Chameleon - A City of London Thriller (3 page)

Maureen smiled
back, knowing that, as on all previous occasions, they would
actually do nothing at all, but would receive a hundred thousand
pounds simply because the Maratis thought that they were buying UK
Government approval. When, she wondered, would these tin pot
dictators learn that corrupt elected governments simply could not
buy Western approval for money? Until these uneducated yokels woke
up and smelled the coffee, there would always be underpaid civil
servants who would take their cash.

Makabate
listened carefully as the instructions came across the ether from
Thames House.

“
The code
words for the Chameleon are;
Peter Wright
at the Foreign Office says hello.”

***

With a few
more touches of his iPhone screen the diplomat called an answering
service in London, left a message and told the girl that he needed
a call back from Chameleon Enterprises by noon.

Chapter
2

Fitness Forum,
Spitalfields, London, Monday 10a.m.

Just a five
minute walk from Liverpool Street Station, in East London, lies
Spitalfield Market. It has been the site of a busy market since
1638, when King Charles gave a licence for flesh, fowl and roots to
be sold in what was then known as Spittle Fields. Three hundred and
seventy two years later, and now located within the historical
Horner Buildings, the area has become a paradise for shoppers who
can buy anything from cheap trinkets to valuable works of
art.

The Chameleon
could see much of the street activity below, through the first
floor plate glass window in front of the treadmill. Despite the
extreme distance and high speed showing on the treadmill video
screen, the Chameleon was breathing easily, though coated in a
sheen of perspiration.

Just as the
machine was slowing for a “warm down”, a vibration on the
Chameleon’s left arm signalled that a text message had been
received on the mobile phone hotline. Only very wealthy clients
ever dialled that number.

After a brief
delay, the Chameleon wandered into the corridor and looked at the
message.

“
Call JM from
St James’s Square,” the cryptic message read.

An attractive
woman in her thirties came up the stairs, admired the Chameleon’s
washboard stomach and nodded an appreciative silent greeting, which
was returned.

The Chameleon
showered, dressed and left the gym, passing through the crowds on
the street before swiping a card at the entrance of an impressive
modern office block just a quarter of a mile away.

Sitting at a
desk in a glass walled office, the Chameleon affixed an electronic
voice changer to the telephone handset before dialling the client’s
number.

“
Jalou
Makabate speaking.”

“
This is the
Chameleon. Send encrypted details of the assignment to the usual
email address and I will action your request.”

“
It must be
done within seventy two hours. Will that be enough time?” Makabate
asked.

“
It will have
to be,” replied the electronic voice that sounded much like the
artificial voice of Stephen Hawking. “Ensure that the down payment
is paid to my account within twenty four hours.”

“
Good. This
woman is a danger to all of the good citizens of Marat. She is
determined to destroy the peace in our country and incite a civil
war that will claim many innocent lives. Her followers have already
formed a militia that has maimed and abused many in an attempt to
scare them into following her communist ambitions for our free
country.” Makabate paused. “Oh, and by the way, Peter Wright at the
Foreign Office says hello.”

“
Yes,
whatever you say,” the electronic voice responded.

Makabate was
familiar with these brusque conversations, and so was not surprised
when the call ended abruptly without any further warning or good
wishes.

***

Relaxing back
into the sumptuous leather chair befitting the founder and Managing
Director of both Celebrato Greeting Cards Ltd. and its online
presence at www.Celebrato.tv, the Chameleon pondered.

‘
So, the boys
at MI5 are still playing their childish games, code words indeed.
Still, it seems that someone at Thames House wants this woman taken
down, and for a million US dollars it’s a done deal, code words or
no code words.’

Smiling as the
world passed by on Spitalfields Square, fifty feet below, the
Celebrato MD thought, ‘It’s all very well spending your days
designing and printing bespoke greeting cards and making money the
hard way, but one does need a hobby.

Chapter
3

Vastrick
Security, No 1 Poultry, London, Monday 10am.

Dee and
Geordie had listened carefully to Victoria Hokobu and her husband,
and had taken meticulous notes.

Victoria
Hokobu began by explaining that she used her maiden name, even
though she was happily married to the distinguished looking Samuel
Etundi, who was sitting by her side. Both in their mid thirties,
the pair made a handsome couple.

Victoria and
her husband were both from the M’baka ethnic group who
traditionally spoke the NgBaka Ma’bo language. Hailing from what is
now called the Central African Republic, their tribe settled in the
mountainous landscape in the region that now forms Marat, in the
late eighteenth century. In 1972 they were eventually recognised as
a separate state by the United Nations, albeit they were still
administered by their former parent state. Now, however, the nation
state of Marat has a president and a burgeoning bureaucracy and
lies sandwiched between the Central African Republic and Cameroon.
Victoria explained, somewhat mournfully, that a tribal council had
peacefully ruled Marat for two hundred years until Blue Violet
Tanzanite was discovered in the mountains.

Wary of the
sudden interest in Marat in 1996, Jaafar Hokobu, Victoria’s father,
opposed the creation of a republic but was overruled by the other
tribal elders, who foresaw great riches coming into the new
republic. But, by 2001, the majority of the people had come to
realise that the new president and his followers were robbing them.
These were evil men who claimed M’baka heritage but who could not
speak the NgBaka Ma’bo dialect.

Looking to
Jaafar Hokobu to lead a popular uprising, the people began to
withdraw their labour from the mines. Jaafar Hokobu was arrested,
along with most of the other leaders of the uprising, who
‘confessed’ to their treason whilst in prison. Most were executed
and white South African mercenaries were drafted into the tiny
Marati army to help restore order and set the mines working
again.

According to
Victoria, the people of Marat, who numbered less than the
population of Brighton, were virtual slaves in their own land. By
travelling secretly into the Central African Republic, she and her
husband had been able to fly to the UK from a city called Bangui
without being apprehended. From Bangui KLM operated regular flights
to Europe.

Their air
fares were being paid by the organisers of a UN Conference to be
held in central London, entitled; Ending Slavery, Ending Poverty.
The conference was expected to present hard evidence of the
corruption endemic in the continent of Africa, and to press for aid
to be distributed fairly to those in most need by non-governmental
organisations.

By acting in
this way, Victoria was to argue, the richer nations could avoid
their generous aid lining the pockets of the rich government
officials who stole from their own people.

Victoria was
intending to expose the Marati Government as thieves and show the
world the real poverty being suffered by her people. She would say
that the M’baka were a proud people who would not need aid if they
could share in the national wealth created by the large Tanzanite
deposits. It was the threat of this disclosure that she believed
would lead her government to attempt to kill her before she
addressed the conference in seventy two hours’ time.

***

Geordie sat
with Dee in her office, temporarily separating themselves from the
potential client, and together they examined the three stones that
were being offered to them in payment for their services. The
accompanying documentation said that they were;
BVve, internally flawless and excellent
. In short, these were the best possible Blue Violet very
exceptional stones, cut perfectly to the square/princess design.
Each stone was just over 10 Carats in weight and so the three
together would be worth around thirty thousand dollars. That worked
out at around seven thousand pounds per day for this three-day
assignment.

Dee had
already sent a message to Tom Vastrick, their President, who was
holidaying in Vermont, asking for his opinion, but they both
expected him to say; “Do what you think is right. You people are
there, I’m not.”

The two sat
together in Dee’s office and discussed the main problem faced by
Close Protection Operatives or Bodyguards in the UK, which is that
they have only passive deterrents at their disposal. These are
items such as body armour, and bullet resistant glass and bodywork
on cars. The only other protection they can offer is to keep
themselves between the client and assailant; not an attractive
proposition if the assailant is armed with a sniper’s rifle and the
bodyguard is armed with nothing more potent than pepper
spray.

In their
favour was the fact that both Dee and Geordie had attended special
courses at Quantico, taught by FBI trainers. Whilst they had not
been in the same classes, they were in the USA at the same time,
they had both attended similar lectures, and both had completed the
same units over a six-month period.

They had been
taught a number of secret service techniques, including those used
to protect the President of the United States. They had firearms
training, and they spent two weeks on counter terrorist training.
They spent an enjoyable and adrenaline filled week on defensive
driving and pursuit driving. Finally, they had been taught the
latest (and dirtiest) moves in hand-to-hand combat.

But despite
all of their undoubted skills, Dee now had three scars from bullet
wounds, and Geordie had one scar from a knife blade in his leg and
a further scar in his back from a wickedly sharp Shuriken throwing
star.

In many ways
it was inevitable that those who were routinely required to face
that kind of danger would illegally carry deterrent sprays, batons,
knives and even tasers; anything to try to slow down a madman with
an agenda.

Dee made a
decision. “Geordie, I think we have to help this lady. She’s
probably overstating the risk, but between us we could carry out a
detailed risk assessment and cover the obvious danger
areas.”

“
I’ll go
along with that, Dee. With any luck it’ll all pass without
incident,” he said, his Geordie brogue coming to the
fore.

Of course,
neither Geordie nor Dee could possibly have known about the
Chameleon’s involvement, but it would have made no difference if
they had; their task was to make it as difficult as possible for
any assassin, no matter how skilled, to get to Victoria
Hokobu.

Chapter
4

Celebrato
Offices, Spital Square, London, Monday Noon.

The Celebrato
Greeting Cards headquarters were contained within a single floor of
the grey framed office building on Spital Square. The outside walls
consisted of floor to ceiling windows which had a green hue when
viewed from the street.

The offices
were always busy, but the main business was conducted from a
factory unit in Warrington, in the North West of England, halfway
between Manchester and Liverpool. The unit was strategically placed
with easy access to the M62 and the M6, but the best part of the
deal was that the former Labour Government’s Business Minister had
awarded Celebrato a grant which meant the rent and rates were
subsidised for ten years, and that the printing and distribution
plant was provided virtually free of charge.

By ensuring
the plant was efficiently organised, Celebrato cards could be
produced and distributed by just thirty operatives working a
three-shift rota.

Celebrato had
been bought for peanuts by its current Managing Director, the
Chameleon, from the founder’s grandson, who had run the greeting
card company into the ground, despite its profitable history of
producing high quality cards which spanned fifty years or more.
Since the takeover three years ago ‘Capitol Cards’ had closed its
shops, gone online and changed its name.

Business was
booming. Costs and quality had been reduced but prices had remained
stable. All of the major supermarket chains retailed the standard
Celebrato cards, as did a major national newsagent chain. The
bespoke cards, ordered online, were created in Warrington by a few
minimum wage software jockeys, so that mums, dads and grannies
around the country could receive personalised cards with their
names or personal photographs on the front. The most expensive ones
even allowed the buyer to record a short audio message.

As a result
the Chameleon’s initial investment had rocketed in value. The MD
guessed that if Celebrato’s customers knew that the takeover of
Capitol Cards had been funded by the Chameleon’s assassination of a
troublesome Iranian, they would not be impressed.