Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (21 page)

It had taken
time to prepare the old platform for her purposes, but her hard
work appeared to have been rewarded. As soon as the meeting had
been planned she had known what to expect, and set about surviving
the attempted assassination. First of all she loosened the
brickwork that sealed off the old platform by placing a detonator
into a mortar joint and triggering it remotely. Detonators of the
type Gil used have a small explosive charge of their own called a
primary charge. This is enough to set off a more stable explosive
material like Semtex 10, but in many cases the detonator charge
alone is enough to do a small job, and it removes the need to
procure hard-to-get plastic explosive material such as Semtex or
DHX.

As she had
calculated, the brickwork had loosened enough in the centre of the
wall for Gil to knock it through with a two-kilogram brick hammer.
She expected the air to be fetid and un-breathable, but the lift
shaft obviously provided enough ventilation because the air inside
was slightly stale but not overly unpleasant. Gil didn’t worry
about filling the hole she had created, as no one had been down
this tunnel for decades, probably because the ancient sign at the
entrance bluntly stated that the tunnel was a ‘Dead
End’.

The Chameleon
had known that if she was to survive she would need some supplies,
and so she arranged for one of her greeting card delivery drivers
to deliver twenty flat packed cardboard boxes to the side entrance
of the tube station. If he was puzzled by this instruction he
didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look particularly puzzled when
his Managing Director appeared at the side door of an abandoned
tube station covered in dust to take possession of them. Gil
collected the lights and the other items herself, and delivered
them under the cover of darkness in the early hours of the
morning.

By the time
she had finished Gil had filled the base of the lift shaft with
three layers of large, empty cardboard boxes rising to above her
head height. Three inches of latex foam covered the boxes, and the
same material had been taped to the concrete wall surrounding the
landing base. A first aid kit, also enclosed in foam, was wedged
against the wall.

The lights,
and the boat batteries which provided their power, had been
carefully lowered down the shaft where earlier the foam and the
cardboard boxes had been allowed to free fall to the bottom.
Satisfied with her precautions, Gil retired to the Waldorf Astoria
where her luxurious bathroom and bed were calling her. She managed
five good hours of sleep in her executive room before she had to
dress, don her armour and wait for Don to remove the safety
bar.

When Tim had
shot her she looked genuinely pained, because it hurt a good deal
more than she had expected. Nonetheless, if she wanted the
performance to be convincing she had to follow up with a seventy
foot fall to her apparent death. Falling seventy feet, even onto
her landing pad, was likely to be injurious, if not fatal; stuntmen
had died falling shorter distances. So, as soon as she tumbled into
the lift shaft, she grabbed hold of the recently replaced rope with
her lined leather gloves, the stopping forces almost pulling her
shoulders out of the sockets. She then slid and rappelled down the
rope as fast as she could into the beckoning blackness. Gil was
less than thirty feet from the platform when the rope gave way and
she fell. Quickly she folded her arms across her chest and crossed
her legs whilst lying as flat as possible. She had screamed, and
not just for effect, when she hit the bottom. As planned, the foam
absorbed the initial impact and then the boxes collapsed under the
weight and momentum of a falling body. Despite the relative
softness of the landing, Gil was shaken badly and had passed out
with a mild concussion. Given the alternatives, it had been an
acceptable outcome.

***

Having
concealed her debris and equipment in the old platform office, Gil
brushed herself down and smiled as she made one addition to the old
platform which was now back in the state it had been for
decades.

Moving through
the formerly sealed tunnel, Gil climbed through the hole that Don
would reseal shortly, at the same time he replaced the safety bar
on the rails and the lift shaft cover that Gil had rolled into the
loading bay.

Rather than
exiting through the side door, the Chameleon left via the tunnel,
wary of the live rail. She passed what she believed to be the
remains of Tim, who looked as though he had been thrown onto a
bonfire, and opened the door leading to the secret Aldwych
staircase. Picking up the remaining pieces of the ‘flash bang’
grenade, she threw them down the tunnel onto the unused track and
closed the door behind her.

Ten minutes
later she was in her hotel room, discarding her bullet holed
clothing and dropping onto the bed, planning her future in the
comfort of the pale grey hotel room. In five more minutes she was
asleep, dreaming of her upcoming expedition and what she might
find.

Chapter
30

Vastrick
Security, Nr 1 Poultry, London. Tuesday 11am.

Simon yawned,
opening his mouth so wide that his jaw clicked, and for a moment he
thought it had locked. He massaged the sides of his face just below
his ears with his fingers until the muscles relaxed. As he had
predicted, he had been up all night, spending only three hours in
the tiny bedroom at the end of the corridor. In an hour or two he
would make the journey home and crash out until tomorrow morning,
but for the moment he still had work to do.

The young
forensic analyst leaned back in his chair and removed his glasses;
he rubbed at the bridge of his nose where his glasses had left
small red marks. He just needed a moment. The tiredness was
becoming a hindrance. He had been so tired overnight he had begun
to hallucinate.

He had a dream
that he was sitting at his computer as lines of text zoomed up past
his eyes so quickly they were a blur. When he woke up he was indeed
at his keyboard, and his sleeping hand had been resting on the down
arrow, scrolling through pages of research at increasing
speed.

He was sure
that coffee would help, but it wasn’t an option. Simon’s blood
stream was probably already more caffeinated than was wise and so
he sipped a glass of chilled water and refreshed his face with a
handy wipe. The printer in the background hummed as each page of
his report printed. He had gathered, ordered and summarised over
eighty pages of text relating to the life history of Gillian
Davis.

Simon knew he
was a bit of a geek. He also knew that, despite his best efforts,
he tended to look like a geek, too. He was almost six feet tall,
with short fair hair that refused to accept a parting. His skin was
fair and prone to sunburn and freckles. Skinny to the point of
malnutrition, he did not wear clothes; he hung them on his
shoulders and let gravity take care of the rest. Even the smallest
waisted trousers would be cinched at his midriff with a belt. Women
like Gillian Davis rarely paid him any heed, until their computers
failed; and then their wide bovine eyes pleaded for his help. The
printer stopped churning out paper, and Simon reached over and
gathered the printed sheets of A4 which almost filled the
tray.

Skimming
through the summary before he clipped the pages into a folder, he
read:

Gillian Davis
was born to a single Mother by the name of Andrea Jane Bailey,
father unknown, appearing on her birth certificate. When just a few
months old her mother died and she was adopted by her Mother’s
employers, the Davis’s. At the time of the adoption the Social
Workers attempted to contact Gillian’s potential father, Denton
Miles III, but were unsuccessful.

Gillian had
grown to maturity on the Tallgarth Manor Estate at Stratfield
Turgis, near Basingstoke in Hampshire. She had enjoyed a healthy
adolescence but had been admitted to hospital as a young teenager
when an overzealous doctor treating a suspected case of strep
throat reported to social workers that the infection was actually
gonococcal pharyngitis. The doctor was concerned because the main
cause of this type of infection was oral sex and Gillian was so
young. During an uncomfortable investigation male family members
were both suspected and quizzed, but eventually the girl admitted
to her case worker that she had been assaulted by a local man who
had later taken his own life.

Simon’s quick
search of the Newbury Weekly News archive revealed that Leslie
Barnett Vaughan, aged 35 years, took his own life in the same year
in the woods surrounding Tallgarth Manor. He was not well liked or
respected and his own wife and children did not attend his
funeral.

“
Harsh,”
Simon thought to himself. He continued reading.

An
exceptional student at some very expensive, but very ordinary,
minor public schools, Gillian Davis excelled at shooting, archery
and orienteering. Gillian was Junior National Rifle Shooting
Champion - Field, twice, and Junior National Rifle Shooting
Champion – Target, three times. Called up to the National team on
six occasions, she missed what would have been the highlight of her
amateur career when she missed the Commonwealth Games with a
dislocated shoulder.

With the
award of a First Class Honours Degree in Combined Sciences, she was
able to go on to achieve a Masters in Biological
Chemistry.

Because Simon
hadn’t immediately known what Biological Chemistry was, and because
being a geek makes one thorough, he included a footnote for his
readers;

¹
Biological Chemistry combines
studies in Organic Chemistry with Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology. These are combined with fundamental Chemistry and Biology
and may also contain elements of Analytical Chemistry, Medicinal
Chemistry, Ecology and Developmental Biology.

Gillian Davis
was reading for a Doctorate when she was recruited by the MOD as an
intelligence analyst (more likely as a special operations field
officer/ sniper).

After a
distinguished period of service she was pensioned off, and
completed her Doctorate before using an inheritance to buy a
failing greetings card company [Celebrato] and turning it into a
commercial success.

NB: Whilst Ms
Davis clearly was in receipt of an inheritance, probate records at
Winchester indicate that she was the heir to Nicholas Barnaby Davis
and not the heir of Harold Graham Davis, the owner of Tallgarth
Manor. It was assumed that upon the sale of Tallgarth Manor to an
international computer company, Gillian was gifted a proportion of
the £7m sale price by her cousin. No records exist to verify this
transaction but Ms Davis did invest £2.5m cash into Celebrato
Greeting Cards shortly thereafter.

As recently
as yesterday morning, the Clayton Card Chain announced the purchase
of Celebrato Greeting Cards, and its assets, by a mix of shares and
cash.

Satisfied with
his work Simon sat down and bound the document before walking along
the corridor to speak to Dee Hammond, his gorgeous – but married –
boss.

***

The mobile
phone on the desk vibrated and then rang with a tinny rendition of
“Stars and Stripes Forever” that the composer, John Philip Sousa,
would not have appreciated.

“
Dee
Hammond,” the phone’s owner announced to the caller from the
Vastrick head office in the USA.

“
Dee, this is
George Templeton, Vice President of Operations in New
York.”

“
Hi, George.
I haven’t seen those wobbly jowls of yours for an age. How are you
doing?” Dee enjoyed bursting the bubble of the American contingent
at Vastrick whose grand titles were beloved of their clients but
anathema to Tom Vastrick, the American owner and
President.

“
Oh, I’m
good. I’d be back in the field if it wasn’t for this damn
arthritis, you know.”

“
There’d be
no holding you back, George. I tell you, if I wasn’t already
married....” Dee teased the sixty three year old executive
mercilessly. She knew very well that if George was ever let out on
fieldwork it would be bladder control that let him down, not
arthritis.

“
Dee, I need
you to meet Flight AAM 46 from Los Angeles when it lands at
Heathrow. It’s due to arrive at sixteen hundred hours UK time. It’s
an Air America A380 and Katie Norman is on board.” He paused before
emphasising the word, “alone.” The American sounded vaguely
panicked.

“
OK George,
I’ll do it. Why is she alone, though? We have a base to base
contract with personal protection and close residential
protection.” Dee was genuinely puzzled, and for good reason. Katie
should never have been on an aeroplane alone. It was a blatant
breach of procedure.

In plain
English, Vastrick had a contract to protect Katie at all times,
with
personal protection
– a bodyguard,
base to
base cover
– a protection team during
travel, and,
close residential
protection
– an agent eats, drinks, sleeps
and attends University, parties and any other event with the
client.

Normally such
protection would be seen as overkill or tawdry fee generation, but
when the client is very young, very vulnerable or under threat, it
was occasionally necessary. This client met all of those
criteria.