Code Shield (2 page)

Zain exhaled softly as Lowe greeted everyone with a dismissive familiarity.

The sullen faced deputy director, small built, in his late sixties, wore a permanent frown and made known his distaste for Lowe's attempts at familiarity. He took the young man's hand in a limp handshake, accepted the business card proffered but did not offer his own.

“I've run out of cards,” declared the older man, his tone glacial and his demeanour remote, living up to the nickname his co-workers had given him, Uncle Smiley.

There was a ping. Zain pulled out the thumb drive and inserted it into the beamer. The screen on the wall flickered to life, drawing the attention of the people gathered in the room.

The CNB Director walked to the front of the room just as the first slide came on. It was a map of the world wrapped in a globe. After another quick apology for their delay, Zain plunged into his narrative.

“The Chinese are building a deep water harbour here, on Zadetkyi Kyun, pronounced ‘chun' and not ‘kewn' or if you like, Saint Matthew's Island as the British called it.”

Zain touched the red spot on the island off mainland Myanmar and images of construction activity sprang to life, the slide show changing frames every few seconds.

“The Burmese are paying for the construction with rice grain. The PRC government sells the grain to this man, Rong Gyui.”

Zain clicked the control and a picture of a middle-aged Chinese man appeared.

Rong was in a dark sober suit; his jet-black hair gelled and combed back and his eyes shaded by mirrored sunglasses. He was visiting a construction site with an escort of similarly attired executives. Another group made up of heavily medalled generals, in the khaki uniform of the Burmese military, accompanied them. The Chinese man pointed to the distance and all eyes in the group looked in the direction he pointed.

Zain continued, “Rong Gyui was a former general in the PLA stationed along the Burmese border. He spent a decade there, containing Shan guerrillas and raiding poppy plantations in the Golden Triangle.”

Everytime Zain touched a red spot on the screen, picture slides came alive, and this time of poppy plants in bloom somewhere in the mountainous confluence of the Burmese, Thai and Laotian border regions.

“After retiring from the PLA, Rong set up several trading businesses in Ruili in Yunnan, engaged in cross border trade with the Burmese military in Muse.” Zain pointed out the red dots, which ballooned to reveal almost identical border towns cut by dusty streets cramped with laden trucks and zippy motor scooters.

The CNB Director touched and dragged the map with his finger. An aerial view of Singapore took centre stage of the screen, resulting in a noticeable increase in the level of interest all around.

“Six months ago Rong secured a supply contract with our GLC Supermarts and started exporting the rice to us.”

Minister Teo interrupted and explained for the benefit of the two fresh faced deputies, “We import most of our rice from Thailand and smaller amounts from elsewhere. Myanmar gives us another leg to stand on.” The grey haired man nodded for Zain to continue.

“Thank you Minister. Rong supplies both rice grains and flour. That's where the business stopped being legit. The imports are brought into their factory here in Tuas,” Zain touched the screen and the image zoomed down the map of Singapore.

A factory in Tuas Industrial Estate appeared and filled the screen. Again, the slide show scrolled every few seconds, this time showing various shots of the factory premises, including the production facilities and the surroundings.

“The sacks of rice are bona fide but the flour is rinsed and repacked –” Zain explained, raising a peremptory hand but the young woman deputy beat him to it.

“Why would anyone want to rinse flour?”

“I'm getting to that. Though they claim it is flour, actually it is broken rice.” Zain picked his words slowly as he continued,

“They mix the broken rice with high-grade heroin.” The CNB man paused, allowing a moment for the message to sink in. “Once in their Tuas factory, they separate the heroin through a wash and rinse process. The adulteration is one part heroin to twenty thousand parts rice, too minute for the dogs to pick up.”

Seeing the perplexed faces on the two young mandarins, Zain read off his notes, “For every ten kilogram bag of broken rice, they mix half a gram of heroin. That is 1000 bags of rice per 20 foot container, 500 grams of heroin.”

“Damn, how many containers are imported from these guys?” asked Minister Teo.

“Thirty containers every three months for our consumption and another thirty transhipped to the US and Japan,” replied Zain.

“What does this mean in dollar figures?” asked Lee from PMO.

“It's sold in what they call dime-bags at US ten dollars apiece. One kilo would fetch about US$ 200,000 on the streets,” replied the Director.

“That's five kilos per month with a potential street value of one million dollars,” Lowe had done the mathematics and looked up, pleased with himself. “With another one million dollars' worth heading towards Japan and the US.”

Zain continued, “Yes, thank you Colin. We believe these are mere dry runs and set to increase to tens of millions of dollars a month.”

“You mentioned the heroin is dissolved and removed in water. How do they extract the heroin from the water?” asked Lee.

“Unfortunately, we had inadvertently helped them with that technology,” ventured Zain, emphasizing the ‘we'.

“How so?” Lee sat upright, throwing a glance at the Minister.

“They use membrane technology which Singapore developed, the same technology that helps us recycle water –”

“Several years ago Singapore supplied water treatment plants to China. Looks like our membrane technology had fallen into the hands of Rong's crowd,” added the Minister for the benefit of the two young deputies. “Please continue Zain.”

“Thank you Minister. The plant in Tuas has a high proportion of Chinese nationals on employment passes. Many of their executives are ex-military from the 436th People's Field Army.”

“Rong's former unit?” asked the Minister.

“That's correct sir. We slipped a mole into the Tuas factory. That's how we managed to secure the images you saw earlier.”

The female deputy asked, “How did the CNB get wind of this in the first place?”

“The Americans alerted us. As you might know, their DEA is very active in the Golden Triangle, agents on the ground.”

The Minister interjected, “How do they ship the heroin out of Singapore, drug mules?”

“We don't know for sure but that's a distinct probability. We're keeping Tuas under twenty-four-by-seven surveillance.”

“I don't understand. If this isn't for local consumption, why bring in the drugs in the first place, especially with the death penalty here?” asked the young male deputy.

“We're victims of our own success,” the Minister let his breath out slowly. “Nevertheless, the cartels continue to use us as a major transhipment point. They gamble that Singapore stamped passports lull foreign police agencies into complacency. Of course, they gamble it with the lives of their drug mules, both willing and coerced.”

His presentation over, Zain reclaimed his seat beside Lowe, taking great pains not to eavesdrop on the muted conversation opposite him.

After a few moments, everyone leaned back on his or her seats and Minister Teo said, “What does CNB recommend?”

“Make no arrests until we uncover where the trail leads to. We know the supplier; let's locate their customers,” suggested Zain, to nods from the Minister and everyone.

“Okay, we proceed as CNB suggests, keep us updated at least once a week –.” The Minister stopped, lent his ear to Lee and continued,

“Yes, after he received the initial report PM decided we handle this as a special project. Lee is in charge.” The minister closed his file.

Zain noticed that Uncle Smiley, realising the session was over, engaged in a brief whispered conversation with the Minister, apologised and excused himself. He ignored everyone else in the room.

The bland, grey man had left behind Lowe's business card on the table.

Chapter 2

About two thousand kilometres away in the Philippines province of Camarines Sur, the Guzman family watched the European man depart in his rented four-wheel drive. The entire village had turned up to greet Dmitri Karpov, who had brought several packages of gifts and welcomed news from Singapore.

Their daughter, Louisa who worked as a domestic helper in Singapore, had landed a job in Moscow. Karpov, an executive of the company that had employed Louisa, was visiting Manila and had taken the trouble to drive the three hours to the provinces.

“What a sweet man,” remarked Mrs Guzman, clutching her granddaughter to her hip.

The Guzman family would have loved to have Louisa visit but understood she had to depart for Moscow within days. The only telephone line to the local provision shop worked intermittently and they had not heard from Louisa.

However, Karpov carried several letters from their daughter. Louisa had included a few photos of her friend Sarah Alpino, another domestic helper who had also managed to secure a job with the same company in Moscow. The Alpinos lived in a village about an hour away and the two women had travelled to Singapore together.

Karpov had snapped dozens of pictures of every family member and especially Louisa's two little daughters. He had promised to hand these to Louisa. He had done the same when he visited the Alpinos earlier that day.

The Saturday afternoon crowd thronged Orchard Road in Singapore. No one took notice of the Caucasian man who held the woman tight and hurried to the white panel van that pulled up by the kerb. The side door slid open with a squeak and a crunch and he shoved the woman in roughly. The van lurched, cut into traffic, creating a small bunch up as cars screeched and horned. The driver beat the red light, missing the charging cars on his right, and sped away.

About twenty minutes later, the white panel van jerked to a stop in the dingy basement of Hotel 69 along Geylang. The basement was full of cars, double and triple parked, their drivers having released the handbrakes and left the gearshifts in neutral. This enabled anyone finding his car wedged in, to push aside the obstructing vehicle to retrieve his own.

The two Russians, one dark haired and medium built, the other burly with thinning ginger hair, knew it was the usual busy weekend with the rooms fully booked for ‘short term' use. It suited them well as the men who patronised this hotel did not want to be seen and avoided eye contact.

Ruslan Kashin and Alexis Donovich held the Chinese woman firmly between them and rode the elevator from the basement, so designed that men can ride up with their escorts without the need to pass the scrutiny of the reception counter.

Kashin's fingers clasped Ying's upper arm. Though slim, she felt solid and strong. Whenever she struggled, he jabbed a sharp object into her back to quieten her.

Once in the room, the men shovelled her on the single bed. They stripped her naked, secured her mouth with duct tape, wrenched her arms behind her back and used more duct tape. When she continued to struggle, the larger Russian pointed a finger at her face and admonished,

“I'll say this only once. Will you cooperate or do you want to make this difficult for all of us?'

Ying glared at Donovich, her eyes wide and defiant. She snapped her face away from his finger.

“Oh, she'll cooperate,” said Kashin with a smile as he dropped his trousers.

“We've work to do,” growled Donovich. “Wear your pants.”

“This won't take long,” assured the younger Russian. “In any case I'm merely opening it up to make it easier for our purposes.”

He rolled the woman on her stomach, tucked her knees under her, bringing up her buttocks. Then without warning, he rammed his stiff member into her anus.

About an hour later, Donovich, seated in the tiny café tucked away on the ground floor opposite the reception counter, looked up as Kashin stomped heavily down the staircase.

Couples occupied two of the tables and engaged in muted conversations. The men's eyes swivelled anxiously whenever anyone walked through the main door. Their female companions, with heavily made up faces, wore tight skirts that ran right up.

One of the women, who had her back to the Russians, was busy peering into her vanity mirror, constantly checking and touching up.

“Well,” Donovich looked up, speaking in Russian.

“Oh, that was great,” said Kashin as he dropped heavily into the seat opposite his companion.

“I meant will she cooperate?” Donovich's voice was gravelly.

“The bitch wouldn't relent. Everytime I remove the tapes, she screams vulgarities.” Kashin replied in Russian.

“I hope you've not damaged the goods too much. We're running out of time,” growled the burly Russian.

“Why don't we dump this bitch? We already have three –”

“No,” snapped the huge man. “We've gone over this before. The other two can't handle all the stuff. We need this whore.”

“What about the girl?” Kashin's eyes glinted and he licked his lips with a smile.

Donovich lunged across the table and grabbed his younger companion's shirt collar, pulling him forward until their noses almost touched. He rasped,

“I'll say this only once. The little one is a virgin, worth at least fifty thousand. And you, especially you, keep your dick away from her.”

The young handsome man's face turned black and a shot of evil crawled over his face. Then slowly he relaxed, his eyes softening. “It's not my dick I plan to use,” Kashin grinned.

“Hurt her Ruslan and I promise I'll slice you up myself and you'll not get to star in another porn flick other than as a femme,” the heavy man growled through clenched teeth. Then realising that people in the tiny café were trying hard not to notice them, he released his hold and leaned back, glaring right and left.