Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [97]
As I lay there, I heard the symphony of death and destruction with total clarity. Part of me, the professional me, was analysing the sounds, dividing them into a macabre list.
When a projectile of any sort impacts with a human body, there is always a sound. Hit through the chest, human lungs and the diaphragm often pop like balloons. Meatier slaps tell of hits to the heavier areas of the body, a strike in the head sounds like a leather pillow being struck hard with a baseball bat. All of these sounds and more I heard as the roar of the explosions rolled on over me.
I looked up, and above me the face of an angel appeared silhouetted against the grey sky. I had a glimpse of her bending towards me, her expression more blank than beautiful. Then my world went as black as death itself.
Thomas Lu was waiting for word that his plan had succeeded. The sound of sirens had filled the Singapore evening. News reports speculated that a terrorist bomb had exploded in Choa Chu Kang Cemetery. Police and military units had sealed off the entire area. A stream of ambulances was reported running a shuttle between the cemetery and both the National University Hospital and Singapore General Hospital.
It was mid-morning and Thomas Lu was seated in front of the wide-screen television in his study. He hadn’t moved since the explosion. The device used in the cemetery had contained a radio receiver and an electric detonator. Several of his people had been watching from a distance using a high-powered video camera trained on the Christian cemetery. They had waited, as instructed, until the service had begun, and then the bomb had been detonated.
Lu smiled. It was a thin smile, one without any humour whatsoever. The bomb had been more than just a simple device. With several kilograms of C4 explosive at its core, and sandwiched top and bottom with thick steel plates, hundreds of steel ball bearings had been packed around the core. When the device had been detonated, the plates contained the vertical upwards and downwards force of the blast just long enough to send the deadly swarm of the shrapnel blast out of the coffin like a deadly scythe.
The bomb had been the handiwork of one of Lu’s newest recruits, an Afghani-born bomb maker, a master of deadly IED booby traps who had perfected his art in decades of conflict in his own country before seeking gainful employment in Asia.
“The authorities have not yet provided us with casualty figures,” one of the newsreaders was saying. The young woman was trying to maintain her most professional face, but she was failing. Her male counterpart, a man probably fifteen years her senior, was doing little better. Underlying the makeup, the pair’s faces struggled to hide the shock they were both feeling. They had seen live footage of the carnage that had taken place via their own news teams. The general public had not seen those terrible images and probably never would.
“Estimates are that between twenty and twenty-five people have been killed and at least the same number again were injured, many of them seriously. It is not known who detonated the device or for what reason.”
Lu sat back in his seat and this time, he did allow himself a smile, a genuine one. There was no way that anyone in the immediate vicinity of the coffin and the graveside could have survived. Sami Somsak and his inner circle must have died. Somsak was human and not a superman, and even if he’d been wearing a bulletproof vest or full body armour, he would have died in the blast.
Lu rang the bell on his desk. It was time to indulge in a little celebration. He would have his secretary make a phone call and summon company. For the rest of this day and long into the evening, he would not celebrate alone.
Call made, Thomas Lu switched channels. The bombing was the lead story on CNN as well. He