The Gilgamesh Conspiracy

by Jeffrey Fleming

  Gerry walked into the hotel store and bought a copy of the Economist and a roll of adhesive tape. She wandered around the reception area taking careful note of the surroundings and then settled down in the Starbucks concession with a double tall latte and began to read her magazine.

  When the American Orthodontics Society broke up for lunch Gerry rose from her seat and surreptitiously inspected the participants wearing their distinctive conference name cards. Helen Mendoza was several inches shorter than she was, but otherwise her hair and facial resemblance was fairly good. Gerry followed her into the elevator with a crowd of other delegates and followed her along the corridor and noted her room number. Then she walked to a service trolley and took the room maid’s clipboard and walked back to Helen Mendoza’s room and knocked on the door. She stood back and smiled at the door spy glass with the clipboard prominent. After a moment the door opened.

  ‘Good afternoon Doctor Mendoza, I would be grateful if you could just check that your minibar has been serviced for me?’

  ‘Oh…ah…ok. But I haven’t had anything from the minibar.’

  ‘If you could just check the security tag has been renewed please.’

  As Helen Mendoza walked back into her room Gerry taped her metal strip over the door catch aperture.

  ‘Yes its fine,’ said the orthodontist straightening up and turning to look at her.

  ‘Thank you very much, doctor. I hope you have a pleasant stay and a good conference.’

  Gerry replaced the clipboard and rode the elevator back down to reception and ordered another coffee. A few minutes later Helen Mendoza emerged from an elevator and walked into the conference lunch room. Gerry hastened back up to her room, pushed open the door and removed the metal strip. She searched through the woman’s luggage until she found a passport, driving licence, Visa and Amex cards, cash to the value of five hundred dollars and another seven hundred in traveller’s cheques.

  She went into the bathroom, relieved herself of some of the coffee and looked in the mirror. ‘Good afternoon, my name’s Helen Mendoza,’ she said in her best American accent. ‘I need some dental work carried out.’

  The dentist had been all sympathy as Helen Mendoza described how she had lost a tooth in a car accident two years ago and how she had been hit in the face playing tennis last week and now her cap had fallen off. ‘My travel insurance company and my dental health insurance people are fighting over who is going to pick up the tab,’ she had explained, ‘so I was wondering if you could just fix me up with a temporary crown.’

  Gerry left the dentist two hundred and twenty four dollars worse off but with a full set of front teeth, or at least a suitable imitation. Then she went to a bank and took out three thousand dollars courtesy of Helen Mendoza’s passport, driving licence and credit cards. Next she paid a visit to the shops, bought a wheelie bag and some more suitable clothes and a laptop computer, thence to the International Airport where she found the British Airways ticket desk.

  ‘Hello, I need a ticket for today’s flight back to London, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry madam; this evening’s flight is full. We’ve got space on tomorrow’s in club and world traveller. Would you like me to book you for that?’ the agent asked her.

  Gerry pursed her lips and suppressed a string of oaths. She dared not wait in case Helen Mendoza reported a stolen passport and Gerry was arrested before she could leave the island. She looked around and saw an Air Canada desk where the agent was being harangued by some apparently discontented customers. She walked over and eavesdropped that the much delayed flight to Toronto would be leaving in ninety minutes. She waited with as much patience as she could for thirty seconds but then ignoring discontented objections from the complaining passengers she barged her way to the front. ‘Do you have any seats left on that Toronto flight?’ she asked with her best smile.

  ‘Actually we do. You’d like a ticket?’ said the man gratified that he had one customer he did not have to placate over the delayed departure.

  ‘Yes I would thanks,’ said Gerry, relieved.

  The flight proved to be fairly empty of passengers; presumably they had been re-routed by the airline on to earlier flights. Gerry wondered if she should have tried to bargain for a discounted ticket, but at least she had the comfort of a row of three seats to herself. After take-off she accepted a cup of coffee from the cabin crew, sat back in her seat and closed her eyes.

  ‘May I sit here for a moment?’ a man murmured to her. She sighed inwardly and opened her eyes then she started violently in her seat and slopped her coffee over the table top. She spent a half second wondering if she should be prepared to fight for her life or stop the coffee from pouring on to her legs, but then realised that he would probably not attempt to kill her on board the aircraft, and she was absolutely certain he would never have given her any warning.

  ‘I’ll go and get a cloth,’ said Richard Cornwall.

  Cornwall returned a minute later carrying a damp cloth and a fresh cup of coffee for her. He watched in silence as she mopped her table and her legs. Then he took the cloth and handed her the coffee and sat beside her.

  ‘We thought you’d drowned until you started using the internet aboard that yacht,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve no idea who you mean by ‘we’. If you knew I was taking this flight then presumably you could have stopped me before I boarded.’

  ‘I wanted you to get away from there before Samms and Parker found you.’

  ‘Ok, so how did you track me down?’

  ‘Not my ingenuity, I have to admit. I had a message from Daniel Hall, who said that you had survived and were on a yacht destination Bermuda.’

  ‘How the hell did he know that?’ Gerry asked.

  ‘I assume a bit of a cock-up,’ Cornwall suggested. ‘He must have logged onto the web-site and read the reports. They must have forgotten to deny him access. You know what it’s like; sometimes people can take all the necessary precautions except the most obvious ones.’

  ‘Like me trying to log on from Steven’s yacht and showing that I was still alive?’

  ‘Yeah…pretty silly of you Gerry.’

  ‘Well maybe, but I’ve been in prison for the last few years trying to keep a grip on my sanity, not keeping up to date with tracking and surveillance, data monitoring and…’

  ‘Ok, point taken!’ said Cornwall alarmed by a note of hysteria. ‘Of course you’ve had a godawful experience. Sorry.’

  ‘And how do I know you haven’t arranged for me to be arrested on arrival in Toronto?’ she went on.

  ‘I could have had you arrested in Bermuda, still officially a piece of UK territory,’ said Cornwall. ‘Why would I let you go to Canada?’

  ‘Alright…fair point.’

  ‘You really are a ruthless bitch; you haven’t expressed any concern about Steven Morris at all! What do you think would have happened to him with your friends Samms and Parker waiting for him in Bermuda?’

  ‘Oh…is he alright?’

  ‘Fortunately I arranged for him to be taken into protective custody when he arrived and he told me something about your adventure. Now he’s off to Florida in his yacht. In the meantime I have put out some disinformation that you intend to travel to Egypt where you can live out of sight until...’ He broke off when he realised that tears were trickling down Gerry’s cheeks and she was ineffectually wiping them away with the back of her hand.

  ‘Bloody hell, you really have gone soft!’ he scoffed, but then felt ashamed. ‘I’m sorry; it must have been utter hell alone on that life raft for all that time.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Now officially I have no idea you’re still alive,’ Cornwall continued. ‘I’m meant to be on holiday in Barbados; my wife is still in the hotel in Bermuda. I hope she’s not enjoying herself too much without me.’ He glanced over at Gerry who was staring at the seat in front of her in some miserable world of her own. He sighed. ‘Look; you should trust me. We should pool whatever we know about this whole
bizarre mess and we should work together.’

  Gerry gazed out of the window, but drew little comfort from the vista of layers of white cloud topped by the deepening blue of the evening sky. ‘Who was responsible for putting me in prison Richard? And why was I brought out? Did you really think I would be a useful asset?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I thought you’d be a bloody pain in the arse. Fielding insisted. He wanted you to go to Guantanamo Bay. Ali Hamsin demanded to speak to you, but I don’t know what about.’

  Gerry stared at him. ‘I find that rather hard to believe. Are you telling me you don’t know about operation Gilgamesh?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to find out, but it was buried years ago!’

  ‘I know, but Hamsin didn’t tell me where exactly,’ Gerry said.

  ‘What do you mean where exactly?’ Cornwall demanded. ‘It was an abandoned operation, but sensitive so all references were deleted, expunged from the records.’

  ‘But Ali Hamsin told me he had the documents. He knows where they were buried…literally!’

  ‘What… in the ground?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Shit! No wonder there’s all this crap going on. There must be some really embarrassing stuff.’

  ‘Yes but as Hamsin didn’t tell me anything useful, they must have decided to just get rid of us both.’

  ‘There’s a report already written stating that you were responsible for that aircraft crash, and that everyone on board was killed,’ said Cornwall.

  ‘How could they possibly know that?’

  ‘They didn’t, but when the aircraft disappeared and then you turned up alive, they made the assumption. Then when Dan Hall disappeared from sight they reckoned that he must have had something to do with helping you.’

  ‘I guess that’s not too far from the truth.’ Gerry stared at the seat back. ‘If only I had shot the bastards straightaway. I could probably have flown that plane back to Bermuda and landed it myself! But why did Dan run off? He could have brazened it out?’

  ‘My guess is that he has some romantic notion of carrying out his own investigation into the Gilgamesh affair.’

  ‘But he knows I’m alive?’

  ‘Yes he sent me a message saying that you were expected in Bermuda.’

  Gerry frowned. ‘How could he have known that?’

  ‘As I said, apparently he still has access to the confidential website,’ Cornwall replied. ‘So what happened on board the aircraft? In fact you’d better tell me everything that happened from the time you left Farnborough airport. After all we’re together in this aircraft for another two and a half hours.’

  Gerry was coming to the end of her story as the aircraft began its descent towards Toronto.

  Cornwall was silent for a moment, wondering if she would elaborate on her days alone in the raft but just then the Captain announced that the aircraft would land in ten minutes. ‘But didn’t Ali Hamsin tell you about Gilgamesh before he died?’

  ‘Ali didn’t tell me what was in the Gilgamesh document; he told me how to find it.’

  ‘Bloody hell! So are you going to tell me?’

  ‘Why should I trust you?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you can’t keep going on your own and because I’ll tell you how to find Dan Hall. Also if I wanted to, I could easily have arranged for you to be picked up at Toronto, rather than boarding the flight to talk to you.’

  ‘Ok then, it’s hidden in Lebanon with a friend of his. Richard, you have to let me go there and find it.’

  Cornwall nodded. ‘Very well, I agree.’ He reached into his briefcase and handed Gerry an envelope. ‘In here is a United States passport in the name of Edith Williams and three thousand dollars and a UK passport in the name of Vanessa Davies, plus matching driving licenses. When we get to Toronto I’ll be getting the next flight back to Bermuda. Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to make contact with Dan Hall and find out what the hell Gilgamesh is all about. Then call me.’

  Gerry looked at the passports. ‘I don’t think the name Edith suits me,’ she mused.

  ‘The name Melissa Madbitch suits you better, but I settled on Edith Williams,’ Cornwall replied. ‘Now, from Toronto you take a flight to Denver and then you get a connection to Jackson Hole in Wyoming.’ He handed her a piece of paper. ‘Send me a text to this number to say you’ve arrived. Then hire a car and drive to this location. It’s a campsite and you’ll find Dan Hall there. Take it carefully because Dan won’t be expecting you. Oh and here’s a telephone with fifty dollars credit.’

  ‘Oh good, do you have his cell phone number?’

  ‘There’s no telephone or internet coverage where he is.’

  ‘Oh, ok.’

  ‘My number’s in the memory under Barnes. By the way, that three thousand dollars is my own money, so don’t piss it away on a business class ticket or high living. It’s too late to get a flight this evening, so we’d better check into a hotel by the airport and you can set off tomorrow.’

  ‘Ok Richard…thanks. So you do trust me?’

  ‘Yes…but I still want separate rooms.’

  ‘Ha bloody ha!’ she retorted but he was pleased to see the small smile she gave him.

  On arrival in Toronto, Cornwall watched Gerry Tate walk up to the United Airlines desk and buy her ticket and then he booked an Air Canada flight back to Bermuda. They took separate taxis to the hotel and made no sign of recognition while they checked in at adjacent positions. Alone in his room Cornwall made a telephone call to his wife and was pleased to find her in their room. ‘Hi Fiona, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, just having a beer and watching a Jason Bourne film. He’s much more rugged than you, but not so handsome.’

  ‘Thanks. Sorry you’re alone, but my flight gets in at ten past twelve so perhaps I’ll be with you for lunch.’

  ‘Oh I’m not alone; one of the room service waiters is with me, but I’ll get rid of him by lunch time tomorrow.’

  ‘So long as it’s a waiter and not some billionaire banker who will whisk you away, I’m ok with that. See you tomorrow darling.’

  ‘Ok, love you!’

  ‘Love you too, bye.’ He put down his phone and then tried to concentrate on a copy of The Economist magazine that he had bought in the airport news store, while checking his watch at frequent intervals. Eventually his phone rang.

  ‘Felix?...Yes it’s Richard. I’ve sent her on. She’s planned to arrive in Denver tomorrow on United 7842 at 9:30 Mountain Time for onward connection to Jackson Hole, arriving at 12:30 where she should be able to pick up the trail to Dan Hall. I’ve given her the location of his camp site.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The United Airlines Boeing 757 approached Denver out of a cloudless sky. Gerry leant towards the window and gazed down at the airport with its six runways as the aircraft flew past before turning in for its approach and landing. If Heathrow had that many runways it would eliminate all those annoying delays, she decided, but then half of Middlesex would have to be bulldozed. She checked her watch which had survived days on the raft unscathed, and adjusted it two hours back for the Mountain Time zone. She had an hour and fifty minutes to make her connection to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She sat back in her seat, finished her diet coke and ran her tongue over her peeling lips and crowned tooth. Soon she would be seeing Dan Hall again. Dan Hall who had told her he loved her. She wondered what he would think of her if he knew that she had spent nearly a week on a yacht with Steven Morris and engaged in enthusiastic sexual intercourse for the first time since she was with Philip. Rather to her surprise she felt uncomfortable at the possibility he would somehow find out.

  She had spent a restless night in the Toronto airport hotel room, wondering if she should abandon the enterprise; make her way back home and disappear somewhere. In Europe with its uncontrolled borders she would be able to move around quite easily if anyone came to find her, but she had decided that although that kind of life might suit her for a while, it would leave unans
wered all the questions that had been troubling her while she was in prison. She wondered what precautions Cornwall might have taken to ensure she stayed on task. She had seen him watching her as she had checked in but then lost sight of him when she had gone into US immigration pre-clearance where her passport in the name of Edith Williams had been accepted without question. However, his flight back to Bermuda departed thirty minutes after hers so it was no surprise that he was at the airport.

  The aircraft touched down to a rather firm landing that shook her out of her reverie. She gazed out of the window as it decelerated along the runway and watched an executive jet taxying past in the opposite direction, one of the hundreds that conveyed wealthy individuals and influential businessmen around the world. She recalled her trip in a similar aircraft to Florida. That flight was only three weeks ago, but it seemed much longer and she felt disconnected from her life before that date by the trauma of her days on the raft. As she emerged into the arrivals hall she swept her eyes over the small crowd but she recognised nobody, however she was observed by Neil Samms. He was wearing a wig of long brown hair gathered into a pony tail, a thick moustache that surrounded his chin and cheek inserts broadened his face. Behind his sunglasses he wore contact lenses which changed his eyes from green to a more non-descript brown colour. He wore jeans and a heavy leather jacket but these were his own clothes and he appeared relaxed and natural in them.

  The last time he had talked to Gerry Tate was when they were on board the Gulfstream coming over from Farnborough to Florida. On that occasion she had appeared nervous and uncertain, not at all like the woman he had worked with years previously and who had treated him with obvious disdain, but the woman who emerged off the flight from Toronto was deeply tanned with her hair lightened by continual exposure to the sun. There was an eager look about her as she strode impatiently past the other passengers with a rucksack slung over one shoulder. She walked past the baggage belts and he trailed her to the United Airline transfer desk. He walked up to an unmanned desk where he pulled from his own rucksack a device that appeared identical to a cell phone but actually contained a sensitive directional microphone. He inserted the earpiece and then he picked up an airport information leaflet which he pretended to study.