Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (22 page)

Katie Norman
was one of Vastrick’s youngest clients. She was still only twenty
years old, but her film career had taken off when she was only
twelve years old and she landed the role of Clara Campbell, a
schoolgirl who attends a mystical school for spiritually gifted
children. The books were a publishing sensation, and it was always
accepted that the subsequent films would be box office hits if they
were directed and produced with care and with respect for the
author’s characters and plots.

In the films
Katie played Clara, a psychic who helped the hero, schoolboy
Matthew Tibbett, release their friend, Jamie Faraday, a ghostly
schoolboy from being imprisoned in the Netherworld. The three
friends, now all mortal again, then battled the evil Spectre
through six books and six blockbuster films, the last of which was
due to premiere in London on Friday.

Luckily, Dee
had protected Katie on a part time basis between the ages of twelve
and fourteen, when she was handed over to another female operative
called Janna, when Dee had to go to the USA for extended CPT (Close
Protection Training).

Janna had
looked after Katie until the young actress left school at seventeen
and headed off to University in the USA. Since then, the Vastrick
UK team had seen little if anything of the elfin face super
starlet, except in the celebrity columns of the
newspapers.

George sounded
weary as he explained that Millie Pederson had been waiting to
accompany Katie onto the plane to Heathrow when her appendix burst
and she was rushed to hospital. The panicked crew held the
distraught Katie in the VIP lounge until loading was complete, and
then accompanied her to a private bedroom on the A380 airliner. At
the personal request of Tom Vastrick, the First Class Purser
ensured that a flight attendant was sitting outside the private
room for the whole flight.

As far as
anyone knew, Katie was upset but safe in her tiny suite forty two
thousand feet over the Atlantic.

“
OK, George.
I’ll take care of it. But she probably won’t even remember
me.”

“
Dee, you’re
not that easy to forget,” George replied, his voice gentler, more
relaxed.

***

Katie paced
restlessly around her small suite. The interior had been designed
by the renowned yacht designer, Jaques De Valle, and he had used
the sparse room wisely. The room was furnished with two leather
seats and a double bed. A thirty two inch flat screen LED TV had
also been squeezed in. With IPod connections, a mini fridge and a
choice of over one hundred and eighty films and TV programmes, this
was how flying was meant to be done.

The aeroplane
had been on the ground for almost thirty minutes and the young
starlet was still not being allowed to disembark. She picked up her
mobile phone and dialled the hospital but, despite her best
endeavours, they would tell her nothing about Millie because she
was not family. Frustrated, she threw herself on the bed and
considered her itinerary. In less than three days she had to attend
two parties, a fashion clothing launch, a book reading and the
Premiere of
Clara Campbell; Revenge of the
Spectre
.

She heard a
polite tap on the door and, with the enthusiasm of a claustrophobic
inmate about to be released from prison, she leapt up and opened
the door.

***

Dee was
frustrated by the delays she was encountering at Heathrow’s Royal
Suite. She was seated in Suite 1, on a luxurious sofa which had
hosted the delicate derrieres of the Pope and Boris Johnson,
amongst others, just a year before. She scanned the luxuriously
appointed suite and took in the bright Hockney painting and the
folding screen commissioned from Lord Linley. A moment later Melita
Avery, known colloquially as ‘Melita the Greeter’ strode over to
Dee, who rose from the overstuffed sofa with some
difficulty.

“
Dee! How
nice to see you again. Are you back on protection duty? I’d heard
that you’d crashed through the glass ceiling to head up Vastrick in
the UK.”

“
Nice to see
you, too,” Dee responded. “Are you still in the
Territorials?”

“
I am indeed.
I’m a major now, but obviously my occasional trips to trouble spots
are less dangerous than yours. I heard you got shot.”

“
Twice,” Dee
replied with a grimace. “When Josh gets back, let’s have a run out
to Jamie Oliver’s place for dinner. You can still get a table
there, I guess?”

“
If he ever
wants his luggage back, I can.” They both laughed before Melita
placed her hand on the small of Dee’s back and guided her out of
the door and towards the limousine that would take them to the
Airbus.

***

Dee tapped on
the cabin door a little apprehensively. When she had last known
Katie Norman she had been a quiet fourteen year old who thought of
Dee as the big sister she never had. But now, at twenty, what would
she be like? Would years of stardom have turned her into a diva,
perhaps? Dee would have to be careful.

The door
opened and a scowling young face appeared, appraising the visitor
for a moment. Suddenly, in an amazing transformation, the twelve
year old pixie face was back. Gone were the long, wavy chestnut
tresses of yesterday. They had been replaced with a sophisticated
short cut which emphasised her fine bone structure. The smile that
split the face was as wide as it was genuine. The girl threw
herself at her new bodyguard.

“
Dee! This is
fantastic. I’ve missed you. Wow, I never thought I’d see you
again.” The last few words were spoken directly into Dee’s right
ear as the two girls hugged. They unlatched, and Katie stepped back
and took hold of Dee’s two hands. As she squeezed she felt
something on the left hand. Her eyes widened with excitement as she
lifted Dee’s left hand for a closer look.

“
Oh, Dee! You
haven’t!” The young actress admired the rings at close range,
rubbing her thumb over the diamond engagement ring. “The boys will
be destroyed when they find out.” Katie was referring to her
co-stars in the films, both of whom had developed a serious crush
on the protection operative when they were young
teenagers.

“
You
exaggerate, I’m sure,” Dee answered, smiling. “I don’t think
they’ll even remember who I am.”

Katie laughed.
“Oh, they will, you can be sure of that. Boys always remember their
first lust.”

Dee shook her
head in mock annoyance in an attempt to stop the conversation where
it was, though unsuccessfully.

“
There isn’t
a boy alive who wouldn’t fall in love with a beautiful older woman
who could throw the stage manager to the floor without spilling her
coffee.”

“
Katie
Norman! Stop this now. You were a wicked fourteen year-old and it
seems college in the States hasn’t improved your
manners.”

“
Come on,
Dee. Surely you must have noticed? If you as much as winked at
either Tom or Danny they got all hot and sweaty and....” She held
her left hand out in a fist and flicked up her forefinger until it
was perpendicular. “Ping!”

The young girl
accompanied the gesture with the sound more than the
word.

Dee looked
shocked, and she could feel herself beginning to blush.

“
It seems
that I’ve been assigned to look after you just in time. You are a
wicked little madam who needs a bit of discipline. Come on, we have
to go.”

Katie laughed
out loud and, despite not wanting to do the same, Dee followed
suit. They laughed the tension from their bodies. They sat side by
side on the bed. Dee looked at her young client and squeezed her
hand.

“
What took
you to LA? I thought you were studying in New York?”

“
Breast
reduction,” Katie blurted out as quick as a flash, as though such a
procedure was the most normal thing in the world. Dee couldn’t help
laughing again because, until she was fourteen, Katie was forever
measuring her bust, looking for that extra millimetre that would
tell her that her breasts were still developing, but they never
had. Even today she was, at best, a B cup.

“
Joking,
obviously,” she said as she looked down at her chest. “Actually, I
was working. I was launching the Fair Trade fashion show and
opening the Fair Trade clothing emporium. I knew that Millie felt
unwell and I just carried on. I feel pretty bad about that. I keep
called the hospital but they just say she’s as well as can be
expected, whatever that means.”

Dee was a
little surprised at the concern this famous young woman felt for
Millie Pederson, a polite but tough security operative from the
Bronx.

“
Well, you
have no need to worry because Millie had an operation and they
caught the post trauma infection early in the process. She’ll be on
an antibiotic drip until you get back, and the prognosis is that
she will fully recover. She was lucky that she wasn’t actually on
the plane when her appendix burst, or she could have contracted
peritonitis, which can be fatal.”

Katie looked
solemn, and her eyes glazed with tears. Dee placed her right arm
around her shoulder and squeezed gently.

“
Come on,
don’t worry. Millie is tough. I remember hearing that once she left
a New York Deli, only to be confronted by six self styled ninjas.
Then, armed with just a loaf of French bread, four carrots and a
tub of Tofu, she fought them all off.”

“
Is that
true?” Katie asked, her face brightening.

“
Not a word,
but it made you smile. We both know she’s a tough cookie.” Dee
paused, and it was the younger woman’s turn to shake her head with
disapproval.

“
Come on,
Clara Campbell,” Dee said, referencing the actress’s alter ego. “We
have an appointment with the Pope’s couch!” Her protégé looked
puzzled, but picked up her bag and followed anyway.

Chapter
31

Doncaster
Railway Station, East Coast Line. Tuesday 5pm.

Gil was
halfway between London and Newcastle when a text came through on
her mobile phone, informing her that her premium seat on the
aircraft had been confirmed. Upon her arrival at Newcastle Central
Station, a limousine would be waiting to whisk her away to the
Britannia Hotel at Newcastle Airport.

Agents, and
particularly former agents like Gil who were trying to remain
anonymous, loved train travel. It was possible to travel anywhere
in the UK, and no one asked for your name as long as you paid for
your tickets in cash. These arrangements made it doubly difficult
for anyone to track your movements. As cautious as ever, when Gil
arrived at the Airport’s basic three star hotel, she would be
staying in a room booked under the name of Jean Lansbury, the
Celebrato Cards North East Regional Representative. By the time the
invoice was queried by Celebrato HQ, Gil would be long
gone.

Gil was
content that the precautions she had taken at the Strand would
convince MI5 that she was dead, but only for the time being.
Whether it took twenty four hours, a week or a month, they would
eventually find out that she had survived Tim’s amateur
assassination attempt and they would be back on her tail. She had
no qualms about that; she just had to make sure that when they
started looking for her the trail would be stone cold.

Gil set down
her fork, having demolished the decadent dessert she had ordered as
a well deserved treat. The sticky toffee pudding with caramelised
sugar strings and sauce anglais lay heavy on her stomach as she
looked out over the Yorkshire countryside, whilst the 6090 bhp
electric train whizzed along at over one hundred miles per hour.
The carriages attached to the 225 engines that pulled and pushed
her northwards along electrified tracks to Newcastle had,
coincidentally, been recently refitted at Doncaster, according to
the metal plate on the floor by the door. The pleasantly appointed
rolling stock had, rather ostentatiously, taken the name of the
Mallard Coaches, to reflect the past glories of the railway and
more specifically to honour the fast steam trains which had once
travelled the historic east coast line between London and
Edinburgh.

As she was
still around ninety minutes away from her final stop, Gil leaned
back in her reclined seat and snoozed.

***

Barry
Mitchinson had made the first mistake of taking some of his wife’s
beta blockers to calm himself down, but he had made the second
mistake of washing them down with copious amounts of Old Time
Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey. The pills and the whiskey didn’t mix
well, and Barry had been experiencing mild hallucinatory side
effects, as well as feeling an exaggerated sense of anxiety. He
told himself he was a professional and that he needed to carry on.
He had an operative missing.

He looked at
his watch. Almost eight hours had passed since Tim had reported
that he was on his way back to the office, having disposed of the
Chameleon. Barry rarely left the office on business matters, but
this was a search that he would have to conduct himself; if the
Director caught even the faintest sniff of a Level Three operative
being lost on assignment in the UK, Barry’s career would be
over.

“
Evening, Mr
Mitchinson.” The formal greeting came from a well built man of
indeterminate age who lacked a single hair anywhere on his head or
face. His shiny bald pate shone under the streetlight.