A Dubious Artifact (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 6)

by Gerald J Kubicki

  The car pulled up to the Spitz home and a petite Chinese woman exited the car and walked to the front door. She seemed to be adjusting her clothes as she walked.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  When the doorbell rang again, Albert seemed somewhat relieved. “Ah, that must be Boyd,” he remarked. His son got up and went to the door to let the agent in. When he opened the door he was surprised to find a small Asian women standing there. The front of her blouse was completely open and his eyes went immediately to her small naked breasts. It was the last thing he ever saw. Madame Zho How quietly raised a silenced gun and shot him between the eyes. He slid to the floor and she stepped over the body.

  Hearing a thump, Albert yelled out. “What was that noise?” He was reaching for his own gun when Zho How appeared in the study. She closed the distance to the desk and stood in front of him with the gun aimed at his forehead as she glanced at the bound professor. Albert didn’t notice the naked breasts.

  “You have caused my business very much damage. You are also responsible for the death of many of my men. For this you must die,” she spat out in an accented voice.

  “Let’s make a deal,” Spitz pleaded. “I have plenty of money. I’ll double the price that you are being paid.”

  “Money doesn’t replace my men, my reputation, and the face I have lost because of you,” the woman said as she steadied her gun with both hands. Without saying anything more, she shot him in the head. She placed two additional bullets in the body as it fell to the floor.

  She then turned to the Chinaman and ripped off his gag. “Who are you?” she demanded as she trained the weapon on him.

  “I’m a professor from China. I was brought here to translate some ancient data, but these men captured me,” he quickly said.

  “Are you part of Zao Ping’s team?”

  “Yes, where is he?”

  “He is dead,” killed by these men. Madame Zho How studied the professor for a minute. “You will come with me. You will make a useful trade; that is, if you want to live.”

  “I am very sorry I got involved with Zao Ping. I want to live,” he nervously stated.

  “I am sorry too.” She suddenly produced a knife from her sleeve and leaned in to slice the handcuffs. “Stop staring at me breasts,” she added.

  “I must take my book,” he pointed to the desk where it lay open.

  “We take nothing,” she ordered and started for the door.

  ***

  The team watched the woman and a Chinese man leave the house. They piled into the waiting car and sped off. “Wolf update?” Banyon asked.

  “We are joyful, Albert Spitz is dead. So is his son.”

  “So, our work is done here, right?”

  “There are still two old men left from the inner circle of the Effort. I’ve been studying them and…”

  “Why don’t you give it a rest for a few days,” Banyon interrupted.

  “As you wish.”

  The group was just getting up to leave when several cars came around the corner with lights flashing. As soon as the men rushed into the open front door of the Spitz house, Banyon and his team disappeared into the darkness.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  The following morning, while having breakfast, Banyon announced they had one more task to perform before they could close the case. Everyone looked up from their plates.

  “What’s that?” Eric asked.

  “We are going for a little ride,” he evasively remarked. “So, finish up your food and we will get going.” He clapped his hands to hurry them along.

  Maya was in a much better mood at breakfast. She hardly cried at all. It had been different the night before when they returned from the Spitz residence. As soon as they entered Banyon’s house, she collapsed on the floor in the kitchen, and started sobbing. No one knew what to do for her, but they all decided to stay with her while she wept. Banyon picked Maya off the kitchen floor and brought her to one of the couches in the living room. She clung to him and wouldn’t let go until Eric pulled her on to his lap. They all took turns holding her during the night like she was a stuffed toy — even Loni. They each shared her pain that night. They had lost one of their own. They took turns preparing for sleep, one at a time, and returned to the room. In the end they all stayed with her in the large great room, huddled together for warmth and comfort. She eventually fell asleep and so did everyone else. The bond between them was strong, and was made much stronger that night.

  ***

  It was almost noon by the time that Banyon loaded everyone into his Jag. Eric sat up front with Banyon and the four, slim, women hardly filled up the back seat. He proceeded to downtown Chicago. No one but Banyon knew where they were going. He had asked Loni to bring the artifact.

  “Colt,” Previne said from the back seat. “Can we stay with you until after Greg’s funeral?”

  “Stay as long as you like,” he replied. “Loni and I also intend to go to Tom’s funeral as well.”

  “We’d better find out when they will be,” Loni suddenly said. Suddenly, several cell phones appeared and everyone but Banyon and Maya began talking on the phone.

  “Colt,” Maya then asked. “Would it be okay if I stay with you guys for a little longer? I don’t know what will happen now as the condo belonged to Greg. I may have nowhere to live while I figure out what I’m going to do.”

  “Of course you can,” Loni quickly said as she put her hand over the phone. “It’s the least we can do.” Under her breath, Loni muttered to herself. I hope that this doesn’t lead to problems for me.

  ***

  Banyon reached downtown Chicago and proceeded to a parking lot in the loop, near Michigan Avenue. They took a short walk to 1 N. Wabash Ave. It was in the heart of the diamond center of Chicago. Entering the building, Banyon steered them to The Classic Gem store. There were big signs and many balloons around the front. The signs said grand opening. A man with a video camera came running over to Banyon. They shook hands.

  “Everybody, this is Alex Rusin. He is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He’s going to film our visit to this store. He will put an article in tomorrow’s Tribune.”

  “Why?” Previne quickly asked.

  “You’ll see in a minute,” Banyon confidently replied and walked up to the counter. “Hi, sweetie,” he said to the beautiful, petite, Cambodian woman behind the counter. She quickly ran around the counter and gave Banyon a big hug. While she was doing that a tall good-looking blond man emerged from the back of the store. Loni suddenly understood everything. The man was Colt’s middle son.

  “Dad, you came to our grand opening,” she exclaimed with much enthusiasm. Her name was Lollie Nuth Banyon. She was recently married to Banyon’s son and was the owner of the jewelry store.

  “These are my close friends,” Banyon gestured to the group with him. “You know Loni, of course.” The young woman was Loni’s height and when they hugged, they looked like two bookends. Lollie then greeted the rest of Banyon’s friends.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” Lollie gushed.

  “We are actually here on business,” Banyon stated.

  “Buying some diamonds for your friends?” Lollie inquired hopefully.

  “No, we are going to buy six, make that eight gold necklaces,” he told her.

  “Really,” her eyes lit up.

  “Yes, and we have brought our own gold. I want to melt it down while we are here today,” Banyon said.

  “That’s going to take a lot of gold,” she said with some disappointment.

  “Don’t worry, whatever is left over, you can keep.”

  “Well, let’s see how much you have?” the business woman in her asked.

  “Show her the item,” Banyon nodded to Loni. She pulled the artifact from her cloth bag; tape had been placed over the formulas. Alex Rusin recorded the hand over. Lollie hefted the artifact and exclaimed, “This is heavy.”

  She put the artifact on a digital scale and immediately started working with
a calculator. Soon a smile crossed her face. “Are you sure you want to give us the extra?”

  “Make a small heart for one of the chains,” he said.

  “It will take us two days to make the necklaces,” she offered.

  “That’s fine,” Banyon commented. “We have a funeral to go to in three days. They need to be done by then.”

  “We’ll bring them to your house tomorrow night. Follow me to the smelter, it’s in the back,” she motioned to everyone.

  Banyon’s son had already turned up the machine. He laid the artifact in the pot at the top. The reporter made sure that he recorded the process. They all stood and watched as the fake artifact melted into pure gold.

  Epilogue

  After the artifact was completely melted down, Banyon and his team proceeded to the FBI building and turned themselves in. Maya, who was a contract employee of the FBI, was escorted away and questioned separately, but the rest of the group was put in a conference room. The questioning lasted late into the night. Some questions were tricky.

  “How did Dr. Behl escape?” an agent asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Banyon replied sincerely. “One minute she was with us, by the boat slip, and the next minute she was gone. We were all panicked and watching out for ourselves. No one paid any attention to her. We are just amateurs at fighting.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the designated rescue area? The Albany police were waiting for you.”

  “Considering people knew about the safe house, we thought, maybe they also knew about the rescue area too. We were afraid for our lives, it was like a war zone there and no plan stands up once the firing starts.” Banyon defended their actions.

  “We found a dead unarmed Chinese man in the kitchen. He had been beaten to death. The agent now faces criminal charges. What light can you shed on this?”

  Eric answered this question. “Joe is a hero. He should be decorated not prosecuted. I was there, I saw it. The Chinese man had an AK-47 rifle and was about to shoot me. Joe disarmed him even though he had broken ribs and was bleeding. The Chinaman then produced a knife and Joe once again disarmed him. Finally, the idiot attacked Joe with his bare hands. He kept coming even though Joe was able to knock him down several times. He was no unarmed innocent.”

  “But Joe is a trained killer,” the agent said off hand.

  “The Chinese man said that he was the best killer that China had to offer,” Eric replied indignantly.

  The questions were repeated many times. It came from different angles and from different people, but the team handled them well. Eventually, they were let go and found Maya waiting patiently in the lobby.

  She explained what was going on. “The FBI needs to have complete records of everything,” she told them. “Too many politicians are always on a witch hunt. That’s why they asked so many questions.”

  “Our government at work,” growled Banyon.

  “Sometimes it is hard on individuals,” Maya agreed.

  As they walked to Banyon’s car, he asked Maya if they asked her the same questions that they had to answer.

  “They didn’t ask me many questions. Mostly they talked about Greg. It was very sad for me. They did say they had recovered the RPG launcher that killed him. It had been stolen from one of the local armories several weeks ago. They had suspected White Supremacists and a search of the Spitz house turned up a third RPG.”

  “I’m not surprised about that,” Loni said.

  But Maya wasn’t done talking. Sheepishly she announced, “They also asked me to continue to work for them.”

  “Doing what?” Previne exclaimed.

  “They didn’t really say. Just that someone would contact me soon.”

  “Do you still want to work for the FBI?” Pramilla asked her.

  “I don’t know. I just want to go home right now.”

  They all packed into the Jaguar and returned to Banyon’s home. It was well after midnight.

  ***

  The next morning Banyon slept in until nine o’clock. He showered and dressed. When he made his way into the kitchen for some coffee, he found only Loni pounding away on her pink computer.

  “Where is everybody?” Banyon asked with his arms open.

  “They went shopping for some clothes for the funerals tomorrow,” she absently told him without looking up.

  “And you didn’t go?” Banyon was shocked. Loni never missed an opportunity to go shopping for as long as he had known her.

  “I have a dress to wear,” she said sadly. “Besides, I wanted to see what the media had to say about yesterday.”

  ***

  As he always did after the team finished a mystery, Banyon decided to write a recap. He kept them in his desk draw and often reviewed them to understand where they have been. This time he did it with a heavy heart. He wrote:

  Discovered my father’s ashtray was a valuable artifact.

  Protected the artifact.

  Helped bring down two major Nazis.

  Saved a defector from the Effort.

  Hurt the Effort.

  Broke up a Chinese spy ring.

  Learned more about Wolfs’ abilities.

  Made a new friend, but lost him.

  Lost a team member.

  Finished with his recap, he went over to Loni. “Okay, what have you found?” Banyon asked as he pulled up a chair by the counter and stroked her hair. He though he heard her purr.

  “First, I have an article in the Tribune by Alex Rusin. It’s more of an advertisement for Lollie’s store, but it clearly shows a picture of the melting artifact. The caption says, “Old gold makes new jewelry”.

  “I expect that anyone interested in the artifact will now give up chasing it. At least, I hope that they will.” he told her.

  “I’m guessing you were killing two birds with one stone again, right?” She looked at him with admiration. “You also gave your daughter-in-law some free press.”

  “You know me to well,” he replied proudly.

  “Next, we have another article from the Tribune. It talks about a murder in Chinatown. The woman, Zho How, had just been indicted on several counts of weapon trafficking two days ago. She was shot execution style as she stood at the counter of her small store. The picture looks like the woman we saw at Spitz house, doesn’t it?” She showed him the picture that was posted on the internet.

  “The Tong rarely leaves loss ends. I wonder if she knew that she would be killed too,” he remarked as he sipped his coffee.

  “Then there is an announcement from the FBI. They claim to have captured a Chinese spy attempting to board a plane for Shanghai. His fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene of a double homicide in South Barrington of the prominent Spitz family. They credit fast work by Homeland Security agent Robert Boyd for the capture. Robert Boyd was also the agent that raided Zho How’s weapons warehouse.”

  “He was in one of the cars we saw pull up at the house. Tom believed that he was an Effort member. He probably knew the Chinaman was in the house and when he found Spitz dead and the Chinaman gone, he assumed he did the killing and got his data into the TSA system quickly before the professor left the country.”

  “It says here that as a spy, he has no rights and will probably never see the light of day again,” Loni added.

  “At least until the government needs to trade for one of our spies.” Banyon cynically remarked. “Is there anything about the gun battle?” Banyon asked.

  “Yeah, there is, but, most of it seems made up.” Loni remarked.

  “Doesn’t surprise me, what does the article say?”

  “The headline reads, ‘Battle for Supremacy in the Woods’,” she quoted. The story line is that some White Supremacists and some Chinese immigrants had a gun battle in the woods of Western Wisconsin. They quote unnamed sources, who said the White Supremacists where holding a rally when the Chinese arrived with guns blazing. They are putting the body count at somewhere around fifty men. There is no mention of a FBI safe house, or that some gove
rnment people died.”

  “The government usually doesn’t announce when one or more of their covet operatives dies on the job,” Banyon informed her.

  “In, addition, there are two announcements from Homeland Security today,” Loni pointed to the screen.

  “I can’t wait to hear these?” Banyon remarked.

  The first says that Dr. Barbara Behl has resigned effective immediately due to personal reasons. Her entire department is being disbanded. It says she was in charge of protecting America’s artifacts.” Loni laughed at that one. “I hope she does better in her new life on a farm.”

  “Somehow, I think that she will,” Banyon said seriously.

  “The second article is about David Heller,” Loni told him. “According to the Homeland Security official report, he died in a one car accident in Wisconsin. An unnamed official said that he was despondent over the death of his mentor, Henry Fogel. He is listed as an assistant director of management operations, whatever that is.”

  “Ah, yellow journalism at its best,” Banyon commented.

  “What’s yellow journalism?”

  “It started in the late eighteen hundreds in New York City,” Banyon told her. “Primarily it was used to gain circulation of newspapers by sensualizing and even embellishing any news story. Men like Randolph Hearst were known to be hyperbolic in their reporting. When the Spanish-American War broke out, around 1895, the newspapers made the conflict sound like a huge problem, when, in fact, it was much less than that. It however, influenced the then President to enter the war. Today it is common in almost every news media.”

  “So, they just made this up?” Loni was incredulous.

  “I’m sure the government put a lid on any information about the gun battle, so the reporter wrote whatever he wanted. He’ll probably win a prize for it.”

  “Well, we did get rid of three Nazis, Fogel, Heller, and Spitz and caused a lot of damage to their organization,” Loni pointed out.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Banyon said as he drank from his coffee mug.