fight.

  “You’re a hard man to keep up with,” Tony Ryder said affably. Tony and the three men with him stood perfectly still with their hands clasped in front of them. They were all dressed in dark suits. They also wore dark sunglasses so Bobby could not see where they were looking. Tony was the only one that smiled.

  “What’d you want?” the now cautious Indian yelled out. He was dressed in jeans and a tank top which he knew were good for fighting. He wore running shoes on his feet. His long hair had been braided by the girl inside the building. He was ready to fight. He scanned the men and didn’t notice the bulge of guns on any of them. Good, he thought. I may have to fight my way out of here.

  “I’ve come to make a deal with you, Bobby,” Tony responded loudly. “It’s about what we talked about when you were in prison.”

  “Then why’d you bring all the muscle?” Bobby knew that Goblin International and Tony Ryder were not nice people. They tended to make things happen by using brute force. They had no finesse.

  “You’re a dangerous man and a hardened criminal,” Tony replied as a reason. He studied his fingernails.

  “How’d you find me?” Bobby croaked as he tightened his fists.

  “Oh, we’ve had you under surveillance since you left the prison two days ago,” the Vice President of Goblin replied confidently. “We have been video recording all your little adventures. We have video of you stealing a car, the two smash and grab robberies in North Vegas, the meeting with your fence to sell the stuff you stole, the drinking in a local bar, and now the visit to the brothel behind you.”

  “Yeah, so what?” Bobby said defiantly and tossed out his chin. “I got a good education in prison. My cellmates taught me how to be a successful criminal. I’m just taking advantage of what I know.”

  “You are aware that all those things are parole violations aren’t you?” Tony talked like he was speaking to a child. “We have everything right here on this disk.” He held the disk up for Bobby to see.

  “And you’ll turn me in if I don’t make a deal with you, right?” Bobby returned. He was suddenly feeling trapped. He needed to get the disk. He had no intentions of returning to prison anytime soon.

  “We’ll also throw in five hundred thousand dollars for your troubles,” Tony said in negotiation.

  “What do I have to do for you, kill my brother?” Bobby knew the Goblin wanted his brother’s land and Joey wouldn’t sell it.

  “No, actually,” Tony replied. “All I want you to do is go to the ranch tonight and speak to your brother about letting us purchase the mineral rights to the land. Tell him we won’t go near the sacred areas and when we are done digging out the minerals, the land will still belong to him — we can be very reasonable people.”

  “Why don’t you do that yourself?” Bobby said with bluster.

  “We are not on speaking terms — you understand,” Tony said while baring his teeth. “He doesn’t seem to realize how wealthy we can make him.”

  “And you’ll make billions if I can convince him,” Bobby responded, but he thought it wouldn’t matter to him because Ryder would turn him in anyway. The money he would obtain from Goblin meant nothing to him if he was back in prison. He also hated the fact that his brother would become rich. He despised his brother.

  “I’ll up the ante to a million,” Tony offered with wide open arms. “What more could someone like you expect out of life?”

  “Give me the disk right now,” Bobby demanded in his prison yard voice. His anger had quickly escalated and violence was never far behind.

  “Not going to happen until after your visit with your brother,” The slick executive calmly replied while shaking his head no.

  Bobby suddenly sprang at Tony in an attempt to grab the disk. He was an experienced street fighter and had often been tested in prison. He expected the three men with Tony to put up a good defense and he probably would take a beating, but his anger had taken control and he felt like he had little to lose by attacking.

  The men seemed unprepared to fight and their reflexes seemed slow. Bobby was able to land a punch on the jaw of the first bodyguard and he went to the ground. Bobby spun like a tailback breaking through the defensive line and pushed the second man out of the way. He fell over the first man. The third man had managed to get his fists up, but Bobby had a full head of steam now and crashed into him at high speed — pushing him up against a car. The bodyguard pummeled Bobby’s stomach, but Bobby knew how to gain the advantage, he went straight for his eyes. The bodyguard turned his head to avoid losing an eye which gave Bobby all the time he needed to plant a knee in his groin.

  Bobby was about to put the man to sleep with a roundhouse when the second bodyguard grabbed him in a bear hug. The man was very strong and trapped Bobby’s arms at his sides. He spun Bobby around and right into an upper-cut punch from the first man who had recovered from Bobby’s initial punch. Bobby felt the world spinning out of control. He knew they would soon beat him into a bloody pulp.

  But Bobby was only stunned for a moment. The punch had not done much damage. He quickly regained his senses. As the first man moved to land another blow, Bobby brought
his legs up and kicked him in the mid-section. He flew back and landed on the tarmac. Bobby then head-butted the man who had him in the bear hug. The man let go to protect his nose as Bobby broke free.

  He leaped at the terrified Tony Ryder. He grabbed him around the neck and quickly produced a knife. He placed the knife across the frightened executive’s throat. The bodyguards froze in place.

  “Now give me the disk,” Bobby threatened as he scanned the other men in case they decided to go for him.

  “Here take it,” Tony screamed and held out the item. Bobby grabbed it and stuck it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  “Now tell your guys to back off while I get out of here,” Bobby ordered as he easily maneuvered Tony near the stolen car door.

  “Let him go,” Tony yelled. “I’ll still pay you to help us with your brother,” Tony continued.

  “Get in and start the car,” he ordered.

  “Will you talk to him?” Tony urged.

  “I want two million dollars to talk to my brother for you — all in cash,” Bobby whispered into Tony’s ear.

  “Done. How do I get you the money?”

  “I’ve your cell phone number,” Bobby replied. “I’ll tell you where to leave the bag of money when I’m done with my brother tonight.” Bobby pushed Tony to the ground, jumped into the car and sped off thinking that he had hit the lottery. He tossed them the finger as he sped away.

  Tony’s men didn’t attempt to go after Bobby. Instead they stood around and watched the getaway car disappear down the straight road. One of the men went and helped Tony Ryder to his feet.

  “I need to get back to the office and change this suit,” Tony complained as he brushed dirt from his expensive suit. He sniffed the material. “It smells like whiskey and Indian sweat now.” But there was a smile on his face. He signaled with his hand and a man came running from behind some cars down the parking lot. He carried a sniper rifle.