by Andrew Grant
I was situated in the jungle fringe on one side of the sliding glass door that opened into the car park. K was opposite me, hiding in the shadows of the various bins and tanks of the hotel’s loading bay. We could trust one not to shoot the other in a crossfire. The remaining pair, Loc and Dnap, were each armed with Sami’s ubiquitous silenced Brownings. They were situated ten metres beyond K and me, covering the belly of the car park.
There was movement in the building. Several bright unshaded room lights had come on. There were closed drapes over most of the windows, but with the harsh lights now on, shadows showed plainly. Was this the moment that Lu’s people brought the hostages out to the car park and loaded them into the van? What was happening with Sami and the truck?
“You will drive from Changi and down the East Coast Parkway towards the city and await further instructions.”
“We have to go to Changi. It will take us thirty minutes from where we are,” Sami lied.
“Do that. Call me when you start on the parkway!”
Thomas Lu closed his cellphone. He was almost gloating, imagining the frustration of Somsak, and imagining his ransom on its way back to him.
Lu was at the wheel of the black Lexus. Although he seldom drove himself, he was proficient enough. Despite the fact that his manpower was stretched thinly, he was confident that all would go well. A second vehicle, an anonymous older model Mazda, was waiting back on the parkway to pick up Somsak’s tail. All its occupants were armed. Not that he expected they would need their weapons. Somsak wanted his women back alive. When they parked to make the transfer in the car park beside Siglap Canal, there would be traffic and enough people around to discourage any open aggression on Somsak’s part.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay.” Jo Ankar was at the wheel of the truck. Sami was beside him. They had left the warehouse and had been sitting awaiting Lu’s call in a side street in Tampines. Now they were rolling. Given the almost non-existent traffic, thirty minutes had been an exaggerated estimate of the time they needed, but Sami hadn’t wanted Lu to have any idea where they had been based.
It took a little under ten minutes to get to the East Coast. Jo pulled them over and while they waited out the next fifteen minutes, Sami sat there and wondered what was happening on Sentosa. The moment Daniel confirmed the girls were there and that they were safe, phase two of their plan for Thomas Lu’s downfall would go into action. Despite the fact it had been created in just a matter of an hour or two, it was an elaborate plan in that it called for several things to happen in rapid succession.
At the end of it all, Sami Somsak’s aim was to have the women back, the money still in his possession, and Thomas Lu as well.
Lu sat in his Lexus and waited for the call from the Thai. Then, once he had confirmation they were moving and there was no tail, he would give them the location of the car park where the exchange would take place. He would only do that when Somsak was well down the parkway. There was no way Somsak could anticipate the meeting spot and set up an ambush.
There was definitely a lot happening inside the Silver Sands. Quong, the senior of our pair at the far end of the car park, obviously had the best vantagepoint. He called in what they were seeing. Lights had come on down the building in what they assumed was the main stairwell. He could see people moving down it through the tinted glass wall. In three rooms there were men stationed at windows looking down into the car park. They had weapons, and they were the first targets. I had to figure that the glass walls of the hotel put them at a huge disadvantage in the coming firefight.
It would, of course, be far better to get the women to safety without a shot being fired, but sometimes it’s the old eggs and omelette thing, and I preferred that the armed men’s eggs got broken, not ours.
And so we waited.
27
The women had been freed from their duct tape gags and restraints, fed and allowed to use the bathroom during the night. The two men assigned to watch over them throughout the long night had discussed raping them, but in the end they hadn’t, fearing what their absent boss might do by way of retribution. Now the four women had once again been gagged and their wrists bound together with duct tape.
The four hostages were led down the stairs towards the ground floor, herded by their two minders.
“Careful of the steps, ladies,” one said over his shoulder. Under her gag Simone DeLue snarled, wishing she had an opportunity to get her hands on the man, whoever he was.
The man sensed Simone’s outrage and smiled. He was enjoying this game. It would have been interesting to have sex with her. The man with the gun reached out and with his free hand groped the woman’s breast. She attempted to kick him. He laughed and pushed her on down the stairs ahead of him. She stumbled but managed to regain her balance.
There were two more armed men waiting at the bottom of the stairs when the group reached the ground floor foyer. There was a third standing beside the main door. He was cradling an AK47.
The leader of the group lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch. Shortly, the boss would call for them to put the women into the van. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but wait. He stared at the blonde woman through his cigarette smoke. He had never had a Caucasian woman before, let alone a blonde. There was a terrible temptation. Should he take her to one of the offices off the foyer and have her? Would Mr Lu ever find out? Would he even care?
Yeo Soon Heng made up his mind in that instant. He would take her and have her. No matter, it would be quick, at least he would be able to say he had tasted this beautiful blonde flesh. Soon Heng tossed his cigarette into a standing sand tray and started towards the woman.
Simone had been watching the leader of the gang of Chinese thugs and she saw his intention immediately. She would fight, of course, but it would do her no good. Even so, she would do her best to hurt him.
“Wait! Look!” one of the other gunmen called. Soon Heng stopped and turned. Headlights, dulled by the growing dawn, showed through the trees as a vehicle turned into the lane that led to the hotel car park. Was this the boss, Thomas Lu, coming or someone else?
“Quickly, out of sight,” he ordered. The other gunmen grabbed the hostages and pushed them against a wall to hide them from view through the glassed rear doors.
The vehicle was a police car.
The arrival of the police car came as a shock. I told everyone to freeze, and we waited, lying or crouched in the shadows, to see what the hell was going on.
Two laughing uniformed men got out of their unit car. They produced cigarettes and lit them. One walked a few paces away from the car and proceeded to piss against a refuse drum, unaware that K was on the other side of it, an MP5 in his hands.
We held our positions and waited anxiously for the cops to finish their cigarettes. They took their time, talking and joking as they smoked. It appeared their sergeant was fucking one of the constables. They both thought it was a great joke and that he needed to get his eyes tested.
Then the car radio gave out a call. One of the officers answered it.
It appeared there had been an auto accident by Harbourfront. The pair flicked away their butts, got back into their unit and left the car park under full lights, sirens blaring.
“Damn,” I said into my mike. “That must have woken the neighbourhood.”
“Here they come.” The voice was Quong’s again. I could picture him raising his weapon and covering the first of his targets. We’d had the wake-up call from the police siren. Soon breaking glass and a hell of a lot of dull pops that weren’t some kid’s breakfast cereal were going to break the morning’s peace.
The white Mazda sedan that had fallen in behind the truck with the container onboard confirmed that Sami Somsak and the money were indeed on the ECP and were seemingly travelling alone as instructed. When Thomas Lu received this confirmation, he gave the order for the women to be put into a van and the van also driven to the same location. The van would only drive into the lay-by if the money w
as there and the driver received the go-ahead from him via cellphone. It was all going according to his plan.
In the Silver Sands Hotel, Soon Heng was ushering the women out into the car park. Any thoughts he’d had of raping the blonde woman had vanished. His reward for the completion of this task was ahead, and it would be in cold hard cash. He would take that cash, go to a high-rent hotel bar and buy a dozen blonde women, women younger and even more beautiful than this one.
Soon Heng led the way to the double glass doors. They hissed open and he stepped through. The designated driver followed at his heel. Behind him came the four women and behind them two more of his men. They moved away from the hotel. The driver was at the van, opening his door.
It was at this moment that Soon Heng knew they were not alone. A figure dressed all in black stepped out of the bushes. The figure was holding a sub-machine gun in front of his face.
I had designated the hits. The first man out of the hotel was mine and I concentrated on him. As I stepped out of the bushes, I gave the order to fire.
My man was turning, raising the automatic he had in his hand. I gave him a three burst and then another for luck. The range was less than ten metres. He was gone. The night was crackling. Glass was falling in a shower from the face of the building above us. I moved to the hostages.
“Down,” I yelled and they went to the ground. There was a man with an AK47 coming across the foyer towards us. The glass doors were closed, but just for a moment before they disintegrated under a hail of copper jackets. One of the marksmen across the car park had seen him coming. I finished the job by shooting through the glass-less doorframes. The guy took several hits and fell skidding onto the marble floor.
“All down,” K was calling. “Quong, watch the roof. Singdip, cover the windows.”
The replies came back from our two guys on the far side. If there were any of Lu’s men left alive in the building, we could still have a problem. I anticipated that there were at least two gunmen still unaccounted for. Loc had taken the van driver. The man’s body was sprawled under the van’s open door. I stepped over him. The keys were in the ignition.
“Everybody in,” I called. I was going to be driving. It hadn’t been in the original plan to use Lu’s van. We had the medium-sized bus, with one of Sami’s guys as driver, parked a hundred yards back up the road. The bus was covered in signage. It looked just like the sort of vehicle that tour groups use to get around Singapore. It was innocuous and near invisible. Rather than bring it down, we were going to it.
K was herding the hostages into the back of the van. There wasn’t time to get their gags or wrist restraints off.
As yet there were no shouts or screams and no lights coming on in the buildings beyond our narrow fringe of jungle. Maybe the pops and the sound of breaking glass really had been mistaken for breakfast snap, crackle and pop. Whatever, we were out of there.
As I fired the van into life, there was a sudden barrage of pops from behind me and it wasn’t the van’s exhaust. In front of me a man impacted with the tarmac. I later learned he had been shot off the roof.
“Go!” It was K’s call as he threw himself into the passenger seat. The back of the van was crowded with bodies. Quong and Singdip were crouched side by side at the car park entrance, their guns giving us cover as I pulled a wheel-squeaking turn and sent us their way. I slowed, they scrambled into the back and we were out of there.
At the bus, I stopped and there was a rapid transfer of bodies. We left Lu’s van where it was. Aboard the bus it was balaclavas off, gags and bindings off, weapons under the seats, and then the early morning tour began. Simone clung to me and sobbed. Every second word was why?
28
It was daylight. A feeble sun was pushing through the grey dawn as the truck carrying the battered shipping container with its four billion-dollar cargo drove along the east coast. It was close to the Costa Sands Resort and only now had Thomas Lu given Sami Somsak the location for the exchange. Sami quickly passed the information on. They had anticipated this would happen. A hundred metres ahead of the Isuzu with the container was a works truck carrying a squad of gardeners. The works truck slowed as it crossed the Siglap Canal. It turned into the car park. Watching it, Sami smiled. It had been a hellish gamble, but Lu had miscalculated. He had been concerned about a tailing vehicle.
Jo Ankar was slipping into lower gears in preparation for pulling into the lay-by. Traffic was still light. Sami used a small handheld radio. The cellphone was reserved for K and Thomas Lu.
“You catch that, Billy?” Sami asked. Billy Yee, one of his Singapore people, was driving their third vehicle. This was a small unmarked rental van and it was a hundred metres behind, sitting between the Isuzu and the Mazda carrying Lu’s thugs. Yee had a vital role to play in what was to come. He’d seen what was happening ahead.
“Confirmed. I’ll go down, cross and come back, and park opposite.”
“Give us at least five minutes from park-up,” Sami instructed. “The signal to get into position will be a double squelch. The signal to go will be a triple.”
“Roger!” Two voices responded. Sami Somsak smiled grimly and leaned back into his seat. His guys were professionals. Hopefully, Lu’s were just triad street thugs. If they were, it would be no contest.
The light double-cab truck with the covered rear deck had three of his men in it. They were already getting out of their truck. They were dressed as gardeners. The other vehicle, a small Toyota rental van, carried just the driver, Billy Yee. He drove past the car park entrance as Jo Ankar turned in.
“Have you done it, Daniel?” Sami whispered. There were several other vehicles in the car park including a black Lexus wagon. A man was standing beside the Lexus. Sami immediately recognised the tall figure as Thomas Lu. There was no one else in the vehicle or close to Lu.
As Jo made to park the truck close to the Lexus, Sami’s phone rang.
“Yes?”
“We have them safe and sound. Do it to him.”
“You got it, Daniel!” Relieved, Sami said a silent prayer to his gods. His companion just smiled as he applied the brakes and switched the truck’s engine off.
“Playtime,” Jo said.
“Indeed,” came the response as Sami slipped the small radio into the arm sling he was wearing. He got out of the truck and walked around to the front. He was seemingly unarmed, as instructed. He raised his jacket awkwardly with his free hand and pirouetted to show Thomas Lu there were no weapons, just a cellphone pouched on his belt. Lu pointed to the sling. Sami gripped the radio concealed in the sling and held it in his fist as he pulled the sling over his head and shook it. Lu nodded and Sami awkwardly reversed the process, feigning pain as he did so. Lu nodded. Sami settled the sling back in position. Performance over, he moved forward a few paces and stopped, looking across the intervening empty parking space to where Thomas Lu stood.
“Mr Somsak, I presume?” Lu’s voice had a jovial, mocking edge to it.
“Mr Lu!” Sami’s voice was flat, emotionless. Anyone who knew Sami Somsak knew that this was Sami at his most dangerous. If the opportunity arose, he would kill Thomas Lu with his bare hands, slowly and with relentless efficiency. Sami was both a Samurai and a very accomplished martial artist. Even at almost seventy years of age, he was lethal. Perhaps Lu realised that as well, because he nervously maintained his distance.
“I believe you have something of mine?”
Sami stared at Lu with an expression that was pure contempt.
“And you have something of mine.”
“They will be delivered just as soon as I have possession of the money.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
“Just some friends of mine,” Lu replied. “Oh, there they are now.”
“This was supposed to be between us,” Sami said with just the right amount of indignation in his voice.
“I don’t think I can trust you, Mr Somsak,” Lu responded as the Mazda sedan carrying four of his men pulled int
o a park beyond the Lexus. The doors opened and the men got out and moved to stand in a loose group beside the black wagon.
Although no weapons were visible, Sami knew they were there under the hanging shirttails and bulky jackets. He smiled to himself. From the corner of his eye, he saw the gardeners spreading out around the fringes of the car park. Their intention seemed to be to tend the plants on the verge and the plantings beyond the lay-by. One produced a petrol-powered weed eater and fired it into life, concentrating on the narrow strip of grass that ran down the ocean side of the narrow lot. The Singapore garden crews habitually started work early to avoid the human rush, so their presence was of no concern to Thomas Lu or his men. Lu had witnessed their arrival before Sami Somsak and the truck. They were no part of this. His focus was on one thing only. To Lu’s minders, the gardeners appeared in the main to be elderly. Most of them were of a small build. They did not represent a threat.
“Let me see the money.”
Sami turned and waved to Jo who was still sitting behind the wheel of the truck. Obedient driver that he was, Jo Ankar opened the cab door, slipped from his seat and swung back onto the deck behind the cab. He then walked down to the rear of the container. Sami walked alongside him. Thomas Lu paralleled them, walking five metres away. His quartet of bodyguards moved with him.
When Lu saw the truck driver reach the rear of the container and start to unfasten the lock, he called out.
“Wait!” Lu quickly gave instructions to his men. One moved to the front of the truck, two stayed where they were. Lu, with the remaining man at his shoulder, moved forward. He was now confident that he had both his back and the car park covered.
The truck driver stood on the truck deck waiting for the instruction to continue to open the container. When Lu and his man arrived at the rear of the vehicle, Lu gave the order. The driver once again started working the locking handle.