Fifteen feet above the deck, the chopper hovered, hesitating about making a final descent.
“It’s too big,” shrieked Cheryl over the din. “It can’t land!”
Noah barked, “Get the stretchers! We’ll get the chopper to pull us up.”
Suddenly, the unexpected happened. From the airborne machine, seven men, all who looked military tough, rappelled down.
“No! No! What the hell is going on?” bellowed Noah.
“You know what we want.” One of the men launched an iron fist at him. Noah dove to the ground and rolled as the man growled, “You have our money and we will never stop until we get it back.”
How did they know? Noah wondered.
Then he answered himself. They always find out.
However, Noah was in no position to ponder the possibilities as another man aimed a clodhopper boot at him.
“No way,” snapped the lawyer as he sideswiped with his foot, knocking his opponent to the ground.
Another thug lunged at Noah. Noah did a standing handspring and the goon crashed into the ship railing. Noah took a feet first flying leap at his attacker as he got up, delivering a double left, right kick to the head, taking him out of commission.
Noah took the initiative and rushed at another attacker. His wary opponent deflected Noah’s arms with a straight-arm sideswipe. Noah was knocked to the deck but not before he took his enemy down with a forearm sideswipe to his windpipe. Both men got up and took Shaolin stances, one snake style, the other crane style.
As Noah’s hands curled like tiger claws, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. These guys are honoring the Code? What gives?
From his snake stance, his opponent panted, “Tell me where the money is and I won’t kill you or your party.”
Noah snorted, “I’d rather die than let you at it.”
Lisa and Cheryl froze at hearing these words. Finding the money was their mission, too. Noah had to stay alive.
The snake man hissed, then whipped his foot at Noah’s leg. Jumping over the approaching leg, Noah circled his arms like windmills, then attacked with brute force. His hands landed on his enemy’s ears, knocking him off balance. The snake man thrust out his palms in a rapid left, right, left, right sequence.
It was a barrage that would topple most, but Noah blocked every blow with his fists. He faked a double hammer punch. When the snake man raised his arms in self-defense, Noah quickly kicked out, landing a foot to his assailant’s ribcage. Noah’s claw struck at his opponent’s throat. His opponent threw a sidearm, pushing Noah’s arm out of the way to counter with a sidekick to Noah’s stomach.
Noah buckled. His attacker brought up his knee to crunch Noah’s face but, at the last millisecond, Noah grabbed his knee, twisted it to breaking, then kicked the thug over the railing. The man grabbed the horizontal bar on the ship before he went over the edge, then hoisted himself back up on deck. He launched a series of hammer punches at Noah’s stomach and chest. Noah parried and then, with the ferocity of a tiger, started clawing. Two fingers attacked his enemy’s windpipe; his left hand swiveled into the man’s forehead.
Noah’s attacker yanked out two daggers.
Seeing them dishonor the code made Noah realize wary. A true Shaolin would never have violated the rules of engagement. With a knife in each hand, the snake man slashed at Noah. Noah was fast, but the man was an automaton, pushing forward with continuous moving blades. Noah backpedaled but then was caught against the boat railing. The attacker drove his head into Noah. It knocked the wind out of Noah and he crashed to the deck. He fought to stay conscious but it seemed like a losing battle.
The idiot is going to kill Noah! That can’t happen. Cheryl took off her captain’s hat and whirled it at Noah’s attacker like a Frisbee. He easily deflected it, but it was enough to make him to lose concentration for a second. That was all Cheryl needed to rise up and deliver a ferocious kick to his groin.
Howling in pain, he grabbed Cheryl’s jacket, ripping it off. He then clawed at her blouse and tore it off. Enraged, she delivered two straight-arm punches, followed by a hard two-fingered assault on his eyes that sent his eyeballs to the back of his head. Blinded by pain, Cheryl finished him off with a vicious elbow to the neck. In a throwback to her Cirque du Soleil days, she stepped back, then charged at him, leaping upward with an aerial somersault, pushing him against the ship’s deck with a velocity that broke his back.
It was all Lisa could do to keep from panicking—Master Wu and Noah needed to kept alive at all costs. She pulled a handful of needles out of Master Wu’s body. As an attacker approached the top of the stairs, she threw them in his face. He continued to advance at Master Wu, hollering in pain.
The groggy Noah willed himself to stand, then dove with arms outstretched and grabbed Master Wu’s assailant’s throat.
The attacker turned his body and used Noah as a cushion. Noah took the brunt of the blow and screamed in pain, curling into a fetal position to protect himself. Seeing Noah incapacitated, Cheryl whipped over, picked the thug up, and tossed him into the sea.
The helicopter pilot put the chopper on autopilot and the bird soared another twenty feet into the air. The pilot carried two large wooden crates to the open door and pushed them out. The wooden crates plummeted down and, as they crashed into the deck, the crates splintered, releasing hundreds of snakes of all sizes and varieties. There were cobras, rattlesnakes, adders and two huge anacondas. Already in a surly mood from not having eaten for a week, the tumble from the air and collision with the deck angered the serpents even more.
Noah, Lisa, and Cheryl watched in terror as the snakes slithered with frightening speed toward them, Master Wu and Dr. Tang.
Other snakes slid onto the main and lower decks of the ship. Some of the remaining crew tried to fight the relentless reptiles, but there was no escape for any of them.
Snakes slithered close to Master Wu’s bed. Lisa pulled more needles out of Master Wu, jabbing them into the eyes of the vipers as they closed in. However, when an anaconda unhinged its jaws and opened its mouth wide enough to swallow a human’s head, she knew the needles were useless.
“Noah!” screamed Cheryl.
Noah turned to see a two-hundred-and-fifty pound brute holding a knife against Cheryl’s temple.
“I don’t know anything about any money,” screamed Cheryl. “Tell him, Noah! Please!”
The thug glared at Noah. “So what’s it going to be, Mr. Hung Gar? You going to save her life? You gonna let me know where the dough is?”
Noah wanted to advance but dared not. The knife would penetrate Cheryl’s brain if he wasn’t careful.
“There’s no easy way to get it. Most of it is invested,” said Noah cautiously.
“Well, invest this.” The tough took the knife away from her head and shoved it into Cheryl’s stomach. Blood oozed out of the knife wound. “I’m going to die if I don’t get what I need to know and I’ll take her with me before I go.”
“Tell him, Noah!” shrieked Cheryl.
A thousand debates raced through Noah’s head in two seconds. What would the righteous man do? Do I succumb to terrorists? Do I let another innocent die?
Finally, a decision. “Kill me instead,” shouted Noah.
Noah sprung at the goon. With the element of surprise, he punched the knife out of the assailant’s hand and kicked out his leg in a fluid motion. A hammer fist to the nose knocked his attacker out. If Noah had thought about it for two seconds, he would have realized this was all too easy.
“Are you okay?” asked Noah of the bleeding Cheryl.
Surprise of surprises. Ignoring her pain, Cheryl grabbed Noah’s arms and jerked them behind his back. The “unconscious” hostile got up and slammed a powerful punch into Noah’s midsection.
“How do I get access to the funds?” demanded Cheryl. “I know who you are.”
Noah gasped between blows. “What? What?”
“Listen, every one of us onboard is going to die if you don’t tell
us what we want to know. And I for one am not going to sacrifice myself because of you.”
“We? You knew about this?” exclaimed Noah.
“You’re so damned naïve. Of course I knew. Now tell us.”
The whole escapade had been staged—Cheryl was never in any real danger. The blood on her body was fake blood hidden in the knife blade, and its release was triggered by pressure on the handle.
Another rocket punch was launched at Noah but, before it entered Noah’s heart, an oar landed on top of his adversary’s head, stunning him. Teenage Sam to the rescue! As the man crumpled, Sam whacked him again and again with swings worthy of a Home Run Derby winner at baseball’s All-Star Game.
Meanwhile, Lisa pulled a handful of acupuncture needles out of Master Wu and rocketed the slender pointed rods into the eyes and face of Cheryl.
But the captain wasn’t done yet. Fighting through the pain, she unzipped a jacket pocket and pulled out a young six-inch saw-scaled viper and flung it at Noah. The serpent opened its jaws as it flew through the air, ready to inject its venom into Noah’s neck, when suddenly a razor sharp star sliced the snake’s head off. It was way too close for comfort. The snake was less than two inches away.
Noah glanced up to see Sam grinning. He had swiped a few stars from Master Wu’s uniform. “Those Shaolin lessons you gave me are paying off.”
Sam threw another star at Cheryl, who had a pistol in her hand. The star hit the gun, and it deflected Cheryl’s shot away from Noah and hit her accomplice. He stumbled and the dagger he held slammed into Cheryl’s chest.
Noah scrambled to a viper that was slithering up Master Wu’s leg. “We gotta do something. There’s too many of them. We can’t fight them off forever,” yelled Noah as he pulled the serpent off his sifu.
“Let’s get on the Ever Ready,” ordered Sam.
Noah flashed an understanding grin at the youngster. Evidently, Sam had hidden and seen everything from the metal tender. While Sam wanted to help, he realized he needed to wait until the last possible moment before he entered the fray with the only possible weapon he could find: an oar.
Noah, Sam, and Lisa carried Master Wu onto the Ever Ready.
“What about Dr. Tang?” asked Sam. “We gotta get him.”
“He’s dead,” said Lisa. “Leave him be.”
“No man left behind,” said Noah as he raced the few steps to Dr. Tang and carried his body to the boat. “Now!”
As Sam lowered the boat, Lisa’s brain was working overtime. Snakes? Could it be? Why did King do this? Noah wouldn’t abandon Dr. Tang even though he’s dead. No man left behind. She had seen enough American movies to know that this was a policy of the Navy SEALs. And then another thought that she tried to push out of her mind. Noah’s a good guy.
Chest and stomach on fire, Cheryl was bleeding out. She’d failed and she knew it. Blood poured out of her wounds as she stumbled to the engine room. There was nothing else that she could do. No matter how well she serviced him, sexually or professionally, past performance was irrelevant. In King’s world, there were no second chances.
In the engine room, she opened an unmarked box she put there when her team took over the ship. She pulled out the secret loot and took out a military grade thermite grenade and a small rocket launcher.
As she went back up to the open deck of the ship, she compared this ship with the tramp freighter she had been on what seemed a lifetime ago: handcrafted railings; Baccarat chandeliers and lights throughout; wallpaper made from genuine snakeskin. This boat was worth twice the value of the three hundred people her boat carried. With life ebbing away, she hoisted the rocket launcher onto her shoulder and aimed it toward the chopper, which was almost directly over the yacht.
She fired. An explosion that rivaled any fireworks display in the universe ripped the air. The energy blast threw her to the deck. Shrapnel from the helicopter rained over her, burning and piercing her body.
Her final act of life was to pull the pin out of the thermite grenade.
Five. Four. Three…
Chapter 19
The Ever Ready had barely touched the water when Noah, Sam and Lisa heard the sound of an explosion from above. Quickly looking to the sky, they saw a blazing helicopter coming down toward them.
With no time to get out of the way, Noah threw his body over Master Wu’s to protect him.
And then a crazy miracle saved Noah. The Tao Princess itself exploded! Its hull shot sideways, knocking the burning helicopter out of Noah’s path.
Still, the Ever Ready capsized, throwing all its passengers into the suddenly turbulent waters. A glance in the direction of the Tao Princess showed it broken in half and sinking.
However, the fate of the luxury yacht was not their concern. Their own survival was.
Noah, Sam, and Lisa treaded water but they couldn’t see Master Wu.
“I’m going to get Master Wu. Try to right the boat.” Noah drew in a huge gulp of air and plunged below the ocean surface.
Sam turned to Lisa. “Okay, this is what we’re going to do. We hang on the side and pull down on the railing. We’ll push it down into the water but the boat won’t want to stay down. It’s going to spring back to the capsized position. As it does that, we push it up. When it goes as high as it will go, we push the boat back down.”
“Huh?”
“We want to make the Ever Ready bob up and down. Every time it goes down, it’ll be a little lower and every time it goes up, it’ll be higher. After a bunch of times, when it gets high enough, an extra push from us will be enough to flip the boat over.”
“That’s a plan?” Lisa was not impressed.
“What’s yours then? Look, this boat is made out of super light material. We can do it.”
Without any alternatives to suggest, Lisa nodded. “Okay.”
Lisa and Sam bobbed up and down like yo-yos as they clung to the side of the boat.
The water was murky so visibility was limited but, at ten feet below the surface, Noah saw something he wanted to see and something he didn’t want to see. What he wanted to see was the submerged Master Wu, limbs floating like a suspended jellyfish. What he didn’t want to see was an anaconda coiling itself around the venerable master’s body.
A quick calculation raced through his brain as he swam toward them. Average person holds their breath underwater for sixty seconds. By the time I get to Master Wu, I’ve used up twenty. What the hell can I do in forty?
And then God smiled for the second time in a minute.
A sharp piece of metal from the helicopter’s body sank slowly in front of Noah. Without breaking stride, he grabbed it. A few more strokes and he arrived at Master Wu.
Noah took the metal scrap and jabbed its pointed edge hard into the snake’s eyes. He gouged out the left eye, then the right. Enraged, the blinded anaconda released Master Wu and flung him toward the surface. Noah offered a quick silent prayer. Only twenty-five seconds had been used.
Then the snake tuned in on Noah.
“Couple more times, then hang on the rail and shoot as high as you can. Jump onto the boat and land full force pushing down. Got it?” gasped the breathless Sam.
“Yeah,” said Lisa.
Up, then down. “This time,” shouted the teenager.
Sam and Lisa pushed off and used the upward momentum of the boat to propel themselves a couple of feet into the air so they landed on the skiff’s bottom. The boat flipped over, righting itself.
There was no time to celebrate, though. Sam saw Master Wu’s body floating face down, drifting aimlessly away. Twenty feet away, Noah was losing the fight of his life with a furious, blind anaconda. Sam saw Noah take a gulp of air as the snake pulled him underwater.
“Oh, shit,” yelled Sam, jumping overboard. He swam to Master Wu and, wrapping one arm across his chest, slowly swam back to the Ever Ready. Lisa leaned over and gently took Master Wu’s shoulders.
“I gotta get back to Noah,” shouted Sam as he headed in the direction of air bubbling o
n the surface. “Get me a harpoon or anything.”
With Master Wu, safely onboard, Lisa took a quick check down the boat. “Try this.” She threw down a portable fire extinguisher.
Sam caught it and swam toward the snake.
Noah was senseless, unaware that the blinded anaconda was squeezing him to death.
The snake unhinged its jaw and its wide-open mouth began to envelop Noah’s head. But then, its sense of self-preservation started tingling as Sam approached and it rose to the surface.
Sam was ready. As soon as he saw the snake’s head, he bashed the fire extinguisher on the anaconda’s head. Stunned, the blind serpent released Noah, flinging him in the air. Sam spotted the sharp metal piece Noah clung to.
He took it out of Noah’s hand when Noah hit water, then bashed the snake again with the small fire extinguisher. The furious snake opened its mouth open wide and lunged at Sam.
As the snake’s mouth was right up to his face, Sam jammed the sharp piece of metal into its mouth. Without realizing the danger, the snake chomped down hard. One end of the shrapnel cut upward through the snake’s brain, and the other end slit the animal’s throat. Writhing in agony, it sank below the surface.
Sam quickly hooked an arm around Noah, towing him to the Ever Ready. Like they did with Master Wu, Sam shoved Noah up while Lisa pulled him aboard.
Lisa was about to apply CPR but Sam interrupted, “You look after Master Wu. I need to do this for Noah.”
Sam turned Noah on his side, hoping to drain any seawater from his lungs. He looked, strained his ears for breathing, and watched to see if there was any rise or fall of Noah’s chest. There wasn’t. Sam placed two fingers on Noah’s neck between the Adam’s apple and windpipe to check for the carotid pulse.
Thank God, he thought, something’s gone right. There was a heartbeat.
Sam pinched Noah’s nose and applied the kiss of life. He breathed into Noah’s mouth, then waited for five seconds. He did this ten times in a row. Patience was hardly a trait in the teenager and intense frustration mixed with fear as Noah failed to respond.
The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (plus special bonuses) Page 32
