by Wes Lowe
“You’re the man, Noah,” mumbled Sam.
JJ did a flying somersault and his bat whacked the back of a bird, crushing its vertebrae.
Noah could see Sam waning and he frantically scanned the room for anything that might help. “JJ, Sam’s fading fast. We have to get the boys some disinfectant.”
Walrus choked out, “There’s a couple bottles of booze in the equipment room. We tried some.”
Of course you did. “Thanks, Walrus.”
As JJ defended the boys with piano leg swings and blows, Noah rushed to the equipment room. His spirits sank when he saw broken bottles of vodka by a fallen cabinet. Most likely, the explosions in the room triggered the storage unit’s demise.
Noah spotted a few empty soda cans and picked them up. Seeing Walrus and Sam starting to shiver, he shouted “Try to dress the wounds,” he shouted to JJ. “I’m going to the washroom to get some water.”
Disoriented, defeated and in great pain, the last few surviving cranes had surrounded Queenie. They were the sickliest of Queenie’s birds. Their eyes were swollen and leaking a vile discharge. Their feathers were tattered and matted. Their bodies were full of lesions and skin was peeling off the exposed parts of their legs.
“Mama, what have you done to us?” they seemed to cry.
The cranes turned on her, scratching her and gouging her with their beaks. It was as if the birds, realizing their own imminent death, wanted to have their revenge on the woman who had mistreated them so badly for so long.
51
Unforgiven
New York
As Alexei was chauffeured to Skyscape, he was consumed by thoughts of Queenie and none of them were good.
Firstly, she did not return his money on time and, like a fool, he gave her an extension.
Secondly, the Chinaman he captured as a favor to her stole his girls. Now the Chinaman, his key henchmen, Raoul, and all the girls had disappeared without a trace of their whereabouts.
When he arrived at the Vector Building, Alexei went nuclear. No security guards in sight and the electricity was on back-up power. Why the hell is every other building on the block working while mine is not?
As he stepped on the elevator, he pulled out a gun, ready to shoot the first thing he saw when he got off at Skyscape’s floor.
As bad as she appeared, Queenie was not in as much danger of dying as the average person would be under the circumstances. Over the years her birds had bitten her so many times that she had developed complete immunity to all their poisons, toxins, bacteria and viruses. Also, these birds were on the verge of death so their strength was diminished. Their attack on her was their swan song. She was down but hardly out.
Noah entered the men’s room to see Tim with a bag of coke, getting ready to clean some dirty needles. Tim, high as a kite and wanting to soar to the skies, didn’t see Noah take the bottle of isopropyl alcohol from him. But, when Noah tried to palm his bag of coke, the music producer had a flash of lucidity and tried to stab Noah with his dirty needle.
With his judgment totally impaired, Tim injected his own hand instead, driving the sharp point to the bone. As he howled, Noah took the alcohol and cocaine, then ran back to the studio where JJ had stemmed Sam and Walrus’ bleeding with makeshift tourniquets.
“Ok, JJ. Let’s take off the dressings and clean the wounds with the alcohol. Then we’ll sprinkle the cocaine into the cuts.”
“Really?”
Noah nodded. “Yes, the alcohol will sterilize and the coke will act as an anesthetic and restrict the bleeding by narrowing the blood vessels.”
“Stay focused. We’ve got to be fast, Noah.”
When Alexei entered Skyscape Studios, the first thing he noticed was the silence. Then he walked to the office—nobody there. Next stop was the boardroom.
Nobody there, either.
Then he stepped into Studio 5.
Oh, my God.
Alexei was disgusted with himself. How could he possibly have ever been interested in the piece of shit in front of him? Queenie was no longer the exotic sexy Eurasian, but some cheap beat-up hooker.
Disgust turned to rage when Alexei spotted the Chinaman who stole his girls. “You took my girls!”
Alexei’s shout drew JJ’s attention to the barrel of a gun pointed at his face. JJ hopped, ducked, and rolled to avoid Alexei’s rampage of bullets.
JJ picked up a dead bird and blocked Alexei’s next shots with the bird’s carcass.
Queenie saw her chance. She dove at an unsuspecting JJ, knocking him down. When his head hit the floor almost knocking him out, she turned to the Russian. “You owe me, Alexei,” she screamed.
“Like hell!” snarled the Russian. He fired at Queenie, hitting her in the leg.
“Ah!” she yelled.
Noah, seeing Alexei bounding toward the fallen grandmaster, got up and ran at the Russian. He took a flying leap and tackled Alexei to the floor.
The Russian’s body became Noah’s punching bag, with continuous hammer fists to the head, chest and stomach. It was the worst beating Alexei had ever experienced.
“Noah,” sobbed the wounded Queenie.
Noah turned to see Queenie, tearing and repentant. She said softly, “I’m sorry, Noah. You were right.”
This unexpected statement shocked Noah as Queenie approached. “Right about what?”
She hobbled over. “Me.” Suddenly, Queenie whipped her final pecker out and drove it at Noah.
A shot rang out.
The beak exploded in mid-air, then continued its deadly journey into Queenie’s heart. As she crumpled, she sneered, “I’ll haunt you in death, Noah Reid.”
Noah looked over to the shooter. It was Willie Mays.
“She tried to kill my son. I can never forgive that.”
Unspoken was the fact that Willie Mays did not have to kill Queenie. He had ample opportunity to shoot her in any number of places that would not be lethal. Stomach, leg, arm...
Noah walked up to the member of New York City’s finest and punched him twice.
Once in the eye. In a few minutes, it would bleed and swell up.
The other blow broke the cop’s nose.
Noah then delivered a hard kick to Willie Mays’ chest, breaking his ribs. Throughout the beating, Willie Mays did not try to defend himself.
Noah announced, “Willie Mays, you are a true hero. You rescued two defenseless boys that were being beaten to death by a Russian mobster and a savage woman who attacked them with sharpened cranes’ beaks and talons. Your gun was a weapon of last resort because your nose was broken, your ribs were cracked, and you could barely see out of one eye. I salute you.”
As Noah made the Shaolin hand sign of greeting to the policeman, JJ, shaking the cobwebs out of his wooziness, asked, “Where’s the Russian?”
They looked but there was no sign of Alexei at all. In the confused frenzy, he had slipped away.
52
Home… less
JJ and Abby stood with Olga, the Russian cleaning lady, eyes checking out the twelve sleeping girls in the Presidential Suite of The Seventh Hotel.
Olga spoke softly. “These girls are homeless and stateless. That’s why nobody cared when they were smuggled out and nobody will care for them when they go back.”
“Maybe there will be people here to adopt them,” said Abby.
“No one here will want them either...except the men, and that’s the last thing they need. No one will adopt them. Not with their history.”
“I’ll take care of them,” said JJ.
“How can you do that? They have no papers,” said Olga.
“Not to mention you’re a single man without American status,” added Abby.
“The Chad Huang Foundation will transfer funds to set up a new operation in New York. We will put something together for the girls, setting up new centers, including modifying the New Amsterdam Arts Center concept. I’ll leave the legalities to the lawyers.”
“Maybe you’d like some help?” ask
ed Abby.
JJ smiled. “Maybe.”
As Sam and Walrus recuperated in their room, Noah and Olivia conferred with the attending physician.
“First time I’ve ever seen cocaine and alcohol used for primary treatment,” stated the doctor. “That was pretty quick thinking.”
“How long before Sam can go back to Hong Kong?” asked Noah.
The doctor shook his head. “Hard to say. The boys have both lost a lot of blood and, even though we think we nipped the infection in the bud, I want to keep them here for observation. Ten days, maybe two weeks? There’s not a lot for you to do here. You could just go, then come back later.”
Noah clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll do that. I’ve already got a flight booked.”
Olivia said, “Cathay International. 10 p.m. Economy.”
Noah regarded Olivia with curiosity. “How did you know that?”
“I’m on the same flight. Sitting beside you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Noah,” said a groggy Sam, “it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that out.”
“But how did you know what flight? I didn’t tell anybody.”
Walrus opened his eyes. “I am the Walrus. I can do anything.”
Suddenly, the television in the room turned on by itself.
Onscreen was a heavily bandaged man. “Noah. You have killed three of my children. But I have two more to go…and there is me.”
Suddenly, the clear image on the TV screen disappeared, just as mysteriously as it turned on.
It’s not over yet.
Noah pursed his lips and let out a slow blast of air. “I think I’m gonna stay for a while.”
THE END
And things devolve from here.
In FORSAKEN CARGO, the next book in the Noah Reid series, two pedophiles keep young illegal girls in sexual slavery. One is a brutal Russian mob leader who aspires to climb the ladder of respectability with New York’s Russian mafia. The other, a steroid-fueled Chinese hulk, is obsessed with proving to his Triad leader father that he is superior to them.
To rescue young Russian and Chinese sexual slaves from these depraved masters, Noah must rip the veil of secrecy from New York’s Chinatown and Little Odessa.
The ungodly duo join forces launch war on Noah to take back what he has stolen. Even with his well-honed skills, can Noah survive the final blistering showdown?
Pick up a copy of Forsaken Cargo at AMAZON.
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About the Author
Wesley Robert “Wes” Lowe began as a keyboard player for rhythm and blues bands and as a jazz pianist. After completing a Master of Music at the University of Toronto, he composed music for internationally acclaimed films, documentaries and television programs.
Wes expanded to writing and directing films and media projects, that incorporate his knowledge of Chinese experience. In addition to exhibitions at film festivals and being broadcast throughout the world, he has consulted on Chinese issues at Wes’s bestselling action thrillers captivate audiences with stories that infuse the modern with elements of ancient mysticism, where the conflict of yin and yang integrate seamlessly into contemporary tales of relentless, warp-speed action.
When not writing, Wes loves playing his 1908 Steinway grand piano, custom-roasting his own coffee, and being the chaplain for Chinese military vets.
Books by Wes Lowe
THE NOAH REID ACTION THRILLER SERIES
Fury Unleashed
Venomous
Manipulate
Forsaken Cargo
The Dragon Deception
THE RAYNA TAN ACTION THRILLER SERIES
American Terrorist
The Mandarin’s Vendetta
Unholy Alliance
Visit www.wesleyrobertlowe.com for more info or if you are a member of KINDLE UNLIMITED, you can borrow the ebooks for free.