Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (47 page)

Dee held her
finger to her lips to demand silence from the valet, and stepped
into the car.

“
OK,” the
voice said, “that’s the last talking you do, unless it’s to
me!”

The valet
spotted the post it note and peeled it off his tip. It
read:

“
Ring
Richmond FBI Field Office, Steve Post, and tell him to meet me at
these coordinates ASAP, silent approach only.”

The boy ran
inside to talk to his manager.

Chapter
71

Darvell
Salvage Yard, East 7
^th
Street, Richmond, Virginia. USA, Monday
2.45pm.

Dee left the
expressway and headed south over the river on the Mayos Bridge
which took South 14
^th
Street over Mayo Island. On the south side of the
river the road became Hull Street, which bisected the East and West
versions of 1
^st
to 6
^th
Streets before the sat nav told her to take a
left onto East 7
^th
Street.

Dee travelled
through the industrial area, much of it quiet, some of it
abandoned, for six blocks. Richmond’s industry had obviously
succumbed to the global recession in much the same way as the UK
had.

“
You have
reached your destination,” the lady on the sat nav announced. A
second later her BlackBerry sprang to life in its cradle in the
centre console. She switched it out of speaker mode and lifted it
to her ear.

“
OK, Mrs
Hammond. Be sensible, now. Park over the road on the waste ground,
behind the stretch limo will do nicely. Then cross Dinwiddle
Avenue. You are joining me in the junk yard between
7
^th
and 8
^th
Street. Keep the phone to your ear until I can
see you.”

Dee did as she
was told and walked around the perimeter of the salvage yard, which
was completely fenced off, until she saw the sole entrance. She
pushed the rusty old gates and they scraped long gouges in the
ground until there was an opening large enough for her to pass
through.

In front of
her around twenty yards away she could see a new minivan. It stood
out because everything else around it was scrap. There were narrow
corridors of open space between precariously stacked squashed cars.
There were rusty fridges, containers and oil drums that might have
been stacked here in the 1960s. The place had the stink of
dereliction. Dee walked carefully up to the van with the phone
still at her ear, and looked inside. It was empty.

“
We can
dispense with the phone now.” Barry stepped out of a shadow and let
her see a deadly looking hunting knife. He saw her staring at the
lethal blade and he smiled.

“
I love the
USA. I picked this up for thirty five dollars at a truck stop come
hunting store. It’s razor sharp, so don’t try any heroics,” he
offered by way of introduction.

***

The junk yard
had obviously not been used for some time. All of the cars were
from the 1970s and 80s. Dee walked ahead of Barry and found herself
in a preparation yard, a cleared area surrounded by mountains of
scrap. Escape was only going to be possible by exiting the way she
came in. Trying to clamber over the scrap could bring tons of the
rusted metal down on top of anyone who attempted it.

In the middle
of the clearing Dee could see two old folding chairs with ropes
tied to them. The first chair was occupied by a tied and gagged
Katie Norman, terror and bemusement visible in her teary eyes. She
sobbed when she saw Dee. Dee moved towards her, but Rob Donkin
stepped in front of the young starlet, blocking the way. Dee could
have hit him twice and then moved his lifeless body out of her way,
but she restrained herself. His time would come.

“
Hands on
your head,” Barry insisted, poking the point of the knife into her
back. Dee obeyed slowly. He frisked her whilst Ron Donkin held the
knife. The balding middle aged creep ran his hands over her body
with an intensity that spoke more of sexual control than of
searching. Dee showed no emotion, but she registered her disgust
internally. She was keeping score.

Donkin handed
the knife back to Barry and took his place behind Katie’s chair,
stroking her hair proprietarily as he grinned at Dee. Barry
Mitchinson ushered Dee to the second chair and ordered her to sit
down. The second chair was around four yards from Katie’s chair,
and they both faced inwards towards the centre of the clearing. Dee
knew that once she was tied up her survival would lie in the hands
of a valet parking attendant ten miles away, but at the moment she
was out of options, so she sat down.

Barry told
Donkin to tie Dee’s hands and feet and then secure her to the
chair. Donkin pushed Dee forward on the chair so that she was
leaning forwards and so he could get to her hands. Barry stood in
front of her, wielding the wicked looking blade. It was now or
never.

Whilst
remaining in her seat, Dee flung her head back with as much force
as she could, smashing the back of her head into Donkin’s forehead.
He went down, falling backwards with a yelp of pain and surprise.
As she moved back into position, she sprang from the chair, pushing
down on bent legs to power herself into the moderately built
Mitchinson. He tried to bring the knife around but he was too late.
Her head butt to the chest had unbalanced him and as he began to
tumble his fingers loosened their grip on the knife. Dee turned
through one hundred and eighty degrees so that her back was toward
Mitchinson, and she used both hands to grab his knife arm. Her
thumb, forced into the pressure point in his wrist, elicited a
scream and an involuntary opening of his fingers. The knife
clattered onto the dirt. Pulling his arm down at an unnatural
angle, she bent the MI5 man double and used her right arm to secure
him in a headlock, whilst twisting his arm up his back. It seemed
to be all over, but Dee heard a muffled cry from Katie. Without
relaxing her hold on Mitchinson, she turned her head just in time
to see the twisted, bloodied face of Donkin forming a painful grin
as he fired the gun at Dee from a distance of just three
yards.

The bullet hit
her like a heavyweight boxer’s punch and she felt a searing pain in
her right side, punctuated by the crack of a rib as the bullet
passed through her midsection, just missing Mitchinson.

How she
remained standing she would never quite work out. Maybe it was
adrenaline, maybe it was just bloody mindedness, but she did more
than just stand. She looked at the bloody damage to her shirt and
shouted, her voice a mixture of pain and rage.

“
Not again!”
She let go of the stunned MI5 man, who had not known that his
accomplice had a gun.

“
You damn
fool, Donkin!” Barry blustered. “We need her alive!”

By the time he
had uttered the words, Donkin had raised the gun again, ready to
defend himself against the approaching Dee Hammond. She was
advancing towards him, and her murderous expression scared him
witless. He fired a second time, but the kick on the gun sent the
second bullet harmlessly through Dee’s billowing jacket, thankfully
missing her body. Realising that he had missed, Donkin dropped the
gun and tried to turn and run, but he was too late. With one last
desperate lunge, Dee packed all of her remaining power into a right
hook which caught Donkin on the left side of his jaw. His head
twisted oddly, and an audible crack echoed around the junk yard.
Donkin collapsed in a heap on the dusty, littered ground. His body
lay at an impossible angle. His neck was clearly broken, and Dee
thought he was most probably dead.

Dee tried to
hold on to the chair for support, but the bone handle of the
hunting knife crashed into her head and her body went limp as she
joined Donkin on the dusty junk yard floor.

***

Dee had no
idea how long she was out of it, but when she finally awoke her
face was wet and she was tied to a chair, whilst Mitchinson,
remarkably uninjured, stood over her, holding a bottle of
water.

After a moment
Dee noticed that Donkin still lay where he’d fallen. Mitchinson
paid him scant attention, and had not even checked for a pulse. She
realised then that Katie, Donkin and herself were never destined to
leave this junk yard alive.

“
Welcome
back, Mrs Hammond. I suspect that within the hour you will bleed to
death, so you have one chance and one chance only. You may think
that chance is slim, and so it is, but it is a chance.” He paused
as he walked towards Katie, whose eyes were wide with fear. He was
holding the gun.

“
Mrs Hammond,
I am a significantly better shot than the boy, and in any case I
can’t miss from here. Please tell me, where can I find Gillian
Davis?”

“
You’re going
to kill us both anyway, so why should I cooperate?”

“
Firstly
because I may, in fact, decide to let you both live, and secondly,
because you can die quickly or slowly, dependent upon how generous
I’m feeling. Let me say that I will feel more benevolent towards
the pair of you if I can get my hands around the scrawny neck of
Gillian Davis.”

Dee had to
play for time. She didn’t buy any of that. She was certain that the
moment he knew where Davis was, Katie and herself would both be
dead.

“
I’m sorry,
Barry, whatever your name is, but I will not tell you unless you
let Katie go. If you do that, I’ll tell you and you can take me
with you to find Davis, and you can kill me if we don’t find
her.”

“
Sorry, Mrs
Hammond. You wouldn’t last the journey.” He raised the gun to
Katie’s head and flicked off the safety catch. “I’m sorry, young
lady, but your good friend is sacrificing your life in order to
protect a paid killer.”

Dee was about
to blurt out the address when Barry Mitchinson’s hand suddenly
disappeared in a dense red mist. All three of them stared in
horror, as what was left of his tattered right hand fell to the
floor, along with the gun.

Mitchinson
screamed in terror as he used his left hand to grip the remains of
his wrist, in a doomed effort to stop the arterial blood spraying
out like a fountain in a parody of a low budget horror film. He
collapsed to his knees.

“
Steve, is
that you?” Dee yelled, the pain in her side making her feel winded
at the effort.

A figure
carrying a hunting rifle with a light coloured wooden grip and
stock appeared from behind a scrap car and picked its way carefully
across the debris of junk until it was walking towards the two
restrained women.

“
I’m afraid
your knight in shining armour didn’t quite make it in time,”
Gillian Davis said in an ironic tone.

Gillian Davis
propped up the Browning X Bolt 7mm Hunter rifle against an old
refrigerator, and walked over to collect the Sig from where it had
fallen. She carefully slid her pen into the barrel and lifted the
gun, being careful not to touch it, whist sliding it in to her
shoulder bag. She then picked up the knife and swung a hefty kick
into Mitchinson’s ribs. He was physically lifted off the floor by
the force of it. He landed shaking and sobbing, his life blood
seeping into the dust.

“
That’s for
trying to kill me at the Strand Tube Station, you bastard. I did
everything you ever asked of me, you malicious creep.” She steadied
herself, ready to deliver another kick, but he cowered
away.

“
Please, I
need medical assistance. I’m dying! You’re better than this, Gilly.
You were my wondergirl. Don’t let me die! Please!”

Gillian Davis
looked down at what was left of his wrist. The hunting ammunition
had exploded the joint, amputated his hand and destroyed the
artery, pretty much as she had expected when she loaded 150gram,
7mm hunting ammunition.

“
Sorry,
Barry,” she said with genuine remorse, “You are already dead. I
suggest you make peace with your maker while you still have the
chance.”

Barry began
weeping openly.

Dee was now
concerned for her own safety.

“
What about
us?” she asked tentatively. “Despite everything, Katie doesn’t
deserve to die.”

Gillian looked
at her with a puzzled expression, and then she grinned.

“
Nor do you,
Dee. Do I deserve to die? Well, that’s debatable, and these two are
beyond deserving, but you’ve done nothing wrong. All you ever
wanted was to find justice for those two sweet people who died at
the hands of the Chameleon. Anyway, we don’t have time for this. We
need to get you to hospital, and a damn sight quicker than an
ambulance would.”

Gillian cut
Katie’s bonds and carefully removed her gag. Gillian looked at
Katie Norman and saw herself as she might once have been; the
innocence, the optimism, the normality.

“
Come on,
sweetheart. We have to get Dee to the minivan.”

Gillian cut
Dee free and took off her own jacket and shirt. Standing there,
incongruously, in a lacy blue Victoria’s Secret bra, she tore her
Armani shirt into strips and, balling two strips into fist sized
pads, she placed one on the bullet entry wound and the other on the
exit wound. Dee squirmed. Katie held the pads in place as Gil
wrapped the remaining strips of the shirt around Dee’s body to form
a bandage. She then removed her belt and tightened it around the
makeshift bandage. Gillian then replaced her jacket to preserve a
modicum of modesty.