A few minutes later Peter came over to me. “We think the Chameleon is inside the house. A next-door neighbor gave us a description that meets the Chameleon’s physical description. We need to convince him that we are the police and that he can leave safely.”
“Is he armed?” I asked, wondering why the police didn’t storm the house.
“No, but he shouted that he’s holding a can of benzene and a lighter. He promised to burn anyone getting close. We want to resolve this without anyone getting hurt.”
A policeman came over. “Mr. Maxwell?”
Peter turned to him. “We have a visual from another building. We can see that he’s holding a tin can that is normally used to store petrol, but we don’t know if it’s full or not. His face seems burned or injured. His demeanor seems as if he is badly shaken; his hands are trembling and his speech is blurred. He could be deranged.”
“For how long did the neighbors hear the screaming?”
“A whole night. At the beginning they thought it was just a domestic quarrel, but then realized they were screams of pain, so they called the police.”
“Maybe someone was torturing him,” I suggested, and Peter didn’t seem to reject the idea.
“There’s a crisis-management psychologist on the way,” he said. “Maybe he can talk him out of it.”
The next thing I saw and then heard was the sound of a bullet, followed by a fiery explosion that shattered windows in our vicinity, then sent a shock wave. A black cloud of smoke emerged from the house where the Chameleon had barricaded himself.
“Shit,” said Maxwell, expressing my thoughts as well. Police forces rushed into the building together with firemen and medics. I stayed behind. I knew already what they’d discover when they entered the house. The Chameleon had perished.
Maxwell joined me twenty minutes later. “The petrol tank held by the Chameleon was directly hit by a bullet and exploded. The Chameleon died instantly.”
McHanna or the Iranians got him first, I thought. That means that the Australians have an Atashbon of their own.
After hearing more details from Maxwell, I returned to my hotel.
As I took off my clothes, I smelled the smoke, although I was standing two hundred feet away. I sent a message to Hodson, Casey, and Holliday reporting the Chameleon’s demise. Then I crashed.
When I woke up I received a one sentence response. “Return home.”
On the plane ride home, I was thinking what Goldilocks once said referring to that bowl of porridge: This is just right. After thumbing his nose at the law for so long, pay time for the Chameleon had come.
After getting over the jet lag, I went to see Hodson. Holliday and Casey were there as well.
“Did McHanna say anything about the Chameleon’s death?” I asked.
Hodson smiled. “We forgot to tell him. Instead, we suggested that the Chameleon was arrested and was cooperating, putting all the blame on McHanna.”
“And what was McHanna’s reaction?” I asked in an amused tone.
“He threw everything back at the Chameleon and, in fact, filled in all the missing blanks.”
“Didn’t he suspect that you were pulling an interrogation trick on him? After all, he’s a sly fox.”
“We thought of that. But when we gave him details of where the Chameleon was hiding, he was convinced that we got him,” said Casey.
“Does he know the truth now?” I was curious.
“Yes. Under the same plea we reached earlier, he confessed to sending a hit man to kill the Chameleon. He will be locked up forever.”
“Was terminating the Chameleon McHanna’s idea or Iran’s order?”
“McHanna says Iran told him. Obviously we can’t ask Tehran for comment. That leaves us with McHanna to face murder charges. As a lawyer, you know it makes no difference if he had him killed under orders from Tehran or on his own initiative. It’s still murder,” concluded Casey.
“It’s all over but for the shouting,” Hodson said. “Iran’s most dangerous spy ring operating in the U.S. has been eliminated.”
“Are you sure?” I insisted. I had the clear impression that Bauer, Hodson, and maybe even Holliday were looking to wind it down. But I still had unanswered questions.
“I am.”
“Well, I’m not. If I were you I wouldn’t ring the gong. I think we should continue digging. There were about eighteen members of Atashbon, and we’ve accounted for only eleven.”
“We have accounted for all of them,” Hodson said, beginning to lose his patience. He looked at Holliday and Casey, who shrugged their shoulders.
“That’s Dan Gordon,” said Bob Holliday. “You have to take him the way he is.”
Hodson smiled. “You may not know this, but Dan and I have worked together before. I’ve had enough ‘Dan hours’ to teach me that he’s relentless and cannot be stopped.”
Holliday said in an amused tone, “My predecessor, David Stone, called him a pit bull who never lets go.”
“I’m blushing,” I said. “Stop.” But in my heart I hoped they wouldn’t. Admissions of imperfection? Not right now, and not from yours truly.
“I have to admit I was wrong,” I said suddenly in a futile effort to improve off my image.
“That’s a first,” said Casey. “Enlighten us.”
“I labeled him a chameleon because he caught his prey with his tongue and changed his skin each time he changed location. But apparently in nature, chameleons don’t change their color to blend in with their environment. In fact, they mostly change their color when faced with imminent danger, or when their mood changes.”
So the lid was finally put on the Chameleon and his comrades, although belatedly, I thought as I walked out the door. The forces of karma might have a good sense of justice, maybe even a sense of humor, but certainly a bad sense of timing.