The Noah Reid Series: Books 1-3: The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series Boxset

by Wesley Robert Lowe

  “No! No!” Olivia was hysterical.

  Chin’s voice turned to icy steel. “After that, Garret was mine. Just as you will be.”

  ***

  In the open foyer of the house, Garret lay unconscious, a hundred needles stuck in the top of his head, his cheeks, his wrists, his stomach, his ankles and his toes. Noah and Abby hovered over the senior lawyer, constantly tapping the needles, moving from body part to body part. The Chinese acupuncture needles, when massaged, create a kind of electric current in the body that allowed it to heal faster.

  Abby looked at Noah. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

  “It’s the first time I’ve ever done this. I’ve got no training, but I’ve seen Master Wu do this a thousand times,” admitted Noah.

  “That’s supposed to be reassuring?” said Abby skeptically, her fingers tapping.

  “What are you trying to do to me?” said Garret, waking from his stupor.

  “You’re alive!”

  “Isn’t that stating the blatantly obvious?” asked Garret as he started pulling the thin needles out of his body. “Let’s get Olivia. And, Reid, you put most of these damned things in the wrong place.”

  “It was my first time.”

  “You don’t get points for losing your virginity. You could have killed me.”

  Abby shot Noah a look. Told you so. She and Noah helped Garret pull the painful needles out.

  Abby turned to Garret. “They ambushed us. Pulled Olivia out of the Range Rover and took off.”

  “My friend Chad was here—he was the one who cracked the code, and he paid with his life.”

  “We will make them pay, Reid. All of them,” said Garret painfully but confidently.

  “I don’t exactly like our odds,” said Noah. “But I will die trying before I give up.”

  “You don’t need to worry about Chin, Noah. I will kill you myself if you pretend to be an acupuncturist again,” said Garret as the final few needles were yanked out.

  Abby’s cell phone rang. She answered it. “Olivia, where are you?”

  Olivia shrieked, “He did it! He did it! He killed Mom! Chin killed my mom and yours, Abby! That plane explosion was no accident!”

  “Olivia!” shouted Garret, but the line went dead.

  Adrenaline energized everyone, and forgotten were deaths, beatings and attacks. They raced out of the house.

  “Chin’s using Olivia to get to me,” said Garret.

  “Then he’s got to get through me, too,” huffed Noah.

  Garret looked at Noah―there had been a change. A toughness, a determination that wasn’t there just hours ago. Maybe Master Wu was right.

  They arrived at the ten-car garage, and Noah’s eyes widened—every vehicle had a sticker price of over $100,000, especially the $2,000,000 Bugatti Veyron.

  Garret saw Noah ogling the Italian vehicle. “Sorry, Noah. The Bugatti won’t fit the three of us.” He pointed to a Porsche Panamera Turbo. “Zero to sixty in four seconds.”

  Noah tried to get into the driver’s seat, but Garret pushed him aside.

  “I drive a sports car. I think I can get us there,” protested Noah.

  Ever the lawyer, Garret presented a convincing argument. “Your bucket of bolts is hardly a performance vehicle. My other cars are a Lamborghini and a Ferrari. And I know how to get to the Tiger Palace Complex. And you are used to left-side driving in LA. We need someone who can drive a vehicle at two hundred miles an hour from the right side.”

  Garret got into the driver’s seat, Noah rode shotgun and Abby climbed into the back.

  “Prepare yourselves, children. There’s a wild ride ahead.”

  ***

  Chin began to undo Olivia’s blouse, slowly, one button at a time. He took a martial arts star and gently stuck one of the points into her navel. Freaked out of her mind, she said, “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Oh, yes, I do.” He slowly moved the edge of the star from her navel to just under her bra, creating a thin red line on her skin.

  Olivia swallowed. She wanted to scream again but realized that would only feed into Chin’s control of her. These kind of men fed off fear.

  Marco looked up. “I’ve gone through most of the King of Kentucky files. There are a ton of dead ends. Most of them are put there just as a smokescreen to throw someone off track. But I have found half a dozen Swiss bank accounts. I’ve been breaking into those ever since I was in grade six. This will take me no time at all.”

  “Excellent.” Chin typed in a cell phone number. “Eliminate them all.”

  ***

  Garret’s driving had two speeds—fast and faster. Noah and Abby gritted their teeth in excitement and fear.

  “Mr. Southam?”

  “Yes, Abby?”

  “Who are you and my father, really?”

  “We are two men who love their families, two men who made a mistake. We will do whatever is necessary to protect the living and avenge the dead. And, if we can’t, we will die trying because you and Olivia cannot live in the shadows the way your father and I did.

  A monster of a pick-up truck, a Dodge Ram 3500, pulled alongside the Porsche on one side. Another of the seemingly ubiquitous black Mercedes zoomed in and flanked the other side, sandwiching the Porsche in the middle.

  “Hold on. Things are going to get nasty,” Garret said with a grim smile on his face.

  That turned out to be an understatement. The Ram and Mercedes took turns sideswiping the Panamera. It was one hell of a rocky ride. Garret gripped the wheel tightly, refusing to allow the car to swerve out of control—the direction kept shifting abruptly as the assault on the vehicles escalated as they accelerated.

  Garret accelerated to one-forty miles per hour, but the opposition’s vehicles had no difficulty keeping pace.

  The Ram and Mercedes converged on the Porsche’s sides, trying to squeeze it like an accordion. However, the Panamera was built like a tank; they had little to show for it other than burning rubber and flying sparks.

  Suddenly, Garret slammed on the brakes, allowing the other cars to shoot ahead. He does a one-hundred-eighty degree turn. With a burst of speed and tires spinning furiously until smoke came out, he put German engineering to the test by hitting one hundred sixty miles per hour in under six seconds.

  The other vehicles screeched to a halt, spun around and hurtled forward, but Garret had too much of a head start for them to make much headway.

  The windows of the Mercedes opened up, and a marksman leaned out with a crossbow and arrow. It wasn’t the easiest target to hit at breakneck speed, and the marksman shot and hit the Porsche’s window, shattering the glass.

  The arrow grazed Noah’s ear. “Ow!” The ear started bleeding, but it was only a surface flesh wound.

  “Grab the damned things!” yelled Garret.

  “Sifu never taught me that!” howled Noah.

  “He didn’t teach anybody that. Apply the principles, and you just do it.” Garret looked in the rearview mirror and saw another arrow coming at Noah.

  Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he launched the other and grabbed the arrow out of midair. The forward momentum of the arrow was strong and pulled Garret’s body forward, causing him to lurch forward, jerking his other hand off the steering wheel. He lost control, and the Porsche swerved toward a fire hydrant.

  A fraction of a moment before impact, Garret grabbed the steering wheel and steadied the car. “I sure hope that prayer stuff works because we need all the help we can get.”

  The loss of a fraction of a second while Garret regained control allowed the two assailant vehicles to catch up. With deadly aim, the Ram accelerated into the rear left side of the Porsche, knocking the balance out. The passenger side wheels lifted into the air, and it took every bit of driving prowess Garret had to make sure the car didn’t tip.

  He quickly leaned his body to the passenger side, upsetting the center of gravity but allowing the car to come down onto all four wheels again― but not before bump,
bump, bumping.

  “Now you know why I wanted to drive,” said Garret.

  “I could do the same. I’ve got Formula One on my Xbox,” Noah yelled.

  Now the Mercedes took its turn, inching ahead of the Porsche and trying to muscle its way to the front.

  “Not on my watch, soldier.” Garret put the pedal to the metal and shoved the Mercedes out of the way. “Got you.”

  It was a precarious, bone-chilling, thrilling ride powered by sheer adrenaline. Now at one-hundred-seventy-five miles an hour, Garret knew it was only a matter of time before either the Ram or the Mercedes would inflict a lethal blow.

  “Take the wheel from me,” demanded Garret.

  “What?” screamed Noah.

  “You heard me!”

  “That’s suicide.”

  “We’re dead either way. On the count of three, leap into my seat. One. Two. Three.” Garret released the wheel, and Noah grabbed it. The young lawyer bolted into the driver’s seat while the old lawyer jumped into the back. Garret pushed the button to open the rear window. “Slam on the brakes when I count to three,” he ordered.

  “You got to be kidding me,” Noah couldn’t believe it.

  “Can you stop questioning me?” Garret asked. “Just do as I say. One. Two. Three.”

  Noah obediently slammed on the brakes. Garret took out a throwing star and leaned out the window as the Ram screeched alongside. He propelled the metal star with full force and accuracy. It shattered the Ram’s window, and a following star hit the driver in the jugular.

  The Ram spun out of control and smashed into the concrete bridge ramp where it exploded into spectacular flames. But the danger was hardly over; the black Mercedes was just behind. Leaning out the window, Duke fixed a crossbow’s sights on the Porsche. There was a bumpy patch in the road and, with the Porsche swerving, it was hard to get an accurate lock. Duke shot anyway, and the arrow shattered the side mirror, slicing it off the car.

  The cars hit a smooth stretch, and Duke lined up the sights again. This time, Garrett threw a series of stars right at him but, with the same calm ability as his father and Garret, Duke easily nabbed every star thrown at him.

  Duke disappeared momentarily then appeared again, this time with an SMAW rocket launcher. He carefully positioned the weapon over his shoulder and took aim. Noah was nowhere near the driver Garret was, and the Mercedes rapidly approached.

  Garret stared grimly at Duke’s face. “We’re done for. He’s breaking the honor code.”

  “What honor code?” Noah asked.

  “The unwritten code of the Shaolin. The only weapons we use are those we can control with our bodies. No guns, no artillery and no explosives.”

  “Then get out some more of those stars, Mr. Southam,” yelled Abby as she looked out the back window to see their foe less than twenty feet away.

  “We have no more ammunition.” Garret’s face was grim.

  It was not good. No one would miss from this distance.

  Chapter 41

  Marco shook his head. “Dammit. All the accounts are here, but I got a problem. It’s voice- and fingerprint-activated. I have enough stuff of Garret and Tommy so I can break through that, no sweat. Trouble is, they’ve put in an extra personal access code, and it seems only Garret knows what it is. It’s not in any of the records of any of the account managers. Nothing is working, and I tried everything I could think of, boss.”

  Enraged, Chin lifted the chair Olivia was tied to and threw it to the floor. He made a phone call and screamed, “Leave them alone! We need Garret! Alive!”

  ***

  Duke fired the portable rocket launcher. However, instead of heading directly at the Porsche, the warhead overshot the racing vehicle. Fifteen hundred feet later, it hit a low-flying traffic helicopter, and the chopper exploded like the fireworks finale on the Fourth of July in New York City.

  The big man pulled himself back inside his car as the black Mercedes braked to a halt and then drove off in the opposite direction.

  Inside the Porsche, there were sighs of relief but also unanswered questions. Noah glanced in the rearview mirror. “He could have killed us but didn’t. Why?”

  “Believe it or not, this was the outcome I was hoping for,” Garret said. “What that means is they realize they still need me. It also means that Olivia stays alive. If they hurt Olivia, Chin knows I will never give him what he wants. If he kills me, then he’ll never have the information he needs unless...”

  “Unless what?”

  “He’s damned lucky, or his IT guy is smarter than Einstein times ten. I’m not risking Olivia’s life to find out if he’s either. The bottom line is that Chin wants me... and I want him.”

  “What’s the best way to get to Tiger Palace?” asked Noah.

  “It’s at the far end of the main casino drag,” Garret replied.

  “Why didn’t you say so earlier? Everyone knows the Cotai Strip in Macau.”

  Garret paused, then smiled for the first time in a while. “I didn’t tell you because I’ve always wanted to drive this car. Tommy outbid me for this one.” And I wanted to make sure I tried it before I joined him.

  Noah floored it, or at least went as fast as he could go, given they’d arrived in Macau. Even though it was just past daybreak, just like in Las Vegas, gambling never slept. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the horn, Noah ignored streetlights and stop signs, missing other motorists by the skinniest of margins. When one driver, coming the opposite direction, didn’t see him, Noah drove up onto the sidewalk. There was a kid on the sidewalk chasing a ball, so Noah did a sharp turn back onto the street, hitting the curb hard, causing Garret and Abby to hit their heads on the vehicle’s ceiling.

  The Tiger Palace was three blocks away, and Noah gunned it one last time before slamming on the brakes in its driveway.

  Chapter 42

  Garret led Noah and Abby as they flew out of the car and into the entertainment palace, hurtling past the terra-cotta warriors, caged Bengal tigers, patrons, acrobats, entertainers and staff. They waded through gambling tables, slot machines and a hundred-yard-long buffet to arrive at their goal of the huge picture of a tiger taking up the entire wall at the other end of the casino.

  “This is it,” said Garret. “We just need to figure out how to get in.”

  “I thought you’d been here before,” said Noah.

  “Never had to get in by myself.”

  They started feeling the walls for hairline cracks or hidden switches, but the surface was smooth.

  “Hello, Mr. Southam.” They turned to see Wing and Duke standing in front of them. “Mr. Chin wishes to see you alone.”

  “No, I’m going too,” piped up Noah.

  “Me, too,” added Abby.

  Duke stepped in front of Noah. Up close, he was even scarier. “Alone means alone.”

  Hate was in each man’s eyes as Noah retorted, “You are not only fat, but you are real ugly.”

  Infuriated by the insult, Duke let out a roar and lunged for Noah. Noah quickly sidestepped the hulk, and Duke’s fist plunged into one of the toes of the tiger painted on the wall.

  “Did I also mention you’re stupid?” taunted Noah.

  “At least I’m not dead, which is what you’re going to be in three seconds,” snarled Duke.

  This would be no genteel martial arts competition. It would be down-and-dirty fighting. Each man was a master of the Five Traditional Animals of the Shaolin: the Dragon, Snake, Leopard, Tiger and Crane. The battle would be brutal in its nature, but exquisite in its execution of the martial arts. Noah showed the power of the Dragon as he attacked Duke’s vital organs.

  Crouching like a Snake, Duke sprung out to repel Noah, countering with the focused, ferocious movement of a tiger’s paw. Noah’s tiger-like quickness blocked Duke’s hand and, with the velocity of the feline, his hand shot toward Duke’s throat.

  Duke parried the attack and used the Crane’s quick foot movements to catch Noah ever so slightly off
guard and power kicked him in the thigh. Wincing in big-time pain, Noah lost his balance. Duke, as the Crane, stretched tall and kicked out, but Noah reached for inward strength. Forcing himself to ignore the pain, he found a new element of power—the element of Metal. Hard like iron, he resisted Duke’s attack and, with the power of a steel bar, he hammered his arm on Duke’s back, causing him to stumble.

  Garret tried to intervene, but Noah snarled, “No! This is my time!”

  “That was dumb,” mocked Duke. “Baby could use the help.”

  With both combatants exhausted, sweating and breathing heavily, the battle continued through sheer willpower. Gathering strength, Duke drew from another power source—Water. His arms and legs attacked Noah like the relentless pounding of waves upon the seashore. Noah could not withstand the barrage and stepped back, but Duke relentlessly pounded on. However, Noah refused to break, angering Duke. The huge man reached into an inside fold of his jacket and pulled out his knife. With blazing speed, He stabbed Noah in the gut.

  Noah’s eyes filled with hate. “You broke the code.” He repeated this louder. “You broke the code.”

  The unspoken code that Noah referred to was the code of honor. When you fought hand to foot, only limbs of the body were allowed to be used for battle. If you wanted to use knives, spears or shooting stars, you had to make your opponents aware.

  “Who gives a shit about honor?” Duke roared.

  “I do.” With the knife still in his stomach, Noah became an inspired dervish, kicking and hammering. Duke reached for the knife and pulled it out, causing more blood to flow. Instead of weakening Noah, the gushing blood infuriated and inspired him. He began a rapid series of combinations of left, right, upper, kick, kick, right, right... with a final pirouette ramrodding Duke into submission.

  A desperate Duke tried in vain to knife Noah again, but Noah easily deflected the attack and, with a swift kick, directed the knife into Duke’s heart. The huge man’s eyes bulged. His mouth gurgled, then foamed, and he keeled over, dead.