“As directed, we picked up the subject at his house. He was an old man and gave no resistance. After a short interrogation… ” Kitten paused and gave what he may have considered an ironic smile, “the subject gave us a data stick that contained the files he had stolen. We questioned him thoroughly to make sure that we had the only copy of these files.”
Kitten’s eyes took on a dreamy quality, as he replayed the event in his head. He carried on reading in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.
“Afterwards we took him into the woods, where we broke his hip. Then we set up a tent for shelter, so we could stay warm while we waited for him to die of exposure.”
Kitten gave a nod and respectfully handed the report to The Fixer. Not to be left out, Bunny added his postscript.
“It was cold and wet, and we had laid him in a muddy puddle, so it didn’t take too long for him to die. I played with his dog while we waited.”
A few people shifted uncomfortably in the silence that followed. The Fixer put the single sheet with the other reports and lifted a final page.
“Ah yes, we can close with this one. The South West rail franchise, I have a final report from Chameleon.”
The people around the table stiffened visibly.
“Our client wanted to gain the upper hand in the bidding process and felt that his competitor’s greatest strength was their formidable and charismatic chief executive, Lynda Devon. We were tasked with removing the dear lady, permanently, but without any suggestion of foul play. Naturally, I handed the completion of this assignment over to Chameleon.”
The Fixer nodded to himself.
“It seems that early on Tuesday morning, Ms. Devon was driving her car along a quiet stretch of road, when this expensive vehicle’s automatic stability system suddenly malfunctioned, causing the car to swerve and collide head on with a fully laden semi-truck. According to the police report, Ms. Devon was initially seen to be alive, although gravely injured. In his statement, the truck driver, who was himself shocked but uninjured, reported that while he was calling the emergency services, a passing pedestrian had attempted to administer CPR. However, when the truck driver returned to the scene a few moments later, Ms. Devon was deceased and the helpful pedestrian had vanished.”
The Fixer scanned the faces around the room, like a teacher checking that all of his pupils were paying attention.
“The coroner’s report later showed that Ms. Devon had suffered several serious, but survivable injuries to her legs, chest and face, but had died from choking on a marshmallow that had become lodged in her throat. An open packet of marshmallows was found in the side pocket of the car, the mystery pedestrian was never identified.”
He gave a little smile.
“This tragic news caused the share price of Devon Rail to fall sharply, and on the back of this turmoil, our client has now secured the contract he desired so dearly.”
There was a moments silence while The Fixer placed the report on top of the other files.
“Chalk up another success to the elusive Chameleon. Now we can all sleep safely in our beds,” Helen Atkins said with heavy irony.
“Or not!” Becka added. “His is not a face that I would ever want to see, or even know.”
“Last thing you ever saw if you did,” Gordon McIntosh spat coldly.
Peter joined in. “Privacy and secrecy is why he is so successful. Isn’t that right, Boss?”
“Alright children, that’s enough!” The Fixer shouted, waving his hand at the group. “Let’s all get back to work, please.”
He helped himself to some coffee and a pastry from a side table as the team shuffled out, then he looked towards Kitten and Bunny, who were still leaning against the far wall.
“You two as well please, I have some work I need to do. Close the door as you go.”
The twins glanced at each other for a moment, shared a barely perceptible shrug, and walked casually out of the room.
When the door was shut, The Fixer returned to his seat where he slowly ate the pastry and sipped his coffee, savoring the bitter taste in silence as he organised his thoughts. After a while, he picked up the report on Charles Rathbone and carefully read through it again, stopping occasionally to write notes in the margin and underlining a particular name with three heavy lines. At the end of the report, he paused for several seconds, tapping the page with his pen before coming to a decision.
The Fixer reached forward and switched off his cell phone. Then he reached into his inner pocket and retrieved a second cell phone. There was one person on the planet who knew the number of this phone, and the phone’s memory contained only one number. He dialed that number now and listened, counting quietly as it rang six times, before hanging up. Then he sent a single word by text, an identifying code word. The word was different each day; it was always the first three letters of the day, three days previously. Today was Wednesday, so he sent the letters MON. If the code were ever incorrect, the number that he dialed for the second time would remain unanswered forever. Today it was answered on the second ring; a flat metallic, computer generated voice grated sharply in his ear.
“SPEAK!”
Even though he was the employer, he found his throat constricting involuntarily. He coughed to cover his tension and then spoke the single word that re-established his authority. There was a moment of silence, disturbed by a faint electrical crackle, before the voice of death spoke again.
“Go ahead, I am listening.”
“Hello Chameleon, I have two new targets for you.”
Stone had stopped the video to allow himself a few moments of silence to process the enormity of what he was hearing. Staring at the face of his best friend, temporarily frozen by the video in an unfortunate comical pose, stuck somewhere between a laugh and a sneeze, Eric had no doubt that Charles was telling the truth. Any allegation of child abuse tended to prompt an instant reaction of revulsion along with an internal dialog of, ‘No smoke without fire’. Even if the allegation was later proved false, the damage was instantly done and permanently irreversible. However, in the case of Charles Rathbone, Eric was certain — as absolute as the existence of gravity and as unquestionable as the sun coming up tomorrow — that the allegation was made up.
On the other hand, the story about this Wrecking Crew seemed more like a conspiracy theory, easy to claim but difficult to prove. With his stomach growling with hunger and the first indigestible seeds of doubt, Stone leaned forward and tapped the play button once again. Charles’ image was released from its unfortunate pose, and he began to talk again.
“Eric, I know that the idea of this secret organisation sounds fanciful and made up, but I can assure you that every word I am about to tell you is true. The information first came to me from a trusted source that knew about this Wrecking Crew and had high-level access to documents through his position at GCHQ. He was a man of the greatest integrity, he was fiercely patriotic, and yet experienced enough to understand that sometimes governments need to perform secret and unpalatable acts to protect its citizens. To believe otherwise would be naive.
The Wrecking Crew is a privately operated team with some very special skills. They even have their own assassin who calls himself ‘Chameleon’, I think he may be ex-special forces, perhaps Russian or Israeli. This team of specialists was originally put together as a deniable asset that was able to manipulate, discredit, destroy, or dispatch, anybody, anywhere — for a fee. However, as the world security situation became less cold war and more about fighting insurgents, the military requirements became less subtle. Consequently, this Wrecking Crew started to take on freelance work, mostly in America and the Britain — and not all of it was deemed acceptable. In his research, my source found clear evidence that the Wrecking Crew was now operating beyond government control, and in a way, that was undermining our freedom and democracy. He was so disturbed by what he had found that, at great risk to his life and liberty; he copied those documents and gave them to me.