Текст книги "Chameleon"

Автор книги: Jackson J. Bentley

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Chapter 6 3

Notting Hill, London, two days earlier.

With help from Doc, Gil had had tracked back the last payment made to the Chameleon, the one which had been made by the Maratis. According to the Chameleon’s online statement, the payment originated from the National Bank of Marat. The details of the account number and account holder were shown clearly on the statement, as required by international law. Armed with this information, and the time of the transaction, Doc made a polite enquiry of the bank’s lightly protected, daily suspense account database. As Doc later explained to Gil, the reason these bank records are only protected by a simple firewall is that they are ‘read only’ and they contain less data than is printed on cheques and bank debit cards. He joked that the information on the database wouldn’t be of any use to a Nigerian spammer, for instance. This is because access to this suspense account database does not allow the reader to alter or amend any records. Nor does it help a hacker gain access to the triple firewalled, independently wired and much more secure, transactional banking system.

Nonetheless, and as expected, the database contained a back up copy of all the day’s transactions, in and out. A quick look down the list produced the information Doc had been seeking. Minutes after the $1 million was transferred to the Chameleon, the same account was debited £100k in favour of Britannic Investments in the Isle of Man. It had been credited to account number 08136541. Doc was now on the prowl.

***

Barry Mitchinson proved to be a hard man to hack. Doc tried unsuccessfully for hours before accepting defeat. It wasn’t that Barry’s system was secure; it was simply the case that he was seldom online and one can’t hack an unconnected computer. The breakthrough came when Gil suggested that Doc might have more success with a different approach.

Doc owned one suit, and it had to serve for weddings, funerals and the occasional court appearance. It was looking a little worn, but with a new white shirt and tie and heavy rimmed glasses, Doc looked the part as he rang the doorbell.

A tearful Eloise Ter Haar answered the door and looked enquiringly at the rather odd young man in the suit.

“Eloise Ter Haar?” he asked.

“Or Eloise Mitchinson,” she hastily replied, “yes.”

“Graham North, Security Services IT Breaches Division.” He held up a warrant card that looked real enough at a quick glance but which in reality was photoshopped from an internet image. Doc felt that the leather card holder, £7 from Amazon, lent it an air of authority.

“I’m afraid my husband no longer lives here. I don’t know where he is. But let’s discuss this inside. To the neighbours you’ll look like a bailiff.”

Doc sat down with the very attractive middle aged woman. He had always preferred women of his own age but suddenly he could see the attraction of a more mature woman. Even in her tearstained condition she looked sophisticated and sexy. He wondered briefly whether, given her vulnerable emotional state, he might have a chance of getting to know her a little better. His wandering attention was halted by her sultry but quivering voice.

“What exactly can I do for you, Mr North?”

Doc explained that a computer at that IP address had attempted to access a restricted server in MI5, and that he was here to investigate. He also explained that it was an offence and that it carried jail time. He wasn’t actually sure that was the case but it sounded ominous and had the desired effect. Eloise swore that she had never tried to access the MI5 server, that she was innocent and that Doc must believe her, she had just lost a close personal friend who had committed suicide and her husband had left her for a hussy who lured him away with perverted sex.

Doc lost his train of thought for a moment as visual images raced across his still adolescent brain.

“Don’t worry, Eloise, the chances are that your husband’s computer is trying to link in to the server automatically when you log on. I take it you have a shared computer?”

She nodded.

Eloise led Doc upstairs, her tight pencil skirt swaying with her hips as she ascended the steep staircase. She turned to ensure he was following, and smiled when she saw where his gaze was centred.

Eloise showed Doc the large screen Apple Desktop PC and switched it on.

“Please do as you like with it. I don’t need any more trouble in my life.”

Doc could have sworn that she had one less button fastened on her blouse than she’d had downstairs, and as a result he was treated to a feast of cleavage as she handed him the mouse.

Quickly and efficiently Doc set to work, ignoring Eloise’s work and private files at her request. Barry’s section of the computer was untidy and disorderly, but it took just a few minutes to locate a number of hidden files. The first was a large folder called ‘empics’ which appeared to contain Jpegs and mpegs, while the second was a smaller file called ‘Personal Info’.

“Would you mind bringing me a glass of water, please? I’m parched.” Doc hoped that Eloise Ter Haar would give him a few moments alone. She obliged, smiling the whole time.

Doc quickly cloned Barry Mitchinson’s section of the hard drive, before deleting Barry’s account. He quickly scanned the personal info file, and there in the folder he found a neatly typed word file called passwords and access codes.

“Why do people never learn?” he muttered under his breath.

On the sheet were passwords and pin numbers galore. He found the Britannic Investments password and pass-code, but his heart missed a beat when he saw the next line. It contained access details and passwords for Mitchinson’s workstation at Thames House. This was the Holy Grail for hackers; an introduction to MI5’s servers. Doc would be shaking hands, figuratively, with the MI5 server within the hour. He was going to be famous among his peers.

The download was complete and the hard drive clean as he heard Eloise ascending the stairs. He wanted a quick look at his USB drive data to ensure all the data had transferred correctly, and so he opened the picture file empics/ling/lounge.

***

When Eloise entered the room she saw Doc staring at the screen, his mouth gaping open. On the 21 inch screen was a picture of Eloise Ter Haar reclining on the sofa in a black basque and fishnet stockings.

Doc tried to speak, to apologise, but only a squeak emanated from his lips. Eloise smiled, put a perfectly manicured finger under his chin and closed his mouth.

“I wouldn’t want anyone to hear about any of this. You know, I am an innocent victim in all of this.” Doc nodded weakly. He was scared and excited at the same time, and his excitement was showing through his thin, cheap suit trousers. Eloise noticed.

“Obviously I can make it worth your while for you to keep me out of your enquiry.”

***

Two hours later a sweaty and tired Doc sat on the tube train wearing a stupid grin on his face. He had come to a realisation. He had been wasting a lot of valuable time with drunken nightclub girls.

Despite the fact that he had the passwords to an account worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the USB drive in his pocket, he was most looking forward to opening the other ‘empics’ jpegs. Eloise Mitchinson was all woman.

***

Once Doc had cloned Barry’s hard drive and sent the account details to Gil, he had offered to drain the account and share the spoils with her. Gil had refused, reminding him he was being paid well enough already.

No, Gillian Davis wanted her erstwhile boss to suffer, knowing that his ill gotten gains had been taken by the same employers who were about to terminate him.

Terminate him with extreme prejudice, she hoped.

Chapter 6 4

Miles Estate, Lynchburg, Virginia, Friday 7pm.

Dee had said her goodbyes to Pete and the two detectives, who were now all flying back to the UK in time for the weekend, although how relaxing a weekend it would be for them was open to question. All three had been angry and frustrated when they left the hotel.

Steve Post had told them that he would make it his life’s work to ensure that if Gillian Miles strayed off the straight and narrow he would be there to catch her, but the promise seemed more rhetorical that practical. Steve was determined and well intentioned, but Gillian Miles had made a life out of evading responsibility for her actions and now in one rolled up, global confession she had swept all former criminality under the carpet. What was even more galling for all concerned was the fact that she had done it with the cooperation of the authorities.

Now, against every piece of advice she had been offered – mostly unrequested – Dee stood leaning against a tree on the Miles Estate waiting for the Chameleon to make an appearance.

The main house and grounds were deserted, although a black and white cruiser patrolled every hour or so. The Senator, his wife and his staff were at a political rally in Washington DC, to be followed by a sumptuous state dinner in honour of a visiting head of state, according to the Washington Post’s internet site.

Steve Post had been Dee’s most fervent opponent in this regard. He had been forceful in his language when he told her that, whilst no good could come from a meeting with Gillian Miles, something bad could certainly come from it, something very bad. He had even offered to go ‘off duty’ and offer her some back up, but she refused. His career would be in tatters if the Senator ever found out the FBI agent was harassing his daughter.

The weather was cold, but Dee could bear it. She thought about Josh and home and West Ham fighting for their Premiership survival tomorrow, but she knew that she could not leave without confronting Gillian Miles. So she waited.

***

An old Chevy Tahoe belonging to the estate pulled up in front of the lodge concealed behind the main house, and a woman stepped out. In the half light it was difficult to say whether it was Gillian Miles or not. The woman came around to the tailgate, opened it and picked up two bags of shopping. Dee stepped forward out of the shadows and walked towards the woman, standing in the glow of the courtesy light.

“Gillian Davis, or Gillian Miles?” she enquired. The woman turned to face her.

“Yes, can I help you?” she offered, smiling all the while.

“I’d like to talk to you.” Dee was now close to her nemesis.

“Of course,” Gillian replied amiably. “Always nice to speak to a fellow Brit. While you’re here you might as well help me with the shopping.” She extended both arms, each holding a bag of shopping. Dee took one in each hand.

The blow came from nowhere, and if Dee had not been so well trained she would have been badly injured or killed. Gil’s straight fingers punched towards the soft part of Dee’s throat. Dee dropped the shopping and pulled back but the fingers still connected with her windpipe. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Her throat muscles went into spasm and she could feel panic rising. Dee fell to the floor and rolled into a protective ball whilst trying to talk herself down from a full blown panic attack, but the adrenaline was pumping and her heart was racing. Dee knew from her training that a blow to the throat like this is only debilitating if you panic. Most people would instinctively throw both hands to their thorax, leaving their unprotected body open to a follow up attack. She tried to ignore her throat and tense her body for action.

She acted just in time because a heavy kick from winter work boots was aimed at her midsection. She twisted as the boot landed and it rode up her side, expending most of its force under her arm. Normally it wouldn’t do much damage there, but just a few months earlier Dee had been shot in the very same place. She shrieked with pain but still pulled her arm in, trapping the foot. Rolling onto her back, she took the foot with her, and Gil uttered a blasphemy as she lost her footing.

Realising that she was going down anyway, Gillian bent her knees and intended to land on her counterpart’s ribcage, causing some real damage, but by the time she went down Dee had rolled back under her and had grabbed her left foot, twisting it painfully. They were both on the ground now, rolling on the wet grass under a large maple tree. Dee was still spluttering and trying to catch her breath, but seemed oblivious to the discomfort as she fought for her life. Gil was amazed. She had never seen any opponent withstand her favourite blow and keep on fighting. Gil could feel Dee behind her and so she swung her elbow around blindly, hoping to hit a vital organ. She found bone and both girls groaned as Gil’s elbow connected with Dee’s forearm. Dee’s rash move had left Gil with only one arm to lift her back into a fighting position.

Dee was hurting and her breath was still ragged. She needed a quick end to this fight. She twisted Gil’s left arm, the one with the numb forearm, and pushed it up her back. The assassin shrieked as Dee used the hold to lift her to her feet. Realising that at best she would suffer major tendon damage, and at worst have serious fractures, Gil rose under her own steam until she was standing facing the trunk of the maple tree, with Dee behind her.

Dee placed her right arm across Gil’s throat and released her twisted left arm so that she could secure the chokehold on Gil with both arms. Dee’s right wrist was now locked in the crook of her left arm, and she began to apply the pressure necessary to send her opponent into unconsciousness.

Gil’s first reaction would have been to grab for her attacker’s testicles, the usual way out of a choke hold, but in this case there were none to squeeze the life out of. She could also have raked her boots down the other woman’s shins, the second option for escape from a chokehold, but she guessed that this particular opponent would accept the pain and carry on. She opened her eyes and saw she had one more option, which was just as well because she was beginning to black out. Leaving her whole bodyweight in Dee’s hold, she kicked up her feet and ran her feet up the tree. As Dee leaned forward under the weight of the other woman, Gil felt the weight of the two fighters on her bent legs and she extended both legs to push her attacker back.

As Gil had hoped, Dee lost her footing and fell backwards, losing her grip of the chokehold. She landed flat on her back, with Gil on top of her and spinning around to initiate another attack. Dee had no way of knowing that Gil was on the edge of exhaustion as well, and so she rolled out of the way of a left hook that hit her shoulder instead of her jaw. Both women managed to clamber to their knees, and Gil turned away from Dee when she saw a heavy can of chilli lying on the ground just a couple of feet away. It would make a weapon of sorts. Dee saw it, too, and as Gill reached out for it Dee fought dirty. She threw out her open right hand and slipped it under Gil’s right arm which was reaching for the can. Then, hooking her wrist around the Chameleons body, she grabbed the other woman’s right breast and squeezed as hard as she could, pulling the other woman around to face her. Gil cried out in pain as she was forcefully turned around to look into the face of Dee Hammond.

She didn’t have long to look because she caught sight of Dee’s left fist heading straight into her face. She lifted her head in an attempt to avoid the punch, but it was too late. She felt a blow to the chin and everything went black.

***

After taking a couple of minutes to recover, Dee stood up and looked down at the sprawling body of Gillian Davis. She was out cold. Dee stumbled over to the open tailgate of the Chevy Tahoe and sat down on it. Rummaging around in the shopping, she found a sixteen ounce bottle of blue liquid that looked like wallpaper stripper but which was in fact Gatorade. Dee slugged it down in seconds and waited for the caffeine and glucose to hit.

Fifteen minutes later Gil Davis began to rouse herself. She ached all over, and suddenly unconsciousness seemed an attractive option. She was lying on something soft. Was it a cushion of some kind? When she opened her eyes she was lying on the sofa.

Dee was busy in the kitchen when she saw signs of Gil stirring. She grabbed something from the countertop and crossed over to the sofa.

“Here, hold this against your jaw. It’ll prevent it going stiff.” She held out a Ziploc bag filled with ice from the icebox. Gil did as she was told and massaged her right breast.

“You fight dirty,” she said, her voice filled with irony, or so Dee chose to believe.

“And you fight like a girl,” Dee replied. Gil almost laughed, but it turned into a groan and a cough. “I only came to talk,” Dee added.

“I thought Five might have sent you to kill me. They’ve tried twice already.” Gil’s tone was measured and calm. Dee walked over to the counter where the shopping had all been unpacked and picked up a tray.

“I’ve made us some tea,” she announced, then placed the tray on the coffee table and gently moved Gil’s legs off the sofa, sitting down beside the killer.

***

They served and drank the tea in relative silence, a silence broken only occasionally by the sound of a sharp intake of breath as the hot tea met a cut lip, or a mistreated muscle cramped. Gil stared at Dee intently for a moment, then made a declaration.

“I know you. I saw you on the internet last week. You were on YouTube.”

“I don’t think so; maybe I hit you too hard.”

“No, it was definitely you. You were coming to the aid of that Clara girl and you marched Rob Donkin down the red carpet by the ear. It was a big hit on YouTube last week, once someone had dubbed it with a series of chimp sounds.”

Dee hadn’t seen the footage but she smiled at the recollection. Gil spoke with something approaching admiration.

“In different circumstances I might hire you to protect me.”

“I’d need an army, with the enemies you’ve been making,” Dee noted without any hint of irony.

Chapter 6 5

Miles Estate, Lynchburg, Virginia, Friday 9pm.

Gillian Davis had eaten, and dressed her wounds, as had Dee, and both were now sitting on the sofa, Gil with her legs tucked under her in the same way Katie Norman had just a week ago. Dee thought she looked so much younger than she was. It was true that she was well trained, scheming, manipulative, and quite possibly sociopathic, but she was like a teenager in her mannerisms and general behaviour. Perhaps if she had stayed in Chemistry she would have been married and settled by now, who could tell?

“Why did you kill the Hokobus?” Dee asked as she looked directly into the eyes of Gillian Davis. Without flinching or even breaking eye contact, Gil answered her question quite honestly.

“I don’t know.” There was no denial. There followed a long pause, which Dee wanted to fill with a judgemental statement like ‘you must know, you took the lives of two wonderful people’, but she didn’t. She had learned that it was better to listen in order to learn.

“Every day since the killing I’ve asked myself that same question many times. I had never questioned my motives before. I was trained not to. If you thought about everyone you were ordered to take out – their families, their kids, their mothers, even – well, you would go mad. And some of my colleagues did.

So I guess I learned to shut it out. It was for the greater good and that made it right. Even when Doug and I went freelance we only ever took out bad guys. We made the customers pay through the nose but we only did what we thought was right. We even had a code. If we thought a hit was against the country’s interests we would make the customer, usually national agencies of some kind, clear it through MI5. But it was all a fraud. Our ex boss knew someone from the old team was the Chameleon. I think he suspected Doug all along, but he wasn’t giving us the all clear based on national interests, he was taking a cut.

I didn’t even know until I did the HAMAS job and the Israelis refused to pay. Their excuse was that I had had half of the million dollars and my contact had received one hundred thousand pounds and that was enough. Obviously Barry Mitchinson was taking a ride on the back of the Chameleon. I should have known then that I couldn’t trust him. I should have known that he’d give the go ahead to shoot the Pope if he got his cut. I was stupid.”

“Did he give you the go ahead to kill the Hokobus?” Dee asked. Gil nodded.

“But I’m not blaming him, Dee. Is it OK for me to call you Dee? I feel as though we’ve shared enough pain to be on first name terms.”

“It’s my name, Gillian.” Dee replied neutrally. Gil looked at Dee and smiled, and suddenly Dee realised that this young woman had no-one. No family, no friends, no colleagues. She was lonely, hence her pilgrimage to the USA. She was trying to connect with the father who was, in reality, little more than a sperm donor.

“You probably don’t want to hear this, and it won’t endear me to you in any way, but I am not sure whether I would have turned down the money if I had known the Hokobus were fine people. Obviously I hope I would have done, but I just don’t know.” She looked at Dee and her eyes were wet.

“I think I may be damaged goods.” She paused to gather herself. “When I was in that car and the couple were paralysed I could see something in their eyes and I knew they weren’t bad people, but I did it anyway. I’ve relived that moment a thousand times and only recently did I recognise what it was I saw in their eyes.” She paused and sobbed. “It was forgiveness.” She sobbed some more, and Dee handed her a tissue.

“You, and everyone else, will think, she’s seeing what she wants to see. She’s placating herself. But I’m not. I believe I saw acceptance and forgiveness in those kindly eyes.” By now her knees were up on the sofa and she buried her head between her knees and cried.

“It was my job to keep the Hokobus safe, and I failed,” Dee said. This was a revelation to Gil.

“What about that tall Geordie man?”

“He’s my partner. Don’t ever go near him. I guarantee he’ll snap you like a twig before you ever get to say sorry. We’d known that couple for just a few days but you were right about their eyes. They saw everything and they condemned nothing. We felt as though they were long lost friends. If I hate you, and I’m not sure whether I do or not, it should be because you killed a lovely couple, but it will actually be because I didn’t save them.” Dee’s eyes also welled up. “I guess we’re both conflicted.”

“Dee, what I did was heinous, unforgivable. I know that. But what you did, well, it was heroic. I might have killed your clients but you wouldn’t let their dream die with them. I watched that black actress standing at that podium, reducing some people to tears and stirring others to action. I saw the news of the uprising. Marat is free. The President is going to be tried for crimes against humanity and the Hokobus did it all, thanks to you.”

Dee turned away quickly. She didn’t want the Chameleon to see tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

“I have to be going,” she said, her voice shaky.

“Don’t be crazy. You can hardly walk. You’re almost as battered as I am. Stay the night in the spare bedroom. Go when you like in the morning, but don’t go out in this state. Please.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?” Dee asked, only half seriously.

“Ditto,” Gil replied. “Should you decide to stay there is more I need to tell you, but for now I’m just too tired.”

Dee’s weary body made the decision for her, and she asked if she could have a hot bath before she retired.

“Of course, and I’ll put some Ibuprofen by your bed. After I’ve swallowed a few myself.”