They crashed through a section of dirt before skipping back onto a road heading in the airfield’s direction.
That was when Sydney saw the line ahead.
“Police barricade,” she shouted.
And sure enough, even from this distance, they could see the faint line of flashing lights, unmistakably that of a police cavalry. Her heart sank—the military had caught up to them. It would be impossible to reach the airfield now.
Tems spat out a swear and threw them into reverse. The car screeched to a halt, vaulted backward, and then turned before he sped off in the opposite direction. “Where to?” he shouted.
“Into the city,” Winter shouted back.
“Are you crazy?”
“I’ve done press here before,” Winter said. “We’re ten kilometers out of downtown. If you can get into the city, we can lose them in Little India.”
Little India.Sydney suddenly realized it was Sunday. She had been through the area before—it was a colorful, vibrant, busy place, full of markets and temples. And on Sundays at this hour, it would be crowded with worshippers and tourists, all flooding the streets to chat and shop. It would mean giving up entirely on their flight out of the country for the night, but at least they would have a chance to hide.
Tems narrowed his eyes at Winter through the rearview mirror. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Would you rather be arrested at the barricade?” Winter shot back. “It’s impossible to get through—we can all see that!”
“He’s right,” Sydney snapped.“Go!”
Tems’s grip tightened against the steering wheel as he turned the car at an intersection. They zoomed down the road as the flashing lights behind them followed.
As they turned up a hill, the skyscrapers of Singapore came back into view. The car clipped down a narrow road before Tems finally screeched to a stop at a traffic light. Elaborate light decorations hung in rows down the street. All around them were delivery vans and bustling stalls—workers hanging thick garlands of fresh flowers on hooks, fruit vendor displays piled high with bananas and honey mangoes, cooks selling vadai, daal, and dosai with chutney.
Behind them, they could hear the sound of sirens.
“That alley,” Winter said, pointing to a narrow corridor branching off to the right of their intersection. “No lights there.”
“Hang on,” Tems said. Then he spun the steering wheel all the way to the right and swerved into the alley.
It didn’t look like their car could fit down a path this narrow—but somehow Tems made it work, the space so tight that their mirrors scraped against either side. They made their way down the alley until they reached a narrow crevice against one wall that gave them a little more room. It wasn’t exactly a parking spot, but they didn’t have time to consider that now. Tems stopped the car and cut the engine.
They sat in silence as the sirens gradually drew nearer—then zoomed by, one after another. Sydney held her breath as the sound’s pitch lowered, drew more distant.
They waited a little longer. The sirens turned faint, then disappeared.
At last, she exchanged a glance with Tems and Winter, then emerged from the car.
Night had started to fall, thankfully, covering them in deeper shadows. But Sydney knew they couldn’t stay out here until morning, not with the entire country on high alert. They traveled as far as they could from where they had left the car behind, taking a myriad of small streets until they emerged into another narrow street, where she saw a neon sign for a small, nondescript hotel.
“Think we can get in through the back?” she said.
“How the hell are we going to get a room at a hotel?” Tems said. “They’ll want IDs. Pretty sure we’re on a government blacklist right now.”
Sydney nodded at Winter.
Winter frowned at her. “You want me to charm our way into a room?”
Sydney crossed her arms. “Think you can do it without drawing a crowd around this place?”
Winter stared at her for a second. He shrugged. “You underestimate me.”
22Hiding in Plain Sight
At least one thing was going their way today: only a lone receptionist sat behind the tiny hotel’s check-in counter, her feet propped up on a chair and her nose buried in a magazine.
