The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (plus special bonuses) Page 4

  Out of the shadows of the stern Shaolin discipline, Tommy emerged to be funny, engaging and ebullient—it was hard not to like him. Tommy made personal calls and visits, cajoling and convincing a paying audience to “trust him” for the “Hung Gar show of a lifetime,” of which he revealed no details.

  Chin’s responsibility was to train for the fight with a killer foe that had never been beaten.

  The big day arrived.

  Chin, standing in the wings, looked out to the audience—a couple of hundred people sitting in bleachers behind a wire mesh fence around a makeshift dirt arena.

  The spectators were restless and Chin didn’t blame them. They already endured a few preliminary bouts. A couple of no name martial artists duking it out with each other and a “last man standing battle royal” with ten participants. Okay, but definitely not worth the five hundred bucks that Tommy gouged them for, let alone the time it took to get to this remote location.

  It was going to be up to him and Chin relished the challenge.

  He entered the arena and waved his arms high up in the air. There was some polite applause until four men emerged from a barn, carrying a caged bloodthirsty Bengal Tiger.

  Mesmerized, the audience watched the men carry the tiger into the arena. As the cage door opened, ropes tied to the animal’s neck were snaked through the chain-link fence and handed to two men outside the arena for them. They held on tight as the tiger leapt and thrashed, trying to go after Chin.

  Chin, calmly staring at the vicious beast, suddenly let out a ferocious roar.

  All eyes snapped to Chin, watching the renegade Shaolin monk as he took off his shirt. Gasps of delight and screams of wonder came from the women in the audience while their male dates could only look on in jealousy.

  Chin merely smiled, and then proceeded to remove his trousers.

  With Chin clad only in a loincloth, the only thing greater than the supercharged sexual energy emanating from the women was the lust of the tiger for food as it snarled at Chin. The feline had not eaten for several days, and the promise of fresh meat made it pull like Ulysses on the ropes that restrained it.

  Chin’s smile transformed to an intense, focused glare. Every muscle in his body went taut. These next moments would determine his ultimate future and he had done everything humanly possible to prepare.

  “Cut the cords!” commanded Chin.

  The handlers slashed the ropes and the tiger broke free.

  The distance between Chin and tiger was seventy feet. They raced at each other but, just before they collided, Chin lunged, arms extended, at the animal and did a handspring using the feline’s head as his springboard.

  This knocked the tiger to the ground. Chin did another two handsprings to land by the fence.

  Chest heaving, Chin roared again, supremely confident as he spun himself around for the audience.

  The spectators ate it up and his men sprayed Chin’s body with fresh blood, further fueling bloodlust in animal and audience.

  The tiger rose and flew at Chin again, bellowing with anger and hunger.

  This time, Chin stood his ground, arms in ready position.

  The tiger leapt at Chin with jaws open, but the Shaolin man of war was ready.

  Like lightning, Chin’s fists launched like cannonballs in the heat of war.

  They collided with the tiger’s eyes, breaking the sockets in each of them.

  Blood began to stream from the stunned and blinded tiger.

  But that didn’t damage its sense of smell. The tiger valiantly snapped and bit in the direction of the blood scent.

  Sightless, however, the tiger was no match for Chin. The martial arts master kicked and punched like an avenging fury. This was more than training with Master Wu. This was more than training bouts with Garret or Tommy or any of the others.

  This was pure Chin and everyone knew it

  Relentless. Powerful. Dominating.

  Finally, one hammer fist into the animal’s temple sent it to oblivion.

  Unbelievable.

  Chin, one. Tiger, zero.

  Even with husbands, sugar daddies and boyfriends present, the women yanked off their tops, displaying their wares, hoping she might be the lucky recipient of the martial artist’s legendary sexual abilities. Chin reveled in the adulation as they cried, “Take me! Take me!”

  And, sometime in the next month, Chin would take every one of them because every one of them would generate income for him.

  But there was something even better created that day than the dollars that would come from the sex-crazed women.

  Buzz.

  Buzz about this invincible Shaolin monk turned rogue.

  And there was nothing better than buzz to generate business.

  Chapter 8

  Word of mouth spread like wildfire. Sexual supernova. Martial arts rock star... And one of the most ruthless people on Earth. Chin, Garret and Tommy were run off their feet, establishing gambling operations and drug networks.

  If you did not go to Chin’s gambling joints, if you would not buy drugs from Chin’s dealers, if you would not spend money with Chin’s girls, well... remember the tiger. There was no end of suckers, girls and druggies that wanted to be associated with Chin.

  With business growing like gangbusters, Chin realized that he had to get out of the limelight. He was a target for any criminal organization that wanted his business or anyone wanting bragging rights about taking him down... and it was only a matter of time before law enforcement entities would clamp down tight.

  He also knew that he needed to be better organized, especially if the billions he anticipated to roll in the door materialized. He needed mechanisms to launder that kind of cash; he couldn’t hide that much money in a mattress.

  Garret and Tommy had proven themselves in putting together the tiger show but they needed to step up their game to play in the big leagues.

  Tommy was an easy, excellent and obvious fit. He loved to party, loved to womanize and loved to be in the limelight. In other words, he was perfect for “public relations.” More than that, Chin decided that Tommy would be the public face for “Golden Asia,” the name Chin coined for his enterprise-to-be.

  Garret wanted in on the action right away, too, but Chin had another plan. It required the kind of ingenuity, toughness and smarts that Chin knew Garret had. He financed the completion of Garret’s high school, college and law school education. It was an incredible grind, but Garret managed to finish it all within eight years.

  New graduate Garret realized that to have credibility, he needed to be with a large multinational law firm. However, a suspect history trumped his Harvard law degree in making him desirable for most reputable firms.

  That was okay because Garret was not looking for any ordinary mega-law firm. He wanted one where he could control his own destiny. He approached Pittman Saunders, a large British firm, and offered to start up a new division of the Asia Pacific to be headquartered in Hong Kong. He would provide the start-up funding, find the clients and be responsible for the office overhead. Pittman Saunders could find additional clients on their own. In return, Garret would be a partner in the firm, have no interference from the Head Office, and give ten percent of the billings to the Head Office.

  This proposal was laughingly rejected with a one-sentence letter.

  We have carefully considered your offer but regretfully must inform you that we must decline at this time.

  While Chin was pissed and wanted to annihilate the Pittman Saunders Head Office, Garret calmed his boss. “Chin, I’m as mad as you are, but violence isn’t going to help us. We’ve got to be nice to the devil, especially if we want to get in bed with him.”

  Garret outlined a strategy and Chin’s eyes brightened—this was good!

  Garret faxed a letter suggesting Pittman Saunders reconsider. He set a deadline of one week. In the letter was the enigmatic phrase: I recognize situations may change, often rapidly...

  During that one week, three events happened invo
lving Pittman Saunders:

  1. One of the managing partners was found dead while on vacation in a Beijing hotel room, along with a prostitute.

  2. A Chinese dissident whom Pittman Saunders had helped achieve refugee status was caught with one hundred pounds of Mexican marijuana in his Los Angeles apartment.

  3. A Chinese company that Pittman Saunders represented that had been supplying dolls to international retailers suddenly had a hundred of the dolls catch fire in a large American toy retailer, causing a huge international furor.

  Garret faxed another letter to the managing directors of Pittman Saunders.

  In light of recent events, I am changing the terms of my offer. Pittman Saunders will pay 100 percent of the overhead of the new Hong Kong office for five years, and the percentage that goes back to the firm will be reduced from ten percent to two percent and zero percent from any billings that I personally generate. As you have witnessed, dealing with China and the Chinese is not an easy matter. None of this past week’s difficulties would have happened had I been in charge, not because I have any special ability, but I have extensive personal knowledge and insight into the complexities of Asian situations. Moreover, I bring the ability to rectify the current problems with minimal damage to Pittman Saunders, its reputation and, most importantly, its bottom line.

  Garret received a return message that his offer was acceptable, provided he deliver on “rectifying the current problems.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Garret said to Chin.

  “That’s why you’re here,” replied Chin. That was about as close to a compliment he could muster.

  Garret discovered that the hooker in the managing partner’s room had run into it when he opened the door; she was trying to hide from a drug dealer to whom she owed a huge debt. The dealer was fast on her tail, and the Pittman Saunders partner was collateral damage in her execution.

  Garret obtained surveillance footage from a convenience store in San Ysidro on the American side of the Mexican border. It showed that the trunk hood had been popped open and drugs discreetly placed in the Chinese dissident’s car by a neo-Nazi motorcyclist when the dissident went inside the store to buy a soda and use the restroom.

  Garret found out that the large toy retailer was about to be taken over by a giant retail chain, which would have meant the loss of half the jobs in the store. Further investigation revealed the fire was not due to a manufacturing defect but was set by the employee who discovered the burning dolls.

  Of course, Garret had orchestrated the entire series of events. The drug dealer, the prostitute, the Chinese dissident, the neo-Nazi and the arsonist were all part of Chin’s network. The only one who did not get paid was the prostitute but, the night before she died, Chin spent an entire hour with her. She was convinced that nothing in life could ever beat that.

  Garret was on top of the world. He was a partner in a multi-national law firm and the right hand of one of the most powerful men in the world.

  Not bad for thirty years old.

  The dynasty Chin created with Garret and Tommy was unstoppable. For the next decade, Chin went all out. As he visualized, Golden Asia Enterprises was formed. Tommy was the president, chairman of the board and CEO of every one of Golden Asia’s companies. As senior partner for Asia Pacific for Pittman Saunders, Garret was Golden Asia’s chief counsel.

  There was no mention of Chin anywhere, in any document. Just as he planned, he stayed under the radar with layers of distance between him and his companies. Garret, a master of strategic organization, negotiation, corporate structure and finance, made sure of that.

  For all appearances, Golden Asia Enterprises was composed of a blue-chip, conservative, straight-as-an-arrow group of companies involved in real estate and the import and export businesses.

  A well-oiled, functioning machine that looked like it could go on forever.

  But things always managed to change.

  While Chin stayed single, Garret and Tommy got married. Their wives had a few things in common: They were gorgeous; they had humanitarian spirits; their husbands loved them dearly; and they each bore one daughter and had no more natural children after that. Olivia was Garret and Mary’s daughter; Abby was Tommy and Jocelyn’s.

  Chin hid his disapproval. Women, like his birth mother, and his so-called adoptive mother, could not be trusted. And kids just got in the way.

  But even Chin had to admit that Mary and Jocelyn were perfect life partners for Garret and Tommy. While they were definitely not airhead socialites, they were charming and entertaining to anyone their husbands connected with. Philanthropy and generosity of spirit was also important to them; they served on the boards of the museum, the art gallery and their daughters’ private school. They hosted soirées for visiting dignitaries, drank white wine at opera openings... and were completely in the dark about their husbands’ work.

  Every now and then, they did something for their souls—going to Africa and working in an AIDS hospice, flying to a remote village in China to help the victims of an earthquake, or assisting in an orphanage in Mary’s native Czechoslovakia.

  Chin couldn’t be happier because, by doing this, Mary and Jocelyn added to the credibility and legitimacy of one of Asia’s largest criminal empires.

  The wives had no idea of the effect their activities had on their husbands. How could Garret attend a fundraising event to help prostitutes get off the street, yet know the girls’ work helped keep him in business? How could Tommy live with himself as he accompanied Jocelyn to a women’s shelter, knowing that the women were there because he supplied the drugs that fed their addiction?

  The more Mary and Jocelyn did, the greater the unease of conscience for Garret and Tommy. They hid it well, but not from Chin. However, the Tiger master was wise enough to say nothing. He had a plan.

  The biggest concern for Garret and Tommy was their daughters. Olivia and Abby hadn’t hit puberty yet, but both men wanted to live long enough to give the girls away when they got married. Because of the nature of their business, that was by no means a certainty.

  When Mary and Jocelyn told Tommy and Garret they were going to Thailand to assist in tsunami relief, the two men decided it was time to tell Chin they were getting out.

  They were totally unprepared for Chin’s response.

  “Okay.”

  “Omigod. Thanks, Chin. I wasn’t sure you’d understand,” sighed a greatly relieved Tommy.

  “It doesn’t matter whether I understand or not; a man must do what a man must do.” Chin leaned his elbows on his desk. He pressed his fingertips hard against each other, channeling and hiding his anger.

  “I can wrap up the paperwork in three months,” stated Garret. “Everything connected with Golden Asia is so clean, it squeaks. It will be easy.”

  “Excellent. Actually, I have been thinking of getting out of the business, too,” Chin told them deceptively.

  “You have?” asked Tommy in shock.

  “Well, it’s either that or expand. I am no good at standing still. Never have been.”

  “Where would you expand to?” asked Garret.

  “United States. Canada. Philippines. Germany. England. I don’t know. But I guess that doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”

  It was a rhetorical question.

  Chin folded his hands. “Anything else?”

  Neither Garret nor Tommy said a word.

  “Good,” announced Chin, “because we have a lot of work to finish off in the next three months.”

  Chapter 9

  Garret looked out the window of the Hong Kong Business Aviation Centre, a smaller airfield that catered to an exclusive clientele where private planes could get in and out discreetly and quickly.

  “Is that the one, Daddy?” asked eleven-year-old, skinny blonde Olivia, pointing to a plane taxiing on the runway.

  “No, not that one. But it will be soon,” said Garret, just as anxious as Olivia to see Mary.

  Tommy approached with ten-year-old Abby. Abby wa
s the Chinese version of Olivia. Both girls were jail bait at that point and, in a few years, Garret and Tommy were going to need baseball bats to fend off all the guys that were going to be chasing their daughters.

  Abby saw Olivia and ran to her in delight.

  “Olivia, Olivia! What are you doing here?”

  Olivia hugged Abby. “I’m here to see my mommy.”

  “Me, too!”

  Garret looked at the sky and pointed. “Well, we won’t have to wait too long. I’m pretty sure that’s her plane landing over there.”

  He turned to Tommy and said in a hushed voice, “I thought Jocelyn was coming in tomorrow.”

  Tommy shrugged. “Chin pulled a rabbit out of his hat. This flight was fully booked, but somehow he got her on board.”

  Garret hid his sudden chill. “I wish our wives would stop trying to save the world. Going to Thailand right after a tsunami was hardly a smart idea. They could have had a building fall on them or gotten typhoid.”

  “Would you rather they stayed home and played mahjong?” Tommy grinned. “Besides, what’s the point of having a trophy wife if you can’t show her off? Having them do charity work is good for business.”

  “You’re incorrigible, Tommy.”

  “As if I knew what that meant, Mr. Fancy Lawyer,” snorted the always happy, high-school dropout Tommy.

  “It means...” But, before Garret could finish, Olivia and Abby began waving and jumping in delight as the plane taxied closer to the arrival bay.

  “Hi, Mommy. Hi! Welcome back,” called the excited young girls in their high-pitched voices.

  “It’s about time,” muttered Garret. “We have some things to discuss.”

  He looked at Tommy, who nodded solemnly in agreement. “Yes, we do. Does Mary know?”

  “She will soon. Jocelyn?”

  “Same here. She’ll love it, though. We are moving to Los Angeles. Disneyland, here we come!” Tommy danced a little two-step.