Read The Curse of the Dragon God Online
Authors: Geoffrey Knight
Tags: #Mystery, #Suspense, #Adventure, #Gay
The Curse of the Dragon God (3 page)
As the lift reached the deck above, Mya and her associates hurried out into the blinding daylight. From his place on the bridge, the captain saw the three hurry across the deck toward their black-and-silver Eurocopter EC 135. He saw the men carrying wooden crates, saw the urgency with which they moved, saw that Qassim Qahtani had not come up to the surface with them, and he knew something was wrong. He snatched up his walkie-talkie and radioed his crew on the deck below to send the lift back down—now!
Below deck, Qassim continued to scramble across the floor, searching desperately for his scattered diamonds as the two interlocked BMWs spun and screeched across the cargo hold.
Eden jerked his gears into reverse and tried to pull free. More tire smoke blew from his spinning wheels. His car dragged the Qahtani brothers several more feet across the floor, then with a jolt detached itself.
Saabir cranked through his gears and spun the steering wheel.
At the same time Eden braked, twisting his body so he was sitting upright at last, and looked through the windshield to see the Qahtani brothers facing him dead on. Yusuf was hanging out the passenger window, his Uzi pointed straight at Eden.
“Oh, shit!” Eden ducked and covered his head as the windshield above him exploded in a million shards. Bullets tattered the driver’s seat headrest and smashed through the rear windshield. Eden reversed again, turning the wheel hard right. The Beemer flew in a wide circle, bullets continuing to pelt the car—and puncture the gas tank. Gasoline gushed from holes in the tank, leaving a wide arc across the floor.
While Yusuf fired, Saabir hit the accelerator and turned in pursuit, sweeping across the nose of Eden’s car, unable to brake in time before plowing headlong into the ship’s wall. The hood crumpled. Saabir shoved the car into reverse, zeroing in on Eden with more speed and determination than ever.
Eden peered over the glass-covered dash, saw the Qahtani brothers coming, and stepped on the brakes. Saabir was going too fast to adjust his course. Instead he braked as well, skidding to a halt directly in the path of Eden’s car. Eden slammed his foot on the accelerator, wheels spinning in the pool of gas. As the tires found their grip the car headed straight for Yusuf’s door.
CRASH!
Yusuf’s door buckled. Eden’s car pushed the Qahtani brothers all the way to the wall and pinned them there with a car-crumpling smash. The front bumper of Eden’s BMW dislodged on one side, the fractured left end hitting the floor. Yusuf himself jolted across the passenger seat. The gun flew out of his hands, out the passenger window, clattered across Eden’s hood, and bounced in through the shotout windshield.
Yusuf blinked away his blurred vision, realized his gun was gone, and scrambled as fast as he could out through the bent frame of the passenger window.
Eden saw him coming and yanked the gears into reverse, but not before Yusuf threw himself on the twisted hood. As the car screamed backward, Yusuf clung to the car’s hood. The half-dislodged front bumper scraped against the metal floor, sending up sparks as it followed the trail of gushing gasoline, until—
Foomp!
Sparks became flames.
Foomp!
Sparks became flames.
Eden kept driving, trying to outrun the fire and turning the wheel to throw Yusuf off the hood. He reached for the Uzi, but as he lay his hand upon the weapon Yusuf threw a punch through the open windshield, hitting Eden directly in his face, hard enough to snap back his head and cause his hands to lose their grip on the gun and the wheel.
The car swerved precariously. Eden locked both hands on the wheel to maintain control.
And suddenly Yusuf was upon him. He had one hand on the wheel trying to tear it out of Eden’s grip, and one hand flailing for the gun.
Eden returned the punch, his fist connecting with Yusuf’s jaw.
Yusuf threw it straight back, smashing Eden across the cheekbone.
In the other car, Saabir glanced in his rearview mirror. He saw the quickly spreading fire, and in the middle of it he caught a glimpse of the semiautomatic pistol he’d dropped, lying on the floor amid the flames.
He reversed fast, adjusting his rearview mirror to guide him backward through the fire, keeping his eye on the gun—
—when he should have been looking out for his father.
Through the dancing flames, Qassim scrambled across the floor on hands and knees after his precious diamonds—and crawled straight into the path of Saabir’s reversing car.
Saabir’s BMW bounced violently as its back tires rolled over Qassim, flattening his skull.
Instantly Saabir knew something was wrong. He slammed on the brakes. Staring through the windshield, he saw the crushed, lifeless body of his father, his open palm glittering with diamonds.
“No!” Saabir howled.
He jumped out of the car and raced to his dead father.
Shock quickly turned to rage. With flames dancing in his eyes, Saabir’s vengeful gaze homed in on the other car.
Eden took another blow to the jaw before slamming his foot on the brake. Yusuf slid up the hood of the car, his chest gliding over the broken glass covering the dash. He was even closer now to the Uzi and made a grab for it. Eden hammered the accelerator. The car hit 40 miles an hour in four seconds flat, blazing a fiery trail directly toward Saabir and the body of Qassim.
Yusuf got his hands on the Uzi and locked his fingers around the grip as Eden slammed on the brakes. The car slid to a breakneck halt, sending Yusuf flying off the hood and smashing into his brother.
Eden heard the lift clunk into place on the floor of the cargo hold behind him. He glanced back, slid the gears into reverse, then flew across the floor, tires aflame. He steered directly for the lift at full speed, then pulled on the emergency brake and slid onto the platform.
Far across the fiery cargo hold, Yusuf and Saabir clambered to their feet and opened fire.
Without leaving the car, Eden ducked in the driver’s seat, wrestled off one of his shoes, then peered over the dash and threw the shoe as hard as he could at the large control button.
The shoe smacked its target.
The hydraulics whined into motion.
The platform began to ascend, lifting the BMW off the cargo hold floor, toward the deck. The bullets from Saabir’s and Yusuf’s guns ricocheted off the bottom of the platform as Eden rose higher and higher. Suddenly flames began to peel their way up the sides of the BMW. Eden kicked at the driver’s door and it flung open, but he realized there was no way out. The Beemer sat squarely on the platform, and the drop was now four stories high and still rising to the deck.
As flames began to lick at the interior upholstery, Eden remembered the shirt on his back was still covered in highly flammable grease from the chain on the port. Buttons flew in the air as he ripped it open, chest first, and sent it flying out the windshield, where the flames turned it into a fireball.
His mind racing, he slid open the sunroof of the flaming BMW and saw the light of day approaching. With explosions like cannons blasting, one tire after another ruptured. Then, through the smoke, the sun filtered through the sunroof as the lift whirred to a halt, locking into place on the deck.
Eden pumped the accelerator to the floor. The gears were still in reverse, and the smoking, burning BMW squealed across the deck of the ship and slammed into the base of the bridge.
A short distance in front of him the lift began to descend, releasing a blanket of smoke from the burning cargo hold below; the Qahtani brothers would soon be on their way up.
Eden had to make his own escape before the BMW became his blazing coffin. Scrambling through the sunroof, he leaped over the flames and toppled across the deck. He looked around fast and saw the panicked looks from the captain and crew in the bridge above him. The blades of the diamond traders’ helicopter swept in a wide circle, preparing for take-off, and Mya Chan was standing beside the open cabin door of the chopper, pulling her diamond-studded pistol from her boot.
She spotted Eden sprawled on the deck beneath the ship’s bridge.
Her finger squeezed the trigger of the gun.
Below deck, the lift reached the burning floor of the cargo hold. Weapons in hand, Saabir and Yusuf fought their way through the flames and leapt onto the platform. They looked up at the open hatch high above, as the lift began to ascend.
On deck, Eden rolled. Sparks shot into the air inches from his turning, tumbling torso as Mya’s bullets ricocheted. The black-hooded villainess pumped the trigger until the chamber was empty. Then she shouted over her shoulder at the man securing their payload. He leaned further into the cabin and handed her an M240 machine gun, an ammunition belt dangling from its feed tray, bullets ready to be chewed up and spat out in Eden’s direction.
The gun looked enormous in Mya’s hands, but she handled it with terrifying ease.
Eden leapt to his feet as an endless spray of bullets chased him, ripping apart the base of the bridge only inches behind him. He poured on the speed, leaping onto a nearby oil barrel, launching into the air, and crashing back onto the deck behind a large steel storage container.
With a deafening
Brrrrrrrrrr!
the machine gun’s ammunition tore a path behind him, eating through the blazing BMW, up the wall of the bridge, and, to the wide-eyed horror of the captain and his crew, right through the windows into the control room.
Brrrrrrrrrr!
the machine gun’s ammunition tore a path behind him, eating through the blazing BMW, up the wall of the bridge, and, to the wide-eyed horror of the captain and his crew, right through the windows into the control room.
Glass exploded as bullets shredded the bridge. Blood splashed across the tattered windows.
Eden realized things were about to get a whole lot worse.
So did Mya. She stopped shooting, and as the flying glass settled inside the bridge, she watched the ship’s crew stagger and fall while the captain coughed up a lungful of blood, lurched forward, then slumped dead against the wheel.
Slowly his body rolled to one side—
—turning the ship’s wheel with it, full to starboard.
The vessel’s engines groaned and the deck shuddered, and the entire world tipped on a 20-degree angle as the massive ship turned hard right, moving too fast, sweeping through the port of Aden in a giant, sea-churning U-turn.
The walls of the hull bowed and moaned under the strain, threatening to buckle altogether.
Random screws and bolts popped and shot into the air as the deck became a steely slope.
Cables snapped and whipped through the air.
And everything that wasn’t tied down began to slide: containers, crates, the burning BMW, the helicopter!
Eden rolled and tumbled, trying to bounce to his feet before smashing into the portside railing with a rib-breaking crash.
Mya dropped the machine gun and grabbed the chopper door before it slid out of reach, screaming at her henchmen, “Take off! Take off!”
Below deck, the lift tilted on the same angle as the ship. Yusuf and Saabir lost their balance. Yusuf heard the clang as his Uzi fell from his grip and hit the lift floor, just before he himself toppled over the platform. His left hand managed to latch onto the edge, catching him before he fell. Above him, Saabir slid down the tilting platform, as did the Uzi. Both weapon and man tumbled over the edge, just above Yusuf’s head. Yusuf had one hand free—he could catch either the gun or his brother. He made his choice, ignoring his brother’s bloodcurdling scream as Saabir plunged to his fiery death eight stories below.
On the deck above, grimacing in pain, Eden managed to leap out of the way as the burning BMW slammed into and then over the railing, sending flaming chunks of metal into the sea below.
At the bow of the ship, Mya managed to leap into the cabin of the chopper as it rattled and bounced down the sloped deck, trying to take off. Its tail boom hit a strappeddown container. The bird spun precariously, bunny-hopped in an attempt to gain altitude, then lifted nose down, tail up into the air. It swept perilously close to the tilting deck, then became airborne, lifting up into the sky and swooping out to sea.
In the bridge, the body of the captain slid off the wheel, causing the ship to level out, straighten up, and head directly toward Aden’s busy port.
On shore, instinct seemed to wake the dozing harbormaster. His cigarette fell to the floor, his feet slid off his desk, as he sucked in a breath of waking air. He wiped his eyes, blinked back the bright day, and squinted out his office window to see the Yemeni ship, billowing smoke and fire, moving at full speed and heading straight for port. Straight for the French cargo ship and the African oil tanker!
The harbormaster burst from his office, screaming, “Runaway ship! Runaway ship! Get the tugs!”
Dockworkers slowed, stared, stepped backward—then ran for their lives. The two ships left in port started spilling their crews in mad panic, first down the bottlenecked gangplanks, then over the sides of the ships.
Eden was already charging up the deck ladder to the door of the bridge. He could see the port speeding toward him, and the only way of slowing the ship now was to get inside the bridge. He reached the door and rattled the handle—locked. He shook it with all his strength, but it wouldn’t give.
Up ahead, the port loomed closer and closer. He could see men running for their lives, fleeing the doomed port. A few gallant souls were rallying tugboats, throwing off lines and pushing the tugs out to sea.
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