Chapter Six
It’s not brass, it’s gold,” Loni told him as soon as they had sat down on the couch. Banyon held the artifact in his hand and now examined it more thoroughly.
“Do you have a nail file?” he asked.
She grabbed the item from his hand and quickly produced a nail file, then proceeded to scratch the bottom with the file. After a few attempts, Banyon could clearly see the unmistakable rich color of gold appear on the bottom.
“You’re telling me that this is all gold? It must be worth a fortune,” he exclaimed. “Where did it come from?”
“The village where it was kept does not exist any longer. The Japanese destroyed it during the war.
“But how do you know this?”
Loni did not answer for some time. Finally she blurted out, “My mother, Xin Chen, had it made,” she whispered with her head down in shame.
“What? What are you telling me?” Banyon demanded. He now experienced a jolt of fear and panic. His body tensed as he absorbed the information. The emotional distance between them was suddenly larger than the Grand Canyon. He felt like he had been duped again. Trust went out the window.
“Colt, you promised to not be upset,” she pleaded with tears once again in her eyes.
“You have known about this all along,” Banyon was stupefied. “So, our relationship is all a sham. You just wanted to find this ‘ashtray’,” Banyon sputtered.
“No, Colt, no.” She shook her head violently causing her long hair to become disheveled. “I didn’t know you had it until you pulled it out of the credenza. I thought it was lost or that someone has kept it hidden all these years. Please believe me,” she wailed and attempted to grab his hand. He pulled back like she was diseased.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Banyon thundered. “Didn’t you think that I would want to know?”
“I was too afraid that you would think the worst of me and leave me,” she replied in a small sad voice. “It is just a coincidence, Colt.”
“This is too big a coincidence to ignore,” he said with a chill in his usually calm voice. Then he yelled. “Who are you Loni Chen? I suddenly feel that I don’t know you at all. What else haven’t you told me?” Banyon ran his fingers through his thin hair. It was a sure sign that he was on the brink of making a decision.
Loni caught the gesture and recognized that all was lost between them. Colton Banyon was a man of principle and above all he expected trust in a person. People he couldn’t trust, he discarded. He was more than questioning the trust that he placed in her now.
“It’s over between us isn’t it? I have failed to meet your expectations of trust. You no longer trust me. I will have to understand, but it hurts so badly Colt. Do you want me to move out?” Loni was crying again and produced several tissues from nowhere to attempt to stem the tidal wave of tears that she produced.
“Maybe you should move out,” Banyon shook with anger as he said it. His words were like a dagger stabbing her in the chest. She gasped from the impact.
“Alright, I’ll go now,” she stoically announced. She started to get up to leave, but he grabbed her small arm.
“Finish telling me everything first. I might change my mind,” Banyon softly said to Loni. “I do love you. I just don’t know that I can trust you.”
Sensing a glimmer of hope, Loni Chen quickly sat down and assumed a demure and submissive position on the couch. She didn’t want to upset Banyon in any way. He was too important to her.
Banyon recognized that this was the first time he had ever seen her be submissive. She was always the stronger, take charge person in their relationship. She had acted submissive on occasion, but this was no act. He decided that he liked it. She had always had power over him. Unexpectedly he now had the upper hand.
“What do you want to know?” She asked between sobs.
“First tell me about the formulas?”
“I honestly don’t know how to read them,” she quickly replied. “But I do know what they are meant to do.”
“Okay,” Banyon said with a twirl of his hand to continue.
“It goes back to the very start of Taoism in China. That would be around 500 B.C. Taoism was the first true religion in China and by 100 B.C. everyone including the Emperors practiced it.”
“I know that, tell me something that I don’t know,” Banyon ordered impatiently.
“Yoga, martial arts, medicine and many energy practices were originally developed by Taoists. It is the practice of healing the body and spirit. Yin and Yang was the major outgrowth for healing.”
“I understand,” replied Banyon.
“In my family’s village, located in the far northwest part of the empire, the teachings of Taoism took on slightly different meanings for Yin and Yang. They developed the two formulas written on the artifact. One produces an elixir that can lengthen the life of a person considerably.”
“How long will a person live that has taken the formula?” a very interested Banyon asked. He knew that many Chinese claimed to live to be over 130 years old.
“My mother was two hundred years old when she died in Hawaii,” Loni said as she searched Banyon’s face for any sign of revulsion. Banyon suddenly wondered if Loni had taken an elixir herself, or was something passed on to her through her mother’s altered genes. It would explain why she looked and acted so young, but he decided to ask the question later as her emotional state was very fragile and he needed more answers.
“And the other formula?” he asked.
“While they were attempting to develop the elixir, they stumbled on an actual formula to produce gold, the real thing. My mother’s village never went hungry; they could always make some gold, if needed. According to legend, at least one Emperor regularly used their formulas.”
“Loni, I actually believe that,” he said as he nodded his head.
“Thank you, master,” she replied as she threw out her chest, happy to please her Banyon.
“Now tell me about your mother, tell me everything,” he warned her.
“My mother, Xin Chen, grew up in the village that controlled the formulas. By the time that she was a teenager, the village elders realized that too many people knew about the formula, it was previously passed on by word of mouth. They decided the formula should be written down and kept secret. In that way, the many invaders that came to the village could not take the formula with them. Those that knew would eventually die and take the secret to the grave with them.
“Makes good sense to me,” he offhandedly replied.
“Anyway, my mother’s family was given the honor of protecting the formulas. One day her father, one of the elders, told her that he was dying and she would need to become the protector of the secret. He also made her drink the elixir. He said that she would be able to protect it for a long time. She was the only young person in the family. When her father died, she was very concerned that she could not always remember the exact formulas, so she had a craftsman make a gold ashtray like artifact which she then inscribed with the formulas. Many people by then smoked tobacco and opium. Her ashtray was always on the table in her home.”
“Your mother was a very clever woman,” Banyon said. Then he threw in, “Like her daughter.”
Loni blushed and wiggled her breasts. She knew that she was making progress with Banyon.
“So how did the artifact leave the village and windup in my hands?”
“You will be angry again,” she promised as she searched his eyes.
“I’ll hold my temper,” he answered.
“Okay, I believe you,” she replied. “When World War II started, the Japanese had already been in China for several years. They had first invaded in the early nineteen-thirties. They were nearing the village. At the same time, the leader of the Nationalist army, Chaing Kai-shek, and also an ally of the Americans, needed money and supplies to continue to fight the dreaded Japanese.”
“The Japanese were brutal during their Manchurian campaign,” Banyon the h
istorian noted.
“Mother decided it was time to trade the formulas for help. She went to the Nationalist leaders’ camp and worked out a trade. The Nationalists would protect her village and they would receive a huge supply of arms from the Americans. The American would get the formulas. Soon she was told to go to Burma and deliver the artifact to some soldiers near a Taoist temple.”
“But how did my father become the keeper of the formulas?” Banyon asked.
Loni once again hesitated. She looked at Banyon with sad eyes. She was sure he would become enraged when she told him. Finally, she let out a sad sigh and continued.
“Your father was one of two men sent to retrieve the artifact. The other was Thomas Cruickskank Senior. It was never intended that your father be the keeper of the artifact. It was supposed to go to someone in Washington D.C.”
“What? He never told any of us about a secret mission.”
“Remember, he was MIA for six days,” she reminded him. “You told me yourself. That was when he was on the secret mission, do you get it now? General Merrill sent them on orders from Washington. My mother told me that.”
“So why didn’t they turn it over to Merrill?”
“I think that Merrill was dead when they got back. No one else knew they were sent on a secret mission or what they had returned with. There was no one to give it to, so I think they just kept it.”
“So he never knew anything about the value or the powers of the artifact?” Banyon was attempting to close the loop.
“Well not quite,” Loni said.
“What else?” he asked with confusion.
“My mother had filled the ashtray with some gems and precious stones. Your father found the stones and thought they were the treasure. It was extra incentive to not turn in the artifact.”
“Hmmm,” Colt said as he recalled. “I do remember that my father had some spoils from the war, but I was too young to realize they were worth anything,” Banyon admitted. “But I think there is more for you to tell me. Loni, tell me the rest,” he suddenly demanded as he looked her straight in the eye.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she quickly said. “My mother was supposed to just deliver the artifact and disappear, but she ran into a Japanese patrol in the jungle. They were right behind her as she reached the pagoda to deliver to artifact.”
“And?” Banyon said.
“Your father and Tom Cruickskank saved her and together they killed many Japanese soldiers.”
“Your mother and my father knew each other?” Banyon’s head was swimming.
“Yes. She also helped save him when he almost died. She told me he was the strongest, most honorable man she had ever met. She told me that if not for the war, she would have stayed with him.”
“How did she save him?” Banyon struggled to understand.
Loni held up her right hand and showed him her green jade ring. “She used this,” she stated.
Banyon knew about the ring. It was a charm that would grant wishes if asked by the person the wearer cared about. It was meant to assist a woman to help her man. Banyon had taken advantage of the powers on many occasions, like when he recently asked her for the nail file. Loni had told him her father had given it to her when she was leaving Hawaii, after her mother died.
“Your mother fell in love with my father,” Banyon said incredulously? “After just a few minutes?” he said in disbelief.
“She said he loved her too.”
***
They both sat there in the very silent house. Loni was quiet and Banyon stared into space. Suddenly he said, “I’m sorry, but I have to do this,” he told her. Her face dropped and she expected the worst, but said nothing in her defense.
“Wolf, is she telling me the truth?”
In the voice that only Banyon could hear, Wolf replied. “I have gone back in history as you requested and observed the conversation with her mother. She was also a beautiful woman you know.”
“What did you learn?” Banyon demanded.
“She is telling you the truth, my boy.”
“But did she seek me out to find the artifact?”
“Colton, when she first met you she didn’t even want to be friends, remember? It was only after you had been honorable and stood up for her that she allowed you in. No, she is exactly who she says she is, your true love.”
Looking at Loni he said, “Yeah, as a reward, she pinched my ass as I recall.” He said this for Loni to hear. He knew that Wolf would not respond to a non-question. But she did and quickly slid over next to him on the couch. He looked at her and smiled.
“So, what do I do now?” he asked Wolf.
“Well, if it was me, I’d kiss her. Then I suggest that you visit with Tom Cruickshank tomorrow. I believe he will have additional information and we may be able to rout out the Nazi in the game.”
“You don’t know who the Nazi is?”
“There is always a Nazi involved,” Wolf replied. “I will continue to do research and determine who he is. But tonight you have some making up to do.”
***
Banyon turned to the woman next to him. She searched his eyes for a hint of what he was going to say. “Well, say something?” she implored him.
“Loni, I think that we just had our first real fight,” Banyon announced.
“I don’t want to ever do that again,” she replied as she shook her head.
“The nice thing about fighting is you get to make up,” he said with a smile.
“Want another pole dance,” she quickly said as she grabbed his hand an attempted to drag him to the bedroom.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Loni and Banyon walked briskly down the street in downtown Chicago. They walked hand in hand and people stared at them — they didn’t care. They entered the offices of Homeland Security at nine o’clock sharp. It took a long time to get past the elaborate security screenings and then they were directed to the office of Thomas Cruickskank. They weren’t allowed to keep their cellphones or any electronic devices including their car keys. They were told that the items would be returned when they left the building. Banyon felt uncomfortable in the big building. He knew that Homeland Security had the power to arrest anyone, at any time, on the suspicion of being a terrorist. Anyone arrested had no rights and sometimes just disappeared. He didn’t want to be one of those people.
He eyed everyone that they passed with paranoia. He wondered if any of them were part of the Effort. The Effort was the modern day ultra-secret society dedicated to taking over America and followed the principles of the Third Reich. The Effort people were modern day Nazis. Because Homeland Security was recently established, only since 9/11, many of the Efforts people were able to secure high ranking positions in the agency. Also because it was so secretive, they had the freedom to often control much of what went on in America. Both Loni and Banyon, had experiences with Homeland Security and the Effort. It happened during several of their mysteries and they had not always come out ahead.
An agent escorted them through the maze of halls and took up a guard position as they entered Thomas Cruickshank’s small office on the tenth floor of the building. Thomas leaped up from behind his desk and came around to shake Banyon’s hand. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet him.
“I thought you were alone,” he quickly remarked. “We will have some sensitive things to talk about.” It was clear that he wanted time alone with Banyon.
“This is Loni Chen,” Banyon stated. “I completely trust her to be part of this, whatever it is.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Loni,” he replied as he shook her hand as well. “Please have a seat.”
“What is this all about?” Banyon quickly asked.
“You will understand shortly,” he replied with a smile.
Banyon and Loni sat down in the wooded chairs that faced him. Thomas quickly reached across the desk and handed him a business card. Banyon looked down and quickly saw writing on the card. It said, “They are watching. Call eig
ht o’clock tonight.”
“You can call me Tom,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Tom looked directly at Banyon. Banyon nodded his head in acknowledgement of the message. Tom then glanced at Loni.
“Loni is here as an assistant,” Banyon told him. “She will not be talking. She knows how to be quiet.” Loni quickly swiveled her head and stared at Banyon. There were questions in her eyes, but Banyon ignored her. She knew this was not normal, so something must be going on. Her first impulse was to say something, but before she could open her mouth, Banyon handed her Tom’s card.
“Can you put this away in your purse? I’ll just lose it,” Banyon said to her. Naturally she glanced at the card and understood.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly.
Tom was all business taking out several folders and organizing his desk and acting like he didn’t hear the conversation.
“Let’s get started,” he said.
“I still don’t know exactly what this is about?” Banyon asked. “We are probably not prepared to discuss whatever your topic for this discussion. So, let us know what it is you expect so that we can come back and help you at a later date,” Banyon said like a lawyer buying for time.
Tom acted like he didn’t hear him. “Actually, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but we will shortly be interviewing everyone in your family. You, your brother and your three sisters,” he offered. He then folded his hands on the desk top and stared at Banyon. Banyon did not react, but suddenly knew that Homeland Security was probably in his house right now searching it. He wondered if they were planting bugs. They must be after the artifact, he thought. He realized they didn’t actually know who had the artifact and would be searching the houses of his family as well. They must know about the formulas, he thought.
“Why are you interviewing all of us? What is the mystery?”
Tom looked at Banyon patiently, but said nothing for some time. He then clasped his hands on his desk top and replied. “The Chinese government has recently made a demand. It is tied to your family and unfortunately mine, as well.”
A Dubious Artifact (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 6) Page 4