A Dubious Artifact (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 6)

by Gerald J Kubicki

  “So tell me, what was really in the Mien Kampf book that was so important?” Banyon asked her.

  “Please understand, Colt, I tried to get the book without anyone getting hurt. It was not my orders to have anyone killed,” she said sincerely.

  “That’s not an answer,” he evenly replied.

  “All right, I’ll tell you. There was a hidden message in the book. It was written on twelve additional pages in the middle. It was actually a backup plan for the Effort to make sure that the instructions from the Nazis were understood. In the end, it was never needed as the original plan was implemented. When it surfaced, the Effort leaders were concerned that someone might uncover the secrets and trace the information to the current leaders. They didn’t even know Hal Jones was still alive.”

  “Where is it now?” Banyon asked. “It had a recipe that could cure alcoholism hidden in it. I want the recipe.”

  “Only Heller would know that,” she quickly answered. “I am sorry.”

  Suddenly, the front door blew open, Eric and Steve dragged in an unconscious Asian man. They dumped him on the floor just as he began to stir. “Look what we found,” Eric exclaimed.

  Everyone rushed over and formed a circle around the facedown man. Eric kicked him in the side to get his attention. He rolled over and glared at the people around him.

  “He is a Tong,” Loni said. “See the tattoos,” she pointed them out.

  “We think he’s a lookout. He probably followed us up here last night and has been watching us all morning,” Eric noted.

  “Oh, my God,” Pramilla uttered as her hands covered her face. “He may have passed our location back to the Chinese that attacked Fogel’s house. If that is true, then they are probably on their way here right now. They are after the artifact.”

  Eric quickly turned to Loni, “Do you think you can interrogate him? I don’t think that he speaks English.”

  “I can try,” she said with determination.

  “Take him up to the detention room and strap him into a chair,” Agent Gamble ordered.

  “I’ll need a couple of men with me to impress him,” Loni added.

  As Steve and Eric hefted the Tong to the stairs, the other people milled around nervously. They were not sure of what to do. Banyon saw this and slipped away. He headed outside to find a place to talk to Wolf.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  A few minutes later, Loni entered the detention room dressed, once again, all in black spandex. She wanted to be able to move freely. The spy was seated in a metal straight-back chair in the middle of the room. His arms and legs were secured to the chair with plastic cuffs. Eric, who now sported a 9mm gun in his waistband, and Steve stood before him with stern looks on their faces. The man was frantically looking around the room for some kind of a weapon, but there was nothing else in the room but a metal cot that was screwed to the wall. The only window was small and had metal bars covering the open space. He could see the only way out was the door.

  Loni walked up to him and addressed him in Chinese. “What is your name?” she asked politely.

  He tried to spit at her, but she was too quick and danced out of the way. She stepped closer to him and slapped the man across the face.

  “You can’t do that,” he screamed in Chinese. “Law enforcement people in America can’t hit a prisoner. I know my rights.”

  “Well, you are right there, except, I’m not a law enforcement officer. I can do anything I want with you.” To emphasis this, she quickly whirled on one leg and smashed the heel of her fast moving leg into the side of his face. He grunted and toppled over on the floor. Eric and Steve quickly set him back upright.

  “Now, you monkey,” she shouted in insult. “What is your name?”

  He didn’t respond as he was trying to clear his head. However, Loni knew what to do. She leaped into the air and kicked out with her toe. It slammed into his stomach with such force that his chair moved back three feet.

  “Chuck Cho,” he said, when he was able to speak.

  “Are you a member of the Tong?” Loni once again asked politely.

  “You already know that.”

  “Now we are getting somewhere,” she remarked to the other men in the room cheerfully. She turned back to the spy. “I’m going to ruin your left kidney next. That is, if you don’t give me the answers I ask for. Do you understand?”

  “You’re all going to die,” he blurted.

  “Not by your hand.”

  “Zao Ping is coming for you.” He leered at her. “He is coming especially to kill you, little one.”

  “Never heard of him,” Loni acknowledged with her hands on her hips. She gave no hint of being intimidated.

  “He almost caught you at the house last night — when you were running. He told me over the phone. And he is our best killer. He always succeeds. You are going to die by his hand,” the man sneered.

  “We are not getting much from him, want me to shoot him in the kneecaps,” Eric said as he drew his gun. The man reacted even though he could not see Eric. This told them that he understood English.

  “Tell you what,” Loni said as she switched to English. “I’m going to have you stand in front of me when he gets here. He’ll have to kill you first to get to me.”

  “He said the he wants to use his bare hands on you. He will chock you to death,” the man replied with hatred. The veins in his neck suddenly stood out as he strained against his cuffs. But he answered in English.

  Loni studied him for a minute. She paced back and forth in front of him. “I’ve changed my mind. Next, I’m going to break all your fingers,” she told him. “When I’m done, you’ll never fire a gun again. You will be of no use to the Tong,” she let that sink in. The implication of what the Tong did to people that they had no use for was clear. He would be killed.

  “It is too late to stop him anyway,” the man offered. “You will not be able to set up a defense to stop him.”

  “Why is that?” Loni asked.

  “He is bringing twenty men with machine guns,” the spy laughed like a mad man. “Goodbye, pretty girl.”

  Loni leaned forward and punched him in the Adams apple. He fell over again unable to speak and gasping for breath. “Leave him,” she ordered. “And lock the door. I’ll want to question him some more later.”

  As she exited the room Eric caught up to her. “Well played Loni,” he said with admiration. “You got a lot of information out of him.”

  “Let’s hope we can use it to stop these guys. The Tong is known to fight without mercy. Twenty of them are an entire army.”

  “We’d better get Agent Gamble and tell him to get some reinforcement, just in case,” Eric said seriously.

  “Let’s do that right now.”

  “I have just one question?” Eric suddenly said.

  “What’s that?” Loni flicked her head around to look at him so quickly it caused her hair to struggle to catch up. It flowed like a wave across her face. She quickly parted it and flicked it over her shoulder.

  “Why didn’t you break all his fingers first, before questioning him. That’s what I would have done. At least then he would be out of commission forever.”

  “I understand, but I want to have him sign a confession later.”

  “So, you’re not just a cute face,” Eric said as a complement.

  “Are you flirting with me?”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  The road that runs from Chicago to Janesville, Wisconsin is interstate I-90. The locals call it the Northwest tollway. Today the government was making lots of money from the road as fifty men, who never travel it, headed up it in a continuous stream. There were three groups of Effort vehicles and one group of the Tong. The Tong was in third place.

  Zao Ping heard laughter in the back of the Land Rover and turned to see what was so funny. These men were possibly headed towards their death, yet some were laughing, he thought. Their vehicle was stopped at one of the many toll stations. The Chinese never used the electr
onic I-Pass for fear of being photographed as they blew through, so they got in line to pay at each of the several tolls along the highway. They, however, failed to realize that there were cameras taking their picture at every toll booth, including the lane they were in.

  One of the boys in back pointed towards the side of the road. Zao Ping turned his head and let out a little laugh himself. In the drainage ditch he saw two rough-looking bikers leaning over their choppers and throwing up their guts. Their leather pants had ridden down and they could clearly see the men’s ass cracks.

  “Americans are too soft,” he commented to the men in the car.

  “Someday, we will take them all out,” a young Tong in the back seat swore.

  “Let’s just worry about the nine people we must kill today,” Zao Ping retorted. But secretly, he felt the same way.

  He was, however, a little nervous. He knew a key element to any surprise attack was field intelligence and he was currently lacking some. He had placed two calls to his lookout and the man had not answered. The idiot is probably asleep, he thought. It doesn’t matter, he convinced himself. They were more than halfway to the remote location. Even if the people in the log cabin knew he was coming, reinforcements would be hours away. As he sat in thought, he decided he’d better set up a second backup plan for his escape.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  About three miles behind the Tong, Albert Spitz and his group of Effort people were speeding up the highway. He sat majesty in the front of the lead vehicle with his cane between his legs. He held it like a big gear shift. He was currently on the phone with David Heller.

  “Which toll booth is it?” he asked.

  “Alright, we will add them to our group. See you soon,” he added before he hung up his cellphone.

  The driver, who was also his son and new bodyguard, turned to the old man and asked, “What’s that about?”

  “A couple of Heller’s men got sick at a tollbooth. We need to pick them up and add them to our group,” he replied with disgust in his voice.

  “I don’t trust Heller,” his son suddenly said.

  “Shhh…not so loud, I don’t want the others to hear,” he admonished his son. “I don’t trust him either,” the old man whispered. “When the shooting starts, you and I are going to return to the car, I think that he intends to have someone attempt to kill me.”

  “But what about leading the men?” the son asked.

  “We have thirty men. That should be enough for the job, they won’t miss us. They don’t need me to be there.”

  “And I’ll be on the lookout, and if someone shows, I’ll nail the bastard,” his son pointed his finger like a gun.

  “If he does send someone after me, then you need to find Heller and make sure that he doesn’t return to Chicago alive.”

  “And you’ll inherit his sizable estate,” the man said as he considered his own future. He was an only son.

  “Well, there’s that too.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Banyon hustled out of the log cabin by using the sliding door in the kitchen. He circled the deck until he found the back stairs and leaped to the ground. He then moved under the overhang from the deck. He didn’t want anyone to hear him as he addressed Wolf. This was the most secure place that he could think of.

  “Wolf, we just caught a Chinese spy in the driveway. Why is he here?” Banyon had been so wrapped up with his personal issues that he had not spoken to Wolf since they had captured Dr. Behl and left the Fogel massacre. He silently chided himself and vowed to never do that again — at least while they were on a case.

  “He’s there to watch the log cabin until the Tong arrives,” Wolf replied. “That’s one of the things that I have to tell you.”

  “There is more?”

  “There are two other developments.”

  Damn, Banyon thought. How could I have been so lax? “But tell me about the Tong first? Why are they headed here?”

  “They want the artifact and will kill anyone that they find in the log cabin. You need to prepare to defend yourself.”

  “How did they find us?”

  “Zao Ping, the leader, had you followed last night. He has been very lucky so far,” the spirit told Banyon.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The man that followed you was supposed to pick up Zao Ping last night and was right outside the woodlands. He was the exit plan for Zao Ping. That was his first bit of luck. He told the driver to follow you instead. Then, he almost got caught this morning at the weapons dealer store. Homeland Security missed him by one minute. But he got away and is more than halfway to your location with twenty men armed with new Chinese built AK-47 machine guns. They are all Tong. Colt, they are very dangerous.

  “How long before they get here?”

  “One hour.”

  “Oh, my God,” Banyon muttered to himself. “Wait, didn’t you say that Homeland Security almost caught him? Are they after him?”

  “Well, that leads me to the second development,” Wolf replied. “Homeland Security raided the weapons dealer to get weapons. They didn’t know that Zao Ping was there getting weapons for himself. So, no they are not after him.”

  “Why does Homeland Security need weapons?”

  “It was for the Effort, Colt. The Effort lost many of their weapons last night, so they used Homeland Security to raid the weapons dealer to replace them.”

  “Can you give me the name of the agent in charge? Tom will want to add him to his list of Effort people in Homeland Security.”

  “Of course, he name is Robert Boyd.”

  “So the Effort is after guns? Isn’t there any good news?”

  “The good news is that they haven’t been able to open the gun vault yet. So they are still without machine guns.”

  “What is the bad news then?” Banyon suddenly remembered that Wolf had said that there were several developments.

  “The Effort is also headed to the log cabin to get the artifact and to eliminate Dr. Behl. They will also kill you if they find you there. The men are all hardcore white supremacists drawn from the many Effort cells around Chicago.”

  “How many of them are there?” an incredulous Banyon asked.

  “They have thirty armed men, but without advanced weapons. Some are in front of the Tong and some are behind the Tong on the highway.”

  “Will they be here in an hour also?”

  “Yes, they all have exited the tollway and are currently traversing the old country roads to the log cabin.”

  “So, are you telling me that there are fifty armed men heading here and will be here in an hour?”

  “Yes. But neither the Tong nor the Effort knows about each other. Use that to your advantage,” Wolf urged him.

  “Will some of our people die?”

  “I have no intentions of letting you die, Colt. I need you to complete another task. It’s the third development.”

  “What?” Banyon screamed. This was now a full-fledged nightmare and he needed to inform Agent Gamble about the invasion immediately. He had no time to deal with new developments.

  “I recently discovered that one of the men coming with the Effort is an old original Nazi from Germany. I need you to take him down quickly.”

  “How in God’s name am I going to accomplish that when my friends, and yours I might add, are all in serious jeopardy? I must save them first. You are asking for too much, Wolf.” Banyon exploded in a fit of frustration.

  “I can’t allow him to continue to walk the earth. It’s my mission Colt, remember it is the curse. If I don’t pursue him, I will cease to exist.”

  “Can’t this mission wait?”

  “It’s the only reason I can talk to you. Everything else is only allowed because it connects to my missions.”

  “But didn’t we already find an old Nazi during this mystery? Henry Fogel is now dead. Doesn’t that count?” Banyon reasoned.

  “Everyone we find counts, Colton. But each old Nazi we find has many deaths to answe
r for. Our cause is vengeance, it never stops.”

  “But Wolf, we need to defend ourselves right now or some of us may die. Do you want any of us to die?”

  “I told you, I will protect you, Colton.”

  “But you didn’t say everyone, did you?”

  “Yes, some of you may die,” Wolf replied. Banyon suddenly felt a sharp stab of pain and a shortness of breath.

  “Who?”

  “That will be up to you.”

  “Oh, my God,” Banyon said for the second time. “Are you blackmailing me to go after the old Nazi?”

  “That’s a harsh word.”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “If you refuse, I have other people who can go after Albert Spitz, or should I call him by his real name, Werner Alder.”

  Banyon knew that Werner Alder was a brutal, sadistic guard at Auschwitz during World War II. He had disappeared near the end of the war. Everybody thought he was dead, but Wolf had found him. “What other people?” Banyon quickly asked.

  “I have told you several times, I have others I can call, but you are special to me, Colton,” Wolf pressed him.

  “I’m going to be a little busy today. Can’t I go after him tomorrow?” Banyon pleaded. He felt like he was negotiating with the ghost.

  “If he survives today, tomorrow will be fine,” Wolf reluctantly answered. “In the meantime, I’m going to have someone several bits of information to Loni’s computer to help you. Oh, one more thing, Albert Spitz has detained one of Zao Ping’s men. He is a professor and can translate the formulas on your fake artifact. You know what that means.”

  “Yes, unfortunately I do,” Banyon replied.

  Part Five

  The Big Battle

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Loni and Eric hurriedly bounced down the steps and headed for the corner of the large great room where they knew Agent Gamble, Tom, and Dr. Behl were discussing the Effort. The room was comfortable and bright. The sun shined in the large front window, and she could see that it was a beautiful calm day outside. But to her, it was the eye of the storm.