Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (41 page)

Andy, has the
redacted Affidavit gone back to the States?”

“
Yes Ma’am,
almost two hours ago. I blanked out anything that might remotely
have caused concern,” the Security Services Director nodded before
firing off another question.

“
Good.
Jeremy, are you lawyers happy with the situation? Are we squeaky
clean?”

“
Well, Ma’am,
happy is not the word,” Jeremy replied. “The Commissioner, and the
Metropolitan Police generally, are hopping mad that the Home
Secretary has cut them off at the knees, but they won’t be pursuing
the case any further. The murderer is dead, and we have shared the
evidence with them.”

“
She had no
choice, Jeremy. This confounded Davis woman has taken on the
establishment and has given us a sound whipping.” Dame Monica
turned to a distinguished looking man of indeterminate years with a
shiny bald head.

“
Lawrence,
she listed several funds that we have used to pay her in the past.
Are they closed, and have the funds been secured?”

“
Yes, Ma’am,
but there was one account under the name of Britannic Investment
Group, in the Isle of Man, that did not belong to us. Miss Davis
appears to have inadvertently given us the account details,
password and pass number for an account of her own. There was close
to a million pounds in deposits in the account.”

“
What did you
do with it, Lawrie?” the lady asked, using Lawrence’s familiar
name.

“
We emptied
it, Ma’am.” There was laughter all around.

“
OK,
everyone, let’s put this all behind us and move on; we have a
country to keep safe.” Dame Monica intended the meeting to end
there.

“
And Barry
Mitchinson, Ma’am, what should I do there?” the new Director of
Special Operations asked.

“
Oh, you can
leave him to me,” his boss said with menace in her
voice.

***

Barry
Mitchinson was sitting in the apartment watching Countdown on
Channel 4, thinking to himself, ‘So it’s all come down to this;
watching daytime TV,” when the phone rang. It was Maureen
Lassiter.

“
Barry, Five
have just cleared a compromise agreement with Gillian Davis. The
Home Secretary has signed off on a deal where Doug gets stiffed for
the murder and she is ticked off for being an unwitting accomplice.
Barry, the chatter on the third floor and in the restaurant is that
you’re the one who’s getting the blame. You’re going to be the
scapegoat. Everyone is saying that the authorities have had to back
off because she has evidence that MI5 tried to kill her. They are
also saying that it was you who gave that order.”

Barry’s
response would not have been capable of being broadcast until well
after the watershed.

“
Get me a
copy of the agreement,” he added, still seething. “I want to see
what that bitch says and I want to be prepared if I’m to be called
in front of the old hag again, which seems inevitable now.” Barry
paused midstream. “Maureen, we may need to do a runner, and quick.”
He looked at his watch. It was too late now to start calling
banks.

“
Maureen my
love, tomorrow we’ll transfer the funds to the Caymans and make
sure our passports are up to date. I don’t trust the old Dame to
honour her part of the deal. If she’ll dump on the Met, she’ll dump
on me double quick.”

They said
their goodbyes, and Maureen set about finding a copy of the
agreement, one without the redacted elements, if possible. There
was nothing on the server, at least nothing that she could access
with level three clearance, and so she tried to think laterally.
After a few aborted attempts to access the cache files stored on
the server, waiting to be scrubbed - deleted by overwriting with
ones and zeros twenty one times - she gave up on that. Suddenly she
had an idea. It was risky, but it was the only way.

Maureen
Lassiter had covered for Vanessa in the Legal Section many times;
the woman was a sick leave aficionado. Vanessa worked only part
time and so her workstation was empty by this time of day. Maureen
booted up Vanessa’s desktop computer and hoped that the part timer
hadn’t changed the password since last month. She needn’t have
worried. After a few key strokes the computer welcomed Vanessa
Adamson to the server.

Maureen
guessed that at sometime during the day the Legal Section head
would have been copied in on the agreement, and so she used his
PA’s access to his Outlook account. The bosses in this place were
supposed to be security conscious, but they allowed their PAs to
arrange their appointments and deal with their meeting invitations.
This gave the PAs access to their bosses email.

Maureen found
what she wanted and forwarded the email to her own desktop before
deleting her email from the ‘sent’ box. She was just clearing up
when a voice called her name.

“
Maureen,
what are you doing here?” The head of Legal Services was smiling
down at her. He had just returned from one of his interminable
meetings and was carrying a file under his arm.

“
I was
wondering, Maureen. Now that your Director is no longer with us,
well, maybe you could transfer into here. Vanessa is a waste of
space. Things are always done more efficiently when you stand in
for her. In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting that you are remedying
another of her faux pas as we speak.”

“
Vanessa
managed to lock herself out of the timesheet system, but I’ve put
her back on. Please don’t tell her I told you,” Maureen
pleaded.

“
I won’t, but
give my suggestion some thought, won’t you? There could be a hike
in pay grade if you transfer over.”

“
Jeremy, I’d
love to work for you, if you think you could swing it,” Maureen
simpered.

“
I think I
can arrange it,” Jeremy replied, with a knowing wink that suggested
he knew more about her carnal predilections than he ought to have
known.

Chapter
61

Courtyard
Marriott Hotel, Lynchburg, Virginia, Thursday 9:30pm.

Steve Post,
Dee, Pete and DS Scott sat in the restaurant waiting for their
food, although no-one had any real appetite. DCI Coombs had been on
the phone to Scotland Yard for almost an hour and they were now
emailing him the agreement, or affidavit. Coombes would have had no
idea how to access the attachment or how to print it, and so the
young lady in the business centre was seconded into helping him.
Her name was Melody and she was as pretty as the name
sounded.

“
What I don’t
understand,” DS Scott puzzled over, “is why we had to go through
that charade today. Why deny everything and wreck our case if she
was just going to admit her involvement anyway?”

Dee answered
after a quick glance in the direction of the FBI man.

“
Paul, she
has played us all. The woman is always several steps ahead of the
game. She wanted to cooperate so that she could show you, and the
Americans, that we had no chance of making a case for extradition,
let alone conviction. My guess is that if she had made the
admission without first destroying the case, the Metropolitan
Police would have decided to take their chances and drag her back
to the UK anyway. By rubbishing the case against her she was
saying, look, I could walk away from this free and clear, but I
want to do the decent thing.”

“
Magnanimous
in victory?” Paul Scott asked.

“
Yes.” Dee
was about to continue when a red faced DCI Coombes came over to the
table and flung down three copies of the affidavit.

The affidavit
was couched in legalese and had been redacted, but it was clear
enough. Dee and Pete shared a copy and read through it
quickly.

Affidavit

Sworn this
28th day of January in the year 2011.

Before:

Martin K
Sherman
, Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court of the USA.

I, Gillian
Davis, do swear and affirm, under oath, and in the presence of a
notary and of witnesses simple, that my statement is a full and
honest account, including no fabrications or misdirection and
excluding no pertinent facts. I attest that the following words
represent my full and complete testimony on the below stated
matter:

Statement
of:

Gillian Davis,
formerly of 311 Covingham Buildings, Partington Road, London.
United Kingdom.

I acknowledge
and understand that any statement I give may be used as evidence
before any court, tribunal or other hearing, howsoever constituted,
relating to the deaths in the United Kingdom of Mr Samuel Etundi
and Mrs Victoria Hokobu.

The said
Gillian Davis will say as follows:

Following the
termination of my employment by the UK Government on
23
^rd
July 2007, in the Special Operations Section of
Military Intelligence
often referred to as
MI5
, I was approached by Mr Douglas
McKeown, also a former operative with the aforesaid agency. Mr
McKeown was operating as a sole trader offering outsourced security
assistance to various wealthy individuals, companies and to his
former employers. His identity was kept secret and his clients knew
him only as the Chameleon.

Mr Mc Keown
had always been a good friend to me and had acted as my mentor when
I first entered the service. I trusted him implicitly and, on
reflection, I now see that I looked to him as the Father I had
never known. Our relationship was affectionate but not
sexual.

Until the
arrival of the Hokobus all of the Chameleon’s assignments had been
overseas, clear cut and morally defensible, otherwise I would have
dissolved the partnership immediately. Typical assignments included
the removal of terrorist suspects, Somali Pirates and the
protection of major political figures. I recall that on each
occasion where he took an assignment that had geo political
implications, he required that the agency requesting the
Chameleon’s services first clear the assignment with the
Chameleon’s main customer, one Mr
Barry
Mitchinson
at the aforementioned agency. As far as I am aware if
Mr
Barry
Mitchinson
recommended that we
should not proceed we refused the assignment. The Chameleon was a
hired gun but his alter ego, Doug, was patriotic. He was not
interested in acting against his country or his country’s
interests.

This all
changed last year when I assisted him in arranging the demise of a
HAMAS leader for the Israeli’s. Apparently, they been rumbled
carrying out an assassination in Dubai and they could not afford
any more bad publicity. Doug carried out the approved assignment
and the Israeli’s refused to pay. I recall that Doug was livid and
I began to think that he had changed. His home life was falling
apart and he seemed to be having a breakdown. I was set against his
proposed course of action and refused to be involved. As a result
he employed a contact we have used before, whose name I do not
know, and he assassinated the
Foreign
Minister of Israel. The
operation was clean as far as Doug was concerned but the French and
Israeli operatives turned it into a bloodbath. I had travelled to
Paris to find Doug and to dissuade him from such precipitate
action, as it could only lead to trouble. By the time I tracked him
down it was too late. I saw the assassination unfold on the TV news
and so I travelled back to the UK and did not tell him about my
abortive trip.

Our bank
account was credited with the money owed within 24
hours.

By Christmas I
had effectively dissolved the partnership, due to Doug’s mood
swings, which I put down to drugs and/or drink, and concentrated on
my business, Celebrato Greeting Cards.

Then three
weeks ago Doug asked me to assist him in the abduction of a
‘rabblerousing’ couple from central Africa, who he had been told
were intending to ‘damage UK interests in Marat’ and ‘overthrow the
legitimate government of Marat’ to the great detriment of the
already poverty stricken citizens. I understood that the initial
instructions had emanated from a Mr Jalou Makabate.

I now realise
that either Doug had been misled by his contact at
MI5
or he was
deliberately lying to me. I suspect that it was the former because
Doug played a recording for me that emanated from
Thames
House and it
included Mr
Barry
Mitchinson
voicing the agreed code
phrase for; go ahead.

I participated
in the abduction of the Hokobus, an act for which I am now deeply
regretful but which at the time I understood was for the greater
good. I deliberately planned the abduction so as to cause no harm.
I carried no weapon nor did I, at any time, use violence. I subdued
their bodyguard with a paralysing spray that causes less discomfort
and less long lasting effects that CS spray or pepper spray. I
convinced the Hokobus to return to their car, where I sprayed them
too and left them, leaving the keys in the car for Doug McKeown,
who was to drive them to an undisclosed location.