Authors: Eric Alagan
“Perhaps when the dead wood is chopped off, new young shoots will break into the sunlight,” Simonov's face softened and saw his guest smile self-consciously.
“We're friends, Colin,” Simonov shook the young man's hand. “Perhaps one day you might return me a wink.”
As soon as he settled into his business class seat, Lowe whipped out his cell phone and called Singapore. He briefed Reginald Lee on the new developments uncovered that pointed to Tara's complicity in Benjamin's death.
“Lee, we can't have a regular pathologist doing the autopsy,” he whispered sharply, “we don't know how far this goes.”
“What do you mean?” Lee's voice was sharp and metallic over the earpiece.
“Zain is very close to Banks. We don't want any behind the scenes manoeuvrings.” Lowe glanced around, as more passengers settled into their seats.
“You can't be suggesting â”
“I'm not suggesting anything Lee,” Lowe peered out the window, cupping the mouthpiece. “I'm requesting for an outside pathologist. I also want a full DNA profile.”
“You reckon Banks is not the accident victim?”
“I want to be sure that she is â”
“Excuse me, sir.”
Lowe looked up at the smiling flight attendant.
“The captain has requested that we turn off all communications devices,” she smiled, conveying that it was not a request.
He nodded, turned and whispered into his mouthpiece, “Get someone from the university, this famous doctor fellow â”
“Sir, please be kind enough to turn off the â”
Lowe pulled out his wallet from his back pocket, flipped it open and handed it to her, “This call is urgent and important, I'm sure it'll be at least another twenty minutes before we actually take off, I'll be done in one.”
“I beg your pardon,” it was Lee on the line.
“Oh, just an overzealous stewardess,” Lowe snatched his wallet from the woman. “That doctor â”
“I think I've heard of that doctor. They call him Mr Pathologist,” assured Lee. “Leave it to me and enjoy your flight.”
Chapter 52
Fifteen hours later the pilot touched down at Changi International Airport. As the inflight supervisor read the well-scripted announcement welcoming everyone to Singapore and
a pleasant stay
, Lowe switched on his cell phone.
He scrolled through the half a dozen messages and found the one he was looking for.
Meet me at car
pick- up. Lee
.
Lowe stepped out of the uncomfortably cold terminal building and the hot and muggy air assaulted him. He saw Lee in his car, with flashing hazard lights and opened boot.
Throwing his bags into the boot, Lowe ducked into the cool comfort of the car. By the time Lee merged into the smooth traffic and hit the expressway, they had covered the
how was your flight and how are you bits
.
“The dead woman in the car,” said Lee, keeping his eyes on the road, “Tara Banks.”
Lowe stared at him, “You're sure?”
“Here's a copy of the autopsy and DNA results,” Lee handed over an A4-sized brown envelope. “The body was badly burnt but they did find some soft tissue around the stomach and pelvic regions. The doctor used that, said something about better tissue samples than burnt skin.”
His passenger remained silent, his eyes catching the highlights of the report.
Traffic on the East Coast Parkway was heavy and Lee kept to the centre lane. “So they found Benjamin Logan dead, murdered.”
“Yes,” Lowe snapped out. “We'll wait for the hair samples from Russia. If it's Bank's, that still makes her the prime suspect.”
Lee spoke as much to himself as to the young man beside him. “Perhaps it's best to simply close her file.”
“We still need to know what triggered the murder,” riposted Lowe.
“Why not leave it to the new station manager in Moscow,” suggested the permanent secretary. “The new director-designate of CNB has more important matters to attend to.”
“What do you mean â?”
“Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, Mr Director,” smiled Lee.
“Zain?”
“Retiring,” said Lee. “I'm calling it a day too, moving to the Yusuf Ishak Institute of Foreign Studies.”
“Why all these changes and so sudden?” Lowe sounded genuinely incredulous.
“Not sudden. You know that we have a succession plan for everyone, right down to the security guard and gardener,” Lee chortled. “After that Tuas factory fiasco, PM decided to fast forward the changes.”
“To satiate the Chinese?”
“To bring down several clay pigeons with one shot.”
“Yes,
clay pigeons
alright,” Lowe's brows crinkled as he nodded solemnly. “There was nothing in the media, not even a squeak. What actually happened in Tuas?”
The soon-to-retire man from PMO sighed loud and pronounced, “Zain led the raid but found nothing, not even in the newly arrived containers. He even checked the water recycling plant. Found absolutely no traces of heroin. The factory management reacted, threatened to call a press conference and next thing we know, the Chinese ambassador was on the phone to our foreign minister.”
“Looks like they might have been tipped off,” said Lowe.
“Yes,” said Lee, took his eyes off the road and stared at his passenger.
Oblivious, Lowe continued, “What about the couriers?”
“Well,” said Lee, his eyes back on the road. “At least we didn't make a fool of ourselves there. We identified the couriers but the scanners found nothing and we let them through.”
“The bottom line is, we dismantled the chain,” concluded Lowe, triumphantly.
“I fear not,” Lee spoke under his breath. “All we did was to drive them underground. No one is about to walk away from a multimillion dollar business.”
Epilogue
The tall brunette handed her passport to the immigration officer at Perth Airport. She had her short-cropped hair gelled into a punk style.
“G'day.” The man behind the counter punched computer keys and studied her passport â
Lorraine T Cunningham
. He scanned her passport and handed it back to the passenger with a smile,
“Welcome home Ms Cunningham.”
“Thank you. It's great to be back.” Lorraine picked up her carry-on and slipped through the narrow channel.
She found her way to the long-term parking lot and located the four-wheel drive where she was told she would find it.
Lorraine gunned the engine of the Land Rover and with the wind in her hair she headed north on the Great Northern Highway towards Chittering. Another two hours from there, she reached the farm,
The Lonely Bugger
. She drove through the opening in the fence, recognising and remembering the rustic charm of the spread and remembering with mixed feelings, her last stay here.
Lorraine trudged to her shed. In her knee length khakis, walking boots and wide brimmed hat, she exuded the gait of a seasoned outback's hiker. She waved to Mark Granger as she passed him.
The bowser truck had pulled up to refuel the generator and the driver in greasy overalls remained fixated on her progress up the rutted slope.
“She the one?” asked the driver, a shredded toothpick in his lips. He rubbed the scraggly beard on his chin, “Writes ghost stories you say.”
“Yup,” Granger spoke softly. “Keeps pretty much to herself. After the first night's barbie, I haven't had occasion or even an opportunity to offer her a drink.”
“I thought you said you knew her from before, from Singapore or something,” said the redneck, as he tugged and arranged the heavy black hose along the side of the truck.
“That's what I thought too mate,” Granger ran a balled handkerchief around his neck. “Reckon I was mistaken.”
Lorraine walked up the two steps to her door, inserted the key into the lock and twisted the knob. Gently pushing the door an inch in, she casually glanced towards the top of the doorframe, found the black thread between door and frame intact. Satisfied, she pushed the door open.
She stepped carefully across the throw rug and into the cabin. Shutting the door, she lifted the rug and carefully removed the wafer thin anti-personnel mines, pressure sensitive mines that released knockout gases instead of explosives. She continued with her routine and checked the two windows and the exit. All the little triggers were in place, unmolested.
A few minutes later, she stepped out of the washroom, wiping her face with a small towel. She knelt, reached under her bed and dragged out her luggage bag.
She fired up her laptop, which she had hooked to a bank of photovoltaic cells fed by solar panels on the roof. Someone had been trying to call her satellite phone imbedded in her computer. She tapped several keys, clicked and dragged buttons and located the origin of the calls â Singapore.
The first call had come through an hour ago and repeated at intervals. Lorraine checked some numbers and graphs and noticed a pre-arranged pattern. The caller had repeated the calls, each call advancing by ten minutes. She checked the digital clock on the computer and expected the next call in twenty minutes.
Retrieving an electronic gadget the size of a shoe box â an automated speech recognition computer â she connected it to her laptop. Bringing on screen the speech spectrograph of the caller, she compared the squiggly sine curves with her interactive data bank. The peaks and troughs danced on the screen, highlighting the energy, frequency and time on the two axes. There was a seventy-five per cent voice match.
A small smile lifted the corner of her lips as she established the identity of the caller, “So, you're my new handler.”
Just then, an icon flashed on the screen. It was the same caller. She verified the voiceprint, clipped on a wireless headset and hit the Accept button.
The voice was slow, drawled and heavily distorted.
“Hello Zain. What can I do for the Honorary Treasurer of the Al Noor Mosque?”
“Lorraine,” the voice was sheepish. “How did you know it was me and not Lee?”
“A little toy I picked up in Moscow.”
“Any chances I can get hold of one, it sounds useful.”
Lorraine walked about the small living room as she spoke into the microphone attached to the headset, “I don't know how much you're paying for the satellite use, but I've set the line to disconnect in another half-minute.”
“No one can trace this call within three minutes let alone one,” Zain's voice confident.
“You mean like no one can ID your voice because you use a garbler,” came the mild mock.
“Okay, you win Lorraine. Or would you prefer Tara?”
About the Author
Eric Alagan has more than 35 years of international business experience in the areas of aerospace MRO, security consultancy and services, trading and logistics & supply chain. He held progressive positions in multinational corporations and last held the position of managing director, Asia Pacific for a European aerospace company. He has been involved in several green field start-ups, mergers and acquisitions.
He managed companies in Singapore and Australia with extensive experience in ASEAN, the Indian sub-continent and the Pacific islands.
He holds engineering diplomas, a business degree from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and a master's degree in logistics and supply chain from University South Australia.
Eric does business consultancy work and writes self-help business books and novels. Other titles by Eric:
1.   Beck And Call â A Business Thriller Set In Singapore (debut Novel)
2.   STAFF SELECTION â Secrets To Employ The Best People (targeted primarily at micro entrepreneurs, general managers and HR practitioners)
3.   INCREASE F&B SALES â Secrets To Boost Profits (targeted at owners and managers of F&B outlets and start-ups)
4.   PROPERTY VALUATION â Secrets Of The Roman Decision Model (targeted at owners, buyers, sellers and agents of real estate) Sunday Times Best Seller
The author is married to Lisa Chew and they have three adult children.
Copyright
First published in print by LCA BOOKS (
www.LCABOOKS.com
) in 2011.
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Monsoon Books
ISBN (ebook): 978-981-4358-29-3
Copyright©Eric Alagan, 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Cover design by Rank Books.
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