Текст книги "Chameleon"
Автор книги: Jackson J. Bentley
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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
Epilogue:
Presidential Rally, Capital Square, Richmond, Virginia . USA.
One year later.
The first black President of the USA was in Democrat territory. Despite the Democrats having lost one of its key Senator positions to the Republicans, in the form of Senator Denton Miles III, the President was convinced that the state would be his, come the election. Nevertheless, he felt that there could be no harm in telling the folks that he appreciated their support, and so he was due to appear on the podium in Capital Square in less than an hour.
Harvey Quince addressed his armour clad Special Agents in the foyer of an office block overlooking the square. Quince had taken over as SAIC, special agent in charge of the field office, after Steve Post had transferred to Florida to become SAIC in Tampa.
“OK people. We know what we have to do. The Secret Service is in charge, and we’re here to do their bidding.”
“Yeah, right!” one anonymous agent called out, to laughter from the rest. Quince ignored the heckling and continued.
“The ground level team will be carrying automatic weapons and will be on voice activated communications on channel 1, that is a multi service channel so no comments about our colleagues in the CIA, Secret Service or Homeland Security.” There were murmurs as the ground team dispersed. The SAIC was now addressing just four people holding sniper rifles. All were armoured and helmeted. They each wore green and grey camouflage paint to dull the sheen from their cheeks and noses. All four were expert marksmen. Only one was a woman; Special Agent Gillian Miles.
***
It had been a hard year for Gillian. Despite being the daughter of a future Presidential candidate, she had endured hours of grilling over what Fox News had called ‘The Junk Yard Shoot Out’ and the unexpected demise of Barry Mitchinson. Nonetheless, she had been cleared for work on a consultancy basis for those Law Enforcement Agencies who needed a sniper. After rigorous training with the FBI at Quantico, and much to the distress of Steve Post, pressure from the DoJ, Department of Justice, gave Gil Miles a shot at an agency probation. The probation period ended with top marks and glowing recommendations from everyone who thought Denton Miles III might be the next President of the United States.
So it was that six months earlier, Gillian Miles stood proudly to attention as the Director of the FBI pinned her badge on her lapel in the presence of her proud father and Elizabeth Chase Miles. The passing out parade gave way to a boozy celebration, and Special Agent Gillian Miles had a photograph taken holding her personalised and embossed leather wallet, which when opened showed her shiny new badge below her commission.
***
There were only three high buildings with a true line of sight to the podium, and Gillian was stationed on the highest. In the week before the address was to be given, an anonymous email had been received by the Secret Service saying that Omar Al Madawi, a Syrian sniper loyal to President Assad, had sneaked into the USA by ship. It was immediately dismissed by the CIA, who claimed to know where he was, but despite their claims the tall buildings were emptied and FBI snipers occupied their rooftops.
“Rules of engagement are as follows,” a senior secret service agent read out to the snipers.
“Unless the life of the President is in clear and imminent danger, you must first seek voiced authority to fire. Acknowledge.”
“Yes, sir!” the agents barked in unison.
“Take your positions and radio in.”
***
Gillian’s perch was ideal. She could cover the roofs of the other two buildings, and she could see all windows facing the podium except the ones in her own building, which were covered by others.
“Skybird in position,” Gil said into the throat radio as she held it to the surface of her skin.
“Roger that, and position secured, radio silence in five minutes. Switch to emergency channel if necessary,” a distant voice responded.
Gillian had been delighted when she discovered that her favoured M107 Snipers Rifle was also the preferred tool of the Richmond Field Office. She secured the bipod and traversed the square, looking the whole time through her sights. The cross hairs on this model were different from her own scope; hers had a simple cross with a small circle in the centre. These cross hairs had one vertical line bisecting two horizontal lines. The target was to be placed on the central vertical cross hair between the two horizontal lines.
“We are live.” An anonymous voice chirped through the radio static as Hail to the Chief rang out from below; it was played well by the National Guard Band, as far as Gil could tell from this distance.
The President took the podium and was raising and lowering his hands, palms down, in an attempt to quieten the applause. Eventually the noise died down and the President began to speak, praising the good people of Virginia, telling them how they had helped bring America out of recession.
There was no apparent threat from the lower buildings, and so Gillian Miles sighted on the President. She turned a thumbscrew ever so slightly to adjust focus, and the President came into focus. Even from this distance, Gil could sight the cross hairs over her President’s throat. Securing the rifle in position, she tore off her microphone and threw it across the roof.
Gillian Miles smiled as her finger traced the hair trigger, the cross hairs still set on the President’s Adam’s apple.
“The Chameleon is back in business!” she said out loud, just before a loud retort echoed around the square.
THE END
J Jackson Bentley writes both fiction and non-fiction books and has been a published author for over sixteen years. He now works as a Legal Consultant in the UK, the USA, the Middle East and the Far East. His spare time is spent writing at home in the UK and in Florida. Married with four grown children he is currently writing a new thriller set in Dubai and he is compiling a book of short stories.
Find out more, or, follow J Jackson Bentley at:
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Excerpt from:
Shadow of the Burj
An Emirate of Dubai Thriller
J Jackson Bentley
CHAPTER 1
Oxfordshire, England, February 10 th , 6.00 am GMT.
The black custom painted motorcycle coasted into a clearing in the trees and its rider shut down the engine. The ground crackled as the rider rolled the big bike over the frozen mud. It was still early and the frost was thick on the ground.
The Harley Davidson looked dated but was in fact a recent model. The Sturgis Dyna FXDB, like all Harleys, looked a little old fashioned because it was low slung and the rider sat upright but close to the road. The bike appeared dirty and neglected on the surface but beneath the film of road salt and mud it was a powerful and well maintained road machine. The white and red decals on either side of the six gallon petrol tank declared it to be ridden by a “Warrior”, the Warriors being a violent offshoot of the British Hell’s Angels.
The rider maintained his distance from the shabby trailer park that was home to the Warrior’s Oxford Chapter. He didn’t want to wake anyone in the camp, at least not yet. He removed a thick leather glove and raised his left hand to look at the cheap gothic styled watch on his wrist. On each knuckle was a letter crudely drawn in blue ink, the letters spelled out the word HATE. His hand was grubby and unwashed, black oily deposits outlined his long fingernails. It was almost 6am and the camp across the clearing was silent.
Bricko, a nickname name derived from a crude comparison of his build to a sturdily constructed outside toilet, reached into his battered leather jacket and retrieved the tabloid newspaper he had purchased just minutes ago. He unfolded the red top newspaper and reread the headline; “Bikers Underage Sex Ring Exposed”, the words and pictures were credited to a journalist called Max Richmond. The sordid story was accompanied by grainy pictures and it claimed to expose the activities of the “Warriors, a notorious motorbike gang who modelled themselves on the “Hell’s Angels”. The big biker did not need to reread the article, which started on the front page before continuing over four more pages in the centre of the paper. He knew what it said by heart.
Standing at around six feet two inches tall, and with a solid stomach that hung over a straining studded belt, Bricko would have looked like eighteen stone of menace to any opposing biker gang. His long oily hair and unkempt beard did not detract from the menacing message his cold ice blue eyes sent when he frowned, and he was frowning now.
Bricko had been living in this run down mobile home park for three months but he now knew that the time had arrived for him to move on. He knew that if he removed the Warrior motif painted on his black leather jacket and replaced it with a target he couldn’t be in more danger than he was already. With a back story that linked him to the five most wanted biker gangs in the country, Bricko would have been considered the archetypal violent and transient biker. Once he had set things in motion this morning he would have to be out of here and on the road again within the hour.
The aging biker reached into his pocket and removed an ancient and battered ‘pay as you go’ mobile phone. The phone only registered a couple of bars and so he climbed off his bike and walked further into the clearing. When more bars appeared he dialled the number listed in the newspaper as being the ‘Crimestoppers’ confidential helpline. It took some time for the phone to be answered and when it was he heard a young woman on the other end of the line. She sounded bored and tired as she announced her first name. In her defence she had probably been manning the phones all night, dealing with drunks and hoax callers. Nonetheless, she perked up noticeably when she heard the deep bass voice that spoke with a thick Black Country accent. She had heard it a number of times before.
“This is Bricko. You might want to take notes.” The biker knew that the call was likely to be recorded. “I’ve just seen the newspaper article about the motorcycle gang we talked about before and I can tell you that the “Warriors” are living in an old mobile home park outside Harringford Village off the B436.” He paused while the operator took notes. “But the pigs had better be quick or the camp will be empty when they get there. Tell the paper I’ll be calling for the reward money. Remember the name ‘Bricko’”. He spelled it out and ended the call.
Having made the call, he knew he could expect the police within the hour. Bricko removed the battery and sim card from the phone and threw them deep into the undergrowth; not that there was anything on the card that could lead the police to him. Then, quite deliberately he placed the phone under the wheel of the bike and climbed back on. The engine roared into life; there was no need for quiet now. He rode over the mobile phone and into the camp.
***
UK biker gangs had proliferated in the craziness of the 1960s when their reputation for violence and disorder preceded them. Each successive summer their standing had been enhanced as they were blamed for terrorising seaside towns and quiet villages across the country. But like most worries and concerns the fear of biker gangs was largely unnecessary, fuelled as it was by anecdote more than by fact. The truth was that the bulk of the violence associated with bikers was internecine, one gang targeting another. Only rarely did this tribal conflict spill over and trouble the general population.
By the end of the millennium the majority of Hell’s Angels weren’t dissimilar to the aging hippies who were conceived at around the same time. The bikers tended to be jaded, middle aged men and women who just refused to move on and who insisted on clinging to old habits and outmoded ideals. By 2010 most gangs or chapters of the British Hell’s Angels consisted of part time members with homes, jobs and families who rode together only at weekends. After years of roaming the UK in gangs most bikers had succumbed to the luxuries of Middle England and were more likely to be found raising money for disadvantaged children, or some other charity, than raising hell. Some disillusioned Angels broke away into smaller, more extreme factions, continued to live the biker ideals and considered their ex comrades to be sell outs. That was a view held by Jonty Adams.
Jonty, christened Jonathan Derek Latimer, was raised in a bungalow in a leafy suburb of Oxford and had been a pillar of middle class young adult society until his final year at university. Celebrating the completion of his final exam and his last edition of the OSH “Oxford Student Herald” as editor, he had spent the night participating in a student drinking game and had drunk so much it was a wonder he could stand up, let alone walk home.
Jonathan was close to the digs he shared with fellow students when he spotted a young girl sitting on the kerb, crying. It turned out that it was her birthday, and she had got drunk and become immobile so her friends had abandoned her. She sat forlorn in torn tights and a black dress that concealed little. The new graduate helped her to her feet and together they stumbled towards his lodgings.
Even now, fifteen years later, he couldn’t remember the details of what happened that night. He recalled, inasmuch as he could recall anything, that they had consensual sex and that he treated her well, but the bruises on her thin body and the invisible tears to her young organs told a different story. By the time he had sobered up, the girl had been interviewed by the police and admitted to a hospital, where she had been subjected to a rape test whilst her mother and father waited outside, bemused and confused.
“She was supposed to be at a friend’s house…… we didn’t even know she owned a dress like that,” they were later quoted as saying.
Jonathan had fully recovered from his hangover by the time he picked up the local evening newspaper. He had even managed to attend his final tutorial. The lead story shook him to the core and he knew at that moment that his life was over.
Even through his drunken stupor he had appreciated that the girl was slightly built, not yet a fully developed woman, and somehow he had liked that about her, but never in his wildest imaginings had he thought that she was a virgin and had just turned 14 years old. As he read the article he swore out loud, to the consternation of a crowd of tourists walking by. He forced himself to read on. The police had his fingerprints on her handbag and the girl, Olivia, recalled that she had been raped on a college campus with historic buildings but was confused as to which one it might have been. Any scintilla of hope about evading justice that Jonathan might have held onto evaporated when he turned to the inside pages.
The sketch was masterful. His mother would have loved it on her living room wall. It might just as well have had his name written underneath. The girl had obviously spent the wee small hours awake and staring at his sleeping face before making her escape. If there had been any doubt about who the sketch portrayed it was removed by the description of his tattooed shoulders, a colourful eagle whose wingspan reached from shoulder to shoulder with the words “Freedom from Tyranny, Freedom from Government” written below. It was only a matter of time before the police spoke to Inky the tattooist and came knocking at his door. When they did, he couldn’t be there.
Since then, and for the intervening fifteen years, Jonty had stayed one step ahead of the authorities. He changed his appearance, he made money where he could and now he led an ever decreasing band of hapless bikers who lacked the imagination to break free from the “Warriors” and its less than charismatic leader.
But today all that was to change; today Jonty was about to rejoin civilised society, today Jonathan Derek Latimer would emerge from the shadows and face the music.
***
Bricko propped up his Harley and walked purposefully over to the trailer that housed Jonty and his latest girlfriend. He tried the door. It was locked, but he pressed his shoulder to centre of the door and pushed until the thin metal bowed and sprang open. The door crashed against the trailer wall and Bricko stepped into the bedroom.
Jonty was awoken by the crashing door and assumed the worst, which would have been that the Angels or the Predators were mounting a revenge attack. He flung back the covers and made a grab for the old gun he kept by the bed. Bricko yelled at him.
“Put it down, Jonty, its only me, you prat.” Jonty was standing naked beside the bed, holding his chest.
“Bricko, Dog, what are you doing? Couldn’t you have knocked?” Jonty pulled the covers from the bed and covered the bottom half of his slack, pallid torso and in so doing left Dani, his girlfriend, naked on the bed. Bricko looked at the girl and snorted with disgust. Her pubescent body was thin, almost emaciated and undeveloped. Bricko wondered whether the girl was even a teenager.
“This,” spat Bricko, “is what is going to send us all to prison.” He looked purposefully at the young girl, who looked terrified. He walked over to Jonty and slapped the newspaper into his bare chest. Jonty took the paper and looked at the front page before dropping the covers and abandoning all thoughts of modesty.
“Not again,” he wailed to nobody in particular. “Not again!”
***
Ten minutes later Dani and Jonty were partially clothed. The girl was sobbing pitifully and Jonty sat ashen faced on the bed, looking at photos of himself and the other Warriors selling dope, getting stoned and partying with very young semi naked girls.
Bricko had been sitting on the edge of the bed trying to comfort the distraught girl, while Jonty watched his future unravel in newsprint before his eyes for the second time in his life. Bricko stood up and walked towards the trailer door.
“You know, Jonty, you are a moron. We had a good thing going here and you’ve blown it with your appetite for girls barely in their teens. You must have seen this coming.” He shook his head and pushed his way through the crowd of confused bikers who had gathered in the doorway to see what the commotion was all about.
Bricko was in his trailer throwing a few personal objects into a scruffy holdall when Jonty appeared in the doorway.
“Bricko, mate, don’t let it all end like this.” Bricko continued packing without answering or even looking up. Jonty covered his face with his hands and asked “What are we going to do now?”
The other biker zipped up his case and moved towards the door. “Well, Jonty, I don’t know about you but I’m leaving. If the newspaper and that Max Richmond bloke have told the old Bill where we’re living, we can expect a visit tomorrow at the latest.”
“I guess it’s time to move on, then.” Jonty looked around the camp; it wasn’t much, but he had lived here for almost five years, off and on. “I’ll have the Warriors out of here by morning.”
Bricko knew it was already too late for the rest of them but he smiled a mirthless smile and squeezed Jonty’s shoulder as he passed. Jonty placed his hand over Bricko’s and asked solemnly, “Brothers?” Bricko, looked into Jonty’s eyes and replied with a conviction he didn’t feel, “Always, Dog, Always!”
The customised black Harley was heading away from the camp on a rutted farm track when Bricko heard the sirens a mile or so away. He looked at his watch.
“Forty five minutes,” he said to himself. “That has to be some kind of record.” Two minutes later he was on the A34 and heading towards a lock up workshop on the outskirts of Newbury.
***
Bricko pulled the Harley into the lock up workshop and closed the door. There was a lot to do if he wanted to keep one step ahead of the police, who by now would have Jonty and his gang in custody.
The biker took off his jacket, pushed it into a large cloth laundry bag and sat on an old easy chair. He unfastened his boots, slipped them off and stood up. He was a good two inches shorter without the steps in the boots. Slipping out of his leather trousers and grubby black tee shirt, he revealed the webbing that held the bulky latex body suit in place. Relieved to be free of the constricting latex, he stuffed that, too, into the bag.
Standing in front of the stainless steel sink the shorter, thinner biker adjusted the shaving mirror before reaching for a set of Wahl hairdressing shears. Setting the guard at number four, Bricko pushed the shears across his scalp from front to back until his long greasy hair lay on the black plastic sheet on the floor beneath his feet. With his hair sticking up in an impromptu crew cut no more than three quarters of an inch long, Bricko was beginning to disappear.
The beard followed the long hair, and when he was clean shaven Bricko filled the sink with hot water and scrubbed every inch of exposed skin. It wasn’t as good as a shower but nonetheless it felt good to be clean. Looking into the mirror, he expected to see a different person, but he had forgotten something. The transformed biker leaned over the sink and popped out his contact lenses one at a time, and the ice blue eyes were back to their original green. Satisfied at the transformation, he smiled at his reflection and said out loud,
“Welcome home, Max”.
