Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [73]
“You will drive from Changi and down the East Coast Parkway towards the city and await further instructions.”
“We have to go to Changi. It will take us thirty minutes from where we are,” Sami lied.
“Do that. Call me when you start on the parkway!”
Thomas Lu closed his cellphone. He was almost gloating, imagining the frustration of Somsak, and imagining his ransom on its way back to him.
Lu was at the wheel of the black Lexus. Although he seldom drove himself, he was proficient enough. Despite the fact that his manpower was stretched thinly, he was confident that all would go well. A second vehicle, an anonymous older model Mazda, was waiting back on the parkway to pick up Somsak’s tail. All its occupants were armed. Not that he expected they would need their weapons. Somsak wanted his women back alive. When they parked to make the transfer in the car park beside Siglap Canal, there would be traffic and enough people around to discourage any open aggression on Somsak’s part.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay.” Jo Ankar was at the wheel of the truck. Sami was beside him. They had left the warehouse and had been sitting awaiting Lu’s call in a side street in Tampines. Now they were rolling. Given the almost non-existent traffic, thirty minutes had been an exaggerated estimate of the time they needed, but Sami hadn’t wanted Lu to have any idea where they had been based.
It took a little under ten minutes to get to the East Coast. Jo pulled them over and while they waited out the next fifteen minutes, Sami sat there and wondered what was happening on Sentosa. The moment Daniel confirmed the girls were there and that they were safe, phase two of their plan for Thomas Lu’s downfall would go into action. Despite the fact it had been created in just a matter of an hour or two, it was an elaborate plan in that it called for several things to happen in rapid succession.
At the end of it all, Sami Somsak’s aim was to have the women back, the money still in his possession, and Thomas Lu as well.
Lu sat in his Lexus and waited for the call from the Thai. Then, once he had confirmation they were moving and there was no tail, he would give them the location of the car park where the exchange would take place. He would only do that when Somsak was well down the parkway. There was no way Somsak could anticipate the meeting spot and set up an ambush.
There was definitely a lot happening inside the Silver Sands. Quong, the senior of our pair at the far end of the car park, obviously had the best vantagepoint. He called in what they were seeing. Lights had come on down the building in what they assumed was the main stairwell. He could see people moving down it through the tinted glass wall. In three rooms there were men stationed at windows looking down into the car park. They had weapons, and they were the first targets. I had to figure that the glass walls of the hotel put them at a huge disadvantage in the coming firefight.
It would, of course, be far better to get the women to safety without a shot being fired, but sometimes it’s the old eggs and omelette thing, and I preferred that the armed men’s eggs got broken, not ours.
And so we waited.
27
The women had been freed from their duct tape gags and restraints, fed and allowed to use the bathroom during the night. The two men assigned to watch over them throughout the long night had discussed raping them, but in the end they hadn’t, fearing what their absent boss might do by way of retribution. Now the four women had once again been gagged and their wrists bound together with duct tape.
The four hostages were led down the stairs towards the ground floor, herded by their two minders.
“Careful of the steps, ladies,” one said over his shoulder. Under her gag Simone DeLue snarled, wishing she had an opportunity to get her hands on the man, whoever he was.
The man sensed Simone’s outrage and smiled. He was enjoying this game. It would have been interesting to have sex with her. The man with the gun reached out and with his free hand groped the woman