by Andrew Grant
Five minutes later the container had been deposited in the centre of the warehouse. As the truck left, Lu’s Bentley slid silently into the warehouse followed by a plain black Lexus. Thomas Lu pressed a button on the door-control console to start the huge roller door closing. He turned back to the interior of the warehouse. Raymond Mendez was opening the container.
The Bentley parked and the chauffeur stayed inside. However the front doors of the Lexus opened and two men got out. These men were Chinese. They were dressed in casual clothes, but there was nothing casual about the silenced automatic one of them carried in his right hand.
Without a word, the pair advanced on the shipping container.
Raymond Mendez sensed their approach. He turned. The look of anticipation on his face turned to one of shock as he realised what was about to happen.
“No!” he yelled. He looked beyond the gunman to where Thomas Lu was standing. “Thomas, what are you doing?”
“Ridding the world of a piece of shit!”
“My brothers will …”
What Raymond Mendez’s brothers would or would not do stayed with the younger Mendez. The single shot that killed him hit him precisely between his eyes. The low-calibre round didn’t exit his skull, and the entry wound was little more than a small dark dot on the falling man’s forehead.
Five minutes after Raymond Mendez died, Thomas Lu was standing in the shipping container. Opened in front of him was a large bale of hemp and plastic that was almost exactly two metres square. The wires that had held it closed had been cut. The thick hemp and multiple layers of plastic and paper at the top of the bale had been sliced open and pulled back to reveal tightly packed bound bundles of bank notes: US dollars, millions upon millions of them. Behind the first bale sat another, and another and another. Four bales, each filled with large-denomination American dollar notes.
“Two billion dollars,” Thomas Lu breathed, “and now it is all mine.”
Lu took a bundle of bank notes and stepped out of the container.
The body of Raymond Mendez was now gone, as was the Lexus and the men who had arrived in it.
“Now we will have our share and more besides,” Lu said as he broke the binding tape and fanned the bundle of notes in his hands.
“And we will see the last of you, Sami Somsak.”
20
They say all good things must come to an end. I guess that’s so. All I know is that on the flight back from Bintan, I didn’t want my weekend to end. How many years had it been since I actually had a weekend that wasn’t dominated by pure lust but by something else? Whatever was happening between Simone and me was something that was new to me.
I mean, I’m not naïve, far from it. I married my former wife, the beautiful and brilliant Sylvia Dixon, when we were both caught up in an absolutely out-of-control whirlwind of sexual lightning. Sylvia and I were total sexual dynamite together, and unfortunately, on my part at least, that was our relationship, our marriage. In due course, my inability to keep my hands off other women spelt the end of our marriage.
With Simone there was wonderful sex, but there was more. She too was smart and beautiful and more, much more besides. Maybe because I’d aged a few years since I’d been married to Sylvia, I was becoming a normal human being for the first time. The futility of just screwing about in Hong Kong for the past few months had finally sunk in. It had been selfish and futile and puerile. I’d been like a randy hound chasing bitches in heat. It was nothing but empty sex.
“A penny or two for them?” Simone had turned away from the spectacular view as we approached Singapore, flying over the hundreds of ships at anchor below us. Ahead was Sentosa. She was smiling at me.
“Just thinking,” I replied, giving her a grin. I wasn’t ready to confide certain thoughts to her. Not yet!
As we came across Sentosa, I peered down towards the concourse where the fort road, aquarium and resort entrances collided with Siloso Beach. No police vehicles this time round. We buzzed over the twin spans of the monorail bridge and now, when I saw just how far I had dropped into the water that night, I winced. I’d been damn lucky to survive that in reality. Jumping out of a Sea King hovering at ten metres in a training situation is one thing. Jumping off a bridge into unknown waters is entirely another. When I’d thought I’d felt the bottom under my feet, I probably had.
We wound down on the helipad at Changi and did the customs and immigration thing and were in a cab back to the city within half an hour. Simone suggested I go up to her apartment. I begged off for the moment. I said farewell to her with an almost chaste kiss and as the cab pulled away, she waved me out of sight. Damn! Things were moving too fast and I was powerless to stop this roller-coaster ride. Did I want to stop it?
Back at the hotel, I phoned Sami. He was okay. A broken bone in his left wrist and a few bruises were the sum total of the physical damage. However, he was very, very intensely dedicated to Thomas Lu’s impending demise, both as a partner in Intella and in a physical sense. The bad news was that tomorrow night was out. Lu had asked that the meeting be convened to the Friday night and the other players had agreed.
“Why is he postponing the inevitable?” Sami asked. “He’s up to something, Daniel. Another attempt on me perhaps?”
“Probably. Why don’t you just copy what’s on Stanley’s recorder and send it to each member of the consortium. That would do it.”
“I want to physically establish my place with them. A grand entrance, Daniel. That is what they expect. Then I want to play the recording and for them to see Lu for what he is. I want to break him in front of his peers. That is Stanley’s revenge.”
“Okay. I can understand that,” I conceded.
“I have had it copied and those copies are there in case Lu does get to me. Whatever happens, he is going to be thrown out of the syndicate and ruined in business.”
“Have you got a copy for the cops?”
“That’s not the way I work, Daniel. When he is ruined, Lu will die, if not at my hands then Jo’s, and if not Jo, then K will do it. If not K, can I count on you?”
“Of course. But he’s not going to get to you.”
“Not now,” he said. “No, not now, Daniel, and I’m coming back at him hopefully in a manner he doesn’t expect.”
“How so?”
“We’re going to find where he’s hidden the money.”
“That is a big ask, my friend.” And it was a big ask. Small as it might be in mass, Singapore probably has as many warehouses and factories as people. There were probably millions of places to hide just about anything you wanted to.
“Perhaps not,” Sami said with a smile. “I have many friends here in Singapore, a lot of them in official circles. As we speak, we are mapping Lu’s movements in the days since Stanley’s death.”
“How the hell can you do that?” I wanted to know. “You think he’s going to trace his movements on a nice big street map and give it to you?
Sami laughed at that.
“That’s not as far fetched as you might think, actually. Thankfully, we have some very powerful computers at our disposal,” Sami responded. “Digital CCTV vehicle footage with number plate recognition technology is being processed as we speak. Shortly we’ll have a very good idea of where Lu, or at least his Bentley, has been over the past few days.”
“Bloody hell,” I blurted. I got it then. If anyone had that sort of technology, it would have to be Singapore and the CIA perhaps. Imagine it. Load a vehicle’s license plates into a supercomputer and simply flash through a billion CCTV traffic images, all time-coded, of course. In a matter of minutes probably, you could track the movement of a lone vehicle—or a fleet of vehicles for that matter —throughout a city, or in this case the whole island.
Most citizens just aren’t aware that this sort of technology exists. That’s why so many bad guys get themselves caught—they just don’t know what’s going on behind the blank grey glass walls of the police fortresses. Driving past the police building
on Cantonment Road is intimidating if you’ve got something to hide.
“Incidentally, I have a blueprint of the CCTV coverage with the zones marked. You’ll notice we never drive directly to or from any destination.”
“I have noticed you seem to be all over the place,” I replied, thinking of some of the convoluted routes I’d been taken along on my outings with Sami’s people.
“Stanley was very resourceful in his own way, Daniel. Most of our businesses here are totally legitimate, but not all. Stanley’s talent was meeting people and, shall we say, through subtle bribery or otherwise, getting them onside. Unfortunately, other elements in his life were not, shall we say, quite as I would have liked.” Sami paused. “Well, that’s past now. We will continue to take advantage of his good work and let the rest lie.” I could picture him sitting there just for a moment. There would be an expression of sadness at what was and what might have been. Then it was back to business. Like my friend, I knew only too well that dwelling on what might have been is fucking pointless.
“Okay,” he continued. “My contact in Lu’s camp is not privy to everything that goes on, but he did say that one of the South Americans has arrived and that Lu was expecting a shipment. We are, of course, talking cash. The FBI and Interpol have all the major cartels, including my own, under surveillance as far as electronic banking is concerned. They’ve basically hamstrung us, but cash is always an option.” Sami gave me a half grin. “So we are talking about some very big packages weighing tonnes probably.”
“Shit!” I muttered.
“No, Daniel, dollars, probably greenbacks. We have to presume that is the money the Colombians have given him to invest on their behalf. My man doesn’t know where the shipment is being stored, but you can bet that Lu has been to check on it. He couldn’t not go there and gloat over his new-found fortune. We find out where he’s been. Once we’ve got the location of the money, then we really hurt him.”
“We go take it off him, huh? How much are we actually talking about here?”
“There has to be a billion for the Colombians’ stake in Intella, plus enough to make up Lu’s shortfall, say another half billion and the fifty million that was to be Stanley’s fee. Say one and a half to two billion.”
Nice if you can swing it, I thought. I’d managed to take a little over ten million off the late Sir Bernard Sinclair. That was absolute chicken feed compared to the league these guys were playing in.
“Getting the money off Lu has another purpose, Daniel. We take it and make it appear Lu has pulled a swindle. This will turn his new Colombian friends into his most bitter enemies.”
The thought produced some very vivid, very bloody pictures in my overactive brain. I’d heard about the Mendez cartel’s methods of showing their displeasure with anyone who crossed them. They didn’t do pretty.
“I thought you wanted to kill him yourself?”
“I’m quite happy for them to do it, Daniel. They are renowned for their inventiveness. Anyway, that may be some time away. I’ll call you when we have the location of Lu’s cash stash.”
I chuckled at Sami’s rhyming phrase and hung up.
“Cash stash,” I repeated aloud. It had a nice ring to it.
It was still early and I’d had a great weekend, but I wasn’t yet ready to stay and sulk in my room. I left the hotel and crossed Bras Basah.
Chijmes became one of my favourite Singapore haunts for food and drink on a visit years ago. My first time there was in the mid-1980s, not long after the former convent had been converted into a venue for dozens of restaurants and bars. Everything you want in the way of food, drink and entertainment is there scattered around the courtyards in that one small city block.
I cruised the bars and eventually, when hunger started gnawing, I settled on a prime medium-rare ribeye at China Jump Bar and Grill, another old favourite. As I ate, and later as I sat over a couple of Jacks, I pondered the big question: What the fuck was I doing with Simone? Was I falling in love or had my brain just thrown a shoe?
Thomas Lu’s plan depended on two things. One of those was convincing the remaining Mendez brothers that Sami Somsak had killed Raymond and made off with the two billion dollars from the warehouse. The other part of the plan had a split option. He could either succeed in having Somsak killed as a gesture of solidarity with the South Americans, something he would have to ensure happened before either of the remaining brothers and their cohorts flew in to Singapore. Or he could capture Somsak and present him to the Mendez brothers.
Lu pondered his options as he sat in the large spa bath in the spa house on the terrace of his penthouse. He had armed guards, albeit carrying hidden weapons, at every entrance to the building. As well, he had others covering the fire escape, service elevator and the sole passenger elevator that gave access to his lair.
Lu had yet to make the call to Bogota. That would come later, once the warehouse in Jurong was little more than ashes and twisted metal. The body of Raymond Mendez had been removed to a cool room in a meat packing facility Lu owned. It lay in repose amidst pigs, slabs of beef and two other bodies. The three corpses would be returned to the warehouse when everything was set to explode in a fireball. The remains of the madman would eventually be recovered and identified, along with the two expendable members of Lu’s staff. People who failed Thomas Lu rarely did it twice.
One of the other victims was the driver who had attempted to run down Sami Somsak and kill him. The man had failed. The other body was that of the motorcyclist who had been assigned to pick up the attempted assassin at East Coast Parkway. The man on the motorcycle had panicked and ridden off, leaving the driver behind. Fleeing on foot, the truck driver had very nearly been captured by the police.
So now there would be three bodies at the warehouse, two of Lu’s trusted men and Raymond Mendez, all executed in cold blood seemingly by the Thai gangster. All three men had died from a single gunshot wound to the forehead. The pathologist would recover the remains of the bullets and forensics would confirm that the same weapon had killed all three. Thomas Lu would see that the gun in question, a Ruger .22 automatic with its serial number removed, would be found in Somsak’s possession when the appropriate time arrived.
The final touch was the witness. A watchman from a neighbouring warehouse would hear the sound of shouts and shots. He would see a covered truck driving away from the warehouse moments before the fire erupted. He would identify the man in the passenger seat of the vehicle as Sami Somsak. The vehicle would offload its cargo in another of Lu’s warehouses close by. The burned-out remains of the stolen truck would be found in Lim Chu Kang in time.
This was the perfect plan, until Lu’s secretary came into the spa. He came to the side of the pool and handed Lu a telephone handset. The secretary turned on his heel and, without a word, left the spa house.
The caller was Carlos Mendez. He had been attempting to raise his brother. Somewhere in a meat chiller in Jurong West, the sound of a chainsaw stirred the chilled air. The bizarre ringtone on Raymond Mendez’s cellphone was in keeping with the man’s mental state.
“He has found a woman who pleases him,” Thomas Lu lied yet again to the elder Mendez brother. “He said he was not to be disturbed.”
“My brother has a way with women,” Carlos responded without the slightest hint of irony in his voice. “When will he be finished?”
“We will be going to the warehouse to await the money at midnight,” Lu responded. “Shall I have him call you then?” He held his breath. He was in a most difficult situation and he had delivered yet another lie.
“Wait,” Carlos Mendez grunted. He was obviously calculating the time difference between Singapore and Bogota. “That will be eleven our time. We have a lunch meeting. Very important business. Tell Raymond I will call him when the meeting is done. Tell him not to go off whoring again until we have spoken.”
“I will, Carlos. Have a good meeting.” The relief in Thomas Lu’s voice was immense, but the elder Mendez did not seem to
notice. The distance drag and faint delay on the line may have disguised it.
“Ciao, my friend.”
“Ciao, Carlos.” Lu pushed a button to end the call and dropped the phone onto the ledge on the side of the pool. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, yes, yes.” Soon he would have the Mendez brothers out of his hair and Sami Somsak besides, and he would have two billion dollars to do with as he wished. He would still get part of the Intella pie in time. He had another plan for that. Life, at this moment, was looking exceptionally good for Thomas Lu. He pressed the button on the intercom built into the side of the spa and called for his special friend to join him.
It was after midnight when Sami phoned back. They had mapped out much of Lu’s travel. The Bentley had been all around the place, but the trip to The Fullerton, and a day later the Shangri-La and a warehouse complex in Jurong, started filling in the gaps. Staff at The Fullerton told one of Sami’s people of the incident with the man they identified as Raymond Mendez and the escorts.
“The man is apparently renowned as a sadist,” Sami said. “No wonder Lu is terrified of him. I have people on their way to the warehouse. Jo is in charge.”
“Who the hell is watching your back?”
“K and some of my other good people are here and I’ve had some more of my guys fly in from Thailand. Officially, a social soccer team,” Sami chuckled.
“Okay. Speaking of Thailand, how is Tuk Tuk?”
“On his deathbed. One moment, Daniel.” I could hear Sami talking with someone on another phone. I couldn’t make out the words. After a minute or so, he was back on the line. “Jo called. Lu’s warehouse is burning. You can bet that if the money was there, it isn’t now. He’s pulling a stunt for someone’s benefit, the Mendez brothers or mine. Your guess?”
“Burning down your own warehouse is a bit drastic.”