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.