Haggai Harmon - The Chameleon Conspiracy

I called Peter Maxwell and discussed my conclusion with him. “Can you get your people in the street to listen to vibrations? I think the Chameleon’s life is in danger.”

“We already have all our intelligence sniffers on the alert,” he said.

I sent Hodson a coded message. I have a problem with McHanna’s story. Did he really have that conversation with the Chameleon? And if he did talk to him, did the Chameleon request help? If so, did he give McHanna his location? How was McHanna supposed to send money or a passport without an address? The Chameleon obviously knew that McHanna also worked for the Iranians. Wasn’t he afraid that McHanna would turn him in? A few hours later I received Hodson’s coded answer. We asked him these questions. McHanna said the Chameleon threatened him that if he went down, he’d take McHanna with him. Apparently the Chameleon knew about the private nest McHanna was building for himself using the Iranians’ money. But we don’t know if the call actually happened. I sent Hodson another coded message. Please interrogate McHanna regarding an attempt on the Chameleon’s life. My suspicion is that if the Chameleon betrayed the Iranians and killed Nazeri, he’d have no qualms in betraying McHanna. Therefore, I think McHanna would have him killed before we could get to him. McHanna’s giving us the Chameleon’s telephone number was probably meant to be used as a future alibi. If accused of arranging the Chameleon’s assassination, he could deny it by asking why would he give us a clue where the Chameleon was hiding, if he wanted him dead rather than alive and talking?

One minute later, I received another coded message written and sent before my last message to Hodson went out. Dan, we have another development. McHanna has confessed to ordering Ms. Otis clipped. He said that Otis was married to the Chameleon and he may have told her something damaging. McHanna confessed that he knew that she had already exposed the Chameleon as Ward and Goldman to the Sydney rabbi. That was enough, even if she didn’t know about the Chameleon’s Whitney-Davis identity or the Chameleon’s covert activities and his real name. If the Chameleon were apprehended, then the shit would hit the fan and the way to McHanna would be short. The Chameleon’s identity exposure was not just a matter between the rabbi in Australia and Loretta Otis in the United States, two private individuals. McHanna told us that the Chameleon called months ago telling him that his identity as Goldman was blown. No further security infraction was necessary to convince anyone in the loop that Otis had to be eliminated.

So Hodson had reached the same conclusion as I had. The Chameleon’s life was short unless we got to him first.

I deleted the messages.

I went to meet Peter Maxwell. He came with a tall, slim, blonde woman in her midtwenties. “This is Gilian Caldwell. She’s a member of my team.” We shook hands. “Tell him,” urged Peter.

“There’s word on the street that anyone identifying Norman McAllister could make $1,000,” said Gilian.

“Any credence?” I asked.

“Yes, pretty much. We spread that rumor.” She chuckled. “A petty thief came forward and told us that Mr. McAllister has bought stolen jewelry from him for $150.”

“The same jewelry the Chameleon tried to sell to the jewelry shop?”

“Probably. The thief became scared when he heard there was a bounty on McAllister’s head. He told us he was afraid of getting accused or involved in this matter. He was out of his league.”

“Of course the $1,000 reward was also a consideration,” said Maxwell.

“Did he tell you where to find McAllister?” I asked. Peter’s phone vibrated. “Maxwell,” he answered. He listened for a minute and told us in a hurried voice, “Let’s go, a contact has been made.”

When Gilian heard the address from Maxwell she said coolly, “That’s the same address the petty thief gave us.”

We jumped into their unmarked police car and Maxwell drove us to Bondi Junction, an eastern suburb of Sydney four miles east of the Sydney central business district. When we arrived, the area was buzzing with police activity. A uniformed officer approached Peter. “Sir, there’s a person who has barricaded himself on the second floor of the house.” He pointed his hand toward a two-story apartment building.

“Any demands?”

“No. We think he was probably held hostage, but his captors escaped when we arrived. The neighbors called us when they heard screams coming out of the house.”

“If the captors left, why is the person barricading himself?” asked Peter, and my hope that we were going to find the Chameleon died. This didn’t seem to be related to our case, so I just stood there letting Peter and Gilian do their job.

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.