Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [61]
Jo then handed each of us a pair of spare loaded magazines and a shoulder holster. Because of the silencers, the normally compact pistols were cumbersome. The oversize nylon holsters were designed to accommodate the automatics with the silencers fitted.
“Does Sami buy these by the dozen?” I asked, indicating the Browning as I shrugged my way into the harness and slipped the automatic into the holster. Under my right shoulder was a pouch that accepted the two spare magazines.
“Tonne, Dan, by the tonne,” Jo replied. “No shooting unless absolutely necessary,” he said to the others. “Understand?”
Everyone understood.
“May I presume that we know where Lu is keeping the money?”
“Yes, Dan. He moved it only maybe a kilometre to another warehouse he owns. Cunning, but not more cunning than the cameras and the computers.” Jo smiled at a thought. It was the sort of smile that would make most people very uneasy. “We will be on the same traffic cameras, of course, but in about”—he glanced at the Seiko dive watch on his wrist—“two minutes there will be a computer failure and all the cameras leading in and out of Jurong and covering the entire area will malfunction.”
“Clever Sami,” I muttered, wondering how much that little malfunction was going to cost.
“We are entering a warehouse compound next to our target.” Jo was speaking Thai for the sake of absolute clarity. He well knew my proficiency with the language. “There we will cut the link fence and enter the warehouse. When we have taken it, we will open the gate and a truck with a loader will enter. We will load the contents onto the truck. Daniel and I will go with the truck. The rest of you will return through the fence, get back onboard this van and follow us to another location. Understood?”
Everyone understood. As a Major, Jo had been one of Thailand’s top Special Forces officers. He was an immaculate planner and a terribly efficient killing machine. He also had a reputation for getting his people home again, and that was a big thing when you were fighting a dirty war in deep jungle miles outside your own borders. Singapore was just a jungle with concrete trees this late afternoon. The driver turned on his windscreen wipers. It was raining and evening was drawing in. The worse the visibility, the better for us. While we were having a traffic camera outage, the fewer people on the ground who could see what we were up to, the better.
“I am flying in with some of my people.” The pronouncement, which was little more than a thinly veiled threat, didn’t come as any surprise to Thomas Lu.
“I am sorry, Carlos. Somsak’s men took us by total surprise.”
“Yet you survived and Raymond didn’t?” The accusation in the elder Mendez’s voice was not disguised.
“I was using my cellphone. I had to go to the rear of the warehouse because of the bad reception. Raymond and my men were opening the container at the front when the truck burst through the main door. There were at least eight gunmen. They shot Raymond and my men without warning. I hid and escaped from a rear door. I wasn’t armed.”
Lu’s words tumbled over themselves. It was all a lie, of course, but the delivery was all the more convincing because he was a man close to panic, desperate to be believed. His life depended on making Carlos Mendez believe him.
“Sami Somsak?”
“Yes. You have heard of him?”
“Oh yes. Mr Somsak is known to us. Our paths have never crossed until now. The money, of course, didn’t burn?”
“No. The truck left before the fire.”
“Where were you by then?”
Thomas Lu hesitated.
“I was hiding in the compound,” he said, playing the coward to perfection. “I couldn’t climb the fence, so I hid until they left. The fire was raging. I left before the police arrived. I called you immediately.”
“We will hunt Somsak. Do you know where to find him?”
“I know his offices and his apartment.”
“Good. We are flying in a charter jet. We will be landing tomorrow afternoon.