Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [68]
I turned into Scotts Road; the fire engines had stopped outside the building where Stanley’s offices, or should I say Sami’s offices, were located. I looked up. I didn’t try and count the levels, I knew it was the fifteenth floor. There were no flames, but there was smoke.
Truck ladders were rising into the sky and firemen in breathing apparatus were going inside as people streamed out of the building. Police, also in breathing apparatus, were following them in, while other officers established a safe zone. I anxiously scanned the crowd gathering on the road. Simone wasn’t amongst those I could see. Neither was Sami.
I used the cellphone again. No Simone and no reply from Sami—just their cell secretaries! I left messages and stood helplessly watching the controlled chaos unfolding. There was nothing I could do. The firemen had three snorkel units up at the fifteenth level and were streaming water into the building; but still no real flames. Hoses trailed into the downstairs foyer of the building and firemen were coming and going. The flow of evacuees had stopped. Anyone who was getting out under their own power was out, it seemed. It just remained to see who the fire crews managed to retrieve.
The ice that had threatened to sever my neck had settled in my gut. It sat there like a freezing brick. My breakfast omelette had soured and threatened to find it’s way to the back of my throat.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless in my life, just standing there watching, waiting and perhaps praying. I’ve gotten used to losing people from my life. I care for someone and they’re gone. It’s a shit equation. I’ve come so close to losing myself as well. Now it appeared to be happening all over again. Maybe Simone and Sami had got out of the building in time.
What exactly had happened? It had to be Lu, of course. I don’t believe in accidents or coincidences in my game, or what used to be my game. Lu was trying to finish the job he had botched with the truck out on the highway. An incendiary of some sort must have been used in the offices. The urgency seemed to have gone, at least as far as the firemen were concerned. Two of the snorkels were already coming back down. Had the fire not taken? What had caused it? Gasoline? A gas cylinder? Napalm?
Ambulance attendants with their gurneys were now going inside, accompanied by more cops as the firemen exited. There hadn’t been any walking wounded coming out. What exactly had gone on up there?
I was now going into professional detachment mode. It’s a survival technique. If Sami and Simone had been trapped up there, were they dead? If they had managed to escape, that was, of course, wonderful, but where the hell were they? No matter what their status, I could not change what had happened. All I could do was stay alive and stay invisible and get Thomas Lu. When I did, it would be slow and very painful. Revenge deserves time to be savoured.
“Dan!”
I turned. Jo was standing behind me, his face grim.
“Where are Sami and Simone?”
“I left Sami in the warehouse this morning. I don’t know who was in the offices. Perhaps Simone and the other girls who work there and the numbers guy. There were three of Sami’s Singapore guys as well.”
The other girls were the three additional office staff that Stanley had employed.
“If they were in there, they’re dead, they’ve escaped or Lu’s got them,” I replied. “Have you told Sami?”
“No. His cellphone appears to be switched off.”
“Damn!” I knew Sami switched off his phone when he was out on the dredge barge in the Gulf of Thailand, but why here and now? That’s the whole fucking point with cellphones: availability anywhere, anytime—yeah, right!
“No point in standing here, Dan.”
“Yeah.