by Andrew Grant
Prologue
Stanley Loh is running for his life. He is sixty-five years old. The desperate jump he made from the hotel patio into the surrounding jungle ended in a heavy landing. With a badly bruised hip, he bites back on his agony and scrambles through the tangled, thorny undergrowth to the beach road. Here he runs, but the injury, combined with his age and the onset of an asthma attack, is making movement extremely difficult for the fleeing man.
Loh lurches along the road in an ungainly, shambling, hobbling motion, trying to overcome the pain in his hip and to fight the giant burning fist that is gripping his chest. He is wheezing like a man being slowly strangled.
He looks back over his shoulder. Three men emerge from the shadows of the scaffolding that shrouds the front of the Silver Sands Hotel. They run out into the sunlight, pause, see their quarry two hundred metres away along the tram road and start after him.
The men are young, fit and armed. Just a few moments before they had been waving their guns at Loh. Now the weapons are hidden under their clothing, but their threat is just as real.
The trio begin to close in on their prey. Running like hounds chasing down an injured stag, they are gaining on Loh. Gasping with pain and struggling for breath, the injured man hobbles on.
Clutched in Stanley Loh’s left hand is the object that the hunters desperately want. It is a small digital recorder, little more than a simple electronic toy. However, the value of what is contained on the device can be measured in billions of dollars. Its true significance is that the information captured in its digital heart will either establish the dominance, or the downfall, of the master of the hounds who are relentlessly running down their quarry.
1
The fleeing man had been duped into coming to the hotel alone, and for that he accepted he was totally to blame for what happened. He knew he should have expected a trap. The others, his business associates, were supposed to have been there for a group meeting. They weren’t. He should have realised they had not come to the meeting. Their customary fleet of chauffeur-driven limousines had not been lined up in the hotel car park. Loh had missed the implication of their absence and he was now paying the price.
When he had driven in to the hotel car park there had been no vehicles parked but for a solitary dark-coloured panel van and the gold Bentley, the car he well knew belonged to Thomas Lu—the man who would have him killed.
Under renovation, the hotel had been deserted when Loh entered. Deserted but for Thomas Lu, his three henchmen and their guns.
Lu had offered Stanley Loh a deal, but it was the one deal that he could never accept. The deal was not his to make, and by not accepting it, he effectively signed his own death warrant.
Loh’s refusal had been signalled by his desperate attempt to escape from Lu and his henchmen by crashing through a patio door and throwing himself into the jungle that pressed in around the hotel.
Now Loh was cut off from his car. Unlike his missing business associates, Loh had driven himself, and because of this, he had no chauffeur or bodyguard to come to his aid.
The Mercedes, which was still sitting in the hotel car park, had a Terbutaline inhaler in the glove compartment. His other inhaler, the one he habitually carried with him at all times, was in the briefcase he had abandoned in the hotel when he had taken flight.
Stanley Loh needed help, but more than that he needed to hide the recorder that he was still clutching in his left hand. What it contained was the one thing that could wreck Thomas Lu’s grand plan.
The fleeing man knew full well that with him dead and the recorder safely in his hands, Lu would most assuredly win the billion-dollar game that was being played out.
It was mid-morning on this grey Singapore day. It was Wednesday, and it was raining. Siloso Beach to Loh’s left was deserted, but as he ran down the tram road, he could see people ahead. They were above him, milling about on the concourse beyond the Delifrance café. A tour bus was offloading umbrella and camera-wielding tourists. These dazed human sheep were gathering in a loose group waiting to be marshalled by their tour guide.
Loh gasped his way up the steps and pushed through the crowd. The desperate man guessed the tourists were Taiwanese. Loh spoke both Hokkien and Mandarin and he knew he could ask them for help in a language they would understand. But what help could they offer? They were far from their homeland and would be confused by any such request from a panting, wheezing, limping stranger. This was neither their fight nor their flight. It was solely Stanley Loh’s.
Loh stumbled on across the wide asphalt plaza. There were no taxis waiting and a red-line bus was just pulling away from the bus bay. There were people ahead and to Loh’s right. Many were moving towards the aquarium complex, while several others boarded the tram for the Fort Siloso tour. Two hotel security staff were standing at the entrance to the driveway of the Rasa Sentosa Resort. Could he find shelter in the resort? Could he make it that far? Loh’s breathing was becoming more and more difficult and his panic was building.
The Siloso tram was about to depart. It was only half-full. The driver looked at Loh as he boarded the small vehicle, unsure whether or not he was part of the pre-ticketed tour party already onboard. He turned towards the tour guide, seeking confirmation, but the guide was in conversation with one of her charges. The driver shrugged. They would sort out the ticket, or lack of it, later. He had a schedule to keep.
Loh slumped into a seat and the driver pulled away. The stricken man’s breathing was worsening and several of the passengers were staring anxiously at him. Turning in his seat, Loh saw the three young men burst through the crowd of Taiwanese tourists who were still milling about beside their coach. The trio stopped running. They stood, eyes darting around the concourse as they tried to catch sight of their quarry. Loh hunched down into his seat, but he knew he was too late. He cursed silently, sobbing for breath. One of the gunmen was looking directly at him.
The tram wasn’t moving fast, but it drew away as the three gunmen regrouped for a moment of quick conversation. One turned and raced back towards the beach while the other pair started to jog after the departing vehicle.
The tram paused for a moment at the pick-up point inside the fort gate and several more tourists boarded along with a fort guide. Loh sat trying to breathe, willing the driver to get them moving. Eventually the little tram pulled away again.
Loh watched as the two following gunmen passed the entrance to the resort. They stopped at the ticket kiosk. Because there were several other guides manning the pick-up station inside the main gate, the pair would need to buy tickets from the kiosk or risk a scene.
Stanley Loh’s reasoning proved correct. He saw one of his pursuers reaching into a trouser pocket as the tram purred on up the driveway. He lost sight of the gunmen as the vehicle rounded a corner. The sound of martial music being pumped from the fort’s sound systems filled the air.
Loh had been to Fort Siloso many times in the past; including a sponsorship function only a matter of weeks previously. Over the preceding decade and a half he had also been there with his children. He remembered the place well. Even as his breathing became more and more distressed, his panic, fuelled by the asthma’s relentless attack more than the pursuit itself, was rising. He knew he had to work out a survival strategy. He had to hide the recorder and then contact his brother and tell him what was happening.
Loh reached for his cellphone as the tram passed the guardhouse into the fort proper. He would call his brother.
The Nokia was broken. The casing was split and the screen blank. The stricken man cursed aloud as he pushed the ruined device into his pocket. When he’d jumped, the phone had been in its sheath on his belt at his right hip. It had taken much of the impact when he’d hit the g
round. Now it is useless.
The tram reached the first plateau and pulled up in front of the long, two-level building that Loh knew held the souvenir shop on the ground floor and the surrender rooms above. Suddenly he had an idea where he could hide the recorder.
The stop at The QuarterMaster Store, as the souvenir shop was known, had been to pick up another guide. Now Loh stood up and brushed past the guide as she came aboard.
“Toilet,” he managed to blurt out as he stepped down. The guide pointed down the slope to a building set below the plateau. Loh knew very well where the toilets were, but he had no intention of going in that direction. He waved the driver on.
The tram started off again, heading on up into the fort complex. Loh turned to look back the way he had come. The two remaining gunmen were jogging into view on the driveway below. They were almost at the guardhouse and they had seen their quarry. Like the hounds they were emulating, they increased their pace. There was no sound of baying; rather the sound of bugles and drums fill the air above the rasping of Stanley Loh’s breath.
Loh started for the steps to the left of The QuarterMaster Store. These stairs he knew led to the surrender rooms. Gasping as his asthma continued to tighten its terrible grip on him, Stanley Loh staggered up the stairs. This was the exit from the surrender rooms. He didn’t care. As he stumbled into the foyer, he hoped that there was no one in the nearest chamber.
The sliding door into the long surrender room stood open. Loh knew that this room was a replica of those used in WWII. Beyond it was a much smaller room where the Allies had surrendered to the Japanese signalling the fall of Singapore.
In the long room mannequins of uniformed soldiers and sailors stood against the walls. Seated at long tables on either side of the central walkway were figures of the surrendering Japanese and their Allied victors. Some were signing or studying the surrender documents, others were just sitting staring blankly at nothing.
The wax figures, although crude, created a powerful aura. But Loh wasn’t interested in the historic significance of the tableaux laid out in front of him. There was no living person in this room other than himself. He could hear voices in the room beyond, above the sound of the recorded commentary.
He stumbled on, gasping like a broken steam engine. He was still clutching the tiny digital recorder in his left hand. The device was a little larger than a cigarette lighter. He stopped. Now he could see what he was looking for—the perfect hiding place. Loh moved forward, pressing against the wooden railing. He stretched desperately to reach his goal.
As he leaned across the railing to secrete the tiny silver device amongst the frozen figures of the tableaux, a buzzer sounded. He had broken an invisible sensor beam and triggered the alarm. Desperately, Stanley Loh stilled his gasping for a moment and by leaning as far as he could without falling over the thigh-high railing, he managed to slip the recorder into the hiding place he had selected.
Satisfied that the recorder couldn’t be seen, at least by any casual observer, Loh withdrew and the buzzer immediately stopped sounding. But now he wanted the alarm to sound. He needed to summon help. His asthma attack would kill him if he didn’t get aid, and soon. He also needed people around him as protection against Lu’s thugs.
Loh collapsed to his knees and leaned against the railing, his arms dangling inside it. He had intentionally broken the invisible beam again and the buzzer sounded.
The guide escorting a party of tourists through the first of the surrender rooms came rushing into the long room in response to the reactivated buzzer alarm. She saw the gasping man sprawled across the railing.
“Sir?” the young girl called urgently. “Sir, are you all right?” The guide tentatively touched Loh’s shoulder and he slowly turned, letting his arms fall to his sides. He had done it; hidden the recorder and gained the attention he so desperately needed.
“Asthma,” he managed to gasp. “Doctor!” Stanley Loh was now sitting on the floor, his back against the display’s railing. The girl ran for the exit door to find a telephone in the shop below. As she left, the two pursuing gunmen entered the chamber. They stopped when they saw Stanley Loh sitting on the floor at the far end of the room. There were people gathering near the stricken man. The tour group had followed their guide through from the other room to see what had been causing the commotion.
One of the gunmen made a decision. He rushed towards Loh and squatted beside him. Loh, barely conscious now, felt the man’s hands searching his pockets. To an observer it would have seemed that the man was perhaps a colleague of the stricken man and that he was searching for Loh’s inhaler, because the distressed wheezing indicated that an asthma attack was in full flight. With a grunt of triumph, the gunman removed the cellphone from Loh’s pocket. His momentary triumph turned into a snarl of frustration when he realised that he was holding a ruined cellphone and not the digital recorder. He dropped the remains of the Nokia onto Loh’s thighs and stood.
Loh was conscious enough to see the cold, hateful look in the man’s eyes. He knew that without the presence of the tourists, the gunman would be breaking his fingers or worse.
“I’m a doctor, let me see him!” The voice belonged to a tall, overweight European in long, voluminous khaki shorts. From his position on the floor Loh noticed, almost distractedly, that the man’s legs were fat, white and very hairy. The man knelt beside Loh. There was a wide-brimmed hat and a startlingly red, bushy moustache. The face was sunburnt but the eyes, behind their rimless glasses, were kind. “Asthma attack?”
Loh nodded. The accent he recognised as Australian. The gunman, still standing nearby, reluctantly moved away.
“No inhaler on you?”
The stricken man managed to shake his head.
“Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, my wife is asthmatic,” the doctor said. He held out a large hand and the woman standing behind him, plump and bleached-blonde, also wearing baggy shorts, rummaged in her large shoulder bag. She found an object and put it into the doctor’s hand.
“Terbutaline, is this what you take?” The doctor held the puffer for his newest patient to see. Loh nodded and reached for the inhaler. He took it from the doctor’s palm and gratefully sucked the life-saving drug into his lungs. He wanted more, but the doctor gently took the inhaler back. “No, that will allow you to get to hospital. Technically what I’ve just done is illegal,” he said as he straightened. “However, sometimes we need to break the law to save lives.”
“Thank you,” Loh said. As the doctor stood, he could see that the gunman who’d searched him had withdrawn only as far as the end of the room. There he was standing with his accomplice, waiting, watching. The guide who had run downstairs to call for help pushed past them and came rushing back to where Loh was sitting.
“The ambulance is on its way,” she said.
Stanley Loh nodded his thanks and closed his eyes. Even if he had the energy to move, he couldn’t retrieve the recorder with all the people present, particularly Lu’s henchmen. He would go to hospital and get control of his asthma. Later he could arrange to return to collect it and present it to his associates. Before that, however, he would call his brother in Bangkok from the hospital and tell him everything that had taken place. Stanley Loh was his brother’s emissary in Singapore. He was the smiling public face for a man who preferred to remain in the shadows.
Standing on the terrace outside The QuarterMaster Store, Lu’s gunmen, along with a handful of tourists and fort staff, watched as the ambulance attendants loaded Loh into their vehicle. A few seconds later, as it roared away under flashing sirens and lights, the pair made their way back to the larger of the surrender rooms. They knew the recorder was hidden somewhere in the long room and they intended to retrieve it if they could.
Luck was against them. The constant stream of visitors through the surrender rooms didn’t allow the gunmen to do anything other than stand helplessly behind the barriers and vainly try to guess where the recorder might be hidden. To find it, they knew they
would have to get into the display area and rummage through it, a section at a time.
Eventually, the guides started to become suspicious of the pair’s continued presence. Lu’s two thugs left the fort. One kept watch at the main entrance while the other returned to the hotel to face the wrath of their master.
2
In Singapore General Hospital, Stanley Loh was given sedatives and steroids which gradually got his asthma under control. Despite the admonishment from the attending physician, he managed to get a telephone brought to his bed. He made the call to his brother, but encountered only the computerised voice of the answer service. Loh quickly detailed everything that had happened.
At a few minutes to four that afternoon, Stanley Loh left Singapore General Hospital by taxi. Still under the influence of strong sedatives, he was not tempted to return to Sentosa to attempt to retrieve his car. He would have someone do that for him.
On the ride back to his home on Goodwood Hill, Loh went over the events of the day and those leading up to it. The one fact that kept coming back to him, and the one he silently cursed himself for, was that he knew he should have seen it coming. The final attempt at bribery and the attempt on his life. Perhaps if Thomas Lu had not seen the recording device, he may have managed to stall his answer and perhaps even walk free from the hotel. However, once Lu had seen the recorder, knowing full well what was on it, there was no way that he, Stanley Loh, would be able to leave the deserted hotel alive—other than by doing what he had done and thrown himself off the patio.
At the ornate iron gate leading into his house, Loh paid the cab driver, giving him a generous tip. As the taxi pulled away, he fumbled to key in the gate’s digital combination. Normally, when he was in one of his three cars, a remote sensor opened the gate as the vehicle approached it.
The van was parked thirty metres down the road. The vehicle was dark in colour and almost invisible in the shade of the late afternoon sun and the dense jungle fringe.
