Chameleon - A City of London Thriller Read Free

Services,” a male voice
announced rather uncertainly.
    “ Hello, this
is your friend at St James’ Place.”
    ***
    Maureen
Lassiter was a spinster of a certain age, but she had certain
desires. A middle class woman of her standing had no right knowing
how to affect, and control, men in the way she did. Although
relatively plain, she stayed fit and slim and she had practised her
lascivious craft since her days at University. Consequently, few
men had been able to resist her temptations, and fewer still had
been in any way disappointed when they submitted to her
charms.
    Nonetheless,
she had learned to be careful with her office based affairs. Even
now the outer office door was locked and the sliding sign on the
door had been moved from Director: ‘Available’ to, Director:
‘Unavailable’. For additional security, the inner door between her
own outer office and the Director’s inner sanctum was also latched
from the inside. With luck, their illicit coupling would go
unnoticed, as long as she muted her cries of satisfaction. Fully
comprehending that an affair with a superior officer was never wise
and could occasionally be dangerous, she simply could not help
herself. This was especially true when that lover was in a position
to exploit his government calling for personal financial gain.
There was no doubt that Maureen enjoyed the thrill, and the risk of
being caught, but she also enjoyed the beautiful garden flat in
Richmond that she could never afford on her government salary
without help from a regular top up from an account in the Isle of
Man.
    Maureen was on
the tips of her toes leaning on the wide window ledge, biting her
bottom lip as she looked out over the Thames four floors below. Her
trim naked rear was facing in towards the office where her lover,
who was sweating and breathing heavily, sought to satisfy her
needs. She had satisfied his needs some fifteen minutes
earlier.
    Just as she
sighed, whimpered her approval and relaxed her awkward stance, a
phone rang. It wasn’t the director’s desk phone or his government
issued mobile, which she kept in the outer office. Rather it was an
old mobile phone which rarely rang these days. Her sweating lover
picked it up from the desk, and looked at it, holding it close to
his face as he recovered his spectacles. Recognising the caller
from the phone’s colour screen, he put his finger to his lips to
silence his conquest as he struggled to lift up his trousers with
his left hand. As casually as he could he answered the
call.
    “ Well, hello
there, JM. We haven’t spoken for – oh, it must be over two years.”
There was a mild rebuke in the tone, suggesting that the man who
answered the phone felt he had been impolitely ignored.
    “ The damn
Hokobu woman is in the UK and you did not alert me.”
    “ We have been
keeping a check on her - free of charge, I might add - purely as a
gesture of goodwill. But I cannot expect my Border Agency contacts
to keep me informed of everyone of interest who lands in the UK,”
the MI5 man lied.
    In fact, the
man on the phone had no such contacts, and was not in a position to
place Mrs Hokobu on any ‘persons of interest’ list. Nonetheless,
there was no need for these foreign functionaries to know that; he
would keep taking their money as long as they believed that they
had a powerful ally in government circles.
    “ It seems she
landed at Heathrow today, and if she speaks at the Poverty and
Slavery conference, all of our lifestyles will be affected.” The
remark was pointed and was understood.
    “ I
understand, but how can I help my good friends, the Marati
government?”
    “ I would like
to employ the Chameleon to ensure that the governance of Marat and
the arrangements with our foreign aid donors remain as they
are.”
    “ You know
that the Chameleon will want a million US dollars?”
    “ Of course.
We are willing to pay.”
    “ Would I be
correct in assuming that you want me to persuade the Foreign Office
to maintain