Singapore Sling Shot (39 page)

I'd been hit with tasers and stun guns several times over the years. It had been highly unpleasant, totally immobilising, and definitely something I did not want to experience again.

In addition to the automatics and stun guns were the inevitable gloves, along with restraints in the form of nylon cable ties. There was also a glasscutter, a small jemmy bar and other assorted bits and pieces. We also had balaclavas, not so much to hide our faces from Lu but to hide from any casual observers.

K obviously knew Singapore better than I did. Apart from my short hundred-yard dash on Sentosa, I'd never driven here at all. When on a mission in a strange country, I never wanted to drive. Local talent was the best option. A skilled local driver, paid a great deal of cash and given a vehicle other than his own, usually led to him doing a great deal of inventive and often spectacular driving, especially when the proverbial shit hit the fan and a fast getaway was called for.

K wove a confusing trail around a network of streets. I was totally lost and said so.

“Keeping away from the obvious as always, Daniel,” Sami said by way of response. K made another turn and there we were on Nassim Hill Road. We drove past Lu's tower and I noted a late model Rolls Royce parked in the forecourt. A chauffeur was rubbing a cloth over it. Poor arsehole! Midnight and you're waiting for some rich prick to stop shagging his mistress and let you take him home. Something like that anyway. Years ago, before I joined The Firm, I'd been a chauffeur for the diplomatic corps. Apart from the offensive and defensive driving courses, it had been a crap job.

My silent history lesson was interrupted as K turned us into our destination. It was the construction site Sami had been so interested in when he had been playing his little old man role. The gate rolled shut behind us. We were expected, it seemed.

Lights burned everywhere, both at ground level and in the lattice of beams rising above us. There was no one around but for the man who had opened the gate. Sami told me that because of noise restrictions, no construction was carried out at night.

We drove to the rear of the lot and parked behind the portable site office. It was time to cover up. I handed out the masks and the heavy rubber gloves we would wear instead of flash gloves. This was partially in deference to the stun guns. We pulled on the balaclavas and gloves before getting out of the utility. I hefted the sports bag as I slid out. Our next mode of transportation was waiting. The only other man on the building site was many, many metres above us, invisible against the black sky.

I couldn't verify it in the dark but I knew, from what Sami had told me, that the giant crane that stood on the site had grown considerably higher since I had seen it several days ago. Sami had hatched his plot well. There had been time enough to add another four sections to the crane's stem to raise it high enough to accomplish what he had in mind.

We were going to visit Thomas Lu, but we weren't going to have to fight our way up to him past his army of thugs. We were going to drop in from above. One of the disadvantages of living in a penthouse was about to be illustrated to the man; hopefully, that demonstration would take place in the most final and complete way possible.

The basket, a three-metre square, open-topped box constructed of heavy piping and steel mesh, was sitting on the ground waiting for us. The side gate was open. I went in first and laid our bag of goodies down on the wooden deck. The others followed. There was a handheld radio in a bracket on the top rail of the basket. K, the last one to climb in, pulled the gate shut and slid the retaining bolt across. Sami picked up the radio handset.

“We are ready. Take it away!”

No sooner had he uttered the instruction than we were airborne, silently gliding upwards, passing the lights on the floors of the skeleton building in rapid succession. Looking up, I still couldn't even see the boom of the crane against the black sky.

Now we were high above the site, still climbing and swinging through an arc as the crane driver somewhere above us manoeuvred us to our target. The lights of Singapore were laid out below us. Even at midnight, cars streamed on the streets. The city was wide awake.

We continue climbing. We were now above the crane operator. I could see his head and shoulders in the dim lights as he sat inside his tiny cab as we wound our way upward. Up where we were beyond the light haze from the buildings, the black night was crowded with stars. It would have been almost romantic in another setting. I could imagine lying on a hilltop on a rug with Simone and simply counting stars on a night like this.

“Fuck it!” I snapped. I could feel Sami and K both looking at me, although they were just shadowy outlines against the lights of the city. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Just a bad memory.”

“We all have those,” Sami replied.

We were now sweeping over the apartment complex that separated the construction site from Lu's building. This was obviously the reason Sami had ordered the extensions fitted to the crane, to get it high enough to get over the intervening structure. I hadn't asked him how he'd organised that. Did he own the construction site? Had he simply bribed the right person or people? The fact was that somehow he had got it done.

Sami was now working the radio as we started to drop down towards our target. The crane operator was now flying blind. It was up to a combination of Sami's precise instructions and the driver's skills. K and I pulled on our shoulder holsters and quickly checked our weapons in the half-light. They had been checked before, several times, but old habits die hard. I put a stun gun into one pocket and a bundle of cable ties in another. I hitched the jemmy bar through the belt on my overall. I was ready for whatever came next.

Below, Lu's lair was rapidly coming up at us. The penthouse roof covered much of the actual area below us. There were, however, two large patios. One, the largest, was on the street side, while the second, adjoining one was on the side from which we were approaching. Looking down, I could see deck furniture on both patios. There was a covered pergola on the smaller one and a closed octagonal structure on the larger one.

“Spa,” Sami said as he came to my side, pulling on his shoulder harness. “My bet is that Lu will be in there right about now. Michael said he is a real night owl and always has a late night spa before going to bed. Let's hope he's right or we'll have to go into the penthouse after him.”

Sami started talking to the crane guy again. He slowed us down and moved our cage slightly to the right. Our landing zone was the smaller patio and we had to avoid the pergola.

The apartment building we were sliding by as we came down didn't have balconies facing us but there were windows. Would anyone be looking out of them? Would they actually see the basket? Would they see what was about to happened on the terraces below? Too much speculation is bad for one. I stopped asking, “What if?” and concentrated on what I could control.

“We won't touch down, too much chance of noise. We'll hover and jump.”

“Done,” I agreed. There was no wind, so the cage could just hang there while we did what we had to. I held my Browning at the ready. I couldn't see any of Lu's people on either of the terraces, but it was possible there was a man on watch inside the building. Unless Lu was an exhibitionist, it was doubtful he would have anyone close enough to watch or overhear him and his playmates at bathtime. I didn't know the guy, but I was hoping I was right in my assumption.

We crept down to a metre off the patio deck when Sami gave the word to stop. The basket jerked to a halt. K eased the bolt on the gate out of its cleat and carefully swung it open. He used a cable tie to fasten it so it couldn't swing and make any noise. There was little noise up here, other than the whisper of the wind and the hum of the traffic far below. These sounds were punctuated by the occasional aircraft passing overhead. The night outside the subdued patio lighting was as black as velvet. It was studded with stars. A perfect night in Singapore and a perfect night to kill Thomas Lu.

K was the first down, Sami next. I brought up the rear. The windows and the one sliding door on the wall facing us were all closed, as well as the drapes. That was a bonus. K led the way to the corner of the penthouse. The bathhouse was fifteen metres away, half way along the second side of the penthouse. There were uncovered windows and light spilled out from inside the penthouse itself. Dim lights glowed through the darkened glass of the spa.

If Lu were inside the spa, would he see us coming across the face of the penthouse and sound the alarm? We eased back from the corner. The only logical approach was to pull back and move around the edge of the patio and come in from the street side where there was little light. The door to the spa house was nearest to the wide, uncovered double doors leading into the penthouse. Anyone inside the penthouse would probably be able to see us as we came around the front. Was there anyone inside?

There was a sound from the spa. A woman laughed and there was the unintelligible response from someone else, a male. Using hand signs, it was decided that K and I would take the circuitous route while Sami would stay at the corner of the building and give us what cover he could.

I pressed close to the glass. How many people were in the spa? I could hear the voices clearly now. Lu, no doubt, but the woman, who was she? He was gay, so what was happening? Was there another silent partner in there as well? I listened for a moment longer. Lu was obviously enjoying whatever was going on.

“You are surprised?” the woman was saying. She was laughing, her voice teasing.

“Very. You are very good,” the man I had to assume was Lu replied.

“I know,” the woman chuckled. “Now lie back and imagine I am your favourite boy.”

That was the end of the conversation for the moment. Who was the woman? Her presence meant that we now had to deal with two people. We had factored in the likelihood that Lu might have a boy with him, but what if there were three in the spa? A double-suicide yes, but a triple? That could get messy.

So my attempt at deciphering what was going on inside the spa and the number of bodies involved was inconclusive. We had a minimum of two and a maximum of I had no idea how many. Whatever, we were going in. K and I split and one of us came around each side of the spa house. We were on our bellies, keeping below the tall black glass windows. Sami, meanwhile, was crouched at the corner of the main building with his Browning held in both hands, the long silencer pointing across the face of the building. I could see directly through the double patio doors. There was no one in the lounge beyond the doors and no sign of anyone in the lighted rooms on my side of the spa. Hopefully it was the same for K on his side.

There were more human sounds from inside the spa above that of the pumping equipment. I moved to the front of the spa house. K was waiting. I signalled for him to get the outward-opening door while I did the bust-in. I had the Browning in my right hand. I transferred it to my left. Yes, I am ambidextrous when it comes to guns. I put the stun gun in my right. I had a plan for that. Electricity and water are great playmates.

I nodded to K. He pulled the door open and I went through.

50

The interior of the spa was surprisingly large. The pool itself was maybe built for eight or ten people. There were only two in it. Thomas Lu, who was lying back against the spa surround, had one arm on the edge. The other, the one attached to his injured shoulder, was crossed over his chest and held by a strap. Lu's long legs were stretched out in front of him, resting on the bath's central seating core. On Lu's left side, a woman was kneeling in water up to her shoulders. Her mouth and right hand were working diligently on Lu's erect penis. The woman was Kaylin.

Thomas Lu's eyes snapped open as I arrived at the edge of the bath.

“Greetings, Mr Lu, and you too, Kaylin. So pleased to find you both here and enjoying yourself.”

“Thomas, I never knew you had it in you.” Sami was at my shoulder, the muzzle of his Browning aimed directly at Lu's open mouth.

Kaylin had stopped pleasuring Lu and was staring at us, her face going the colour of chalk under the glow from the spa. She looked as if she were building to scream. I pushed the head of my stun gun into the water and pressed the go button.

The stun gun crackled and buzzed. The static tableaux in the water suddenly became very mobile. One could even say the motion was frenzied. Kaylin's body jerked and fell backwards into the rolling water, while Lu's long frame contracted into a fetal position and rolled off the seat into the water.

“That works,” I said to Sami.

“Very effective,” he agreed. “K has the watch!”

“Leave her in the water. She accidentally drowns and remorseful Thomas Lu commits suicide. Another take to be considered,” I suggested. Lu's face came above the surface of the water. He gasped in air. Kaylin was also gaining some control of her limbs. She heaved herself upwards like a breaching whale to stand swaying, waist deep in the water. She coughed out water and then pulled in a deep breath. I put the head of my stun gun back into the water and pressed the button. Both of them vanished back under the water, limbs thrashing.

“I could get to enjoy this.”

“Yes, Daniel. But let's get it over with.”

“You're right, of course!” I carefully wiped the stun gun dry on my overall and pocketed it for the moment. I didn't want to experience any reverse blast if I got my glove wet.

Was I a sadist? Perhaps I was, at least I was as far as seeking revenge for my dead Simone, and for Jo, and all those who'd died at the cemetery. The kids especially. I was enjoying bringing the pain and the understanding that death was just around the corner to Lu and to the cold-hearted bitch in the spa with him.

Sami holstered his gun, as did I. They weren't needed at the moment. Lu was back on the surface of the bath and breathing heavily. The good thing about mullet-style haircuts is that they provide a very good handle in a fight, or in this case as a lever to get Lu out of the spa. I grabbed a handful of hair and simply pulled him out of the bath and over the edge, letting him go when he hit the rubberised mat on the floor.