A Dubious Terrain (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 4)

by Gerald J Kubicki

  “Then let’s test it. Kane, put your hand into the mixture,” Gerut urged.

  Kane hesitated, “are you sure?”

  “Now,” commanded Gerut.

  The Chemist gingerly stuck his hand up to the sleeve of his smock into the liquid. He waited for several seconds and then withdrew his hand. They all moved closer in anticipation. What they saw was nothing. Kane’s hand had disappeared.

  Gerut was ecstatic, “it works, by god it works.” Gerut raised his arms in triumph and turned in a circle. It was one of the rare times that his men had ever seen him display any emotion. He was acting like a kid.

  “This is unbelievable,” exclaimed Kane. “I have read about these two scientists in the 1960’s that had developed refraction chemistry, but I didn’t believe it was possible. They suddenly disappeared and their work disappeared with them. I never saw anything about their work again. How did you find this formula?”

  “It has been hidden for a long time,” replied an overjoyed, but cautious Gerut.

  The men drew closer and one touched Kane’s hand. It was still there, but could not be seen. Kane reached down and picked up a jar. The jar appeared to be floating in the air.

  “This is too cool,” Kane muttered under his breath. “We could make millions with this formula.” He didn’t notice the side glances that were exchanged between Gerut and his men. He was lost in the moment.

  “So is the formula ready to go?” asked Gerut.

  “Well not quite,” answered Kane as he studied his sleeve.

  “What seems to be the problem?”

  “Look at my hand, do you notice anything wrong?” The scientist held up his hand for them all to look at

  “Your hand is completely invisible,” Gerut said impatiently.

  “You did notice that I also put part of my sleeve into the vat too. Didn’t you?” retorted a very serious Kane.

  “So?” a now very impatient Gerut said.

  “My sleeve is wet, but not invisible,” the scientist responded.

  “What’s your point?” Gerut asked.

  “Don’t you see? The formula only works on the skin. It doesn’t work on any clothing. We need to do some experiments.”

  The implication finally hit Gerut. “You mean anyone that wanted to be invisible would have to go naked?”

  “I’m afraid so,” replied Kane. “There may be some modifications I can make that will effect clothing, but that would take many hours of experiments. I wonder what type of clothing would work best. Would it be wool which is natural, or would a manufactured cloth work better. I’d better start gathering samples….”

  “Stop,” ordered Gerut. “We don’t have time to find the right cloth. We will have to use the mixture as it is and improvise. A good soldier can change plans during the battle.” He turned to his men and asked if any of them had a problem being naked.

  “Well it’s warm here,” one answered. “Not too cold,” he joked.

  Another asked, “If I get an erection will the new growth be visible?”

  The third one said, “There goes my support. It will be slapping my thigh if I have to run.” They all laughed at that one.

  Gerut nodded with satisfaction. His men could handle the change of plans. “So is this batch enough to cover my three men? Will it do the job?”

  “Well from what I recall from what I read back in the 60’s, the invisibility will last for only three hours. That is because the body constantly renews the outer skin and when new skin replaces the old, it will be visible. I’d say this batch will work on your men for about three hours.” He nodded as if he was deep in thought. He then absently mindedly proceeded to a small sink in the lab and turned on the water. He began to wash his hands and the visibility of his hand came back.

  “What are you doing,” roared Gerut as he watched the hand of the scientist reappear before his eyes.

  “What,” said Kane as he continued to wash his hands with soap?

  “The mixture, you fool, you have rinsed it off.”

  “Oh….Oh, my” exclaimed Kane. “I just remembered. The one drawback of the formula I read about was that it washed off with simple water. I just assumed this formula would too. I was correct,” he smiled to no one in particular.

  “God Damn it,” Gerut screamed. “We’re fuck’in screwed.” He slammed his fist into the table. His men all of a sudden looked nervously at each other. No one knew what to say. There was silence in the room. You could almost hear each man evaluating what they had suddenly found out.

  Finally one of the men said, “Hey guys, it’s a fucking desert out there. It never rains in Las Vegas.” They all laughed again, despite the fact that Gerut had turned bright red with anger.

  “Too much is riding on each of you. We can’t screw up,” Gerut exploded.

  “He is right you know. Water is a problem in Las Vegas. As long as they are not diving into a pool, the mixture will work,” Kane reasoned.

  “Well I’m concerned,” Gerut finally offered. “I want each of you to swear you will do your jobs. Do you?”

  Each man swore in unison and Gerut seemed to return to a normal state. The pressure of a high stakes mission was already taking its toll on him and it was only mid-afternoon.

  “We need to sit down and readjust our plan,” Gerut finally croaked.

  “If you won’t need me anymore, I’ll be on my way,” Kane sheepishly uttered. “You just have to turn off the light and slam the door,” he smiled. “We can catch up and discuss the money at a later date. Is that alright?”

  He was halfway to the door when Gerut spoke. There was a deep threat in his voice. “Kane, the formula, if you please, give it back to me now,” Gerut ordered.

  “Oh, yes, of course, how absent of me,” he replied. He slowly reached into the inside pocket of his lab coat a pulled out a gun.

  “Don’t be stupid, Kane. The formula is not worth your life,” Gerut threatened.

  “You didn’t think I would be unprepared, did you Gerut? That would be stupid of me. The scientists that developed the formula had decided it was too dangerous in the wrong hands. They had donated the only copy of the formula to the government to be put in a maximum secret facility and never to be allowed out. I figure you have stolen it for some reason, am I right?”

  “Your gun doesn’t scare any of us, Kane. We are all highly-trained killers. You have no chance against us,” Gerut warned.

  “That may be true,” replied a now patient Kane. “But this facility is highly secure. A live video feed is being sent to another location. It has recorded everything we have said and did. Only I have access to the feed. If something were to happen to me, it would automatically broadcast to the police. I checked it just before your men entered the building. Now I want a copy of the formula before I leave. You can do what you want, but I want the formula.”

  Gerut remained calm and glanced at the man on his right. The man made a slight nod of his head. Gerut turned back to Kane. “I am sorry, but that will be impossible. There is no video feed leaving this building. You see, when you went to the door to let me in, my man here on the right disabled the feed. Isn’t that right?” He once again turned to the man on his right. He shrugged at Kane.

  “I’m tired of this,” Gerut said. He turned towards the table and seemed to dismiss Kane with a wave of his hand.

  Kane now raised his gun to fire, but before he could pull the trigger, three throwing knives implanted into his throat. He hit the floor before he even realized that Gerut had actually created a small diversion with his hand and had given his killers all the time that they needed to pull knives from their sleeves and throw them at Kane.

  Gerut reversed his course and went over to the dying Kane. He bent over him and reached into the inside pocket of the smock and extracted the formula. He looked the near dead man in the eye.

  “Thanks for not getting any blood on my formula,” he announced more for his men than Kane. He then opened his leather folder and inserted the documents. He then tu
rned away from Michael Kane for the last time.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Let’s get our final planning meeting started,” announced a now joyful Gerut as he clapped his hands for attention. “Number two, Get the building plans from your bag and open them on the table over there.”

  The three men didn’t use their personal names. They didn’t even know each other’s names. They went by number one, number two or number three. All this was done for secrecy. When the evening was done, each man would take their cut of the loot and disappear forever. There would be no trace of any of them.

  As soon as the blueprints were spread out on the table, all the men crowded around and the meeting began.

  “The first step will be to enter the building. You will do that during the day. You will all be dressed as maintenance people. Number three you did get the uniforms, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, they are in my bag right here.” He bent down and pulled out the clothes and tossed a pair to each man.

  “Okay,” Gerut continued. “You will all hide in the coat closet located here.” Gerut pointed to the blueprint. “It is too warm for coats so no one will disturb you. The closet is very near the control center and out of view from the guards.”

  “No problem,” replied number two.

  “Once you are hidden you will need to wait until 7:30 P.M. before you make your move, Gerut announced. “Then you will have to undress and cover yourselves with the formula.”

  “How?” Number three asked.

  “Wait,” Gerut declared. “We will need to find some jars to keep the formula in until it is needed. Number one, look around the lab here and get us three jars,” Gerut ordered. Number one immediately took off and started rummaging around the room. In two minutes he returned with three thermos type containers.

  “Will these do? He asked.

  “Excellent,” gestured Gerut. “Now remember to fill each container and give each man one for his bag before we leave.”

  “On it,” the man replied.

  “Once you are invisible attack the control center first. You need to disable the communications network and take out the guards.”

  “How much force should we use? I mean should we eliminate them or just make them unconscious,” number three asked?

  “Use your judgment. They’re just working-class people. No reason to take them out unless they resist,” replied the humanitarian Gerut.

  “Understood,” answered the man.

  “Once the communications center is secure, then you need to take out the rest of the guards. According to the records we were able to obtain through Homeland Security, there are twelve more guards. They are usually located around the building at theses check areas.” Gerut pointed to the locations.

  “This is a big building. It is more than a million square feet. How can we cover the whole building and get back to the rally point in an hour?” number two asked.

  “You only need to secure the area around bay number twenty. There are only eight guards in that area,” Gerut said.

  “We can do that,” offered number three.

  “You must open the bay door by 8:30 P.M. for this plan to work, got it?” Gerut emphasized? “I will be there with the truck.”

  “But, how are we going to open the vault?” asked number two.

  “I have that covered,” answered Gerut. “Just get me near it and we all will be very rich,” he answered with an opened armed gesture.

  “How long will we have to fill the truck?” number two asked.

  “We will grab the gold first. It will be heavy, but we will have a forklift to move it. Then we are going after precious gems. Diamonds will be last things we take as they can be traced. We will have one half hour or until 9:00 P.M. to grab what we can. After that the automated systems will try to contact the control center. When they don’t get an answer, the alarms will go off. We need to be gone by then.”

  “How much do you think that we can get?” asked number three.

  “We should easily get away with one hundred and eighty million. Is that enough? Your share would be twenty million,” Gerut smiled. He looked from man to man, then said, “are we all in?”

  In unison all the men said, “All in.”

  “One last thing,” added Gerut. “Set the charges for this building so that they will go off at precisely 8:15P.M. A chemical factory explosion will take up most of the emergency personal in Vegas. It will also create an excellent diversion.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Colton Banyon finished a long shower, got dressed and now stood in front of the vanity. He had learned long ago that standing in the shower for a long time had always cleared his head and gave him time to put everything in perspective. According to Wolf, Banyon had learned everything he needed to know to find the artifacts, but he still needed to put all the pieces together. He was sure he could find the artifacts, but he also knew he needed some help from the Patel sisters. He was combing his hair when he heard noises coming from the living room. He was sure it was female laughter and was confused. He expected Loni and the Patel sisters to be squared off with fingernails brandished. What he found when he peeked into the living room was four women in bikinis and short robes laughing and being very friendly. He was sure they were plotting something and was perplexed. Loni had never treated the Patel sisters with anything but distain.

  From behind the door he yelled, “We will start our meeting in five minutes. You all should make sure you have your laptops and paper to write on.” He realized he sounded like a boss when he did it, but after all this was a strategy session.

  “He’s ready,” he heard one of them say.

  “Colton Banyon, you get out here right now,” Loni yelled and stamped her foot like a mother would.

  Banyon eased into the room and looked at each woman to determine their mood. Something was up. “Hi, Loni,” he said. “I guess that you met up with the Patel sisters after all. Did you enjoy your time at the pool?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the curse,” Loni said with her hands on her hips. It unnerved the now concerned Colton Banyon. He had never told Loni about the Patel curse. Somehow, it didn’t make sense too. I’m in trouble now, he thought.

  “What curse are you referring to?” he innocently asked.

  “The curse that hangs over these fine oppressed women. Why didn’t you tell me they are only attracted to you because you are a good man? That the curse isn’t about sex. That their grandfather had cursed them until they found a good man and got married. That curse.”

  “I…I,” Banyon stuttered, not knowing what to say as he had allowed himself to be captivated by his own lust when he had been around the Patel sisters. It wasn’t just their fault he had intimate relations with them.

  “We swore him to secrecy,” Previne suddenly threw out. “He couldn’t tell you. We threatened that we would not help you solve mysteries and he is smart enough to know he can’t solve them by himself. Remember Loni we have known him much longer then you have.” Previne had saved his bacon, but she had never threatened me, he thought.

  “Is that true?” Loni questioned in a tone that bordered on sympathy.

  “I have known them longer than I’ve know you. That is true. The curse is also true. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It did not affect our relationship these women are our friends. Do you forgive me?” he asked in his most sincere voice.

  “But you knew I was insanely jealous of them. Why didn’t you just tell me you knew a secret about them?”

  “I am always a man of my word,” Banyon lied sincerely. “I gave my word to them, Loni. I also have told you that I love you.”

  “I think you should forgive him,” Previne sighed as she clasped her hands dramatically. “His logic is so romantic.” Previne’s plan was to keep her friends close, but to keep her enemy closer. She intended to befriend Loni.

  “Can we discuss this later?” Banyon pleaded. “We have a mystery to solve and we are just about out of time.”

&
nbsp; “We’ll talk later,” Loni said as she shot daggers at Banyon.

  “Now go get ready for the meeting.” The Patel sisters scattered to collect their materials for the meeting.

  Loni already had her laptop set up on the coffee table. She stood staring at him and seemed to be considering asking Banyon a question. He was about to ask her what was on her mind, when the doorbell rang.

  He watched as Loni skipped over to the door, her robe blowing in the wind. She threw it open. In walked Special Agent Greg Gamble, he looked as happy as a clam. As always, he was dressed in a full suit, this one was grey. He stood looking at Loni and remembered she had on the exact same bikini the last time he saw her. He was carrying a large brown business bag under his arm.

  “Good to see you again, little lady,” he said amiably. “You look great in that bathing suit.”

  “Yes, you have seen it before.”

  “Have you been at the pool? I heard that there was some kind of contest there earlier. Sorry I missed it, but I had work to do”

  “I know,” she smiled at him. Then she flirted. “I was one of the contestants.”

  “And we were the rest of the contests,” Maya added as she and the two other Patel sisters entered the room from the connecting door. They still had on their swimming suits and short robes and displayed their wares for the agent.

  Gamble took a long look at each of them and then smiled. “I’m truly sorry I missed the contest?”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Banyon now said, “Greg, we are about to get started.” He had hoped that Maya’s attire would make Gamble interested in her. He wasn’t wrong.

  They all moved to the couches and set up their laptops around the coffee table. Maya plopped down next to Gamble and began flirting with him immediately.

  “You don’t need a laptop, Greg. You have me to do things for you,” she sweetly spoke as she looked directly into his eyes.