Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [138]
“Yes, Daniel. You could say that, but I don’t think we’ll say it out loud,” my friend replied with a faint chuckle. “Now we have to bury our people and get on with our lives.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, but I was wondering about life beyond this moment, beyond Simone’s funeral. What lay ahead for Daniel Swann?
Maybe I would try to get a real job, one that didn’t involve death and destruction. Problem was my CV was both very specific and very much out of date.
Epilogue
We buried Simone and the others. Sami used considerable influence and money to purchase a huge number of adjoining plots in the cemetery. One of the ironies of this, of course, was that after fifteen years the bodies would be dug up and the bones reburied in smaller plots or cremated. I wondered if I would be there to collect Simone’s bones.
As I was leaving Singapore, Thomas Lu’s suicide had been replaced as the headline of the day by the discovery in Sembawang of two trucks loaded with nitro-based fertiliser. This was the same stuff that was the explosive of choice for terrorists around the world. The detonating mechanisms were in place, but not connected.
It was suspected that religious or political extremists had perhaps spirited it in from Malaysia and were waiting for the moment to position it and take out whatever targets they had selected. Relations between the two countries deteriorated considerably once that viewpoint was made public.
As I was making my way to the KrisFlyer lounge in Terminal Three, prior to boarding my flight, I had a moment of near panic. Two police officers were standing on the concourse. One was male, the other female. They were both armed with the standard issue sidearm. I’d never had a close look, at them but they appeared to be S&W model 64s in .38 special or something similar. They were more effective than a brick—just!
However, standing further along the concourse was another group of three policemen. These were wearing combat overalls and were all armed with submachine guns. Okay, armed anti-terrorist types were a common enough sight in airports worldwide. Were they looking for me? Or someone like me? They seemed to be paying particular attention to European males.
With my shaven head encased in a cap and without my moustache, I didn’t look like David Crewe. I was using another passport and another alias just in case Crewe had appeared on the police radar.
To have turned and walked away would have been too obvious. The policewoman was looking directly at me. It was now that I realised I knew her. This was Miss Blue, Lucy Pang Hooi Ming. She turned and said something to her companion and then came towards me. What had she said?
Behind the advancing policewoman, her male companion was speaking on his radio. Was the alarm going out? Miss Blue came to a halt in front of me. She put out a hand.
“Shake,” she breathed. I took her hand and we shook hands. She was smiling. “They are looking for David Crewe.”
“I’m not him,” I replied under my breath, faking a laugh. “I have another identity.”
“Good. You don’t look like the image we have.” It was then I saw the computer-generated snapshot she was holding. It was a variation on the one Sami had prepared, but this time it was closer to the way I used to look. “I don’t think Mr Crewe should come back to Singapore, ever!”
“He won’t. Thank you!”
“We are even.”
“Yes we are.”
With that, she waved to me and went to rejoin her companion. He lowered his radio handpiece and spoke urgently to her. Suddenly they were on the move away down the concourse. I breathed out and carried on towards the lounge. The heavily armed trio didn’t even look my way.
“Thank you, Officer,” I whispered as I moved on to the lounge. So they had a profile, but as yet, not a name. If and when I came back, I would have to be someone completely different in every way.
So now, in the guise of Donald Wrathe, sales manager for Kervon Security Systems Inc, I am sitting in an air-conditioned metal tube thirty-five thousand feet above the South