Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (28 page)

Gillian
laughed and Rebelda smiled in return.

“
Remember, we
have never met.” With that the Cuban sat down at his utilitarian
grey laminated desk and Gillian exited the small goldfish bowl of
an office.

Chapter
3
8

The Odeon,
Leicester Square, London. Wednesday, 8pm.

The
ridiculously extended limousine cruised to a halt at the end of the
red carpet, and Dee and Katie waited patiently until security had
cleared the space between the red velvet security ropes. Seconds
later the doors were opened and cameras flashed continually, hoping
to catch a glimpse of the girls’ legs, or more, but they would be
out of luck because Katie and Dee were wearing full length gowns
and were modestly holding the split seams together until they were
in a standing position.

Katie stood
for a moment, slowly turning to look in all directions so that
everyone could snap a picture of her serene, youthful smile. The
photographers were always keen to take photographs of her male co
stars and the adult cast members, but they all knew that the
newspapers would want to lead with pictures of Katie and her even
younger co-star, Amanda Jane Beery.

Dee walked
just behind the young starlet as she chatted to fans, signed
autographs and posed for pictures. Dee was not carrying a bag, as
close protection personnel needed their hands to be free, and so
she happily waved at the cheering fans who wondered who this
gorgeous auburn haired beauty might be. Slowly the two women made
their way up the red carpet. They had another ninety seconds to
themselves and then one of the shaven headed security guards would
usher them into the lobby for more poses in front of the sponsors’
boards, as the next celebrity limo pulled up to the red carpet
exactly on cue.

Given the
careful organisation that pandered to the fans and the Press, the
red carpet should have been Katie’s alone. So, when a young man in
a tuxedo emerged from the neon lit cinema portico that proclaimed
the owners were fanatical about film, Dee and the security men
watched him closely.

***

Rod Donkin,
Big Brother winner and celebrity wannabe, strode purposefully
towards Katie Norman, who had her back to him. Beside him was a man
Dee recognised from the television. He was a tall well built man
with muscles to die for and flowing blond hair. His name was Andy
Woods and, despite the dinner suit, he was instantly recognisable
as his cage fighting alter ego, the Ghost. More importantly, he
appeared to be acting as Rod Donkin’s bodyguard.

Wary of
Donkin’s intentions, Dee made her way towards Katie to cut off his
approach, only to find that Andy Woods had stepped into her path.
If the sun had been up it would have been like standing in the
shadow of a mountain. The man was huge. Dee needed to make a
decision; diplomacy or action.

Rod Donkin
nodded to a press photographer standing against the ropes and in a
clearly choreographed move he took Katie by the shoulders, turned
her around to face him and proclaimed loudly:

“
At last, the
world gets to see Clara kissed off screen.”

Dee stepped
forward and Woods blocked her way, grinning. Diplomacy wouldn’t
save Katie from embarrassment now, and so she acted. Relying on her
special forces training, she threw her left fist directly at Andy
Woods’ jaw. At first he chuckled as this young woman telegraphed
her swing so obviously allowing him to raise his huge crossed
forearms to block the punch. The amused look disappeared as he
suddenly realised his error. Her watch was on her left wrist; why
would she lead with her left if she was right handed?

“
Shit!” he
exhaled loudly as he caught sight of a second blow on the edge of
his peripheral vision. Now it was Dee who was smiling. The giant
cage fighter tried to tense his stomach muscles, but he was just
too late. Dee’s right fist crashed into his solar plexus, finding
the sweet spot just below his rib cage. It was as if she had
measured him to find exactly where to land the perfect blow. The
breath flew out of him, and he gasped as a sharp pain shot through
his body and he instinctively bent forward, using his crossed arms
to protect himself from further blows.

Dee knew that
as a cage fighter he would be accustomed to working through the
pain barrier to fight back, and so before Woods had even begun to
adopt a more aggressive posture she grabbed the hair at the back of
his head, where the shorter hairs meet the neckline, and pulled
hard, forcing his head forward. The cage fighter yelled as the
hairs on his neck were pulled taut or pulled out. Once she had the
momentum, Dee pushed his head down hard and fast to meet her
upcoming knee. There was an audible crack as Woods, still gasping
for breath, bounced his forehead off Dee’s knee. Dee let go of the
man, who by now would have worked out why security men had shaven
heads, and he fell to his knees. To his credit, and Dee’s
astonishment, he did not pass out or fall flat to the floor; rather
he went down on his hands and knees and shook his head in an
attempt to clear it. Most men would have been concussed or
unconscious or both by now, and whilst he was out of the action for
the time being, he was still in the game. If he had offered any
further resistance Dee would have aimed a firm kick into his
unprotected genitilia to finish him off, but he presented no active
threat at the moment

Dee noticed
that the crowd had fallen silent, and that the security guards had
deliberately turned towards the crowd to prevent the fans from
passing the rope barrier, and to save themselves from seeing what
happened next.

A purposeful
Rod Donkin had, single mindedly, ignored the violent action going
on behind him and had now tipped the slight frame of Katie Norman
backwards and off balance in some kind of mock Hollywood embrace.
Holding her up with his left arm, he used his right hand to stop
hers from fending him off as he leaned in for a full kiss on the
lips.

***

Katie Norman
was surprised to be spun around by the shoulders. At first she
thought Dee had spotted some danger, but then she saw the reptilian
grin of Rod Donkin. Katie knew what was coming next and, already
off balance, she tried to fend off her attacker with her free left
hand but Donkin had anticipated the move and grabbed her wrist.
Resigned to being kissed by this oaf, she thought to herself, stick
your tongue in my mouth and I’ll bite it off. She closed her eyes
and grimaced, waiting for the repulsive kiss. But it never came.
There was a squeal from Donkin and she was freed from his
grasp.

***

Dee saw
Donkin’s head go in for the kiss but she was quicker than he was.
Her hand flew out and grabbed his left ear, twisting it violently.
That was all it took to elicit a girlish squeal from the creep and
to have him entirely under her control. She used her left arm to
hold Katie until she was safely restored to a standing position
and, still twisting Donkin’s ear, she smiled sweetly to Katie and
the crowd.

“
Take your
time, Katie, this odious little pervert and I are going for a
walk,” Dee said more loudly than was necessary. The immediate crowd
laughed and cheered.

Dee twisted
Donkin’s ear further, making him yell and bend almost double. In
this position she marched him forward so that all of the crowd and
the photographers could see him. Camera flashes lit up the night as
Donkin walked forward, bent double, into their
viewfinders.

“
Are you
taking you monkey for a walk, Missus?” one wag in the crowd yelled
to lots of good natured laughter. Then one person started making
chimpanzee noises and in no time at all the whole crowd had joined
in. Walking along bent double, with a woman holding his ear as if
he was a naughty chimp, Rob Donkin’s humiliation was almost
complete. Tears streamed down his face as his career as a ‘Z list’
celebrity came to a close.

Dee approached
the Police Constable at the end of the red carpet and handed over
Donkin, who was trying to hide his tear stained face whilst rubbing
his ear.

“
Officer,
please take this man into custody. He has just committed an
assault.”

The young
constable looked uncertain.

“
Leave it to
me, Hopkinson, I’ll deal with it.” A female Inspector took Donkin
by the arm and led him towards a police van. Donkin initially
resisted and stood his ground.

“
Do you
really want to do this, sir?” the police Inspector asked, the
threat apparent in her visage and in her tone. Donkin’s shoulders
slumped in defeat and he was handcuffed.

Tomorrow
morning Katie would have to compete for the front page photo with a
shot of Donkin being led along like a domestic pet, and with the
grainy shot of his tear stained face as he was being helped into
the white police van.

***

Dee was
walking back to the cinema entrance when she spotted the
photographer Donkin had nodded to. She beckoned him over and
whispered in his ear.

“
I saw the
nod. You sell one photograph of that low life with my client and
I’ll track you down and break your arm. Then if you complain I’ll
come back a week later and break the other one. Do you understand?
Smile and nod.”

The man’s face
had paled but he smiled wanly and nodded.

As Dee
rejoined Katie under the cinema canopy she caught sight of Andy
Woods, who was recovering in a chair hurriedly brought out from the
lobby. She noted that he was now, rather pointedly, sitting on the
wrong side of the velvet ropes.

Chapter
3
9

Terminal 2, Jose Marti
Airport, Boyeros. Cuba.

Wednesday
afternoon.

Gillian Davis joined
the rest of the holidaymakers picking up their luggage from
carousel number 4, still unsettled by her encounter with the Cuban
authorities
. She knew that if
she wanted to stay out of sight of MI5 she would need more than the
cooperation of a minor Cuban functionary, handsome as he was. Gil
was convinced that by now MI5 would have an operative in the
arrivals hall of the airport, ready to follow her. She planned to
make his job easy.

After a fifteen minute
wait, Gil’s pink designer suitcase, adorned with the Chanel logo,
slid down a metal chute and on to the sectional rubber conveyor
that displayed the luggage as it travelled in a large oval. Gillian
picked up her case and set it down on the terrazzo floor before
elevating the pulling handle. She slipped her carry on bag over the
handle and pulled both bags towards the green Nada de declarer -
or, nothing to declare - exit.

Having passed through
the customs hall and now traversing the arrivals hall, Gillian
scanned the crowds of greeters holding up signs seeking named
customers for various hotels and car hire companies. To her extreme
left she spotted the MI5 watcher. He was dressed in chinos and a
Hawaiian styled silk shirt. His Ray Ban sunglasses were perched on
his head amid a sea of wavy medium length salt and pepper hair. He
had a folded copy of the local newspaper, oddly entitled the
‘Granma’, with the red banner title facing towards her. The reason
the observer drew her attention was that he occasionally looked
down at the paper before again scanning the crowd of new arrivals.
Each time he looked around his hand relaxed a little and the
newspaper was lowered enough for Gillian to note that the newspaper
was concealing a sheet of paper to which the observer’s attention
regularly returned. Gillian was quite certain that the paper
contained her photograph and her description.

The man appeared
increasingly anxious as he failed to spot his quarry, and so Gil
removed her wide brimmed hat and shook loose her long fair hair to
give him a better view. She smiled to herself as he spotted her
immediately and compared her to the photo in his hand.

Job done, Gil walked
off in the direction of her tour group and boarded the bus which
would drop her and a rowdy crowd of Geordies and Mackems at the
Hotel Nacional.

***

Jared Stevens dropped
the newspaper into the trash and followed the tourists out onto the
concourse, where he watched as their luggage was loaded onto a bus
which had a crudely printed sheet of A4 paper blu-tacked to the
windscreen. The writing on the paper read “Nacional”.

Jared waited until the
target had entered the bus and the door had closed with a loud hiss
of air before he extracted his mobile phone. Carefully scrolling
down the Cubacell Nokia 8 phone’s screen, he selected ‘Moriarty’
and pressed the speed dial. The phone was answered almost
immediately at the other end.

“
Holmes, has the bird
landed?” Moriarty asked.

“
Yes
indeed. S
he is winging her way
to you as we speak,” Stevens responded, replying to his
codename.

“
Excellent,
” Moriarty
replied. “I’ll be waiting.”

***

Thom Passerell, alias
Moriarty, was the senior half of the two man team that MI5 had
assigned to watch Gillian Davis. Neither operative was supposed to
be active in Cuba. Usually, they operated entirely separately from
the MI5 man in the Embassy, Laurence Hinds, who was allegedly the
commercial attaché, a title which fooled no-one, especially the
Cubans.