She smiled to herself, wondering what the reaction of the holiday rep would be when one of their guests missed the welcome brunch, disappeared from the hotel and failed to make the return flight next week.
***
The door to the director’s outer office was closed, but the slider confirmed that the director was ‘available’. Barry tapped on the door and opened it. Immediately in front of him to the left sat Maureen Lassiter. Directly ahead of him was the open door which led to the Director’s inner sanctum, overlooking the river.
Barry looked at Maureen, tight lipped. She flicked her eyes to the left, indicating that the director was waiting and there was no time for small talk, or even so much as a cursory greeting. The bespectacled underling stepped forward and into the boss’s office with all of the trepidation of Daniel entering the lion’s den, except that Daniel had known that God would save him. Barry had no such high hopes for deity stepping in on his behalf.
“Ah, Mitchinson. I was just wondering how things were going on your stated objective of eliminating the Chameleon, AKA Gill Davis.” The Director had a curious look on his face, and Barry was immediately wary.
“Good news, sir. She is dead and permanently entombed on the old Strand Tube Station platform. We are sealing the lift shaft tomorrow with a permanent cover and a manhole access.” Barry lifted up the DVD and offered to slide it into the Director’s laptop. The director waved his arm in what Barry took to be permission to proceed.
Inside a minute, the DVD whirred into action and the line camera pictures were showing on the screen. Barry had hoped to shock the Director, but instead he witnessed a morbid fascination on his boss’s face. The Director pressed the mouse button to halt the DVD, which he ejected and dropped into the waste bin beside him with a cruel smile playing across his lips.
He leaned on his desk, his forearms resting on the walnut veneer, his hands clasped with fingers interlocking. He was mere inches away from Barry Mitchinson’s face when his own contorted into what appeared to be rage.
“Barry, I am not certain whether you are deliberately misleading me or whether you truly are cretinously stupid. I don’t know who or what that video purports to show, but whatever it is I can assure you that it is not Gillian Davis.”
Barry was beyond crestfallen; he was paralysed with despair. He was unable to summon the power of speech.
“Let me explain in terms that a simpleton like you can understand. Gillian Davis obviously killed Tim McKinnon, whose death luckily can be portrayed as an accident, but then I suppose Wondergirl planned it that way. She then foresaw that you would check she was dead, and so placed something, or someone, on that platform for you to find. If only she was working for me instead of the team of incompetents I currently have at my disposal.
She seems to have completely outfoxed MI5 and the establishment, not least your good self. Worse still for me, and that means for you too, I have to explain what the hell we are doing killing our own people, on our own turf, when they threatened no one except a bunch of bad guys we would rather see dead!” He was yelling by the time the last sentence came to an end.
“That isn’t strictly true, sir.” Barry tried to restore his credibility, knowing that his boss was beyond listening. “She murdered the Israeli Foreign Minister. They are a friendly country and he wasn’t someone we would like to see dead. He was the minister of culture, for God’s sake.”
The Director tapped a key on his keyboard and a prepared page flicked up onto the screen. It was headed ‘Yakir Bluwstein: Supplementary Research – Analytical Profile’.
“Let me read you something that you would know if you weren’t a moron of the first order.
Yakir Bluwstein was still a teenager when he killed his first British Serviceman. The man was unarmed and lying in his sickbed when the boy sneaked into the hospital and shot the man in the head, leaving the symbol of the Stern Gang on the body. Sergeant William Docherty, or Billy to his friends, had served bravely in the desert for the allies in the Second World War and was awaiting demobilisation just as soon as he recovered enough to travel home. Ironically, Billy had been instrumental in the release of inmates from the death camps and had been welcomed as a hero by Jews in Europe and England.”
“Shit,” Barry thought as the Director read on, “this is going to get worse.”
“Minister Bluwstein was a member of the Stern Gang, known as Levi to the Zionists. He planned and helped execute the driving of a truck load of explosives into a British Police Station. Four were killed, and this is where it gets personal.”
The director looked up to ensure he had Barry’s undivided attention. “My uncle Ben, a Jew himself, incidentally, lost a leg and the sight in one eye in that attack. That raid was both wicked and pointless because only weeks later Israel became independent, and the Stern Gang had known very well what was going to happen. So did the minister repent, or change his odious ways? I think not. Bluwstein was the Minister of Defence when the Israeli Air force bombed unprotected Lebanese civilian targets with phosphorous armaments during the last Labour government. He went on TV and denied the use of phosphorous bombs, and declared that an internal Israeli enquiry had cleared Israel of wrongdoing. We shared our proof that they had indeed used phosphorous bombs, but nothing was done. The Americans vetoed a war crime tribunal. As a sop to international outrage, he was demoted to Minister of Culture.”
The Director turned away from the screen and looked at the defeated man sitting opposite before continuing.
“So, Mr Mitchinson, which part of Yakir Bluwstein’s glorious history would make your average Englishman feel sorrowful at his passing? As much as I despise your little Wondergirl, she did the world a favour that day.”
Barry knew there wasn’t an answer that would keep him in a job, and so he looked down at his scuffed shoes.
“So, Mitchinson, when you appear in her cross hairs - as you undoubtedly will, as you tried to kill her - tell her my late Uncle Dan sends his regards.”
A terrible silence engulfed the room and Barry heard Maureen Lassiter quietly close the door between her office and the Directors office. There was obviously only so much blood letting a sensitive woman could take in a day.
“I’ll seal the ports and airports as soon as I get back to my desk. We will apprehend her, soon enough.” Barry tried to regain some of the momentum.
“You know, you really do disgust me, you odious little man. Men have died this week because of your incompetence, and you are still protecting your own worthless hide.
Gillian Davis flew out of the UK under her own name on a charter flight this morning. She is in the air as we speak, heading to the sun.”
“Well, I’ll have her picked up as soon as she arrives. We have operatives in most cities and we can rely on the local authorities everywhere else. She can’t escape.” Barry sounded more confident now, but the director laughed.
“Does your stupidity know no bounds? Let me see, this woman has outsmarted you every step of the way and made you and the firm look incompetent. The only reason I knew she was flying out this morning was that she bought a book on her credit card at Newcastle Airport.”
Barry looked puzzled. “But she must know any transactions would be flagged.”
“Of course she did! The title of the book was ‘Getting Away to Cuba, a traveller’s guide’. She is mocking us; she knows very well that the one country in the civilised world that will not cooperate with us at all is Cuba. Once she lands there, we lose her forever. We will never know where she is. She could stay and enjoy endless Mojitos in Hemingway’s favourite bar, or she could fly to any communist enclave in the world. At least we can sell off her company and bang another few million into the treasury’s coffers. Contact Lena at SOCA and get her to make an application to the Assets Agency under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.”