land, first to win’ inscribed across the bottom of two crossed bayonets.
Hooker was visibly moved.
‘By God, old man, that’s something to cherish. Yessir, I’ll be wearing that when they put me away.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Garvey said and smiled with satisfaction. There was a sound from the box. A scraping sound. Garvey cast a nervous glance toward it but said nothing.
‘Well, sir, your turn,’ Hooker said, and Garvey tore the silver paper from around his gift. It was a pewter wine goblet, hand-crafted, with the artist’s name etched in the base, and inscribed on its side were the words ‘Major General J. W. Garvey, US Army (Ret.).’
Garvey held up the chalice by the stem. ‘Beautiful, sir. Has a great feel to it.’
‘Well, I know your love for the grape, old man. About time you had a proper goblet.’
There was a more urgent sound from the box. The top moved again, just a hair.
Hooker struck a match and relit his pipe. ‘It came about an hour ago,’ he said, without looking at the box. ‘Done up like a goddamn Christmas present, that bloody heathen.’
He opened the center desk drawer and took out a knife, a malicious stiletto with a curved blade and a hand- tooled leather handle. He slid its razor edge under the string, turned the box slightly and snipped the string off. With the point of the knife he lifted the lid and slid it slowly back.
They heard it before they saw it. Scratching, slithering along the bottom of the box and up the side.
Hooker saw its horns first, the two tusks protruding straight out from over its eyes, the third, like a needle, between them. Then its head peered over the side of the box.
It was bright-green to start with, its eyes lurking under hoods of wrinkled skin, its tail switching slowly back and forth.
Eighteen inches long or so, he guessed. Hooker knew the species, all eighty kinds of Chamaeleontidae. For thirty-six years now, he had been studying them. This one was the Chameleon jacksoni. African, most likely, although it might have come from Madagascar, its eyes moving independently, looking for prey before they focused together and the tongue struck. And arrogant — they were all arrogant.
It crawled down the side of the box and very slowly across the desk to the base of the lamp and then just as slowly up over the belly of the Buddha. It changed slowly, its eyes picking up the change in the light rays of the new colour, signalling down the nervous system to the pigment cells in the skin, first mud-brown, then beige, then pink, then blood-red, like a salamander. Its tongue continued to work the air, its head turned, its stony eyes studying the darkness beyond the desk. Then it switched again and moved on t the letter box.
Hooker watched it turn again, this time to the colour of teak.
He reached in the box and took out a note. His hand trembled as he read it.
‘What’s it say?’ Garvey asked.
Hooker handed it to him. There were three names on the slip of paper:
AQUILA
THOREAU
WOLFNAGLE
‘He’s everywhere,’ Hooker croaked, ‘he’s like the mist, like some foul fog.’ He tilted the box, looked inside and paused for a moment before reaching in and taking out a man’s gold watch. He turned it over and read the name engraved on the back.
‘We’ve still got Bradley,’ Garvey said. ‘He’s one of the best assassins in the world. If anybody can terminate Chameleon, he can.’
‘Afraid not,’ Hooker whispered and his voice quivered with rage. This is Bradley’s watch.’
BOOK TWO
—OSCAR WILDE
I
The frigid February wind swept in off Boston Bay, and Eliza Gunn and George Gentry huddled in the arched doorway to avoid the stinging snow that was swept along with it. The car was half a block away. James, the sound man, a latter-day hippie who was only slightly larger than Eliza, would be sitting in there with his cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes and the heater on, listening to the Top Forty while they froze their onions here on Foster Street.
It had been four days since they started following Ellen Delaney, making like the FBI, changing cars twice a day, keeping in touch on CB Channel 11. So far, it had been a waste of time. But by now George knew better than to bitch. The minute he did, the Delaney dame would o something dumb. And they would score. It always turned out that way. Eliza had strange instincts, but they worked. So he kept his mouth shut and turned the collar of his jacket up a little higher and pulled his head down into it. ‘I’m catching pneumonia,’ he said. ‘Somebody ought to put a sticker on your butt, It should say:
