Authors: Eric Alagan
Code Shield
CODE SHIELD
A Peek into Singapore's Secret Services
A Novel By
Eric Alagan
Contents
Dedicated to my First Born
Alicia
With clenched fists and pursed lips
Wrinkled brow and shut eyes
Whither into this unknown?
A realized dream you are,
A renewed bond you wrought,
A sunburst into our lives.
Worlds two, blended in perfection,
With song and music in harmony,
Wisdom, behold your child.
A woman now,
A child still,
A true gift of God.
Prologue
Tara first met him at the Singapore Arts Festival in Moscow. As she scanned the room, she caught the eye of the tall man whose six feet four frame was a head taller than most of the people at the reception. Their eyes met and as she continued to skim the room, she knew that he repeatedly looked her way. She had that effect on most men, thanks to the stunning good looks that her Indian-Chinese parentage had bestowed on her.
Working the crowd, Tara took care to avoid his direction but knew that he was watching her. Peeling away from a knot of people, she strolled towards a table with an empty stemware in her hand.
“Vladimir Plustarch, Russian Police.”
Hearing the faintly stammering voice, Tara turned and looked up into eyes of crystal aquamarine. He had boyish good looks, small well-chiselled teeth and blonde hair that crawled in tight curls on his head.
She noticed his well-manicured hands, just the way she liked her men. Then, there was his broad smile â
“Banks,” she replied, returning his smile and taking his outstretched hand. “Tara Banks, cultural attaché.”
They met again during the intermission, exchanged more smiles and made some deliberately safe and forgettable talk.
During the performance, she noticed him studying her from his balcony. At the post-performance reception, he held her eyes in his for a pronounced second before slipping away behind the door.
Okay
thought Tara. She excused herself and slipped out the door. In the special lot for diplomatic staff, she found her black BMW. Though her eyes were on the sleek salon, her senses swept the surroundings. A tiny smile lifted the corner of her lips as she slipped behind the steering wheel.
There was a light tap on the driver's side window.
Plustarch leaned forward, a bottle and two glass flutes clutched in one gloved hand.
“Champagne?” he asked, wearing that broad permanent smile. A heavy black overcoat draped him and a white silk scarf around his neck wafted in the breeze.
She wound down the window, taking in his soft and easy smile and noticed the hint of hard muscle beneath his clothes.
“That's very subtle,” she replied, her voice tinkling with a tiny laughter.
“The champagne or the white scarf?” he asked, grinning and stammering as he spoke, as though grappling with the translation in his mind.
“The fact that you're not Russian Police,” she smiled, her eyes half closed as she slowly moved her right hand away from the centre console.
“Ouch!” The icy wind froze and snatched away his breath. “Is it that obvious?”
“So, who're you with, SVR, FSB or god forbid, the GRU?”
“Does it really matter?” He leaned down, his face close to hers, a musky cologne emanating from him. “Any more than you're not a cultural attaché.”
“Ah, a dark night, one for secrets,” whispered Tara, her voice turning husky.
“I'm intrigued. Your car or mine?”
“Mine,” replied Tara.
“Your place or mine,” asked Plustarch.
Tara smiled and slipped over to the passenger seat. “I feel like a swim.”
For a moment, the tall Russian hesitated. Then he threw his head back with a short laugh. Opening the door of the Beemer, he slipped behind the wheel and adjusted the mirrors,
“I'm impressed. What else do you already know about me?”
On that first night, she dived into the pool in the nude. He dropped his clothes and followed suit.
About two hours later, the champagne bottle dipped in the ice bucket, its butt pointing to the ceiling of the heated pool.
He watched her pull up her clothes over her damp taut body and the thought struck him.
“I can assure you I had no hidden microphones in my clothes.” He anchored his elbows over the edge of the pool, his legs floating idly under him in the water. “But I'm not complaining about the precaution you took.”
“Neither am I,” said Tara, as she buttoned her shirt, her sharp nipples both teasing and challenging him. She twisted her hair and secured it with a broad clip, careful not to dislodge the Cartier ear studs.
Blowing him a kiss, she swung her jacket over her shoulder and walked away, her heels echoing within the confines of the pool on the rooftop of his apartment block.
“How do I reach you?” he called after her.
“I'll call you,” she kept strutting away, without looking back, placing one foot directly in front of the other, her shoulders back and pelvis slightly forward. “Yasenevo is not too far away.”
As she cat-walked into the elevator, she heard him burst out laughing.
The two technicians had their hands pressed against their headphones and looked at each other, puzzled. They were one of several dozen people working the night shift in the headquarters building of the SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service situated in Yasenevo.
Back in her apartment, a few hundred metres from the Singapore embassy, Tara read Uncle Smiley's cryptic reply on her laptop.
Priority IndoTel. Locate the Mole
.
Tengli, the sovereign fund's attempt to acquire a controlling stake in the Indonesian broadband network, IndoTel, was a âdone deal' until the Russian contenders learned of the terms and payoffs. Word leaked to the media and a feeding frenzy ensued â politicians who had their palms stuck out found themselves limbless and distanced themselves from the Singaporean buyers.
Opposition politicians raised questions about national sovereignty and security in the Indonesian parliament, the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat or DPR. Outside the parliament house, youths wearing handkerchief masks and balaclavas burned Singapore flags and sang nationalistic songs. Police charged the demonstrators with batons and one university student died of gunshot, though no one knew who fired the fatal shot.
Commentators drew dark parallels to the shooting of students during the riots of May 1998 that had led to the downfall of the former president, Suharto.
The DPR aborted the IndoTel deal to much jubilation on the streets.
Six months later, a Russian conglomerate acquired IndoTel on terms reportedly much better than Tengli's offer. Further investigations by Singapore revealed the hidden hand of the Russian Mafiya behind the conglomerate.
Singapore suspected Jakarta of the leaks but before they got to the possible sources, the people disappeared. Tengli brought in outside investigators, screened every employee on their payroll and their affiliations but drew blanks.
Tara provided the first break â the leak came from Moscow. The source remained unidentified but she was confident of unmasking it. However, days later she found her informer, Biryukov, his fingers crushed before someone had put a bullet in his head.
Tara typed the keys, the message automatically encrypted, relayed via satellite and decoded on the Singapore end.
Affirmative. Out. Shield
.
Chapter 1
The two men pulled up before the blue metal gates of New Phoenix Park, home to the Singapore Police Force and most of the agencies comprising the Home Team. The guard recognised the car and lowered the row of bollards into the ground, as the heavy metal gate slid open. The two men drove over the speed hump, stopped for security scans and identity checks.
Within minutes Mohamed Zain, Director of the Central Narcotics Bureau or CNB, strode briskly into the foyer of the imposing building.
His young pale-skinned colleague lagged behind, unwilling to keep pace.
The quiet Saturday afternoon accentuated their footfalls ricocheting off the long marble corridor. They walked through the metal detector as their briefcases went through x-ray. A guard saw them approach and held the elevator door open.
The older man glanced at his wristwatch as they rode up the elevator. Though they had called in that they would be three minutes late, Zain was intent on making up for lost time.
“We've kept the Minister and the Perm Sec waiting,” mumbled Zain, 54 years old, a thirty-year veteran in drug enforcement and one year away from retiring from the CNB.
“Only by three minutes,” said Colin Lowe, 33 years old, government scholar, fast tracked to Assistant Director of Operations, CNB. He added dismissively, “They can wait.”
The doors swung open inwards.
Zain apologised for their delay. The waiting people greeted the pair with hardly perceptible nods and grunts.
There were not two but five people around the highly polished table, including Steven Teo, Minister for Home Affairs; Reginald Lee, Permanent Secretary from the Prime Minister's Office or PMO; and a young man and woman, deputy directors from Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs respectively. There was also a sullen looking middle-aged man, another deputy director.
The room, all deep veneer and wood panelled, was still warm and the air stale, the air conditioning turned on only moments earlier. On one wall, an opaque
pull-down screen stood ready. Above the screen were studio portraits of the President and First Lady.
The early arrivals nursed cups of coffee and tea. Before them lay dossiers which bore the eight-pointed star and crest of the CNB.
Zain retrieved a thumb drive from his slim briefcase and inserted it into one USB port of the bank protruding from the table surface. He waited with a scowl for the virus scan.
Lowe had walked over to Minister Teo. The younger man's uncle, a former defence minister, had sent his regards to the Minister.
Zain saw Minister Teo's stiff smile and knew the older man did not relish Lowe's attempts to remind him that he, the minister, was once the former defence minister's protégé.
Lowe then spoke to Lee from PMO and worked his way down to the two deputy directors, young mandarins specially handpicked and groomed by the government as part of their long-term succession plan.