Chameleon

by William Diehl

  Oil was his life, every form of it: oil in the ground, oil in wells, oil in pipelines, oil in the stock market, oil in tankers, refineries, trucks, pumps, cars, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals. Oil in big business. Oil in every conceivable form. He was, in fact, the world's most knowledgeable human being on the subject. And because ne was apolitical, an industrial mercenary who served no flag or master but himself, working only as a contract consultant, he moved comfortably within the international oil community, with contacts in OPEC, in Latin America, Canada, Southeast Asia and among the African oil producers. He knew how much oil was being shipped, who was getting it, what it cost and how much remained in reserve. He could predict shortages and price changes, and he knew how to find it and where to find it and the best way to get it to market.

  Falmouth was right. Lavander could be a considerable security risk to a lot of companies. The question was, Which one had put out a contract on him and why?

  So far, the Magician had turned up nothing on Chameleon.

  O'Hara digested the information, memorizing all the details he felt worthwhile. Then he put the reports aside and said, "Nice going, Mag."

  "Does it help?"

  "Immensely, only I'm not sure just how for the moment."

  "Can you fill us in?" Eliza asked.

  "All right, but not until all three of you promise the information will not be shared with anyone ... anyone, okay, Gunn?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Swear to it. Swear you will not reveal any information on this story until it's a wrap."

  "I swear it."

  "Okay. Here's the story so far ..." and he told them in detail about his meeting with Falmouth, about Quill and Master and Thornley, about the Marza job, the murder on Maui, and the coup in South America.

  "Right now we have three leads. The first is Lavander, who's slated to be grilled by a cutout and executed by Hinge if he gives the wrong answers—"

  "What's a cutout?" Eliza asked.

  "The man between an agent and his contact in the home office. A go-between. Usually he carries information back and forth. Sometimes he has the power to issue an assignment, as in this case."

  "Do we know the cutout?" the Mag asked.

  "No, but we do know the assassin. Hinge." O'Hara took a Polaroid photo from his wallet and passed it around. "That's Hinge. Falmouth gave me the picture. He used it to visually ID Hinge on the job in Caracas. Lavander's using the name J. M. Teach on this trip. Our best shot is to try to get to Lavander before he leaves the boat."

  "Do we know where he's going to be?" Eliza asked.

  "This is a calculated guess, but I think he's arriving in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Friday, early in the morning. I ... took a wild flyer. I sent him a message telling him not to leave the boat and signed it 'Quill.' "

  "What if he doesn't know who Quill is?" said the Magician.

  "Well, he can't run. It won't be delivered until after the boat leaves Honduras. Then there's no place for him to go."

  "How about Hinge?" Eliza asked.

  "He could come in just about any way, but considering the time element I think we can assume he'll fly in."

  "We can cover the airport at Montego Bay," the Magician suggested. "It isn't that big."

  "All we have to do is watch customs," said Eliza.

  "But of course!" cried Joli. "There is only one customs room. Everyone enters the terminal through the same door."

  "I'll cover the airport," Eliza said. "Even if he's cautious, he wouldn't expect a woman to follow him."

  "Why not?" said O'Hara.

  "Too macho ... at least from what you've told us about him. He wouldn't like to admit a woman might be in the same game he's in."

  "Maybe. But I also told you he's a professional. He doesn't take chances. And he kills by instinct—and in more ways than you can even imagine, Lizzie."

  "Don't start that."

  "What?" the Magician asked.

  "That Lizzie shit. My name's Eliza."

  O'Hara looked at her and smiled. His eyes made contact with hers and they defied her to look away. Well, she thought, it's about time. The first sign of any response to me since I got here.

  And O'Hara thought, She's going to get us in trouble. She's big trouble, I can tell by that look in those eyes and the set in her jaw.

  The Magician was just the opposite, he could play it like James Bond or Laurel and Hardy, depending on conditions. And Joli would have other things to do.

  "Okay. I don't know Lavander except by description, and Montego Bay isn't that small. He gets loose and we're in trouble. Suppose Mike and I take the boat and try to get to him before he gets on the street. E-liza, you cover the airport. If Hinge shows, give him plenty of rope—you get too close and he makes you—notices you, that is—he'll kill you. Remember, this guy likes guns better than people. If you're lucky, you may stay with him until he lights someplace."

  "Then what do I do?" she asked.

  O'Hara thought for a minute. "We'll keep it simple. Use the hotel drop. Where will we be staying?" he asked the Magician.

  "Half Moon Bay Club. We'll get three cottages. You can get in and out without ever going near the lobby."

  "Good. We'll use the switchboard. If you make Hinge and you stay with him until he stops someplace, call the desk and leave a message for us to meet you there."

  "There's two of us," the Magician said. "We can check every five, ten minutes."

  "And what about me?" Joli asked indignantly.

  "Joli, we've only got two leads to Chameleon. One of them is Lavander, the other is Danilov. Danilov's on the dodge, and if he knows Haiti as well as it appears he does, he could be hiding there."

  "That's a long shot there, Francis," said the Magician.

  "I wouldn't know where else to begin looking. He's running. It would seem logical he might go over to Haiti. If he is the Russians' key man there, it seems likely that he knows the place better than any of them. He also has friends there. Joli, do you think you could hide a cabbage-faced Bulgarian assassin in Haiti?"

  "Monsieur, I could hide a bright-yellow elephant with green polka dots in Haiti."

  "Good, see what you can dig up on him. Anything at all."

  "Ah, it has always been one of my fantasies, to play the role of Inspector Maigret. If this Danilov has ever put a foot in Haiti, I will know about it, vite!"

  11

  BY NINE O'CLOCK the King Line pier in Montego Bay was a madhouse. Local merchants had arrived at dawn to set up their stalls and makeshift shops, turning the pier into a noisy but colorful flea market. The big cruise ship was tied down, its anchor was dropped and its gangplank was swung into place. The passengers, in their white suits and cotton dresses, trudged eagerly down to the marketplace, to haggle over straw baskets and hats, postcards, coffee beans, wooden sculpture and toys. The din was heightened by a calypso band beating on steel drums in the middle of the square.

  O'Hara and the Magician were waiting at the bottom of the gangplank when the first passengers came down, looking for the man they knew only by the meagerest description. He was small, thin and eccentric, that was about all they knew. Several times they had approached men who vaguely fit the description.

  "Are you Mr. Teach?"

  The answer was always a shake of the head or a hurried "No."

  In ten minutes the first rush of passengers had left the boat, and the gangplank was empty. The steward drifted away from the top of the landing bridge to attend to other duties. O'Hara and the Magician boarded the boat. With the rush of activity, nobody paid any attention to them. They were both dressed in sports clothes and could easily have been mistaken for passengers. The purser was standing nearby with a checkoff list in hand. O'Hara decided to take a chance.

  "Excuse me," he said, feigning anxiety, "I seem to have missed Mr. Teach. We were going ashore together and now I've forgotten his cabin number."

  The purser looked at him with a frown but before he could ask any questions, O'Hara looked at his watch. "I'm sure
he said to meet him here. Is there any other way to leave the ship?"

  "No, sir," the purser said, checking over the passenger list. "Mr. Teach is on A deck. Cabin One-one-six."

  "Of course! Thanks," O'Hara said and rushed away before the purser could ask any more questions. -

  The Mag waited at the foot of the gangplank while O'Hara went in search of Cabin 116. He found it with little trouble, but Lavander did not answer his knock.

  "Mr. Teach," O'Hara called, "it's the steward. I have a message for you."

  Still no answer.

  Several passengers nodded "Good morning" as they drifted by on their way into town. When the corridor was empty, O'Hara took out a penknife, slipped the blade through the crack in the door and pressed the latch back as he turned the handle. The latch popped. O'Hara swung it open very slowly until he could see the entire cabin.

  Empty.

  He checked the head. Empty too. He closed the door, bolted it and began to search the room.

  The cabin was small but tastefully decorated, the bed a mess and the porthole open. The sounds of pandemonium from the dock drifted into the room as O'Hara quickly searched it.

  Lavander obviously traveled light and paid little attention to clothes. There were two suits and a pair of slacks hanging in the closet. His fingers traced pockets and lining. Nothing there. One of the suits looked as if it had never been pressed, the other had a coffee stain on the lapel. There was one tie, hanging lopsided on a wire hanger, an atrocious, multicolored flowered tie that still had the knot in it. The suitcase was empty. A few undergarments and shirts were in the dresser drawers, nothing else. There was one book on the night table beside the bed, a scholarly-looking volume entitled The Kingdom of Oil. O'Hara flipped through it casually. Small type and a lot of it.

  He checked the cabinet in the head, Lavander's travel kit, the pockets of a bathrobe hanging behind the door. Nothing.

  The entire search didn't take five minutes.

  He looked around again, checked under the mattress, and was finally satisfied that there was nothing else in the cabin.

  As he reached for the doorknob, there was a knock on the door. O'Hara froze. He moved back a few steps. Knuckles tapped on the oak door again.

  "Seiior, it is the maid."

  "Un momento."

  "Sí. I weel be back," she said and moved on down the corridor.

  O'Hara unbolted the door and checked the hallway. The maid was in the cabin next door. He locked the door behind him and went up on the upper deck. It was empty. So were the dining room, the bar, the game room, the salon. The pool area was attended by a lifeguard who was asleep in a deck chair. Nobody cared, because nobody was there, either.

  He went back and tapped on the door again. Still no answer.

  The Magician was sitting on a crate sipping a piña colada when O'Hara went ashore. "Well?" he asked.

  O'Hara led him down through the flea market. "He's gone," he said. "My message must have backfired. He's probably running scared. I checked the upper decks, dining rooms, everyplace."

  "Maybe they're gonna meet on the boat," the Magician said.

  "I doubt it. If the cutout meets him on the boat, they'll have to kill him on board. Much safer luring him out in the open. No, he's out here, somewhere."

  "He could be meeting with the cutout right now, all we know."

  "A definite possibility." O'Hara looked at his watch again. Eleven o'clock. "Hell, he could be dead by now."

  They stopped on the far side of the marketplace and looked around. Somewhere out there, Avery Lavander had an appointment with death. Their only chance to save him was if Eliza spotted Hinge when he arrived. That, of course, was assuming he was not there already, in which case Lavander was most definitely a dead man.

  The Montego Bay airport terminal was a large two-story building. Its main waiting room encompassed most of the first floor, with a half-dozen airline counters lining the wall facing the entrance. Customs inspection was carried out in a small room on the east end of the building and was cursory at best. The restaurant was on the second floor, directly over customs.

  Eliza had been in the airport since six-thirty that morning and it was now close to noon. Three planes had arrived so far. She was sure Hinge had not come through the gate yet. She checked her list. Five more planes were due before sundown: two from the States, one of which stopped in Puerto Rico and was at the gate now; one from Mexico; an Air France jet from Paris via Port-au-Prince; and a small island connector from Kingston. She found a seat in the waiting room near the door and settled down with a flight schedule. She had rented a car and bribed a porter to let her park it near the front door.

  Another planeload of tourists streamed from customs and hurried past, yelling for taxis. Hinge was not among them. She hardly glanced at the tall hawk-faced man with shiny black hair as he went by carrying an attaché case. He was Derek Frazer, vice president of AMRAN, a new oil consortium out of Houston, and he had an appointment in less than eight hours with Lavander.

  The day dragged on. After each plane arrived, she called the hotel, leaving the same basic message. Her last had been: "EAL 610 from Miami has arrived. Your luggage is not on it. The next plane arrives at six-five."

  Then she went upstairs to the restaurant and took up her dreary vigil at the window overlooking the runway. The next plane was not due for two hours.

  O'Hara and the Magician had spent the morning perusing the town of Montego Bay, hoping to luck into Lavander. Finally they settled in at a small bar across from the pier, where they had been sitting for hours, watching the gangplank, hoping Lavander would return. Or perhaps leave. O'Hara realized he could easily have missed him when he searched the boat. Lavander could still be aboard, but it was a slim chance. In fact, it was wishful thinking.

  O'Hara knew by early afternoon that he had overplayed his hand. What had seemed like a good idea, a way to keep Lavander from leaving the cruise ship, had turned into a disaster. Perhaps Lavander was afraid of Quill. And there was also the distinct possibility that he did not know who Quill was, in which case the message could have spooked the eccentric consultant right into Hinge's arms. It was one of the things he hated about the Game. There was no margin for error when dealing with people like Hinge. In the Game, death was the penalty for a bad call. He brooded about it until the Magician dismissed the ploy with a wave of his hand.

  "Stop agonizin'," he said. "It could have been a good idea."

  "That helps a lot," the reporter said drearily.

  "He's a weirdo, Sailor. You can't tell which way a weirdo's gonna jump. Hell, you took a shot and fucked up. Don't let it get to you."

  "I could have cost Lavander his life."

  "Ah shit, que será is what I say. It was a long shot, anyway."

  As the day wore on without a sign of the eccentric consultant, they became more and more convinced that it was too late, that somewhere on the island Lavander's body was waiting to be discovered.

  Normally, Lavander would have stayed on board until just before the meeting with the AMRAN executive, but the message he had received made him uncomfortable. Who knew he was traveling under the name "Teach"? And who in God's name was this Quill?

  It had bothered him for two days, so he left the ship by way of the cargo hatch as soon as it docked. Now he would have to kill the entire day waiting for the meeting.

  AMRAN wanted to discuss a matter of bénéfice réciproque , and that intrigued him. Even if the talk turned out to be a bust, he was sure he would learn something, for even gossip sometimes provided him with invaluable information, bits and pieces here and there which, when fitted together, added to his remarkable knowledge of the oil business.

  Lavander's appointment was not until eight o'clock, so he moved from restaurant to teashop to bar to newspaper vendor, trying to keep busy. Lavander was not a man long on patience, and his annoyance turned to irritation and then to anger as the day grew hotter and the streets more crowded and he was reduced to fighting his way thro
ugh the rush of street hucksters, who offered everything from caged crickets to expensive watches, and kids who trotted beside him, Whispering, "Ginja, ginja. I got you best price for best smoke in Jamaica."

  "Get on, you little urchins, I'll report you to the police," Lavander snapped and one of the kids made a face at him and ran off into the crowd.

  Lavander was an easy fellow to make fun of. He was almost a visual joke: a wizened, dour little man, thin and unkempt, with bulging eyes, a gray, unhealthy pallor, pouty cheeks and straw-colored hair, which seemed to sprout, helter-skelter, like alfalfa, from his oversized head. His white suit seemed permanently unpressed, one of his coat pockets was hanging half out, his bow tie was on crooked, and his shoes had never seen a bootblack's brush.

  Lavander never walked, he scurried, constantly looking around, like a rodent foraging the dark corners of a warehouse. His eccentricity was compounded by a wildly neurotic paranoia. He imagined reporters lurking everywhere, waiting to pounce and demand interviews. That not one newsman had approached him for several years was inconsequential. He frequently switched airline reservations at the last moment, sometimes to a totally different country, then doubled back, taking laboriously involved routes to places where there were direct flights, and changing hotels two or three times. It was his only recreation, this madness for privacy, as if his almost religious overview of the oil business had crowded rationality out of his mind. Since the horror of his kidnapping, Lavander had become even more suspicious, more paranoid.

  And so he scampered around the city, sitting in parks, reading several American and European newspapers, killing time, unwittingly waiting for destiny to catch up with him.

  The plane was twenty minutes late arriving, but Hinge still had over an hour until the meeting between Frazer and Lavander. Plenty of time to check out Trelawney Square and the pastry shop where they were to meet. He had memorized Frazer's picture and then burned it in the plane's lavatory.