Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [103]
Now, two days on, Thomas Lu had received word from his spy in the Somsak camp that the Thai gangster had withdrawn back to his Bangkok base. That provided Lu with momentary relief. Somsak had taken a huge hit to his Singapore-based people. Had he retreated only to plot his return? Or had he decided to leave Singapore alone, knowing that the chances of being caught were increasing by the day?
Lu had made sure that he was outside the scope of the police investigation. His bomb maker had fled to Indonesia, along with several of the others in his organisation who knew about the device.
The man he had inserted into the funeral home had gone back to his village in Malaysia considerably richer than when he had left it.
Lu was confident there were no loose ends regarding the police; however, there was one that Sami Somsak could exploit if he put the facts together. Thomas Lu’s spy inside the Somsak camp has been a comparatively recent convert and was potentially very exposed.
Lu regretted he hadn’t identified and exploited this person’s potential much earlier. But then he hadn’t known Somsak was involved in the Intella Island project at that time.
“Chance,” Lu muttered as he walked from his study through to the lounge of his luxurious penthouse. A chance comment from a lover had resulted in a phone call and subsequent meeting; a connection had been made with the heart of Sami Somsak’s inner sanctum. It had been so simple to achieve, and so very fruitful.
The person on the other end of the line was one whose life, loyalty and everything else was governed by the lusts of the flesh and not by power, drugs, money or loyalty. Once the connection had been made, the rest had been easy. Betrayal had been bought with the flesh of a handful of young men and women who were willing to indulge this person’s every sexual whim.
Lu poured himself a whisky. “Chance and timing,” Thomas Lu philosophised into his glass.
I am drifting in and out of consciousness, but my waking times are getting longer. I know I am in hospital but everything else is fuzzy. There is a mist where my memory used to be. I know my name, Daniel Swann, but where am I?
The police! I knew they were police by their uniforms. They came to see me. But I didn’t understand what they were saying. A bomb! People dying. I didn’t know and they went away.
There is something in the mist, a part of a memory? I can smell the ocean. I can feel something, but what? It is just out of my reach.
They helped me to the bathroom. That was good. I hated having that tube in me. They have taken the tube from my nose and the one from my head as well. They have told me the wound is healing. What is the wound? What caused it? Who am I really? They call me David, but my name is Daniel? Who is David Crewe?
I want to leave this place. There is somewhere I remember. Somewhere I want to be. There is a telephone. A cellular phone. It is given to me by a nurse. She says someone delivered it for me. It rings.
Sami Somsak? Who is Sami Somsak and why is he speaking to me as if he knows me? I tell him I don’t know him. He sounds sad, I think. I flip the phone shut and he goes away.
I want to leave this place and go to the other place. I think I remember how to get there.
The doctors tell me it will be some time before they can release me. The wound in my head is healing well, but my memory isn’t. But I am remembering more. I remember the jungle. I am happy in the jungle. I want to go where I am happy. Maybe then my memory will come back to me.
I want to leave this place.
39
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Mr Somsak, he’s gone. Some time late last night, he left.”
“He discharged himself?”
“Not really, he was in no condition to be discharged. He simply left.”
“Is he wearing hospital clothing?”