Singapore Sling Shot (28 page)

The service was built around favourite hymns, songs everyone knew. The priest who ran the service spoke long and lovingly of Simone, and it seemed he genuinely knew her. He referred to her as a loyal, loving and much respected member of his congregation.

Sami delivered a eulogy. It was a beautiful thing, totally fitting to the lady we were saying farewell to. He spoke of his brother and his affection and respect for Simone who had been his loyal right hand for many years. Sami had obviously given a lot of thought to the moment.

Often I have referred to the many layers that made up my friend the Onion Man. Sami's eulogy revealed even more of his deep and complex personality. There was a philosophical touch to his address and there was humour. He spoke to the children and for them, and then he concluded with a poem, a beautiful thing he had created himself.

The casket was wheeled from the cathedral, with the children and Justine walking beside it. Sami and I came next. I attempted to hang back slightly, but Sami insisted I stay at his side. Once the coffin was loaded into the hearse and driven away, the mingling started. Gradually, many of the mourners either went back to their places of work or joined the dozens who started across Bras Basah Road to the Carlton, where a function room had been prepared at Sami's request.

I faded out of the crowd and made for Chijmes as the rest of the party continued on to the hotel. I promised Sami I would join him for the drive to the cemetery in an hour and a half. The decision to use the Carlton didn't surprise me as it was close to the cathedral. It was just unfortunate that I couldn't join the others for the reception, but that's life, I guess, and I'm not great at small talk anyway. Especially at funerals! I found a beer at a bar Ed Davidson had never been to. JD was not the drink of choice for the new and improved Daniel Swann—not at the moment anyway.

Thomas Lu was sitting in the heavy leather chair in his home office. He lay with his head back against the padded leather backrest, his eyes closed. The boy who was working his magic on Lu's penis was not as beautiful as the unfortunate Michael Sun had been, and he was being paid by the hour, but Lu didn't mind. Shortly, he would have the world once again at his beck and call, and he would have Intella as well—not yet, but soon. Once he removed Sami Somsak from the scene, the men behind the artificial island development would be in his sights. He would demonstrate to them that he had a right to a share of the pie, a major share. If they did not concede, then he would move on them.

Lu glanced at his watch, and as he did so, the cellphone on the desk in front of him chimed. He retrieved it. The call was short. Without a word, he closed the phone and again lay back against the padded chair. Life was getting better and better for Thomas Lu.

At the appointed hour, I met Sami outside the Carlton. The stretch limousine was not an affectation in this case. Inside were Sami, myself, Justine and the children. Jo Ankar was up front with the chauffeur. The next car in the procession contained five of Jo's men. Several other vehicles with mourners aboard were following. The hearse had returned to the funeral home to wait for us. There, the procession would assemble for the run to the cemetery. Funeral processions were probably frowned upon in Singapore, there were enough traffic problems as it was. However, Sami had planned it, so it would happen.

The hearse was waiting on the street when we arrived outside the Sacred Dream Funeral Parlour. Who comes up with names like that? I thought as we cruised up to it. The hearse pulled away into the lead and the rest of the vehicles came after. From Clementi, it was a relatively short drive to Choa Chu Kang and the cemetery itself.

I'd never been to Choa Chu Kang Cemetery before. I'd never had cause to. It was huge and divided, it seemed, into separate smaller cemeteries for different religious groups. The driver of the hearse seemed to know exactly where he was going, which for everyone was probably a relief.

Angels with wings and awkward pious figures stood with their heads bowed. There were hundreds and hundreds of conventional crosses. It seemed we were in Christian territory, Catholic even. Graves, old and new, filled the immediate horizon. The coarse grass was long. In places, it almost covered tombs and headstones. In other places, it had been cut short.

We stopped. We were here.

“Stanley and his family are buried here,” Sami told me. “I have arranged for Simone to be buried beside them.” Justine gave him a grateful smile. Jo opened the door and we slowly climbed out. There was rain in the air, but hopefully it would hold off. Petrol-powered grass cutters sounded in the distance. The cemetery custodians, it seemed, were fighting their never-ending battle against overgrown weeds.

The grave was a black gash in the dirt. Squares of artificial lawn had been laid around it and positioned to hide the pile of dirt that had been removed. The undertaker's cradle was positioned above the grave to receive the coffin. Assistants were removing flowers from the hearse and positioning them around the gravesite. It was all very civilised, all very practised and safe.

The other vehicles had arrived and mourners were gathering around the gravesite. I noted the tomb beside the open grave. It was a huge affair. The marble was new. I didn't have to go there to know this was where Stanley and his family lay.

The priest came to the rear of the hearse. Sami gave me an almost imperceptible nod. He turned to the children and whispered to them. Justine was already prepared for what was to come, this, the final physical act she could participate in to lay her sister to rest.

The undertaker and an assistant eased the casket out. Jo took one handle by himself, Justine and Angela shared one, while Sami and I took the other pair. It was only a short distance to the grave, and with the undertaker and his assistant hovering, we made it. The coffin was placed on the cradle and the priest called everyone in closer. Reluctantly, the mourners did as directed. There were now probably fifty or sixty people gathered to bid farewell to Simone DeLue. The rain started and umbrellas appeared like mushrooms.

The priest began with a eulogy of his own. As he talked, my mind started to play the sort of games that used to be a part of my everyday life, the other life, the one I played in the shadows.

Here, in the spectacular coffin lying there in front of us, was a young vibrant woman, the victim of a stupid accident. She had fallen down a stairwell and died. People died in accidents all the time, every day, every hour, every minute, every second probably.

Coincidence in my world is a dirty word. There is no such thing. Things happen for a reason. If you believe in God, then it is God's reason. Everything else happens and I believe the random or fickle finger of fate is a vastly overrated entity. Is anything about life or death truly random? Was it all pre-ordained and written in a big book in a heavenly archive as many maintain?

As the priest continued to speak, I looked up and slowly turned my head to look at all of us gathered there. Sami was beside me. Justine next and then the children. Jo stood to my left and slightly behind me. The others, apart from the three former hostages, I didn't know, but here we all were, gathered in a cluster around the grave.

Then
it,
the nagging thing that had been playing on the edge of my subconscious, found a coherent voice. What if Simone's death hadn't been an accident? What if somehow Thomas Lu had orchestrated it? Lu would have anticipated that Sami, who had gone to great lengths to seek the release of the hostages, would, of course, be in attendance at Simone's funeral. What better opportunity to take Sami Somsak out of the equation with a well-placed round from a sniper's weapon?

Even as that thought crossed my mind, I knew Sami had it covered. He had people scattered throughout the cemetery watching for just that eventuality: mourners with large bunches of flowers, flowers that smelt of gun oil, and eyes that were scanning every inch of the massive cemetery.

The coffin! The thought hit me from out of the blue. In my previous life, moments, nanoseconds even, of understanding had saved my life and the lives of others. Now was such a moment.

Suddenly it made sense, all of it! As I opened my mouth to shout a warning I already knew it was too late. A dull metallic click sounded over the voice of the priest.

“Get down!” I finally managed to scream out as I threw myself sideways. I slammed into Sami, driving him down and away from me as the air exploded around us.

36

Lying there in the rank grass, time seemed to move in slow motion. I was lying prone with most of my torso behind the concrete slab of a low grave. As an automatic reflex, my head was turned away from the direction of the blast. I was looking at the flank of the hearse parked ten metres beyond me and seeing it with the pure clarity of my instant adrenaline overload.

The sound that filled everything around me was a mixture of the sonic whiplash of high explosive and the voice of a million angry wasps. In front of my eyes the hearse, a big, white American tank, rocked on its springs as every scrap of glass disintegrated into sparkling dust. The metal flanks of the wagon rippled and pocked as dozens of holes appeared. The sound of a giant tin opener punching holes in cans underlaid the whine of the metallic wasps that filled the air. The shrill sound of ricochets as metal impacted on the metal and stonework of hundreds of memorials and tombstones created another layer of sound. Then there were the screams and shrieks as the deadly shrapnel found human targets.

As I lay there, I heard the symphony of death and destruction with total clarity. Part of me, the professional me, was analysing the sounds, dividing them into a macabre list.

When a projectile of any sort impacts with a human body, there is always a sound. Hit through the chest, human lungs and the diaphragm often pop like balloons. Meatier slaps tell of hits to the heavier areas of the body, a strike in the head sounds like a leather pillow being struck hard with a baseball bat. All of these sounds and more I heard as the roar of the explosions rolled on over me.

I looked up, and above me the face of an angel appeared silhouetted against the grey sky. I had a glimpse of her bending towards me, her expression more blank than beautiful. Then my world went as black as death itself.

Thomas Lu was waiting for word that his plan had succeeded. The sound of sirens had filled the Singapore evening. News reports speculated that a terrorist bomb had exploded in Choa Chu Kang Cemetery. Police and military units had sealed off the entire area. A stream of ambulances was reported running a shuttle between the cemetery and both the National University Hospital and Singapore General Hospital.

It was mid-morning and Thomas Lu was seated in front of the wide-screen television in his study. He hadn't moved since the explosion. The device used in the cemetery had contained a radio receiver and an electric detonator. Several of his people had been watching from a distance using a high-powered video camera trained on the Christian cemetery. They had waited, as instructed, until the service had begun, and then the bomb had been detonated.

Lu smiled. It was a thin smile, one without any humour whatsoever. The bomb had been more than just a simple device. With several kilograms of C4 explosive at its core, and sandwiched top and bottom with thick steel plates, hundreds of steel ball bearings had been packed around the core. When the device had been detonated, the plates contained the vertical upwards and downwards force of the blast just long enough to send the deadly swarm of the shrapnel blast out of the coffin like a deadly scythe.

The bomb had been the handiwork of one of Lu's newest recruits, an Afghani-born bomb maker, a master of deadly IED booby traps who had perfected his art in decades of conflict in his own country before seeking gainful employment in Asia.

“The authorities have not yet provided us with casualty figures,” one of the newsreaders was saying. The young woman was trying to maintain her most professional face, but she was failing. Her male counterpart, a man probably fifteen years her senior, was doing little better. Underlying the makeup, the pair's faces struggled to hide the shock they were both feeling. They had seen live footage of the carnage that had taken place via their own news teams. The general public had not seen those terrible images and probably never would.

“Estimates are that between twenty and twenty-five people have been killed and at least the same number again were injured, many of them seriously. It is not known who detonated the device or for what reason.”

Lu sat back in his seat and this time, he did allow himself a smile, a genuine one. There was no way that anyone in the immediate vicinity of the coffin and the graveside could have survived. Sami Somsak and his inner circle must have died. Somsak was human and not a superman, and even if he'd been wearing a bulletproof vest or full body armour, he would have died in the blast.

Lu rang the bell on his desk. It was time to indulge in a little celebration. He would have his secretary make a phone call and summon company. For the rest of this day and long into the evening, he would not celebrate alone.

Call made, Thomas Lu switched channels. The bombing was the lead story on CNN as well. He sat and watched, sipping a glass of expensive whisky.

“… Singapore cemetery. The explosive device is thought to have been an extremely sophisticated one. Singapore military bomb disposal and forensic officers describe it as the sort of improvised bomb widely used in the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

“The number of dead has grown to twenty-eight, following the deaths of two seriously injured casualties last night and this morning.”

“Officials say that several other survivors are still in a critical condition and are not expected to live.”

“More on the fatal Singapore bombing in our special bulletin next.”

The two CNN newsreaders tossed the grim facts backwards and forwards like a football, watched by millions of people around the world, including the smiling Thomas Lu.