Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [78]
Sami turned to look back towards the gardener’s truck. This game was boring him. It was time to bring it to its conclusion. He cradled his plastered arm with his free hand as if in pain. His fingers found the transmit button on the radio. He depressed it twice. He didn’t turn to look, but he knew that the gardeners, who had been noisily positioning themselves, playing their parts with enthusiasm, had begun to move closer.
The man with the petrol-powered weed eater was cutting the grass on the mound behind the truck. One of Lu’s men was facing his way, watching him idly, while the other was watching what was going on in the container.
Inside the container, Lu was still fondling the money the driver had been handing him. The driver was preparing to open the fourth bale now. Lu felt that indeed the money was all there. He was smiling.
Sami Somsak glanced around again. The small truck was sitting on the far side of the parkway, almost directly opposite the car park. His other men were all in position and Lu’s thugs still had no idea. The weed eater spluttered and died. The man using it cursed. He unfastened the harness and, leaving the machine on the grass, walked off grumbling towards the truck parked twenty metres away. The bodyguard who had been watching him laughed.
“Idiot,” he said to his compatriot. “Next time, he will be sure to fill it before he starts.”
As the grumbling man walked by, one of his fellow gardeners called to him. “Bring me my lunchbox, I’m hungry.”
“It’s not even breakfast time, Garbage Guts,” came the response. Both men laughed. Sami frowned, hoping they weren’t overacting. Lu’s watchers standing behind the truck seemed relaxed. They were exchanging words, laughing. Perhaps the comedy show was working.
At the truck the grumbling man retrieved a red and yellow petrol can and a small plastic box and started back towards his weed eater. He tossed the lunchbox to his companion with more insults and carried on.
As he approached his weed eater, he passed the two men standing behind Sami Somsak. He made a show of unscrewing the top of the plastic fuel container. He was still grumbling. Lu’s men laughed.
Sami pressed the button on his radio handset three times. A second later, the morning was ripped apart by a massive explosion. The van on the far side of the parkway exploded in a fireball.
Every eye in the lay-by and out on the parkway, with the exception of those who were expecting it, was drawn to the huge fireball that mushroomed into the sky. At precisely the same moment as the van exploded, the gardener with the plastic fuel container dropped it. From under his shirt he produced a silenced Browning automatic. He shot the near pair of Lu’s men three times each as they stood only feet away, staring at the spectacle that was taking place across the parkway.
At the same instant that the explosion occurred, the gardener who had called for his lunchbox produced another silenced automatic. He shot the man standing watch beside the front of the truck three times. The man fell to the ground without a sound. Sami Somsak took care of the fourth man who was standing at the rear of the container. Lu’s man was caught between watching the activities inside the truck and the noise of the explosion.
The bodyguard’s attention was split and for that he died when the blade of the razor sharp stiletto Sami Somsak was carrying secreted in his forearm plaster drove into the man’s back, severing his spine. A second knife thrust found his heart.
Thomas Lu heard the explosion and started moving towards the container door. He saw his bodyguard collapse and raised his automatic. Sami Somsak, who was standing over the fallen body, was smiling up at him.
Jo Ankar, the obedient truck driver, pounced on Thomas Lu from behind and drove the long blade of the knife he was holding into Lu’s right shoulder. An expert with any blade, Jo twisted the knife viciously and expertly to cause the maximum damage.
The shiny stainless steel automatic fell from Lu’s numbed fingers and bounced