Alpha Adventures: First Three Novels Read online

  “I think it worked, Travis. All the hairs on my neck are standing up. It’s safe to come closer.”

  Savannah tried the door, which swung open easily, and in total silence. The reception area was dark, but they waited until they had crept upstairs before turning on their flashlights. It wouldn’t be a good idea to be seen from outside, not yet.

  “We haven’t got much time, have you got the kanji written down still?”

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “Then you go ahead while I watch our backs.”

  Travis pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, on which Ryo had written the word records in Japanese. Comparing the letters on the paper to the brass plaques on the doors, he quickly found the records room, which was unlike the front door in that it was locked with a standard Yale system. Savannah shrugged, and put her full weight behind a kick just below the doorknob with the keyhole set in it. The noise sounded in the silence like a car crash, but Travis had to admit that the tactic was effective. The door swung open, locking mechanism smashed.

  “Did Fiona teach you that move, too?”

  “Come on Travis, I wasn’t always as clean cut as this, you know.” Savannah’s grin was illuminated by torchlight. “Let’s move it, we had better find this deed in a hurry.”

  Finding the document was by far the hardest part, relying as they were on Ryo’s handwritten instructions on what the words Namarisawa, Nikko and Amethyst should look like in the Japanese dialect of the region, but eventually, in the third filing cabinet they opened Savannah pulled out a yellowing roll of parchment paper that apparently contained the property rights to the macaque infested mine. Miya Richards was about to become a very wealthy person, although Travis did wonder what she would do about the monkeys. He would have wagered they would be intractable tenants with a dim view of a serious mining operation. That was not his problem. Travis’ main problem was that the lights in the building had just come on, and he could hear the sound of running footsteps.

  “Showtime,” Savannah said.

  Travis slipped his hand in his pocket as they left the records room, and casually walked to the top of the stairs, where Kinagawa and four of the bike gang awaited them. They were caught, and there was no mistake about it.

  “Very strange, to find two American geologists breaking into my offices. Whatever should I do with you now? I must congratulate you on getting through my security door, but you failed to notice the Infrared camera that looks down here from over your head.”

  Travis and Savannah looked up, seeing only a white plastic blister, but which they now knew held the camera he spoke of.

  “Kinagawa, you know we’re not geologists,” Travis said. “But we know you’re not a regular businessman, as well. You have many fingers in many pies, criminal ones at that. How do you think the police would take you hiring these goons to beat people up for you, or worse, and how do you think they would feel about an illegal amethyst mining operation? You don’t own the mine, and you don’t have any permits for mining it. That’s the Namarisawa family mine, which your family stole during the war.”

  Travis was sure a beating was coming his way, but he needed to keep Kinagawa talking.

  “Oh, you misunderstand, my friend. These men are legitimate security contractors here for my protection. The mine was entrusted to the Kinagawa family when Akira Namarisawa disgraced himself by keeping revenue from the war effort; a very sad business.”

  Kinagawa folded his arms, and smiled. It was a snake like smile that sent an involuntary shiver up Travis’ spine.

  “I don’t think so. If the mine was entrusted to you, why does the deed bear the name Namarisawa? I think that’s why you had Ryo’s uncle killed, because he found out his relatives still owned the mine, and you stole it. I think you send people to Nikko to mine the amethyst illegally, and then you have it crafted right here, in the old market district. We’re going to the police with this evidence, and you are going down, my friend.”

  Travis also folded his arms and with a word from Kinagawa the thugs advanced on Travis and Savannah, seizing them by the arms. Kinagawa laughed in their faces.

  “What makes you stupid Americans think that you are going to live long enough to tell anyone about that? This is what I am going to do. I’m going to have these fine men make you disappear, there’s a construction site close by that could hide your bodies easily. Then, I’m going to see the old couple Iwate, and have their house destroyed. You lose, American.”

  Travis grinned. The thug holding his right arm punched him in the guts, hard, but the heavy jacket took a lot of the sting out of the blow. He looked Kinagawa in the eye, and now with a free arm he tapped his own ear, and then pulled the ear piece from it.

  “Here’s a word to the wise, Mr. Kinagawa, from a stupid American. Next time you make death threats, you might want to make sure that the guy you’re threatening to kill isn’t video calling the police, in conference with the kid who you just threatened to make homeless.”

  He undid his jacket to reveal the buttonhole camera and microphone wired to his phone. Kinagawa looked like he was about to call Travis’ bluff when red and blue lights pulled up outside, policemen already departing the vehicles as they came to a halt.

  Savannah clapped him on the back. The plan had gone off even better than they had hoped in their wildest dreams.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three days later, Savannah and Travis were back in Atlanta, jet-lagged but happy for a successful adventure. Thyri had been over the moon that they had pulled it off, and as a promise to Ryo they had brought letters from him and his mother to pass onto their long lost relative, Miya Richards.

  The Japanese police had been surprisingly lenient with them for the minor crime of breaking and entering seeing as they had acquired a confession to large scale corruption and murder from Kinagawa, who the last time they had seen was being bundled away in the back of a police car. On the whole, Travis thought, this had been a much better investigation than the previous one in Russia. After all, this time he had avoided getting shot, and he had even forgotten to have a drink for several days with very limited signs of withdrawal, he presumed due to the excitement. Savannah had been right, as usual. Getting back on the horse had been exactly what he needed. Savannah had picked him up in her little BMW at two in the afternoon and they drove over to Miya’s house in the affluent Druid Hills area, eight miles and several social classes above Travis’ apartment by the university. Travis, in all honesty, had wanted nothing more than to get Angelo back and go to the park, but Savannah had insisted on him being there to close the deal, so he went along primarily to maintain the easy relationship they had developed over their short time in Japan. He wondered if he maintained his clean record with the demon of drink if something more might come from their friendship, but he quickly put those thoughts away. He needed his head straight, and for good this time before he could contemplate anything else. So wrapped up in his own mind was he that before he knew it they had covered the eight miles or so to the Richard’s abode and Savannah was parking in the spacious driveway.

  The house was easily one of the largest on the street, and Travis considered its value to be at least half a million dollars or more. There was a heavy wooden front door under a somewhat intimidating portico and through the windows he could see a living room bedecked with high value items, expensive sofas and a large flat screen television on one wall. Savannah knocked, and Miya Richards answered the door, looking substantially more glamorous than their first meeting; now dressed in a classy suit jacket and matching pencil skirt. She welcomed them to her home, and led them through to a study that would possibly rival the office of Adventurer’s Inc. for the sheer quantity of objet d’art on display. Taking seats in a pair of comfortable wingbacks opposite Mrs. Richards’ own chair across her desk, Savannah relayed all the events of the Japanese trip; the lost relatives, the amethyst mine and finally the recovery of the deed. Savannah withdrew the paper bearing the property rights to the mine, and hand
ed it over to Miya.

  “There we go. Case solved, Mrs. Richards. What do you plan to do now?” Travis asked.

  “Oh, I have some things to take care of here, and then I’ll be going to Japan to reclaim our legacy. I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve done for us, I didn’t think it was remotely possible for anyone to get the mine back to us, let alone find relatives out there; which, of course, brings me to your fees.”

  Miya slid over a check, which Savannah classily picked up without checking the amount. Travis’ paranoia about fastidiously checking over finances flared, but he reasoned to himself that this was not like selling a car online, Miya had passed all the prerequisite credit and identity checks on registering with the Prometheus Torch website, so she was clearly good for the money—not to mention the evident wealth she had judging by the property she lived in. Travis and Savannah chose not to outstay their welcome, and showed themselves out.

  Back in Savannah’s car, they were a mile away when Travis slapped the dashboard. He had been silently running through the events in his mind when a horrifying bolt of realization hit him.

  “Stop the car! My god… it was right in front of us. We were there, Sav! We were right there and I missed it!”

  Savannah looked at him like he’d gone mad, but pulled the car over.

  “What did Richards say about Tochigi the first time we met her?” he asked, almost out of breath with the rush to get his words out.

  “I don’t know, Travis. I’m not so good at remembering details from conversation. Great with history, though.”

  “This is history. This is real history. She said that Tochigi was firebombed by the States in World War Two, right? Remember the market district? The temples? Old, ancient even, and all certainly pre-war; they were all wooden. They would have been burned to the ground by incendiary weapons, Tokyo was annihilated by them.”

  How could Savannah not see it? He thought. It was so clear.

  “So, she made a mistake. It’s not like she was there, it was her grandparents who were. Things get messed up in oral histories; you should know that being an anthropologist, right?”

  “Google it! I bet I’m right. There’s more, too. If she was looking for this amethyst mine so much when everyone who is interested in amethyst knows that the bottom has dropped out of the market except for Deep Russian, how did she know it was worth anything at all? It could have just been a hole with quartz in it? It would be worthless. She knew what was there. I don’t know how, but she had to know it was valuable. No one would want something that was nigh on impossible to get and might not exist if it was worthless, especially not considering our fees are so high.”

  Savannah searched the internet, and confirmed that Tochigi had indeed survived the fire bombings of the war. She was still unconvinced.

  “Okay, try this: Google her address. I bet you good money that she’s not registered as the occupant.”

  Travis was sure that this time, he had gotten to the conclusion before Savannah.

  “Says here... Oh my god, Travis! Top result, ‘Man discovered asphyxiated, carbon monoxide poisoning, found by his niece, dated a month ago. There’s a picture of her here, but she’s called Annie Long. What is going on?”

  Savannah flipped the phone around to show Travis the picture. There she was, looking distraught and entirely different in jeans and sweater, the woman they knew as Miya Richards.

  “We’ve been had, is what’s going on. Get out of the car, there’s a police station on the corner.” Travis felt the anger boiling in his belly. No one got one up on him, not ever, if he could possibly help it. The check in Savannah’s purse was undoubtedly worthless.

  “What are you going to do, Travis? Don’t do anything like what you’d usually do. I mean, don’t do anything rash and stupid.”

  “Look, if she’s got any brains at all she’ll be getting the hell out of town, probably overseas. We totally cleared the way for her in Japan; we took out Kinagawa for her, she’s the only person apart from Ryo and his mother who know the mine even exists, and they’re not rich enough to fight her if Richards, or whoever she really is, crops up with a title deed for the mine. I have to get back there and slow her down until you get there with the cavalry.”

  Travis jumped out of the car and ran around to the driver’s side. Savannah reluctantly gave up her seat. Travis disappeared from her view in a blaze of squealed tires and burnt rubber.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Travis found the front door to Miya’s house locked, but on skirting round the side of the property to the back yard he found he was able to gain access through an open window. He was clearly getting the hang of this breaking and entering business, having doubled the number of buildings he had entered illegally in his lifetime in just a couple of days. He tried to minimize his breathing, which made the noise of the blood pumping in his ears seem that much louder. He could hear raised female voices echoing through the wood-paneled halls of the house so, as softly footed as he could, Travis made his way towards them. He had a reasonable guess as to whom the voices belonged to. One sounded in a considerable amount of distress; the other calm, but he couldn’t quite make out the words which, as he came to the front entrance of the house, became louder. Travis saw that there was an open door with steps leading down to the basement, there was a dim light coming from below. Before he investigated further, Travis had a sudden idea. Retracing his steps he made his way back to the study that they had handed over the deed to the mine in less than thirty minutes earlier. The deed lay on the table, neatly folded next to an open briefcase that on inspection contained several passports from various nationalities, all bearing the picture of the woman claiming to be Miya Richards but bearing different names. Travis found a United States passport in the Richards name, and pocketed it along with the deed. He had this imposter effectively trapped in a basement, and Savannah would surely be along with the police soon, but despite having the clear advantage there was always the possibility that the fake Richards would escape him. He would need evidence that he was right were that to be the case. He was about to go and confront the woman, when he thought it might be prudent to arm himself. Travis was far from a violent man, in fact he abhorred it, but from the experiences that still haunted his days and nights, and he knew all too well that other people were not so reticent. He found a heavy iron poker in the study’s fireplace and now suitably armed; he crept back to the entrance to the cellar.

  Travis saw as he was halfway down the steps that there would be a time at the bottom of the steps where his legs would come into view of anyone in the room before the rest of his body, which would leave him completely exposed. Savannah did warn him about not doing anything rash, but he didn’t see any other options available, so he decided to leap the last six steps or so, landing with a loud thud and a grunt on the basement floor. Richards was standing in the well-lit room and had been clearly talking to someone in a chair whose features were blocked by the impostor’s body. Richards, or whoever she was, turned calmly to face Travis as he landed.

  “Mr. Monahan, so good to see you again.”

  Travis was reminded of what he had thought about the woman the first time they had met. Cold fish. That was right. This woman must have ice in her veins.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Travis said, “but you’re not Miya Richards and I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do… whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

  “Well, I have to say Mr. Monahan, I am impressed with your deductive skills in at least figuring things out this far, but I see things a little differently. I was about to let Miya here go. I don’t need to be her, anymore.”

  The woman stood aside to reveal that the person sitting in the chair was in fact tied to it. Miya Richards was covered in grime, and her face was streaked with tears. She looked like she had been kept there for quite some time. She appeared to be unconscious.

  “You see, I have just injected her with a little something to help her sleep,” she waved an empty hypode
rmic needle she was carrying in her left hand. “By the time she wakes up, I’ll be long gone, and on my way to sell the most valuable amethyst mine in Japanese history to the highest bidder on the black market, now that you’ve done such a good job in finding it and the deed.”

  “Assuming you get past me.”

  Travis squared himself up. He was considerably bigger than the fraudulent woman.

  “Tell me this though, who are you, really? The game is over; you might as well give it up.”

  “Yes, I suppose this game is indeed over.”

  Travis noticed that her Boston accent had slowly faded, being steadily replaced by an upper-class British one.

  “You can call me Monica. I do this for a living. Sometimes, for myself, like this little jaunt, and sometimes for paying clients who need things done quietly and well. I’m very good at impersonating people, you see. I’m also very good at not getting caught out, until now it would appear.”

  “Drop the needle. The police are on their way.” Travis hefted the iron poker high.

  Monica merely raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, that means that sadly I will have to cut our little chat short.”

  She tossed the hypodermic at Travis with terrific accuracy which made him flinch despite the fact that a needle would do him little damage. It was a momentary reflex that gave Monica all the time she needed. Travis looked at her, saw the gun that had appeared in her right hand, and felt a burning sensation in his stomach that accompanied the loud pop of the firing of a suppressed weapon. He fell backwards, dropping the poker with a clattering, ringing noise that echoed round the stone walls of the cellar.

  Not again, he thought. He saw Monica’s stocking clad legs step over him, and he tried to feebly grab her ankle. She shook him off with very little effort and he heard her high heels clicking up the steps.