Free THURSDAY'S ORCHID by Robert Mitchell Page B

Sophie was out with one of her friends. Once again the talk was of their four beautiful daughters, their schooling and problems with boys. Angeline was anxious to get Sophie married off to some respectable Greek boy, preferably a rich one. She had one or two in mind. I silently thanked God I wasn’t Greek.
    During the afternoon Nick and I went for a drive around the city and dock area, getting the lie of the land, trying to pick out and agree on what would be a suitable location for a warehouse.
    We took a trip out to the wool-stores. They were closed, but we managed to bluff our way in. The twenty-dollar note and the tale that I was an American tourist were enough to convince the watchman to let us have a look around. The watchman gave us a couple of catalogues for the next sale, as an excuse for taking the twenty dollars. Nick took the opportunity to see the bales up close. He was amazed at their weight. I don’t think he had really believed me until then. He turned to me, out of earshot of the watchman.
    “It’s going to work, Jeff. It’s going to work!”
     
    Tuesday was spent at the Department of Primary Industries , checking on exports to eastern and Pacific countries. Singapore was a major importer of Australian wool; of all grades.
    The scene was set and we met at Nick’s that night for a celebratory dinner. Angeline knew that something big was in the air, but knew better than to ask what it was, and knew that she wouldn’t have been told in any case.
    Sophie was gorgeous, and acting the flirt. But there were more important things on my mind.
     
    Two days later I was in Singapore.
    I had been there three times in the past. George and I had handled a fairly large arms contract in that part of the world; but that was a few years ago now. I knew several people, although not as well as I would have liked. George had done most of the negotiating. He had a way with the Chinese. They comprise about seventy-five percent of the population on the island, and conduct a greater part of its business.
    I used to think of Singapore as a separate part of a larger land mass, like Spain or France. It was not until my first visit that I realised that it was an island, completely surrounded by water – and not a large island either. It didn’t really seem big enough for a population of some two and a half million people.
    I didn’t like the limitations imposed by the fact that it was an island. Apart from the causeway – that thousand-metre stretch of concrete and tar connecting Singapore to the mainland of the Malay Peninsula – the only ways to escape are by sea or air. A single telephone call can close the causeway; subjecting every vehicle, and the occasional train, to rigorous scrutiny.
    I prefer a situation where you can jump into a car and be across a border at any one of a dozen crossings, and duck over before they have a chanc e of closing the entire frontier. It’s too easy for the authorities to stake out ports and close down air terminals. And these are usually only a few kilometres from the centres of population – too handy to those authorities. Having to rely on a ship or plane can be risky. Ships never stick to timetables and are far too slow, and planes can be grounded by fog, rain, or labour problems. Give me a set of wheels any day.
    But this time there shouldn’t be any problems. I wouldn’t be anywhere near the wool when the handover took place. I would only fly in to collect the cash – the bearer bonds. But even that shouldn’t be necessary. There was no reason why they couldn’t be sent direct to our bank in Basle, Switzerland.
    If anything went wrong we would lose the wool, but that was the luck of the game. As long as that was all we could lose then I was more than willing to risk it. Anyway, it was Nick who stood to suffer the most. He had millions tied up in the deal; I only had my three hundred thousand.
    The purpose of the visit was to go over the scheme in detail with the person we were