Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [26]
“They didn’t know. Very few people do and they are all pledged to silence.” Sami gave a tired smile. We both knew the penalty for breaking that silence. Loyalty was everything with my friend. To betray his trust was to ensure very quick and terrible retribution. “If Lu had known about the connection, he would have most certainly stayed away from Stanley. Again, Daniel, that was my fault.”
“It’s not your fucking fault,” I snapped. “Shit happens, Sami. For God’s sake, you of all people know that for a fact.”
“Yeah,” he admitted, rubbing a hand over his face. “You are, of course, right, old friend. Shit happens!”
“So where did Lu score the cash? I mean if he tried to buy Stanley out, he found big bucks somewhere?”
“A South American drug cartel, Colombians,” Sami replied. He reached out and tapped the keyboard on his laptop once more. There were three men in the full-screen coloured shot. They were a heavyset trio of Spanish extraction and all bore similar features that the inevitable dark glasses couldn’t hide. They were brothers or a father and siblings. Their ages ranged from maybe mid-thirties to perhaps early sixties. The elder man had a badly pockmarked face, the middle one sported a vivid scar across his forehead. The younger of the three didn’t bear any obvious scars but dark glasses or not, I could sense mad eyes staring out at the camera.
“Before you ask how I know, I have someone in Lu’s camp,” Sami said in answer to my unasked question. “These gentlemen are the Mendez brothers out of Bogota. Carlo, the oldest, Marco, the middle one and Raymond. The Americans have been hitting them hard and they haven’t been able to launder their billions north of Panama. They’re choking on their profits and looking for investments that the Feds can’t touch.”
“So Lu goes to them with a proposition and suddenly they see a big juicy pie sitting there half way around the world and they want a slice or two?” I was guessing, of course, but I figured it would be close to the mark. Sami nodded.
“They want it all, and the way they play, they’d get it in the end if they manage to secure a foothold. We don’t need Lu or his money and we certainly don’t want theirs. There are plenty of other investors who want in; Intella Island is the hottest property in Asia and that’s not simply media hype. Lu only got invited into the syndicate because of his history with several of the others. At the end Stanley, bless his soul, knew that if he could give the others hard evidence on what Lu was planning, Lu was out and Intella was safe from the South Americans.”
“So Stanley records the offer Lu makes. He refuses and Lu tries to kill him.”
“Yes, in a nutshell. Obviously the Colombians are leaning on him really heavily. According to Stanley, he is terrified of them and sweating on it. They agreed to make up Lu’s shortfall on the condition he got them a full share of the action. The rest you know. Lu unfortunately saw the recorder. Stanley managed to escape, but he is—” Sami paused and blinked—“He was a chronic asthmatic. He made it to the fort and into the Japanese surrender room and hid the recorder before he collapsed.”
The picture suddenly became crystal clear. Sami wanted me to collect the recorder from wherever Stanley had hidden it. Then when he presented the syndicate with the evidence contained on the device, Sami would have Lu thrown out of Intella, taking his South American money with him. I had no doubt that after he’d destroyed the man financially, Sami would then cause Thomas Lu to cease to exist. That was, of course, if the Colombians didn’t get to him first. Those guys have a reputation for violence second to none.
“Why do you need me to get the recorder? Jo would go in for you and he’s probably in better shape than me.” I was referring to Jo Ankar. If I was Sami’s left-hand man and friend, Jo, a former Thai Special Forces Major, was his right hand and his brother in all