Thursday's Orchid

“Marijuana!” he cried out as soon as the others had moved away. “We move fifty tonnes of marijuana from Australia to Singapore!”
I sat up with a jolt. I should have leapt from the chair and kept moving and never looked back. They were just ten words, but those ten words had sealed my fate. Greed had got the better of me, greed and the excitement of the challenge. But it wasn’t until the waves had begun crashing into the stern of the ship, not until the salt spray was covering the decks and the hull was grinding and tearing itself upon the coral reef, not until the killing had started and terror had taken hold that I heard those ten words once more, flung at me by the wind. I cursed George for uttering them, and cursed Cheh Wah Tek for agreeing with him, and cursed myself for believing in both of them.