Singapore Sling Shot (33 page)

The fact that I looked like something from a horror movie hopefully would lull the Judas into thinking I was simply here to recuperate.

Introductions over, I settled into my room. I had only been in my luxurious suite for a few minutes when there was a knock at the door. It was K. He handed me a Browning Hi-Power, a shoulder holster, two extra loaded magazines and a silencer.

“A welcome gift,” he said with a grin as he went out, closing the door behind him. I balanced the automatic in my hand and checked it. The weapon was clean and any excess oil had been wiped off. The magazine was fully charged and there was a round in the breech. The safety was on. No doubt K had prepared it. Only a pro left a round under the hammer and he only did that when he presented a weapon to another pro.

I genuinely liked K, and until events of the last few days, I had trusted him completely. I certainly hoped it wouldn't be him that I had to kill, perhaps with the very weapon he had just given me. I unloaded the piece and stripped it down. The firing pin hadn't been removed or filed down. That's the oldest trick in the book of dirty tricks. Everything looks absolutely fine until one goes to use the weapon and finds it has no teeth.

I used the shower. There was a full cabinet of every type of toiletry known to mankind, including a tanning agent, or rather a type of staining lotion. I used thin strips of plaster to cover my wounds and applied the solution as directed.

Ten minutes later, my glow-in-the-dark head was an almost match for my real tan. I wiped some of the solution across my upper lip. The result wasn't perfect, but it would do. I now didn't look like a freshly bald man who had just shaved off his moustache. I certainly didn't look like David Crewe, and that was fine.

I was just finishing my makeup session when I noticed that the bathroom had two telephones. There was one beside the twin vanity and another between the toilet and the bidet. Overkill perhaps, but it started a train of thought. It was something I should have worked out sooner, but I was still a little slow in the brain department.

Obviously, most modern digital telephone systems retain call records as a matter of course, and that was the initial key to finding out who the traitor was. I quickly dressed and went hunting for Sami's office. I had complete access to the joint. Sami had made that perfectly clear to everyone. K was stationed in the foyer watching a CCTV monitor. The images flicked between garage, elevator and fire escape. There was an MP5 sitting on the table beside the monitor. I asked where Sami's study was. K pointed to a set of double doors set off to one side. I went and opened them and stepped into Sami-land.

Sami's obsession with wood is one thing. His other passion is artwork, and stepping into his magnificent study was like walking into an art gallery. There were paintings on the wall I had seen in books and magazines; paintings that, in any other situation, I would have said were copies. There were pieces of sculpture in marble, bronze, maybe silver and gold even, and in various woods. They stood on pedestals and several of the larger ones were free-standing on the highly polished wooden floor. I wasn't up on sculpture, but these looked impressive.

More impressive was the Samurai warrior that stood to the right of the massive mahogany desk. I'd seen its twin in Sami's Bangkok mansion. It was a very scary, lifelike figure. The lacquered wood and leather armour was black and gold, as was the full-face helmet. The gauntlets of both hands were around the long handle of a magnificent katana. The shimmering blade of the sword formed an arc above and behind the warrior. The Samurai was poised for the killer stroke, the blow that would form a cleft in his unfortunate target from shoulder to hip, angled through the body. Sami was an expert with the beautiful, deadly sword. He was Samurai by heritage, through his father. He adhered to the best of that ancient culture and wove it through his Chinese and Thai backgrounds. That perhaps explained, in part at least, some of my friend's complexities.

I suppressed a shudder as I stepped past the warrior and sat at the desk. The figure was so powerful and so very lifelike that I had to force myself to rationalise that it was just a mannequin, like those in Fort Siloso—but this one was much more realistic.

Half an hour later, I left Sami's office none the wiser. His phone records showed normal traffic. Business calls to and from our accountant friend. There were calls from the housekeeper and chef ordering in goods and a variety of incoming calls from several different sources. The call from Sami was also logged, but there was no record of anyone—through the time leading up to or following that call—phoning any number not already logged in the system.

The one thing I did note, however, was that following the call from Sami, there had been a long delay of almost two hours before the call had been made to the Sacred Dream Funeral Home. Why had Kaylin waited so long before making it?

Of course, cellphones threw the whole equation sideways. Everyone in Singapore has a mobile. Short of gathering everyone's personal cell and searching their individual records, how was I going to identify who had been talking to Thomas Lu or one of his crew?

I wasn't prepared to point the finger at anyone just yet, but the two Ks (K and Kaylin), along with Paul Wong, were high on my list. What had Kaylin done during the two hours between Sami's call and her phoning the funeral parlour? Had she used her cell to call Lu? Had he called her prior to Sami's call. Had he ordered her to use the Sacred Dream Funeral Home where he had a man or men in waiting? Did he, in fact, own a share of the business itself? That was something that would be difficult to confirm either way.

I found a baseball cap to cover my scalp wound. It had a Levi's 501 logo on it. I would have preferred something a little less distinctive, but my BMW one hadn't made this trip with me and the 501 cap was the only other available. It would have to do. K gave me an elevator key. I put it on the ring already containing the key for the service tunnel doors as I travelled the twenty or so floors down to the basement car park. I unlocked the heavy steel door into the service tunnel and went through the garage of the neighbouring building and on to the next. The garages were all identical and so, I guessed, were the buildings above.

I made my way up the ramp to street level. The man in the cubbyhole at the top nodded to me and wished me a good day without blinking an eye. I returned the greeting and stepped out into the Singapore evening. Incidentally, I had left the Browning behind, but the borrowed Fairbain Sykes look-alike was in the sheath stitched into the lining of my left boot. Being totally unarmed was something I rarely did. A blade in my boot was more a talisman than anything else, although it had saved my life in Phuket just a few months before.

“He must have gone back to Bangkok as he said he was doing. We have not seen him in days, but his friend is here.”

“Friend?”

“The man called Crewe, he was injured in the bomb blast. The man they were looking for on Pulau Ubin. He is staying in the apartment.”

Thomas Lu grunted. He didn't know anything about this man Crewe other than what he had seen in the media. Had he been one of those who had captured him on Sentosa? Had he perhaps been the man who had raided the fort and made off with the recorder? Was it in his interests to capture or kill Crewe? He decided it wasn't, not yet anyway. If Somsak stayed in the north and kept out of Singapore, he would let the status quo reign, at least until he could devise a means of getting rid of the Thai gang boss once and for all.

“Keep me informed.”

“I will. And Mr Lu?”

“Yes?”

“I will be calling on my friends tonight. Is everything arranged?”

“It is arranged.”

“Thank you!”

“Goodbye.” Lu hung up. He had a substantial libido of his own and he exercised it frequently, but the appetite of his spy in the Somsak camp amazed him. “If only we had made contact earlier,” he mused, not for the first time. A chance comment from one of his male escorts had opened the lines of communication. It appeared that his spy and he shared the same exclusive escort agent. “If only,” Lu repeated as he again reached for the telephone. His appetite had been whetted by the thought of what the previous caller had planned for the evening. He would now see to his own growing needs.

43

The building on Nassim Hill Road was tall and the penthouse atop it was no doubt one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the city, if not the whole island. Thomas Lu lived the high life in more ways than one.

Everyone wants to live in a penthouse, I thought. I did live in one myself, but it was a comparatively modest one, despite the hefty price tag of eight million dollars. I knew that like Sami's place, Thomas Lu's lair would be worth millions and millions.

My cellphone rang.

“A rich address, Daniel.”

“Absolutely, old man. I feel your eyes, but I can't see you.” Sami chuckled at that and then I saw a movement in the shadows further up the street opposite a construction site.

“Have you any thoughts on the Judas in our midst, Daniel?”

“Not yet, but I am working on it.”

“I hope it is not K.”

“So do I, old friend, so do I,” I replied and I meant it. With Jo gone, apart from me, K was now the last of the original inner circle.

“Any advance on your plan to get to Lu?”

“Oh yes,” Sami replied. “Things are almost in place. Let us meet tomorrow lunchtime, the hawker centre on Smith Street, twelve-thirty. You can buy an old man fish head curry. Okay?”

“Okay!”

With that, the shadows reclaimed my old friend. I flipped my phone shut and turned to retrace my steps back towards Orchard Road. I was just another tourist out for a stroll. I wasn't far from Cuppage Terrace and the pub I'd enjoyed so much on my first visit. Dare I go back there? In the end, I decided it was too much of a risk. Ed Davidson and David Crewe should never be in the same place at the same time. Of course I didn't look much like either at the moment, but I didn't want to risk it.

I found another pub close by. It was on a steep little street set in an old shophouse. It was crowded, noisy and the beer was cold. I allowed myself a couple of pints and stayed out of trouble. Drinking alone is not a problem. In fact, when planning a strategy to uncover a traitor, it can be beneficial as the alcohol and the atmosphere assist the brain. It didn't work this night. I left the pub without a plan.

Sitting on the edge of a concrete planter in the shadows, Sami Somsak was almost invisible to any passers-by. To anyone who saw him, he was just a harmless old man taking his ease and watching the activities on the construction site. This was a huge project as yet another small apartment building had been torn down to make way for a larger one. Already, the new structure had clawed its way fifteen storeys into the Singapore sky.

Sami was dressed in the traditional pyjama-like smock and trousers favoured by the old. He wore a brimless cap on his head and sandals on his feet. The small battered suitcase sat at his feet.

As he sat watching, waiting, a large tractor and trailer unit came slowly up the street. Under the harsh white lights of the building site, the lone watchman opened the gates to allow the truck entry. A second vehicle came grinding up after the first. When Sami saw what was on the heavily laden trailer, he smiled to himself. In a day or two, he would be ready to say farewell to Thomas Lu once and for all. With a grunt of satisfaction, he stood.

It was almost midnight, time for an old man to be home in his bed. Shuffling his feet, the small, hunched figure began to walk away down the street. The bowed legs and rounded back gave any watcher the impression that the old man caught in the lights of the passing traffic was an ancient creature.

A passing police car slowed and stopped by the kerb. Sami stopped walking and turned towards the car as the officer in the passenger seat called to him. He wanted to know if “Uncle” was okay. Did he need a ride home? Sami gruffly thanked the policeman and told him he was fine. The policeman waved as the unit pulled away and Sami Somsak breathed a big sigh of relief. If the policemen had had any idea of what he was carrying in his suitcase, he would have been on a fast train to Changi Prison.

At some stage during the night, my nightmare about Simone and the bomb was dashed into the razor fragments of a painful memory. I woke with a start. I had no idea what had awoken me, but here I was, wide awake. At least when my mind had been lost in the fog, sleep had come often and deeply.

I lit a cigarette and flicked on the television to see what CNN's version of world events was this day. It was 02:30. I was in time to see the latest fiery airliner crash. Suspected terrorist missile. Iran and Israel were once again trading verbal barrages. Some rising movie star had driven into a semi-trailer and was being likened to James Dean.

Then, as the tale of world woe continued, I made the decision as to how I was going to smoke out our spook. It was going to be face-to-face and direct. I stubbed out the first butt and lit another. Yeah, I know! My ration of five a day was in for a hammering.

As a last resort, I decided I would commandeer every mobile phone in the apartment and see who had called whom in that vital two-hour period between Sami's call and Kaylin's call to the funeral home. But first, I was going to conduct my own inquisition.

It would be gentle, but my antennae would be on full BS scan. The only bullshit that got past me was generally my own, but I was good at catching out liars. At times, back in the other world, that had been another skill that had made the difference between life and death. Would my skills at detecting who was and was not lying be as sharp now as they had been prior to my angel's kiss? I guess I was about to find out.

Perhaps it was the simple fact that I had decided how I was going to proceed that did it, but I managed to drift back to sleep and this time it was dreamless.