The Curse of the Dragon God (21 page)

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Authors: Geoffrey Knight

Tags: #Mystery, #Suspense, #Adventure, #Gay

BOOK: The Curse of the Dragon God
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Behind them, the ceiling collapsed completely onto the boardroom table with a crash. Glowing rubble tumbled across the room as the fire chewed its way through the story above. Will blinked beads of sweat out of his eyes and tried to stay focused on the keypad.
He finished typing.
Bradley waited for the door to swing open with an automated sigh of relief.
Nothing happened.
“Did you type it right?”
“Yes! I’m sure I did.”
Bradley’s fingers started dancing over the keypad. “
HongKongHQ
,” he said as he typed.
The two men looked at the door.
There was no sign of movement whatsoever.
“Maybe the fire’s disabled it,” Will thought aloud.
“Impossible. This thing’s built to withstand any disaster, natural or man-made. Someone’s changed the password.”
“No prizes for guessing who.”
Outside the room they heard several small explosions. The fire was well on its way to destroying the entire tower.
“What would Chad change it to?” Will asked in a desperate rush. “Come on. Let’s think!”
“It’s not his name. The code has to be ten digits long.
ChadChambers
is—” Bradley quickly counted down his fingers “—it’s twelve, it’s too long.”
“He talked about the Montana Project. What about that?”
“Too long.”
“
Montana?
”
“Too short.”
“
Beijing?
”
“No. They’re all too short.”
“
SanFrancisco?
”
“Too long! Can’t you count?”
Another beam fell from the ceiling and shook the floor. “No! Not when the whole damn building’s burning down around me!”
Bradley was ignoring him, still counting letters on his fingers as quickly as he could. “Not
Zhang Sen
. Not
Diamonds
. What about—”
“
Fucanglong
!” Will and Bradley both exclaimed together.
Bradley punched the word into the keypad.
Again nothing happened.
In the middle of the room, the charred carpet peeled backward and the floor beneath the table began to buckle and drop. A fiery hole opened up. Half the boardroom table sank. Within seconds the entire table plunged through the burning floor.
“Wait a second,” Will said. “He does everything in reverse.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Chad. He does things
backward
.”
“Seriously?!”
“Type
Fucanglong
backward!”
Bradley had to think. “God, how do you spell Fucanglong backward?”
Will started, “G-N-U—No!—O! G-N-O-C—No!”
“Shut up and let me concentrate!” Bradley’s eyes darted around the keypad. He typed in
G
, then
N
, then
O
, then
L
, then—
Another massive section of the ceiling collapsed, hit what little was left of the center of the room, and sent it all plummeting into a blazing heap that consumed the level below, sucking burning chairs and shattered display cases into the burning chasm. Will stared, his eyes wide, his feet shuffling back against the wall as far as possible. He and Bradley were now standing mere inches from the giant flaming hole. “Shutting up. But please hurry!”
Hurrying was exactly what Bradley was doing.
G–N–A–C
The edges of the rest of the floor began to crumble.
U–
Will felt his left foot start to slide off the edge.
–F
There was an electronic hiss.
Bradley’s hand shot out and hooked Will under the arm.
The fire-covered wall transformed into a thick metal door that breathed open beside them.
They both fell into the small panic room, the fire leaping and bounding, snatching at their shoes as they collapsed one on top of the other. Bradley gave the large red punch button on the wall a good kick. The steel door slammed shut behind them. Sealing
them
in, and the fire
out
, and then—
“Hold on!” Bradley told Will.
It was as though the bottom dropped out of the world as the small cubelike panic room went into a free fall, plunging from the 40th floor of the tower straight for ground level. It dropped so fast they actually lifted off the floor for several moments.
“We’re gonna crash!” Will’s voice slurred, his lips smearing with the sudden force of gravity.
Before Bradley could reply, they heard a series of detonations outside the panic room. With each blast, the rapidly descending cell shot grips into the walls of the shaft, like hooks, slamming on the brakes until the small cube came grinding to a halt on the ground floor.
The door opened automatically.
Will and Bradley scrambled out the exit and spilled across the lobby floor so fast it looked like the wall just opened up and spewed them out.
Startled, George, the security guard, pulled his gun.
Shirtless and singed, Bradley and Will both held up their hands.
“Don’t shoot! George, it’s me, Bradley! Call the fire department!”
“The fire department? I didn’t hear any alarms!”
“George, listen to me. Did you see Chad leave here?”
George nodded, flustered and confused. “Yes, sir. He left with Ms. Chan and a white-haired man. They seemed to be in a hurry. Headed straight for the harbor.”
“Thank you. Please, call the fire department. Then get out of the building as fast as you can. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir!”
As George phoned for help, Will and Bradley burst from the lobby doors and without breaking pace bolted into the night, heading straight for the nearby harbor. Their smoking shoes slapped against the Hong Kong streets and onto the wharf packed with tourists and locals getting in and out of bobbing sampans.
The lights of a thousand vessels flickered and flashed across the surface of the hectic harbor in all directions. Boats of all shapes and sizes rocked and lurched through the melee.
“Jesus, it’s worse than the L.A. freeway!” Will gawked, skidding to a halt at the edge of the wharf.
All around them, people were already stopping and staring at the two soot-covered and topless men. But Will and Bradley were oblivious to them all. Bradley recognized the sleek white cruiser heading out across the crowded harbor and into the bustling night.
“That’s them. That’s my uncle’s boat.”
Behind him, Will turned at the sound of fire truck sirens filling the Hong Kong streets. From here he could see the Zhang Diamond Tower, its top burning in a silent blaze slowly consuming each floor until the shatterproof glass finally gave way as the pent-up fire exploded outward, shaking the ground and shattering windows throughout the building. Everyone on the wharf suddenly gasped and ducked in terror.
“Come on,” Will said, seizing Bradley by the hand and pushing him aboard the nearest unmanned sampan. The young American unhooked the line, ripped the cord on the outboard motor, and twisted the throttle to full.
As the bow of the long, narrow boat tilted into the air, Bradley rolled down the length of the leaky, cluttered vessel and smashed awkwardly into Will at the stern.
“Get up front!” Will yelled over the buzz-saw drone of the motor. “I can’t see where I’m going! I need you to weigh down the bow and navigate!”
Hand over hand, Bradley pulled his way up to the bow, tilting the nose of the narrow craft lower as the bow dipped with his weight. He looked out over the chaotically busy Hong Kong Harbor and screamed, “Starboard! Turn starboard now!”
Mere feet in front of them, a Chinese junk was sailing sluggishly across their bow, moving directly into their path.
Will jerked the outboard to veer hard right.
“No! Starboard!” Bradley yelled. “You’re going the wrong way!”
“You said starboard!” Will shouted back. “This is starboard!”
The panicked passengers on the junk all screamed and waved in vain to avert disaster.
“That’s the way they’re going!” Bradley screamed. “Go the other way! Go left!”
“That’s not starboard!” Will screamed back.
“Then don’t go starboard! Anything
but
starboard!”
Will turned the boat hard port. Like a torpedo suddenly changing course, the sampan ditched and veered as the underside of the bow splintered the side of the junk and bounced off.
“You’re supposed to be watching!” Will shouted.
“I am!” Bradley screamed back.
“Starboard is right! Port is left! There’s no port
left
in the bottle, you got it! You tell me port, I turn left; you tell me starboard, I turn right! Understood?”
“What’s straight ahead?” Bradley shouted.
“Straight ahead is straight ahead!” Will yelled with a roll of his eyes.
“Then floor it, because if you don’t we’re either gonna get hit by the ferry coming up on port or the ocean liner on starboard!”
“Jesus,” Will whispered to himself with sudden alarm.
As the tiny sampan skimmed across the choppy water, the blast of the packed passenger ferry’s horn and the blaring lights of the ocean liner illuminating the water came from both sides.
Will twisted the throttle as hard as he could.
The little sampan reared up even higher in the water and cut a line as fast as it could across the waves.
The passenger ferry’s horn filled the night again. Smaller boats broke tack and spun about, seeing the angry ferry approach. Amid it all, the tiny sampan cut right, only to veer directly into the path of
The Duchess of Hong Kong
, one of the largest liners ever to sail the Orient.
At the stern of the little sampan, Will shot a glance to starboard to see the cruiser carrying Chad, Mya, and Xi skim across the water, seconds before the almighty bow of
The Duchess
loomed large before them, threatening to rip them to shreds.
“We’ll never make it!” Bradley shouted from the nose of the boat.
But Will knew if they didn’t try, they’d lose the cruiser altogether. “Hang on! And keep your head down!” was all the warning he gave.
With a quick turn to port, Will saw the swell from the ferry’s wake rise up behind them. He knew
The Duchess
would cut the wave like a knife, but not before the sampan had a chance to ride the wave clear across the bow of the ocean liner—hopefully. He gave it all the outboard had to reach the tip of the wave, then steered the tiny boat to ride the crest straight toward the bow of the ocean liner.
“Will?! What are you doing?!”
“Stay down!”
The wave swept them toward the oncoming ship.
Its 14-story-high bow sliced the water.
The little sampan sailed the wave, its motor buzzing furiously, its nose about to smash directly into the hull of the ocean liner—until, seconds before impact, Will steered the tiny boat just a fraction to port.
Still riding the wave, the sampan edged slightly ahead of the point of impact.
At the bow, Bradley gasped and ducked as low as possible.
The mighty ocean liner gobbled up the wave.
Will held the throttle locked at full speed, clenching the old rubber grip so tight he thought his hand would bleed.
The ship’s razor-sharp bow shaved off the nose of the sampan, cutting the bow off the little boat with such force that it didn’t even splinter—it just cleaved it clean off.
Bradley gasped again, the bow having been sliced off only millimeters from his head.
Will cut sharp, veering port again even harder, hoping the momentum of the sampan would carry the now bowless boat out of harm’s way.
It did—almost.
The liner clipped off the outboard motor, sending the sampan into a powerless pirouette, floundering and flailing in the dangerous waters as it was dragged down the ocean liner’s starboard side. Water began gushing up through the rapidly sinking craft. At the same time the sampan slammed into the mighty hull several times as it threatened to pull the crippled boat down at any moment.
Bradley scrambled back toward the stern as the harbor drank in the bow of the boat.
Will heard the stern of the ocean liner approaching, knowing that the real danger was yet to come. With no motor, they had no hope of escaping the drag of the ship’s propellers. They were too close. It was only a matter of seconds before it pulled them down and churned them out. Even if they jumped overboard, there was nothing they could do now to save them.

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