“What the hell kind of father does that to his kids?” says Queenie angrily.
“A father who wants to teach his children not to trust anyone, even those close to them.”
“We could have been killed,” snaps Prez.
Chin forces out a whisper. “You are all soft. You were unprepared. Don’t expect that I can always bail you out.”
“The way you bailed Duke out? No thanks. I’ll do it myself,” snaps Queenie. She turns around and heads toward the exit.
“Later on this noise,” snaps Prince. He storms out.
Right behind him is Prez, who clenches her teeth, not saying a word.
Only King is left. He waits for the last bars to go up, walks up to the gurney, and hovers over Chin.
Chin opens his eyes. “You stayed.”
“I stayed.” King nods. “My siblings are... impetuous. They don’t understand that ‘All warfare is based on deception.’ ‘Attack where your enemy is unprepared.’ ‘Appear where you are not expected.’ ‘He who prepared himself waits to take the enemy unprepared and will win.’”
King’s quotes from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War elicit a faint nod of approval from the bandaged Chin.
Chin struggles to sit up. “In order to kill the tree, go for the roots, and the branches will die. If you cut the branches, the tree still survives.”
“So where is the money?”
“I don’t know.”
“In that case, you are useless to me.” King quickly unzips the zipper from his leather coat and pulls out two dwarf adders. He throws one at the turbaned man, and the snake bites him immediately on the neck. He howls, grabs the snake and tosses it across the room. Writhing with excruciating pain, swelling appears on his neck, and he crumples paralyzed to the ground.
King sets the other snake on Chin’s bed. The immobile Chin watches helplessly as the small snake climbs over the sheets and then up Chin’s arm, then bites the Tiger Master.
“Never trust anyone.”
King turns around and steps toward the entrance.
Chapter Two
It can easily cost $2 million for a modest 700 square foot apartment in Central―the business, government, tourism and shopping heartland of Hong Kong―and that’s nowhere near the high end. This area precariously balances the charm of the older colonial culture with modern culture. Within a five-minute walk, you can visit a centuries old Buddhist temple, have a latte at Starbucks, buy a Ming vase at any of the numerous quaint dealers or shop till you drop at any of the luxury malls or boutiques.
In other words, it’s an eclectic area with the unexpected being the norm. Still, the concierge at this upscale apartment building raises an eyebrow when a fashionable young Asian couple enters the lobby. Not the guy. The world is full of young studs who seem to spend half their lives in the gym. The women on the other hand, wow! In a world full of 4’s, 5’s and 6’s, it’s hard not to stare when you see an 8, maybe 8.5.
Trying hard not to ogle, the concierge offers a friendly greeting. “Good morning. How may I help you?”
“We’re here to meet Noah Reid. Can you buzz him please?”
Her voice is almost as sexy as her bod. “I’m sorry but Mr. Reid is not available. He didn’t mention anything about visitors. Perhaps you can leave me your card or a message? I’ll make sure he gets it.”
“Maybe you could let us into his apartment for a few minutes?” asks the woman with just a hint of a smile.
“I... I’m sorry. That’s against building policy,” stammers the concierge wishing he could find some way to accommodate the siren in front of him.
“Could you make just a teeny, weeny exception?” says the young woman.
She quickly opens her purse and takes out an envelope, half an inch thick full of money. The concierge recognizes the face of Benjamin Franklin, the face on the US one hundred dollar bill. There’s likely six months’ wages.
She touches the concierge’s hand with the envelope.
“I would really like it if you would. After all, a few minutes couldn’t hurt.”
The concierge nods and hands her a card key. “Room 1749. Please don’t tell anyone.”
“My lips are sealed.” She teases him with a quick pucker of the lips, then moves with the young man to the elevator.
***
As the couple enter the room, they are overwhelmed by the smell of rotten something or other.
They ignore it and head straight to the master bedroom. This looks like it’s right out of Better Homes and Gardens. No wallpaper but faux tin tiles of bronze, silver and black. A double bed with a black bedspread, white sheets and silver coverings on the goose down pillows. Too clean to have been used by anyone recently, quite possibly never. There is a 27” iMac desktop computer. Powering it up, they discover that this is the first time it has ever been turned on. There’s not a single application installed, let alone any files to examine.
Whatever they’re looking for is definitely not here.
Next stop is the kitchen where they discover the source of the horrible smell. They see moldy take-out noodles and rancid barbecued duck on the grey-flecked granite counter tops. There’s a Swiss kitchen clock but without batteries; it is perpetually stuck at twelve o’clock. No cups or glasses, which explains the paper cups of takeout Starbucks and empty cans of soda. The Sub Zero fridge, ovens, cupboards... nada.
The couple methodically examines every square inch of the Spartan living room. Nothing unusual in or out of the leather sofa, black recliner and no hidden drawers or anything taped underneath the coffee table. There’s a growing frustration but there’s nothing they can do about it—nothing is out of the ordinary. They meticulously put everything back the way they found it.
Lastly, they enter the second bedroom. It is a teenager’s disaster-struck room: clothes are strewn everywhere and there is old vintage X-Box and PlayStation hooked up to a 50” screen that is mammoth for a room that is barely a hundred square feet. Judging from all the games on the bed, the electronic toys have had great use but again, nothing out of the ordinary.
Frustration is etched on the couple’s faces as they exit the suite. Whatever they’re looking for is not to be found which means they’ve got to try and chase down another non-existent lead.
***
“Thanks for your help,” says the young man to the concierge.
“Anytime.” But next time, just send the girly girl.
The young man offers his hand to the concierge. Weird. This guy’s wearing one glove. Oh well, for five thousand bucks, he can be as weird as he likes. As the concierge shakes the man’s hand, he does not see a small asp coming out of a hidden part of the glove. This five-inch descendant of the snake used by Cleopatra to commit suicide bites the concierge.
“Ouch!” yells the concierge.
The concierge drops to the ground. Still squirming, foam forms at the edges of his mouth. Ignoring his gurgled gasps for help, the young man picks up the snake with his gloved hand while the woman rifles through the concierge’s jacket. She finds the envelope of cash and removes it. The couple leaves as the concierge gasps and writhes on the floor. Paralysis is setting in and he’s turning blue.
In ten minutes, an elderly male condo owner will find the concierge dead on the floor. There will be a police investigation and autopsy. The pathologist will discover that the concierge died from the venom of a deadly small snake. This will make absolutely no sense because venomous snakes are not naturally found in Hong Kong. It will be suspected that one of the other condo owners smuggled one in for whatever twisted reason. Pest control people will be hired to search the entire building but will find no snakes of any description at all.
The young couple has a plan. For the next two months, they will come back again, sometimes just him, sometimes just her and sometimes as a couple—disguised in plain sight as tenants or guests of tenants. Every time they come, there will be a death. The common thread will be the bite from a mysterious snake whose origin and whereabouts are unk
nown. Sometimes the bites will be lethal, sometimes not.
The victims will be random. A nursing mother who just happens to be in the elevator. A janitor vacuuming the hall. A couple getting ready to go to out for sushi.
What will be particularly baffling to investigators is that while there are snakebites present, the venom cannot be found in any known database.
It’s a cycle of terrorism and opportunity that is being perpetrated by the young man, Chin’s son, King, the snake lover. His associate is Dr. Lisa Mah, one of the world’s experts in snake venomology and Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The poison is unidentifiable because King has his own private research facility where unknown to anyone else, he and Lisa have been developing and modifying toxins. With select snakes, they remove the reptile’s natural venom and replace it with a newly created poison.
Fear of the unknown is powerful. Within three months, everyone in the building will want to sell but no one will want to buy. There will be a lowball offer of twenty cents on the dollar that most of the owners will scurry to accept. King and Lisa have done this in two different cities, each time profiting millions for their ventures. The only downside is the long wait for the news to die down before they get buyers.
This time though, intimidation into a sale was not the primary goal. Getting information was. When there was no information to be had, King decided to go back to the usual routine. Might as well earn a few bucks.
***
Next stop for the Snake King and Dr. Lisa is Master Wu’s studio. However, they have changed out of their chic clothing into denim and T-shirts, more in style with the locals of this more lowbrow Hong Kong neighborhood. In this older part of the city, there are no fancy shopping malls, elegant men and women in the latest fashions, high-end boutiques, or mega commercial buildings. Instead, there are hundred-year-old low-rise tenements in progressing decay just barely livable. It’s a colorful neighborhood. There’s one shop with lanterns and large green and red globes—just like huge Christmas tree ornaments. Another store has life-size statues of characters from Chinese operas—complete with the white-faced make-up, ancient warrior clothing and brandishing weapons. And of course, there are carts selling freshly steamed peanuts, pirated movies and knockoff iPhone cases.
King and Lisa sit at an open-air street hawker stall, eating a bowl of wonton noodles while keeping an eye on the door of Master Wu’s studio―a shabby, windowless building. When there is no movement from the door, the couple orders another bowl and slowly slurps down the handmade dumplings. The vendor thinks this is his lucky day―this is the third bowl they’ve eaten in an hour.
Patience is rewarded when the door opens and the elderly Master Wu leaves for a walk. They wait until he is out of sight and quickly move to the door, leaving the uneaten noodles behind.
They are not surprised to find it unlocked. Many in the area, including Master Wu, always leave the doors open. Theirs is a high-risk, high-robbery district and anyone who wanted to break in would not be deterred by something as mundane as a bolted door. Why waste money on protection that doesn’t protect?
Cynicism transforms to admiration when they step inside the building. There is an exquisite array of martial arts artifacts, weapons and symbols throughout— some could easily be museum pieces, others exhibit the frayed edges of regular use. However, they are there on a mission, not on a sightseeing tour. As at the condo, they methodically check the rooms. Unlike at the condo, they have no idea what they are looking for. The only guide they have for their search is “something that can lead them to billions of dollars.” They look behind the larger weapons and paintings on the wall to see if there is a safe or secret enclosure. They feel the floors for any abnormal bulges or protrusions that might lead to hidden trap doors. They tap the walls and listen to see if any of them are false.
Nothing appears out of the ordinary.
On the upper floor in Master Wu’s living quarters, the process repeats. The large open room itself is simple. All the sounds are consistent when the plain walls are tapped and the hardwood floors are stomped upon—nothing is out of the ordinary.. In other words, this is a simple Shaolin monk’s quarters matching the lifestyle of its owner―except for one item. They cannot help but marvel at a thirty-foot long rosewood table. Chairs are unnecessary because with a height of only fifteen inches, the table is so low that one has to sit cross-legged on the floor to use it.
They feel every inch of the table’s surface, paying special attention to the carvings of a tiger on half of the table and a crane on the other half. They feel there must be something special about these animals. After all, Master Wu is a grandmaster of Hung Gar, the Tiger and Crane style of Shaolin martial arts. Close examination shows that no attention to detail has been spared―every feather of the bird is unique, as is each whisker of the tiger. Rather than the ordinary depth of an eighth of an inch, the depth of carving is almost half an inch, giving a multi-dimensional quality to the animals.
But they can find nothing out of the ordinary. No obscure levers blending in with the carved feathers, no camouflaged buttons hidden in the tiger’s fur or eyes or ears or mouth.
Sitting stooped at the table with legs crossed, elbows on the tabletop with hands making a contemplative steeple, they ponder their next move. Frustrated that no new ideas come to mind—they have inspected every possible square inch, they decide to leave.
As they rise, King accidentally hits the tabletop with his knee. This is a breaking of the cardinal rule of robbery: Don’t touch anything you don’t need to touch. However, this is the once in a lifetime exception that can change lifetimes.
King freezes. He felt an ever-so-tiny movement of the tabletop. It’s a tribute to King’s finely honed senses that he felt the microscopic movement of the table when his knee hit it.
“Help me,” he says to Lisa.
Together, they put their hands underneath the rosewood tabletop and slowly hoist the backbreaking six-hundred-and-fifty pound weight and place it to the side.
Bingo! They have found nothing, but that nothing is extremely important. Beneath the table hides an empty storage cavity. Thirty feet long, six feet wide and eight feet deep.
“This seems like a dead end,” says Lisa.
“No, it looks like a start,” whispers King. He leaps down into the dark space and runs his hand over the floor. Feeling something, he picks it up and holds it to the light.
It is the torn fragment of a hundred dollar bill.
***
Exiting the studio, King and Lisa head silently in the direction opposite where they spotted Master Wu walking earlier. King is thinking―hard. Lisa has seen that look before and she knows not so say anything until he’s ready.
King has already tapped into Noah’s wireless networks and cloud. There was nothing he could find in any online storage, either personally or from Noah’s office. That was why he paid a personal visit to Noah’s home. Maybe Noah had a secret book or some notes on where the missing illegal funds were stored. Obviously not.
He didn’t expect to find anything at Master Wu’s but King had long learned that sometimes in order to find a worm, you had to turn over one hell of a lot of rocks. Although he found no money or nothing written anywhere, the big hidden storage area under the table spoke volumes.
Only one answer makes sense. The reason my father could not find the money in any bank is because it never was deposited in any bank. It was hidden. Hidden by the one person my father would never suspect.
Master Wu.
The question then is why was it empty? Where is the money? Has it all been spent?
King does a mental calculation. Assuming that the money was in US hundred dollar bills, there is enough room in that storage space for billions of dollars. Or if it were in twenties, it would be hundreds of millions. Or if it was in other currencies or denominations… Whatever. It’s still a hell of a lot of cash that was there.
A share of this money that is mine. Hell, if I’m doing all the work, I sho
uld get all of it.
The question is, “How do I get it?”
Much as he hates to admit it, he knows there is only one person who might be able to help him. He just hopes he hasn’t killed him already.
Chapter Three
As Noah Reid walks down the sidewalk at Hong Kong’s International Airport, he can’t believe how utterly exhausted he is. From the moment he got off the plane from LA almost three months ago, his life has had two speeds: crazy faster and insanely faster. In a Hong Kong heartbeat, battling and beating Chin and his ruthless Shaolin organization and Bengal Tigers transformed Noah from yin to yang, wannabe to master, neophyte to old pro.
And now he’s got to decide how to spend three billion bucks. Life has taken on a new kind of excitement.
His time as a lawyer at Pittman Saunders having lasted less than a week, Noah’s new role is President of the Chad Huang Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing youth a chance to get out or stay out of the enticing criminal lifestyle. When he took control of Chin’s money, Noah could think of nothing better than to use it to further the work of Chad Huang, Noah’s childhood friend who Chin’s thugs killed. North America and Asia are his two target continents for these social programs because that’s where the bulk of Chin’s money was dishonestly earned.
One thing Noah didn’t know before he embarked on this venture was how hard it would be to spend money. Although not publicly advertised, there has been a deluge of requests from the sincere to the stupid. Recognizing that not every group has a team of professional proposal writers that can entice the readers with words, Noah wants to explore every request for funds to make sure that no deserving group gets left behind. But as a guy who grew up often living meal-to-meal as the kid of poor missionaries, he wants to make damn sure that the money doesn’t go to some charity with a ton of staff that has seven figure salaries and flies to meetings in private jets.
The Noah Reid Series: Books 1-3: The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series Boxset Page 25
