Singapore Sling Shot (20 page)

I balanced the 100,000-dollar bundle of notes in my hand for a stunned moment then slipped it into my vest. I was once again Ed from Perth. The quasi-photographer's vest was an essential part of Ed's wardrobe and it had plenty of pockets. Was I tempted to fill them? Of course I was, but that would come later.

We were in yet another warehouse, but this one was more than half an hour's drive from Jurong. We had driven three quarters of the way around the island, I guessed. The warehouse was old, long, low and in need of repair. It appeared to be an abandoned former military facility. The truck headlights had shown a rusted high fence as we turned in. The ground had been tarmac at some stage but was now covered in grass and small trees. There appeared to be taller trees pressing in from beyond the wire perimeter.

Jo told Sami how I'd picked the correct container from the decoy. Sami clapped me on the shoulder and I experienced one of those childish rushes. I'd done good and teacher was acknowledging it. But I knew what was coming.

“Instincts like yours I want at my side on a full-time basis,” Sami said. Yep, once again he was back on his hobby horse, trying to get me to work with him in some sort of partnership. The time wasn't right for me now and hadn't been before, but he would keep trying.

Delivery made, it was now time for Ed Davidson, the tourist from Perth, to go home. It was 02:35. It turned out we were in Pasir Ris, not that that had any particular significance for me. I knew it was close to Changi and that was that. But heck, in Singapore, everything is close to everything compared to just about anywhere else in the world.

Jo dropped me on Bras Basah, a block from the hotel, and I strolled into the foyer playing at being slightly drunk. To the amused staff it appeared Ed from Perth had been out on the town. As I crossed the lobby heading for the elevators, I was loud and vaguely funny and my accent was passable. The only thing that was missing from my pantomime was the smell of booze on my breath. I remedied that in my room by way of a hefty shot of JD. I went to sleep lying on my bed still fully dressed.

24

Simone DeLue was working at her desk. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just a few minutes to one. Time to freshen up for her much anticipated lunch date with her man from Perth. She smiled at the thought. Ed from Perth and Daniel Swann had little in common.

As she stood, there came the sound of angry voices from the reception area where Jasminder Kaur reigned supreme. Simone opened her office door to see what the commotion was about.

There were two women standing facing each other in reception. They were both attractive. One was Chinese, while the other looked Malay. They were both shouting. The two men assigned to keep guard on the offices, both members of Sami's Singapore crew, were standing to one side, confused, as was Jasminder Kaur, the receptionist.

“What is going on?”

“They just arrived in the lift. One is accusing the other of stealing her wallet.”

“She stole my wallet,” the Chinese woman was saying. “Look at my bag, you can see …”

“Look at my bag. I don't have her wallet,” the other yelled. Both women had their bags open, hands groping inside. The guns they produced were levelled first at the men.

“Hands up. Now!” The command came from the taller of the two women. The guards, their own weapons hidden under their jackets, had no choice but to obey. The second woman went to the fire escape door and pushed the door release. Three men came racing in. Two of them carried iron bars. They clubbed the guards to the floor with practised, ruthless efficiency and took the guns from their belts. The third man carried a plastic container.

“You are all coming with us. Now!” One of the intruders shouted as he wiped blood from the iron bar in his hands on the jacket of the guard he had just beaten to within an inch of his life.

“Oh God.” Simone swayed, but grabbed the edge of the reception desk to prevent herself from fainting. “What's happening?”

“Why?” Jasminder asked.

“Because Mr Lu says so.”

It was after ten in the morning when I awoke. I'd slept like a drugged man. It was the adrenaline hangover that always got me. Despite the fact I personally hadn't had a particularly strenuous outing the previous evening, the adrenaline kicks in when you're in a heightened state. When it leaves, so does most of your energy.

I ordered an omelette and coffee through room service, ate and showered and felt almost human again. Ed from Perth was going to take Simone out for lunch. I dressed up for this one. Casual shirt with sports trousers and actual lace up shoes. This was getting serious.

The plan was that we'd meet at 13:00 hours at Centrepoint on Orchard Road, just a leisurely stroll from Stanley's office, and find ourselves a nice place for lunch at Cuppage Terrace or Peranakan Place. I didn't much care where we ate really. I just wanted to see Simone.

I walked to Orchard and arrived at the designated meeting place on time. However, after fifteen minutes with no Simone, I tried her cellphone. No response. I decided to walk on up to the office to meet her. I had barely reached Lucky Plaza when the first fire engine came screaming down Orchard Road from Tanglin. This was followed by a second and a third. A flock of police cars was weaving in and around the traffic heading the same way. They turned into Scotts Road up ahead of me.

The ice that slashed its way across the back of my neck started me running. I scattered gawking pedestrians. This was one of those moments in life when you know with absolute, cold, dead certainty that your instincts have gone off the scale and are tuned into something far beyond normal comprehension. Supernatural or supernature, who knows? All I did know was that Simone was in trouble.

I turned into Scotts Road; the fire engines had stopped outside the building where Stanley's offices, or should I say Sami's offices, were located. I looked up. I didn't try and count the levels, I knew it was the fifteenth floor. There were no flames, but there was smoke.

Truck ladders were rising into the sky and firemen in breathing apparatus were going inside as people streamed out of the building. Police, also in breathing apparatus, were following them in, while other officers established a safe zone. I anxiously scanned the crowd gathering on the road. Simone wasn't amongst those I could see. Neither was Sami.

I used the cellphone again. No Simone and no reply from Sami—just their cell secretaries! I left messages and stood helplessly watching the controlled chaos unfolding. There was nothing I could do. The firemen had three snorkel units up at the fifteenth level and were streaming water into the building; but still no real flames. Hoses trailed into the downstairs foyer of the building and firemen were coming and going. The flow of evacuees had stopped. Anyone who was getting out under their own power was out, it seemed. It just remained to see who the fire crews managed to retrieve.

The ice that had threatened to sever my neck had settled in my gut. It sat there like a freezing brick. My breakfast omelette had soured and threatened to find it's way to the back of my throat.

I don't think I've ever felt so helpless in my life, just standing there watching, waiting and perhaps praying. I've gotten used to losing people from my life. I care for someone and they're gone. It's a shit equation. I've come so close to losing myself as well. Now it appeared to be happening all over again. Maybe Simone and Sami had got out of the building in time.

What exactly had happened? It had to be Lu, of course. I don't believe in accidents or coincidences in my game, or what used to be my game. Lu was trying to finish the job he had botched with the truck out on the highway. An incendiary of some sort must have been used in the offices. The urgency seemed to have gone, at least as far as the firemen were concerned. Two of the snorkels were already coming back down. Had the fire not taken? What had caused it? Gasoline? A gas cylinder? Napalm?

Ambulance attendants with their gurneys were now going inside, accompanied by more cops as the firemen exited. There hadn't been any walking wounded coming out. What exactly had gone on up there?

I was now going into professional detachment mode. It's a survival technique. If Sami and Simone had been trapped up there, were they dead? If they had managed to escape, that was, of course, wonderful, but where the hell were they? No matter what their status, I could not change what had happened. All I could do was stay alive and stay invisible and get Thomas Lu. When I did, it would be slow and very painful. Revenge deserves time to be savoured.

“Dan!”

I turned. Jo was standing behind me, his face grim.

“Where are Sami and Simone?”

“I left Sami in the warehouse this morning. I don't know who was in the offices. Perhaps Simone and the other girls who work there and the numbers guy. There were three of Sami's Singapore guys as well.”

The other girls were the three additional office staff that Stanley had employed.

“If they were in there, they're dead, they've escaped or Lu's got them,” I replied. “Have you told Sami?”

“No. His cellphone appears to be switched off.”

“Damn!” I knew Sami switched off his phone when he was out on the dredge barge in the Gulf of Thailand, but why here and now? That's the whole fucking point with cellphones: availability anywhere, anytime—yeah, right!

“No point in standing here, Dan.”

“Yeah. Let's go see Sami.”

Jo led as we edged our way through the crowd and back towards Orchard. The Mercedes was double-parked down on a side road. We got in. Jo told the driver to head back to Pasir Ris. Jo and I sat in silence as the driver took us on what seemed to be an around-the-island tour. Yes, I knew why, but for once I wanted the direct route and to hell with the CCTV cameras. I needed to find out what had happened to Simone.

I tried her cellphone again and got the damn computer secretary once more.

I pondered exactly what I was going to do to Mr Thomas Lu when I got my hands on him. I imagine Jo was also following that line of thought. Maybe when the time came, we would have to toss a coin to see who got the right to make the man pay.

Thomas Lu smiled at the four women who sat on the chairs in front of him. Two were Chinese, one was Indian and the other, the attractive blonde, was very much of European extraction. The women were gagged with duct tape and their hands were in front of them, also bound with the tape.

They were in the virtually bare penthouse suite at the Silver Sands Hotel, although the women didn't know this. Painters' drop cloths had been used to cover the windows. They had had pillowcases pulled over their heads before they were bundled into the elevator and taken from the office down into the basement car park and the van that was used to transport them to Sentosa. They had no idea where they were.

“We will now see if Mr Somsak values his employees at two billion dollars,” Lu purred. The women were staring back at him with wide eyes. They blinked at the amount of money, but they had no idea what this man was talking about. None of them even knew who the man was.

Lu's trio of thugs had disarmed the single guard in the basement car park. The fighting women had distracted the man. The pantomime had been very effective. The man in the garage had not paid any attention to the delivery van. He had been knocked unconscious, bound and gagged and left in a utility cupboard. Lu's men had then disabled the alarm and made their way up the fire escape to the door to the fifteenth floor. On their cue, the fighting women had taken the elevator to the fifteenth floor and distracted the guards. It had worked to perfection.

The women had been easily subdued. A can of gasoline was liberally spread throughout the offices. Lu's men left the unconscious guards where they lay and set the fire. They used the keyed elevator to get back to the basement. High above, the fire erupted as the van left the car park.

Lu was pleased. The whole operation had gone like clockwork. He had Somsak's people. The Thai would return the money and the women would go free. He was sure that Sami Somsak would do it. Already, an emissary was on his way to Somsak's apartment to deliver the ultimatum along with the number of the cheap, prepaid cellphone that sat on Thomas Lu's desk.

The message, computer printed onto a single sheet of paper, was simplicity itself:

Give me my money or I will send your women back to you in pieces. You have until seven this evening to contact me.

A cellphone number was printed in place of a signature.

The only thing that spoilt this moment was the fact that the members of the Intella syndicate had each received a copy of the recording Stanley Loh had made. One of Lu's friends had contacted him to inform him of the fact. He was now on the outside. However, Thomas Lu had a plan to get himself back into the closed circle. First, though, he wanted his money back and Sami Somsak dead.

25

Sami's cellphone had expired. It was as simple an explanation as that. The damn thing had simply run flat. Isn't that always the way with electronics? When you need the fucking things, they die on you.

We returned to the scene. The police were there, of course. I'd stayed well out of things while Sami fronted. No, he didn't know what was going on. No, he had no idea who had attacked his people or why. He, of course, suggested it was linked to the death of his stepbrother. He had come to Singapore to bury his dead and attempt to sort out his brother's affairs. No, he had no idea where his office staff had gone. The accountant had been at a meeting when the intruders arrived. He had arrived back after the fire crews had left.

The guard in the basement had been found seriously dehydrated and suffering severe concussion. Of the other two guards, one was not expected to live. The other, who had received serious head injuries and burns to much of his body, was expected to live. The only favour Lu's men had done Sami was take the weapons that Sami's men had been carrying. At least there were no arms charges on the slate.