Thieves of the Black Sea - Joe O'Neill Red Hand Adventures

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sailors moved slowly, still waking up, as they began unloading ships and preparing freighters for journeys to distant shores.

      A pelican flew overhead. Foster Crowe stood on a creaky dock and watched the harbor come to life. Soon he began walking toward the train station at a brisk pace. After a week-long journey aboard a freighter from Ceylon, his legs were a bit wobbly, but his face was a picture of determination. Carrying only a small leather backpack, he needed to move fast. At fifty-two years old, he had some gray hair around his temples, but was otherwise in peak physical condition. Always dressing as a gentleman, his tan suit coat remained starched and clean, and his brown leather loafers were polished. As he walked, he could feel the tip of a dagger he’d hidden up his left coat sleeve.

      Foster Crowe was on a hunting expedition.

      He was hunting a man by the name of Wu Chiang.

      A month prior, Foster had discovered a temple deep in the heart of the Ceylon jungle. He broke into the temple and stole a journal from Wu Chiang. The journal told of a secret society that had existed for centuries. This society was responsible for countless acts causing death and destruction dating back to the bubonic plague in Europe, and possibly even before that. Using the principles of the Red Hand Scrolls for evil, the society developed inventions and devices built explicitly to maim, murder, and cause mayhem.

      Even more sinister, the diary revealed that Wu Chiang and his agents had been plotting some kind of world war for decades.

      A war that would be the most destructive in the history of mankind.

      Unfortunately, Wu Chiang had escaped on a freighter headed for Bremen, Germany. Unable to follow him to Bremen, Foster had secured passage on a freighter headed for Amsterdam in the hopes of catching up to him once he arrived in Europe.

      However, Foster wasn’t even sure what Wu Chiang looked like. His only description of the man had been provided to him by a dockworker in Colombo, who described Wu Chiang as a portly Asian man with thick glasses—most likely of Chinese descent—dressed in plain clothes.

      Once he arrived in port in Amsterdam, Foster ran on the hard cement through the city, hurrying to the train station. He needed to get to Bremen, and the four-day journey by train was the fastest route possible.

      He had to find Wu Chiang and stop him.

      The Asian man sat cross-legged with an upturned, dirty brown derby hat in front of him. He’d stuffed his pudgy body into ragged and tattered clothes. Thick glasses sat on his nose.

      This was the man known as Wu Chiang.

      Pedestrians stepped around him, and a few dropped coins in his derby.

      From where he sat, Wu Chiang could see the Serbian embassy across the street. Two guards casually stood at the gated entrance, smoking a cigarette and sharing a joke.

      Suddenly, an enormous explosion rang out from the embassy! It was so powerful that it shook the ground and even shattered the glass from a lamppost. Smoke billowed from the windows. The guards, shocked into action by the blast, opened the gate and ran to the building. People on the street ran to the site to see what had happened.

      After a few moments of silence, Wu Chiang began to hear the screaming and the moaning of the injured and the maimed. The smell of sulfur filled the air. Acrid smoke began to sting the eyes of stunned onlookers who had gathered around the embassy walls to see what had happened. Then, without warning, a second explosion tore through the area, this time just inside the embassy gate.

      Wu Chiang was blown back into the brick wall behind him by the force of the blast.

      Instantly, the street became a gruesome scene of butchery, death, and destruction.

      Dead bodies were everywhere. A decapitated leg, bloody at the thigh, landed in the street across from where Wu Chiang was sitting. A man staggered backward, his entire body engulfed in flames, screaming until the flames overtook him and his charred body fell to the ground. Dust and chalk blew upward and settled on anything and everything within a several-block radius. A large crater, six feet in diameter, appeared where the gate had been; now only fragments of steel blown to bits remained. Bricks and dust scattered around everyone on the street.

      More screaming. Not just the screaming of the wounded and dying, but the agonized cries of people who arrived at the scene, soon realizing that their loved ones were dead or wounded.

      Wu Chiang watched the carnage in front of him.

      And he smiled.

      CHAPTER

      — 2 —

      A FRIEND INDEED

      Inez had been in the truck for hours and hours. Her stomach growled and she huddled her arms around her legs, pulling them against her chest to keep somewhat warm. With nobody to talk with, and nothing to read, she was resigned to staring at the back of her truck and the windshield of the truck behind them. Everything about the bed of the truck was noisy and uncomfortable. The hard steel bruised her butt and tailbone. Occasionally, she nodded off and her head drooped to one side, only to be woken up with a jolt when the truck tires hit a big bump.

      Her ankles and wrists were tied, making escape an impossibility. Her mouth was gagged so she couldn’t call for help.

      For the moment, she was resigned to being a prisoner.

      At last, the truck stopped and a German man opened up the tailgate, grabbed her roughly, and proceeded to untie her and drag her by the arm to a bathroom in the rear of a filling station. Once she was finished with the facilities, he removed her gag, handed her a sandwich and a bottle of milk. After she’d finished her meal, he put her gag back on, tied her up and returned her to the back of the truck.

      He did all of this without saying a word.

      Once back in the truck, Inez felt much better. The truck rumbled along for hours and then, once again, they stopped at a filling station, she was allowed to relieve herself, given another sandwich and milk, and directed to the back of the truck.

      A full day passed and once again it turned to night.

      At one point, Inez thought she heard what sounded like Italian when the truck stopped to ask directions.

      Again, the truck stopped, she used the facilities, was given yet another sandwich, and then got back in the truck. The man never said a word. He closed the tailgate and, instead of starting the truck, she heard him saying something to the other driver and the men disappeared.

      That’s when someone leapt over the tailgate into the bed of the truck! The figure was like a shadow, and it moved so quickly that Inez thought she may have imagined it.

      “Inez, don’t make a sound,” the voice said.

      “Margaret!” Inez said in a muffled voice from behind her gag.

      “Ssshhhhh,” Margaret whispered.

      Inez could clearly see her friend Margaret Owen’s blond hair in the pale moonlight.

      Margaret moved behind Inez and frantically began sawing at the ropes that tightly bound her hands.

      “I have to cut these before those men return,” Margaret whispered.

      Inez felt her arms being pulled and pushed as Margaret hurriedly tried to cut the rope with nothing but a rusty piece of steel. Inez began to feel the ropes loosen and then, finally, her hands were free.

      They heard the men’s voices returning. Margaret immediately ducked behind one of the crates. Inez kept her hands behind her back when one of the drivers peeked in to check on her.

      Inez tried to look pathetic.

      Satisfied, he threw out his cigarette and went to the cab of the other truck. The two engines roared to life and the trucks began rumbling down the road once again.

      “Keep

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