An assignment in Malaysia pt 1

Tony is now more composed and chatty again compared to the last time I met him.He told me he has recouped his losses at the Marina Bay Sands casino. Luck is on his side and he is a happy man again although his China born mistress Liz is not with him anymore.
With this,Tony gave me a treat at the Apollo Banana Leaf for a delicious fish head curry dinner.
Before we could place our meal order, a huge Indian man conveniently plonked himself onto a chair next to Tony. "Ha ha, this is my good friend and associate Maniam from Malaysia"...Tony introduced him to me. " Good to meet you, Manian", I shook his gigantic hand.

While we were eating, I began to think what were these two up to. Why was Maniam in Singapore?  There must be a job for them, perhaps another investigation into a robbery or murder or something like that.
They did not discuss business while I was in their company. I was curious and I started to ask questions. Tony knew me too well and he signalled me not to be inquisitive. Tony took out his specially custom made Samsung mobile phone and swiftly type a message and sent to me.
My mobile phone vibrated in my pocket and there was a message from Tony. It read " Don ask ?? will tell u later", referring to the the reason why Maniam was in Singapore. I looked up at Tony and silently nodded my head as if to tell him that I understood his message.

The three of us ate quite a lot of food. We had a big fish head cooked in the delectable Southern Indian curry plus chicken,mutton etc etc.

After dinner, we adjourned to a pub nearby and they started to drink their favourite alcoholic drinks. I sipped orange juice throughout the evening.

I left for home around 11pm and they continued drinking.

The next day:

Tony called me and we went out for lunch near his place. Maniam was busy and couldn't join us,Tony told me. During lunch, Tony asked me whether I could help him and Maniam nail a notorious syndicate involved in renting guns to criminals as well in assassinations in Malaysia. I was stunned as I have never been involved in this sort of things.
He assured me that I would be safe. All he needed was for me to be a bait in the game. I was supposed to attract some gang members and let them follow me to a trap. As Tony was explaining to me about my role, my knees were knocking against each other. I was scared stiff but I had to put up a brave front and agreed to the plan.

Tony and Maniam were paid close to 300k for the job. If it was successful, I would have a 10% share of the payment. S$30,000 for risking my life? No way because it was far too cheap,I told myself. But how was I going to explain to Tony that I wanted to be paid more? Tony was too nice a guy for me to talk business. I needed to be paid at least double that amount (60k), I told myself.

Next day:

After much haggling about the prices, Tony made his last and generous offer of 50k if I participate in the investigation. I agreed and then .....................


Unfortunately  a week before the start of my assignment, I caught a bad cold and was declared unfit for the job.
Tony had a replacement and his name was TG or Tough Guy. TG was a relatively young fellow who was an ex detective with the CID. Tony was to pay him less than the 50k he offered me. But TG eagerly accepted the offer albeit a mere 40k. This was TG's first detective job since he left the CID.

A few VIPs were assassinated by criminals using guns. Their relatives had pooled together and recruited Tony & Co to help avenge their deaths. Some of these relatives were people of high office. Not that they did not trust their police force but they were worried about news leakage if they were to get these people to help.
There would always be rogue policemen and administrators. Most of their raids on these criminals would end with just the lower rankings gangsters being caught.
The victims' relatives wanted to bust the big boys and end the gun smuggling and assassination rackets once and for all. So they hired the best "foreign talents" (FTs) to help eradicate the gangs.

Tony, Maniam (being a Malaysian and to avoid suspicion he was given a new identity) and TG were given special passports. The whole idea of the special passports was to prevent them from being identified as FTs. They were given special Malaysian passports sanctioned from the people in high offices.

Tony flew from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur,the capital of Malaysia. TG took a coach from Golden Mile and Maniam drove from Ipoh. Openly they were not supposed to meet each other in KL to avoid suspicion. They were being cautious.

Here comes the action:

The impact was so forceful that the Mercedes Benz overturned and blew into a ball of fire. TG and Tony rushed to the burnt Merc and tried to pulled the occupants out but in vain except for one man. He was partially burned but TG and Tony carried him to their Honda and sped off.

It was later report on TV that evening that there was an attempted kidnapping of a high ranking government officer. The TV showed the charred bodies of the victim and his kidnappers except for one.

Meanwhile, speeding in the direction towards Ipoh was the Honda Accord with Maniam at the wheels and Tony, TG and the critically burned man as the passengers. The man was groaning in pain.
Maniam swerved the car into a small path that led to an old dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere. The house was surrounded by huge old trees and the whole place looked like a jungle.
An old woman appeared at the door as if to welcome them. As the car screeched to a stop, the old lady wheeled something that looked like a stretcher and with the men transferred the injured fellow onto it.
The old lady was in fact a retired nurse who was helping Maniam in his work. She would attend to his injured clients and foes.
An operation was performed on the injured man. Morphine was also administered to kill the agonising pain. After the ops, the man slept for a few hours.
It was around midnight when the injured man regained consciousness. It was time for interrogation as Tony realised they had to be quick in their investigation.
The injured man's name was Ali. He refused to respond to Tony and Maniam's questions. Ali knew that these men were hired to nab his big boss. He stubbornly refused to co-operate.
Tony and Maniam had a way of extracting information from their captive. It didn't take long before Ali confessed to them about his Boss's plot and reasons to kidnap the government officer.

With the information from Ali, Tony and co sped off to the hideout of Ali's Boss.
However, on their way to the Boss's place, Tony intercepted a message which was relayed from a woman to the Boss. Tony's Samsung mobile phone was unable to capture the voice but the message was coded by his special Samsung phone and translated into word form. It read  "Ali is dead. But had passed the address of your place.... Tony and associates are barely 10 kilometers from you.....get the hell out now !". All of a sudden the phone went dead.

Who was the woman that relayed the message? The voice over Tony's mobile phone wasn't clear enough to be recognised. The satellite transmission wasn't efficient. Could she be the old nurse who attended to Ali earlier on??


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