Passage of Arms
Passage of Arms is a 1959 novel by Eric Ambler. Plot Girija Krishnan, a bookkeeper at a rubber plantation in Malaya, has one ambition in life: to found and establish a local bus company and transport system. But he has no money to finance this endeavor. The local authorities kill a gang of Communist terrorists near the plantation, and Girija realizes from the condition of their guns that their cache of weapons must be somewhere nearby. By slow, hard work and some good luck, he succeeds in finding it. He waits several years until he can safely sell the weapons to a Chinese family of entrepreneurs centered in Singapore. Members of the family include the respectable businessman Tan Siow Mong, who runs the transport company which regularly exports the rubber plantation's crop; also the labor racketeer and compulsive gambler Tan Yam Heng, who always needs money; and the streetwise Tan Tak Chee. When Girija sells the weapons to the Tan family, they realize that in order to re-sell them safely for profit, they need to find a respectable European or American foreigner who can take legal responsibility for the transfer of funds from the eventual buyer. They find Greg Nilsen