Singapore Sling Shot (19 page)

“No problem dealing with them,” Jo was saying. “The only problem is knowing where they are being monitored from.”

“Gatehouse,” I ventured. Because of the angle we were at, the gatehouse Jo had indicated was situated at the front of the compound was invisible.

“That's what we figured,” he agreed.

“So, guessing that they have a couple of guys in there, one with half an eye on the monitors, how many others have they got inside the warehouse?”

“We've had the place under surveillance all afternoon. Our man saw four guys come and go between the warehouse and the gatehouse. At last count there were four inside the warehouse and three assigned to the gatehouse. The gatehouse guys rotate to take an hour on the beat.”

So there we had it. Seven of Lu's men, cameras and no doubt an alarmed door or doors into the warehouse and six of us. If the cameras and alarms were monitored from the gatehouse, then we were okay. If they were being monitored in another location, there was a potential problem.

“Don't worry, Dan, we've got it covered.” Jo withdrew back into the warehouse. I followed, closing the door after us. He used his cellphone. It was a short conversation. Then he turned to me again and flashed that famous grin of his. “At precisely 20:05, K is going to be here driving a loaded concrete truck that will accidentally go out of control and demolish the gatehouse.”

“Brilliant.” I glanced at my watch. We had half an hour to wait. I considered lighting a cigarette. I didn't because I'd heard that all sorts of dusts in suspension could make things go bang. Jo sent one of the team back to the van. When he returned, he had the driver in tow. Between them the duo bore a pack of bottled water, a massive pair of bolt cutters and a long metal bar with a flattened end.

Goodbye door, I thought to myself. These long pry bars, when inserted into the gap between door and jamb, could demolish any lock mechanism easily. The leverage delivered to the chisel end was enormous.

We sat and sipped our water. One of the guys went and had a nervous piss in a corner. I resisted the urge to go and squat. My gut was doing its usual pre-op thing.

“Time to go.” Jo stood, he held out the bag the water bottles had come in. We all put the plastic bottles inside. The van driver wasn't taking part in the operation. He took the bag and retreated back towards his vehicle. Jo didn't have to explain the DNA thing to the crew. We were leaving nothing behind.

It was ten minutes to 20:00. Outside, the rain still persisted and the night outside of the arcs from the tower lights was almost pitch black.

There was no fear in the dark and rain that the cameras could pick us up so far away, even if they were trained in our direction, which they weren't. They were covering the flanks and front and rear of Lu's Fort Knox. We pulled our balaclavas into place. This was it. My gut had suddenly settled. It always seems to work that way. It's the waiting that gets to me.

The bolt cutters made easy work of the link fence. There was no need to get fancy. Twenty or so links were cut in a vertical line and the fence folded back to create a triangular-shaped doorway. Heavy-duty cable ties were used to secure the wire back.

Despite the distance and the dark, we lay flat along the fence while the sentry came and did his thing again. I presumed that this was a replacement from the guardhouse. I hoped he stuck to the same timing as his predecessor. The moment he vanished, the six of us ran the fifty metres to the rear of the second warehouse. Jo had designated a man for each corner of the building. Lying flat, with binoculars, heads just protruding far enough to see, they watched the sentry go through his next beat. Forty-five seconds from the left front to right front! We had one minute thirty seconds to be waiting for him when he did the full circuit.

The moment the man in the poncho vanished, we started up the flank of warehouse number two. It was only a minute to gate crashing time. Jo was in the lead. I was at his shoulder. We didn't run. This was more of a slow jog. We had time. The moment we reached the corner, we would be on camera. I wondered if Jo was going to kill or just lay the sentry out. That particular question was answered when he removed a set of brass knuckles from an overall pocket and slipped it on his right fist over his glove.

A metre short of the corner we stopped. I raised my Browning. If the sentry came around the corner firing the weapon he undoubtedly had under his poncho, I needed to be ready. In reality, I needn't have bothered.

There was an almighty crash from the front of the compound fifty metres beyond the warehouse we were preparing to storm. The sentry ran into view and stood looking towards the sound, trying to see what was happening. From under his poncho he produced a cut-down pump shotgun. Jo took two paces and his brass knuckles met the man's temple with a sickening sound. The poncho-clad one was out of it and maybe out of life.

I was tempted to pick up the shotgun, but left it lying where it was. We were in semi-silent mode for the moment at least. There were other sounds out front. One of them was the faint rattling thwack of a silenced weapon in use. K was no doubt seeing to any opposition. Jo and I and the guy with the pry bar raced for the door set in the centre of the rear wall of the warehouse, while the other three sprinted for the front of the building. As yet there were no sirens and no alarm bells.

The door gave easily. While it was solid enough, it wasn't reinforced and the two locks exploded as one. We were in and now an alarm bell was ringing.

In front of us was a huge cavernous warehouse. Unlike the one in the next compound, this one was brightly lit and it didn't contain cement. Around the walls were stacked pallets holding boxes and bundles of whatever. In the centre sat half a dozen shipping containers.

The four men guarding Thomas Lu's inner sanctum had all moved to the front of the warehouse drawn by the sounds outside. The pedestrian door beside the huge sliding door set in the front wall was open. They had possibly been going to the assistance of the men in the gatehouse. Now, because we had triggered the intruder alarm, they were turning back towards us, weapons raised.

Whether these guys knew anything about basic military training or had learned all their fighting techniques from bad movies, we'll never know. Whatever, they were standing bunched in the open, aiming a variety of weapons in our direction. The three of us took cover behind the nearest container as the clowns started shooting. One of them was using an Uzi and hot copper jackets were slapping the side of the container and ricocheting off the concrete floor like angry bees.

The noise was deafening. None of these guys were using suppressed weapons. Being inside a large galvanised metal shed while the guns were blazing was like being trapped in a metal drum with half a dozen mad drummers beating on it.

The reason we hadn't opened fire was that the range was long for a handgun under these conditions, almost sixty metres. The other reason was we had guys coming in from the front. Crouched beside my container I could see the door. Our guys arrived fast and low. They came in shooting, fanning out and going to ground as they did so. Above the sound of the unsuppressed weapons came the dull thump of the silenced Brownings. It was over in seconds.

The sudden silence was deafening. I took in a wider view around the edge of the container, my ears ringing from the gunfire. Our three guys plus K were slowly getting back to their feet. Lu's quartet was sprawled on the concrete. They'd not had a chance. I started towards them. Jo and our other man followed, still carrying the pry bar. The four on the ground were very dead, no question about that. Blood was pooling around them. Two of them lay face down, they had been shot in the back. They had never even seen who killed them.

“Amateurs,” K said as he checked for any signs of life.

“This must be it.” Jo had holstered his gun. He was looking at the markings on the container nearest the front of the warehouse. This had obviously been the last to be off-loaded. There was a big, brand-new padlock fastening the door closed.

“Is it?” I pondered aloud. I went to the second container in the line. It was unmarked and had a shoddy padlock securing it. I waved the guy with the pry bar over. I holstered my own gun, grabbed the bar and in seconds, the padlock disintegrated into scrap. I handed the bar back and Jo and I wrestled with the stubborn door release. It squealed in protest and then the heavy door swung open.

Even given the dim light, I could see that inside the container there were four large hemp and plastic-covered bales and they didn't contain cotton. One of the bales had been split open across the top. It had been crudely resealed but two or three bank notes had caught under the plastic.

“Clever Mr Lu,” I said. The first container he had set up as a decoy, perhaps to keep even his own people from helping themselves. Jo and I went into the container. I wasn't convinced that Lu wasn't trying a double double-cross. I used my Gerber folding knife to rip open the re-sealed bale. Jo opened the next bale in line. Inside both were tightly packed, tightly bound bundles of banknotes.

“Good instincts, Dan,” Jo admitted. “Here's the truck.”

There was the rumble of a heavy engine and the main door was being slid open. A big Isuzu flat-deck with a side loader reversed in. I closed the container door as the deck of the truck slid alongside. The driver leaped down and immediately started working the loading mechanism. There were short heavy chains with hooks attached to the hydraulic loading arms. When the hooks came within reach, Jo, K and I connected them to the rings welded to the container. The moment that was done, the container reared up and away. In a matter of seconds, it was on the flatbed.

“Go, go,” Jo was telling his crew. They started away towards the rear of the warehouse and the ruined door, K joining them. The truck driver was climbing back into his cab. Jo and I followed and we were away in a crunch of gears and the snarl of the big diesel.

Out front, little remained of the gatehouse. A concrete truck was sitting in the middle of the ruined building. Incongruously perhaps, the truck's engine was still rumbling and the barrel of the mixer was rotating. The body of one of Lu's men lay beside it.

We were out of the compound and turning onto the deserted secondary road. There were security lights on in many of the buildings lining the road and in the yards, but there were few other lights and absolutely no moving vehicles but for the truck we were in and the transit following a couple of hundred yards back.

Only our driver and Jo knew where we were going. The destination didn't matter to me. We had done what we needed to do and for once, I hadn't had to kill anyone. That was almost a first. I removed the balaclava and Jo did the same. Masked men in a truck would attract a little undue attention.

“We have ten minutes to get where we're going before the cameras come back on. We'll make it.”

“How much attention did we get from people on the ground?”

“Industrial area, late at night, continuous noise. Not much I think,” Jo replied. He was probably right. I certainly hoped so.

I pulled out my cigarettes. Jo didn't smoke. The driver did. Jo wound down the window and we drove on through the rain. Mr Thomas Lu had just been well and truly shaken and stirred. No doubt about that!

23

The bedside telephone woke Thomas Lu from a deep dreamless sleep. Prior to retiring, he had shared a spa with his lover of the moment and then they had gone to bed for a session of lovemaking that left Lu exhausted. Now, as he reached for the receiver, Michael, his boyfriend, stirred.

“Go back to sleep,” Lu commanded gently as he pressed the receiver to his ear. “What?”

Thomas Lu listened to the man at the other end in almost total silence, but for the moan of anguish that escaped his lips. He hung up the receiver and leaned back against his pillows. His face was so pale it glowed in the almost dark.

“What is wrong, Thomas?” Michael was concerned. He sat up in the huge bed and reached out to stroke Lu's forehead.

“Somsak is what is wrong,” Lu snarled through clenched teeth. “That fucking Thai gangster is what is wrong. Leave me. Now!”

Fearing he was about to be struck, the younger man recoiled as Lu climbed out of the bed. Michael Yee grabbed up his scattered clothing and rushed from the bedroom as Lu began to pace the room, his ridiculously skinny body a pale shadow as he strode backwards and forwards cursing Sami Somsak and the devils who had brought him to Singapore.

It was later, much later, when Lu made a decision. He used his cellphone again. His orders were terse. Somsak had hurt him. Now he was going to hurt Sami Somsak big time, and he was going to retrieve the money no matter what it took.

“So this is what two billion dollars looks like?” The outer layers of all the bales had been split and the contents of each bale exposed. The bales had been made up of large individual bundles covered in plastic and fixed with fibrous plastic tape. One of these bundles had been opened. Inside were tightly packed stacks of notes, all 1,000-dollar bills, judging by those I could see. Each pack of notes was held closed by a wide, white paper band, just like notes in a bank. Only these bands didn't bear the insignia of any bank. They bore only the numerals 100000. It appeared then that there were one hundred thousand dollars per stack, one million a bundle and five hundred bundles to a bale. Each bale was worth half a billion dollars. It was almost surreal to me.

“Yes, Daniel,” Sami replied. Despite having his left arm in a half plaster and some fading bruising on the right side of his face, Sami looked well. “Friday night is going to be exceptionally interesting, I think.”

“What will you do with this?” I waved a hand over the money.

“Put it to good use at some stage,” my friend replied. “I may even give it back to the Mendez brothers; after expenses, of course.” He picked up a stack of banknotes and tossed it to me. “That's just pocket money. There will be plenty more when we nail Lu's smelly little hide to the wall.”