Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (35 page)

As Dee wrapped
up the conversation, Katie crossed the limo and sat next to her,
signalling that she wanted to speak to Josh. Dee handed her the
phone.

“
Josh
Hammond, we speak at last. I’m so looking forward to meeting the
man who stole Dee’s heart.” She was teasing again, but Josh was
also accomplished at the art.

“
Don’t tell
Dee, but I fell in love with you first. I think you were only
fourteen at the time, though, and so I knew it couldn’t work,” he
joked.

“
Your husband
is a flirt, Mrs Hammond,” Katie said so that all could hear. “Am I
going to get to meet you anytime soon, Josh?”

“
Not if I
have anything to do with it,” Dee chimed in, making a grab for the
phone.

“
If you stay
still long enough I may eventually track you down,” Josh said
finally as Katie let the phone go. The three of them were
laughing.

***

As the Airbus
A380 cruised over the Atlantic, Katie offered Dee the private
cabin’s bed. Dee declined the offer, taking the recliner in the
sumptuous private bedroom instead. Katie climbed into the full
sized bed and pulled the comforter up to her neck.

“
Dee, when I
get back to the university, are you going to look for that woman
sniper?” Dee looked surprised that her ward should know about the
Chameleon. “Sorry, I overheard you on the phone to Pete on
Wednesday making the arrangements to meet up in New York,” Katie
admitted somewhat sheepishly. Dee did not answer
immediately.

“
To be
entirely honest with you, Katie, I don’t really know what I’m going
to do. I do want to track the Hokobus’ killer down, that much is
true, but after that...” her sentence trailed off for a moment
before she picked up the traces of the conversation again. “One
part of me wants to understand why she killed such a lovely and
harmless couple, while another part of me wants to see her with a
syringe stuck in her own neck, realising she is about to
die.”

“
That won’t
happen,” Katie countered. “You will catch her and you’ll hand her
over to the police. You don’t have it in you to be a
vigilante.”

Dee wondered
whether that was really true. Sitting there on the plane pondering
on it, she really did not know whether she could kill in revenge. A
minute later she looked over at Katie, who had fallen asleep. Dee
decided to get some rest, too, and pulled a blanket around her as
she reclined her seat almost flat.

Chapter
4
9

Universal
Studios, Orlando, Florida, USA, Saturday noon.

Gil had yet
another new look. The hairdresser in the salon at the Grand
Floridian had restored her natural hair colour and had cut her hair
into a more contemporary style; he called it an urchin cut. Somehow
Gil couldn’t imagine an urchin spending over two hundred dollars on
a cut and colour.

Handing the
keys of her Ford Mustang hire car to the valet, she stepped onto an
escalator and rode up to the covered walkway which led into
Universal City Walk. Wearing designer jeans, brown leather cowboy
boots and a pink Aeropostale tee shirt, all bought at the Florida
Mall late last night, she joined the crowds heading towards the
parks.

As she passed
the AMC multiplex on her right, she noticed that the latest Clara
Campbell movie was showing. She decided to give it a try before she
left Orlando. She had always envied Clara’s adolescent friendships,
and crushes, having been a solitary teen when she was young
herself.

A throng of
happy and smiling tourists moved with purpose towards the newer of
the two theme parks, the
Islands of
Adventure
, home to Hogsmeade, Hogwarts and
the Harry Potter ride. Gil was quite excited. She had never been to
a theme park as a child, and had never had an excuse to go as an
adult, and so she looked at the rollercoasters with awe and more
than a little trepidation. Nonetheless, she would ride them all.
Not to do so would be cowardice.

***

By 6pm the
queue for the Harry Potter ride had dwindled to twenty minutes and
so she joined it, jiggling a giant stuffed white tiger on her hip –
a prize she won, rather unfairly, in a target shooting sideshow.
Gil had been so consumed with the colours, smells and noise of the
park that she had paid no attention to a young couple following her
around the park. The girl had a white veil on her head that sported
Minnie Mouse ears. The man was wearing a tee shirt printed to
resemble a tuxedo. Newlyweds, the world and his wife would think,
but they would be wrong. The man had his wife stand in front of the
gates to Hogwarts, towered over by two large winged boars, and then
he took a picture with an expensive looking Sony camera. The
picture that showed up on the camera’s screen, however, did not
show the impressive gates, or his wife, but a pretty young woman
with short hair carrying a white tiger.

The man fell
into line a few places behind Gil, whilst his wife kissed him
modestly on the lips and proclaimed loudly that she was going to
Ollivander’s to buy a wand.

***

The girl
headed off to Ollivander’s and joined the queue before reaching for
her BlackBerry curve phone. She spoke quietly into the
handset.

“
This is
Sherrie. The girl is here, we’ve been following her all afternoon.
I’m sending you some pictures now.” The girl took the phone from
her ear and sent four photos, taken on the phone’s built in 8
megapixel camera during the afternoon. The pictures weren’t great
quality, but the light was good and it would be obvious to anyone
who knew Gil, and who saw the photos, just who the subject
was.

“
Keep her in
sight, understand?” a male voice commanded from out of the
ether.

“
Yes, boss.
You can rely on us.” Sherrie pressed the red button to end the call
and took up her vigil outside Filch’s Emporium, the exit from the
Harry Potter ride.

Chapter
50

Brown
University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, Saturday
noon.

There was no
doubting that Brown University was an Ivy League institution; it
just reeked of power and status. Founded in 1764, it is the seventh
oldest college in the US and home to young film stars Emma Watson
and Katie Norman. The film studios liked the college because it was
Brit friendly and off the beaten track. Vastrick liked it because
it was easier to secure than a metropolitan university.

Katie, Pete
and Dee sat on a cold bench under a tree devoid of its leaves. The
wind was cold, but the weather was dry. They were waiting for
Katie’s new minder to arrive. Deanna Pope was usually the weekend
and holiday relief for Katie’s assigned minder, but the two knew
each other well and Deanna was young enough to blend in and give
Katie her privacy, whilst keeping her in sight.

“
Will I see
you before you go back to the UK?” Katie asked Dee and
Pete.

“
I guarantee
it, pet,” Pete replied, his Geordie accent seeming out of place on
the lawn in front of this august establishment.

“
Shouldn’t
that be ‘Why aye man’, Pete?” Katie asked in a strong Newcastle
dialect. Pete grimaced and Dee smiled.

“
Pete and I
will take you to ‘Rosie’s Emporium’ for a night out before we fly
back. It’s a Vastrick secret. Lots of Feds and ex Feds hang out
there and the New England cuisine is to die for. Hinny.” She added
the last word to join in the teasing of her partner.

All too soon
Deanna and Katie headed off towards the dorm block, and the two
Vastrick personnel headed towards their Chrysler 300 hire car. They
had a long journey ahead and a meeting with an old friend from
Quantico.

***

They left
Providence and joined Interstate 95, heading south towards New
York. According to the satnav they had 444 miles to go before they
reached Quantico in Virginia. They were going to be on the same
road for almost nine hours.

They decided
to share the driving in two hour spells, and so Pete, the big
Geordie, curled up on the spacious back seat and was snoring loudly
before Dee reached Cranston, just a few miles away. Dee listened to
the radio as she drove, and despaired at the drivers who drove in
their favoured lane regardless of their speed. It was going to be a
long drive.

***

As she drove
Dee cast her mind back four years to her time at Quantico. She had
just arrived there to begin work when the hulk who was now snoring
on the back seat ran up and introduced himself. They were both new
Vastrick employees and both were there to attend a variety of
courses from Hostage Negotiation to Defensive Driving.

Dee had
expected a few hours to herself to acclimatise and get over her
long journey when an instructor tapped on the dorm room door,
opened it, threw in a tracksuit and said, “Cross country run, ten
minutes, assembly point C.”

Dressed in her
light grey FBI branded track suit with her visitor’s badge
flapping, she set off beside Pete and an American called Steve
Post. Steve was wearing a red ID band, whereas Dee and Pete had
yellow bands on their wrists. The bands had been fitted when
entering through the gate and, like hospital ID’s, they had to be
worn until the person left the premises. Yellow denoted a guest
trainee, from a US police department, fire department or private
company, red denoted FBI. It is little known, or understood, by
those who visit Quantico and who train there, that the CIA send
numerous operatives to the FBI site for training. The spooks all
wear red FBI wristbands and declare themselves to be from the
Arlington Field Office. There is no Arlington Field Office for the
FBI; in fact, these CIA operatives all hail from Langley,
Virginia.

By the time
the three trainees collapsed back at the foot of the big Assembly
Point C marker, after a run of ten miles, they were firm friends.
It was a friendship born out of adversity and it had lasted until
today.

Those few
weeks had been amongst the hardest, and most enjoyable, of Dee’s
life. She learned a good deal about herself. She had not realised
that she could take so much punishment and bounce back. She had
accomplished more than she ever thought possible. When the
Defensive Driving results came in she was in the top three of
twenty one. Steve was one place ahead of her. In Hostage
Negotiation, she was graded second to Steve. Soon she was
determined to beat him at something and, by the time she left
Quantico, she ran faster and shot more accurately than the top FBI
candidate, Steve Post.

The intense
competition came to a head on the last day when they were pitted
against each other in unarmed combat, one to one fighting. The idea
was the first person to lead by two clear falls, or drops, was the
winner. Usually the scores were 5-3, or maybe 7-5. In extreme
circumstances it could go to 11-9. The instructor stopped their
combat session when they were both dead on their feet and Steve was
up 23-22.

That night the
entire group of graduates celebrated at Roman’s Pub on Potomac
Avenue, after grabbing a bite to eat at Domino’s next door. Filled
with pizza and beer, the night became rowdy and Steve and Dee took
a cab back to the post, leaving Geordie to drink his American
challengers under the table. When they arrived back at the post,
Dee and Steve decided on one last drink in his dorm room. Before
they finished they fell onto the bed in a passionate embrace,
kissing each other hard, and pulling at each other’s clothes until
they both passed out almost fully dressed before they could do
anything.

Dee awoke with
first light. The moment had passed, and she retired to her dorm
room without waking Steve. They parted company later that day, a
strong bond between them but neither one regretting that they had
not consummated their relationship.

***

When Dee
started to see road signs indicating upcoming interchanges for New
York, she looked at her watch. She had overrun her driving time. As
soon as they came to a fuel stop, Dee pulled in and bought two
coffees. They used the restrooms and got underway again, with Dee
taking her turn on the back seat.

They had
changed over twice more when Dee saw the beautiful Washington DC
Mormon Temple on her right hand side, illuminated in the dusk. The
elevated position and the wafer thin marble gave the temple a
surreal effect. It was beautiful during the day but it was awe
inspiring at night.

The two
travellers booked in at a Marriott hotel just off the highway, and
crashed out for a while, knowing that they had only another hour to
drive before meeting up with Steve Post at Quantico.

Chapter
51

Vastrick
Security Field Office, Quantico, Virginia, Sunday 9am.

The offices
were almost deserted when Dee and Pete arrived at the Vastrick
corporate offices in Quantico. The offices had a familiar feel; the
corporate branding, the prints on the wall and the furnishing were
all identical to the London office, but this one was fraction of
the size.

The office had
been established to support the Vastrick personnel who were
training in, or were seconded to, Quantico and other local US law
enforcement offices and agencies.