A Dubious Race: The Phoenician Stones (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 14)

by Gerald J Kubicki

  “The guy in the middle has a remote device,” Loni reported. “They all are donning what looks like protective headsets for their ears.” She watched as they started to run. “They’re coming…” But her scream was drowned out by an intense noise.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The sound from the directional speaker hit the house like a category five hurricane wind-force. The two front windows lasted exactly two seconds and then shattered — spilling glass shards on Joey and Loni. After five seconds, the front door blew open and smashed against the open wall. The sound was so intense that Loni had to drop her rifle to cover her ears. The cotton balls did little to help. She could feel the sound vibrating her bones. She pushed herself up against the thick wall under the window to get some relief from the wind. But she knew she couldn’t stay there. The attackers would be through the door in a few more seconds. Then all would be lost.

  Suddenly, metal objects starting banging into the wall next to her and flying out the open window. Knives, forks, metal coffee mugs and other objects had turned into missiles. Loni felt like she was inside a cement mixer.

  A high velocity wind-like noise was coming in and a magnetic pull was taking things out. A metal lamp crashed into Loni’s back causing her to sprawl on the floor. She wasn’t really hurt, but she lost her rifle. She saw it pinned to the wall below the window. She attempted to pull it from the wall but it wouldn’t budge. She had to use the leverage of her legs to pry it away. The magnetic pull was that strong. Once she had it free, she quickly pointed it out the window and found that the force was not as strong because only the muzzle surface of the rifle faced the machine and not the whole gun.

  As soon as her head popped up over the sill, she was hit with a sound so powerful that her eyes watered and a shooting pain — like a migraine headache — hit her. She became nauseous and wanted to throw up. She summoned up all her strength and took a shot at the device in the desert. The first shot went wide right. She shot again and the second shot went wide left. She now believed that she had only enough strength left to take a third shot. She took careful aim and this one hit the mark. The sound immediately ended. The only sound left was the huffing of the attacking men running at them through the thick sand of the desert.

  She quickly lined up her gun sight on the magnetic device and knew she had hit it because all the flying metal objects in the house suddenly dropped to the ground. As she moved her rifle in search of another target she noticed that the two military type men were down on the ground withering in pain. Good, now there are only four, she thought. She hadn’t even heard Joey take the shots.

  Before she could acquire a new target, a hand from outside the window grabbed the barrel of her rifle and yanked it out the window. Loni was shocked, but instinctively went for the six guns on her hips. She got one half out of the holster when a big man flew through the shattered window. He hit her on both shoulders with his feet and she went airborne landing on her back. She was stunned, but attempted to get to her feet and launch a counter attack. The big man grabbed her by her shirt front and threw her like a rag doll onto a couch. It knocked the wind out of her.

  In her peripheral vision she noticed that another man had come through the other window and was wrestling with Joey. She struggled for breath as the big man lumbered over towards her. She knew she wasn’t going to get away. This is it! Two more men poured through the open door and went after Joey. She could do nothing to stop them. She realized that she had failed to protect Joey Brownwater and would probably die. Will you miss me, Colt?

  “Get the Indian,” the big man roared over his shoulder. “I’ll take care of this one.” He raised his arm and aimed a large gun directly at her head. But the grin on his face suddenly turned to a grimace. He looked down and saw the hilt of a knife protruding from his side.

  It was all the time that Loni needed. She leaped from the couch, sprung into the air and smashed the heel of her foot into his nose. His eyes rolled back in his head. He dropped to the floor — out cold. Joey protected me. I’m the one who is supposed to protect him. I’d better start doing that right now, she thought with renewed determination.

  Loni raced across the room to help Joey. As she passed the open door she felt something grab at her. Then she heard the shot. It was followed by another. She dove for the floor. A third shot rang out and produced splinters from the wood floor near her head. She frantically rolled up against the wall for protection.

  Have I been hit? She wondered. She quickly ran her hands over her body to check for blood. She knew that in the heat of battle, adrenaline sometimes masked pain and she had plenty of adrenaline right now. All she noticed was a hole through her favorite pink hat. Dammit, she thought. This made her very angry. She went on the attack.

  She now heard some commotion and screaming outside and realized the shooting had stopped. She sprang to her feet and ran forward. She kicked out at the back of a knee of one of the attackers. He screamed in pain and went down on the floor. This got him a kick in the face. He was now out of the fight.

  She turned and rabbit punched another one in the kidneys. It seemed to paralyze him. His hands went to protect his vital organs giving Loni an open access to his front. She quickly side kicked him in the groin and when he bent over, she judo chopped him on his neck. He fluttered to the ground.

  The remaining attacker was on top of Joey on the ground and attempting to place plastic handcuffs on him. His back was towards Loni. She ran at him and kicked him right in his ass. He howled in pain and sat straight up. Joey caught him with a cross-cut punch across his face. The man staggered to his feet and appeared dazed.

  Joey was quickly on his feet. “Do you want the honors, or should I put this one down,” he said with vengeance in his voice. There was an evil look on his face.

  “I’ll do it,” she yelled a little too loudly. She began to whirl and leaped into the air. She hit him with both feet and with enough force that he flew through the open window and onto the porch. He was out cold. “That’s for ruining my hat,” Loni sneered.

  Loni was like a wild animal now. Her body was tense, her fists were clinched, and her eyes reflected a need for uncontrollable violence. She stood like Bruce Lee at the end of a kung-fu movie. She finally realized that all the attackers were down. There was no one else to fight. Suddenly, she heard footsteps by the door. She turned to face her new attackers. The new invaders would get no mercy from her.

  “Don’t,” the first man through the door screamed with his hands up. “We’re with Dewey & Beatem. We’ve come to help protect Joey Brownwater.” A second man stepped into the room. They were both in all black armor and carried rifles. They looked lethal.

  Loni stood with her hands on her knees and breathing heavily. The look of a wild feral animal was planted on her face. She was locked in that zone where nothing mattered but survival and mayhem. She wanted to fight and create havoc. She didn’t want it to end. But slowly she began to recognize one of the men. He had helped them on another mystery. She dropped her defenses and quickly felt very weary.

  “Where the hell have you been,” she screamed with the last ounces of energy in her body. She slumped to the floor and sat with her legs crossed in a yoga position.

  “We had to subdue the two shooters outside,” the man replied. “They were shooting at you.”

  “Ah…yeah…thanks,” she said in barely a whisper.

  “We’ll truss up these guys for you. It looks like some of them will need medical attention,” he said. “There are two carloads of armed personnel from the office about ten minutes behind us. One of the women is a certified paramedic. She’ll determine how badly these guys are hurt.”

  “Okay,” it was all Loni could manage in a whisper. Joey had been catatonic but now came to life.

  “Joey Brownwater,” he said and offered his hand.

  “I’m Jim and he is Paul. We don’t use last names on the job,” the man said as they shook hands.

  “What happened here? It looks like a
tornado struck,” Paul asked.

  “Yeah,” Joey smiled. “Her name was Loni.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, the six attackers were handcuffed and lined up in a row on the front porch. Joey had applied bandages and tourniquets where they were needed. Paul and Jim had also ventured out into the desert and collected the damaged high tech devices. Loni decided she needed to interrogate the prisoners. She walked back and forth in front of them brandishing Joey’s knife.

  “Who do you work for?” She calmly asked as she appeared to clean her fingernails with the knife.

  “When will the cops get here?” One man spat back.

  “Why, are you in a hurry to go to jail?”

  “We’ll be out in an hour,” he growled.

  “Maybe we won’t call the police then,” Loni said cheerfully. “It’ll give me more time to make you talk.” She quickly threw the knife and it stuck into a floorboard inches from one man’s groin. She remembered that he was the one that held the remote. She figured that he was the leader.

  “Our people will come for us soon. None of you will be left standing,” the man threatened

  “Well, I hope that they are better fighters then you guys. I need a bigger challenge,” she replied sarcastically.

  Suddenly, Paul yelled out. “Someone’s coming.”

  Loni turned her head and saw two black SUVs speeding through the desert and heading towards them.

  A radio attached to Paul’s armor erupted. “This is Chase. We have the ranch in sight and will be there in two minutes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The two vehicles skidded to a stop near the front door and nine people quickly departed the SUVs. There were four women, all in dresses, and five men in dress suits. They carried an assortment of lethal looking weapons. They looked like an advertisement for a gun company tie in with GQ magazine as they fanned out.

  Loni thought that it looked strange for a woman in a white silk blouse and short mini-skirt to be toting a 50 caliber machine gun. There were also long belts of serious looking bullets hung around her neck. Another woman had to hike up her skirt just to walk in the desert. A tall thin man in a ten gallon Stetson hat and alligator riding boots sashayed towards her. He wore a dark brown suit with a huge belt buckle. A six gun adored his hip.

  “Howdy, Loni,” he remarked in a south Texas drawl and tipped his hat. “Remember me. I’m your lawyer in Las Vegas.”

  “Well, as I live and breathe,” Loni replied with a little twang in her own voice. “Chase Sanborn, good to see you.” She walked over and gave him a hug.

  “Hey, looks like somebody has messed with your hat, babe.” To Chase Sanborn, that was a capital offense.

  “Yeah, I loved my hat. I’ll have to get a new one,” she replied. “I see that you and I have the same taste in guns too.”

  “I’ve had my six-shooter since I was knee high to a chipmunk,” he responded with a smile. He then turned serious. “What do you want us to do? We were just told that it was a code red. That means that we drop everything and come to the rescue.”

  “Well, we have beaten off the bad guys for now. But I think they will be back. We captured six of their men. They are not talking yet.”

  “Have you called the police?” He asked.

  “Not yet,” she said.

  “Good, then don’t. Let me figure out what to do first, okay?” Sanborn was a lawyer at Dewey & Beatem. He always thought of the client first.

  “Okay,” Loni said wearily. “I’m pretty tired anyway,” she admitted.

  “I’ll set up a perimeter, get these guys treated and then we’ll talk,” he offered. “Meanwhile, why don’t you call Colt? He’s worried about you.”

  “The phones have been jammed,” she explained.

  “Not anymore. I was talking to Mandy just few minutes ago. She filled me in about what we are up against.”

  “I’d better find my phone then,” she replied and darted towards the house. Chase turned his back on Loni and began barking orders.

  As Loni went towards the front door, she noticed a young woman in an impossibly short skirt and business jacket crouched down by one of the wounded military men. She realized that she was the paramedic and was attending to his wounds. As Loni went past she noticed that he was not looking at her, but up her skirt. She hauled off and slapped him across the face. “Eyes front soldier,” she screamed. The need for violence filled her body once again, but evaporated just as quickly.

  She continued into the house and found her cell phone buried in a pile of metal objects under the window. She called Colton Banyon.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Banyon and the people in the office continued discussing who actually stole the artifact and why. There seemed to be two mysteries to solve. Timmy had provided complete backgrounds on the two other female professors from UNLV as well as the locations where the email and the voicemail had originated. They couldn’t find a connection, but Banyon wasn’t worried, Wolf was probably getting the answers right now. He knew he had to slip away and find out what Wolf had discovered. He also needed to know what was going on with Loni.

  “I need to go to the bathroom again,” he said in an embarrassing tone. “It’s tough to be old.” But just as he turned to leave the office, his cell phone rang. He quickly looked at the ID and saw it was Loni. “Thank God,” he exclaimed and looked at the ceiling.

  “Hi, Colt,” Loni purred into the phone.

  “Are you okay?” he asked anxiously into the phone.

  “I’m fine, but you’ll need to buy me a new hat,” she said angrily. Banyon knew it wasn’t a joke.

  “Did Chase and the people from the office get there yet? Are you protected?” He quickly asked.

  “Yeah, they showed up,” Loni told him. “Do you think that it is sexy to wear a gun holster while dressed in a short skirt?”

  Banyon now knew Loni was just fine. This was the kind of conversations she often had with him. “Loni, you look sexy in anything,” he replied with a smile on his face. He then gave the thumbs up sign to the other people in the room who were anxiously waiting — they all let out a cheer.

  “What’s that noise?” She quickly asked.

  “We’re discussing the case,” Banyon lied not wanting her to know how worried he was about her. He then filled her in on Goblin International, Inc. and everything else they had learned.

  “How long before you get here?” Loni asked when he was done.

  “We’ll be there in about four hours,” he explained. “Chase and the rest of them will keep you company until then.”

  “I love you Colt.” She said sincerely.

  “I love you too,” he replied. He heard someone call her name in the background.

  “Colt, I’ve got to run,” she said in a hurry. “Chase is calling me.” The phone went dead.

  Banyon immediately redialed — but the call wouldn’t go through.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Banyon was in a decidedly better mood when he ended his call to Loni. He didn’t think much about the fact that his follow up call didn’t go through. He noticed that the other people in the office were much happier now and were busy cleaning up and getting ready to leave for the airport. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was time to depart.

  “Timmy, we are going to head out. I want you to stay by the phone in case we need anything else, but thanks for the information,” he said brightly.

  “I’m always at your disposal, my lord,” Timmy replied and made a bowing gesture like a servant would make to a king.

  Banyon turned to the rest of the people. “Lisa, Steve and Heather will ride with you. I hope that your suitcase is in your car?”

  “It is,” she quickly replied.

  “And I have your emergency bag and Loni’s too,” Mandy interjected and showed him the three small gym bags which included her own. All Dewey & Beatem employees were required to have emergency bags packed and ready to go in the office. They sometimes had to leave in a
hurry just like the people in the Las Vegas office had recently done. “I’m riding with you Colt,” she announced.

  “You’re driving,” he ordered.

  “It’s the least that I can do,” she replied sweetly.

  “Good, then let’s go,” Banyon ordered and pointed to the door.

  “Will we have time on the flight for Lisa to finish her translations of what is written on the stones,” Heather asked Banyon as they passed through the door.

  “There is more history on the stones?” Banyon said in disbelief.

  “Well, yeah,” Steve quickly replied. “Don’t you want to know how the stones ended up in Las Vegas?”

  “That could be of value,” he offered knowing he could get the information another way.

  “And Lisa is going to explain how the Phoenicians adapted to America and never left,” Heather gushed.

  “They are still here?” Banyon questioned.

  “Didn’t you figure it out yet?” Heather asked.

  “I’ve been a little busy,” he replied.

  “The Phoenicians became the Cherokee Indians,” Lisa said over her shoulder.

  Part Three

  The Cherokees

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Loni headed for the door to the outside. She realized that Chase’s call was urgent and not information related. As she jogged towards the opening she took inventory of her body. Nothing felt like it had been broken, but one sleeve of her top was cut open from flying metal objects and half the buttons were ripped off the front of her shirt. Her sports bra was clearly visible. Her white Capri pants were filthy and even had blood stains from her attackers, but the worst part was that she had split the seam of her pants in the crotch while whirling and thrusting her toned legs in battle. She could feel a warm desert breeze on her upper thighs. Then, of course, there was her ruined hat. I hope that Colt is bringing me some clothes, she thought. This is embarrassing.