Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [79]
“Go, go, go!” Sami called. Jo dogged the container door shut and ran back along the side of the truck’s deck for the cab. The gardeners’ truck was backing up. The gardeners were dragging the fallen gunmen together. Sami joined them. Like cords of wood, the dead were tossed into the back of the truck. Weapons were collected and tossed in as well, along with the gardening props.
While the explosions out on the parkway continued, the truck bearing the container, followed by the gardeners’ truck, started out down the car park. All they left behind were two abandoned vehicles, some bloodstains and spent cartridge cases.
“Total chaos,” Sami said as they drove for the exit. The flames from the Toyota were still licking at the sky. Vehicles were stopped on the far side of the parkway and traffic from Changi had slowed. Every eye was still focussed on the blaze. What had or had not happened in the car park would remain something of a mystery that would take the police weeks to unravel. Yes, some people had witnessed what had happened, but they doubted their eyes and their sanity. This was so alien, so surreal, and this was Singapore where nothing ever happened—or so their totally logical brains told them.
“Thank you, Tam Yin Fireworks,” Jo said. The occasional spurt of flames still kicked off skyward from the burning truck. He glanced in his mirrors. The gardeners were on their tail as the two vehicles reached the parkway and joined the traffic flow. Because vehicles approaching the burning truck from the direction of Changi had slowed to see what was happening, the parkway ahead was relatively clear, a fact that both trucks took advantage of. Within minutes, they had turned off the parkway and into the maze of side streets that would make them all but invisible to the all-seeing eyes of the CCTV cameras.
29
Two days had passed since the latest shootout. Sami had the money and Thomas Lu. The threat Lu had represented was no more, but that still left the Mendez brothers. According to Sami’s inside man, Lu had made no secret that he had put Sami Somsak on the Colombians’ radar as the man who had killed their younger brother and stolen their money.
The complete chaos following the latest Sentosa gun battle and the mayhem at the East Coast Parkway had the authorities up in arms. CCTV footage was being scrutinised. Thankfully, Sami’s inside information on the coverage blank spots and the absolute red zones had so far been invaluable, allowing our people to be as invisible as possible on the streets.
Sami’s crew had been busy. The container truck was stripped down for scrap. The gardeners’ truck with its bodies still aboard had been abandoned and still not found. Now it was very much a matter of sitting tight and riding out the storm. There was nothing concrete to connect the latest episodes to the previous ones, but that didn’t mean forensics experts weren’t trying. All the weapons used in the episode had been melted down in a foundry.
The police had been to see Sami several times. His staff members had been returned unharmed. The kidnappers had been Chinese. They had been masked so the hostages couldn’t identify them. They had their heads covered and they had been bound. They had been taken to a warehouse, at least that’s what they thought. They had not been harmed. There had been talk of a ransom. Then one of the kidnappers had received a phone call. They’d heard him exclaim “Sentosa”. The men seemed to have panicked, the women said. They had their hoods put back on and they were put into a van and driven off. They had been dropped close to MacRitchie Reservoir and it was from there they had phoned Mr Somsak, who’d arranged to pick them up. They had then reported to the police.
The reality was, of course, that Sami, in exchange for a great deal of money and ongoing allowances, had orchestrated their story. None of them would ever have to