As he turned around, someone grabbed him from behind by the shoulder. An arm clamped around his neck. He managed to shove Kaylin forward as he was dragged backward.
“Run,” he grunted. One of the men shoved past him, going after Kaylin, who was pushing people out of her way as she ran toward the door. Dane kicked out with his right foot, tripping him up. He could do no more for Kaylin until he got rid of the guy who held him in a chokehold.
Palms facing out, he grabbed his assailant by the wrist and inner forearm. He tilted his head forward, and yanked it back up, catching his attacker across the bridge of the nose. As he bashed the man in the nose with the back of his head, he simultaneously pushed up and out with his hands, forcing that attacker’s arm up off his throat. Dane drove a solid left elbow into his opponent’s stomach, stomped down hard on his right instep, then spun to his left with all of his strength, breaking the man’s python grip.
Now facing his opponent, Dane ducked under a right cross and punched the man in the throat, scarcely noticing the cartilage give beneath his knuckles. His attacker, already bleeding from a broken nose, stumbled backward, fighting to suck in breath.
Dane leapt forward, pistoning a right cross to the temple and following with a sweeping kick that took the man’s feet out from under him. He fell hard to the ground, arms splayed. Dane turned and sprinted after Kaylin.
The crowd had drawn away from the fight, giving him a clear path to the front door. Up ahead, the second attacker dove at Kaylin’s feet, tripping her up. He scrambled up onto all fours and grabbed at her handbag. She shouted and kicked him hard in the face. She continued to impress Dane with her toughness.
Closing the gap, he leaped into the air and delivered a flying kick to the man’s chest, knocking him onto his back across a nearby table, sending the display crashing to the ground. From outside, sirens wailed over the din inside the marketplace.
Kaylin’s assailant climbed to his feet and drew his gun. Screams erupted from the crowd. For a moment, Dane thought the man was going to open fire inside the crowded marketplace. Instead, he held the gun threateningly in front of him and dashed out the door. The man with whom Dane had fought rushed by an instant later. Dane drew his own weapon and gave chase, Kaylin following close behind.
Just as he ran outside, a sheriff’s department patrol car screeched to a halt directly in front of him. Dane raised his hands above his head, not wanting any misunderstandings. A deputy hopped out of the driver’s side door, weapon drawn. Ignoring Dane and Kaylin, he sprinted around the corner of the slave market in the direction the attackers had run. A moment later, Bones clambered out of the passenger side door and followed the deputy.
“Had trouble with the locks,” he shouted as he ran by. “Glad you’re all right.”
Dane could now hear sirens coming from both directions, and soon, three City of Charleston police cars pulled up to the front of the market. Bones and the deputy reappeared together a short while later.
“Lost ’em,” Bones said. He holstered his pistol, cursing their still-unidentified assailants.
“Where’s Bernie?” Kaylin asked, a note of concern in her voice. The encounter in the slave market did not seem to have fazed her a great deal.
“She’s fine,” Bones said. “We flagged down the deputy here.” He nodded to the man in the tan uniform. “She’s in the back of the car.” He turned and waved. Through the tinted glass, they saw Bernie waving back.
“The call came over the radio about a running gun battle in the street just as your friend was telling his story,” the deputy explained.
“Thanks for bailing us out,” Dane replied. He was confused and frustrated. Who were these guys, and what did Maxie have that they wanted so badly?
CHAPTER 6
“Hey, babe. Thought you’d be home by now.”
“Sorry, I had to make a stop. I’ve got a surprise for you!”
“I hate surprises. What is it?”
“Dane! You are no fun at all.”
“I know. Now, what’s my surprise?”
“I’m not…”
Dane bolted up, gasping. Sweat trickled down his cheek, or was it a tear? He didn’t care. Wiping it away, he shook his head, as if that could clear the memory from his mind. He hated the dream, and now he hated the sun that had made him drowsy enough to doze off. Rising, he snapped his notebook shut and went back into the condo. He hurried past Bones and Kaylin, who were working at the small kitchen table.
Inside the bathroom, he closed and locked the door, doused his face with cool water, and appraised his reflection in the mirror. He looked a bit older than his thirty-five years. Sun and salt water had weathered his skin and bleached his ash blond hair almost white. The empty look in his green eyes matched the hollowness in his heart: both remnants of the dream. He breathed deep and puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled. Pronouncing himself ready to face the world, he returned to the kitchen.
“Have a nice nap?” Kaylin asked. She looked up from Rienzi’s bible and smiled. “Nice digs you and Bones found, by the way. I forgot to tell you earlier.”
Fearing for Kaylin’s safety, and assuming that their assailants had the resources to discover Dane’s identity through the car rental agency, they had packed up and headed for North Carolina, where Bones’ uncle, Crazy Charlie, who dealt in used Cadillacs and brand new casinos, owned this vacation condo. They had brought with them everything that might be pertinent to the Dourado investigation. At Kaylin’s insistence, Bernie had returned to Mississippi to stay with relatives.
“How’s the translation coming?” He sat down across from her, forcing his focus onto the case. He was getting good at walling away those memories.
“Challenging. Many of these notes he’s written in the margins are so cryptic that I don’t know if we’ll be able to get any meaning from them out of context. A few of them are pretty interesting, though.
“Here in the book of Genesis, he’s underlined a passage which describes a time when ‘there were giants on the earth’ who married the ‘daughters of men.’
“Sounds like simple folklore to me,” Dane said. Religion and the bible did not mean much to him anymore. God, if He existed, wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on down here.
“That’s what Bones said. But here,” Kaylin pointed to a phrase jotted in the margin, “Rienzi has written ‘could it be?’ in big letters. He’s at least considering the possibility that it’s more than folklore.”
The story of David and Goliath had strange markings around it as well. Dane had not been much of a churchgoer since childhood, but, like most people, he supposed, he was familiar with the tale. A Philistine giant named Goliath had challenged any soldier of Israel to single combat. Only a teenaged shepherd named David was up to the challenge. The story went that Goliath, nearly ten feet tall, was armed to the teeth, while David brought with him only a sling, some rocks, and his faith in God. David nailed Goliath in the head, knocking him out. While the giant was down, David cut off the Philistine’s head with his own sword. It was actually a gruesome story if you stopped to think about it.
This, like most of the familiar children’s bible stories, was one Dane assumed to be less history than fable. It was, in his mind, a story to teach a lesson about not giving up in the face of overwhelming odds, and, of course, to encourage faith in God. Dane was not interested in any of that. God had given up on him a long time ago.