by Jake Needham
Did ISD lie to him about Suparman’s sister being sick, or did someone lie to ISD about it? And who was the man she met outside the Temple Street Inn? He could only enter the Australian High Commission as quickly and easily as Tay saw him enter it if he were someone who worked there. And it was probably safe to assume he didn’t handle visa applications. If he was working on the street and involved in counterterrorism operations, he had to be either a cop or a spook.
So why was some Australian who was either a cop or a spook meeting with the sister of one of the world’s most wanted terrorists? And Tay thought he had seen the man give her something. If he had given her something, what in the world could it have been?
Tay was sure he could detect the unmistakable odor of a set-up. But, if it was a set-up, that raised a much harder question.
Who exactly was being set up, and by whom?
Tay remembered a poker player’s maxim he had heard somewhere once. Look at the other players at the table, the saying went, and figure out who the sucker is. If you can’t, it’s you.
The taxi driver’s voice cut into Tay’s reflections. “Serangoon Road just up here.”
“Do you know the Fortuna Hotel?”
“I know.”
“Quickly, please.”
The driver looked at Tay over his shoulder and grinned. Then he slammed the accelerator to the floor.
Tay got out of the taxi across the road from the Fortuna Hotel, paid off the driver, and strolled slowly up the sidewalk to give himself enough time to look over the area.
The Fortuna Hotel was on the upper five floors of a reasonably modern six-story building facing Serangoon Road where it met Owen Road in a T-junction. A nondescript, four-story apartment building faced the hotel from the other side of Owen Road.
The ground floor of the hotel building was painted a dazzling shade of red in a vain effort to make it look more cheerful and the street-level space was entirely occupied by local businesses. There was a travel agency, a convenience store, a Western Union money transfer office, a fruit and vegetable stand, and a restaurant with a large sign in Arabic. The hotel lobby was also on Owen Road, but there wasn’t much to it. No doorman, no grand staircase, no decoration at all. Just a pair of glass doors tucked between the travel agency and the convenience store. The Fortuna Hotel looked like a respectable tourist hotel, but the Ritz-Carlton it wasn’t.
Just across Serangoon Road from the hotel and the apartment building a row of old shophouses had somehow survived. Some looked to be abandoned and some housed small shops, but in the middle of the row was an open-fronted restaurant with inexpensive metal tables and plastic chairs scattered around the cool dimness of its interior. The sign read, The Vegetarian Restaurant. Tay smiled at the admirably economical use of language and he decided that was where Sergeants Kang and Lee had to be waiting for him.
The table Lee and Kang had claimed offered a clear view across Serangoon Road to the entrance to the Fortuna Hotel.
“Is she still inside?” Tay asked as he walked up.
The metal folding chair was an unattractive shade of brown and when Tay pulled it out it scratched noisily across the cement floor.
“Yes, sir. The only exit other than the lobby door is right there.”
Tay sat down and looked where Kang was pointing across Serangoon Road.
“See that gray metal door next to the Western Union office? It’s some sort of emergency exit from the hotel. There’re no exits on the other side of the building at all.”
Tay nodded.
“What do you want to do, sir?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
Tay picked up a menu lying on the table. It was torn and stained and altogether unappealing. He was hungry, but what did you order in a vegetarian restaurant? A plate of green beans? Kang had nothing in front of him except a bottle of Coca-Cola and Lee had only a bottle of water. Perhaps that answered his question right there.
An Indian-looking woman in a maroon sari materialized beside the table and looked hopefully at Tay. She was very short, not even five feet in height, and had the wizened, deeply lined face of someone who had lived through a great deal. Tay didn’t have the heart to tell her he didn’t want any food so he picked something at random on the menu and pointed to it. Then he pointed to the Coca-Cola in front of Kang. The woman remained expressionless, but she nodded and walked away.
“Shouldn’t we call this in now, sir?” Kang asked.
“Call in what?”
“We should tell ISD the sister is here now.” Kang pointed unnecessarily at the Fortuna Hotel to indicate what he was talking about. “They think she’s at the Temple Street Inn, but she’s not.”
“Forget it. We’re not here, remember?”
“But, sir—”
“Besides, Sergeant, have you forgotten the radio is back in that building from which we were watching the inn, the one where we weren’t supposed to be? So even if I agreed with you that we should contact Mr. Goh, how would you propose we do that? Perhaps telephone ISD and leave a message for him?”
Kang didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look happy.
“We are on our own here, Sergeant. We either figure out what to do, or we eat some broccoli and go home.”
The woman in the maroon sari returned just then and plunked down in front of Tay a bottle of Coca-Cola and a blue plastic plate. The plate had something on it that was long and flat and looked brown and slimy.
What in God’s name had he ordered?
It certainly wasn’t broccoli or even green beans, which were the only two vegetables that came readily to mind. Tay tried to remember which line he had pointed to on the menu so maybe Lee could explain to him what he ordered, but he couldn’t remember.
At least the Coca-Cola looked safe enough. He took out a handkerchief, wiped the mouth of the bottle, and took a long pull.
It was warm.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE MOMENT SHE saw the woman walking toward her on Serangoon Road, she was pretty sure it was the rabbit.
She picked up her phone, scrolled through the photographs, and glanced back and forth between the phone and the woman. She didn’t have much doubt, and when the woman turned on Owen Road and pushed through the glass doors into the lobby of the Fortuna Hotel, she had no doubt at all.
But what was going on? Her people were supposed to have eyes on the woman and give her a heads up when she headed this way. Did she give them the slip somehow? Or was something else going on, something she didn’t quite yet understand.
And where the hell was the target? Maybe he was already inside the hotel. She was certain she hadn’t seen him go in, absolutely certain, but it was possible he got past her. She couldn’t keep her eyes on those doors twenty-four hours a day. She was good, but nobody was that good. It would have been lousy luck for the target to walk into the hotel when she was in the toilet or napping, but was it possible? Of course it was possible. Every operation came with a little bit of lousy luck. Perhaps this was hers.
She told the cheap bastards to give her a full team, but they said it wasn’t necessary. Not necessary, huh?
She took a long drink from a bottle of water and thought about it. She would give it an hour, she decided, and see what developed. If nothing developed, she would call in for instructions.
Either the target was inside the hotel now or he was coming soon. Even if he had gotten past her going in, there was no way on earth the bastard was going to get past her going out. She’d get him. One way or the other, she’d get him.
This was what she did. And there was nobody better at it than she was.
After the sister disappeared into the hotel lobby, the woman’s eyes instinctively quartered the area around the hotel looking for surveillance patterns. She had no reason to believe anyone else was tracking the sister, but she checked regardless. She always checked.
And it was that checking that drew her attention to the woman walking on the opposite side of Serangoon Road. She had sto
pped exactly at the moment the sister went into the Fortuna Hotel, turned around, and crossed the road where she and a man who had been walking behind the sister on the same side of the road met on the sidewalk. They talked for a moment and the man made a telephone call.
The man was tall and very thin and wore heavy black glasses. The woman was young, fit looking, and attractive. Her guess was they were both locals, but of course she couldn’t be sure.
Were they working surveillance on the rabbit, or were they just two people who knew each other well enough to say hello on the street? She watched as the conversation ended and the man crossed Serangoon Road and took a table in an open-fronted vegetarian restaurant which had a clear view of the entrance to the Fortuna Hotel. The woman made a circuit around the hotel, checking for other exits it looked like, and then she crossed the road and joined the man in the restaurant.
That seemed to settle it. She couldn’t think of any other reasonable interpretation.
The sister was under surveillance by somebody, but who? Was it possible the couple she was watching even worked for the same people she did? Not likely, she decided, but not completely impossible.
She picked up one of the burners and hit the speed dial for the only number in its memory. When the call connected, she spoke without waiting for the man on the other end to say something because she knew he wouldn’t.
“Do you have eyes on the rabbit?” she asked.
“Affirmative, hunter. She is still at the Temple Street Inn.”
Really? Then those couldn’t be their people sitting in that vegetarian restaurant, could they?
“Then hold onto your hat because I’ve got a real surprise for you. Your rabbit just walked up Serangoon Road big as life and straight into the lobby of the Fortuna Hotel.”
There was a pause. She waited.
“Are you certain, hunter?”
“Absolutely certain. She’s inside the hotel now.”
“That’s not my information.” The man thought about it for a moment. “Can you get eyes on whoever you saw and reconfirm her identity?”
“No chance of that. On the other hand, I do have eyes on the man and the woman who have her under surveillance.”
“Say again?”
“A man and a woman tailed her here. Now they’re both sitting in a restaurant with a view of the lobby doors.”
That brought another silence, as she thought it might.
“Can you identify them?”
“My first thought was they might be yours.”
“Negative.”
“Yeah, I’ve already worked that out for myself.”
The man cleared his throat. “What about the fox?”
“No sign of him. Either he’s not in the hotel yet or he got past me.”
“It was your job to make sure he didn’t get past you.”
“Well, fuck you very much. I sleep a little and I even pee occasionally just like a real human being. If you had given me a full team, we would have had eyes on twenty-four hours, but you didn’t give me a team and I’m doing the best I can working alone here. So shove that sanctimonious crap about me doing my job right up your ass, pal. Are we clear?”
The man chuckled. “You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you, little girl?”
“Call me little girl one more time, you piece of shit, and I’ll shove something a lot bigger than your sanctimonious crap up your ass.”
She stabbed at the off button and slammed the phone down on the table.
Prick.
She got herself another bottle of water and a PowerBar and sat back down in front of the window. While she ate and drank, she thought about what to do.
Well, what could she do? The target was either in the hotel or he wasn’t. If he weren’t inside already, he would be coming soon. If he was inside now, he had to come out again, and she wasn’t going to miss him this time. Looking at it that way, she felt a lot better.
A taxi caught her eye as it pulled to the curb on Serangoon Road. She watched a man get out and walk slowly south. It wasn’t the fox. Not even close.
Still, this wasn’t the kind of neighborhood in which a lot of people took strolls so she followed the man with her eyes. She wasn’t particularly surprised when he joined the man and woman she had made for surveillance and sat down at the table they had taken in the vegetarian restaurant. She lifted the binoculars and studied him.
He was middle-aged, of average height, and could honestly stand to lose a few pounds. He was also older than the other two, and from their body language she could see he was in charge. Okay, she thought, they’ve called in some kind of supervisor, although she still didn’t see what he might be a supervisor of.
Who the hell was she dealing with here? Cops? Not likely. Why would the local cops have the target’s sister under surveillance? She certainly hadn’t done anything to attract the attention of law enforcement, at least not as far as she knew.
If it wasn’t law enforcement, it had to be an intelligence operation. Most likely it was the locals, which meant Singapore’s Internal Security Department, but she supposed it could be almost anybody. The Brits, the Aussies, the French, the Germans, even the Israelis were active in Singapore. Could it be one of them?
Whatever it was, she wasn’t real happy. Taking down the target in front of people working for an intelligence organization that was obviously looking for him just meant she was going to piss off somebody big time, and they were almost certainly going to come looking for her. She had an exit route from Singapore mapped out, of course, a damned good one, and a couple of alternatives just in case something went wrong with the primary one, but that wasn’t what bothered her. She just didn’t like performing in front of an audience. That was something you never did in her business unless you absolutely had to. At least not if you intended to stay in her business.
She was still thinking about that when a dirty white Toyota pulled up across Serangoon Road from the vegetarian restaurant and stopped near the hotel’s emergency exit. When no one got out, she shifted her field glasses to the Toyota and examined the two men in the front seat. They were younger and thicker than any of the three at the table in the restaurant. She didn’t know who they were either, but they sure weren’t students of architecture admiring the local cityscape.
She swung the glasses back to the restaurant. The three at the table appeared to have noticed the Toyota, too, but it looked like they had no idea who it was either. Did that meant she had two entirely separate sources of company now, not one? It certainly looked that way.
Who the hell are all these people?
She was already considering packing up and scrubbing the whole operation when the older man sitting in the restaurant got up and walked out to the sidewalk. He lit a cigarette and stood quietly smoking in the shadows. There was something about the man she liked. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but there it was anyway. Just something in his body language, she supposed.
The man turned and spoke over his shoulder, and the man and woman at the table got up and joined him. The three of them stood there, the older man continuing to smoke, and all of them looking at something on the other side of Serangoon Road.
She swung the binoculars to follow their eyes and saw that a silver blue Hi-Lux van, unmarked and without windows, had stopped right behind the white Toyota. While she watched, the door in the side of the van opened and three men got out. They all wore sunglasses in spite of the fading light, and they all had their shirts hanging over their belts. Guns were concealed under those flapping shirttails. She had not the slightest doubt of that.
So who were they?
It didn’t really matter, she supposed. She knew a cluster fuck when she saw one, and this was shaping up as a doozy.
She was out of there.
It would take her no more than five minutes to pack everything, maybe another ten minutes or so to wipe down the place with a little bleach. Then she was out the door and no one would ever know she was there. Not unless
she wanted them to know.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“MAYBE WE’RE NOT on our own after all, sir.”
Kang pointed and Tay shifted his eyes to where Kang was pointing.
“Doesn’t that look like CID surveillance to you?” Kang asked.
A dirty white Toyota was parked on the other side of Serangoon Road not far from the hotel’s emergency exit. Two men sat in the front seat. They had short hair and wore nondescript short-sleeved white shirts. They appeared to be watching the Fortuna Hotel.
Tay studied the men for a moment. “I don’t recognize either of them. Do you?”
Kang shook his head and looked at Lee, who shook her head as well.
“Might be Central Narcotics Bureau, sir,” she said. “It’s that sort of neighborhood.”
Tay grunted. “Or it could be ISD.”
“I don’t think so, sir,” Kang said. “If ISD had followed her from Temple Street, we would have seen them, and we didn’t.”
“Unless they knew where she was going and didn’t have to follow her.”
Kang scrunched up his face. “That doesn’t make any sense, sir.”
“Maybe not,” Tay said, inclining his head in the direction of the Toyota, “but then who the hell are they and what are they doing here?”
“Maybe it’s got nothing to do with Suparman’s sister,” Kang suggested. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
Tay gave Kang a look, but Kang wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Tay reached for his cigarettes and the Indian-looking woman scurried over to the table before the pack was even out of his shirt pocket.
“No, no!” She waved both her arms above her head like a sports referee signaling a foul, which in a manner of speaking Tay supposed she was. “No smoking! No smoking! I call police!”
Everyone in Singapore loved enforcing the law. Sometimes Tay wondered why it was necessary for Singapore to have a police force at all. He considered telling the woman that they were the police, but he almost immediately abandoned the idea. This business with Suparman and his sister was getting stranger and stranger by the minute, and Tay had an unhappy feeling the end of the strangeness was still a long way off. Making a fuss about the presence of three policemen on the scene that might cause them to be remembered later seemed like a really bad idea.