Read The Curse of the Dragon God Online
Authors: Geoffrey Knight
Tags: #Mystery, #Suspense, #Adventure, #Gay
The Curse of the Dragon God (2 page)
Eden’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light. He made out the other crew members piling onto a hydraulic lift at the far end of the cargo hold. With no caging and no railing on the lift, it was little more than a large, square platform with a control button mounted on a waist-high stand in one corner. A single shaft of light shone directly down onto the lift from an opening in the ship’s deck, eight stories above the crewmen.
Eden felt a kick up his pants as the captain ordered him out of the cargo hold along with the rest of the men. Hastily he made his way toward the lift, quickly sizing up his cavernous surroundings.
The interior of the cargo hold was like a giant warehouse. At lower points on the walls, beams crisscrossed one another in a pulley rigging designed to move and secure containers. Chains hung from the beams like curtains bunched to the walls. Otherwise, the space was virtually empty, except for the two black BMWs, parked side by side in the center of the hold.
As Eden made his way toward the lift, looking for a place and an opportunity to hide, the driver’s door of the first BMW opened. All eyes, including the captain’s, watched a tall, handsome Middle Eastern man step out of the car. Eden took this opportunity and seized it, slipping unseen behind a screen of chains jangling softly by the wall.
Immaculately dressed, carefully adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves, the man said in clear, confident English, “Our friends are waiting. We need to leave Yemeni soil—now!”
The captain gave a quick, submissive nod, uttered an apology, then hurried to join his men on the lift. As soon as he set foot on the platform, he punched the button on the stand and the hydraulics lurched into action. From below, Eden watched the captain and his crew ascend and disappear through the hatch in the ceiling.
A moment later, the sound of the ship’s engines turned from a drone to a thunderous rumbling, and the Yemeni vessel was on its way.
The only question was: on its way where?
The answer presented itself sooner rather than later, in the form of Qassim Qahtani.
“How far, Yusuf?”
The immaculately dressed man’s reply came in Arabic. He was holding open the backseat door of the second BMW. Inside the car, struggling to lift himself off the seat, was a large, sweaty man with four chins, a ponytail, and a small fortune in gold dangling around his fat neck. Puffs of graying chest hair sprouted from a baggy silk shirt unbuttoned to his waist.
“In English!” the fat man wheezed angrily, clambering to his feet with the help of the car door. “I told you, I want to practice my English for the visitors! Let them know that Qassim Qahtani is a man of the world and nobody’s fool! Now tell me in English, how far are we going?”
“Not as far as I’d like, father,” Yusuf replied. “The visitors are getting—” he looked up at the ceiling, his ears picking up a distant sound, “—impatient.”
Qassim looked up too, as did Eden from his hiding place of chains. Above the churn of the ship’s engines came the unmistakable
thump-thump-thump
of chopper blades cutting through the sky and getting louder, then a heavy scrape and clunk as the helicopter landed.
thump-thump-thump
of chopper blades cutting through the sky and getting louder, then a heavy scrape and clunk as the helicopter landed.
“Saabir!” Yusuf called. The driver of the second car quickly stepped out, a younger, shorter version of Yusuf, straightening his jacket and adjusting his pristine collar.
“Where’s your gun?” Yusuf demanded.
With a cocky, gold-toothed smile, Saabir opened his jacket to reveal a semiautomatic pistol tucked into his trousers.
Yusuf shook his head, disapproving of his younger brother’s weapon of choice—or more specifically its size—then returned to the first BMW, sprang open the trunk, and from the passenger seat retrieved an Uzi submachine gun, slamming a magazine into the pistol grip.
Eden felt a tingle of dread on the back of his neck, then realized it wasn’t dread at all. It was whiskers. Quickly he turned and came face-to-face with a large rat, clinging to the chain and sniffing at his scent.
The rat let out a winded squeak as Eden swatted it off the chain, hitting the steel floor a few feet away, loud enough for Qassim, Yusuf, and Saabir to turn their heads.
“What was that?” Qassim demanded anxiously.
Yusuf raised his Uzi, then lowered it with a half grin when he saw it. “A rat.” He watched it scurry along the wall, then snapped his head back to the ceiling as the hydraulic shaft on the ascended lift began to whine.
From the deck above, the platform descended.
Light poured in from the opening and three figures appeared on the lift: two Asian men in black suits stood on either side of a small, slender woman dressed in knee-high boots and a skintight black leather jumpsuit with a hood over her head. Each man carried a steel briefcase, laid flat in their outstretched arms, waiting to be snapped open. The sight of them made Qassim smile.
“Mya Chan,” he announced as the lift sank to a halt on the floor of the cargo hold. “What a pleasure to finally meet you.”
The hooded woman stepped off the lift and began to stride purposefully across the steel floor, followed by the men with briefcases. She stopped in front of Qassim, a quarter his size, yet so cold and serious that he felt distinctly threatened by the woman. It was something he wasn’t used to, and an uneasy smile quivered on his lips.
“I didn’t come for pleasure,” she said, a Chinese accent in her voice. “This is strictly business.” She nodded to the two men standing alongside Qassim, her hood billowing to reveal full, red lips; high, sharp cheekbones; and small, round sunglasses. “I thought we agreed to nobody else but you, me, and the diamond carriers.”
“These are my sons, Yusuf and Saabir. I needed two drivers. I didn’t want to risk carrying both devices in one car. They’re very…delicate. I assure you the captain and his crew have been paid generously to keep their noses out of our business.”
From behind the curtain of chains, Eden felt something heavy crawl across his shoe. He looked down and saw that the rat was back. Silently he tried brush it away, but the irritable beast reared its ugly head and squawked at him.
The sound echoed through the cavernous hold.
Mya and Qassim both turned at the shrill noise.
Saabir placed his hand on the grip of his pistol.
Yusuf unclipped the safety on the Uzi.
Eden froze.
“What was that?” Mya demanded, snapping off her sunglasses.
“Nothing but a rat,” Qassim said, peering into the darkness at a thick tail trailing out from under some hanging chains.
Eden felt the rodent sniffing up his trouser leg, its wet nose rubbing against his shin.
“Enough with the formalities,” Mya turned back to Qassim. “My time is short.”
“As is your patience,” Qassim observed. “Very well, let us do business.” With a clap of his hands, Yusuf and Saabir made their way to the trunks of the BMWs, and each lifted out a small wooden crate. They placed them gently on the ground in front of Mya.
Yusuf retrieved a crowbar, then carefully pried open the lid of each crate. Mya stepped forward to peer inside.
“As requested,” Qassim said, “two zidium devices. Every catastrophe lover’s weapon du jour. One from a black market in Afghanistan, one from Djibouti. Both off the grid, completely untraceable. Each capable of leveling a mountain. Or destroying a city. Whatever your needs be. Which reminds me.” Qassim pulled a small silver cylinder from his pocket and handed it to Mya with a shrewd, businesslike smile. “The impulse detonation device you asked for. Why you would want a toy such as this when you have two zidiums is beyond me, but a deal is a deal.”
Mya reached blindly for the cylinder, for her eyes were locked on the crates sitting on the floor in front of her. Distractedly she took the detonation device, slid it between her breasts, then knelt on one knee.
There inside each crate was what looked like a silver bowling ball with a small LED panel fitted into the top of each device. Tiny rivets and screws ran around the circumference of each shining sphere.
“How do I activate them?” she asked.
“Google it,” Qassim laughed. “Believe it or not, you can download a how-to guide from the Internet.” He gave an innocent shrug. “Terrorism is as easy as the click of a mouse.”
“I’m impressed,” Mya whispered.
Qassim caught the glint in her eye. He had seen it before, many times, that lust for chaos all terrorists share. It was a look that had made him rich.
As though in a trance, Mya reached slowly—adoringly—for one of the zidium bombs. Suddenly Qassim’s hand shot out and seized her wrist. In sharp response, Mya’s free hand snapped a small pistol out of a holster inside her knee-high boot, its handgrip studded with diamonds. She jammed it up into Qassim’s chins. In a chain reaction, the snout of Saabir’s semiautomatic pressed against Mya’s temple while Yusuf aimed his submachine gun squarely at the two diamond carriers, pointing it at one, then the other, then back again.
“I wouldn’t touch them if I were you,” Qassim breathed. “As I said, they’re very delicate. Besides, they’re not yours
yet
.” He swallowed anxiously and his throat clicked against the barrel of the pistol. “The diamonds. The deal was for the diamonds.”
yet
.” He swallowed anxiously and his throat clicked against the barrel of the pistol. “The diamonds. The deal was for the diamonds.”
Mya eyed Qassim, then Saabir, then Yusuf, then pulled the gun away from Qassim’s chins and returned it to her boot.
Qassim released her wrist, Saabir retracted his semiautomatic, and Yusuf took a step back. With the situation momentarily disarmed, Mya stepped in front of the first diamond carrier, unsnapped the locks on the briefcase resting flat in his arms, opened the lid, and stepped back.
Qassim gasped.
At the same time, the pesky rat sunk its fangs into Eden’s shin. He winced, gasping in pain.
Mya turned sharply and said, “That was no rat!”
With an ear-piercing squeal a writhing rat suddenly flew across the vast open space of the cargo hold like a fat furry football.
Yusuf and Saabir opened fire at the same time, shredding the air and the rat with bullets.
Instinctively, Qassim dropped to his knees, grabbing the handle of the briefcase full of diamonds in front of him. He slid it out of the diamond carrier’s hands, but the lid was still open causing every last diamond to skitter and hurl across the steel floor of the cargo hold.
“Stop shooting! Stop shooting!” he screamed.
But his sons couldn’t hear him over their rapid, chaotic gunfire.
Mya was already in a crouching position, ready to take flight, ordering in Chinese for her men to leave the diamonds and get the bombs.
Swiftly they snatched up the open crates.
Mya was running for the lift now. Glancing behind her, she saw the shadow of an intruder bolt from behind the curtain of chains, heading for the other briefcase.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yusuf saw him too. He spun on his heel, his finger squeezing the trigger of his gun.
Eden darted across the open space as fast as he could, sparks flying off the floor and bullets ricocheting around him.
Yusuf made a move for the briefcase as well, trying to head him off.
Eden almost reached the case, but a spray of bullets forced him left, toward the BMW. He reached the front passenger door and swung it open. On the other side of the car Saabir grabbed for the driver’s door. Eden threw himself into the car, feet first. Saabir opened the driver’s door and was met with the soles of Eden’s shoes, both of which slammed straight into his chest, sending him reeling backward, his gun scuttling across the floor.
Yusuf caught a glimpse of his brother hitting the ground and spun his Uzi in a wide arc, blasting a rainbow of bullets through the air.
Lying sprawled across the passenger and driver’s seat, Eden didn’t bother to close any doors or to sit up, with the gunfire outside. He felt for the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine roared to life. Grabbing the gearshift, he jammed the car in reverse, then with his palm pressed flat against the accelerator he smoked up the floor of the cargo hold.
On the lift, Mya Chan heard the squeal of tires. “Hurry!” she screamed as her two accomplices climbed aboard the platform, each carrying a crate. “And be careful!” The second they staggered aboard, she punched the lift button.
Through the tire smoke, scattered diamonds sparkled on the floor. Mortified, Qassim crawled on his hands and knees. “My diamonds! My diamonds!” he wailed, scurrying through the smoke.
Eden’s BMW swerved wide in blind reverse, swinging left and slamming into a wall of the ship’s hull with a thunderous, hollow thud. Rear lights shattered. He punched the car into first gear.
Across the hold, Yusuf had already pulled Saabir to his feet and thrown him in the driver’s seat of the second BMW, then rammed a fresh magazine into the Uzi’s pistol grip.
Saabir kicked the car into reverse just as Eden squealed away from the wall. In the rearview mirror, Saabir grinned his gold-toothed grin as he lined Eden’s Beemer up for a rear-end demolition derby smash. “Just like on cable,” he cackled to his brother.
Eden saw the taillights coming, but there was no time to get out of the way. With a grinding crunch, the Qahtani brothers’ car back-ended him. The momentum of the impact dragged Eden’s BMW across the floor in a sliding shower of sparks. The cars skidded in a pirouette, their front and rear bumpers locked.
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