Singapore Sling Shot (23 page)

“Wait!” Lu quickly gave instructions to his men. One moved to the front of the truck, two stayed where they were. Lu, with the remaining man at his shoulder, moved forward. He was now confident that he had both his back and the car park covered.

The truck driver stood on the truck deck waiting for the instruction to continue to open the container. When Lu and his man arrived at the rear of the vehicle, Lu gave the order. The driver once again started working the locking handle.

The locking bar ground free and the driver moved to one side as he pulled the door open. The man at Lu's side tensed. Under his long jacket, the muzzle of an Uzi was just visible. His right hand was under the jacket. Under his own jacket, Thomas Lu had a silenced stainless steel S&W 459 automatic holstered. He had his hand on its butt. His heart was high in his chest as the container door screeched open.

There was no horde of gunmen waiting inside the container. Lu breathed a sigh of relief. He moved slightly to one side so he could see down the length of the container's interior and counted its contents. There were four bales packed in it in a line, one behind the other, just as they had been when the container had been in his warehouse.

“Wait here and watch them,” Lu instructed his bodyguard as he climbed up onto the truck deck. He brushed past the driver and entered the steel box. The bales that had previously been opened had been resealed with tape and plastic sheeting.

Thomas Lu smiled to himself. Was it a trap, a wooden horse? Would men with guns leap out of the bales and take him prisoner? He raised his silenced automatic and calmly walked down the line of bales. As he moved, he fired two rounds into each of them. The sound of the weed eater working away outside was more than enough to cover the sound of the muffled reports. He walked back up the other side of the container and repeated the process. Now he had only two of the fourteen rounds left. He replaced the magazine with another from his jacket pocket. He smiled at Sami Somsak.

“In case you decided to substitute armed men for my money,” he said. “In which case they will be very dead. Open it,” he commanded pointing at the first bale. The truck driver looked at Sami, who nodded. The man slowly produced a large folding knife from his pocket. He showed it to Lu. Then he began slicing the bindings and the thick plastic outer covering on top of the bale that was a substitute for the hemp that had been cut away previously. Soon the money was exposed.

Lu held out a hand and the driver passed him a block of banknotes.

“Deeper,” Lu said as he examined the notes he held. The driver shifted several blocks of notes and buried his arms deep into the centre of the bale.

“Too tightly packed,” he grunted in passable English.

“Open that one.” Lu pointed to the second bale. The driver moved to it and began using his knife again.

Holding a large packet of banknotes in his hands, Thomas Lu turned to Sami Somsak who was still standing at the rear of the truck, watching the activities in the container. “Is it all here?”

“It is,” Sami replied.

“The women are on their way,” Lu said as he turned back into the container. The driver had the second bale open and held aloft another large block of notes. Lu pointed to the third.

Sami turned to look back towards the gardener's truck. This game was boring him. It was time to bring it to its conclusion. He cradled his plastered arm with his free hand as if in pain. His fingers found the transmit button on the radio. He depressed it twice. He didn't turn to look, but he knew that the gardeners, who had been noisily positioning themselves, playing their parts with enthusiasm, had begun to move closer.

The man with the petrol-powered weed eater was cutting the grass on the mound behind the truck. One of Lu's men was facing his way, watching him idly, while the other was watching what was going on in the container.

Inside the container, Lu was still fondling the money the driver had been handing him. The driver was preparing to open the fourth bale now. Lu felt that indeed the money was all there. He was smiling.

Sami Somsak glanced around again. The small truck was sitting on the far side of the parkway, almost directly opposite the car park. His other men were all in position and Lu's thugs still had no idea. The weed eater spluttered and died. The man using it cursed. He unfastened the harness and, leaving the machine on the grass, walked off grumbling towards the truck parked twenty metres away. The bodyguard who had been watching him laughed.

“Idiot,” he said to his compatriot. “Next time, he will be sure to fill it before he starts.”

As the grumbling man walked by, one of his fellow gardeners called to him. “Bring me my lunchbox, I'm hungry.”

“It's not even breakfast time, Garbage Guts,” came the response. Both men laughed. Sami frowned, hoping they weren't overacting. Lu's watchers standing behind the truck seemed relaxed. They were exchanging words, laughing. Perhaps the comedy show was working.

At the truck the grumbling man retrieved a red and yellow petrol can and a small plastic box and started back towards his weed eater. He tossed the lunchbox to his companion with more insults and carried on.

As he approached his weed eater, he passed the two men standing behind Sami Somsak. He made a show of unscrewing the top of the plastic fuel container. He was still grumbling. Lu's men laughed.

Sami pressed the button on his radio handset three times. A second later, the morning was ripped apart by a massive explosion. The van on the far side of the parkway exploded in a fireball.

Every eye in the lay-by and out on the parkway, with the exception of those who were expecting it, was drawn to the huge fireball that mushroomed into the sky. At precisely the same moment as the van exploded, the gardener with the plastic fuel container dropped it. From under his shirt he produced a silenced Browning automatic. He shot the near pair of Lu's men three times each as they stood only feet away, staring at the spectacle that was taking place across the parkway.

At the same instant that the explosion occurred, the gardener who had called for his lunchbox produced another silenced automatic. He shot the man standing watch beside the front of the truck three times. The man fell to the ground without a sound. Sami Somsak took care of the fourth man who was standing at the rear of the container. Lu's man was caught between watching the activities inside the truck and the noise of the explosion.

The bodyguard's attention was split and for that he died when the blade of the razor sharp stiletto Sami Somsak was carrying secreted in his forearm plaster drove into the man's back, severing his spine. A second knife thrust found his heart.

Thomas Lu heard the explosion and started moving towards the container door. He saw his bodyguard collapse and raised his automatic. Sami Somsak, who was standing over the fallen body, was smiling up at him.

Jo Ankar, the obedient truck driver, pounced on Thomas Lu from behind and drove the long blade of the knife he was holding into Lu's right shoulder. An expert with any blade, Jo twisted the knife viciously and expertly to cause the maximum damage.

The shiny stainless steel automatic fell from Lu's numbed fingers and bounced onto the truck's deck. Ankar caught Lu before he tumbled out of the container and off the back of the truck. He turned the injured man around and threw him back into the container.

“Go, go, go!” Sami called. Jo dogged the container door shut and ran back along the side of the truck's deck for the cab. The gardeners' truck was backing up. The gardeners were dragging the fallen gunmen together. Sami joined them. Like cords of wood, the dead were tossed into the back of the truck. Weapons were collected and tossed in as well, along with the gardening props.

While the explosions out on the parkway continued, the truck bearing the container, followed by the gardeners' truck, started out down the car park. All they left behind were two abandoned vehicles, some bloodstains and spent cartridge cases.

“Total chaos,” Sami said as they drove for the exit. The flames from the Toyota were still licking at the sky. Vehicles were stopped on the far side of the parkway and traffic from Changi had slowed. Every eye was still focussed on the blaze. What had or had not happened in the car park would remain something of a mystery that would take the police weeks to unravel. Yes, some people had witnessed what had happened, but they doubted their eyes and their sanity. This was so alien, so surreal, and this was Singapore where nothing ever happened—or so their totally logical brains told them.

“Thank you, Tam Yin Fireworks,” Jo said. The occasional spurt of flames still kicked off skyward from the burning truck. He glanced in his mirrors. The gardeners were on their tail as the two vehicles reached the parkway and joined the traffic flow. Because vehicles approaching the burning truck from the direction of Changi had slowed to see what was happening, the parkway ahead was relatively clear, a fact that both trucks took advantage of. Within minutes, they had turned off the parkway and into the maze of side streets that would make them all but invisible to the all-seeing eyes of the CCTV cameras.

29

Two days had passed since the latest shootout. Sami had the money and Thomas Lu. The threat Lu had represented was no more, but that still left the Mendez brothers. According to Sami's inside man, Lu had made no secret that he had put Sami Somsak on the Colombians' radar as the man who had killed their younger brother and stolen their money.

The complete chaos following the latest Sentosa gun battle and the mayhem at the East Coast Parkway had the authorities up in arms. CCTV footage was being scrutinised. Thankfully, Sami's inside information on the coverage blank spots and the absolute red zones had so far been invaluable, allowing our people to be as invisible as possible on the streets.

Sami's crew had been busy. The container truck was stripped down for scrap. The gardeners' truck with its bodies still aboard had been abandoned and still not found. Now it was very much a matter of sitting tight and riding out the storm. There was nothing concrete to connect the latest episodes to the previous ones, but that didn't mean forensics experts weren't trying. All the weapons used in the episode had been melted down in a foundry.

The police had been to see Sami several times. His staff members had been returned unharmed. The kidnappers had been Chinese. They had been masked so the hostages couldn't identify them. They had their heads covered and they had been bound. They had been taken to a warehouse, at least that's what they thought. They had not been harmed. There had been talk of a ransom. Then one of the kidnappers had received a phone call. They'd heard him exclaim “Sentosa”. The men seemed to have panicked, the women said. They had their hoods put back on and they were put into a van and driven off. They had been dropped close to MacRitchie Reservoir and it was from there they had phoned Mr Somsak, who'd arranged to pick them up. They had then reported to the police.

The reality was, of course, that Sami, in exchange for a great deal of money and ongoing allowances, had orchestrated their story. None of them would ever have to work again. Their memories and their loyalty were guaranteed. That, of course, should be the end of that story, but it isn't.

One of the great things about saving the life of a beautiful, bountiful woman is the fact that gratitude can know no bounds. Unfortunately, in my case, that gratitude was tempered with tears, fear and recriminations.

The beautiful Simone DeLue thanked me and then asked me to get out of her life forever. She had two children to raise. She had almost left them motherless. She had been terrified. She was involved in things that were horrific and dangerous and illegal. She had witnessed brutal killings. She no longer had a job. She didn't know me. She … and so the list went on.

Was I surprised by her reaction? No, not at all! Normal people don't get involved in situations that Sami and I do. Normal people don't look at everyone in a room and calculate who is dangerous and plan how to take them out if the need arises. Normal people don't have multiple identities and live in the shadows. Normal people don't … Oh, what the fuck!

It was 14:30, two days on, and I was half way through my second bottle of JD. Simone had delivered her speech on day one. Sami, Jo and the others had vanished, and only Sami knew where the truck and container and Lu were. I knew Lu had been stabbed but I had no idea how badly, and while I could guess what Sami was doing to the guy, I didn't actually care. Whatever, Lu deserved it.

I booked a flight back to Hong Kong for the following morning. There was no point in me staying now. The meeting at which Thomas Lu was to have been exposed and Sami revealed had been cancelled. There was no need. Sami had been outed as Stanley's brother in several areas of the media following the fire at the office. He'd sent a copy of the digital recording to Intella's consortium members along with a letter of introduction. The tape would no doubt be played, if for no other reason than to leave the soon-to-be-dearly-departed man in a most negative light.

As to the imminent arrival of the Colombians, Sami had his army in place. If the Mendez brothers didn't believe that Lu was the villain of the piece, few Colombians would be flying home again. That much was a promise.

I switched on the television and poured myself a bourbon. The good folks at News Corp and CNN were now in full speculative mode following the latest bloodbaths. Mainland Chinese gang members were being blamed. There was speculation which triad groups the various dead belonged to. The police had recovered many weapons from both crime sites. Crime scene forensic specialists were still analysing the Sentosa hotel and the East Coast lay-by for evidence while the coroner's department got on with their grim task. Just this morning it was reported that several more bodies had been discovered in an abandoned, stolen truck in Simpang. The authorities would bring those involved to justice. Had Singapore suddenly become a haven for Asia's bad guys? There were more security measures in the wind, blah, blah. I turned the television off and at the precise moment my cellphone went.