The Diamond Dragon (Kip Keene Book 4)

by Erik, Nicholas

Keene shook his head and fished the key from his pocket. It was a perfect fit for the lock. He jerked the handle, but the door refused to budge. Half of the lights flashed green, but the others remained an angry shade of red.

  Without turning around, Keene kicked the lectern with the back of his heel, sending it against the wall. Linus yelped like he’d been stung by a bee.

  “You almost kneecapped me, Keeney.”

  Keene didn’t answer. He stared down the taunting lights, trying to think of why Ben would send him down here, to a safe he couldn’t open. No wonder Carmen had left emptyhanded. Even if she had found the safe, cracking this thing was impossible with the old man was dead.

  Deep in thought, Keene didn’t notice Strike slipping by him.

  He heard the words, though.

  “The Diamond Dragon. 2001. Tillus, Iowa.”

  A loud screeching sound exploded from the safe, causing Keene to wince. The furious red lights strobed across the room, hurting his eyes.

  “Incorrect passphrase recognized. One attempt remaining before incineration protocol is activated.”

  Keene turned to look at Strike. “Really?”

  “Figured it was worth a shot.”

  “Only Ben’s voice can open it,” Keene said.

  “Maybe,” Strike said with a casual shrug. She let the wine bottle slip from her fingers. It hit the ground with a lifeless thud. “But unless you can raise the dead, that’s not much of an option.”

  “Our only lead is gone if we screw up.”

  “It’s gone if we don’t try, too,” Strike said. “Seeing how no one here has x-ray vision.”

  Keene opened his mouth to respond, but stopped when he heard a throat clear. He glanced over his shoulder to throw a disgruntled look towards Linus. The kid wore a sheepish expression, but was trying to stand tall.

  “What?”

  “I, uh, think that we might have a shot.” Linus held up his phone. “It says the LMSOWR 6500 Voice and Key SecuriSafe can be programmed to accept either an exact voiceprint match, or a voice password match. Most people set it to a password, since the voiceprint recognition is kind of spotty. This one guy on this forum had a head cold, and then the safe accidentally torched all his gold bricks—”

  “I got it.” Keene stepped forward, leaning his head inside the small crevice. No mistakes. Last shot. He took a deep breath. Maybe the old man had already given him the other half of the key. He just hadn’t seen it until now. “Open the portal to save the girl. Protect the girl to save the world.”

  For a long second and a half, the room was more silent than an abandoned funeral parlor.

  Then the safe chimed, the lights flashed green, and the door swung open, almost clipping Keene in the face.

  He fell backwards on to the floor.

  “Smooth,” Strike said, stepping over him.

  “Hey, that’s mine.”

  “Check it out, Captain Keene.”

  Keene looked up at Strike, who had a smirk on her lips and a leather book clutched in her right hand. She dropped it on his chest and gave him a sarcastic wink.

  Dust shot out from the pages, tickling Keene’s nose. He coughed and sat up, reaching for the book with eager anticipation. He flipped to the first page, where a familiar couplet was handwritten.

  Open the portal to save the girl.

  Protect the girl to save the world.

  Beneath that, in an uneven and hurried hand, a more impassioned plea came.

  If this message in a bottle is ever received, please come before it is too late for my daughter. The guardians hold the secret in a bank vault box.

  The signature was unreadable, faded by time and ruined by inkblots.

  Keene turned to the next page. A beautiful drawing, of a valley hidden deep between two mountains, stared back at him.

  “What’s it say,” Strike said. “If I knew you’d keep everything to yourself, I would’ve read the damn thing first.”

  “Shambhala,” Keene said. “It’s a drawing of paradise.”

  5 | Strangers in a Strange Town

  “Thought there would be more corn fields,” Strike said. Her forehead was pressed up against the pressure-resistant window of the private jet, eyes looking out at the endlessly green fields.

  “I think the corn’s taken over completely, actually.”

  The journal, besides its detailed drawings of a mythical paradise, had been relatively light on actionable information. Mostly blank pages, although there were a few detailed pictures of some architecture which Linus had recognized as close to Nepalese.

  The last page had contained a brief explanation of how the author claimed to have entered the strange paradise. Either this man had a fantastic imagination, terrible schizophrenia or was telling the truth.

  Which would be the most alarming scenario of all.

  The writer had accidentally found a portal in the fields on the outskirts of a small town named Tillus while playing with his daughter and dog. The Rottweiler had simply disappeared into the ether, and when the man had gone to investigate, his daughter clutched in his arms, they too had been transported to a bizarre land unlike the countryside he had known his entire life.

  Despite his attempts at returning, it had been ten years, by his estimates, since he had disappeared. He had tried to send out many journals and cries for help, but was uncertain they had received any notice at all—or even made it through the portal—since no return contact had ever been received. Nonetheless, something dire was going to happen in paradise during the final days of 2015, according to a local prophecy. He had signed the final page with an illegible signature and a date of January 24, 2001. A small picture of a temple appeared in the bottom corner, captioned beware, as the Diamond Dragon and the end of the prophecy lurk within…

  Naturally, Keene and Strike had immediately contacted the local airfield—where Ben’s private jet sat unused in its owner hanger bay—and scheduled a same-day flight to the middle of rural Iowa.

  The jet’s overhead lights flickered, and the cabin rattled slightly.

  The pilot’s voice came on. “Just some mild turbulence, folks. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Says the guy who probably has a parachute,” Strike said.

  “You don’t like planes, huh?”

  “It isn’t the plane,” Strike said. “Just the whole thing. You get an update from the kid about that weird voicemail?”

  Keene shook his head. He dialed Linus’ number again, but the phone’s rings were interlaced with sharp bursts of static. Then the line went dead. Keene took the phone away from his ear and stared at the blank screen.

  “It died.” A gnawing anxiety rose in his chest. “We’re on our own.”

  The overhead lights snapped off. The plane began to pick up speed, and Keene sensed it was headed downwards with a distinctly steep trajectory. The screaming engines drowned out any other noise.

  Keene saw Strike’s lips moving, but he couldn’t hear her as the plane dove towards the ground, both of them helpless to stop its rapid descent.

  The plane didn’t crash, but it did bounce along the green fields on its belly, screeching to a jarring halt after demolishing half of the crops. Keene was thrown against his seat belt, which held him tight enough to almost cut him in half.

  He heard Strike curse, in between stifled sobs.

  “You all right?”

  “Jesus Christ, this hurts,” Strike said. “Just what I needed.”

  Keene heard a buckle click loose. He saw his partner flop to the floor in a heap. He undid his own restraint, his waist ginger to the touch, and knelt down next to her.

  Strike was sucking in air, her front teeth digging into the bottom of her lip.

  “I’ll check on the pilot,” Keene said. He tried to turn on his phone, but the device refused to power up. No idea about their bearings, other than this field wasn’t quite the destination. Keene made his way towards the cockpit and knocked on the door.

  No answer.

  “Hello?” He
pushed lightly against the plastic and the door swung open, its hinges loosened by the impact.

  The pilot was huddled over the controls, his head slumped against the blinking lights. The instruments were going haywire, dials and gauges spinning out of control. A faint trail of blood trickled from his temple. Keene felt for a pulse, but found nothing.

  They were grounded here, at least for the time being.

  He glanced out the cracked windshield. No sign of fire or smoke. That was a silver lining, at least. Keene made his way through the darkened hallway and returned to the cabin. Strike was propped up against the wall, clutching her stomach.

  “Should’ve done more physical therapy,” she said.

  “Who figured I’d be the one in shape?”

  “Who said you were in shape?”

  “Come here,” Keene said, and placed his arms around her torso. “This is gonna hurt.”

  “What—what the hell—no!”

  Keene felt her short fingernails dig into neck as he flipped her over his shoulder. Not too bad. The squirming made the job a little unwieldy, but all that effort in the gym was already coming in handy. Maybe she could walk in half an hour.

  For now, though, they needed to get off the jet. No smoke didn’t mean something wasn’t catastrophically wrong. The pilot had managed to land the craft belly-up, but planes didn’t just drop out of the sky for no reason.

  “Put me down.”

  Keene gripped her tighter as his only answer. Then he slowly walked towards the exit door, trying to keep things steady. He leaned against the doorframe to prop himself up, then hit the handle.

  Stuck, warped by the landing.

  Keene reared back and unleashed a sharp kick at the door. The lever broke off and the door popped open. A gust of wind rushed into the stale cabin, bringing the scent of dirt and crushed plants inside.

  Keene leaned out to evaluate the drop.

  “You’re not gonna jump, are you?” Strike said.

  “I’ll throw you overboard, you keep complaining.”

  “Just leave me here. I’ll jump by myself.”

  Keene jumped, regretting the decision when Strike’s entire bodyweight seemed to triple on impact. He rolled over, shedding the weight with a long groan.

  “Told you not to jump.”

  “I didn’t think it would be that bad.” Keene twisted his feet, shaking them to ensure they were still attached to his body. “I don’t think I broke anything.”

  “Hooray for you. You’re sitting on me.”

  Keene got to his knees and heard a loud sigh of relief. He looked back, and Strike was in the dirt, an unamused look on her pained face.

  “Between you and the damn seatbelt, I swear, it’s like fate’s trying to kill me.”

  “Life’s hard,” Keene said.

  Keene got up and then dragged her back over his shoulder. The sun broiled overhead. He looked around the field, spying power lines in the distance. The road wasn’t visible—there were still plenty of tall corn stalks obscuring the view—but it seemed like the best place to start.

  The sun was setting by the time they reached the road.

  Keene walked alongside it, not knowing which way pointed towards Tillus. After a couple minutes, a truck came thrumming up the road, headed the same direction. A strangely friendly man rolled down his window and greeted them as the vehicle rolled to a halt.

  “You folks hurt?”

  “Just a little dehydrated,” Keene said. “On our way to Tillus.”

  The man’s eyes registered mild surprise. “Tillus, you say?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. We headed the right way?”

  “I’d say so.” The man rubbed his hearty beard and smiled. “I live there.”

  “You take passengers? I’ll pay you for the trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” The man stepped out and opened the back seat of the cab, beckoning for the two to come closer. “I think you’ll be quite welcome.”

  Keene gave him a sideways glance at the overly generous display, but he was sweating rivers, Strike couldn’t walk much, and this whole slapdash plan had already gone awry. Best to regroup in town, keep a low profile, gather their strength for a few hours.

  “Sounds good,” Keene said, and helped Strike to the front seat. “I’m Keene.” He held out his hand. The man shook it and smiled.

  “Nice to meet you, Keene,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for someone to come to Tillus, and it looks like our prayers been answered.”

  The engine started and the truck travelled down the two-lane country road, one just like any other.

  But the way the man had uttered those words gave Keene pause.

  First chance he got, Keene needed to find out just what the hell this town had been waiting for.

  And whether or not it was hazardous to his health.

  6 | Touchdown

  The two-lane country road turned into a narrow one-lane dirt road about six miles from the town’s limits. The trip had been slow-going, since their new driver refused to go much faster than fifteen miles an hour. Probably because he was spending half his time looking at the back seat, instead of the road.

  Not that they saw any cars. No one came from Tillus, and no one was behind them.

  Keene glanced at the truck bed, which was covered with a large tarp. Little bumps indicated that there was a lot of stuff underneath—but the cargo itself was mysterious. Strike caught his furtive glances.

  “What’s with all the stuff in the back,” she said.

  “The tarp coming up again, ma’am?”

  “Nothing like that. Just wondering. Got a lot of stuff back there, is all.”

  “Supplies for the town. I tell you that our population is 1,462? They do a census every six months,” their driver, a large man named Johnathon told them, “never changes.”

  “Sounds like bad counting,” Strike said.

  “No ma’am, I assure you it’s right on the money.”

  “Where do you live in town?”

  “In the housing district.” Johnathon rolled his window up with the hand crank as rain began to drop inside the truck’s cabin. “Heck of a storm about to come in.”

  “Lucky us,” Strike said. She glanced in the backseat at Keene, who was staring at the empty road. “Maybe that’s got something to do with our plane going down.”

  “Probably,” Johnathon said, “storms mess up all the electronics. Phones and such.”

  “That explains a lot,” Keene said in a faraway tone.

  The pickup truck bounced off a pot hole and continued towards the dim lights on the horizon—the only indication that civilization lurked nearby. Everything else was crops that reached Keene’s forehead, and trees.

  Lots of trees.

  Keene stretched his arms in the back of the cab, trying to get comfortable after a trying flight.

  After they got settled and he checked on Strike, the bank would be the best place to start. The author of the journal had mentioned that there was a secret hidden in a bank vault box. Maybe it was the Diamond Dragon.

  Even if it wasn’t, it was their only lead.

  A sign whipped past the truck. Welcome to Tillus. You’ll never want to leave! Population 1,462.

  “Looks like you were right.” The sign blurred past and disappeared. Strike tapped her finger against the window. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what, ma’am?” Johnathon turned to look where Strike was pointing. “Ah.”

  Seemingly out of nowhere, like an oasis in the desert, a gleaming silver building—futuristic, more Silicon Valley than small town America—stood apart from the soft lights of the town. The strange structure glowed. It was located maybe a quarter mile from the town limits, the distinct gap easily discernible in the clear, smog-less air.

  “You sure you aren’t taking us to Area 51?” Strike said.

  “Hard to get clean water around here, ma’am. Government built us a water treatment plant on their dime a while back, without us even askin’.
But I like your idea more,” Johnathon said. He pulled the truck off to the side of the road, right on the outskirts of town. “This is as far as I’ll take you.”

  “You won’t take us to the bank?” Strike said. “Or a motel?”

  “Afraid not.” The man’s deep voice didn’t waver, but there was a slight quiver in his arms. “You gotta walk in yourself.”

  Keene glanced outside at the whipping sheets of rain. The drizzle had morphed into a miniature typhoon.

  “You sure we don’t owe you anything for the ride?” he said.

  Johnathon’s face darkened. “I gotta tell you a secret, Mr. Keene.” There was a long, awkward pause. “Maybe you should go somewhere else. It’s a bad time, is all, for the town, and you two seem like real nice folks.”

  “Bad time, huh? How you figure that?” Keene said.

  But the large man’s lips buttoned up tight.

  Keene opened the door, the howling wind rushing past his ears as he stepped onto the wet asphalt. No cars came from Tillus, no headlights peeked out on the horizon. He stood in the middle of the muddy road, staring at the picturesque town.

  Strike almost fell palms first into the ground. But she managed to keep upright, slowly dragging herself over to Keene.

  “You can walk?” Keene said. She nodded. “We’ll go slow.”

  The truck’s engine fired, and Keene watched the pickup roar past and haul ass towards Tillus. His eyes traced over its shadowy fumes, then fell on the sparkling metal albatross just outside the town. He kicked at the dirt road. Up ahead it segued into asphalt again, but here it was basically a mud pit.

  “What’s the plan?” Strike said.

  “We’re gonna get you some rest.” Keene said. “And then find out what they’re guarding at that damn bank.”

  7 | The Bank Job

  Keene stepped across the town line, half-expecting to be jolted with a sudden burst of cosmic energy. Much to his relief—and minor disappointment—the step resembled all the others he had taken in his life.

  “That guy freaked you out pretty bad, huh?” Strike said. She zipped up her leather jacket to keep it from flapping in the sharp gusts.