The Nazi Skull

Book 2: Bone Guard

by E. Chris Ambrose

Genres: Action & Adventure; Thrillers; Veteran; action adventure; thriller; action; archaeology

Synopsis

They used to be part of a special ops intelligence group known only as the Unit—until the brass decided to ignore their intel, and they followed Lieutenant Grant Casey into a firestorm to save a museum, and the people trapped inside. The aftermath leaves Grant and his wingman in the hospital, and the whole team on the outs with the military. But Grant fuses his interest in history with his specialized training, and the Bone Guard is born.

The Bone Guard. . .where adventure and history ignite.

When the grandfather who raised him is attacked during the vandalizing of the Tohono O'odham tribal center, Grant Casey flies home to Arizona intending to say goodbye to the old man he's hated all his life. But the old man tells Grant to take a run—sending him into the desert to discover a break-in at the cache of their family's sacred items. His grandmother's basket is missing and an immigrant is found beaten, with an ancient bone in his stomach. The search leads Grant to a white supremacist organization seeking to connect with their Nazi heritage while they hunt for a reputed Nazi treasure: the stolen bones of Peking Man. The last man who knew their whereabouts spent a few years in a WWII internment camp not far from the reservation, and indigenous scouts helped to track down those who escaped from the camps.
Now Grant must follow the clues from a map of the stars to a graveyard for B-29's. Grant's family secrets won't stay buried in his quest to find the truth and stop the murderous rampage of a neo-Nazi who finds himself betrayed by the person he trusted the most.

Will Grant recover the most famous skeleton ever lost—or will he join the bones in their eternal rest?

Release date: July 9, 2019

Publisher: Rocinante

Print pages: 398

Sample

 

The Nazi Skull (sample)
A Bone Guard Adventure

by E. Chris Ambrose

 

CHAPTER ONE

      Trashing the cultural center had been going alright until the old man walked in, shouting, "You put that down."  
      Adam Lones swung about, a fistful of tribal flag in each hand as a light came around the corner.  The old man squinted at him.  "Do I know you?"
      Fuck.  Frank Manuel. What was he doing here? Adam lunged, and the old man stumbled back, quicker than he looked, his black hair flailing around his lined, frowning face. Not quick enough.  Adam brought his hands together on the flagpole he had in his right. He slammed it forward, catching the old man in the ribs.  Something cracked and the man staggered, but his face barely registered the blow.  Maybe his lips compressed, that was it, but his eyes locked to Adam's.  Then he raised his flashlight. Heavy, silver thing—like the silver at his wrists—but no way could he reach Adam at the end of his pole.  Adam laughed and twisted further out of reach, shoving the pole harder against the old man's side.
      But the old man didn't lash out with the light. Instead he shone the beam into Adam's face, blinding him.  The pressure against the pole abruptly ceased and Adam lost his balance.  The wooden pole cracked as it slammed into the wall.  "Fucker!"  Adam shouted.
      "Maybe once."  A flat voice echoed around him.  Echo.  Had to be in that big room.  Now he listened, he could hear the soft wheeze of the old man's breath.  That big room, for sure, and he was heading for the baskets.  
      Gripping the broken flagpole Adam launched into motion. Glass from the trophy cases crunched under his boots. He skidded on the torn papers and kicked something out of the way—one of those brass-painted running pygmies from the top of a trophy, most likely.  He slid around the corner into the assembly room.  Motion-sensor lights came on. Wrong way, then. If the old guy came this way, the lights would already be on.
      The flashlight slammed into Adam's shoulder just short of his neck.  Adam roared. He put on the face of hatred, the face of the devil incarnate, and lashed out with his weapon.  It struck something and the old man let out a grunt of pain.
      "I've seen the case.  You got it already."
      Indeed he had, tucked in at the back of his pants.  Adam held his tongue, rushing toward his assailant. Wooden benches lined the walls with display cases in between, cases emptied of things he had torn or stomped or crushed.  "Why'd you do all this, if you already have the basket?" The old man gestured with his flashlight at the ruin around him.
      He'd been recognized, no doubt. How had the old man seen through tonight's get-up to the Adam underneath? Well, that was how he had been served for his attempt to do this nicely.  He didn't have to be nice.  He was Good Cop and Bad Cop all in one.  He'd offered the old man a carrot last time, a little incentive to cooperate. Now all he had left was the stick.
      Adam howled.  That one got them every time.  The old man's black eyes widened as Adam bounded toward him like an unholy angel, coat flapping, stick held high.  That's right, Injun, time to get scared.  The old man turned to run.  He tripped over some piece of crap artifact and nearly lost it right then. The flashlight tumbled away, its beam illuminating a long wedge of the room, catching on splinters of glass, tufts of reeds and weeds and feathers and shards of wood.  Adam kept howling.  The old man nearly made it to the door, then he paused to kick over a bench. Even then, he hesitated, unable to commit to the destruction Adam had begun.  The pause was enough.
      Adam vaulted the bench. He knocked the old man off his feet, the both of them careening against the wall and down, the old man leaving a smear of blood from the back of his head.  His eyes rolled back in the topography of his face as the breath left him.
      Immediately silent, Adam stepped back. He listened hard and heard nothing.  Vandalism, that's all this was supposed to be.  He hefted the broken flagpole in his hand, aiming the jagged end down to where the old man lay.  Could be he was already dead.  
      Calculations flashed through Adam's mind, decision trees. Old man already dead: Adam unrecognized, his true crime never revealed.  Adam identified by some small detail, some overlooked bit of evidence in the chain, Adam arrested for murder, committed during the execution of a felony.  Bad.  If he were already dead, Adam could not help him.  If he were not, Adam could use his influence to be certain there would be no prosecution.  
      He ran a mental inventory of his clothing:  cloth bandanna; heavy overcoat, black, well-worn; cell phone, wallet, keys in the inside pockets where they could not be stolen; "Occupy Tucson" T-shirt that was the precise reason he'd chosen his target; slouchy jeans, though they had been tight on the other man, containing two business cards, half a cigarette, and a lighter; motorcycle boots with decorative chain, also large; black leather gloves, incongruously a bit snug. He carried only one thing that belonged to him—the rest, and all the trace evidence that adhered to it—belonged to someone else.    
      Adam stepped over the body and strode quickly from the room, down the hall, pivot left, out the side entrance where he had come in. He bestrode the other man's bike and let it glide down the slope silent until forced to turn it on. It spit and snarled to life.
      Back to the cheap hotel.  He methodically stripped down from his borrowed clothing, setting aside the item he had claimed for himself, and the other man's cell phone.  He dressed the other man, rolling his snoring body this way and that as he hauled limp arms and legs into their rightful places.  That done, he removed his own clothes from their plastic bag and returned it to the trash can.  He dressed himself much more carefully.  With the other man's finger, Adam prodded the phone's "emergency" button.
      "Please state the nature of the emergency."
      Adam stared at the other man, recalling the voice, the manner, and putting it on before he spoke, deep and boozy.  "Break in at the cultural center, that native place.  Didn't mean to hurt anybody," Adam slurred into the phone.  "Shit.  M so drunk.  Sorry."  He let the phone slide off the bed and clatter underneath it.
      Pity for him and the old man both.  As of now, they no longer had a place in Adam's problem matrix.  Adam picked up his treasure and let himself out into the night.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO
      
      
      Grant Casey stood with his back to a stele, the creaking and squealing of jungle insects almost overwhelming.  In deference to the heat, he wore his Kevlar vest over light-weight dark clothes but he kept the helmet, in spite of the sweat that oozed along the rim.  No sense losing his head.  He held his gun down low, barely breathing.  There, again, the louder scrape of metal on stone.  To his right, a single red light glowed, and winked out.  Nick had seen the perp.  Grant turned left and tapped his own signal light twice.  He flicked his night-vision monocle into place and scanned the site around him.  The black bulk of ancient buildings came into dim focus, spanned by an overgrowth of trees and dangling vines.  A bright green image shifted briefly into view, then out again, behind the pyramid.  Another, just a flash.  Two at least.  Grant sank down and hurried forward, letting the ridge of a ruined wall shield him from view.
      Nick was on high, making up for his limited mobility with a less obstructed view.  He got to climb the pyramid and Grant didn't. Not tonight, anyhow.  
      At the end of the wall, a big, metal bin stored the researcher's tools and equipment. Grant dropped to a knee when he reached it and peered around the edge, pressing himself close to the bin to merge his silhouette with its bulk.  Yes:  two green human forms bent over the base of the pyramid, prodding at it with a crowbar.  Where was D.A.?  She must have seen his signal.  There—between the trees, flickering like copper salt tossed into a fire, another human form, compact and fast.  She needed a few more minutes to get into place, or the looters could just—
      Something at his thigh vibrated, and the bin, pressed tight against him, resonated with the vibration, letting out a metallic thrum. Shit.  He jerked away from the bin and slapped at his thigh pocket where the emergency phone vibrated. The perps froze in Grant's vision, their indistinct heads swiveling in his direction, then they took off running—straight toward where D. A. should've been.
      "Alto! Alto!"  Nick shouted from above.
      Grant shoved away his night vision as Nick cued the giant array of lights that transformed midnight into noon.  "Stop or I'll shoot!"  Nick's voice thundered from a megaphone in Spanish and English.  Grant broke cover, pounding after the looters. He leapt the trench, gaining on them.  The two men panted and cursed.  One of them flung a crowbar over his shoulder, and Grant dodged aside, stumbling over a root.
      D.A. leapt into view, gun leveled.  "Alto, assholes," she said.
      One of them swung toward her, hands half raised.  The second man shoved his partner, pushing him into D.A.'s stance then launching himself past them both.  Grant skirted the fallen man as D.A. rolled him, already taking control.  The second man ran harder.  Grant could take him down that way, like a cheetah, but Nick had delivered the warning, up to Grant to make it good.  He brought up his weapon, rounded a giant tree and pivoted, taking aim.  Heartbeat.  Squeeze.  Heartbeat.  The guy spun as he fell, shouting and grabbing his butt.
      Breathing a little harder, Grant strolled over and held his gun at the ready. The guy sobbed, blood streaming between his fingers.  Keeping him covered, Grant pulled the offending cell phone from his pocket left-handed.  "Susan."
      "Yes, Chief." Her voice came on immediately, in a flood of nervous words.  "I'm so sorry.  I thought—"
      "Susan."  He let the tone of his voice carry through her words, and she fell silent.
      "Yes, Chief." This time, she remained silent, waiting.
      "Get the federales.  And an ambulance."
      "On the way, Chief."
      "Good work.  That part, anyhow."
      "What the Hell was with that phone call?"  D.A. demanded, coming up beside him, pushing her prisoner in front of her.  "I should've been on comms, Chief, you know that."  She shoved her perp to the ground beside his friend.  "Let me talk to her."
      "We'll never train her up if we don't let her do the work."  Grant handed her the cell and slipped his weapon back into the holster.  He took a knee beside the wounded man.  "How's the damage?"
      "You shot my ass off, you fucking Americano!"
      "Only half."  Grant pinned the guy's shoulder to stop him thrashing while he inspected the wound.  
      Behind him, D.A. said, "What the Hell was with that phone call, Susan?  We're on ops—you can't let calls through!"
      "Emergencies only, you said. If something is very wrong, then I put it through.  Isn't that right?"
      Torn jeans framed an angry wound to the guy's lower buttock, bullet probably lodged in there, at least, no sign of an exit wound. Already the jungle sounds crept back from the silence of the single gunshot, but he could hear the growing roar of the jeep engines as the police approached. "What's the emergency?"
      Nick emerged from the klieg-lit ruin.  "That's what I want to know.  Man, Chief, for a minute there I thought the whole op was screwed by a spammer."
      D.A. turned the phone to face them.  "Well, Susan?  What kind of emergency warrants sending a call through when you know we've got hostiles."
      "The Bone Guard line rang a few minutes ago from Arizona.  The Chief's grandfather is in the hospital.  Somebody beat him half to death."  She paused.  "That seemed like an emergency—I thought he'd want to know."
      D.A. blinked and Nick gave a soft whistle, both of them staring at Grant. He kept deliberately still, though his pulse raced as if he were charging through the jungle, gun in hand. His grandfather in the hospital, beaten half to death.  Wasn't that long ago, he'd wanted to clobber the old man himself.  But he would've finished the job.
      

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

      Sheriff Jamie Li Rizzo tapped her pencil on her notebook.  "That's all you know?"
      The native woman shrugged her shoulders, looking at the old man in the hospital bed.  "I don't know anything until he wakes up."
      If he woke up.  He looked waxy beneath the bruises and bandages. "Well, I'm the acting investigator, until the feds send their man, so when he wakes up—"she gave the word a little emphasis and slight smile as the woman's dark eyes met hers—"You give me a call, okay?  We've got the perpetrator. It looks like he was freaked out on something.  Probably a random crime, maybe looking for drug money, something like that."
      The woman, Cecile Jessup, regarded her with those flat black eyes.  "I don't think so.  Grampie wouldn't be there at night.  There was a tribal council that night about the wall.  No way he wanted to miss that."
      Except that clearly he had.  "Right, I've got that in my notes."  She tapped the page a little more pointedly.  Her phone sang a few notes of Beethoven, signaling an incoming call.  "If you'll excuse me?"
      "Sure."  Jessup turned away, patting the old man's hand.
      Jamie stepped into the hall and pulled out the phone.  Her dad's face in a frozen smile showed on the screen.  New Year's fireworks sparked around him, and a ruffled lion dancer wagged in the background.  She slid the icon.  "Hi, Dad."
      "Ni hao," he answered.  "You really ought to practice the language—you'll lose it if you don't use it!"
      Reaching an alcove with chairs and windows overlooking the highway, Jamie settled into a chair.  "Dad, you've been using it for what, forty years?  You still sound like a white guy."
      "A man will do crazy things for the woman he loves, Jamie. Someday, you'll see."  He swallowed audibly on the other end of the line.  
      "I dunno, Dad, your love is pretty special."  Oh, Hell, today was their anniversary and she hadn't said anything.  Another anniversary without her mom.  "You called China didn't you.  Did they let you talk to her?"
      He sighed heavily, and she could picture him running a hand through his thinning hair.  "Maybe for the right price, they would.  She never should've gone back there!  She knew they'd arrest her."
      Jamie listened.  The same lament, every time, but it grew more hoarse, more resigned.  Every time.  After almost three years, she wasn't sure if it was a good sign that he didn't call there so much, or if his resignation should be a warning to her.  "I know, Dad.  But this is what the Lord asked of her, right?  I mean, she was quoting Daniel and the lion's den when she got on the plane."  
      "Sometimes I don't care what the Lord wants, I just want my wife to come home!"  He drew a ragged breath. Must've been a tough week.  "Sorry, I'm sorry.  I don't mean to lose faith, either with God or with your mother.  Grace... Has a calling. That's one of the things I've always loved about her."
      "I know, Dad," she said again. "Some days I wish I could feel that strongly about something." 
      "I think my letters are getting through, but I never really know what to say.  Wish you were here?"  He gave a snort. "Or would that get the censors' attention?  I don't suppose, I mean, you know a lot of government folks.  My contacts haven't panned out, and our senator didn't do shit—sorry.  Is there anything you could do?"
      "I've done everything I can, Dad, seriously," she said, then immediately felt guilty about it.  Was that even true? He sounded desperate. Jamie tapped a nail against her teeth.  The right price.  She knew some deep pockets locally, people who might be willing to spend for a good cause.  In mostly-white, mostly conservative southern Arizona, having an immigrant relative complicated her candidacy.  She didn't advertise the fact that her mother had been imprisoned, but word leaked out—probably thanks to that same deep-pockets cabal—that her mother was a Persecuted Christian Minority, regardless of her actual nationality, and that whisper had brought a lot of people around to supporting her. One side voted for her because she wasn't just white, the other side because of her mother's religion, which they presumed to be her own. Still, backing a candidate was a world away from giving money to bribe corrupt officials. Jamie pinched the bridge of her nose, furious that she was even having these thoughts.  Her mother's detainment should not be exploited for political gain.  Not on either side of the aisle.
      "Never mind. I guess I'm just missing her more today.  How are you doing?  Any interesting cases?"
      "Are you asking as a journalist, or as my dad?"
      "The second one."
      "You must've heard about the break-in at the cultural center.  Trashed the place, beat up one of the tribal elders.  The perpetrator's the one who called it in, though, so we got him, too."
      "Open and shut."
      "Pretty much, as long as it doesn't turn out to be a hate crime."  Her phone vibrated against her ear and she registered an incoming text. "I've got another message, Dad."
      "A woman's work is never done, right, Jamie?"
      "I'm glad you called.  Hang in there, okay?  We'll find a way to get her home."
      He rang off, and she stared at the phone a long moment.  She wanted to be optimistic, but they'd already exhausted most of the usual means—their congressman was a little busy; the lawyer they hired in China couldn't get any headway; the president wasn't interested, or maybe was downright hostile, given relations with China.  What was she supposed to do next?  Her job.  Mom would want her to keep moving forward, both of them.  She'd been so proud when Jamie won the election, viewing it as a breakthrough for Chinese Americans, even though Jamie suspected her opponent's recent infidelities, both financial and physical, had more to do with it.  Her job.  Jamie tapped the message button.
      Dr. Lindsey, down at the morgue.  Now what could he want? She wanted to go check on her other vegetable, the nameless wetback brought in earlier this morning.  Which one of them would wake up first?  Jamie put her money on the wet—he looked skinny, but strong, probably worked landscaping. The old guy had that wiry frame, and, if his niece were any guide, tenacity might well run in the family.  The other vegetable could wait.  Even if he woke up, it would just be to face an extradition proceeding.  Jamie strolled to the stairs, bypassing the bank of elevators with a sigh of regret.  She needed to lose a few pounds and tone up.  Use the stairs.  She used them on the way down, anyhow. It felt like a good compromise.  Still, her knees throbbed by the time she made it to the basement.  She pushed through the doors and found the morgue, as much by the smell as from memory. With a rap on the door, she opened up.  "What you got, Doc?"
      Lindsey started, and gave a chuckle.  "Didn't expect you so quickly."  His teeth flashed against his tanned skin.  "Border patrol brought in this wetback—not for me, not actually dead yet, but pretty close.  Beaten half to death, I guess."  The coroner chuckled. "Strange, that. Usually if a coyote wants to take out a client, it's gun or knife.  We've got some crazy coyotes out there, at least four wets shot that we've found, over a period of months, a level of violence--"
      "I know," she interrupted before he could start properly ranting.  "The strangulation is unusual—they sent me the same report.  What else?"  The wet, presumed Mexican, about fifty years old. The tribal track team had been running in the desert practicing for their next big meet when they found the guy or he'd've been Dr. Lindsey's patient from the start.
      Lindsey frowned, but moved on like a professional. He picked up a tray with an object rolling inside. "They pumped his stomach, in case he had swallowed some balloons, but what they found was this.  The nurse brought it down to me, along with his personal effects, to see what I made of it.  He knows I'm into artifacts and that."
      "Not drugs?"  She reached out for the tray, used to the sight of little balloon full of contraband.  Instead, she found a small, gray rock, oblong and knobbed at one end. "What's that? Some kind of gizzard stone?"
      The coroner chuckled again.  "I doubt it." He plucked the object between rubber-gloved fingers and held it up to the light. Its surface looked pitted, but smooth at the knobbed end as he turned it carefully.  "What does it look like to you?"
      Broad and stumpy, but still a knuckle bone, clear as day, with a reddish patina rubbed into the hairline cracks.  Why would a wetback sneaking across the border swallow a knuckle bone? Nobody smuggled dead things. She flipped to an earlier page where she'd made note of the case's particulars and added this detail.  "Weird.  Is it human?"
      Lindsey dropped it back into the tray, though he continued to stare at it.  "Hard to say. It's clearly old. Maybe it's some kind of lucky charm?  A family heirloom?"  He shrugged and set the tray aside. "No clues to his identity, though."
      "Figures. That doesn't give me much to go on."
      "Be serious, Jamie, how hard were you really going to investigate anyhow?  Aside from the beating, and now this, he's just another wetback.  Fought with his coyote, or maybe with another migrant, and now he's like to die in a hospital bed before he gets shipped off home."
      "Hey, if you think I'm not doing my job, take it up at the polls next fall."
      "I'm sure you do it just as well as anyone."  He surveyed the room with its stainless steel tables and long, narrow drawers.  "I'll bag this up for you,."
      "Right.  Thanks. Looks like you've got a slow day."
      "We haven't had as many corpses since talk of the wall. Half my work used to come in from the desert."
      Jamie managed a smile.  "Guess it's already working, then."
      "Somebody's still trafficking through the desert, or else we wouldn't need the wall.  Then there's the bodies with the bullets—some of those people are armed and dangerous."  Lindsey dropped the loose bone into a small baggie, zipped it shut and made a note on it.  "I, for one, wouldn't mind a few less Jose Does around here.  You want?"  He held out the baggie.
      "Sure."  She tucked the baggie into her pocket, followed by the notebook. "Can I take his clothes, too?"
      He hefted a larger sealed bag.  "You having a rummage sale to support your campaign?"
      "No, but I've got a dog who can sniff out where this guy came from."
      "Suit yourself.  Hardly seems worth the trouble."
      Jamie smiled.  "It'll get me outside, doing some exercise. Maybe put off the day you see me on one of these tables."
      "In that case, Sheriff, carry on."  He waved her away with her evidence.
      Probably a waste of time, as Lindsey said.  She carried the bag down to the elevators and punched the button to ascend.  But something about that loose bone stuck in her craw, so to speak, just as it must've stuck in the wetback's.  In her experience, there was always a reason.  You might swallow drugs and hope to poop them out later, or swallow evidence to a crime, and hope nobody suspects.  Why else would a man eat a bone? Jamie didn't know, and she was just curious enough to see if she couldn't find out.

If you're curious, too--you can find The Nazi Skull in print or ebook, wherever books are sold!