A Dubious Curse (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 8) Read online

  “They are Mongolian, sir, but Russian is a common language for all the people. There are many Mongolian languages, but most people there understand Russian.”

  “I’ll make sure a Russian translator is included.”

  “Okay, what time do you think we will get started?”

  “We will be in the Situation Room at midnight your time, so be there,” the President ordered.

  “I’ll be there,” Banyon assured him as the phone went dead.

  As Banyon left the pilothouse and headed back to the upper deck, Lisa blocked his path. “Colt, I want to thank you in advance for all your help. I may not get a chance later,” she said.

  “Well, if the plan works, you’re welcome,” he replied with a smile.

  “I’ve grown to like all of you. Will I ever see you guys again?”

  “I’ll attend one of your lectures,” he replied. He decided to tell her about how her great-grandmother had helped, but their conversation was interrupted by someone yelling before he could fill her in.

  “Dinner’s ready!” Previne called out.

  inner was served in two shifts of seven people. When the first group finished, the second group sat down. Previne and Pramilla had whipped up several entrees and a huge salad from the food stocked in the two refrigerators. It was all served family-style. Banyon and Loni ate in the first group, and, when they had eaten their fill, they went back up to the upper deck. Skye and Kim were already there and seemed to be enjoying each other.

  “Skye is very bright,” Kim said to Banyon and Loni as they sat down near them. “I think she is more relaxed now.”

  “She seems a whole lot different than she seemed when we captured her from under a rock this morning,” Loni agreed.

  “I have been teaching her English. She can already say several sentences. Want to hear?” he eagerly inquired. When Banyon and Loni nodded ‘yes’, he quickly spoke to her in her native tongue.

  Her voice was like sweet sugar. It had a musical rhythm to it. “My name is Skye, what is your name?” Kim beamed like a proud father.

  “She catches on fast,” Loni said, rolling her arms to ask for more sentences.

  Skye’s next sentence made him blush. “I love Kim,” she said as she pointed to him with a broad smile on her face.

  “Does she know what she just said?” Loni covered her mouth as she laughed. Banyon just smiled. Skye suddenly had a look of great concern on her face, as though she had made a huge mistake.

  “I…kind of substituted love for like,” Kim admitted. He was clearly embarrassed, but it told Banyon he was taken with her.

  “It’s okay, we won’t tell anyone,” Banyon quickly assured him.

  “I think it is adorable,” Loni said. “You clearly care for her.”

  “Yes, I do. In fact, I have already started the paperwork to allow her political asylum in America. I will also submit paperwork for her five friends. They can never go back to Mongolia, you know.”

  “But… where will they stay?” Loni asked before Banyon could stop her. He had enough people to watch over. He hoped Skye wouldn’t be living with them shortly.

  “They will stay with me until things are settled,” Kim replied. “I’ve also talked to Bart, and he says we could use additional programmers. They would all work for Timmy.” Banyon had an image of Timmy, the voyeur, surrounded by six young, blue Asian women.

  “I hope Timmy can speak Russian,” Banyon mused.

  t was about ten minutes to midnight when Timmy called and told Bart he would patch them through to the Situation Room in five minutes. The geek needed to be at the office to accomplish this, but Banyon didn’t feel sorry for him, because he knew he would be paid, and Bart would charge Banyon for his time, plus a little extra.

  Banyon ushered everyone out of the small pilothouse. He knew he would be getting updates from Wolf and didn’t want anyone to hear him talking, even though at this point, everyone on the boat pretty much knew Banyon could talk to a spirit. He would have to address that subject later.

  He called out for Wolf, “Wolf, any updates?”

  “I’m afraid there is a glitch,” the spirit quickly replied.

  “What’s the glitch?”

  “The power company and the cable company have no records of any account with the mine. Mr. Ag has tapped into the grid, and so far the companies have not been able to pinpoint where. Without the cable and power off, Mr. Ag could press the button and implement most of his plan before the cavalry could get to him.”

  “Why should it matter?” Banyon asked. “Can’t the government shut down the program from the commodities side?”

  “I’m afraid it is not possible and it is worse than that.”

  “How so?”

  Technically, what Kevin Ag is doing is not illegal. Anybody who has a verified account can buy commodities on margin. They are buying in such small quantities no one will bother to trace the purchases. Once the commodity is bought, they have the legal right to sell it to anyone else. The government cannot act to stop the exchange.”

  “But…” Banyon stammered. “The people who are buying up the silver futures are dead. Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Yes, but the government would have to prove they are dead, and the countries from which the buying is originating won’t give out any information. It would take years to unravel. In the meantime, Mr. Ag will be able to negotiate himself out of this mess and make a tidy profit.”

  “That’s not justice,” Banyon uttered in frustration. “Isn’t there another way to stop him from pressing the button?”

  “They could turn off the power in all of Ely, but it would cause a lot more problems to deal with and it would take hours to accomplish.”

  Banyon thought for a few seconds. “Do you think the computer system in the mine can be hacked?” Banyon asked the ghost.

  “Perhaps, someone should try. Do you have someone in mind? I can give you the IP address,” Wolf responded.

  “Yes, I do,” he said confidently. Banyon immediately picked up the phone and called Timmy. “Get on your hacking gloves, Timmy,” he said.

  After he told Timmy what had to be done and gave him the IP address, the geek exclaimed, “Wow! Bart never lets me prove I am the world’s best hacker. Thanks, man. They’re going down.”

  “How long will it take?” Banyon asked.

  “No way to know,” Timmy replied. “But having the IP address has reduced my work. Maybe an hour, maybe a little more,” he calculated.

  Timmy said he couldn’t wait to get on it, but first he told Banyon, he had to boot up the Situation Room, as instructed. Banyon anxiously stared at the screen on Bart’s twenty-inch monitor, willing it to come to life.

  The monitor flickered and Banyon could see the big monitor in the Situation Room. When he checked the side monitors, he saw the face of Marlene Moore, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and his own face. The rest of the side monitors were off. As usual, there were many people talking in the background.

  “Glad you could make it, Colt,” the President’s voice boomed through the speakers. He was not visible to Banyon.

  “We have a problem,” Banyon informed him.

  “You’re right,” the President replied. “We can’t seem to find the switch to turn off the power in the mine. How could they have spliced into the grid without anyone noticing?” the President wondered out loud.

  “My guess is that he paid someone off,” Banyon replied.

  “Which means he will probably get a call if we keep searching for his connection,” the President lamented.

  “There might be another way to stop him,” Banyon suggested.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Sir, I’ve got a hacker working on shutting down their computer system right now, but it might take a few more hours.”

  There was quiet on the line for a few seconds. “It’s too dangerous to go in right now, anyway,” the President said with clear frustration in his voice.

  “So you’ll give us t
he time? We’ll let you know as soon as we are ready.”

  “We need the power or the cable to be turned off to make this successful, but we can still make the takedown work if the computer system is down. There may be a gun battle, though, and that means casualties.”

  “I’ll be online to help prevent that,” Banyon promised.

  “Okay,” the President answered wearily. “I’m going to postpone this operation for two hours. Let’s reconvene at five o’clock in the morning, my time.” The screen went blank.

  When Banyon looked up from the screen, he saw several people on the upper deck by the bar. Bart had set up the monitor to face away from the bar area, but the walls of the pilothouse were all Plexiglas, so Banyon could see out while he worked. He saw Loni in the middle of the crowded deck. He opened the all-glass door and called to her. She pranced over and entered the small room.

  She had mischief in her eyes as she closed the door of the pilothouse. “Colt, you need to grab my ass, right now,” she ordered, crossing the room and throwing her arms around him.

  “What?” A confused Banyon asked.

  Her words were a little slurred, from drinking, he thought. “Spending all day in a little bikini on the water has made me excited, Colt. So, grab my ass and kiss me, before I explode!” she demanded. He was happy to oblige. He wondered if the other women on the houseboat were feeling the same way.

  After they kissed, he said, “Loni, I am going to the bathroom and getting something to drink. Please stay here and watch the monitor. If it flickers, call me immediately. I’ll only be gone a few minutes.”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” she said in a swashbuckling voice, saluting him. “Hurry back, I want to walk the plank.”

  As Banyon opened the sliding door on the lower cabin, Maya walked directly into him. She had just finished saying something with her head turned over her shoulder and wasn’t watching. She bounced off his body and started to fall. Banyon scooped her up into his arms and held her.

  “Bravo…my hero, my turn,” Previne quickly yelled out. “Put her down on the chair, I’m going to leap into your arms.”

  “Hold on, I need to go to the bathroom right now,” Banyon said to deflect Previne, heading for one of the bathrooms. He had his answer: at least one of the other women had been affected like Loni. When he finished in the bathroom, he found Maya camped right outside the door.

  “I was headed upstairs to tell you we found it,” Maya gushed.

  “Wolf, can you distract Harold for a minute?” Banyon called.

  “It will be done,” the spirit promised. Banyon had no idea who Harold was currently watching, but he didn’t want him to hear the conversation.

  “You were right,” Maya said with admiration.

  “Really? Well, what do you know,” Banyon said with a smile on his face.

  “Maria Orsic didn’t just disappear in 1945,” Maya started. “She simply walked out the front door of her prison. She made everyone who was in the house forget everything concerning the book of the Vril Society. She just walked out the door.”

  “So, it was a curse,” a happy Banyon exclaimed.

  “No, actually it wasn’t. It lasts longer,” Maya informed him. “She wrote about it in the last pages of the book. She even wrote the words to use to cast it.”

  “So, is it a spell?” Banyon asked.

  “No, it is something much better!” she said excitedly. “It was developed by Sigmund Freud. We are going to give it a name: Freud-a-size.”

  “That’s great news,” Banyon said, hugging her.

  “Previne thinks she can adapt the technique for our use. Isn’t it just what we want? We have always been able to make someone forget a person completely, but now we can make them forget a selected subject instead. That means they will still know us, but they will not know what has happened.”

  “Yes!” he answered in a hiss, pumping his arm in victory.

  h-oh,” Jason Petrov muttered as he began typing furiously on his computer. A red light was blinking on his desktop.

  “What’s gone wrong?” Kevin Ag roared like a lion. “Don’t tell me you have screwed up again.”

  “Someone is trying to hack into my system,” a distracted Jason replied, feverishly pounding on the keyboard. Bells were now ringing, and a strobe light was pulsing in the corner of the room.

  “Well, stop him!” ordered Kevin, as though giving the order would suffice to eradicate the problem.

  “This guy is good,” Jason replied. “He has already knocked down two of my firewalls. But we are not done yet, you little son of a bitch. Take this!” Jason rallied, as he pressed a button on his keyboard. He sat back and watched the screen.

  “Stop him!” Ag screamed at the top of his lungs with clinched fists. Negrui shifted nervously in the corner of the room.

  “Wow, I just attacked him with a virus, and he just flicked it away, like he knew it was coming. This guy is really good.”

  “I’m going to start the program before he can get inside,” Ag informed Jason, as he went to another keyboard.

  “You can’t until I get rid of this pesky bug,” Jason responded. “Without the encryption, everything will just get lost in cyberspace.”

  “How soon can you stop him?” Ag demanded.

  “I think the better question is how long I can keep him out.”

  Kevin Ag suddenly felt like the captain of a World War II German submarine that surfaced in the middle of an Allied task force without ammunition.

  eanwhile, six NSA agents sat around a table in an all-night breakfast joint in southern Ely. They had been up for almost twenty-four hours, and the wear and strain on them was beginning to show. The agents wore black suits, which now looked disheveled and dusty. The three men uncharacteristically had their black ties loosened. Two of the women wore no ties, but had white silk shirts that were open at the collar. The third woman joined the team at the airport and was dressed casually in jeans and a loose-fitting top. The team had been instructed to wait for her to join them. She had flown in from the Denver NSA facility. They all wore sunglasses, even though it was night and looked decidedly out-of-place in the dusty mining-town diner as they finished their food and discussed their current assignment.

  They had landed in Las Vegas in the early evening, itching to search for Colton Banyon, but they were quickly diverted to Ely by a call from their director. They were told to take the woman who flew in from Denver with them.

  The director answered no questions posed by the team leader and just gave them a terse order over the phone. He told them to rent two large vehicles and drive to the small Nevada town, telling them it was some three hours away. He didn’t give them a reason why they were diverted, nor did he give them any further instructions. They were told to just get to Ely as soon as possible and then call him.

  Once they reached Ely, they had been instructed to scope out an abandoned mine and prepare to arrest several people. They would make the arrests after a SWAT team performed an assault on the mine. They were also told to take several women into custody, but not arrest them. They were not told what to do with the women.

  The assault had been scheduled for midnight, local time, but the SWAT team never arrived. Another phone call informed them the operation had been postponed for two hours and that they should get something to eat in the meantime.

  “What the hell is going on?” the leader of the NSA team whined in frustration as she blew a strand of hair that had escaped from her severe ponytail. She pushed the plate from her breakfast towards the middle of the table to get their attention.

  The team leader’s name was Darlene Krenitz, and she was a savvy ten-year veteran for the secretive policing force, the NSA. Even her husband, Andy, didn’t know what she actually did for the government. He thought she was some kind of audit accountant and that the heavy travel was part of her job. She liked it that he didn’t question her and she never pried into his personal life when she wasn’t around, either.

  “You know, I’ve
been on the force for nearly twelve years and have never even fired my weapon,” Joan Kane, the second in command, commented as she expertly stripped down her gun and began to clean it right on the table. “But I do love guns,” she remarked.

  “Put the gun away,” Darlene ordered. “We are in a restaurant, and we don’t want anyone to notice us.”

  “But…” Joan protested and pointed. “I see several people in here with guns.”

  “I swear, managing you people will be the death of me,” Darlene replied in her south Texas accent.

  “But we are unique and good at our jobs,” one of the men boasted.

  They were in fact, a very special team who collected people the government wanted captured. Usually, the people were never heard from again. Their job was very hush-hush, and they were never allowed to talk about it, except to each other. They led two lives.

  Joan Kane masqueraded as a human resources executive at a large hospital. In truth, all five of the special NSA squad had other jobs in the huge government agency or in private business, but were always ready to collect people at a moment’s notice.

  The unique team was charged with hunting and collecting very special people for the secret Denver facility. The people they hunted would suddenly pop up on some scientist’s radar, or in Banyon’s case, the government’s computer website.

  “Why are we involved in this takedown? Couldn’t they find any other agents in Las Vegas?” A man from the group whined.

  Darlene shook her head in agreement. Something was fishy in her mind. “I mean, first we’re told to drop everything and to find and collect this guy named Colton Banyon and take him to the Denver facility. Then, a new person is added to our team,” Darlene spoke as she glared at the women next to her. “Then, we’re diverted to this godforsaken hamlet to be part of an assault. Then, we’re told to stand down. Don’t they know how important our work for the government is?” Darlene lamented.

  “Maybe it is all part of the same operation?” Joan offered. “And they just haven’t told us yet.”