12
Raffles Hotel
August 27, 10:00 p.m. SGT
My head was spinning from the brandy and the implications of Connor’s words when I walked into the regal lobby of Raffles.
“Miss Brenner!” called the receptionist. “Good evening, ma’am. I have a message for you.”
She smiled as I approached the desk and handed me a sealed envelope. “A gentleman left this for you an hour ago.”
The envelope was blank. Someone had attached a yellow sticky note with my name neatly printed on it. “Did he give a name?”
“I am sorry, no, Miss Brenner. He said very little. He was middle aged and Chinese. That is all the information I have.” She glanced at her computer screen. “I understand your uncle is arriving in two days. I have put him in a room near yours on the third floor. Will that be acceptable?”
“Perfect,” I said. “Thank you.”
I moved away from her obvious curiosity about the note and tore open the flap. Inside was a single folded sheet of paper.
Dear Ms. Brenner,
We must talk. Please meet me tomorrow morning at 7 at the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery in Central Singapore. I will be alone. I ask that you, also, come alone.
I have two children who are much the same age as you and your sister. They are attending university in America. Like you, they live on the far side of the globe from their lonely father.
No father should lose a child. Especially, no one should lose two.
Respectfully,
Huang Lee
My thoughts swirled. I steadied myself against one of the lobby’s pillars and reread the note.
No father should lose a child. Especially, no one should lose two.
Lee’s request to meet at daybreak, and in such a strange locale, implied our meeting would be off the record, a private conversation. Would that prove to be a good thing, or bad?
I fished his business card from my purse and dialed the number. It rang on and on without going over to voicemail. I disconnected.
Should I even go? Something was clearly, as Guy had told me, rotten in the state of Singapore. But I was desperate for answers. Maybe Lee would provide them.
I folded the note and returned it to the envelope. I hugged myself and stared at the gleaming white tiles of the lobby floor.
Footsteps approached. “Are you all right, miss?”
I straightened, then took a step back in surprise. It was the man I’d seen earlier sitting with Tiger Man at the Elephant Room. Early fifties, tall and tanned and fit. A sweep of silver hair. He’d changed from the golf clothes into chinos and a button-down.
Intelligence shone in the alert eyes watching me from beneath arched brows.
“Did you receive bad news?” His voice rumbled like tires over gravel.
“What?”
He gestured toward my hand, which clutched Lee’s note. “The envelope. Does it contain bad news? You turned so pale I worried you might faint.”
“Oh. No. Thank you for your concern.” I lifted my chin and smoothed my features to show nothing more than mild interest. “Didn’t I see you earlier at the Elephant Room?”
He smiled, but the alertness in his blue eyes didn’t change. “Guilty as charged.”
“The man you were with, the one with the tiger tattoo. He’s a friend?”
His eyes narrowed, emphasizing a fan of crow’s-feet. “You mean Dai Shujun. Hardly a friend. I suppose you could call him a business associate.”
“Your business associate tried to follow me.”
Something rippled across the man’s face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “although I can’t say I’m surprised. Dai can’t resist a beautiful woman. I’ll warn him away. He isn’t the kind of man you want dogging your steps.”
“He’s dangerous?”
“Let’s just say he hangs out with rough company.”
“Like you?”
He laughed, revealing oversize canines. “I’m the exception that proves the rule. We suspect Dai is affiliated with one of China’s crime syndicates. You’ve heard of the triads? Gangs that specialize in extortion, prostitution, drugs. Gambling. Much of it with the blessing of the Communist Chinese Party. I keep an eye on men like Dai Shujun. I don’t consort with them.”
Cass’s belongings on the metal tray flashed before me. The white powder. I winced.
“I’ve alarmed you needlessly. Please don’t worry. I’ll deal with Dai. I just wanted you to be aware.” He touched my shoulder, a tap of reassurance. “I’m Phil Weber, with the US Foreign Service. Watching out for my fellow Americans from the lobby of the Raffles.” He grinned, and the laugh lines bracketing his mouth deepened. “This place is infinitely better than the stuffy confines of the embassy. Plus, the air-conditioning works. Now, can I get you anything? A bottle of water perhaps?”
His attention was almost fatherly, and for a moment the desire to confide in this agent of my own government filled me with a need like hunger. What a relief it would be to hand over my problems to someone who might be able to help. Who could perhaps determine what, exactly, had happened in Cass’s room at Marina Bay Sands.
Unless, of course, Cass had been involved in something that would destroy her reputation and that of Ocean House.
Triads. Citizen spies. A plastic bag with 1.21 grams of unknown white powder.
I held my tongue.
Weber whisked a card from his wallet and presented it to me with a slight bow, holding the card in both hands. “This is the way to offer someone your card in the East. Etiquette requires that you accept it with both hands and look at it for at least a moment or two before tucking it away.”
I took the card in the manner instructed.
P HILLIP W EBER
U NITED S TATES E MBASSY
C ENTRAL I NTELLIGENCE A GENCY
27 N APIER R OAD
S INGAPORE 258507
“You’re CIA?” My mind conjured up images of cigarette-smoking men in black fedoras. And Emily’s voice as she spoke of Charlie Han— spy, informant, perhaps a wolf warrior . “Aren’t you supposed to be incognito?”
“I’m what’s known as a declared officer. What people don’t realize is that a lot of CIA’s work is straightforward. We liaise with the locals. Get the lay of the land. Find out where we might be helpful. We aren’t all spies engaging in cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
“Are there cloak-and-dagger operations in Singapore?”
“Not much,” he said. “It’s a rather dull posting. And now it’s your turn, if you would be so kind. You are ...?”
“Nadia Brenner. With Ocean House.”
“Nadia Brenner and Ocean House.” His eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “You’re Cassandra’s sister. I should have realized. You look so much like her.”
“You knew her?”
“Oh, yes. Our paths crossed rather often. Dear god, Miss Brenner—Nadia—I am so sorry.” He gestured toward a pair of wingback chairs. “Can you sit for a moment?”
We walked across the atrium. On a small table between two chairs lay a copy of the Straits Times . Next to the newspaper was a crystal tumbler half-filled with whisky. The ice cubes were melting, the glass sweating.
He waited until I’d taken a seat, then gazed at me with sympathy. “Now tell me. What can I do to help? Would you like a drink?”
I waved away his offer. “Please tell me first what you know about my sister’s death.”
“Embassy personnel were notified almost as soon as the police identified her. The legat—the FBI’s legal attaché—went to the scene.” He palmed his head. “It’s hard to understand what causes someone to make a decision like that.”
“I was told there will be neither an autopsy nor an investigation.”
“Oh, but there was an investigation. The legat spoke with Inspector Lee, the detective in charge of your sister’s case. Lee talked to witnesses at the hotel. Examined your sister’s room there and her home.”
“He spent a few hours.” I allowed my bitterness to show. “What can he learn from that?”
“It seems hasty to you. I understand. If this were Russia, say, or a backwater like Somalia, I’d agree. But the authorities here are honest and efficient. Inspector Lee will follow through on toxicology. If he finds anything suspicious, he’ll reopen your sister’s case. As well, of course, we’re monitoring everything in case there’s the least indication that it wasn’t suicide.” He leaned toward me. The not-unpleasant smells of sweat and deodorant rose from his skin, unavoidable in a climate like Singapore’s. “Are you aware of the note found by the police?”
Briefly, I considered sharing the other note—the one from Inspector Lee. Maybe things aren’t as honest and efficient as you think, I wanted to tell him. Instead, I said, “Don’t you think it’s odd that she wrote a supposed suicide note but didn’t take it with her to her suicide?”
“Maybe she’d been thinking about it for a long time. Perhaps her night took a wrong turn and she decided to use an opportunity when it presented itself.”
“Do you really believe that, Mr. Weber? Do you believe that a young, successful businesswoman working on the most important project in her life would check herself into the most expensive hotel in the world’s most expensive city and then decide to leap from the balcony?”
He leaned back. His eyes narrowed until the irises became half-moons. “Do you have reason to think otherwise, Miss Brenner?”
Again, I considered sharing my fears with this man. And again, I stayed quiet. I was intimately familiar with how powerful men think, and Mr. Weber was a powerful man. But spies and secret diplomacy were out of my bailiwick.
Weber softened. “I’m not trying to offer an explanation, Miss Brenner. Only my bewildered sympathy. Cassandra was a bright soul. Cheerful and kind.”
“You said your paths crossed often?”
“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea—I didn’t know her well. I chatted with her here and there at parties thrown by the American expat community. Often these were events at the American Club. It’s my job to make the rounds, and occasionally I saw her there. We spoke now and again, but only briefly. We’d complain about the heat or trade restaurant recommendations. Idle chitchat.”
“She was a member of the American Club?”
“I imagine. She might have been invited by a member, but most Americans working here join. I also saw her at Tanglin and at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club once or twice.”
“Was she usually alone?”
He knuckled his chin. “Sometimes. And sometimes with her assistant.”
“Emily Tan?”
“I believe that is her name.”
“Never anyone else?”
“I don’t recall.”
“You shared this with Inspector Lee?”
“Of course.”
I pictured Cassandra at the American Club. She would have been laughing and chatting. Flirting harmlessly with the men and befriending their wives. It was how Cassandra and I had learned to behave long ago, taught by our parents to recognize that every wealthy person we met had the potential to become a client. Maybe the expat crowd was what made Cassandra decide to invest in fancy clothes. Maybe they had pulled her into gambling. Even into drugs.
Perhaps, Emily had said, she became someone else in this country.
Weber’s voice rode over my thoughts. “I’m acquainted with another member of your family. Robert Brenner.”
I blinked. “My debonair uncle. How do you know him?”
“Rob and I met eons ago. Tennis club. His grandparents knew mine decades back in Austria.” His gaze had turned inward, and briefly his lips pulled tight, as if he’d tasted something sour. “Now I’m sitting here with his niece. Small world.”
Something perverse compelled me to say, “He’s never mentioned you.”
Weber’s upper lip rose, revealing the large canines. “Like I said, it was eons ago. And we’ve followed very different paths.”
But something glinted in his eyes. Disdain? Dislike? Even, perhaps, unease?
Everywhere I turned, I faced a thicket of unanswered questions. Exhaustion swept over me. I found my way to my feet.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Weber.”
He rose as well. “Please let me know if I can do anything for you, Miss Brenner. My office is always open.”
His eyes stayed on me as I made my way slowly up the central staircase. When I reached the first floor, I glanced back. Mr. Weber had vanished. The receptionist had momentarily disappeared. The lobby was empty, its colonial elegance undisturbed by human warmth.
In my room, I made myself a lukewarm cup of coffee, gulped it down, and changed into leggings and a T-shirt, grateful that everything was black, even my sneakers.
I snugged a ball cap over my hair, ordered a Grab car using the app, then placed my phone in the safe in case someone like Tiger Man—Dai Shujun—had found a way to track my movements. My credit card, passport, and room key went into the waterproof pouch I used when traveling. I slid the pouch into a zippered pocket of my leggings. I took the hotel’s flashlight from the nightstand and shoved it into another pocket, its rounded end protruding. Five minutes later I let myself out of the room to wait at the curb for my ride.
It was time to learn whether Red Dragon would yield any answers.