Dukkha Reverb. Loren W. Christensen
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LOREN W. CHRISTENSEN
A SAM REEVES
MARTIAL ARTS THRILLER
YMAA Publication Center, Inc. Main Office PO Box 480 Wolfeboro, NH 03894 800-669-8892 • www.ymaa.com • [email protected]
ISBN Paperback edition
9781594392634
ISBN Ebook
9781594392665
© 2013 Loren W. Christensen
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Editor: Leslie Takao
Cover Design: Axie Breen
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication
Christensen, Loren W.
Dukkha: reverb / Loren W. Christensen. -- Wolfeboro, NH : YMAA Publication Center, c2013.
p. ; cm.
ISBN: 978-1-59439-263-4 (pbk.) ; 978-1-59439-266-5 (ebk.)
“A Sam Reeves martial arts thriller.”
Summary: After six weeks of being intensely investigated for the accidental killing of a young boy, Portland police detective and martial arts instructor Sam Reeves travels to Saigon, Vietnam to visit his newly found family. Although he hopes to find peace and refuge, Sam, along with his family and a bizarre set of new friends, suddenly find themselves thrust into a nightmarish world of sex trafficking, a deadly warehouse of Buddha statutes, and a dirt tunnel that leads to a suffocating death.--Publisher.
1. Reeves, Sam (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 2. Families--Fiction. 3. Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)--Fiction. 4. Human trafficking--Fiction. 5. Tunnels--Vietnam--Fiction. 6. Martial arts fiction. 7. Mystery fiction. I. Title.
PS3603.H73 D857 2013813/.6--dc23
20139356501308
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Editorial Note: Dukkha: a Pali term that corresponds to such English words as pain, discontent, unhappiness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.
Publisher’s note: There are some Vietnamese words in this ebook. You may need to adjust the fonts and/or select the ‘Publisher Defaults’ option “on” on your Nook device for these to display properly.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY LOREN W. CHRISTENSEN
PRAISE FOR DUKKHA—REVERB
BOOKS FROM YMAA
DVDS FROM YMAA
“As much as I scramble through the ruins of my memories, I find that time, that other time, fresh and untouched by forgetfulness…”
— Ida Fink
Thang’s tooth was killing him, the pain a steady thump as if keeping time to that terrible American rap music that Toan made him listen to whenever they pulled duty together in the warehouse. Thang had only one tooth left in his top row, but it hurt so intensely that it felt like forty, no, fifty rotting teeth, all rhythmically pounding in his mouth. Adding misery to his rotting tooth was a night so humid that it made his body feel like it was covered with glue. The steady rain that came late in the afternoon cooled only a little of what had to have been one of the hottest days in months in Bien Hoa, but the dark brought with it a sticky and thick mugginess.
It was nearly midnight now and he slumped drunkenly on the gnarled wooden chair. The maddening cries from the garden had finally quieted, and Thang was just about to thank Buddha for his compassion when a scream ripped through his brain and once again triggered the piercing agony in his mouth.
“Quiet!” he shouted toward the door, which set off a machine gun volley of awful throbs in his tooth.
The thunder passing overhead was so close to the earth that the flimsy guard shack in which he had the misfortune of being assigned this horrid night shuddered from each deafening, tooth-jarring concussion of air masses. With the electricity knocked out, the only illumination came from sporadic lightning flashes that found their way through the cracked and dusty window to bathe briefly the sad interior in harsh whiteness. No matter. He did not need a dim light bulb to know that the shack contained only empty bottles on the dirt floor, and an unopened one atop a decrepit table.
It