by Andrew Grant
Whatever Stanley had hidden in the room, I didn’t find it on my image search. All I found were a lot of waxy faces of various shades of the rainbow attached to stiff mannequins dressed in the ill-fitting uniforms of a dozen countries and services. Apart from the glazed-over eyes, nothing leapt out at me and said, “This is it!”
It was after midday when I finally shut down the computer. My own eyes were glazed and red from the strain of trying to rearrange millions of pixels into some sort of meaningful order. I stood at the suite window and watched the world roll by below. The day outside looked like another very warm one. Was there really anything else here?
I decided on a swim. When I got outside, yes, it was hot, but for a change the humidity wasn’t pushing the high nineties. I went poolside for a couple of hours. The pool was virtually deserted but for a young Japanese couple with a pair of toddlers. I swam and dozed on a lounger in the shade. I ordered a sandwich and a solitary beer and that was it. I was tired. Tired from the brain draining, eye-sucking exercise on the computer, and physically tired from my bout with Simone.
I was sound asleep when my cellphone woke me. Sami had completed the funeral arrangements for Stanley, the family and his people. The bodies had been released to the undertakers. Now it was time for he and I to get together and have that long-overdue talk.
I returned to my room to shower and dress. Ed from Perth wasn’t going out this evening, Daniel Swann was. There would be a car waiting down the street. I would be spirited into a car park basement. All the usual secret squirrel stuff. However, if it meant the chance to see my old friend and help him fight this, his latest war, just one of the many we had fought together, so be it. I was in!
8
I’ve seen sophisticated models of various proposed developments before, but never one quite like the one that was set out in the office that Sami Somsak occupied. What had formally been Stanley’s domain was situated on the fifteenth floor of a building on Scotts Road just a hundred metres up from Orchard.
I’d seen the images of the Intella Island model in the newspapers and on television, but nothing had prepared me for the scale of the thing. It was massive! There was a fringe of buildings surrounding Marina Bay. A long wide bridge with four huge towers set along its length pushed out from the city. The bridge had three lanes going in each direction and between the separated bridge spans were two rail lines extending from Marina MRT to the island. The towers on the bridge structure were tall, very tall. They straddled the road and rail access, their feet plunging into the blue plaster water.
The bridge terminated inside the massive Intella Island rather than on it. The island itself was octagonal in shape. Scale was difficult for me to judge but it was huge, dwarfing two ocean liners moored on the seaward side. Tall buildings, many with helicopter landing pads on their roofs, dominated, but at the heart of the island was an open expanse, a large park. Streets bisected the buildings in neat grid patterns. I could make out models of tiny pedestrians and tram-like coaches. There were no cars in sight other than on the bridge.
“Impressive isn’t it,” Sami said, coming to stand beside me. “Twelve hectares of man-made island. On the upper level, parks and sunlight and offices, hotels, apartments plus a casino, of course,” he added without a hint of irony. “We estimate habitation for perhaps a quarter of a million people in these thirty acres, and in the apartment towers and hotels on the bridge itself.”
Thirty acres made sense to me while hectares didn’t. A quarter of a million people living on the island, now that was impressive, and I said so. Sami nodded. “To Singapore that is valuable space and it will be even more so because in effect, we are multiplying that thirty acres three times.”
“How the hell will you do that?”
Sami laughed. He pressed a button on a console on the side of the display and from somewhere below the model there was a click and a whirr. The entire top layer of the island model rose in the air on telescopic supports and moved a metre and a half towards the high ceiling.
Below the upper level, where the park and the buildings had been, was a whole other infrastructure. There were long arcades and malls. There were gymnasiums and retail shops, supermarkets and cinemas plus an MRT terminal. There were tram stops and the end of the bridge was here, one level down from the surface. The whole thing was a mind-boggling to me. There were dozens of other services and facilities mapped out and I was having trouble taking it all in at once.
“A whole other world,” Sami said, “and there’s more.” There was another click and the sound of electrics at work and the level I was looking at was whisked away skywards after the other. Now I was looking at cars, little models of cars, hundreds perhaps thousands of them. This new level was a giant car park. The support columns and foundations of the buildings above separated dozens of car-parking areas. It was like looking down on the compartments of a giant beehive. Access roads, like veins, led to arteries which in turn led into a huge concourse that fed up and onto the entrance and exits to the bridge.
“Car parking for ten thousand vehicles on two levels,” Sami said. “No vehicles on the streets above but for electric trams and, of course, the Grand Prix racers and other events.”
“You what?”
“Using the bridge, the roads around Marina Bay and the island, we envisage the world’s most unique Grand Prix circuit. We can dock eight of the world’s largest luxury liners at one time and provide a racing circuit that can be as long as twelve kilometres with possibly the best spectator viewing of any.” He paused. “Those are just some of the many little innovations that have been designed into the project. Under the car parks we have a desalination plant and a fresh water storage reservoir the size of the island that goes right to the sea floor. Fresh water, of course, floats on salt water, so the sea itself will provide the actual base for the water storage area.
“Bloody hell!
“Yes, Daniel. The plan is that the consortium will build the island structure and the bridge itself sans buildings. The government will build the MRT and other investors will build everything else. We will be the landlords and, of course, our rents and profit-share arrangements will be worth many billions a year. This is my retirement fund.”
“What the hell are you going to build it out of?”
“Steel and concrete, Daniel, in huge quantities. A massive collection of steel casements driven into the sea floor and drained. This will gradually create what amounts to a dry hole in the sea. When the lower level is sealed and filled with water it will add to the structural strength of the whole and everything else will be built around and over it, layer upon layer like a wedding cake. You could consider, in construction terms that it is rather like a giant oil rig.” Sami was like a kid now. His enthusiasm was almost contagious. I don’t think for many years, if ever, I have seen him so animated.
“Yes, Daniel. Five years, six billion dollars and that’s just the groundwork. And that brings us to the present and the man who killed Stanley.” The smile vanished. Now it was to the business in hand. The transition was instantaneous. Another layer of Sami Somsak had been revealed and just as quickly hidden again. I wondered if I would ever have a glimpse of that Sami again.
“The man who wanted Stanley’s share of the pie, which in effect was my share, is Thomas Lu.”
“Who is he?”
“A nasty character. Singapore born. Mixed ancestry. Made a great deal of money through some particularly dubious means.” Sami looked at me with a half smile. This was potentially the pot calling the kettle black. He moved towards his desk, leaving much of the model of Intella Island suspended in the air behind him. The island was obviously on hold in more ways than one until other business had been dealt with.
Sami sat behind the desk while I took a chair to one side. Sami flicked a button on his laptop and turned it so I could see the screen. There was a street shot that had been taken of a man coming down a flight of broad steps. There were other people in the shot but the man in the centre
of the screen was so distinctive he would have stood out in a crowded wide-angle shot. Lu was a tall, thin Chinese man with a mass of straight black hair worn thick at the back, mullet-style. He was wearing dark glasses and a dark suit. The mouth was thin-lipped, cruel even. I’d have put his age to be late fifties, early sixties, but at first glance he appeared younger.
Thomas Lu’s mouth was open, frozen in mid-speak. He was perhaps abusing whoever was on the other end of the camera. His expression didn’t indicate he was at all pleased with the intrusion. “Newspaper shot. He’d just lost a court case,” Sami offered by way of explanation. “He’s notoriously publicity-shy.”
“You’re certain it was him?”
“Absolutely. Stanley called me from hospital and left a message on my cell service. I was out on the Gulf and didn’t receive the call.”
Sami sounded bitter. I knew he’d been on board his massive floating drug laboratory where, because of the extreme danger of causing an explosion, all cellphones were banned. That being the case he’d missed the opportunity to take Stanley’s call and perhaps save his half-brother’s life.
“If I’d answered the call I could have provided him with protection.”
“You didn’t,” I responded bluntly, “and it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. I bet that Lu was already at Stanley’s house and had his family. They were dead whichever way it went.”
“Maybe.”
Sami didn’t sound convinced. I didn’t know the exact timing of events, but I guessed that with murder on his mind, Lu had made a beeline for the house on Goodwood Hill even before Stanley had been well enough to make the call to Sami. Who knows.
“So exactly what happened on the island?”
“Stanley went to a meeting Lu had arranged. He was told the other members of the Intella Island syndicate were going to be there. It wasn’t their usual venue, but Stanley didn’t get suspicious, which was his first mistake perhaps.” Sami shook his head, whether at his dead half-brother’s moment of misjudgement or his own inability to have helped him.
“So when Stanley got to the hotel, which incidentally Thomas Lu owns, the place was deserted but for Lu and his crew. Stanley is”—Sami corrected himself again with hardly a pause—“was no fool. Lu had already offered to buy out his, or should I say my, share of the development. When Stanley saw that the others weren’t there, he knew Lu was going to play hardball.” Sami took another sip of water. I ignored the bourbon in front of me. I had a feeling that I was going to need to get sharp and stay sharp for whatever was to come.
“Stanley always carried a digital recorder into his meetings as insurance. It’s a small device and he kept it hidden. No one knew he had it on him. In his message he told me he knew after Lu’s first approach that he needed to get hard evidence if the partners were to be convinced Lu was pulling a stunt. Without evidence, it was simply his word against Lu’s and Lu has cronies in the syndicate who would stand by him.”
“Back the truck up. What stunt? What was Lu trying to achieve other than a buyout? That’s just business, isn’t it?”
Sami nodded. He looked tired and the oldest I had ever seen him. Sami Somsak is close to seventy. Normally he looks like a fresh-faced fifty-year-old. Now he looked his age. Grief and guilt combined are hard masters. I knew that from my own experiences.
“Sorry, I forget you weren’t fully in the loop.” Sami took a sip of Evian. I continued to leave the bourbon alone and waited while my friend gathered his thoughts.
“You’re right, of course. Offering to buy out a partner is just business, but in reality here’s how it stacks up. There are six partners in the Intella partnership. Each of us is in for US$1 billion.” The vast amount of money should have caused some reaction in me, but I didn’t say a word. Big numbers and Sami Somsak go hand in hand.
“We have all put a quarter of that into a trust fund, the balance to be paid incrementally as the project proceeds. Some months ago Lu was rumoured to be having financial difficulties and was struggling to raise the capital for his deposit. Suddenly, without warning, he made an approach to Stanley to buy out Stanley’s share for a very hefty profit.” Sami paused and stared into space for a moment, watching a war bird slash across the horizon, heading east. “I guess Lu figured that of all the partners, Stanley, the quiet one, was the soft target.”
“Lu obviously doesn’t know about your connection to Stanley!” I said, stating it as a fact not a question, knowing that if that connection had been common knowledge, no one in their right mind would have messed with Stanley.
“They didn’t know. Very few people do and they are all pledged to silence.” Sami gave a tired smile. We both knew the penalty for breaking that silence. Loyalty was everything with my friend. To betray his trust was to ensure very quick and terrible retribution. “If Lu had known about the connection, he would have most certainly stayed away from Stanley. Again, Daniel, that was my fault.”
“It’s not your fucking fault,” I snapped. “Shit happens, Sami. For God’s sake, you of all people know that for a fact.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, rubbing a hand over his face. “You are, of course, right, old friend. Shit happens!”
“So where did Lu score the cash? I mean if he tried to buy Stanley out, he found big bucks somewhere?”
“A South American drug cartel, Colombians,” Sami replied. He reached out and tapped the keyboard on his laptop once more. There were three men in the full-screen coloured shot. They were a heavyset trio of Spanish extraction and all bore similar features that the inevitable dark glasses couldn’t hide. They were brothers or a father and siblings. Their ages ranged from maybe mid-thirties to perhaps early sixties. The elder man had a badly pockmarked face, the middle one sported a vivid scar across his forehead. The younger of the three didn’t bear any obvious scars but dark glasses or not, I could sense mad eyes staring out at the camera.
“Before you ask how I know, I have someone in Lu’s camp,” Sami said in answer to my unasked question. “These gentlemen are the Mendez brothers out of Bogota. Carlo, the oldest, Marco, the middle one and Raymond. The Americans have been hitting them hard and they haven’t been able to launder their billions north of Panama. They’re choking on their profits and looking for investments that the Feds can’t touch.”
“So Lu goes to them with a proposition and suddenly they see a big juicy pie sitting there half way around the world and they want a slice or two?” I was guessing, of course, but I figured it would be close to the mark. Sami nodded.
“They want it all, and the way they play, they’d get it in the end if they manage to secure a foothold. We don’t need Lu or his money and we certainly don’t want theirs. There are plenty of other investors who want in; Intella Island is the hottest property in Asia and that’s not simply media hype. Lu only got invited into the syndicate because of his history with several of the others. At the end Stanley, bless his soul, knew that if he could give the others hard evidence on what Lu was planning, Lu was out and Intella was safe from the South Americans.”
“So Stanley records the offer Lu makes. He refuses and Lu tries to kill him.”
“Yes, in a nutshell. Obviously the Colombians are leaning on him really heavily. According to Stanley, he is terrified of them and sweating on it. They agreed to make up Lu’s shortfall on the condition he got them a full share of the action. The rest you know. Lu unfortunately saw the recorder. Stanley managed to escape, but he is—” Sami paused and blinked—“He was a chronic asthmatic. He made it to the fort and into the Japanese surrender room and hid the recorder before he collapsed.”
The picture suddenly became crystal clear. Sami wanted me to collect the recorder from wherever Stanley had hidden it. Then when he presented the syndicate with the evidence contained on the device, Sami would have Lu thrown out of Intella, taking his South American money with him. I had no doubt that after he’d destroyed the man financially, Sami would then cause Thomas Lu to cease to exist. That was, of course, if the Col
ombians didn’t get to him first. Those guys have a reputation for violence second to none.
“Why do you need me to get the recorder? Jo would go in for you and he’s probably in better shape than me.” I was referring to Jo Ankar. If I was Sami’s left-hand man and friend, Jo, a former Thai Special Forces Major, was his right hand and his brother in all but blood.
“Jo is away on other business,” Sami replied smoothly. He was wearing his inscrutable face now and I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “But I need you back at my side, Daniel,” he added. “Hong Kong is not doing you any good. Will you do it?”
“Of course I will.”
9
I don’t like funerals, but I was fortunate in that this time I didn’t have to attend the huge service for Stanley’s family and his faithful retainers. Sami wanted me to be the invisible man. We were not to be seen together in public and all communication was to be via the pre-paid cellphone.
So once again I was to play Ed the Tourist from Perth. Tomorrow, when the dead were buried, we would formulate the plan to retrieve Stanley’s recorder. Sami hadn’t yet told me exactly where it was in the surrender room. Maybe he hadn’t wanted me strolling in and lifting it.
I decided to trust his judgement on this. The reality of it all is that we were in one of the most law-abiding, buttoned-up, safe, self-regulating corners on earth. People in Singapore notice things and they aren’t slow about coming forward. If I lifted the recorder in daylight, setting off the alarms, I was as sure as hell going to get noticed and a camera, or series of cameras, somewhere were going to capture my image. I’d have a street life expectancy of minutes, perhaps an hour or two, before I was caught. If I was any or all parts of the Chinese-Malay-Indian mix, I might last half a day on the run. That being the reality, I knew it would be better to do my pick-up run at night and in disguise and hopefully avoid those eyes and the inevitable cameras.