Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [108]
“Dead,” I whisper. “All dead.” Now I start crying uncontrollably. These are silent tears, but my whole body is shaking as the images of my dead pass behind my eyes. This is my waking nightmare. The tears flow like a river. They burn a course down my cheeks. There is salt in my mouth. I am back in the land of the living again, and I’m not sure that I want to be here. So I cry on. I’m sad. It goes so deep, right to the very core of me. It aches. I am sad for me. Sad for everyone who is dead. Sad for everyone who is alive. Sad for the world!
After a while, I stopped crying. The tears had purged me. The front of my shirt was soaking. There was a breeze from the ocean. The shirt was cold against my chest. I wondered just how many tears a human being has in them.
I took the cellphone from my pocket, turned it on and tapped out the number printed on an adhesive strip and stuck to the side of the phone. My call was answered immediately.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah, Sami. I’m back!”
“Thank God. Are you okay?”
“I will be. I’ll go and be found.”
“They’ll take you back to the hospital, but it sounds as if you’re okay.”
“I’ll go back. There’s some annoying metalwork on my head I want removed.”
“Can you remember everything?”
“Most of it, I think. The bomb. The angel kissing me.”
“Some kiss. It damn near killed you.”
“Lu had Simone killed to get us together in the cemetery. I want to kill him very badly, Sami.”
“Soon, Daniel. I have a plan.” Sami’s voice was soft. “Go and get yourself found, Daniel, and then we will take care of Mr Lu. I’ll see you at the hospital in a couple of hours. And thank you, old friend.”
“For what?”
“For saving my life again.”
“That’s what we do, Sami.” We both signed off and I stood and retraced my steps to the utility. It was unlocked. I climbed into the passenger seat and drank some more water. It was twenty minutes before someone came. Then they all came.
41
I was back in Singapore General for the night and this time I didn’t mind. The search and rescue crew flew me back by helicopter. They were delighted to find me in one piece. There was good PR in it all for them and I didn’t begrudge them that. Sami arrived a few minutes after I’d showered and been tucked up in my bed in the same room I’d escaped from. They didn’t put a guard on the door.
Sami came in smiling, bearing gifts in the form of clothes. He had arranged for my bag to be retrieved from the Miramar and was now carrying it. We embraced as old friends do. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and we talked.
First we talked about the dead before he thanked me yet again, which made me uncomfortable.
“Your instincts are remarkable.”
“Not remarkable enough,” I replied bitterly. “If only I’d realised sooner, we could have saved everyone.”
“You know in life that’s not the way it works, Daniel.”
“Yeah, I know. On the island, I cried a million tears.” I stopped when I realised what I had said. “Jesus, I sound like a fucking love song, but I’ve never really cried in my life before and I just couldn’t stop.”
“Grief,” Sami replied softly. “You needed to grieve for Simone.”
“Not just Simone. I had a dream, a hallucination maybe. All my dead were there speaking to me. Maybe I needed to grieve for them all. Maybe they needed to see me cry.”
“Maybe.”
“What about Lu? Have you figured out the how and the when?”
“Yes,” came the reply. “He thinks I’ve withdrawn back to Thailand. Remember my little old street peddler in Bangkok?”
“I’ll never forget him.”
“Well, he’s back. Slight change of costume, but it’s him all over again. He’s been sitting watching Lu’s place and planning, and that plan is very nearly ready to be put into action. Before we get to that though, the police will want to question you. They