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

by Wesley Robert Lowe

  Then Noah had a flash of insight. He realized that Olivia going to law school, of her joining her father’s firm, her willingness to go full steam with the Chad Huang Foundation, was a way for her to hide her artistic insecurity of rejection. Being a lawyer meant she could hide her feelings, the fear that she wasn’t good enough, that if she exposed herself someone would loudly proclaim she was a fraud.

  But with her father dead and Abby going, this was the perfect time for her to go, too. He should have figured it out sooner… but he hadn’t.

  Noah checked himself. He realized that Olivia’s door was closed. He took a breath as his familiar destination came in sight. Thank God for Master Wu.

  Noah’s sixth sense twitched as he approached the door to the master’s studio. There were no discernible signs, but he couldn’t shake a pervasive negative aura. His suspicion was confirmed when he walked in through the door to discover Master Wu unconscious and crumpled on the floor in a semi-fetal position. There was a slight foam edge on his lips and dried blood just beneath his nostrils.

  Noah’s brain caught fire as he dashed to his mentor and knelt. “Sifu, Sifu!” He checked for a pulse, but couldn’t tell whether the faint beating was imaginary or something he wanted to exist.

  Getting no response, he rocketed to the washroom, grabbed a glass of water and dashed back. He gently forced some water down Master Wu’s throat and dabbed some over his face.

  Still no answer.

  Noah’s eyes narrowed as he saw a discolored area on Master Wu’s leg. Peering closely, he saw two tiny sets of bite marks. He examined them closely. Were those insect bites? Snakes? Here?

  He closed his eyes and steepled his hands but, before he could utter a word, the master coughed, and his eyes opened.

  “Noah? What happened? Why am I like this?”

  Noah shot a quick silent prayer of thanks, then said, “Check this out.” He showed the groggy master the tiny pair of bite marks on his leg. Master Wu sat up and blinked hard, trying to shake the dizziness.

  Noah remarked, “Those look like teeth marks from either one big ass centipede or some tubular reptile from somewhere.”

  There was a sense of fear, of despair in Master Wu’s voice, something Noah had never heard before. “I lost judgment. There was a blind, bleeding monk who came in and told me my sins would not be forgiven. Then suddenly I was in pain and blacked out.” There was panic in Master Wu’s eyes. “A father is responsible for the sins of his children. A master is responsible for his disciples. I must go to Heaven, Noah.”

  More than anyone else, Noah knew his master. “Chin is not your responsibility to carry, Sifu.”

  “It is not only Chin. I sinned against Heaven and need to be forgiven,” Master Wu said. “My soul can never have peace otherwise.”

  Absolution of one’s crimes. It appeared in many religions, many cultures—Judaism. Catholicism. Islam. Buddhism.

  “When are we going?”

  “We? You’re joining me?” asked Master Wu.

  “Do you need to ask? Give me a few days to arrange things and I’m good to go.”

  Master Wu shook his head. “That is too long, Noah. I need to go now. I have little time.”

  Noah saw Master Wu’s desperation and seriousness. “Of course, Sifu.” He lent a hand to his sifu and spoke gently, “Sifu, stand up.”

  Master Wu trembled as he grabbed Noah’s hand. Noah tried to pull him to his feet but Master Wu’s limbs refused to cooperate. Noah let him back down. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

  Master Wu nodded. “We must go to Dr. Tang.”

  Dr. Tang was a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine who had been treating Master Wu since the teacher came to Hong Kong more than thirty years ago.

  Noah took out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Hello, Dr. Tang. It’s Noah Reid here. Can I bring Master Wu to see you now? He’s been bitten by something and paralysis has set in... We’ll be right over. Thank you.”

  The dwarf adder the blind monk could not find suddenly re-appeared. It slithered quickly behind Noah.

  Master Wu cried, “Behind you, Noah!”

  Noah turned to see the serpent opening its jaws to strike. He angrily seized its head and crushed the life out of the wriggling reptile.

  Master Wu gazed at Noah with a hint of reproach. “You didn’t have to kill it, Noah.”

  Noah said assuredly, “This is a permanent solution, Sifu. No one will ever have to worry about this one again.”

  A sad thought crossed Master Wu’s mind. He really has changed. The old Noah would never have done that.

  It was just a few blocks to Dr. Tang’s office, too close for any cab to want to grab a fare, so Noah carried Master Wu in his arms. The residents guffawed and pointed as they raced through the old Chinese neighborhood.

  “Now you have to tell me what is troubling you,” said Master Wu. All fear and confusion was gone from his voice. The sifu was completely clear-headed now.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” Noah replied tersely.

  “I’m not so old I can’t see what is right in front of me. You should be with Olivia and you’re not. Are you trying to tell me everything is all right? I also noticed your hands are full of nicks and scrapes. Are you trying to tell me you got those discussing basketball gymnasiums in Shandong or Chicago?”

  “Olivia broke up with me. That’s the reason I came to see you. She wants to join Abby in New York,” Noah said. “Says she wants to be a pianist, not a paper pusher.”

  “Did you know Garret fought with her for years about the same thing?” Master Wu asked. “If you try to contain an eagle, the eagle will listen for a little while but, eventually, it will want to take flight again. Now, what about your injuries?”

  “I was ambushed on my way back from the airport. I rolled down a hill to escape. That’s where I got the scratches.”

  “An attack on you and an attack on me. Does that sound familiar?”

  Noah nodded. When Chin was trying to get his money back from Garret, the only reason he and Olivia had been kept alive was because Chin had no idea where the money was. Chin knew that, if he killed them, he never would find out. He’d taken them to within an inch of their lives, trying to force it out of them. It hadn’t worked.

  “But Chin is dead and none of his cronies are smart enough or capable enough to try to take over his empire,” said Noah.

  “Noah, did you see Chin’s body?”

  That was a disturbing question. While there’d been no bodies, they had found teeth. Dental records showed they belonged to Garret... but Chin? “Nothing could have survived that inferno, Sifu. It defies logic.”

  “Life has always defied logic. But, even if Chin was dead, the Tiger fostered baby Tigers who are smart, strong, and ruthless.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “Garret told me. He was responsible for making sure their upbringing and livelihoods were taken care of.”

  Noah weighed the situation. “Master Wu, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Yes, Noah, but don’t think that just because we hide, we can’t be found. The tentacles of evil cast very wide. The sooner we leave for Heaven, the better.” With that, Master Wu drooped, unconscious.

  “Sifu, Sifu!” shouted Noah. But there was no response. Noah sprinted the last half block, clutching Master Wu to his body.

  Chapter 10

  Twenty-three Years Ago

  “I hate dressing up,” protested a petulant five-year-old boy as his Japanese mother carefully tied his bow tie, putting the final touches of dressing him in a new black suit. His tone toward his mother displayed that he was used to getting whatever he wanted from her.

  “You are going to meet your father today so you have to look good,” said the twenty-four-going-on-fifty-year-old mother. Her mild tone couldn’t mask the fear in her voice. Once upon a time, Satumi was a beautiful, strong, healthy young girl, a bronze medalist in the Asian Games for judo. She met her husband at a celebration pa
rty, and she made love to him two hours later for the first time 5,000 feet in the air on his private helicopter.

  Sexually she was not sophisticated, and what seventeen-year-old has the intelligence to carry on a conversation beyond the latest cell phone or pop singer’s new hairstyle? She was, however, perfect for what the man needed her for—to bear him a male child. Once that mission was accomplished, he had little use or appetite for her. Her only function since the son’s birth was to be his mother. She dared not leave her husband. She heard what happened to those who crossed him. It wasn’t death she feared—it was sexual slavery with strangers speaking unknown languages in an unknown world.

  To an outsider, she would seem beaten in body and spirit from two abusers: an absent husband and a son whose every whim she must cater to.

  “And remember to speak Chinese to him,” she pleaded.

  “I am Japanese. I do not have to speak Chinese.”

  “Your father will not like you talking like that.”

  “I have no father,” announced the child.

  “You’re right,” said a voice at the door.

  Mother and son quickly turned to see a man at the door—thirty years old, dressed in a black satin Shaolin uniform, with an aura that simultaneously exuded cruelty, strength, and terror.

  The man spoke in a strong voice. “No one needs a father who just goes to work at a job he doesn’t like, watches soccer on television all the time, and tries to teach his child to read.”

  “Are you the emperor?” gaped the child.

  “I am more than an emperor,” the man stated. “And you will be, too.”

  The man examined the designer bedroom, perfectly made for a spoiled rich brat. He told the mother to spare no expense. At least she was able to do that right. It was the first time he’d been there. He noted the luxury lavished on this little boy. The suit was tailor-made, and the bed sheets were made from one-thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton. There was a custom-made desk chair with Mickey Mouse carved into it, and he had a blazing fast computer with a sixty-inch screen. His phone was Apple’s latest. All this as ordered by the man.

  “Better than the emperor? Like a magician?”

  The man suddenly picked up the Disney chair and broke it like a matchstick over his knee. With a single punch at a painting of Buzz Lightyear on the wall, he tore a hole a foot wide from one side to the other. With lightning speed, he raced to the child. With a single hand, he lifted the boy over his head and, with perfect accuracy, threw him twenty feet into the middle of the king-sized bed.

  “Better than a magician,” he shouted, “a Shaolin master!”

  The man walked up to the astounded child, whose head tilted up to the stranger.

  “No one wants a weakling for a father, but everyone needs a father who is a man. Do you agree?”

  The boy nodded quickly.

  The man took a small box from a fold in his flowing garb. He opened it. Inside were three dwarf adders.

  The boy’s eyes flashed in fear and amazement.

  “If you want to be a man, you must not only control your fear, you must embrace it and use it.”

  The boy again nodded furiously. He reached out to touch one of the snakes. The viper opened its jaws and was about to bite the boy when the man grabbed the snake by its tail and flung it at the young mother. The snake bit her, and the venom began to act almost immediately.

  Man and boy watched with cruel satisfaction as the woman spasmed in front of them.

  “Save me! Save me, please!” she cried.

  Neither man nor boy lifted a finger as the woman convulsed violently. After thirty seconds, her body stilled.

  “Don’t worry,” said the man softly. “She will live, but there is a lesson for you. If you do not exercise proper caution, that will happen to you, too. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And another thing.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Never trust anyone.”

  The man took the box and carefully picked up one of the remaining snakes by its head and squeezed until the eyes popped out of the snake’s head. He handed the box to the boy. Imitating the man exactly, the boy grabbed the snake and applied pressure. For a child so young, he was extraordinarily strong. He definitely had the man’s genes. Not only did the eyes pop out of their sockets, but there was the sickening crunch of the bones as the snake’s head was crushed.

  The man beamed at the boy with approval. “This is your first lesson in being a man, King.”

  “Yes, Father,” said the five-year-old boy in perfect Mandarin.

  Fourteen Years Ago

  It was a father and teenage son trip to the Amazon rainforest. For three days, Chin and King trekked from swamp to swamp, searching for special prey. So far, they’d seen brilliantly colored parrots, blue and gold macaws, small yellow squirrel monkeys, golden howler monkeys, and half a dozen corpulent Amazonian tapirs with their stumpy tails—but not the elusive prey they sought.

  But today was their lucky day. Chin pointed, and there it was. A twenty-foot-long green anaconda, the largest snake in the world, sunning itself beside the water.

  King, a strong teenager, picked up a rock and aimed it at the reptile’s head. He flung it. Bull’s eye and the game was on.

  The angered serpent slinked into the water. King jumped in and swam after it.

  The snake tried to coil itself around his torso, but the intrepid boy hammer-punched the snake in the head.

  Shocked, the snake released its hold while King swam downward. He grabbed the snake’s tail and pulled. The snake slithered to wrap its tail around his legs, attempting to pull him down into the water. Struggling, the boy pummeled the snake’s body, but the blows easily deflected off the tough skin. The water decelerated the velocity of King’s strikes so they were virtually impotent.

  The snake continued to coil itself around King, tighter and tighter. Chin jumped into the water, watching warily but not attempting to interfere. Panicking, King struggled harder, causing the snake to squeeze tighter. He kicked at the snake and the water, still punching at the snake’s body, all to no avail. Chin swam to the surface. Without touching the snake or King, he waved his arms gently, like an orchestra conductor moving his arms during a slow movement of a romantic symphony.

  King understood. Lull the creature into a sense of false security. He relaxed, ceasing his struggles. The snake got ready for the kill. Barely moving and without fanfare, King moved closer to the unsuspecting snake’s head.

  King suddenly opened his mouth and bit one of the snake’s eyes. Shocked, the snake loosened its vise grip around King’s waist. That split second was enough for him to break free. Using a two-fingered martial arts move with full force, he drilled his fingers directly into the other eye of the snake.

  Blinded, the snake thrashed the water angrily but aimlessly.

  Underwater, the father handed the boy a dao, a martial arts dagger with a twelve-inch blade.

  Operating only on its sense of smell, the snake opened its jaws wide enough to swallow a baby deer. With lightning reflexes, King grabbed the anaconda’s tongue and sliced it off with the dagger. He drove the knife up through the top of the snake’s head, then jerked the dagger forward, slicing it open.

  King seized the snake’s throat and slit its belly. After grabbing a breath of air and plunging back into the water, he continued his carnage, cutting the snake down its entire body. The serpent’s blood turned the swamp water red.

  The boy watched as the snake finally stopped moving. He grasped the snake’s body and emerged from the water shouting, “I am the King!”

  Ten minutes later, father and son had cut the anaconda into pieces. Each put a piece of the still quivering snake flesh into his mouth and chewed.

  Chapter 11

  Chin’s indoctrination of the power of snakes to King was successful. For King, the cold-blooded reptiles infused every part of his life. His private collection of snakes was the largest in the world. Twenty-five t
housand snakes representing seven hundred and fifty different species were housed in secret hiding places throughout Asia where he used them for research and prepared them as weapons.

  This included researching new techniques for making the snakes more vicious and developing venom strains for poisoning and medical purposes. In addition to using snakes for their vise-like qualities, he removed existing venom sacs from snakes and replaced them with the anonymous and often more potent poisons.

  He needed to constantly replenish the supply of vipers because the experiments had a high mortality rate and for his own nourishment. Not a day went by without him slicing open at least one live snake for a meal or snack. Every snake was edible if one was careful, and every snake had its own unique taste. King was an undisputed world connoisseur of snake parts and their blood, being able to differentiate species and age, often with a single bite or sip.

  From the diminutive Eastern garter snake to the huge boa constrictor, King tasted them all. Sometimes he ate the snake raw; sometimes he sautéed it at the table with soya sauce, onions and garlic. In winter, he particularly enjoyed the warmth that the nutrients of snake soup, scotch and Chinese herbs brought. On special occasions, he mixed snake meat with one-hundred-dollar-a-pound abalone. No part of the animal was wasted. The skin was used for leather; internal organs were preserved for use as medicines. While some Native Americans proclaimed that the rattles of rattlesnakes had healing powers, King found that the greatest use of them was to impress young children with them as toys.

  Today, King had picked out a young cobra for his lunch entree. With two deft moves, King sliced the snake across the throat, then down the snake’s belly. Removing the beating heart, he dipped it into rice wine and ate it directly. He drained the blood, drinking it without adding rice wine like so many others did. Then he scraped the meat off the skin. For his meal, he was impatient so he cut the flesh of the snake into thin slices and ate “snake sushi” with a touch of fresh Japanese horseradish, wasabi.