Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [65]
“Amateurs,” K said as he checked for any signs of life.
“This must be it.” Jo had holstered his gun. He was looking at the markings on the container nearest the front of the warehouse. This had obviously been the last to be off-loaded. There was a big, brand-new padlock fastening the door closed.
“Is it?” I pondered aloud. I went to the second container in the line. It was unmarked and had a shoddy padlock securing it. I waved the guy with the pry bar over. I holstered my own gun, grabbed the bar and in seconds, the padlock disintegrated into scrap. I handed the bar back and Jo and I wrestled with the stubborn door release. It squealed in protest and then the heavy door swung open.
Even given the dim light, I could see that inside the container there were four large hemp and plastic-covered bales and they didn’t contain cotton. One of the bales had been split open across the top. It had been crudely resealed but two or three bank notes had caught under the plastic.
“Clever Mr Lu,” I said. The first container he had set up as a decoy, perhaps to keep even his own people from helping themselves. Jo and I went into the container. I wasn’t convinced that Lu wasn’t trying a double double-cross. I used my Gerber folding knife to rip open the re-sealed bale. Jo opened the next bale in line. Inside both were tightly packed, tightly bound bundles of banknotes.
“Good instincts, Dan,” Jo admitted. “Here’s the truck.”
There was the rumble of a heavy engine and the main door was being slid open. A big Isuzu flat-deck with a side loader reversed in. I closed the container door as the deck of the truck slid alongside. The driver leaped down and immediately started working the loading mechanism. There were short heavy chains with hooks attached to the hydraulic loading arms. When the hooks came within reach, Jo, K and I connected them to the rings welded to the container. The moment that was done, the container reared up and away. In a matter of seconds, it was on the flatbed.
“Go, go,” Jo was telling his crew. They started away towards the rear of the warehouse and the ruined door, K joining them. The truck driver was climbing back into his cab. Jo and I followed and we were away in a crunch of gears and the snarl of the big diesel.
Out front, little remained of the gatehouse. A concrete truck was sitting in the middle of the ruined building. Incongruously perhaps, the truck’s engine was still rumbling and the barrel of the mixer was rotating. The body of one of Lu’s men lay beside it.
We were out of the compound and turning onto the deserted secondary road. There were security lights on in many of the buildings lining the road and in the yards, but there were few other lights and absolutely no moving vehicles but for the truck we were in and the transit following a couple of hundred yards back.
Only our driver and Jo knew where we were going. The destination didn’t matter to me. We had done what we needed to do and for once, I hadn’t had to kill anyone. That was almost a first. I removed the balaclava and Jo did the same. Masked men in a truck would attract a little undue attention.
“We have ten minutes to get where we’re going before the cameras come back on. We’ll make it.”
“How much attention did we get from people on the ground?”
“Industrial area, late at night, continuous noise. Not much I think,” Jo replied. He was probably right. I certainly hoped so.
I pulled out my cigarettes. Jo didn’t smoke. The driver did. Jo wound down the window and we drove on through the rain. Mr Thomas Lu had just been well and truly shaken and stirred. No doubt about that!
23
The bedside telephone woke Thomas Lu from a deep dreamless sleep.