Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [105]
“Good luck,” Sami muttered. He knew that if Daniel remembered even a fraction of his jungle skills, they would need shoulder-to-shoulder sweeps to find him, and even then there was no guarantee that they would. “Thank you, Doctor.”
Sami Somsak hung up and sat in the shadows. Across the road from him there was a construction site. Two lots down was the condominium complex that housed Thomas Lu’s penthouse. Soon he would be confronting Lu there and it would be over once and for all.
“Daniel?” Sami whispered. He wanted his old friend back. He wanted him at his side when Lu went down. But here he was, a fugitive, albeit a sick one, hiding on a tiny island. He hoped that those hunting Daniel weren’t armed. If they were, there could be a killing, and the chances are it wouldn’t be Daniel Swann who was killed. Not initially anyway.
These men are not very skilled in the jungle. I think I can slip past them easily. They are calling for this Mr Crewe. I don’t know who he is. Do they think I am him?
They have gone past me. It was easy to hide from them. I just lay on the roof of the house while they searched through it. Now they are in the jungle behind me. I have another place to hide when they come back. They will come back. I know this somehow. I think I will go and catch some fish while they search the jungle. They have the remains of my pig and now they know where I was living I can’t stay there anymore.
There are more men coming along the road. I can see them. They are marching. These men are dressed as soldiers, but they are not carrying guns. That is good. If they have guns, they might get killed. This is something else I know. I think I am good at killing people. It is just a feeling that I have. I know I know things, many things, but I don’t know how I know them.
The boat is still on the bank of the river. I will take it and go and catch fish. They won’t look for me out on the water. They think I am in the jungle.
The boat isn’t big. It has oars and I am rowing out into the mouth of the river. There are rafts all around out here. Fish farms, I think. The cellular phone is ringing again.
“Daniel?”
“I am Daniel.”
“I am your friend, Sami. We are best friends. You have had a terrible accident and your memory has been damaged. You must let me help you.”
“I am busy, Mr Sami. I have to catch fish.”
I switched the cellular phone off. I don’t remember a lot about these phones, if I ever knew anything at all, but they run on batteries and batteries don’t last forever. How do I know that?
I can see some of the men on one of the fish rafts looking my way. Perhaps it was not a good idea to come out this far to fish? I row back to the mouth of the stream. There is a current pushing me deeper into the stream. The current is called the tide. I know this. The tide will carry me along while I fish.
And there are fish in the water. Many of them! I can see them all around me. The net rolled into the front of the boat is very big. Too big. But there is a smaller net, one with a handle.
I sit in the boat as the tide pushes me along. The small net is now in the water. A fish, a long skinny fish swims past. It is very close to the boat. I lift the net and I have the fish. I do this again and again and again until I have four of the long green and silver fish flapping in the bottom of the boat. I know these fish but I can’t remember what they are called. That doesn’t matter. I do know they can be eaten. I have eaten them before, I think. I will eat these.
The stream has become small and the bottom of the boat is touching the mud. I will get out now, take my fish and go to that other place to sleep. This is a place where the men in the uniforms will not find me. It is a place I found when I was here before.
“Where the hell is he?” Colonel Arthur Soon, co-ordinator of the Singapore Search and Rescue Division, was