Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [69]
Jo led as we edged our way through the crowd and back towards Orchard. The Mercedes was double-parked down on a side road. We got in. Jo told the driver to head back to Pasir Ris. Jo and I sat in silence as the driver took us on what seemed to be an around-the-island tour. Yes, I knew why, but for once I wanted the direct route and to hell with the CCTV cameras. I needed to find out what had happened to Simone.
I tried her cellphone again and got the damn computer secretary once more.
I pondered exactly what I was going to do to Mr Thomas Lu when I got my hands on him. I imagine Jo was also following that line of thought. Maybe when the time came, we would have to toss a coin to see who got the right to make the man pay.
Thomas Lu smiled at the four women who sat on the chairs in front of him. Two were Chinese, one was Indian and the other, the attractive blonde, was very much of European extraction. The women were gagged with duct tape and their hands were in front of them, also bound with the tape.
They were in the virtually bare penthouse suite at the Silver Sands Hotel, although the women didn’t know this. Painters’ drop cloths had been used to cover the windows. They had had pillowcases pulled over their heads before they were bundled into the elevator and taken from the office down into the basement car park and the van that was used to transport them to Sentosa. They had no idea where they were.
“We will now see if Mr Somsak values his employees at two billion dollars,” Lu purred. The women were staring back at him with wide eyes. They blinked at the amount of money, but they had no idea what this man was talking about. None of them even knew who the man was.
Lu’s trio of thugs had disarmed the single guard in the basement car park. The fighting women had distracted the man. The pantomime had been very effective. The man in the garage had not paid any attention to the delivery van. He had been knocked unconscious, bound and gagged and left in a utility cupboard. Lu’s men had then disabled the alarm and made their way up the fire escape to the door to the fifteenth floor. On their cue, the fighting women had taken the elevator to the fifteenth floor and distracted the guards. It had worked to perfection.
The women had been easily subdued. A can of gasoline was liberally spread throughout the offices. Lu’s men left the unconscious guards where they lay and set the fire. They used the keyed elevator to get back to the basement. High above, the fire erupted as the van left the car park.
Lu was pleased. The whole operation had gone like clockwork. He had Somsak’s people. The Thai would return the money and the women would go free. He was sure that Sami Somsak would do it. Already, an emissary was on his way to Somsak’s apartment to deliver the ultimatum along with the number of the cheap, prepaid cellphone that sat on Thomas Lu’s desk.
The message, computer printed onto a single sheet of paper, was simplicity itself:
Give me my money or I will send your women back to you in pieces. You have until seven this evening to contact me.
A cellphone number was printed in place of a signature.
The only thing that spoilt this moment was the fact that the members of the Intella syndicate had each received a copy of the recording Stanley Loh had made. One of Lu’s friends had contacted him to inform him of the fact. He was now on the outside. However, Thomas Lu had a plan to get himself back into the closed circle. First, though, he wanted his money back and Sami Somsak dead.
25
Sami’s cellphone had expired. It was as simple an explanation as that. The damn thing had simply run flat. Isn’t that always the way with electronics? When you need the fucking things, they die on you.
We returned to the scene. The police were there, of course. I’d stayed well out of things while Sami fronted. No, he didn’t know what was going on. No, he had no idea who had attacked his people or why. He, of course, suggested it was linked to the death of his stepbrother. He had come to Singapore to bury his dead