Singapore Sling Shot (12 page)

I stood and stepped over the railing. There was no way I was going to waste a second and check whether Mr Smoker was dead. I didn't care. The fact he was not shooting in my direction was all that mattered.

My head was splitting from the sound of the alarms. I needed to get the hell out of there and into the water just as fast as I could. The two guys coming in through the outer door, however, seemed to have other ideas.

13

“What is happening? Have they got him?”

“I can't tell, Mr Lu,” the man on the radio responded. “They are not talking to me.”

“Call them!”

“Yes, Mr Lu.” The operator opened a channel and a ragged burst of gunfire filled the room through the radio's small speaker. The gunfire gave way to the wailing of the siren. There was no more gunfire, nothing other than the screaming alarm. The operator called out names, but he received no reply. “They are not answering, Mr Lu.”

“Send the others.”

“They are already on their way.”

Thomas Lu sank heavily down onto a chair. It was supposed to have been so simple.

“What's happening?”

The thing about gunfights, particularly in the dark, is that they generally involve a lot of chaos, and this is exactly what happened at this moment in time.

The two men came in through the double door shoulder to shoulder. Big mistake! They were silhouetted against the glare of the Singapore night sky, while I was in the almost total darkness of a windowless room.

I was lying flat on the floor and the beam of the flashlight one of the newcomers was waving about passed by above me. There was a shout and shots, but they were not fired at me. The light was focussed on the surrender tableaux away to my left. The realism of the wax figure sitting with his head turned in the direction of the intruders had startled the newcomers. The unfortunate dummy now had no head.

This momentary distraction allowed me to get away five rounds in rapid succession. It wasn't fancy, but at a range of less than ten feet it was very effective. I covered the man on the left and fired twice, then I swung the gun onto the other man, the one with the torch, and fired three more. The last round was unintentional, but things like that happen in combat, especially with an unfamiliar weapon.

The sound of my shots barely registered above that of the alarm. The newcomers were down. I then had seven rounds left in my automatic before the Browning became as useful as a doorstop.

Again I didn't stop to check on the fallen men or grab another weapon. I vaulted them and hit the landing rolling, my gun looking for a target. There were none there. No more bad guys waited on the landing or the bridge. The sky was blazing with stars and the moon was like a giant icy spotlight vying with the lights of Singapore for attention.

“Oh great,” I muttered as I started down the wide stairs. Just when I needed the cover of maximum darkness, the universe took over. I just had to get across the terrace, down the ramp, past the toilets and the lower terrace, and into the water. Easy, huh?

“Are you okay? We heard the alarms and shots?”

“I'm okay. I have it. Going for the water now.”

“Negative, Daniel. There's a Police Coast Guard boat heading straight for the fort. They'll be there before we are. Go for your entry point.”

“Okay.” I started to run for the ridge, but Sami came back to me immediately.

“Abort that. There's another launch coming in from the channel. We're going to have to bug out. Can you make the sea beyond Siloso Beach and we'll go round?”

“Roger that,” I replied. I had to get out of the fort. I started down the roadway, keeping close to the wall on the right, hugging the shadows.

The black outfit I was wearing and my blacked-out face were hopefully doing their job. I was just another shadow, albeit a fast moving one.

There were police sirens, a lot of them, and they were getting louder. Then below me, around the curve of the driveway, I could see figures coming up towards the fort. The moonlight was glinting off the guns they held ready in their hands. These most definitely were not the good guys. I was still in the shadows and I didn't think they'd seen me. I knew they would in a few seconds unless I got the hell out of there. There was only one place to go: up!

I scrambled up the steep grassy bank to my right. It bordered the driveway for half its length. There was a narrow flat terrace on top with a wide drain running down the centre. I figured that I'd have at least some cover if I needed it. I was ten or fifteen feet above the road. There had been no shouts or shots, so I had to believe they hadn't seen me.

I stopped and knelt in cover at the edge of the jungle fringe. I needed to protect Stanley's recorder if I had to hit the water again. I pulled off the backpack and put the device into the waterproof vinyl camera bag I'd earmarked for it. I zipped the bag into my pocket. It was possible I might have to ditch the backpack at some stage.

I stayed where I was and continued playing at being a shadow as the half dozen guys who were sprinting up the road pounded by below me.

The moment they were gone I started away again, keeping as low as I could, slipping into the straps of the backpack as I went. Ideally, I thought I should ditch it, but I wasn't about to leave any evidence of my presence anywhere near Fort Siloso if I could help it.

I paused at the end of the terrace. There were lights at the hotel gate down and around the corner to my right and there were lights around the aquarium buildings and the concourse itself. There didn't appear to be anyone playing sentry near the vehicle barrier or the fort ticket office, but who could tell. I had to take a chance. In the first instance, I didn't want Lu's men to get me and, in the second, I couldn't let the police catch me in the fort.

I slithered down the grassy bank to the road and started towards the shelter of the aquarium complex. I figured I could move under cover as far as the covered bus shelter and then sprint across the concourse to the beach. There I'd swim out to the nearest island, go over that and drop into the water on the far side. I was not prepared to try and negotiate the nets strung between any of the four islands in the dark.

I made it across the road and had just stepped into the aquarium grounds when the first police car came howling around the corner beyond the bus shelter with its full sound and light show going. I threw myself flat behind some shrubs as the car swept on towards the vehicle barrier at the fort gate. Doubtless the driver hadn't expected the barrier to be down because there was a screech of brakes. The car came to a tyre-smoking halt.

As the three or four police in the vehicle got out of the car and descended on the barrier, I crawled on hands and knees towards the cover of the aquarium buildings. A second police cruiser arrived in equally dramatic fashion. This one had a spotlight in operation and its powerful beam started sweeping the aquarium grounds. The white scythe came towards me and I was caught with no cover.

No cover, that is, unless you count a pool filled with bloody great turtles. There was no alternative, so I vaulted into the water as the white beam from the spotlight swept by above me. The sound of my clumsy entrance into the pool hopefully was drowned out by the sound of cars and sirens.

Now, I don't know a hell of a lot about turtles, but from what I'd seen of these huge guys on my reconnaissance run, they had beak-like mouths. I was in water that was almost chest high. I felt a boulder move under my feet and something slammed into my hip. I needed to tuck myself away in cover with all my bits hugged in tight and hope that these big guys didn't get hungry for human flesh or that the guy with the spotlight didn't get creative.

At one end of the pool was a pedestrian bridge. I half-swam and half-waded to it and ducked under. The bridge was quite wide and that gave me the room to get well under and out of sight. Turtles were nudging me. One came right up to me and surfaced. We looked at each other eyeball to eyeball in the half-light before he turned and swam away. I'm not sure if these guys are nocturnal or not, or if my sudden entry into their world just woke them up. Whatever, they were agitated. So far, although I had been pushed and nudged, I hadn't been bitten. Long may the status quo remain, I thought.

There was a mesh under the bridge that cut the turtle pool off from the neighbouring pool or, I guessed, the other half of the same pool. If I could make it into the second pool, I could maybe get beyond the aquarium complex and into the cover of the trees.

I tried the mesh but it was heavy gauge and I didn't have the tools necessary to cut it, so option number one was not available. I decided that I just had to tough it out where I was for the moment and pray the police didn't get interested in the turtle pool.

There were more police vehicles arriving and, suddenly, one, and then two flashlights were playing on the water of the pool. Another joined it. I hunched low and turn my head away from the lights. Because I was deep under the bridge, I hoped that the light would bounce off the water surface and be reflected away and not penetrate the water. I could hear the cops talking. One suggested that no one in their right mind would be in the water with the turtles. Maybe he was right!

The cops' discussion was suddenly interrupted by the sound of gunfire. Several weapons were in action back at the fort. There were shouts from the direction of the fort gate. The trio with the flashlights ran off. The turtle pool hopefully was now forgotten. This surely was my chance to get out of there.

I slipped out from under the bridge and gingerly levered myself out of the water. There were at least eight or nine police vehicles clustered on the roadway leading up to the fort. A senior officer was addressing a heavily armed squad. Other officers were under cover behind vehicles and stoneworks, pointing a variety of weapons up the fort driveway. Shots were still sounding from up above. A police helicopter was working a big light above the fort itself. Attention, it seemed, was all focused back up that way and that suited me just fine.

As I ran along the covered walkway to the bus pickup point, yet another police car came roaring down the road. I took cover behind a large standing refrigerator and waited while it passed. I could have done with some light refreshments, but the door on the drinks chiller was chained and padlocked shut. I moved on as the latest squad car screeched to a halt beside the others.

This was the moment! Keeping low, I sprinted across the broad concourse. There were no shouts or shots and I was down the wooden terraces onto the sand. Here I took shelter behind a bar kiosk while I got my bearings.

“Sami?”

“I hear you, Daniel. Have you got a plan C?”

“Why?”

“There are two police launches patrolling the sea side and another chopper heading that way. We're having to move out.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah.”

“I'll go bush and work out a plan.”

‘I'll try and come up with something.”

“Please do. My arse is feeling more than a little exposed over here,” I replied, and I really did feel like a little boy lost. Right at that moment in time I was not feeling confident of anything. The only thing I did know was that I had to get the hell away from the fort. The gunfire had stopped but there were more police sirens in the air as well as the sound of approaching choppers, a whole bunch of them. It was time to move, but God only knew where and how.

With Simone, I'd walked the beach promenade past the hotels, including the one I knew to be Lu's. That was obviously where the second wave of his gunmen had hailed from. It was now almost 01:30, the Rasa resort still had lights blazing. I was sure their guests were wondering what the hell was happening. Some of them would no doubt be thinking WW2 was being reprised.

I could see that some of the beachside bars back towards the middle of the island appeared to still be open. Or at least they had lights on. Not that that would be any help to me, especially dressed as I was. I left my temporary sanctuary and started along the beach away from the fort. I stayed off the tram road for the moment, and then a chopper came sweeping in from behind the Rasa Sentosa Resort. The million-candlepower spotlight was turning the night into day along the beach. In seconds it would catch me if I didn't move, and fast.

I ran for the jungle fringing the beach road. I knew that one of the entrances to the nature walk started close to where I was heading. If I hadn't already overshot it, I might just get into the cover of the bush.

The entrance to the trail was right in front of me. I threw myself into it and rolled into the undergrowth. I lay there head down, making like a shadow as for a moment night turned into day all around me. The chopper thudded on by and was gone, at least for a while. I imagined that any young lovers having a late-night grope out on the beach were going to get a real shock this night.

On the trail, I started to climb quickly. Height is an advantage in virtually any situation. I needed to get off the island tonight because I had no doubt that there would be police and troops scouring every centimetre of Sentosa come dawn.

I turned on my headlamp and screwed it right down to the dimmest beam possible. The track forked. One pathway, the one I'd come down with Simone, curved away to my left. However, there was an old overgrown trail going away to the right, along the side of the hill. My only way off the island was either over the bridge or by swimming. The bridge was my first option. The old trail at least led in the right direction.

“Are you still okay?” It was Sami in my ear. I answered in the affirmative as I threaded my way along the defunct pathway. The jungle was reclaiming it and in a year or so it would be gone. For now it was the equivalent of a three-lane highway for an old jungle fighter like me. Another chopper roared by overhead. Even under the cover of the trees, I shielded my lamp, dim as it was. If the machines flying above the island didn't have heat-sensitive kit fitted, I had to believe that others with that technology mounted on them would soon be here. I pushed on as quickly as I could. I climbed a small ridge and one pace beyond that was a wide concrete pathway.