“Are you okay?” asks Noah of the bleeding Cheryl.
Surprise of surprises. Ignoring her pain, Cheryl grabs Noah’s arms and spins them behind his back. The “unconscious” hostile gets up and slams one powerful punch into Noah's mid-section.
“How do I get access to the funds?” demands Cheryl. “I know who you are."
Noah gasps 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?” exclaims Noah.
“You’re so damn naive. Of course, I knew. Now tell us."
This whole escapade has been staged―Cheryl was never in any real danger. The blood on her body is fake blood hidden in the knife blade and its release was triggered by pressure on the handle.
Another rocket punch launches at Noah but before it enters Noah's heart, an oar lands on the top of his adversary's head, stunning him ― teenage Sam to the rescue! As the man crumbles, Sam whacks him again and again with swings worthy of a Home Run Derby winner at Baseball’s All-Star Game.
Meanwhile, Lisa pulls a handful of acupuncture needles out of Master Wu and rockets the slender pointed rods into the eyes and face of Cheryl.
However, the Captain isn’t done yet. Fighting through the pain, Cheryl unzips a jacket pocket and pulls out a young six-inch saw-scaled viper and flings it at Noah.
The serpent opens its jaws as it flies through the air, ready to inject its venom into Noah's neck, when suddenly a razor sharp star slices the snake’s head off. Too close for comfort. The snake was less than three inches away.
Noah glances to see Sam grinning. He had swiped a few stars from Master Wu's uniform. “Those Shaolin lessons you give me are paying off.”
Sam throws another star at Cheryl, who has a pistol in her hand ready to fire. The star hits the gun. It deflects Cheryl's shot away from Noah and hits her accomplice who is getting off the floor.
He stumbles and the dagger he holds imbeds into Cheryl's chest.
“Let's get on the Ever Ready,” orders Sam.
Noah understands what happened. Sam was hiding and watching on the ferryboat. It drove the teen crazy to be patient but 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 carry Master Wu onto the smaller vessel and the Ever Ready starts lowering.
Lisa's brain is working overtime. Snakes? Could it be? But...
***
Chest and stomach on fire, Cheryl is bleeding out. She has failed and she knows it. Blood pours out of her wounds as she makes her way to the engine room. There’s nothing else I can do. No matter how well she serviced him, sexually or professionally, past performance is irrelevant.
She failed King and in his world, there are no second chances.
She goes to the engine room and opens an unmarked box that she put there when her team took over the ship. She pulls out the secret loot and takes out a military grade thermite grenade and a small rocket launcher.
As she goes back up to the open deck of the ship, she compares this ship with the one the tramp freighter she was on what seems a lifetime ago. A handcrafted railing. Baccarat chandeliers and lights throughout. Wallpaper made from genuine snakeskin. This boat is worth twice the value of the three hundred people my boat carries. With life ebbing away, she hoists the rocket launcher onto her shoulder and aims it toward the chopper, which is almost directly over the yacht.
She fires. An explosion that rivals any fireworks display in the universe rips the air.
The energy blast throws her to the deck. Shrapnel from the helicopter rains over her, burning and piercing her body.
Her final act of life is to pull the pin out of the thermite grenade.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One
Chapter Nineteen
The Ever Ready has barely touched the water when the sound of an explosion makes Noah, Sam and Lisa scrutinize the sky. They see not only metal fragments but also the body of the helicopter coming down toward their thin metal boat.
“Get down,” Noah calls out with a voice like a cannon.
Sam and Lisa flatten themselves and grab the boat’s railing as Noah throws his body over the unconscious Master Wu to protect him.
And then a second explosion from the Tao Princess itself.
The Ever Ready capsizes, throwing all into the suddenly raging, turbulent waters. A glance in the direction of the Tao Princess shows it broken in half and sinking.
However, the fate of the luxury yacht is not their concern. Their own survival is.
Noah, Sam and Lisa tread water but Master Wu cannot be seen.
“I’m going to find Master Wu. Try to right the boat.” Noah grabs a huge gulp of air and plunges below the ocean surface.
Sam turns 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?” gasps Lisa.
“What’s yours then? Look this boat is made out of super light material. We can do it.”
Without any alternatives to suggest, Lisa nods in agreement. “Okay.”
***
The water is murky so visibility is limited, but at ten feet below surface, Noah sees something he wants to see and something he doesn’t want to see.
What he wants to see is the submerged Master Wu, limbs floating like a suspended jellyfish. What he doesn’t want to see is an anaconda coiling itself around the venerable master’s body.
A quick calculation races through his brain as Noah swims toward them. Average person holds their breath underwater for sixty seconds. I can probably do eighty. By the time I get to Master Wu, I’ve used up forty. What the hell can I do in forty?
And then God smiles.
A sharp piece of metal from the helicopter’s body sinks slowly in front of Noah as he swims. Without breaking stride, he grabs it. That’s ten seconds.
A few more strokes and he’s arrived at the snake and Master Wu. That’s fifteen seconds.
Noah takes the sharp piece of metal and jabs it hard at the snake’s eyes.
He gouges out the left eye, then the right.
Enraged, the blinded anaconda releases Master Wu and flings him toward the surface. That’s a blessing. And twenty-five seconds.
By sheer instinct, the snake turns on Noah.
***
“Make the biggest rocking motions you can. Shoot up in the air, then press down to the ocean as you descend.” Lisa and Sam go up and down like Yo-Yos as they cling to the side of the boat.
“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?” says Sam.
“Yeah,” says Lisa.
Up, then down. “This time,” shouts the teenager.
Sam and Lisa push off and use the upward momentum of the boat to propel themselves a couple of feet into the air.
Not that much height but enough for them to land on the bottom of the boat. Their extra momentum combines with the natural force of the boat lowering itself. It’s enough—the boat flips over and rights itself.
There’s no time to congratulate themselves though. Onboard, they see Master Wu’s body floating face down, drifting aimlessly away. Twenty feet away, Noah is losing the fight of his life with a furious, blind anaconda. Noah tries to take another gulp of air as the snake pulls him
underwater.
“Oh, shit,” says Sam as he jumps overboard. He swims freestyle to Master Wu and wraps one arm across his chest, then cautiously swims back to the Ever Ready. Lisa leans over and gently takes Master Wu’s shoulders.
With Sam pushing the body up and Lisa pulling, Master Wu is carefully taken onboard.
Meanwhile, three feet below the surface, the blinded anaconda has completely wrapped itself around the now unconscious Noah and is squeezing harder and harder.
The snake unhinges its jaw and its wide-open mouth begins to envelop Noah’s head.
“Throw me a harpoon or anything you got,” calls Sam to Lisa.
She takes a quick check down the boat. “Try this.” She throws down a portable fire extinguisher.
Sam grabs it and swims toward the snake.
Anacondas have a keen sense of smell and wariness of prey. This one’s radar starts prickling as Sam approaches and it rises to the surface.
The radar however does not sense inanimate objects. Sam shoots up out of the water to gain maximum mobility and with as hard a swing as the fourteen-year-old can muster, he bashes the anaconda on the head.
Stunned, the blind serpent releases Noah. Sam sees the shrapnel in Noah’s hand and takes it from him.
Sam again hits the snake with the full force of the small fire extinguisher. The snake, mouth open wide, lunges at Sam.
Sam puts the thin metal shrapnel piece into the snake’s mouth, narrowly escaping having his hand bitten off. Without realizing the danger, the snake chomps down hard. One end of the shrapnel cuts upward through the snake’s brain and the other end slits the animal in its throat. Writhing in agony, the anaconda sinks below the surface.
Sam quickly takes Noah and tows him to the Ever Ready. Like they did with Master Wu, Sam pushes Noah up while Lisa pulls him aboard.
Lisa is about to apply CPR but Sam interrupts, “You look after Master Wu. I need to do this for Noah.”
Sam turns Noah on his side, hoping to drain any seawater from his lungs. He looks, strains his ears for breathing and watches to see if there is any rise or fall of chest. There is not. Sam places two fingers on Noah’s neck between the Adam’s apple and windpipe to check for carotid pulse.
Thank God, something’s gone right. Yes, there is a heartbeat.
He pinches Noah’s nose and applies the kiss of life. He breathes into Noah’s mouth, then waits for five seconds. He does this ten times in row. Patience is hardly a trait in any teenager and intense frustration mixes with fear as Noah fails to respond.
Come on, Noah. Damn you. You can’t go. Noah. Noah!
Then... Noah coughs out salt water. And coughs again. And again. He wakes up to see a grinning Sam with Lisa hovering over him as he inhales revitalizing lungfuls of air.
Master Wu’s unconscious but alive. Noah, Sam and Lisa are alive. Unfortunately, when the boat capsized the engine got waterlogged and is unable to start. Similarly, all their cell phones are water damaged too and won’t work.
They’re stuck somewhere between Hong Kong and Shanghai on a route that hardly anyone uses―without food, drinkable water, power, medical supplies, communication devices, or an engine that works... but they are alive.
Chapter Twenty
King watches his computer screen, angry and stunned. Within half an hour, he has lost a $9 million dollar Apache helicopter and hundreds of his prized snakes. This entire escapade has been a huge financial hit. Although King has made millions in the few years that his father helped him develop the snakehead, his costs have been even greater. Developing the infrastructure to allow financial growth costs money and his snake habitats, research and maintenance are damn expensive. If nothing works, he’s going to be broke before the week is out.
Oh, yes. He also lost about twenty of his staff but that’s no big deal. On every street corner, there’s some tough guy wanting to make a name for himself or some ex-military person trying to make a few bucks now that the army or navy of whatever country they’re a citizen of no longer wants them.
Cheryl was a bigger loss. Not because of the sex, but because she was developing into a damn fine captain that knew how to keep the crew happy and illegals alive when they were being schlepped across the ocean.
Finding the right buttons to push on either Noah or Master Wu is even harder than he thought. It’s hard for him to accept that a combination of muscle and fear factor didn’t work but that’s what contingency plans are for. It makes him nervous that he has to hope Lisa comes through. A street bully like his father at heart, King has never trusted the “soft approach,” but now he’s got no choice and he has no idea how to assess the situation.
The Tao Princess has sunk, the helicopter is gone and where the hell are Noah and Master Wu? Lisa let him know the modified drugs worked, but there’s been a total lack of communication since then.
The worst-case scenario―and unfortunately the most logical answer of course―is that everyone is dead and his inheritance is irretrievable. With billions at stake, he’s determined to turn over every last rock.
***
On a day where not much has gone right, things have gone from terrible to disastrous. A sudden typhoon hits the Ever Ready and it starts floundering in the turbulent waters in the East China Sea. Sam, Lisa and Noah tie themselves to the craft to prevent powerful winds of over sixty miles per hour from blowing them overboard. Master Wu is tied to Noah and Noah tries as hard as he can to protect the aged master from the driving rains that pound on them.
For the next four hours, it’s all they can do to stay on the boat―with wave after wave swarming the vessel from the ocean and rain pounding on them from above.
Gradually the storm dissipates but it’s still pissing rain. The seas remain choppy but at least they’re calm enough for Noah to assess the situation. The boat has been entirely stripped of accessories as water has swept away everything that wasn’t tied down. He begins a search. The boat’s not very big and it takes him less than five minutes to explore every nook and cranny. The only thing that’s left is a paddle strapped to the side of the boat.
“Damn,” mutters Noah as he waves the solitary oar in the air.
“Don’t swear at it. I saved your sorry ass with it,” says Sam, reminding how he clobbered one of Noah’s combatants on the Tao Princess. “What did you expect to find anyway?”
“Maybe some distress flares. Maybe some granola bars. Maybe some fresh water.”
Noah shakes his head as he sticks the paddle into the water.
Sam says skeptically, “That’ll get us to Shanghai, no problem.”
“You got any other bright ideas, Einstein?”
Sam shakes his head. “It’s not that hard to get to land. All we have to do is point the boat east and we’ll wind up somewhere on the China seaboard. Eventually.”
“‘Eventually’ is time we don’t have. I don’t care about us—we’re good. We can hang awhile. I’m concerned about Master Wu,” says Noah. “He’ll die soon if he doesn’t get some kind of treatment.”
“He might die even if he does,” says Lisa, waking up. “He was already in a bad way before we started. He was not responding to acupuncture or cupping. And almost getting drowned is not going to improve his health.”
Noah starts rowing. It would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I need advice.”
“Of course you do. I certainly didn’t think you came to wish me well... What is the problem?”
“I’m almost broke.”
“Money is not your problem,” says King’s bandaged father.
Which is true. A period of ruthlessness will cover any short-term cash flow problems. Chin speaks from experience.
King inhales, sucking the tepid air deep into his lungs. “I don’t know where Master Wu is. I don’t know where Noah is. I sent my best people to contain them, to control them and now they are all gone.”
Even through the bandages, it seems like Chin’s eyes are l
asering into his son. “You’ve just stated the source of your problem.”
“What?”
“You said you sent your best people. You never send anyone else to do what is most important. You send them to do flunky jobs. Anything important you have to do yourself.”
“They might have recognized me.”
“So what? Listen, for almost all my dealings, I sent my flunkies. I sent Garret, I sent Tommy, but for anything important, I went myself. Never, ever allow an inferior to do what only you must do. If they foul up, you are lost. If they succeed, they will think they are important and treat you as if you owe them something. And not only will you owe them something, your situation is worse because you will need them.”
“So is that what happened to you?” asks King.
Even through the wrappings on his face, Chin’s eye blaze anger at his impertinent son. For Chin, the answer is one that he will never admit to anyone—especially his children. While the Triad leader was very good at making money, he was barely literate. He needed Garret to do cut the deals and examine them closely. And while Chin was good at controlling and intimidation, he did not have a personality that anyone found appealing. He needed Tommy to be gregarious, the consummate PR person for his operations.
Biting his tongue, Chin refocuses the topic. “Never, ever rely on anyone. Never, ever be in need.”
Sage words but too late to be of use.
“So what do I do now?”
Chin ponders a moment then says, “You have to play the cards the way you’re dealt them. Analyze. Strategize. Maximize. And be prepared when the opportunity comes. When you do, seize control yourself.”
“And what if I don’t get that chance?”
“You will if you attack on all fronts. Look harder. Maybe you need to wait. No one is perfect. Someone will slip up. Someone will want some perk. Or you might just get lucky. Just be ready because you have no idea which door will open.”
The Noah Reid Series: Books 1-3: The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series Boxset Page 34
