THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW (The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels Book 4) (32 page)

“That’s crazy, Sam. He’ll shoot you the second you walk through the door. Then he’ll shoot her, too. What does that accomplish?”

“It’s the only way, Claire. I’m responsible for Linda being in there, and I’m responsible for getting her out. Besides, we know that woman at the hotel shot Suparman at least once. Maybe it wasn’t serious, but he can’t be a hundred percent now. That’s something.”

“No, Sam, it’s nothing. Remember who you’re up against here.”

“You’re wasting your breath arguing with me. I’m going in. The only question open for discussion is exactly
how
I’m going in.”

Tay finished his cigarette. He dropped the butt on the ground and mashed it out with the toe of his shoe.

“Take a little stroll with me,” he said and walked off toward where he had left the fast response car.

Tay went around behind the car and opened the trunk. He leaned in and pulled a black metal chest toward him. It was about the size of a footlocker.

“This is the equipment box,” he said with a glance at Claire. “Our cars carry around a lot of good stuff.”

Tay unsnapped the catches and opened the lid.

“We switched to concealable vests last year,” he said reaching inside the chest and taking one out.

Tay unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. Then he slipped the vest on over his T-shirt and cinched up the straps. He was a little embarrassed in front of Claire to discover how tightly it fit him. He was going to have to lose some weight. He really was.

Tay pulled his shirt back on and buttoned it. Fortunately, the shirt was big for him and it covered the body armor without any telltale bulges.

“You’re going to let him shoot you,” Claire said. “That’s your plan?”

“Well, when you put it like that, you make it sound stupid.”

“That’s because it
is
stupid.”

Tay shrugged, but he didn’t say anything.

“Do you know what Suparman is armed with?” Claire asked.

“He shot both Robbie and the hotel clerk with a nine, not to mention that guy we fished out of the Singapore River. Since he used a nine on all three of them, my bet is he’s got a nine aimed at Linda, too.”

“Is that thing rated for a nine?”

“Yeah, it’s a level III vest. It’ll stop a nine.”

Claire tapped him on the chest with her index finger. “What if he’s got something bigger? Say something loaded with .44 Magnum hollow points?”

Tay shrugged. “In that case, I’ll lose my bet.”

He reached under his shirt and pulled the paddle holster off his belt. He slipped out his old .38 and laid the holster and the gun down separately in the trunk.

“Is that little popgun all you’ve got?”

Tay reached into the chest with his free hand and lifted up a Mossberg tactical shotgun.

“What do you think? Maybe I could shove it down one pants leg? That might make it a little hard for me to walk, but I’ll bet Suparman would never notice it.”

Claire didn’t bother to answer.

Tay put the shotgun back in the trunk and took a role of duct tape out of the chest. Propping his right foot up on the car’s bumper, he used his teeth to tear two strips off the roll. He pulled up his pants leg, held the .38 tightly against his ankle, and secured it with the two strips of duct tape. He stood up and shook down his pants leg. It covered the .38 perfectly.

Tay bent back into the trunk and took an H&K semi-automatic pistol out of the chest. It had a longer barrel than his .38 and was a little thicker, but he was able to get it into his paddle holster by giving it a hard shove. He lifted his shirt and snapped the paddle back over his belt.

“You didn’t even check the magazine,” Claire said. “How do you know what it’s loaded with?”

“I don’t. And I don’t really care since I’m not going to shoot it. I just need something to give to Suparman when he tells me to take off my gun. Maybe he’ll overlook my .38 if I give him this one.”

“I don’t see much chance of that.”

“It’s my best idea,” Tay shrugged. "If you’ve got a better one, I’m listening."

“You’re damn right I’ve got a better idea, and my better idea is for you to get out of the way and let me take care of this.”

“This is my city—”

“I’m not going to stand around and let you go in there alone, Sam, no matter what you say. I’m just not.”

“This is my city, Claire,” Tay repeated patiently. “I’m doing this my way.”

“Sam, don’t be foolish. I kill people for a living and I’m good at it. Certainly better than you are.”

“I’m not going in there to kill Suparman. That’s not what this is about. I’m going in there to get Linda out.”

“But you’ll have to kill him to do that.”

“No, what I have to do is make him run.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The only way this plays out well is if I get Suparman separated from Linda. Then if I can make him feel threatened enough, maybe he’ll throw in the towel without killing her and take whatever exit route he’s mapped out.”

“That sounds more like a hope than a plan.”

“Maybe, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“And you think you’re going to make Suparman feel threatened enough to run just with that little popgun you’ve got taped to your ankle?”

“Well, now that you’re here and apparently have nothing better to do, I’ve got an idea. You want to hear it?”

Claire nodded.

“Here’s what I’m thinking. You take up a position close to the front door when I go in. As soon as you hear a shot, no matter who fired it, I want you to start shooting and making as much noise as you can. You need to sound like all fifty of those armed men I didn’t bring with me are storming the house.”

Claire pursed her lips, but she didn’t say anything.

“If I’ve managed to get Suparman far enough away from Linda by then,” Tay continued, “maybe he won’t take the time to go back and kill her and just follow his escape plan, whatever it is. I guess that depends on how persuasive your noise is.”

Claire took a deep breath and let it out again, but she still didn’t say anything.

“So what do you think?” Tay asked. “You willing to do that?”

“I still think we’ve got a good chance to take him right up front if we both go in.”

“And I think that would get Linda killed. I’ve already told you why. Do this the way I’ve asked you to do it or leave. Your choice.”

“I thought you might say something like that.”

“So why did you waste time asking? What’s it going to be, Claire?”

“You got a box of shells for that shotgun?”

Tay took the Mossberg out of the trunk and handed it to Claire, and then he rummaged around in the chest until he found a box of twelve gauge shells. She checked the shotgun’s action and began methodically snapping shells into the magazine. When it was full, she scooped the rest of the shells out of the box and pushed them into her pockets. She jacked a shell into the chamber and propped the shotgun on her shoulder.

“All set,” she said.

“You want one of these?” Tay asked her, pulling another ballistic vest out of the chest.

Claire shook her head. “A man’s vest doesn’t fit me very well.”

Tay started to ask what she meant by that, but then the reason suddenly came to him and he swallowed the question just in time to avoid embarrassing himself. He slammed the car trunk and looked at his watch.

“Time to go,” he said.

THEY REACHED THE edge of trees on the other side of the playground and stood quietly looking at Linda’s house. The sky was ice blue and broken only by a few wads of puffy white clouds that appeared to have been swept up into piles by a giant broom.

Tay and Claire could take an angle across the park that would keep them out of sight of both the front and back windows in the house, but there was nothing they could do to avoid the two little windows on the side. Suparman couldn’t be watching out of all the windows at once, Tay told himself, and he wouldn’t be expecting anyone to approach from across the park. The front and back of the house were the points of entry. That’s where Suparman would focus his attention. At least Tay hoped that’s where Suparman would focus his attention. To pull this off, they needed a little good luck, and this was where that good luck needed to start.

By the time they had crossed the open ground of the park and taken refuge in a sliver of shade at the end of the house, Tay had sweated through the T-shirt underneath his vest. He felt the rivulets of moisture streaming down his back and accumulating in the waistband of his shorts. If this were the day he died, he would die in sweaty underpants. It felt unseemly, but there it was. There wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Claire looked around. The park was empty and the streets were empty. She didn’t hear a sound.

“Where is everybody?” she asked.

“Residential neighborhoods in Singapore are pretty quiet during the day. Everyone is at work.”

“Quiet I can see. But this is comatose. It’s like a bomb went off and wiped out all human life.”

“We should count ourselves lucky. The last thing we need is an audience.”

The line of houses facing Joo Chiat Avenue backed up to a narrow alleyway not much more than a single car in width. On the other side of the alleyway was the back of another line of similar houses. Tay peered around the corner up the alleyway. The rear of Linda’s house had a tiny concrete pad separated from the alleyway by a black metal fence. Other than two green plastic trashcans and a stepladder leaning against the back wall, the area was empty.

“Maybe I should cover the back door,” Claire said.

“Remember, we
want
him to run. Boxing him into a corner is going to get people killed. Maybe us.”

Claire stood next to Tay and studied the alleyway. “I don’t see how he thinks he can run. If people hit the front and the back doors at the same time, there’s nowhere for him to go. Not unless he’s got a tunnel in there.”

Tay and Claire moved around to the front of the house and looked cautiously down Joo Chiat Avenue. The area between the house and the road at the front was bigger than in the back, but it didn’t look much more hospitable. It too was entirely concreted and separated from the road by an open metal fence. There was a double drive gate in the fence and one of the gates stood open by about three feet.

Directly in front of the house’s front door was a car shelter made from a green plastic roof supported on four aluminum poles. Next to it was a rusty metal table with three chairs that looked even rustier. A single red Chinese lantern dangled from a gold cord right in the center of the car shelter, but otherwise it was empty.

“As soon as I close the door behind me,” Tay said, “come in through the gate and stand up against the front wall. Suparman’s attention will be on me and he won’t see you. Remember, do absolutely nothing no matter what happens unless you hear a shot. If you do, use that shotgun to shoot into the roof of the car shelter. Just keep banging away at it and it will sound like we’ve got about twenty guys out here all shooting at once. Don’t fire into the house and don’t come inside. I want him to have plenty of opportunity to get away.”

Tay pulled up his pants leg and checked that his .38 hadn’t become dislodged during the walk across the park. He bent down and wiggled it, but it appeared secure. When he straightened up, he shook down his pants leg and looked at Claire.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She clicked off the safety on the Mossberg. “I think the right question is whether
you’re
ready.”

“I guess I’m about to find out.”

Tay took his telephone out of his pants pocket and pushed buttons until he found the thread of text messages he exchanged with Suparman. With one finger, he picked out a new message and hit
Send
.

Tay could feel Claire holding her breath as they both stared at the screen of his telephone waiting for an answer. Tay was holding his, too. Then…

Buzz
.

Tay tapped with one finger again.

Buzz
.

Buzz
.

Tay took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the corner of the house. Staying close to the fence, he walked quickly to the gate, turned sideways, and slipped through without touching it.

He was in the open then. Twenty feet from the front door. If Suparman was going to ambush him, this was when he would do it.

Tay walked slowly toward the front door, his hands just below his waist, palms out. His eyes flicked from the drapery-covered windows to the door and back again.

No sign of movement.

Nothing happened.

When he got to the front door, he stopped. It stood open about two inches. He bent forward and listened, but he heard nothing.

Tay put his fingertips against the door and pushed. It swung back without a sound. Through the open doorway he could see across the room to the back of a couch covered in what looked like imitation black leather and, beyond it, a low table with a television set. He saw no sign of either Linda or Suparman in the narrow section of room visible to him.

Tay took a deep breath, lifted one foot onto the threshold, and stepped inside.

Now he was all the way into the living room of Linda’s house, but he still saw no one. Not Linda, not Suparman. Reaching back with his left hand, he closed the door behind him.

The living room was on the small side, but Tay’s first thought was that might be an advantage. The less space he had to deal with, the better it ought to be for him. If there was anything at all that could make this lousy idea better. Which he seriously doubted.

Right in front of him was the couch he saw when he first pushed open the door. A love seat upholstered in the same fake leather sat at a ninety-degree angle to create an L-shaped configuration in front of the television set. On the right-hand side of the living room was a door, but Tay could only see a few feet of the hallway behind it and couldn’t tell what was back there. A kitchen probably, and maybe a dining room. On the left, a wooden staircase with a white metal railing led to the upper floor where he assumed the bedrooms were located.