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

by Wesley Robert Lowe

  In another part of the city, the conversations between Olivia, Noah, Abby and Chad were being monitored and watched with exceptional interest by Marco, Chin’s computer geek. Chin and Stella sat in front of Marco in plush theater-style seats.

  All eyes in the room were fixed on an eight-foot high-definition screen in front of them and two smaller four-foot screens on either side of it. The large screen broadcast the live conversations between Noah, Olivia, Chad and Abby from Garret’s office. One smaller screen showed Chad and Abby inside Tommy’s home office. The other screen showed Garret’s computer monitor.

  They watched and listened in on the conversation.

  “Olivia, I’m not seeing what’s on your dad’s monitor. Can you check that everything is plugged in properly?” asked Chad.

  Olivia checked the screen, running her hand over the keyboard and the back of the monitor.

  Marco gritted his teeth. “Don’t do that,” he growled.

  “What’s wrong, Marco?” asked Chin.

  “Everything seems okay, Chad.”

  “No, I’m still not getting a feed. Try pulling each cable out and then sticking it back in.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Olivia checked cable one. “How’s that?”

  “Nope.”

  Olivia tried another cable. “This one?”

  “Nope.”

  The smaller screen that mirrored Garret’s computer screen went black. Marco screamed, “Plug it back in!”

  “How about this last one?”

  “Nope. Don’t worry about it then. We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Just follow my instructions.”

  Garret’s mirrored screen remained black. Marco was about to blow a gasket. He was helpless to do anything other than listen.

  “Sure.” Olivia sat at her father’s computer. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Go into a folder called Heaven.”

  “I did that already. There’s just a bunch of family pictures.”

  “No. Go to the control panel and find computer options.”

  Olivia typed a few strokes and then moved the mouse. “Got it.”

  “Now turn on the ‘show hidden files’ option.”

  Olivia made a few clicks. “Done.”

  “Okay. Go back to the Heaven folder, and tell me what you see.”

  Olivia started perusing the previously hidden files, and her jaw dropped. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

  “What are you seeing?” yelled Marco.

  “Believe it.”

  “What are you looking at?” queried Noah.

  Chad replied, “These are an elaborate maze of encrypted accounts. I can’t tell specifically what they are, but the labeling system indicates they are all from the Eastern Commercial Bank.”

  “That’s the Pittman Saunders corporate bank,” said Olivia. “They are all over the files my father wanted me to study.”

  “I can’t access these files from my end, but open them up, and tell me what you see.”

  Marco started pulling on his hair.

  Olivia typed some more and grimaced. “Forty strings of numbers. Seems like they are bank accounts. Can you get into them, Chad?”

  “I can try.”

  Thirty tense seconds passed by. “These guys could teach a lesson in bank security to the Swiss. No can do.”

  Olivia’s eyes lit up. “I can go to the bank and get them to tell me what these accounts are. After all, I am one of the Golden Asia attorneys.”

  “You’re not going without me, Olivia,” said Abby over the phone. “I’ll meet you there when the bank opens. Bye.”

  The screen went dark.

  “The bank doesn’t open for another few hours. We can try to find your dad until then,” said Noah.

  “If my father doesn’t want to be found, there is no way to find him.”

  “In that case, what are we going to do?”

  The big screens and the smaller ones all went dark.

  “What happened?” shouted an angry Chin.

  “When that idiot Chad told her to unplug and replug the cables, she disconnected our feed.”

  “Marco, can’t you just hack into the bank’s computers from here? Seems like the obvious thing to do,” grumbled Chin.

  “Not possible,” said Stella. “How many organizations like yours do you think there are in Asia of at least your size? How many countries have presidents whose main job is siphoning funds from their citizens into their personal coffers, all of them demanding a level of protection that makes America’s Homeland Security seem like child’s play?” asked Stella rhetorically. “There are at least seventeen of them at our bank... I know because I service many of them.”

  “What do you suggest, Marco?” asked Chin.

  Marco drummed his fingers onto the control desk while looking at Stella. “Sometimes, you have to do things the old-fashioned way.”

  Chapter 38

  Office workers snickered as they passed Noah and Olivia’s office and saw the two of them slumped over sleeping on their desks. One grinning lawyer took out her cell phone and snapped a picture.

  “What are you so happy about?” asked her office mate.

  “I’ve been bucking for the Golden Asia file for two years. Never got a hint of a sniff. I can understand Garret putting his daughter on the file, but that other slacker doesn’t deserve the gig.” She texted the picture and smirked. “Okay, Garret Southam, now what do you think of your new hire?”

  “He works people to death on Golden Asia.”

  “Garret’s driving a Bentley. Not to mention the Lamborghini in his garage.”

  “Money isn’t everything.”

  “Only paupers say that.”

  As the co-workers walked away, the alarm on Noah’s computer rang. He and Olivia groggily awakened. Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, Noah cleared his throat and joked to her, “I guess this means we are officially sleeping together.”

  “Let’s go, Reid. Abby’s meeting us at the bank.”

  Noah and Olivia rose out of their chairs and strolled nonchalantly past an office full of onlookers who gaped at the mussy, messy duo who looked like they had hardly slept and spent the night partying.

  At precisely 9 a.m., the doors of the Eastern Commercial Bank opened and a flood of customers rushed in, including Olivia, Noah and Abby.

  Stella was at one of the wickets with a neon Closed sign flashing. Although she was seemingly occupied, she changed the sign to Open when the trio got to the front of the line. She cheerfully announced, “I’d be pleased to serve you here.”

  Noah, Olivia, and Abby stepped to her wicket. Noah and Olivia pulled out business cards and handed them to Stella.

  “Pittman Saunders. We are Golden Asia’s attorneys,” asserted Noah in his best corporate voice. He handed her a slip of paper. “May I have the balances on these accounts please?”

  “Of course.” Stella typed in one of the numbers. She studied the notes then typed some more and looked at the notes on the new page. She repeated the process several more times, then frowned.

  “Can you hurry up please?” asked Noah, irritated at the lack of progress. “We have a lot of work to do on the file.

  Stella nodded. “Please bear with me. There is a considerable amount of follow-up and protocol that needs to be exercised.”

  Not the answer they wanted to hear, but they had no choice.

  For the next forty-five minutes, Stella went through the process for the next thirty-nine numbers, with the same results each time. “I’m sorry, but every one of these accounts has restricted access,” she said regretfully.

  Noah glared. “These are Mr. Sung’s personal accounts from Golden Asia Investments. There should be no issues.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the authority to override this.”

  Abby started crying. It was not something she wanted to do, but Noah had told her to shed tears if there was any objection at all. Do whatever it takes, Abby. “He passed away, and
I want to finalize the settlement of his affairs. Please.”

  “I understand that, but all of these accounts were frozen this morning.”

  “By whom?” demanded Noah.

  “I can’t tell you that. Client confidentiality.” Stella looked genuinely sorry that she couldn’t help them.

  Noah inhaled deeply. “If you don’t tell me, I will ask my boss, Garret Southam, who is the Pittman Saunders senior attorney for the Asia Pacific region and who personally leads the Golden Asia team, to move all of our firm’s accounts.”

  Fear was in the teller’s voice. “Then I don’t know what to do because Garret Southam is the one who froze them.”

  “We were here right at the bank opening, and we did not see him here. When did he do that?” asked Noah.

  “Mr. Southam has special banking privileges. He has concierge service on demand, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays. I wasn’t around to take his call, but it could have been anytime between closing yesterday to opening today.”

  Noah thumped his fist on the counter. “This is not acceptable.”

  “I’m sorry, but when accounts are frozen, especially if there is a suspicious death, only the most senior management has the authority to lift the freeze. Given that it was Garret Southam who gave the order, I am doubtful your request would be granted. At the Eastern Commercial Bank, we are particularly concerned for the privacy of our clients. Shall I call someone for you?”

  Noah shook his head. “No, we have wasted enough of our time here.”

  As Noah, Olivia and Abby left the bank, all three shared the same thought.

  Where the hell was Garret?

  Stella watched the distressed Olivia, Noah and Abby until they left the bank and were out of sight. She put the Closed sign back on, then walked to her office where Chin waited.

  “Did you have to keep me waiting that long?” asked Chin sternly.

  “There was a problem.” She handed him the sheet of paper Olivia gave her. “Those are the numbers of the forty secret accounts. Some are personal; some are from private numbered companies. The reason I took so long is that none of them has any funds in them, and I wanted to verify that before coming to you.”

  Chin’s fist hit the desk so hard that it shattered. “Nothing? There must be a mistake.”

  “No mistake. The money is somewhere else,” cried Stella.

  Chin threw her a dismissive sneer, stood up and walked out.

  “Where are you going?” Stella called out.

  “There is nothing for me here anymore,” said Chin.

  Stella quickly chased after him.

  Back inside the Range Rover with Olivia and Abby, Noah called Chad on its Bluetooth speakerphone for an update. Both girls had infrared transmitters in their purses that linked to Stella’s computer when she searched the account for information. “We came up with zeros at the bank. How about you?”

  “Nothing. When I checked into the bank’s computer system, it showed there were no funds, but there was something more than that. What’s crazy is that there were hundreds upon hundreds of no-money transactions. And I mean, like, from zero from one account to zero to another. How about you?”

  Abby was genuinely puzzled. “Daddy went to the bank all the time. He was a regular there. Not only that, fooling around with bank accounts was about the only thing he knew how to do on a computer.”

  Olivia added, “And I recognized the names of those companies and accounts because that’s what my father had me studying from the moment I got here. He billed a fortune to Golden Asia to make sure no one could ever figure out the chain of title, that no one knew who owned whom or what.”

  “That means both your fathers had banking privileges on the same secret accounts but never used them?” asked Noah. “Things just aren’t adding up. Why would Garret freeze accounts that had no money in them? Why did Tommy get him to set them up in the first place?”

  “Here’s more craziness to throw into the mix. They knew what they were doing,” said Chad. “Although a lot of the transactions were done at the bank, records show there was never a teller involved.”

  Noah breathed deeply. He was going to take a stab in the dark. An intelligent guess, but still a guess. “It’s got to be camouflage. Garret wanted to throw the scent off the real hiding place of the funds. So the question is, Olivia, who would your father have trusted with the info or the money?”

  Olivia answered immediately, “He’s a lawyer. Trust is not in his vocabulary.”

  As they slowed for a stop light, a bicycle courier rode up beside them. Without missing a beat, he reached into his knapsack and tossed a grisly package in through the driver’s side window. Olivia and Abby shrieked—the severed bloody head of a red-crowned crane cut from the base of its neck landed on Noah’s lap. This rare bird, a symbol of luck and prosperity, was ghastly in death.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” shouted Chad.

  Noah gripped the steering wheel with one hand, and picked up the bird’s head with his other hand and put it on the dashboard. “Someone’s playing head games. Chad, we’re on our way back. There’s got to be a clue hidden somewhere at the house.”

  Chapter 39

  A lesser man would have been dead long ago. Both of Garret’s eyes were beaten black, his ribs were cracked and his mouth was bleeding. Determined to prove his worth to Chin, Terry was relentless in his assault on Garret.

  He leered, “Mr. Southam, Mr. Chin said not to kill you until you tell us where the rest of the money is. I know you got to be hurting, so why don’t you just be a good boy and tell me who’s got the dough and where it is?”

  Garret whispered, “Listen, Terry, you don’t really want to die, do you?”

  The young tough plowed a right into Garret’s stomach. “No, sir. That’s why I’ve got to keep you alive until you talk.”

  Terry pummeled Garret again. And again. And again. Each blow was harder than the previous one. The force from a final blow toppled the chair, and Garret’s head knocked against the floor. The lawyer was unconscious and worse, maybe dead.

  Terry started blinking uncontrollably. This lifelong involuntary habit gave away his fear—not at the thought that he’d killed a man but at what Chin would do to him if Garret didn’t recover.

  “Damn you, Garret. Wake up,” said the worried young man as he poured a cup of water over Garret’s face. There was no response. “Oh, shit. No, no.” The thug leaned over to check for a pulse when suddenly Garret propelled himself up and bit off Terry’s ear.

  As Terry reeled back, screaming in pain, Garret turned and head-butted him; Garret’s forehead broke Terry’s nose. With the area where his ear used to be and his nose both bleeding, Terry tried to attack Garret. However, the thug was seriously weakened, and the feeble blows had no impact on the wounded but built-to-the-hilt lawyer.

  His legs had the strength of a railway car. Garret, still tied to the chair, pushed off and launched himself into an aerial somersault.

  Suspended for a moment, with deadly aim the chair came down hard. Two legs landed on Terry, penetrating his body, piercing his heart and lungs—instant death. Garret searched for any kind of sharp object, as freeing himself from the tightly bound ropes was another matter. There was nothing in sight.

  Garret pulled himself and the chair off Terry’s body. Even though mobility was difficult, Garret used his right hand to reach into one of the holes created by the chair, right into the corpse. Forcing his way through the gangster’s flesh, he grabbed a couple of ribs, snapped them and pulled them out. Using their sharp broken edges, he cut through the cords binding him and freed his hands, body and legs.

  Glowing in victory, despite every part of his body screaming in pain, Garret took Terry’s cell phone out of his pocket and coolly strolled out of Chin’s manmade jungle.

  Dead end after dead end. Whenever it seemed Chad was making progress, it turned out to be another smokescreen. Think outside the box, Chad. You’ve been searching all the normal p
laces, done all the normal things, so maybe that means the key is in an abnormal spot. Okay, Chad. What is the most unlikely spot on a computer to find banking information?

  Chad’s eyes opened—maybe it was hidden in plain sight with something so disconnected no one would ever suspect it. Like the iTunes Media folder.

  Chad opened it and saw all the normal songs, books and podcasts. Also, a curious file had a game-like name called King of Kentucky. It was the only file on the computer Chad couldn’t crack. The King of Kentucky was an encrypted file with contents yet to be determined. Chad picked up the phone and called Noah.

  The young lawyer picked up. “Got anything new?”

  “Yeah, but I have no idea if it means anything or not. I found this last hidden file but, for the life of me, I can’t get the sucker to open, no matter what I try.”

  “What’s it called?” Noah asked.

  “King of Kentucky.”

  “No way. When I was a kid, I asked Master Wu what he wanted to be if he wasn’t a sifu. He said, ‘King of Kentucky.’ Open it. It’s got to mean something.”

  “That’s the problem, Noah. You didn’t hear me. It won’t let me and keeps on asking for a password. I have no idea what the hell it is, but the password question is, ‘What is the tie that binds?’”

  “‘Blessed be the tie that binds’ is the name of a hymn,” said the missionary’s kid. “Try Jesus or God. That’s the tie that binds Christians together.”

  “Duh, been there, done that. I’ve tried everything: Jesus, God, Son, Holy Spirit, Jehovah, Trinity and then all kinds of combinations.”

  Noah groaned. “Check on who the composer is and try that.”

  “Okay, the guy is John Fawcett. Nope. John. No. Fawcett. No.”

  “How about trying something connected to Fawcett’s life? That might be something that binds.”

  Chad’s face contorted as he tried, then rejected, new possibilities. “Chapel? No. Wainsgate? No. Carter’s Lane? No.”

  Inside the Range Rover, Noah sang thoughtfully, rummaging for other ideas as the car climbed the now familiar Victoria Peak.