Singapore Sling Shot (11 page)

12

The watcher was sitting on the edge of the gun platform. He was bored. This was the third night he had been there. He and the others had waited until the fort shut for the night and then they had quietly drifted into the complex to their assigned positions. Once there, they had to stay alert, not only for the expected attempt to recover the recording device they had been told was hidden somewhere in the surrender rooms, but also for the occasional ranger patrols. But they weren't there to stop anyone getting into the fort; they were in position to stop anyone leaving.

Wang Yoo's instructions had been to hide himself in cover, but after two fruitless nights sitting in the deep shadows, he moved out into the open. He was scared of snakes and out in the open he believed he would see a snake before it saw him.

Yoo wanted a cigarette, badly. Lu had ordered them not to smoke, not to do anything that would alert others to their presence. So far, Yoo had obeyed the directive. Now, tired, bored and hours from his bed, he decided that he would enjoy at least this one small pleasure. He knew that the boss would not be coming to the fort this or any other night, and he also knew that the others were all in their designated positions. They would not come roaming, so there was no one to tell on him off for his minor indiscretion.

Yoo shielded the flare of his cigarette lighter with his cupped hands and lit up, gratefully sucking the nicotine hit into his lungs. He doesn't see the shadow that moved away to his right. He didn't hear the sickening thud as his skull and a metal stanchion collided.

I had no qualms about laying the watching man out. There was a gun in a belt holster and a cellphone in his pocket. I think I probably hit him too hard. He was still alive, but no doubt his skull was fractured. Would anyone come to relieve him or was he there for the night? I had no way of knowing. I could have left him sitting there and slipped away, but what I didn't want was to have him come after me, or be there to intercept me if things went wrong and I had to return the way I'd come.

I tossed the gun, a Chinese copy of a Russian Markarov, seawards and followed it with the cellphone. There was no way this mid-thirties Chinese guy was going to be a threat to me, so I left him where he lay. Callous? Maybe, but this game was to the death and the death wasn't going to be mine.

I skirted the fire direction tower and paused where the tunnel leading back into the fort begins. Tunnel is a euphemism in this case. This is more like a very deep concrete trench with a steel mesh roof across the top. Various magazines and rooms open off it as it pushes up and back towards the heart of the fort.

Was there someone stationed in the tunnel or perhaps up above, where they could see down through the mesh roof? Anyone with night vision glasses would have a field day. I figured that there were none of those in operation over here. Otherwise why did the guy I'd just brained not have a pair? Rightly or wrongly I had to go with my gut instinct. I could have used a night scope myself right then, but they're cumbersome at best and they have some big disadvantages. Anyone flashing a high-intensity light beam or a laser into the system can fry your eyes—permanently.

I started up the tunnel, moving slowly, hugging the walls, senses tasting the night. Overhead a military jet blasted the night apart, destroying my hearing for the moment. As the aircraft's rumbling roar faded, something stirred in the night. A rat in one of the side rooms? A lizard maybe or even a snake? Whatever, my senses told me it wasn't human, so it was of no concern. I carried on climbing up towards the core of the fort.

The tower with the two cameras was above and to my right. I couldn't see it from down in the concrete trench, but I knew that once I emerged from the tunnel I would be in view and the alarm would sound. The thing was that until I had the recorder, Lu's thugs wouldn't try and stop me. That was my theory anyway. The alternative was that they would try and grab me and apply some very excruciatingly painful techniques to my body to try to get me to spill the device's location. I had to figure that they wouldn't have time to go that route, so they'd wait for me to get the MP3 or whatever Stanley's recorder actually was, then they'd jump me.

I was near the tunnel entrance. The trench was ramping up to ground level. The mesh was gone from above me. I stopped moving with my head just below the edge of the concrete wall. When I emerged it would be at a jog. I checked that the key to the door and the alarm code were in the zip pocket of my top.

I bellied forward a half metre. Now I was at the very edge of the tunnel but still below the level of the cameras. To my right were two buildings and ahead was the road leading on up towards Fort Siloso Square. There were several low-voltage lamps dotted about but no serious security lights. The glow from the city had lightened the gloom to a grey-on-grey tone. It was like looking out through a window on a dull day through a layer of thick gauze.

To my left the road curved down to The QuarterMaster Store. A long line of trench mortars was set above the road. Behind the squat, wide-mouthed guns a footpath ran across the face of the hill. Off this was the bridge that led to the top level of The QuarterMaster Store where the surrender rooms are situated.

In total I had about a hundred yards to travel. I estimated ten seconds to open the door. Twenty more to disable the alarm. A minute to get orientated and find Lieutenant-General T Numata's waxen image. Another thirty seconds and I would be on my way back to the water, hopefully well ahead of Lu's guys.

What is it about smokers? Okay, I'm a smoker, but there are times when you need to fight the urge, and this was definitely one of those times for me. However this was obviously not the right time for the man in the trees up ahead of me, just as it hadn't been for the one I'd taken out down at the fire control tower. I could see the ruby glow of the cigarette back in the trees. The goon wasn't bothering to shield it. This was just another idiot on Thomas Lu's payroll. The guy was possibly only seventy metres from the ramp into the surrender rooms. He could be at the door in a matter of a minute or less once I went in.

I lay motionless, trying to get a handle on this. I hadn't figured that Lu's men would be so close. Seventy metres is far too close for comfort. This guy would probably let me go in and then follow me, if not into the building, onto the bridge at least. There he would probably try to nail me coming back out. If Lu had one man hidden this close, how many more did he have staking the place out?

“Plan two,” I whispered. The voice-activated headset sent my verbalised thought out to Sami.

“Say again.”

“Just talking to myself,” I replied. “Sami this is going to be fast and loud and dirty. Start back right now.”

“Roger.”

Sami was gone. I was alone and I was shit scared. This was not going to be pretty in anyone's book. I was going to be killing some guys and they were going to be trying to kill me. Problem was this wasn't the Thai or Cambodian jungle, this was Singapore. Guns and gun battles, especially those resulting in death, were not going to amuse the powers that be, and that most assuredly was a fact.

“Fuck it. Let's do it!”

I get to my feet and started for The QuarterMaster Store. My jog became a sprint as I raced down the pathway behind the mortars and crossed the bridge, fishing the key to the door out of my pocket as I went. I could sense rather than see movement in the shadows on the hillside above me. I was tempted to hit the landing, go down the steps to the lower level, wait for this clown and take him out before I opened the door, but there would be others coming. Speed was my friend, my only fucking friend right at that moment.

There was a dim light on the landing, but I snapped on my headlamp as I reach the door. The key went in easily enough but it wouldn't turn. I applied more pressure, praying that it wouldn't break. Finally, the lock snapped back and I was in. I was moving as quickly as I could. The beam from my headlamp sliced through the pitch-blackness inside the windowless room. I ignored the alarm completely. It didn't matter if it was activated. In fact that might work in my favour, I thought.

The beam from my lamp picked up the faces of the men sitting and standing around the table. This, the tableaux in the first room, unnerved me for a second. The face of the one seated figure was looking directly at me. In the light of day he was realistic enough but in the lamplight he looked as if he was about to ask me what the hell I was doing there.

I went through into the second room at a jog. The narrow beam of my headlamp cut a swathe through the blackness but it didn't reach to the far end of this the longer room. The standing and seated figures down there faded into shadows. But I wasn't looking for my target down there.

Numata was the first seated figure to my right. I stepped over the railing and the proximity alarm sounded. It was an annoyingly high-pitched buzzer, as these things tend to be. I reach across the table for Numata's right sleeve and start groping for the digital recorder.

At first it seemed that the sleeve was empty and then, just as the main alarm started its banshee screaming, I found it. Small, metallic and worth billions of dollars. I pocketed the note taker and zipped my pocket closed as the beam from a flashlight flared back in the room beyond. The man on the hill was coming in after me. I figured he'd wait outside. Damn!

I debated sprinting to the exit door at the far end, but no time. Instead I killed my light. I was about to go around the table and crouch behind Numata's figure when I had a brainstorm. The empty seat at the head of the table, it was right beside me. Head? I was wearing a hood. There was an Indian soldier wearing a beret standing behind the chair. I yanked the beret off his head and I fell into the chair, pulling the Browning from my shoulder holster as I did so. I pulled the headlamp off my head and let my communicator fall down my chest as I pulled the beret on. Hopefully, having my face blacked out I'd look like an African officer. Whatever, I needed to buy a moment of time.

I froze as the light came probing into the room. I was facing away from the doorway, which was slightly behind my left shoulder. The man with the flashlight was no doubt pressed against the side of the entrance. My survival in the first instance depended on whether he was on the left or right side.

The light beam started down the left wall and swept the long room moving left to right. He was against the near side and that meant he wouldn't have the angle to see me unless he stepped right into the room. If he'd been on the other wall, he would have swept my side first.

The light just touched my shoulder and swept back the other way. I sensed Mr Smoker had moved into the room. Then I could see him out of the corner of my eye. The beam swung back. He was slightly in front of me now. My impression of a waxwork had worked, it seemed. The guy with the light was probably looking for a standing, crouching or prone figure, not one seated at the head of the table, obviously part of the display.

The alarm siren was shrieking and the buzzer too. It was nerve- shredding pandemonium in the surrender room and no doubt for a hundred metres in every direction outside. I figured the rangers and cops and everyone in Singapore would be heading this way soon to see what was going on. The guy with the light continued moving forward. The gun in his right hand reflected the light from the flashlight held in his left. He advanced further into the room, pushing the gun and light ahead of his body. Then he crouched and began sweeping the light under and behind the tables, trying to find a living being amongst the ghosts. I stayed motionless for the moment, but it was time to be going. I didn't want to be there when another of Lu's little helpers came in.

Chow Lee's heart was pounding, his ears ringing from the screaming alarms. He was sweating, close to panic. The Fang Triad gang member was not comfortable using a gun. The automatic in his hand felt unnatural. He preferred a hatchet or a knife. However, the man he had tracked into this place had a gun. Where was he? Where was the shadow he was hunting?

Lee pressed against the wall at the entrance to the Japanese surrender room and passed the beam of his flashlight down the long room. He had never been in there before. The figures standing and seated seemed so lifelike. The muzzle of Lee's gun jerked from one side to another.

Lee took a deep breath to try and steady himself. The sounds of the alarms and his adrenaline overload had left his nerves raw. He moved the flashlight beam to his right. There were more figures. A tall one in white stood leaning over a table. The muzzle of the gun jerked. Lee almost fired but he restrained himself, and the cone of light moved on. There was a figure seated at the head of the table immediately to his front right. This motionless figure was dressed in black, just another dummy. Lee stepped further into the room, his searching beam moving on again probing.

He crouched, stabbing his light under the long tables. Again he started on his left before he brought the light back to the right. He was searching for a crouching man hidden behind the seated figures. Had the man he was seeking already left the room through the exit door?

Lee's light probed further. He was half-turned now as the light moved down the room, probing the shadows under the table. Then the beam touched the feet of the seated figure at the head of the table and it stopped. Instead of plain shoes or military boots, this figure was wearing Nike sneakers. New-looking sneakers!

Black! There were uniforms of all colours on the dummies in this place, but no other one was wearing black. The man he had followed into this place had been wearing black!

Chow Lee's gun pointed away from the light beam. He tried to swivel on his knees, turning to bring the gun in line, but he was too slow. There were two flashes. He felt both of the bullets that killed him.

My two shots hit the man with the flashlight in the chest. The flashlight spun to the floor. I saw the shocked expression on the gunman's face as the light beam hit him and rolled away.