Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [49]
The truck rolled through the gate and started to turn to the left. As the trailer started the turn, I dropped off and lay flat while the rig roared off. Now, lying on a road of any sort is not a particularly desirable pastime, so as soon as the trailer was gone, I got to my feet. There was no traffic at all on this stretch of road but for the rapidly vanishing truck. Was I outside the damned container complex or not?
An alarm klaxon was sounding from inside the container farm. Then a siren joined in. Had they seen me or was something else going on in there? I could see the flashing lights of a security vehicle racing along the internal road towards the gatehouse. Had someone in a control centre belatedly reported seeing an intruder? Whatever, I had to get as far away from here as quickly as possible. Hell, that had been my entire life for the last few hours. Get away from the fort, get away from Sentosa, and get away from the fucking container farm. Part of me had had enough of running. I wanted to go to sleep.
I sprinted across the road and there was another fence, but this time there wasn’t any razor wire and it was only a couple of metres high. I climbed over it easily enough and dropped down a low bank.
In front of me was a wide multi-lane road and there were vehicles, not a lot, but it appeared Singapore was indeed waking up and on the move. I was standing on a wide kerb. There was no footpath. A pedestrian here was going to draw unwanted attention, especially one dressed as I was. I waited until the road immediately in front of me was clear and sprinted across.
It was starting to get light. The sirens and alarms were still sounding. A police car came speeding down the highway I had just crossed. Were they after me? I still didn’t know.
There was another fence ahead of me. Man, was I getting sick of fences. Again, this wasn’t a particularly serious one. I climbed it and realised that I was at the railway lines. I crossed them and, yes, damn it, there was yet another fence.
“We see you, Daniel.”
“I need a drink and a smoke and a long fucking sleep,” I replied, scrambling over what I hoped was the final hurdle. But it wasn’t. There was a road of sorts beside the railway line and beyond that I could see Sami’s Mercedes. The lights flicked on and off.
The last fence had either fallen down in part or someone had driven through it; plastic strip filled the gap. I didn’t have to climb. I simply stepped over the tape. Sami’s driver was holding the back door of the Mercedes open. I fell inside and the door closed behind me.
“I’m fucked!”
“Well done, Daniel. That really was something.”
“Tell me about it!” I pulled off my gloves and dropped them onto the floor at my feet. My hands were wrinkled and soft from too much water. I fished the vinyl pouch out of my zip pocket and passed it across to Sami who was sitting in the front passenger seat. Then I spread out across the back seat, closed my eyes and went to sleep as the car moved off.
17
It was mid-morning by the time I woke. The rear windows of the Mercedes were open. Someone had taken my sneakers off and removed the headlamp, communications unit and hood and put a cushion under my head. There was a rug covering me, and that was probably what woke me. I was cooking.
I was in an underground car park. The place appeared to be full of vehicles. A man sitting on a chair against the wall by the front of the car stood and came towards me as I pushed the rug aside and sat up. The door opened. It was K. His full name was unpronounceable, so years ago he’d switched to just using the initial K. He was one of Jo’s former squad guys. Like Jo, he had spent more than a year and a half in the UK at Stirling Lines with 22 SAS. He was tough, highly trained and well-educated and spoke English fluently. We’d worked together on several occasions