Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (11 page)

The Hokobus
sat in the rear seat and held one another as they heaped praise on
the policewoman who had acted so swiftly in their defence. Gil
smiled, and for a moment felt regret that someone wanted this happy
couple dead. However, Gil knew from her own experiences that even
the most evil dictators could be pleasant when they wanted to be.
She had a job to do, and she always took pride in her work. The
Hokobus were going to die.

“
I just need
to make some notes,” the Chameleon said as she locked the doors of
the car. She reached into an inside pocket, as if for a notebook,
but when she turned back to face them she had her nose and mouth
covered.

The spray did
its work for the second time that day, and Gil escaped the car and
waited for the spray to disperse. Keeping her face pointed away
from the security cameras, she extracted a hypodermic needle from
her pocket.

The Hokobus
were not just paralysed; they were also confused because they could
see that the hypodermic syringe was empty. Gil carefully tapped the
side of Samuel Etundi’s neck and found his carotid artery. She
carefully inserted the needle and injected air into the artery that
carried blood directly to the brain.

The Chameleon
repeated the procedure with Victoria Hokobu, whose face had
hardened with resolve. Good for you, Gil thought; you have chosen
not to die in fear, but sadly your death is inevitable.

Before the
paralysis caused by the redweed solution wore off, the two Africans
were dead from the predicted pulmonary embolisms. The Chameleon had
used this methodology many times before when a stroke or heart
attack needed to be induced. The air bubble she injected into each
victim would be trapped in an artery in the brain or elsewhere,
where it would cause a blockage and an embolism. Injecting into the
main carotid artery is usually most effective, as it tends to shut
off the oxygen supply to the brain very quickly.

Less than ten
minutes had passed since she had sprayed the bodyguard. Gil reset
her watch and wiped her mind of all regret as she walked the few
yards back to her hire car.

Chapter
1
7

The London
Eye, Southbank, London, Wednesday 11am.

Geordie was
sitting in the back of the ambulance when Dee arrived at the scene.
There were sightseers, policemen, yellow tape and news reporters
everywhere. The policeman protecting the cordon would not let Dee
past the tape without permission from a detective and, whilst he
was radioing for that permission, Dee saw Detective Sergeant Scott
and waved.

Last year DS
Scott had been involved in the case where Dee had been shot and,
whilst they were not particularly close friends, they did get along
well. DS Scott came to the tape and lifted it for Dee to enter. He
was not smiling, but he nodded briefly by way of greeting. He
touched her arm gently.

“
Dee, it’s
good to see you again, but I wish it hadn’t been in such unhappy
circumstances. Geordie tells me that you were both becoming close
to the victims.”

Dee nodded.
“Paul, they were such lovely people. I don’t normally get attached
to clients but with these two you just couldn’t help yourself.” She
recognised that she needed to control her emotions.

“
Come on,
I’ll take you to your man, but I have to warn you that for a tough
Geordie and former soldier, he is pretty upset.” Scott led Dee to
the ambulance, where she could see Geordie sitting on a bed with an
oxygen mask over his face. He looked pale and totally forlorn. DS
Scott invited Dee to come and find him when she was finished
talking to her partner, and he walked away towards the parking
lot.

The scene was
somewhat surreal; just a couple of hours ago she had been laughing
and joking with Geordie and the Hokobus and now two were dead and
the other didn’t look as though he wanted to go on
living.

Dee climbed
into the ambulance alongside Geordie and the paramedic. The
paramedic carried out some checks, ensured the monitors were
working and spoke to Dee.

“
His blood
oxygenation levels are really low, not dangerous but it wouldn’t
take much of a drop to cause a problem. So, please make him keep
the mask on as much as possible.” With that he picked up a
clipboard and stepped outside to write up his notes.

Dee took
Geordie’s hand in both of hers and stroked it. For the first time
since she had known him he looked vulnerable, mortal even. Geordie
was a man’s man; he was athletic, strong, loved sport and had an
inner compunction that drove him to protect the weak. As she looked
at the strong, rather hirsute, hand in hers, she thought of his
wife and children and how much they would have lost if the assassin
had taken him as well.

“
It was my
fault, Dee.” Geordie used his other hand to pull down the oxygen
mask that was secured to his face by two white elastic straps. “All
I had to do was to keep them safe for another twenty four hours.”
He fell silent and his eyes glazed over as he receded into his
shell, lost in his thoughts of self-recrimination.

“
Look, Pete,
you can never keep a client one hundred per cent safe unless you
lock them up somewhere and never let them out. Armies of armed
protectors surrounded the Pope, Reagan, the Kennedys and Martin
Luther King and they still got shot. We do all we can and I’m sure
that the Hokobus, wherever they are now, will know
that.”

Geordie,
otherwise known as Pete Lowden to the world, looked at Dee and
spoke from the heart.

“
Dee, I don’t
want to sound cruel but these people had a mission, a purpose; they
could have saved thousands of Africans from poverty and starvation,
whereas most of our clients are self important nobodies who are
only afraid for themselves.”

“
Pete, I’ve
been thinking about how we can pay a tribute to them and get their
work done in their absence. I’ll talk to you about it later. Now,
get some rest and get that oxygen level back up.” The young woman
gently placed the mask back on her colleague’s face before kissing
him on the forehead.

***

“
Miss Conrad.
Oh, sorry, I mean Mrs Hammond. I didn’t think we’d ever meet again,
at least not in our professional capacities.” Detective Chief
Inspector Coombes and Dee had endured an uncomfortable start to
their relationship when he arrested her in connection with a murder
enquiry where she had initially been a suspect. Since then,
however, they had established a good working relationship that was
based on mutual respect.

“
Terry, I
just don’t know what to say. We’re devastated. We were protecting
this couple.”

“
Dee, if it
helps at all you had no chance. This was a contract hit by one of
the best. If this attempt had failed there would have been another
and so on until we reached this point.” He paused and looked at
Dee. “I know that Geordie feels bad about this, but the best thing
we can all do is find the killer. The reason that is particularly
important is because, in my view, when we find the killer we’ll
find someone who has a number of other murders to their
name.”

The DCI and
the Vastrick Vice President walked over to the car where the bodies
were still being examined in place. The Scene of Crimes Officer
walked over to them. The SOCO was in his early forties, short but
slightly underweight. His hair had receded long ago and was wispy
and red where the colour still remained amongst the
grey.

“
DCI Coombes.
Oh, and who is this beautiful lady? She’s a definite improvement on
Scott.”

“
This is Dee
Hammond, Warren. She isn’t on the force. She heads up Vastrick
Security.”

“
Well, my
dear,” the SOCO continued, “you are privileged indeed. Terry here
normally wouldn’t let a civilian near the crime scene. But then,
you are Dee Conrad. We almost met once before. I was the SOCO at
the Tottenham Press shootout, although you were obviously injured
at the time so I’m not surprised that you don’t remember me. I’m
pleased to meet you properly at last and to see that you appear to
be totally recovered.”

Dee shook
Warren’s hand and explained why she was there. The older man shook
his head mournfully as if wondering to himself why people had to
hurt one another, especially the caring ones who could do so much
good.

His report was
succinct but full of surprises.

“
The couple
were disabled by a gas or gaseous liquid that contained either a
strong muscle relaxant or a paralytic. We won’t know the exact
details until we have the tox screen done. Then, like some kind of
spy movie, they are not shot, stabbed or strangled but are injected
with air, directly into the carotid artery, here.” The examiner
pointed to his own carotid artery. “This is a very tricky procedure
and it’s not guaranteed to work at all, let alone kill. Often it
will cause brain damage or result in a recoverable stroke or
coronary. Here it killed, and quite quickly too.

My guess is
that the relaxant they were given first would have prevented them
from suffering. Embolisms are extraordinarily painful,
usually.

Finally, I
would suggest that this is a professional job. Beyond that I would
say that this type of execution is usually the province of
governmental assassins, or black ops as they like to call it in the
States.”

He promised
that an interim report would be ready by that evening, with a full
report within seven days.

Coombes and
Dee wandered across to DS Scott, who had been busy interviewing
eyewitnesses. When they arrived at his side he had a puzzled look
on his face.

“
I think we
have a problem, Guv,” he said uncertainly. “Every witness saw the
same thing. A policewoman approached Pete Lowden. He collapsed and
she ushered the victim couple away.”

“
A
policewoman?” Coombes replied quizzically.

“
That’s what
they all say, Guv.”

Chapter
1
8

Celebrato
Offices, Spital Square, London, Wednesday Noon.

The offices
were bustling when Gil returned to the office, properly attired and
bearing no resemblance to the policewoman of that morning’s events.
She had been ready to leave her apartment when she remembered that
she had left her brown contact lenses in and so she quickly removed
the left lens, restoring her steely blue-grey eye. When she came to
the right eye she noticed it was missing. It must have fallen out
sometime during the morning. One brown eye and one blue eye would
have been hard to explain at the office. Worse was the possibility
that she had left behind a clue to her identity.

Not being
identified was clearly a key objective when one was working as an
assassin, and so when she was working on assignments the Chameleon
liked to wear uniforms, because witnesses could rarely see past the
uniform to notice any identifiable features on the wearer. Then,
just to be certain, if you could hide your hair and change your eye
colour, the chances of the witnesses providing a worthwhile
identification were almost nil.

Gil sat down
at her desk, but before she had time to worry about missing contact
lenses her assistant came into her office.

“
Miss Davis,
I have been trying to call you all morning. The accountant has been
on the phone and he wants you to call him immediately.”

“
Thank you,
Sheila, I’ll do that now before I get drawn into other things.” The
assistant left her office and Gil dialled a familiar
number.

“
Duncan, this
is Gil. I believe you called me and left a message.”

“
Gil. Yes, I
did. Great news, I think. Anyway the Clayton Card Chain has upped
the offer for Celebrato. They have almost no online service and we
have no shops. They see a tremendous synergy.”

The Celebrato
MD sighed. During the last year, Clayton Card Chain had made an
offer for her business almost every month.

“
Then they
are wrong, Duncan,” she answered. “You know as well as I do that if
we had our own card shops the major retailers would be reluctant to
stock our cards, and that’s where we make most of our turnover. I
agree that the high margin sales would increase if we sold through
an extra one hundred and thirty card shops, but ultimately we would
lose turnover. They must know that.”

“
Gil, maybe
they do and maybe they don’t. Perhaps they have a strategy to
overcome the risk of reduced turnover and maybe they don’t. What I
do know is that they now think that we are worth fourteen and a
half million pounds.”

Gillian tried
not to react. Her share of the company would net her well over ten
million pounds in a scenario such as that, a five fold return on
her investment over the past two years.

“
OK, Duncan,
tell them I am ready to talk, but that I want an exit plan for the
end of the year. I’m done with working for other
people.”

The Chameleon
sat back in her comfortable leather chair and breathed out heavily,
relaxing every muscle. She was on the verge of a fourteen million
pound deal and she still had the Chameleon money in the bank in
Grand Cayman, amounting to over eleven million dollars, with a
million more due today.