The Relic Runner Origin Story Box Set

by Ernest Dempsey

  Dak admired the view as the afternoon sun shone brightly on the gray walls. He longed to visit it. A lover of history, both obscure and mainstream, Dak had always wanted to travel the world, visit historical locations such as this one and thousands of others. That dream was another rift between him and Nicole. She always looked to the future, to technology, innovation, the next generation of everything. Dak gazed into the past, studying and learning all he could. Whether it was to admire millennia-old architecture, the history of war, or the evolution of art throughout humanity, he indulged in all of it. Their worlds were too different.

  That microcosm of their relationship only flashed for a second in his memory, and then it was gone.

  "Where are we going?" Dak asked, jerking his eyes away from the castle.

  "You said we need to get to Istanbul."

  "I said I need to get to Istanbul. You need to get somewhere safe and lie low."

  Will peered at him with derision. "Seriously? You think I'm just going to put you on a train or a plane or whatever to Istanbul and hide out here while you go get yourself killed?"

  "I haven't died yet." Dak's matter-of-fact tone was cool, even, and hinted at no fear of death.

  "Fine. You haven't died. Yet. But in case you haven't notice, you brought this little war of yours to my doorstep, too. I'm in, whether you like it or not. And whether I like it or not."

  A white compact car drove by that looked like something Dak had seen at the circus when he was a kid. He couldn't believe two adults could even fit in the thing, though he'd seen at least eight clowns get out of the one at the circus.

  Church bells rang from a bell tower in the distance, signaling the change of the hour. He felt his stomach grumble, and the beer he'd consumed at the apartment had done little for his parched throat.

  Dak sighed. "Fine. What's the plan? The colonel will have people stationed at the airport in Lisbon. If I had to guess, he'll have security cameras tapped at the smaller ones, too."

  "I have a friend in Madrid," Will said. "Well, technically, he's been in Ecuador for a while, but recently he returned to his family estate."

  "Estate?" Dak's response was only half-cynical. "I didn't know you kept such lofty company."

  "Believe it or not, I don't just hang out with the dregs like you."

  Dak snorted. "I don't hang out with dregs."

  "I meant you… you know what? Never mind."

  "I see what you did. You meant I'm one of the dregs. It came out wrong, though."

  Will shook his head and laughed. "You're an idiot." He started walking down the sidewalk toward a restaurant with wooden chairs and tables beneath blue and white umbrellas, all clustered next to the street like so many other places they'd seen throughout Europe.

  "Where are we going?" Dak asked hungrily.

  "I don't know about you, but I'm starving. And I need another drink. Probably some water, too."

  Dak laughed at the joke. "Yeah, same here." He caught up and walked alongside his friend, perhaps one of the few people he trusted in the world at that moment.

  "Your connection in Spain," he said, "what's his deal?"

  A red five-door hatchback sped by, the tailpipe grumbling loudly. When the noisy car had disappeared around the bend in the street, Will answered. "His name is Diego Villa. He was hiding out in Ecuador for a few years. Still has a place there, I think. Real low key. I guess you could say he's a private intel guy. Sells information to the United States and its allies. Heck, you probably ran at least one mission based on—in part—something he discovered."

  "A guy who does that kind of stuff has an estate? And how have I never heard of him?"

  Will stopped at the host stand and greeted a young woman with dark brown hair and a bright smile with a pleasant Portuguese hello, then requested a table for two in the back corner of the patio.

  She scooped up a couple of menus from the sleeve attached to her podium and led the two to a secluded table in the back, far from the street. She set down the menus and informed them the server would be there shortly.

  "You never heard of him," Will finally answered, "because like I said, he keeps a low profile. Lots of people want him dead. Wouldn't be smart to pop up from his hole too often. Lately, though, I hear he's been at the old homestead more frequently. China and Russia have their own issues to deal with right now. Same with some of the other less stable nations in Europe and Asia. As to his estate, it's a family-owned operation. Been there for generations. They have vineyards for wine, and I heard they've dabbled in growing coffee, though I'm not sure if that region is suited for it."

  "Doesn't sound like an intel guy."

  "He's eccentric."

  "Indeed."

  "Not as eccentric as his daughter, though. I hear she was trained by some ultra-elite fighter or martial arts expert or something, and that she hunts art stolen by the Nazis in World War Two for a hobby."

  Dak's right eyebrow climbed up his forehead. "Sounds like a strange hobby. Or a tall tale."

  "I know, right? I've never met her. And I've only met Diego once, several years ago when I was just getting started… you know, after I left the service. Good guy. He'll help us. We just have to get to Madrid. Once we're there, he can get us a flight to Istanbul. Guaranteed."

  Dak considered the information. It all sounded fantastical and outlandish, but if Will thought it was the safest play and the one with the best chance of working, he'd go with it. There was no chance they could risk going into Lisbon. Maybe if they went farther north, they could outrun the colonel's reach. Then what?

  "We get a bite to eat and then we head to the train station here in Leiria. We'll have to dump our weapons, but Diego can get us more."

  "If he's in Madrid, like you say."

  "True. I guess you're just going to have to have a little faith."

  Dak sighed. He'd been putting faith into a lot of endeavors lately. He picked up the menu and scanned the offerings of food and drink. As he pored over the list, he thought; Might as well put my faith in one more.

  Thirteen

  "Wake up," Bo snapped.

  Nicole slowly rolled over until she felt something cold jerk on her wrist. For a minute, she didn't understand what was going on or why she couldn't move her arm. As she blinked away the remains of slumber, her bedroom came into view, as did the handcuff on her wrist.

  The abduction. The hostage situation. Whatever it's called. The thought could have caused panic in most people, especially a woman in this situation. The blond man standing over her had not been abusive, other than to drug her at least once, then cuff her to the bed. She still wore the same clothes as the day before, but there were no signs of the aftereffects of being drugged the previous night.

  She remembered him making threats, a conversation with someone, then the name he'd said with disdain—Dak.

  He'd mentioned a colonel and some men or a team or something along those lines. They were going after Dak and his friend, the man she'd helped him find in Portugal more than a year ago.

  She knew struggling against her bonds would produce nothing but pain in her forearm, so she sat up as gracefully as possible, glancing over at the shackles attached to the wooden bedpost. For a second, she wished she'd gone with a modern headboard from IKEA, one with a flat surface and no posts for binding.

  A smell filled her nostrils and soaked her brain with the need for caffeine. Bo stood over the bed holding two steaming cups of coffee.

  "I hope you don't mind," he said. "I took the liberty of making coffee."

  She inched backward, despite having nowhere to go, retreating like a frightened animal.

  "It's not poisoned," he said, extending the cup toward her. "You want me to take a sip?"

  Nicole hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. She was thirsty and hungry. Her stomach grumbled, as if hearing the thought.

  Her captor put on a warm face. At least that's how she interpreted it. The expression looked uncomfortable on him, like a hungry tiger attempting to
be sympathetic to its prey.

  "You're not the one I'm after," he said. "I am going to kill Dak, but I'll let you live. Probably."

  She didn't like the way he added that last part at the end. She didn't believe him, not entirely. Nicole wasn't stupid. Her career in the tech industry lent no knowledge of hostage situations, but she'd seen enough on television, in books, and in the news on occasion to understand that he would keep her alive as long as she was useful. Once that usefulness was gone, she was expendable.

  "You want the coffee or not?" Bo pressed, interrupting her thoughts. "I'd hate for you to get a caffeine headache."

  "Why do you care?" she hissed, still staring suspiciously at the proffered mug.

  "I don't. But if you start getting cranky with me because you're head's pounding, then I'll have to take more drastic measures. And I don't want to do that."

  She considered it for another twenty seconds, then reluctantly took the cup.

  "There you go," he said cheerfully, then helped himself to a seat in a light blue chair next to a black dresser.

  Nicole looked down at the dark brown liquid. She let the aroma fill her senses.

  "It's okay," Bo said. "It's not poisoned, though if I was in your position I would wonder the same thing."

  What's the difference, she thought. I'll end up dead one way or the other. Poisoning would be bad for a minute or two, then it would be over.

  Resigned to her fate, Nicole took a sip from the mug. It tasted just like she usually made it, maybe even a touch better. She swallowed, then greedily took another sip, and a third, slurping the hot liquid through her lips.

  "See? Not bad, huh?"

  She didn't respond. She was too angry. And her right hand was still cuffed to the bed.

  "What's your plan?" she asked between sips. "Obviously, you're going to use me to lure Dak here."

  "Obviously." He took a sip of his coffee and grinned devilishly.

  "My apartment isn't a big place. No room to maneuver in a fight, unless you're planning to shoot him when he gets here. And if you did that, someone would hear the gunshots." She held back mentioning that Dak's friend Will might come with him for backup. There was no way to know that for sure, but if Dak was smart, that's what would happen.

  "You're correct, for certain. Though the suppressor on my pistol would make certain no one on the street heard anything."

  She'd forgotten the silencer. "Still a lot of people down there who could give a positive ID on you. You'd have to disappear pretty fast."

  "That's also true, which I have covered, but I see where you're going with all of this. I'm not luring Dak here. Right now, if he's still alive and managed to slip through the colonel's ambush, he will probably be on his way out of Portugal, heading here. When he arrives, we will be gone."

  Nicole didn't like the sound of that.

  "Gone? Where are we going?"

  "There's a small town east of here. It's in the mountains. Honestly, it's little more than a sparse village. Out there, no one will be around to interrupt our confrontation."

  "So, a showdown at high noon, then?"

  "Something like that. I will have the advantage, of course. He will ride in like the knight in shining armor to save his lost love. And he will die."

  Several unpleasant thoughts pierced her mind. She wondered how he would do it. Sniper rifle? Explosives?

  "You'll shoot him like a coward? Pick him off when he arrives?"

  Bo shook his head. "No, nothing like that. I don't need to kill him that way. And honestly, Dak deserves better. He deserves a fighting chance."

  "You would fight him straight up?" She sounded dubious.

  "Of course. Dak only bested me on rare occasions when we trained together. On his best day, I would give him a thirty percent chance. But he hasn't been training lately. He's probably rusty. I'd say his odds of beating me now are more like one in twenty. If that."

  Her eyes flamed and nostrils flared. She'd finished half the cup of coffee, but suddenly didn't feel much like the rest. The smell of something cooking in the kitchen—toast, from what she could tell—didn't appeal to her growling stomach.

  "So, when you're done eating and drinking your coffee, we'll head out to the mountains. On the street, if you make a scene or try to get help, I will shoot you. No one will know what happened. With all the noise down there, not a soul will hear the muted sound of my pistol. You will collapse in my arms and I will yell for help, insisting someone has a gun. Chaos will ensue. People will run in a panic. And I will melt into the crowds and make my way to the rendezvous point without you."

  He leveled his gaze at her, piercing her armor with his icy blue eyes. She couldn't find a bluff, try as she might.

  "I would prefer it not go down that way. That's up to you. Live and watch Dak die at my hands, or die on the sidewalk like a street urchin."

  She inhaled sharply through her nose and forced another sip of coffee down her throat. "He won't lose."

  Fourteen

  Madrid

  Dak sat uneasily at the bistro table within the confines of the courtyard. Surrounded on three sides by dark sandstone walls, he felt like a trapped feral animal. He did his best to remain calm, but it was a vain effort.

  Meanwhile, Will sat a few feet away in another chair, sipping on a red wine provided by their host. The vintage apparently came from the estate's vineyard. The bottle lacked a label, further signaling the homemade nature of the drink.

  He appeared to be enjoying himself, leg crossed over one knee, looking around and admiring the scenery.

  It was beautiful here. Dak had been struck by the same thought. The rolling hills of forests stretched out away from the vineyards surrounding the Villa estate. By all counts, Dak should have felt a moment of relief sitting there in the shade, inhaling the dry, warm air.

  But he couldn't relax, not when he knew Nicole was being held captive by his nemesis. He shuddered to think about her condition, how she was being treated. He hoped his read was correct on Bo, that the man wouldn't stoop to other lows. The possibility was always there, though, and it was that sliver of potential that caused Dak's anxiety to run wild.

  He also felt a touch uncomfortable in the confines of the mansion, even though they were seated outside.

  Dak had never been around much money. He'd saved up what he could and stashed it away to keep safe in case of… emergencies. He'd used some of that during his mission of vengeance, but there was still plenty left if needed, and now that he knew where he was going—where the final act would play out—money was the last of his concerns.

  The biggest was how to take down Bo and save Nicole, especially in the confines of her apartment. It wouldn't be that simple. Dak knew as much, but he didn't know Bo's angle, and that needled at him.

  "Hello, gentlemen," a new voice said from behind.

  Dak and Will started, the latter nearly spilling wine on his lap.

  They turned and stood slowly as an older man approached. Dak sized him up within two seconds. The man's thick, black mane looked as if it had been painted with thin strokes of gray. The same was true of the dense mustache over his mouth. The dark eyes witnessed to a life well-lived, full of wisdom, love, joy, but laced with concern. He wasn't short nor tall, but somewhere in-between that gave him a level of comfort as he walked, knowing that he had to look up or down to few.

  "Señor Villa," Will said. "Thank you for meeting us on such short notice."

  "Of course," the old man replied with a genuine smile. He embraced Will and slapped him on the back. "It's been a long time since we've spoken."

  "Yes, sir. It's been a minute."

  "Is that what the kids are saying these days? A minute? I recall it's been more like two or three years since you tried to convince my daughter you were worthy of her attention."

  Will bit his lower lip, bracing for the onslaught he knew was coming.

  "You tried to date his daughter?" Dak asked, temporarily loosed of the bonds that wrapped him in anxiety.
<
br />   "It wasn't like that," Will tried.

  "Oh, so my daughter isn't good enough?" Diego Villa cocked his head an inch to the left and winked at Dak, who was enjoying watching his friend dig himself into a hole.

  "He said she was kind of weird," Dak prodded, essentially dousing the fire with jet fuel.

  "What?" Will's eyes widened. "I did not say she was weird. And besides, she's with someone else now. Right?"

  Diego's face turned to stone as he stared at Will, holding his guest's gaze with an icy grip. "You know what? Come to think of it, she is."

  Will sighed. "That's what I thought. And it wasn't a couple of years ago, Señor. It was like seven years ago."

  For a second, Diego had let down his guard. Then he feigned offense. "You think to correct me in my own home? The place where I gave you sanctuary?"

  Will looked off into the distance at nothing specific, then nodded and dropped his head. "You do this every time. You know that, right? Make me feel guilty?"

  Diego's tight scowl flipped back to the friendly grin again. "Sí. I know. And it makes me laugh every time."

  Will held back for a breath, then started laughing with the older man.

  "Please, my friend. Sit down. Sit down," he repeated, motioning to the chair.

  There were no bodyguards, no security detail scoring Diego around his home. Dak knew there were some in hidden places, but the two he'd seen weren't watching the interior of the property. Their eyes were focused outward, scouring the landscape beyond for a potential threat.

  "You must be Dak Harper," Diego said, extending a hand.

  "Yes, sir." Dak gripped the proffered hand for three seconds, then let go. "Thank you for meeting us. Will says you can help us. I hate to be a bother."

  Diego shook his head vigorously. "No bother at all," he said and put up his hands. He sat down next to Will while Dak took his seat. The morning sun climbed into the clear sky to the east, peeking up over the wall.