The Curse of the Dragon God (15 page)

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Authors: Geoffrey Knight

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

BOOK: The Curse of the Dragon God
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“Give me one good reason why not!”
Chad delivered his response as though it was common knowledge or simple logic. “Because everybody knows the gays don’t have the balls to run empires.”
“
The gays
?” Bradley repeated, incredulous. “Right now, Chad, you sound like the Nazis! Is that how you plan on running this company?”
More murmurs swept the room and the tables suddenly turned as the looks of misgiving and mistrust swung toward Chad.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” was all the Harvard graduate could muster.
Bradley shook his head. “You’re not a businessman. You’re just a bully. Empires are built on respect, not rhetoric. You’re all talk, Chad.”
As though a glove had just been slapped across his face, Chad’s expression changed once more, from disdain to an undisguised glee. “
Am I
?”
“Gentlemen, please,” interjected one of the board members, standing at his chair. “We’re all under a great deal of pressure. Now is not the time to argue. Nor is it the time to act rashly.”
“I agree,” added another. “It’s becoming quite obvious that the two of you have your differences, but the decision to put someone else in charge is supposed to be Sen’s.”
“He’s not here!” Chad shouted.
“I don’t believe we should be making this decision for him,” a third board member said, standing firm. “We should wait.”
“Wait for what?” Chad questioned angrily.
“For my uncle,” Bradley answered resolutely.
Chad fumed quietly and wiped his sweating brow.
Will wiped his sweating brow. He had found the blank paper, crammed it into the printer behind Chad’s desk, and listened as the machine began pumping out the pages of the
Montana Project
document. Quickly he turned back to Chad’s computer. “The Beijing Project? What are you up to, Chad?”
He typed in the words
Beijing Project
—backward.
One file appeared, one that had to be retrieved from the computer’s trash and unlocked. Again the entire document had been encrypted in Chad’s secret code. Again Will hit the print button, then slipped the mirror into his back pocket. He could work on it later, scour through every inch of it once it was printed off and in his hot hands. As the printer pumped and buzzed out the pages, he quickly glanced through it onscreen. Several words stood out.
Neda—
Aden, he quickly deduced.
Edart dnomaid—
Diamond trade.
Ecived DZ—
ZD device.
“ZD device?” Will quickly exited the document, logged on to Chad’s Internet connection, and began typing in letters. It sounded like some sort of scientific acronym or chemical symbol. He extended the search and found
zidium
, a word he’d heard in the limousine in San Francisco, a term that the Professor never had a chance to explain. “What the fuck is a zidium device, anyway?”
“It’s a bomb,” came the reply. “One capable of leveling mountains. And cities.”
The words came loud and clear. At the same moment the snout of a pistol pushed its way through Will’s messy blond hair and pressed itself into the back of his skull. He froze. He didn’t have to turn around. He already knew from the voice and the brief glimpse into the files who was on the other end of the gun.
“Mya Chan. How nice to finally meet you face-to-face—or rather, gun to head.”
“Don’t get cute!”
Suddenly the snout of Mya’s diamond-studded pistol left Will’s head for a second, and the butt of it came down hard and heavy. Will’s forehead crashed against the keyboard as Mya knocked the young man unconscious with a somewhat satisfied smirk on her face.

 

Chairs whispered across the white carpet, rolling back from the table as the board members rose to leave.
“Gentlemen, please, sit down,” Chad insisted. “We need a resolution on this.”
“No, Chad,” Bradley responded firmly. “We have a majority vote on this matter. We wait for the outcome of the investigation into Sen’s disappearance, whatever the news may be.”
“And so we just let the company slide into the ground without a leader?” Chad was trying to stop the board members from leaving one at a time, but they simply sidestepped him.
“No, we run the company jointly,” Bradley said. “You decide
nothing
without my consent. You
do
nothing without me.”
As the last of the board members headed for the elevators, leaving Chad and Bradley alone in the vast boardroom, Chad turned on Bradley, his face red with resentment. “I’ll do as I damn well please.”
“Is that a threat?”
Chad stormed up to Bradley, physically trying to intimidate him, physically trying to force him to back away. “No, it’s a warning. Just like I warned you not to come here. Stop getting in my way or I’ll—”
Bradley stood his ground. “Or you’ll do what?”
Their chests met, Chad’s snarling teeth only inches from Bradley’s face. “Or I’ll bury you alive.” He smiled and made a starburst gesture with his hand. “Kaboom!”
Suddenly a cold, callous voice came from the boardroom doors. “There’s no time for that.”
Both Bradley and Chad turned to see Mya standing there, a sly red-glossed smile on her lips. Beside her stood Xi with an unconscious Will dangling under one arm. Mya crossed her arms. “I’m afraid this situation needs to be dealt with now.”
VIII
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
ON ONE SIDE OF THE SHORELINE STRETCHED THE glimmering aqua gulf, on the other a vast expanse of desert as far as the eye could see, and in the middle, shooting up out of the white sands, was a narrow oasis of buildings made from shimmering glass and precious metals, tall and splendid and dazzling under the bright Arabian sun. It was a city like no other on Earth. A designer paradise. A rich man’s fabricated fantasy, where credit cards and business cards were currency and everything that glittered was indeed gold. Where every Rolls Royce purred like a cat down Jumeirah Beach Road—
—while one particularly sleek yellow Lotus roared down the avenue like a lion.
Richard Conrad pushed the lavish locks of blond hair away from his sunglasses and turned up the radio. He suddenly decided he adored the song that was playing, although he had no idea who the artist was, and for a moment he entertained the thought of buying the record company that had the foresight and business savvy to sign up such an artist. Then came the song’s bridge, his adoration waned, and just like that his interest was gone. The young Englishman’s thoughts suddenly switched to something else: the new Mumbai contract that had landed on his desk at 9 A.M.; then switched again to the yacht he’d recently purchased in Monaco and what he was going to name her despite the old seafarer’s warning that doing so was bad luck; and speaking of names, what the fuck was the name of that hot Eurasian model he’d left in his bed this morning? Alex? Aaron? Andy? Who cared! Richard shrugged it all off, including the song. All that mattered was today was a good day, and the next few days promised a lifetime of good days to come.
At the age of 28, Conrad had made the list of the Top 20 Richest Men in the World Under the Age of 30 three years running. His swiftly acquired, self-made fortune in the construction industry was mostly spent on investments, expansion, expensive toys, and endless adrenaline-fueled antics. Races to the polar ice caps, spaceflights in zero gravity, nautical expeditions in search of long-lost ships, privately funded (and very secret) scientific experiments involving particle collisions—these were the fun, shiny trinkets on which Richard Conrad spent his pocket money. Because without the fun, shiny stuff, money was nothing.
“Anthony, that was his name,” Richard said to himself, clicking his fingers. “Fuck, I hope he didn’t steal anything on the way out.”
He adjusted the rearview mirror to check his hair, stroked his blond waves, then twisted the mirror back in place. That’s when the glare of the sun bounced off the hood of a silver 4WD BMW trailing two cars behind. It caught Richard’s eye, and so did the driver of the car. Even from this distance, he got enough of a glimpse to discern that the man behind the wheel was reasonably striking.
He changed lanes so that the two cars between them were no longer blocking his line of sight. He adjusted his rearview mirror again, and his assessment of the driver shifted from reasonably striking to undeniably handsome.
He could now make out the silhouette of a square-chiseled jaw. Short dark hair. Eyes concealed behind a pair of sport sunglasses, the kind you wear on a snowy slope or, as the case was, in the desert.
Richard eased his foot off the gas a little with the intention of falling back and letting the BMW cruise alongside him. He planned on getting a much better look at the handsome driver, and perhaps even do a little tailgating, first in the streets, then in the sack.
But as the Lotus slowed, Richard watched in the rearview as the BMW slowed as well. Strange, he thought. He kept his eye on it, ready to turn in case the BMW turned, checking the clock to make sure he still had enough time to get to the dunes.
The BMW signaled, but instead of turning off, it simply slid into the same lane as Richard, again keeping two cars between them. Suddenly Richard Conrad realized he wasn’t the cat in this game of chase.
Suddenly he found the situation a hell of a lot sexier!
He smirked at the now obscured view of the BMW in his rearview mirror, then without warning, stamped his foot on the accelerator, slid effortlessly through the gears, and turned a hard right.
Smoke rippled from his back wheels.
The Lotus cut across the traffic and vanished in a black cloud up a side street.
Richard stole a single glance back before leaving Jumeirah Beach Road in a state of angry chaos. He smiled again to see the silver BMW speed up, skillfully gliding past the horn-blasting cars to take up the chase.
Richard turned the Lotus again, this time into a narrow alley congested with delivery trucks loading and unloading. The Lotus moved in a swift, gentle zigzag, slipping easily through the gaps as shop owners and van drivers jumped out of the way. All the while, Richard glanced from the alley ahead to the view behind.
The BMW weaved its way quickly down the alley, veering left, twisting right, missing crates and clothes racks by mere inches.
“I like you,” Richard said to the reflection of the pursuing BMW. “Let’s see what you’re like behind the wheel of something a little more fun.”
He peeled out of the alley and back toward Jumeirah Beach Road before continuing on toward the marina then heading south out of town. The silver BMW kept pace as the hotels and towers faded away behind them like a desert mirage, leaving nothing but a seemingly endless drive ahead. That is, until Richard wrenched the wheel and took his Lotus off-road. A yellow cloud bloomed in the air as the sports car spat sand from its broad tires and tore across the desert.
A moment later, the BMW did exactly the same, following the cloud’s trail. Here the desert ground was firm, the sand relatively compacted to give the cars enough grip to continue their pursuit. But the dunes on the near horizon were tall and unclimbable, at least for the Lotus.
The sizzling air at the foot of the dunes began to ripple in waves, revealing new shapes and colors. At first the shapes looked like molten wrecks in the shimmering heat that rose from the desert floor. Then slowly they materialized into cars. Dozens of cars. It looked as though a small parking lot had been plucked from the city and transplanted here in the middle of nowhere, with one exception—not all the cars were roadworthy city vehicles.
Off to one side were five dune buggies. They were large at the back due to their oversized rear tires, looking like strange creatures positioned on their haunches on the golden sand, ready to pounce. Their skeletal shells were dented and scraped. Their eyes were cracked headlights. They watched the Lotus approach, as did several dozen men standing in a group between the parked cars and the dune buggies.
While the Lotus drove straight up to the group of men, the BMW peeled away to the far side of the parked cars.

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