The Relic Runner Origin Story Box Set

by Ernest Dempsey

  She whirled around and faced the man. Realization stretched across her face. She stared into the eyes of a killer. Her gaze fell to the weapon in his hand.

  "You're not Dak," she said, her voice cracking at the epiphany.

  "No, darlin’. I'm definitely not."

  "Who are you? What do you want?"

  A sickly grin creased his lips. "You'll find out soon enough."

  Eight

  Nazaré

  Will and Dak stepped onto the elevator in the apartment building with their clothes still dripping wet. They'd managed to escape the beach without being noticed by witnesses, utilizing the explosion and the subsequent panic to sneak away.

  First responders arrived on the scene within minutes, sirens blaring from every adjoining street.

  Emergency crews didn't pay attention to the two sopping wet men as they climbed the hill back to Will's building.

  Dak was grateful no one occupied the elevator on their return journey. He had no doubts that the people they'd seen before would recall the two men with the paddle board and the office chair. From there, it would only be a matter of time until those witnesses connected the dots and started feeding information to the authorities.

  Will pressed the button for his apartment's floor. The doors closed two seconds later and the lift started to ascend. For a second, neither of the men spoke; both still breathing hard from the hike up the hill combined with the harrowing experience prior.

  "Thank you," Will said, staring straight ahead at the doors per the social custom in elevators. No one ever seemed to make eye contact in the sacred space. Perhaps it was too intimate.

  "You're welcome," Dak said.

  "Although it's kind of your fault."

  "Kind of?"

  "Okay, it's entirely your fault."

  The lift doors opened and Dak poked his head out through the opening, checking both directions before he stepped onto the floor. Will followed and then took the lead, heading toward his apartment.

  Dak didn't say anything until they were safely back inside the flat.

  The second the door closed behind him, Dak locked it and continued the conversation. "Yes, I know. And I'm sorry. You're right. It's all my fault. I should have never brought you into this."

  "Relax, brother," Will said. He went to the refrigerator and opened it, pulled out two bottles of beer, and set them on the counter. "I'm just messing with you." He used a steel bottle opener next to the fridge to open both bottles, then handed one to his friend. "Although, it was your fault. For the record."

  Dak grinned, shaking his head as he accepted the proffered pilsner. "Yeah, well, I know you would have done the same for me."

  Will took a sip as if contemplating the insinuation. After he swallowed the cool liquid, he shrugged. "Maybe."

  Dak pulled a swig from the bottle. "That was close, though. Too close."

  "Yeah, next time you ask for help with hunting for a psychopath like Bo Taylor, remind me to tell you no thanks."

  "Where's the fun in that?" Dak said and took another sip.

  "Touché."

  "Besides, it's not like your current line of work is some sort of cushy office gig. I'm sure you deal with plenty of crazies."

  "Yeah, but none of them have strapped me to a bomb in my apartment."

  "Yet."

  Will rolled his eyes and took a big gulp from his bottle. He walked by Dak who stood next to the entryway with the bottle in his hand and a satisfied, smug look on his face.

  When he reached the balcony door, he pulled it open and stepped out. Will peered down to the coastline where the chaotic scene still unfurled on the sand. Police had taped off the area to keep out curious gawkers. A bomb squad consisting of four specialists in protective gear inspected different spots along the beach where fragments of the chair and the explosive device sprayed out from the blast site.

  A few hundred feet away, more than a dozen cops interviewed witnesses—some individually, some in groups. Will chuckled at the thought of people telling the police what they'd seen: one guy pulling another guy into the water atop an office chair riding a paddle board. Just before the chair blew up.

  "What's so funny?" Dak asked. He sidled up next to his friend and drew in a deep inhale of the sea air. The events of the day notwithstanding, he could never get enough of that smell. It cleared his mind and his senses, like a soothing aromatherapy. He'd joked in the past about wishing he could bottle that, but it was more than merely a scent. It was a feeling that permeated the soul.

  "Just thinking about those people down there telling their tall tale about two idiots with an office chair and a paddle board, then a huge explosion."

  "It wasn't that huge," Dak countered. He took a long pull from the bottle. He normally wasn't a beer guy, but his frayed nerves needed calming and the inside of his mouth felt like the Mojave Desert.

  "Big enough to kill both of us. Honestly, we're lucky no one else was hurt. If the beach was busier…." His voice trailed off.

  "Yeah, we're fortunate there weren't more people around." Dak's voice took on a pensive tone.

  Seagulls squawked nearby, cutting though the silent breeze with their annoying calls. Tree branches along the sidewalk and next to the building across the street danced in the wind. The moment gave the two men a respite, a much needed breather after such an emotionally, mentally, and physically draining encounter.

  Neither of them said anything for two full minutes, both fully absorbed by their individual thoughts.

  Will broke the silence after his nerves started to settle. It was one of his concerns swimming amid all the others, but now it bobbed to the surface.

  "What's his play here, Dak?" he asked. "Is he testing you or something?"

  "Testing me?" Dak considered it. That didn't make sense, though, and he shrugged it off. "I doubt it. That's not his style. He's not trying to make me jump through hoops to prove I'm a worthy adversary or anything like that. He's bitter." Dak's expression hardened. His jaw set firm and the next sip he took from the bottle was a shallow one. "Bo has an ego the size of Texas. He wants it all, including the loot the others took from that cave in Iraq. And he likes to manipulate people, make them jump through hoops for him. Gives him some kind of feeling of power or authority. He loved being a leader, played it up whenever he could."

  "I know some guys like that, but they're criminals, dudes that run underworld organizations."

  "Bo would be a perfect fit for that. He also has a sadistic side. It comes from a place of misplaced righteous indignation. If I had to guess, I'd say when he was younger he was largely ignored by his parents, disregarded by peers, perpetually overlooked."

  Will cast a sidelong glance at his friend. "You almost sound sad for him, the guy that strapped a bomb to me yesterday and left me here to die—along with a bunch of other innocent people."

  Dak's vacant gaze never wavered. His head only twitched slightly to the side. "No, he knew I could do it. And if I didn't get here in time and figure out a way to diffuse the bomb, all the better. He'd get rid of the lone threat to his safety and the guy who helped me—you were a loose end too."

  "Thanks for reminding me. You're a dangerous guy to be friends with."

  "I suppose so." He was about to add a smart-aleck comment to the back end of his admission when Will's statement blasted through the cloud of thoughts in his head.

  "Nicole," Dak blurted.

  "What?"

  Dak spun on his heels and went for the phone on the computer desk. He dialed the number from memory. After the fourth ring, a voice answered on the other end. "Well, well, well," Bo said. "I see you managed to figure out a way to not die. Again. You're getting pretty good at this, Dak?"

  Dak's jaw clenched to the point he nearly cracked his teeth. A vein pulsed in his neck, rising under the skin. His face flushed red with fury.

  "If you touch her—"

  "I'll do whatever I please, Dak. She's not your girl anymore. Remember? And besides, it's not like you can stop m
e. I'd love to see you try. I really would."

  "You won't fight me straight up," Dak said.

  "Quite the contrary," Bo argued. "I would love the chance to beat you to a pulp, but you're in Portugal and I'm… well, you know where I am."

  "Stay there, Bo," Dak ordered. "I'm on my way."

  Will stood nearby in the open balcony doorway on full alert, trying to take in as much of the conversation as possible. He listened with determined interest, eyes unwavering from his friend.

  "Oh, Dak. I don't think so. I mean, I really would love the chance to fight you man-to-man, but I doubt you'll make it out of the country, or even out of Nazare for that matter."

  A sickening feeling crept into Dak's chest and fell into his gut. "Oh, yeah? Why's that?"

  "Because, unless I miss my guess, I'd say the colonel has a team en route to your location right now. They may already be there."

  Dak's heart raced and his breath quickened. He shifted toward the balcony, sliding past Will who watched closely, mouthing "what" as Dak passed.

  Dak stopped at the railing and looked down both ends of the street. "I'm not worried about the colonel or his men," Dak said, doing his best to sound convincing even as concern mounted.

  To the right, toward the beach, the scene looked the same and the street running by it presented no threat. Then he turned to the left and saw the three black SUVs rolling down the hill toward the building.

  "I wish I could believe you, Dak. I really do. But we both know that's not true. I wonder, are they already there? Are they on their way up the stairs or elevators right now? Dak? You there?"

  Dak twirled his finger at Will, signaling that it was time to leave. Will immediately understood. He lived under the constant threat of having to bug out at a moment's notice.

  He rushed into the bedroom and returned seconds later with a rucksack he kept next to his bed.

  Dak shouldered his gear and made for the door. "Sorry, Bo, I lost you for a second there. Seems like the connection is—"

  He ended the call then broke the phone in half. On his way to the door, he tossed it in the sink and ran water over it to make certain any data could never be recovered.

  Will held the door open for him and the two men left the apartment, hurrying into the hallway.

  Nine

  Istanbul

  Nicole's eyelids peeled open. She immediately regretted waking as her dry eyes felt like they'd been sandblasted. In her mind, she imagined a sound like rusty hinges creaking on a door. Blinking didn't make things any better, not at first. She closed her eyes again and kept them shut for several seconds, counting in her head until she reached ten. It didn't help that the lights in the room were bright.

  Room? What room? She didn't know and had to open her eyes again. As before, opening her eyelids caused a scratching sensation, but this time it wasn't as bad. She blinked again, and it finally began to bring soothing relief.

  Nicole looked like a caged bull as perspiration beaded on her nose. The gag tied around her mouth kept her quiet.

  Then everything crashed into her memory like a tidal wave: the man, the stairwell, the conversation, the confusion.

  She'd thought it was Dak. Did she even dare admit to herself that she initially hoped it was him? Even with all she'd said, the way she'd spoken to him, the angry tone she'd used, the truth was, Nicole wished she could do what Cher suggested in her hit song. If she could turn back time, she would, she would listen more and argue less, be less narcissistic, less bitter at Dak for wanting to serve his country more than her.

  But she couldn't. It was too late to fix anything on her end, and yet she felt as if a good amount of her indignation was justified. He could have made more of an effort too, could have decided not to join the military. She had even offered to support him while he figured out his path.

  She cursed the confusion racking her soul, twisting around her heart like boa constrictors suffocating their prey. One second she loved him, pined for him in ways she never had for anyone else. The next, she hated him, hated that he'd left her to fight a war she didn't understand.

  Nicole felt something wrapped around her waist. Her wrists and ankles, too, felt tightly bound, causing the fingers and toes to tingle with numbness. The sense of smell returned, and she detected the scent of lilac. She recognized it immediately as one of the candles sitting atop the counter in her kitchen. After a few more seconds of blinking, the scratchy feeling on her eyeballs subsided. Her blurred vision made it difficult to see anything familiar, but she doubted the man had taken her anywhere. At least, not yet. And the candle was definitely a giveaway. She doubted he had something like that in his place, wherever that was.

  She struggled to recall what happened after she'd turned around to find it wasn't Dak she'd been talking to in the stairwell, but a stranger with a gun and a menacing face to match. She didn't remember much about what happened next. He’d closed the gap fast. He was on her in seconds, pouncing like a cat that had been stalking her for the last hour, waiting for a slip-up before taking his prey. Her head ached. Deep, throbbing pain pounded the back of her skull and rolled up over the top of her head. Along with the blurry vision, that told Nicole everything she needed to know.

  She'd been drugged.

  Nicole recalled trying to take a step back, but he'd warned her to freeze. Then there was the pinch in her arm as his left hand whipped around and stuck her with the needle.

  "Oh, good. You're awake." The voice shook her from the fog. She turned her head and found the man from the stairwell standing in the kitchen, her kitchen. The rest of the apartment appeared through the haze, her vision clearing by the second. The visual confirmed her initial suspicions.

  Questions floated to the front of her mind, several of them. Nicole couldn't collect her thoughts enough to ask a single one. She wanted to know who he was, what he wanted, why he was here, but none of that came out of her mouth. Even if the gag wasn't choking back the words, her mind still couldn't decide on which question to ask first. Instead, she just sat there, sneering at him.

  "You must be wondering who I am," he went on as he strolled around the kitchen counter and stopped in front of her. He'd placed one of her dining table chairs across from her. She also sat in one, though she was bound to it with extension cords wrapped around her waist and chest. She wasn't sure what the man had used to bind her hands and feet, but it felt like it was probably duct tape.

  "Not much for talking?" the stranger asked. "Oh, right. The gag in your mouth. Well, it's probably for the best. We can't have you screaming for help or getting all hysterical, now can we?"

  She stared into two round icebergs, eyes as crystal blue as she'd ever seen. They would have been beautiful had they not been so full of evil. His eyes were cold, calculating, emotionless—the opposite of Dak’s, though he certainly had the calculating part as well.

  "I am Bo Taylor," the stranger said with an odd sort of pride in his voice, as though he were giving himself some kind of grand introduction to speak at a TED talk. "I used to work with your ex-boyfriend, Dak. He and I had a little disagreement. Maybe you heard about that."

  She didn't respond, merely glowered at him from her chair.

  "At this very moment, Dak and his friend are being pursued by some men who very much want him dead. They will stop at nothing until he is. Or until he kills them. The beauty of all that is, either way, Dak loses. If he is killed, perfect. I let you go and I disappear with my new identity, never to worry about looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. On the other hand, if he kills the men who are after him, he becomes the monster they already believe him to be. More will come for him until, inevitably, he dies."

  Bo shrugged and tossed his head to the side. "You may be wondering why I'm here with you. Let's just call it a little insurance policy. Dak has the tendency to be lucky. If, by the remotest chance, he's able to slip through the fingers of those who are chasing him, I'd prefer to have a bargaining chip."

  "You won't get away with
it," she managed through the gag. Her voice was muted, choked, but her words were clear enough. "Dak will find you. And he will end you."

  Nicole had no idea if she was right. She didn't have a clue what kind of people were trying to corral the man she loved. There it was. An admission. Even in her private thoughts, she knew it to be true. She still loved him with all of her being. Dare she hope he still felt the same, after all the things she'd said to him, all the reckless, bitter darts she'd flung from her mouth?

  She wasn't sure, but at the moment, hope was all she could hold on to.

  Ten

  Nazaré

  Dak heard the problem before the door to the stairwell was completely open. Footfalls, multiple pairs of them, echoed up from below. He stood in the doorway for a moment, listening. No one was barking orders. If the hit squad had radio communications—and he was sure they did—no words were said.

  This team knew the plan and every person in the group operated as a single unit, an extension of command.

  The group did their best to stay silent, but there was no mistaking the sound, not to Dak's well-trained ear. He and Will were out of time. The elevator would be covered. Maybe they could get off on the second floor and find a way out through a window. Dak doubted that notion's plausibility. It didn't matter. He knew the assault team would have the elevators covered, and probably shut down. If they hadn't done that yet, it would come.

  Dak knew he had to make a decision. Will looked at him, silently begging for answers.

  If they went down, they'd have to shoot their way out. Dak didn't like the idea of killing other American soldiers. Maybe they weren't American. The colonel could have brought in bounty hunters from all over the globe to track down Dak and his friend. Even then, Dak loathed the idea of killing people who'd been hired for a job, a job they believed to be just. Some mercenaries didn't operate with a conscience. He'd seen those types before, but without a way to distinguish the bad apples from the good, he preferred to run rather than fight his way out.