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  Manipulate

  A Noah Reid Action Thriller

  Wes Lowe

  Copyright © 2020 by BGMP Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Connect

  1. Ambushed

  2. Bringing up a Queen

  3. New Toys

  4. A Voice from the Dead

  5. Cat and Mouse

  6. Setting the trap

  7. Finally

  8. What’s Really Important

  9. Pins and Needles

  10. Cards on the Table

  11. Reel the Sucker In

  12. No Longer a Monk

  13. Dreams

  14. Pain

  15. Skyscape

  16. Faking it

  17. The Times, They are a Changin.’

  18. Gravitas

  19. Welcome to the Big Apple

  20. Going Gaga

  21. Fashionistas

  22. That’s Entertainment

  23. Choices

  24. Pissed

  25. Awed

  26. Make it Sing

  27. Playing the Harvard Card

  28. No Rest for the Wicked

  29. Make it or Break it

  30. Squeezing

  31. Coincidence? Connection?

  32. Trapped

  33. You the Man!

  34. Ready to Rock

  35. Monster

  36. Yes!

  37. China vs Russia

  38. What the?!

  39. The Negoiators

  40. Kids

  41. Heights

  42. Not Nice

  43. Kill Myself?

  44. Jumpers

  45. Leverage

  46. Say Hey

  47. Hardball

  48. Now What?

  49. Winged Destruction

  50. Counterattack

  51. Unforgiven

  52. Home… less

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  With foxes we must play the fox.

  THOMAS FULLER, Scholar

  & Clergyman, ca.1700

  Ambushed

  Shanghai - Day

  Talk about an unlikely trio.

  One was easy-going, twenty-eight-year-old Noah Reid. Caucasian, casually garbed in a beige linen shirt and jeans and president of the recently formed Chad Huang Foundation. His counterpart, nicknamed ‘JJ,’ short for ‘Jackie Chan Junior,’ was the same age as Noah but the similarities ended there. Serious-faced and bald, he wore a saffron-colored robe and pants, the traditional garb of his former life as a Shaolin martial arts monk.

  The third member of the triumvirate, wearing a Yankees baseball hat, oversized aviator sunglasses and de rigeur torn jeans, was scrawny fourteen-year-old Sam Xi, a former teenage hoodlum Noah had taken under his wing.

  They met when Noah and Sam accompanied Noah’s dying mentor Master Wu to Heaven, an ancient, mysterious mountain monastery in China’s Yellow Mountains, where the sifu learned Shaolin Hung Gar martial arts. Master Wu had left the enclave defiantly fifty years earlier but, sensing his own mortality, wanted to make a final pilgrimage of repentance and reconciliation.

  During the journey, disaster was their constant companion. The funds used to start the foundation Noah headed were seized from the brutal Triad leader, Chin Chee Fok. Noah had soundly defeated Chin and left him for dead. But, somehow, Chin survived, but was in no condition reclaim his fortune and left it to his son King to recover the family’s illicit wealth.

  The initial part of their journey was from Hong Kong to Shanghai. King arranged for the ambush of the luxury yacht Tao Princess that Noah chartered, hoping to force Noah to divulge the whereabouts of the funds Noah hijacked from Chin. That failed, and JJ joined Noah’s group in Shanghai as the guide to Heaven.

  King personally led his highly trained thugs on a vicious assault on the martial arts monastery. With Noah leading the defense, the attack was unsuccessful, but victory had an exorbitant cost. All the monks of Heaven except JJ lost their lives. As a final act of defiance, King blew up the mountain peak where the hidden monastery was located, burying it forever under tons of rock and rubble.

  The three managed to make the journey back to Shanghai and were nursed to health by JJ’s parents with foul-tasting and smelly Chinese herbs and medicines.

  But, after three days, it was time to return to Hong Kong.

  The exhausted trio was unwinding in a first class lounge at the Shanghai International Airport. Even though their flight was not for another five hours, they had been in the private luxury parlor for several hours already. While they appreciated the Spartan vegetarian hospitality of JJ’s parents, Sam and Noah, hardcore carnivores, salivated at the prospect of eating some of the meat delights promised in the lounge’s buffet. JJ wanted to get to the airport early for a different reason from his friends. He was going to take the first plane ride of his life.

  As Sam devoured yet another plate of meaty barbecued ribs from the lounge’s sumptuous buffet, he remarked, “To heck with school. I could get used to this.”

  Noah dug his fingers into Sam’s scalp. “No way. It was hard enough convincing your teachers to let you join me on this venture.”

  “Noah, I don’t need school. I want to be a ninja like you and JJ.”

  “Sure. Sixteen hours a day for a dozen years of intense physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines, and I was just getting started,” said JJ.

  As Sam stuck out his tongue at the two adults, Noah’s cell phone started chiming. He slid the mobile from his pocket. Then his brow furrowed with a frown. It was from an unidentified caller. “This is a new cell. Almost no one knows the number.”

  “Just answer it, Noah. It’s probably from some telemarketer using an auto-dialer.” Sam snickered. “Or it’s from someone who’s tracked you from one of those thousands of porn sites you frequent.”

  It was an inside joke. Sam knew Noah’s fundamentalist Christian upbringing was hard-wired into his system and liked to rib Noah about it. Senses tingling, Noah opened his cell. “Hello, it’s Noah here. Who is this?”

  “Hello, Noah. Looking forward to seeing you again,” intoned a voice from the grave.

  The caller hung up immediately.

  Noah’s face drained of color. “Chin.”

  JJ squinted as he whirled to Noah. “I thought you said he was dead.”

  Noah’s fingers twitched as his brow furrowed. “I saw him burn. No one could have survived that…but…” Grinding his teeth, Noah took an uneasy intake of breath, then said with a hushed voice, “We never found a trace of him. We just assumed there was nothing left.”

  A businessman sitting at the bar got up and casually headed toward the exit, bypassing their table. Nothing particularly unusual about that except that there was no announcement about any upcoming flights and the washroom was right in the room. Sam spotted his fellow traveler’s cell phone slip out of his pocket and land silently on the carpet.

  “Hey, mister, you dropped your phone,” garbled Sam, speaking with a mouth full of spicy meat.

  Without responding, the man bolted toward the door.

  Noah’s instincts caught fire. Trouble! He tried to grab the phone from Sam but the teenager pulled it back, protesting, “If he doesn’t want it…” />
  Before Sam could finish the sentence, Noah kicked the phone out of the teen’s hand. The phone had barely traveled two feet when it exploded mid-air. A fiery ball knocked Sam to the ground unconscious, igniting his clothes.

  “JJ, take care of Sam,” shouted Noah as he shot after the man racing out the door. JJ immediately leaped onto Sam’s body, wrapping himself around the boy as much as he could, trying to smother the flames.

  With his head start, the cell phone bomber was twenty feet ahead of Noah. Pulling out a gun hidden in his jacket, he turned and fired three shots in rapid succession at Noah before whipping around to resume his escape.

  Noah had to make a snap decision. With the airport brimming full of people, Noah couldn’t risk ducking or sidestepping the bullets; one of them might hit a chance bystander. He decided to attempt moves he had fantasized about after seeing Neo in The Matrix movies, but never actually tried.

  With absolute concentration, he simultaneously whipped his hands through the air and kicked upward.

  Success. He kicked one bullet out of harm’s way and, with a lightning-fast arm, snagged the other two miniature missiles in mid-air. In the same motion, he hurled both bullets back at his attacker with the velocity of a Hall of Fame major league baseball player’s fastball.

  But not the pro baseball player’s accuracy. Both bullets missed.

  Noah’s prey swiveled and weaved his way quickly through the other passengers. Noah followed suit, and then bounded onto the outer ledge of a fountain to gain momentum. With a flying leap and hands outstretched, Noah brought the man to the ground.

  The bomber was no slouch. He shoved Noah off, stood up and whipped out a switchblade. He popped the blade open and drove it toward Noah’s midriff.

  Noah kicked his assailant’s hand. The razor-sharp blade plummeted to the ground and its tip snapped as it hit the hard airport floor.

  Noah grabbed a few metal fragments but, before he could fling them, his opponent stomped on his hand. Blood spurted as the metal bits cut into the skin. Noah’s shriek ripped the air as he crumpled into a protective fetal position, his slowly flickering eyes glazed over with fear.

  “Now, where is my master’s money?” shouted the evildoer as he retrieved another knife from his jacket pocket.

  “I don’t know,” whimpered Noah, abject fear filling his face.

  “Wrong answer.” The thug confidently leaned into Noah, pressing the pointed tip against his temple, almost breaking the skin.

  Noah broke out of his feigned despair. He rammed his knee into the attacker’s solar plexus. The man buckled. Noah sprang to his feet and flipped into a backward handspring.

  Refusing to yield, the aggressor hurled the second knife at Noah. Noah’s legs unfurled and he kicked the approaching switchblade into the air. He snagged the blade and was about to propel it back at his enemy’s chest when he heard JJ shout, “Noah, come quick! We’ve got to get Sam to a hospital.”

  Noah quickly cocked his head to the inside of the lounge and saw that dark ash now blotched JJ’s robe—he had smothered the flames engulfing Sam. The boy was unconscious, but alive. JJ hovered over the unconscious and bleeding Sam, his index fingers at the top of Sam’s ears, using acupressure to reduce the swelling.

  Whipping his gaze back toward his enemy, Noah saw a water-filled snow globe of Shanghai’s Disney Resort coming at his head—the attacker had taken it from the rack of a souvenir shop and rocketed it at him. With almost no time to react, Noah started to duck but the glass object slammed hard onto his temple with the force of a speeding freight train. Reeling, Noah forced himself to fling the switchblade he was holding. However, flashing lights spoiled his aim and, instead of landing in his enemy’s chest, the knife embedded into his thigh.

  Screaming as if he’d been doused with acid, Noah’s attacker rose. Putting pressure on his thigh to avoid bleeding out, he hobbled away while Noah stumbled.

  His world clouded into vague shadows of liquid movement, Noah collapsed, and the world went black.

  Bringing up a Queen

  New York City―Twenty-two Years Ago

  “Where have you been, Chin? I haven’t seen you in seven months,” pouted twenty-one-year-old former Miss USA runner-up Elizabeth Watson as she stood beside the bed, massaging his back, sliding her palms in a circular motion, grasping and stroking his butt cheeks with fragrant and more-expensive-than-gold agar wood oil. “A girl gets lonely, you know.”

  As always, the Shaolin mobster said nothing. That was okay with Elizabeth—his Herculean firepower always spoke louder than words. Turning him over to straddle him on the bed, she sucked his fingers like popsicles before bringing his strong hands to her breasts, then guiding them down…and then Chin took over.

  Her cream-colored body quivered with his hard-chiseled body’s every move, and she moaned in rapture at the dynamic intertwining. Ecstasy came in waves, beginning like surf caressing the shore, then growing until a tsunami possessed her.

  As she basked in the afterglow, Chin looked up and nodded at a camera man who had shot the sexcapade. He gave Chin the thumbs up and Chin sneered contemptuously. Look what I did for this bitch.

  This would provide further evidence of the master’s prowess to a small, but extremely wealthy group. Less than fifty people would see the video, but every one of them would want to do further business with him. Voluptuous, blonde vixens were a dime a dozen to these low lives, but a beauty queen begging him to please her? They saw it in her agitated eyes, heard the craving in her voice, and witnessed her supercharged rapture. They all fantasized about themselves being Chin…and doing more business with the Asian Adonis.

  For Elizabeth, this was not the kind of acting career she had envisioned, but no matter. She had somebody who would take care of her in style. Like clockwork, she had made Chin happy every seven months when he visited for a few days. Then he disappeared again until his next trip to America.

  Today, though, was different. She saw the upward-curled lips on his face in a rare smile. At first, Elizabeth thought it was because her performance was especially outstanding. But Chin deflated her ego with a simple statement. “I have a present for Queenie. Get her.” It was a command, not a request.

  The couple got dressed quickly. Elizabeth went to fetch Queenie from her room while Chin exited the apartment with the camera man.

  Chin returned alone, carrying a small cubed wooden crate, two feet tall, two feet wide, and two feet deep.

  Elizabeth carried out three-year-old Queenie. Dressed in a ballerina tutu with more make-up than a fourteen-year-old skank, it was obvious Elizabeth wanted to turn her daughter into a junior version of herself.

  “Daddy!” cried Queenie with a joyous smile that would melt the coldest heart as she jumped out of her mother’s arms and dashed toward Chin. She hadn't seen him since he last visited and had probably forgotten who he was, but undoubtedly Elizabeth, man-pleaser that she was, had been teaching her daughter.

  “Hello, my Queen. I brought you a present.”

  Queenie’s eyes glistened as Chin placed the wooden crate in front of her. “What is it, Daddy?”

  “Just watch.” Chin pulled back his arm and stretched open his hand. With one swift, targeted shot, he swiped at the center of the box, hand landing at a key structural point. The whole box shattered and fell apart, revealing two tawny-colored baby cranes with long spindly legs.

  Little Queenie didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. “These birds are ugly.”

  “Did you ever hear the story of the Ugly Duckling? Ugly baby birds that grew up to be beautiful?”

  “That doesn’t happen. If you’re ugly, you’re ugly.”

  “Just wait.” Chin left the apartment again, then wheeled in a much bigger crate, about five feet all around. As with the smaller box, he made one well-aimed strike and the box splintered. This time there were two fully-grown red-crowned cranes with white-and-black plumage, they raised their heads and called out in unison.

  “These are the same
birds as the ugly ones, except they’re fully grown.”

  Chin lifted the two cranes, one in each hand and carried them over to the wide-eyed girl.

  “They are so bee-you-ti-ful.” Queenie dragged the word out. “Will I be beautiful when I am big?”

  “No, Queenie. You are already beautiful. I brought these to show you who you are. You are a crane. To Chinese people, they are symbols of strength, long life, and beauty.”

  “I want to be beautiful. I want to be strong.”

  “Don’t you want to live a long life?”

  Queenie shook her head. “Mommy says being rich is the most important thing in the world and you have to do anything to get there.”

  Chin glanced at Elizabeth, unsure whether to thank her or kill her. He turned back to Queenie. “From now on, just listen to me.”

  “Okay.”

  “These baby birds are a present for you to take care of and watch grow. Every time they annoy you or you get tired of taking care of them, remember how beautiful, how strong, how majestic they will be when they grow up.”