Just when Prince can’t take it anymore, there is a large clearing. A ten-foot high chain-link fence surrounding an area of about fifteen hundred square feet or about four boxing rings. There are about sixty people sitting on folded chairs looking toward an arena that is empty save for a huge banner embroidered with the head of a tiger with its mouth half open.
They park. Prince can’t help but notice the applause and the chanting of “Chin, Chin, Chin” that greets his father when they step out of the car.
Father and son walk to the chained off arena. There is one empty chair. Chin points at it and motions for Prince to seat himself.
“Where are you going to sit?” asks the son.
“I’m not.”
Prince sits down, and Chin walks up to the arena’s entrance. Chin takes off his shirt and reveals a body that could easily be the centerpiece for an infomercial for “Abs of Steel.” He then enters the arena through a hole in the fence. He claps his hands, and out from the forest come four of Chin’s men carrying a cage. It is supported like a sedan chair with poles that are four feet away from the cage.
Inside the cage is a caged Bengal tiger snarling and angry.
The gathered crowd rises and applauds. The chant changes to “Ti-ger, Ti-ger, Ti-ger” as the men carry the cage through the opening in the fence and into the ring. The men leave their prisoner, exit the arena.
Prince watches spellbound. Disdain changes to curiosity changes to fascination in less than five minutes. Maybe his father is not such a buffoon after all.
Chin takes off his shirt. The few women in the audience gasp with lust while the men open their eyes with envy. Chin at forty-three is in better shape than an NBA or NFL player twenty years younger than himself.
Chin looks at the assembled group and yells, “Are you ready?” and the audience shouts back, “Ready!”
Chin shakes his head. He lifts his arms up and down like a boxer in a ring, demanding encouragement. “Are you ready?” he shouts.
You never heard sixty people shout so loud. “Ready!” Even Prince has joined the frenzied chorus.
Suddenly, Prince is yanked from his chair. And is pulled inside the cage. Three handlers attach him to the end a twenty-foot-long piece of heavy-duty rope. A long metal pole is fed through the top of the wire mesh, and the other end of the rope is then attached to the end of the pole that is inside the arena. The handlers at the other end of the pole outside the enclosure maneuver the pole, and Prince is pulled into the air.
The audience titters. What is going on? Prince is dangling at the end of a line like he is a piece of bait on a fishing pole.
The frightened Prince is lowered to the ground where a handler pours a bucket of red liquid over the boy.
Chin asks, “What is this red stuff?”
“Blood,” shouts the handler.
“When was the last time the tiger ate anything?”
“Three days ago.”
Chin and the handlers leave and quickly close the gap in the wire mesh.
There is no noise from the audience now.
At the other end of the pole outside the arena, Chin takes control and pushes.
Prince is yanked into the air and positioned about twenty feet from the tiger.
Smelling the blood has only made the tiger hungrier, and it glares and roars at Prince.
A handler sticks another pole with a key attached to its other end through the wire mesh and positions it at the lock on top of the tiger’s cage.
“Are you ready?” shouts Chin.
“Ready!” shouts back the audience.
The key is inserted into the lock and turned. The lock is pushed aside. The pole pushes down the unlocked side of the cage.
The tiger is free and springs out of its prison.
The freed feline terror bolts directly for Prince. It springs hard at the boy. At the last possible millisecond, Prince is yanked to the side.
For a full two minutes - two minutes that seemed like an eternity to Prince - Chin is the fisherman, and Prince is the bait.
Prince is bounced from side to side, up and down as the tiger leaps at him, claws at him, springs up at him.
Chin expertly controls the pole so that the tiger is always just a little bit shy of attaining its goal.
Prince screams in terror to the delight of the crowd - this is definitely real. Nothing fake about this at all.
Finally, Prince is pulled to the top of the wire mesh. Dangling twenty-five feet in the air, it is too high for the tiger no matter how hard it tries.
Outside the wire mesh, Chin sturdies the pole.
His men then pour a bucket of blood on him. The gap in the fence is opened up again, and Chin leaps in.
Tiger and Chin run at each other.
Chin does a handspring and lands on top of the animal, straddling it like a bareback horse rider.
The cat turns its head at Chin, trying to bite him and shake him off at the same time.
Chin wallops the animal on the nose, momentarily stunning it.
Chin leaps off its back and climbs the chain-link fence.
Composure regained, the tiger jumps up at Chin, trying to claw and paw him, but with legs nimbly moving from side to side Chin avoids the attack.
Then Chin slips, accidentally on purpose. He falls on top of the tiger and throws a two-finger thrust at its throat.
The cat chokes a gasp as Chin directs a thumb into its eye, gouging it out.
Now Chin has the upper hand. With surgical precision, he launches his own barrage at the wounded animal.
Left kick, right punch. Right elbow to the head.
Sidearm smash to the ribcage. The tiger falters, then collapses to the ground.
Chin then grabs the tiger’s mouth, one hand on the upper jaw, the other on the lower. He pulls it apart, and then like a circus performer sticks his head directly into its mouth for a full ten seconds.
He pulls his head out and then grabs it by the fur on its neck with one hand. With the other, he launches a series of rapid-fire punches to the tiger’s temples.
The animal falls unconscious.
Chin looks up at Prince dangling in the air.
“Get ready. You’re coming down in thirty seconds.”
Chin’s handlers lead the audience in a countdown. “Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight...”
Chin grabs the tiger by its tail and then begins spinning like a top. Faster and faster like a hammer thrower gone berserk. Finally, he releases the animal, and it launches into the air right beside Prince.
Suddenly, the support for the pole collapses, and Prince starts falling. The young boy grabs onto the tiger.
It’s less than two seconds before the animal and boy hit ground. Prince stayed on top of the tiger to cushion his fall.
The mesh fence opens up again and a dao, a short Shaolin dagger, is handed to Chin.
He walks up to the tiger and stabs it twice. Once in its brain, once in its heart.
Chin looks to Prince with a wordless expression that says it all. “If you’re going to be a man, you’ve got to do better than me.”
This day was a turning point for Prince. Prince decided he was going to be the toughest of the tough, the baddest of the bad. Forget money, forget girls, forget everything else. He would show his father who’s who and what’s what.
Present Day
Somewhere between New York City and Atlantic City, several miles off the beaten track of the Garden State Parkway, is a complex of several buildings. Not likely anybody is going to find it... unless someone wants you to. It’s the kind of isolated development you might expect to find a secret militia or obscure religious cult. This belongs to Prince. The place is known by one of two names. The inner circle calls it “The Ranch.” For the larger select group that the facility’s activities are targeted to, it is known as “Leopard City.”
Prince used his eighteenth birthday money to buy and develop this obscure property. Using this as a home base, he is able to optimize his customer base b
y having pretty easy access to his girls and merchandise. He could also build his stock of leopards, manufacture drugs and train with relative impunity.
About three years ago, he had the idea for staging the world’s greatest match, featuring himself. As he was developing a reputation in the underworld as a hardass, he was able to sell tickets for an unknown event to be held “sometime in the future.” These pre-sales, sold at a substantial discount, were enough to help finance the construction, and Prince owns the whole complex without debt. A most impressive huge wooden structure stands at the far end of the compound. This building is uncreatively known as “The Barn.”
What you find here that you won’t expect to see elsewhere is that in the dirt parking lot there are a number of limousines, luxury cars and deluxe buses. In the field beside the parking lot are half a dozen private helicopters.
Right beside the parking lot is a huge octagonal structure. Not much imagination in this building’s name either. It is called, “The Arena.” Each of its eight sides is fifty feet long, so the total square footage is just under forty-seven thousand square feet. If one asked the builder why he chose that shape, he would likely cite efficiency of design, cheaper to build and lower maintenance costs. The real reason though is that he wants something that perpetuates the image that there are a bunch of kooks here that you gotta stay away from. I mean who else would have a giant, angry leopard face painted on the roof of the building to scare any low-flying planes that might be in the area?
Entering from the ground though, one has to be impressed with the forty-five foot high windowless structure.
But the question still remains, why here in the middle of nowhere?
The question is quickly answered when we enter.
Inside are about five hundred people sitting on bleachers. The bleachers surround and look into a gladiator-like arena. The Arena is empty save for a huge banner embroidered with the head of a leopard with its mouth half open - exactly the same pose as the tiger on the banner had in the arena where Prince’s father, Chin, fought.
There is a twenty-five-foot-tall chain-link fence separating The Arena from the bleachers. It’s overkill, but the spectators don’t mind.
Nor do they mind six armed men that stand guard outside The Arena. After all, there are six full-grown, bred and trained-to-kill leopards in cages outside the arena, growling and snapping at the audience, just a few feet away.
Every one of the spectators has paid the equivalent of twenty-five thousand dollars to be here for the next two hours. All cash, no receipts, no liability insurance should something go wrong.
That admission fee though is chump change for the people here. No one is counting, but it is unlikely anybody in this room is worth less than a hundred million dollars - that is except for the floozies hanging onto their sugar daddies or the young studs snuggling up to their sugar mamas.
Some wear suits, some wear jeans, some are in outfits where it looks like their breasts will fall out.
All of them have this in common though: They are so terribly bored with the kind of gambling that they can get an hour’s drive away in Atlantic City, or via a six-hour flight to Las Vegas or half a world away in Macau. Nor are they that excited about mixed martial arts, Sumo wrestling or boxing. Been there, done that. Besides, most of the fights look they’re fixed anyway.
They are here for two reasons: 1. To see man versus beast 2. The huge bets that occur among the patrons. There are some here today that are going to lose up to ten million bucks. There are some here today that are going to make that and a whole lot more.
In the private circles where this event has been advertised, this is the event of the year. It’s the inaugural event for this complex, and buzz has been building for months. Some smart marketing here. While the buzz has building, there was never a mention of time or place.
This was part of the plan - and the attraction. The people that are here were given less than eight hours’ notice of its occurrence. This secrecy and need to make an instant decision to attend were the best protection that the authorities would not be alerted or even know that this was happening.
No paper trail either. Admission was twenty-five grand cash, payable upon arrival.
***
There are three matches on the card. Every one is a fight to death. One of them has already taken place. Each one of the fights progressively more dangerous and more exciting.
First up was leopard versus leopard. Two snarling cats were put on opposite sides of The Arena. One animal was almost four years old and 185 pounds. The other was just over two years old and weighing 210 pounds. A classic matchup between a lighter and older veteran versus a younger and heavier opponent.
Each animal was cut in the neck, not enough to maim but enough for the scent of blood to be alive.
A half hour of ferocity ensued where limbs were bitten to the bone, eyes were scratched out, claws embedded deep into flesh. Horrible savagery inflamed by massive dosages of methamphetamine injected into each animal before the fight.
Yes, there was a victor, but the animal was so severely damaged that a quick painless death after the match was the winner’s reward. The match was okay but hardly worth getting out of bed for, let alone the twenty-five g’s.
The second match promises much more and hearkens to the gladiator-like ambience of the setting. Man versus beast. Two leopards are pitted against a man in Roman gladiator clothing.
This gladiator wears little protective chestwear and a minimal amount of clothing. This is not because he is trying to show how macho he is, but because his opponents, the leopards, are among the fastest creatures on Earth, and agility is a must. On his head is a light visored helmet. On his legs and arms are thick protective pads of leather. In each hand he carries a curved scimitar of eighteen inches.
Two animal handlers open the cages, and the leopards come charging out at the armed combatant.
One of the spotted cats leaps at the gladiator. He ducks to the ground and allows the animal to leap over him.
The other cat springs at the prone man who just rolls and rolls and rolls.
The crowd is just eating this up - the gladiator has been playing with the animals.
The animals begin circling around the gladiator... slowly, deliberately, stealthily.
When a leopard gets close, the gladiator flicks the sword to fend it off.
One of the animals aggressively moves in. It opens its mouth wide as it leaps at the gladiator. Bad idea. Just before the animal’s jaws wrap themselves around one of the gladiator’s arms, the tip of the scimitar darts into the cat’s mouth - the animal does not chomp on the man’s limb but the blade of the sword.
It’s too late for the cat to stop its jaws’ movement completely, and it begins to bleed profusely after being speared by the top of the scimitar’s blade.
The cat jerks its head and takes the small sword with it - the scimitar is lodged into the upper palate, the thin horizontal bony plate of the skull, located in the roof of the mouth.
The other cat rushes the gladiator, who leaps up in the air, twirls and kicks the cat in the head, stunning it.
The cat with the sword in its mouth tries to dislodge the sharp object, but its movement is having the reverse effect - the knife is going in deeper.
The gladiator chases the cat, lifts the scimitar and comes down hard on the cat’s back. The blade severs the spinal cord.
There is no hope left for life. The gladiator looks at the audience for direction. The bloodthirsty audience is almost unanimous - thumbs down.
The gladiator pulls the scimitar from out of the head of the leopard and plunges it into the animal’s heart.
Six handlers scurry in. Three of them throw some water and massage the face of the dazed leopard, helping it to revive. The animal gets stronger and angrier as the men continue. It is all they can do to contain the animal from escaping or making a feast out of one of them.
The other three carry the body of the dead animal out. Before they
do, they stop by the gladiator, who is removing all of his protective equipment and clothing. The audience opens their mouths in collective awe and envy - this man is an astounding physical specimen.
The handlers take the blood from the carcass of the dead leopard and smear it over the body of this young man.
It is Prince. Looking at him now, his body is just as sculpted as his father’s was in his prime except that Prince has more bulk, more strength, undoubtedly due to hours of weightlifting. The women in the crowd gape in lust at the sight of this Asian Hercules.
Prince roars out, “Are you ready for Match 3?”
The audience shouts back, “Yes!”
This is what they have been waiting for, this is what they have been promised. A no-holds-barred fight between an unarmed and unprotected man and a vicious beast. Prince is weaponless and completely nude. “Then we begin,” shouts Prince. “To death.”
The handlers release the leopard and hurry out of the caged enclosure.
CHAPTER 5
The snarling leopard runs right at Prince, building speed. It leaps up twelve feet in the air.
Jaws open, feet outstretched, the animal readies to shred Prince with its teeth and sharp nails.
At the last possible millisecond, Prince ducks, and the leopard shoots over the top but not before Prince grabs its back legs.
Prince throws the leopard to the ground and stands up, forcing the leopard to stand up on its hind legs with him.
Prince starts dancing with the cat, who keeps trying to bite. Prince pulls one arm it, then pushes it out, then repeats it with the other hand.
The crowd just laps it up then Prince grabs the leopard’s two front paws.
Prince starts turning and twirling the animal around like a hammer thrower.
The leopard twists helplessly as Prince builds up speed and tosses it twenty feet in the air.
Prince races in the direction of the cat.
The leopard lands hard against the chain-link fence. It falls.
Prince is ready. As the cat hits the ground, Prince’s fist lands against the leopard’s snout. Prince grabs the cat, and the two roll together on the ground.
SLAVERY UNBOUND: Cruelty & Lust with the Emerging Eastern Mafia (Noah Reid Action Thriller series Book 4) Page 4
