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

by Gerald J Kubicki

  “Why are you letting us do this? I’m sure there are loads of agents to choose from,” Joan asked suspiciously.

  “I’ve always believed in payback. She has put you guys in a bad position, this will wipe the slate clean,” Banyon said with a smile.

  “He’s right Darlene,” Joan said thoughtfully. “We might be able to redeem ourselves for our lack of involvement in what was going on at the research center.

  “How could we ever repay you Mr. Banyon?” Darlene burst out.

  “First of all, my first name is Colt. This is Loni and he is Chase,” Banyon offered and pointed to the other people on the porch. “All I ask is that you stop chasing us. I work for the President of the United States and we have to do many things in secret. You have hindered our progress, it has to stop.”

  “We will never chase you again,” Darlene declared. The other members of her squad nodded their heads in agreement.

  “And someday I may need your help on another project,” Banyon added. He handed each of them his card.

  “When can we leave?” Darlene now asked. There was fire in her eyes. She wanted to complete her new mission.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can leave right now,” Banyon said.

  The three male agents untied Bobby and fought with him. They finally placed him in the suburban. He kicked and screamed and shouted obscenities. He claimed they had the wrong man. Eventually Joan put the duct tape back on his mouth.

  “Duct tape is a handy thing,” she said happily and the noise level in the desert once again became silent.

  The five gift agents and Banyon’s group shook hands. Banyon waved as they pulled away for the trip to the Denver facility with Bobby Brownwater kicking and screaming in the back.

  Chapter Ninety-Nine

  Loni stood on the porch while Banyon and Chase went inside to retrieve their emergency travel bags. Banyon came out and said, “Let’s go.”

  He stepped off the porch, but Loni hesitated. She only carried her cell phone, but looked at him for help. “That sand is going to be awful hot on my bare feet,” she whined.

  Banyon handed his bag to Chase and scooped her up into his arms. “Is this better?” he asked as she snuggled against him.

  “Tell me again about how much you like my bathing suit on the way to the jeep,” she requested.

  ***

  They started the jeep and drove away. They then turned around and now sat facing the ranch from a hundred feet away. Banyon was in the driver’s seat, Loni was next to him and Chase sat in the back. He leaned over the center console to get a good view. Steve had put an X on the ground so Banyon would know how far he should park from the ranch. He nosed the jeep slightly ahead of that.

  Banyon reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote control device. It was rigged to the explosives inside both the front and the rear entrances to the tunnels behind the ranch house. Steve had given it to him before he had left that morning. They had rigged it yesterday.

  “Can I do it, Colt?” Loni asked. “I’ve always wanted to blow up a mountain.”

  He handed her the device. “Okay, let’s do a count down,” he said. But he only got to the number five before Loni pressed the button.

  At first nothing seemed to happen. Then they heard a low boom and the ground trembled slightly. Suddenly, smoke and dust blew out the open front door of the ranch. Banyon could see a smoke cloud rising in the distance from the rear entrance. The whole mountain started to shake and soon boulders toppled from the peak. Several landed on the roof of the ranch house. Within seconds it was reduced to rubble. The three people in the jeep watched the destruction in fascinated horror. In just a few minutes the ranch was turned into a pile of old rocks.

  Once the dust began to settle, Banyon turned the jeep towards home.

  “Where’d you put the Vril,” Loni asked.

  “Right in the middle of the tunnel under a ledge,” Banyon replied. “We’ll always know where it is, but no one will be able to get to it without spending a fortune to dig it out,” he said happily. “It won’t cause us any trouble for a while.”

  “What’s Vril?” Chase asked from the back seat. He had already gone home the night before when Previne and the Patel clan had delivered it to the ranch house. Banyon had hid it before he arrived that morning.

  “Oh, just the greatest energy source ever devised,” Banyon said as he watched for Chase’s reaction in the rearview mirror.

  “Okay, you don’t have to tell me,” Chase said. “I know you’re just kidding.”

  Loni and Banyon exchanged glances and smiles.

  Chapter One Hundred

  It was a forty-five minute drive back to the office. Chase immediately started making calls to people at Dewey & Beatem. Loni called a decorator and rescheduled a visit to their house. Banyon drove.

  His phone rang after ten minutes. In Nevada, the driver of the car can’t hold a phone and talk while driving. Loni grabbed the phone and answered the call. She put the caller on speaker phone. It was Mandy.

  “Colt, Heather asked me to call you and tell you that our mission is complete,” she announced.

  “Chase is with us in the car,” he shot back. Chase didn’t realize that Banyon was telling her to watch what she said.

  “We have delivered Lisa to her office and everything is fine,” she returned. “We had a nice visit with her colleagues.”

  “Okay, we’ll see you at our new house,” he said.

  “Are we going to have a party?” Mandy quickly asked. She knew traditionally the Banyon team held a party at the end of a mystery.

  “That’s not a bad idea, Mandy,” he agreed. “Let’s do that. See you there in two hours,” he said and ended the call.

  “But Colt, we don’t have any food or anything to drink there. We don’t have any furniture and only have some patio furniture by the pool. The house isn’t ready for company.” Loni said with alarm.

  “We owe everybody a celebration, Loni,” he said patiently. “You should always treat the people you trust well,” he added philosophically. “The fact that we don’t have much furniture will only make them feel like we really care.”

  “If you say so,” she said with reluctant acceptance.

  “Chase, why don’t you take the rest of today off and come to our house for a party,” Banyon offered.

  “I have my people to think of,” he replied.

  “I’m making an executive decision,” Banyon shot back. “Tell all your people that they are all invited to our house. We’ll start the party in two hours.”

  “Thanks boss. That’s a great idea,” he said and got on the phone with the good news.

  Loni was beside herself with concern. “Colt, how will we handle this,” she exclaimed and flapped her small arms.

  “Get on the phone and find a caterer. Tell him we are having about thirty people at our house in two hours. Tell him to bring everything and we will double their fee,” Banyon replied proudly.

  “You’re so smart,” Loni gushed and accessed her phone.

  ***

  Two hours later, the caterer was almost done setting up. They sent a bartender and three people to serve food and drinks. The truck parked in the driveway was loaded with food. Banyon had changed into a bathing suit. Chase also had a suit in his emergency bag. He was down by the bar getting a drink. Loni still wore her dark-green bikini and hurried around issuing orders to the catering staff. The difference was that she was wearing flip-flops now.

  Banyon’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the caller, but answered. It was Darlene Krenitz.

  “Colt, we have arrested Cindy Creighton. You were right about everything. The facility will have to be reorganized,” she said breathlessly into the phone.

  “Glad to hear everything turned out alright,” he sincerely told her.

  “We have been ordered to pick up some of the doctors as well. You wouldn’t know where we could find a Dr. Hage right now would you?”

  “I’ll call you back in five mi
nutes,” he laughed into the phone.

  Loni was immediately by his side. “More trouble?” she asked.

  “No, actually,” He said with a smile. “I’m now declaring the Phoenician Stones caper closed.” He grabbed her in a hug.

  Just then the doorbell rang and Loni ran to open it. It was the rest of their team. Loni stood in shock as Mandy and Heather paraded through the door. They both wore sexy Indian outfits from the adult amusement store.

  Right behind them the employees from Dewey & Beatem poured through the opening. Four of the women in the group wore the same Indian outfits. Loni, for once stood in stunned silence.

  “Why are they all wearing my outfit?” She blurted out to Banyon.

  He shrugged. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Banyon quoted the writer Charles Caleb Colton.

  Epilogue

  The next day, at about ten o’clock in the morning, Banyon stood at the center isle in their new kitchen. He had already gone to the Dunkin Donut shop up the street and sipped coffee as he worked on a list of accomplishments for the mystery. He always did a list and kept the papers in his desk back in Chicago. Loni stood next to him and was surfing the Internet on her pink laptop. He had brought her a coffee too.

  “Wait until you hear this,” Loni suddenly yelped.

  “What have you found?” he asked as he stopped writing.

  “The headline reads, The Bizarre case of Goblin International,” she said.

  “It’s already in the papers?” Banyon asked.

  “Let me tell you what the article says.”

  “I’m ready.” He knew that it would be all fiction.

  “According to the writer, Goblin has been under investigation for tax evasion for a long time. Last night, investigators went to raid a warehouse where they suspected Goblin records were kept in Barstow, California. It suddenly blew up just before they got there. While there were no causalities, any records inside the warehouse were completely destroyed. A government spokesman said they will continue to investigate the company as there are several unanswered questions regarding the explosion.”

  “I didn’t know the warehouse blew up,” Banyon said with interest. “Is there more in the article?”

  “Wow!” Loni exclaimed. “It says here that FBI agents went to James Ryder’s house to arrest him since he was listed as the Chairman of the Board for Goblin. When they arrived, they discovered he had committed suicide. There is a quote from Ryder’s butler here. ‘I didn’t do it. He shot himself without my help’.”

  “Interesting spin,” Banyon agreed.

  “It also says that over a hundred people employed by Goblin International have gone suspiciously missing. The Federal government sent out Army Rangers last night to help in tracking down the missing employees.”

  “Good one. Nice spin on the truth,” Banyon laughed. “What does it say about Goblin’s business?”

  “It says that Goblin was once a government defense contractor, but had lost their contracts two years ago when the President questioned some of their practices. The President is quoted as saying, ‘I smelled a rat’.”

  “The President didn’t waste any time in covering up the whole mess, did he?” Banyon said cynically. He went back to writing.

  A few minutes later Loni interrupted him again. “Here is a notice from the Pentagon,” she informed him. “It says that Vice Admiral Thomas Leghorn has resigned effective immediately and has retired to parts unknown. ‘I was a shock to all of us,’ the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is quoted.”

  “Actually, it was a shock,” he chuckled. “Anything on what happened to General Pickering?”

  “Nothing yet,” she replied.

  Over the course of the next hour Loni uncovered articles about a farmer finding ancient bones in a hole in the ground in Wisconsin, an article about a dead body found in a D.C. motel room, there was also an article about a seismic tremor recorded outside of Pahrump, Nevada, and an announcement that a professor from UNLV had made a history-shattering discovery. The last article she discovered said that the Indian Affairs Department was being reorganized under new personnel.

  Banyon had finished his list by then:

  Discovered a jar of Vril and hid it.

  Learned the true history of the Cherokee Indians.

  Found out who really discovered America.

  Stopped a corrupt defense contractor.

  Found an ancient map that may lead to Atlantis.

  Helped two people who were in love find themselves.

  Stopped the gift squad from chasing the team.

  Exposed the NSA Denver facility.

  ***

  He went and put the note in his bag along with the torn out pages from Lisa’s Book of Vril. On the way back to the kitchen, his phone rang. When looked at the caller ID. He saw that it was from Mandy from Chicago.

  “Hey, what’s up?” he said happily. Mandy, along with Steve and Heather had flown back to Chicago in the company jet a little after midnight. It had been soon after the party had broken up.

  “Colt, you need to come back to Chicago right away,” she said with a near panicked rush.

  “Why? What’s happened?” He asked with concern.

  “That’s just it. Nothing has happened since you left two day ago. Nobody seems to know what to do with both you and Bart not here,” she said in panic. “Morale is very low. There are bills to pay and assignments that need to be made and…” Banyon cut her off.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he promised reluctantly. He had walked back into the kitchen when he ended the call.

  Loni now stood across the kitchen from him. She had her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. “You promised, Colt,” she whined. “You promised that we would stay here for a few days at least.”

  “I’m sorry, but there is no one else who can sign checks back in the office,” Banyon shrugged.

  “Crap,” Loni yelled. “Now I’m going to have to reschedule the decorator again.”

  ***

  The next morning, Banyon showed up at the office at his regular time, 9:00 a.m. He greeted Mandy in the reception area and headed through the secure door that led to the stairway to his office.

  “The accounting people are camped out at your office again,” she told him as he passed by her area.

  “Oh joy,” he replied and continued on to his office.

  It took him an hour to finish with the bean counters. Heather then waltzed in and helped handle the personal issues that needed to be addressed. She also gave him completed vouchers to sign. He signed vouchers to pay Timmy and the others for their work during the caper. Banyon felt that the paperwork and decision making was overwhelming and overbearing. He was already exhausted and frustrated and it wasn’t even lunch time yet. When she finally left, the next group came in. I’m not sure that I want to do this much longer, he thought. Loni is already upset with me over work.

  ***

  He got to his emails, just before lunch time, but was immediately interrupted by a buzz from Mandy.

  “Chase is on the line,” she said cheerfully.

  “Thanks, I’ll take it,” he replied.

  “Chase, how goes it?” Banyon opened amiably. He noticed Mandy, with her skirt up, vaulting the railing on the deck outside his office. Heather and Steve crowded into the doorway at the end of his office before Mandy made it inside.

  “Well, I’m proud to announce that we have struck a deal with a buyer for the Brownwater land,” Chase said using his Texas accent.

  “Already?” Banyon exclaimed.

  “Yup,” the lawyer replied. “Lyn did a really good job.”

  “What’d the land go for?” Banyon asked.

  “We got six hundred million for the land. The money will be transferred by the end of the week.”

  “That’s incredibly good news, Chase,” Banyon shouted out as he stood up and raised his thumb into the air for everyone to see.

  “Yes, sir, that’s real good money. Our share will b
e eighteen million plus one point two million per year for the trust,” Chase said proudly.

  “Eighteen million — for us?” Banyon repeated. He had not considered how much money was involved in the sale of the land. Everyone in the office started to cheer and congratulate each other.

  “What’s that noise?” Chase asked.

  “There are some people in my office who are celebrating,” Banyon explained with excitement. I love this job, he thought.

  “They’re celebrating here too,” he said. “Say, did you get my email with the cost breakout for my people? They could really use the money.”

  “I’ll take care of it right now,” Banyon promised.

  The rest of the day was a whirlwind of energy charged activity. Everyone was happy and showed it. The President called at three o’clock.

  “I think we have covered all the bases, Colt. Is there anything that I have missed?” The world leader asked.

  “No, sir, I believe you have put the right spin on the case,” Banyon replied.

  “Politics is a dirty business, Colt. You understand why I had to present things the way I did.” Banyon knew that the big man was protecting his administration.

  “Of course, sir,” Banyon agreed.

  “Well, I’ve decided you should be rewarded for helping recover our secret weapons,” the President continued. “You’ll be getting a transfer of two million dollars some time tomorrow.”

  “Thank you sir,” Banyon managed to utter. He didn’t expect to get a finder’s fee for the recovery. Now he had even more money to spread around.

  ***

  It was late afternoon when Banyon finally caught up with the workload. He decided that it was time to go home. He picked up his bag and went to the sliding glass doors to the balcony. He pulled them closed. When he turned around, he was stunned to find Bart sitting in front of his desk.