‘The whole coup was set up by Chameleon.’
‘You said this was non-political.’
‘Absolutely non-political, old man. Strictly business. American Electric paid the bill. Guardio was planning to nationalize the power companies, and AE had fifty million invested down there. Thornley went in four months ahead and began plotting with the generalissimos. I went in a month before the coup, took me that long to work up the kill. I took out Guardio while he was in church. The generals closed all the doors, trapping the family and loyalists inside. There was a force of four hundred mercenaries just over the border, maybe thirty miles away. Guardio wasn’t cold yet when they hit the park across from the church in choppers. Backup for the army. I was back in New York having dinner at the Four Seasons that night. The mop-up took four days and the price tag was two million dollars.’
‘They have their own army?’
‘A brigade of British Highlanders, under contract to the British Army with agreement that they can take leave anytime, as long as the country isn’t under some kind of military alert. They can be put in the field, fully equipped, in less than thirty days,’
‘We can’t prove any of this,’ O’Hara said.
He got up and leaned over the stern, watching the motors churning up the wake. There were too many holes and not enough details. He needed more names, possible defectors. Anyone who would talk to him. He focused on the sound of the engines, going to the wall again. But it didn’t work. Something stronger than details was pulling at him. This had the makings of a great story and now his reporter’s instincts were humming. He felt the excitement of a scoop nibbling deep in his stomach. But be needed more than Falmouth. He needed to cross-check before he started doling out Howe’s money.
‘How about Thornley?’ he asked. ‘If I can turn him up, it would be a good starting place.’
‘I haven’t seen him since the Guardio business.’
‘Any defectors? Anybody else ever run?’
Falmouth hesitated. He gave himself some thinking time by lighting another Gitane.
‘Well?’ said O’Hara.
‘Do we have a deal?’ Falmouth said.
‘Not yet. I couldn’t begin to put a story together with what you’ve told me. I need names to go with faces, and faces to go with jobs. And I want to know who it is that’s on the run.’
‘I never said anyone was.’
‘You can’t be the first one to want out of this madness.’
‘The world is mad!’ said Falmouth. ‘You were in the Game for five bloody years, O’Hara, didn’t you learn anything from it? With greed comes money and with money comes power, and that’s what it’s all about.’
‘Not the world I want to live in.’
‘Right, Sailor. So here’s your opportunity to change it. Do you doubt I’m risking my life telling you all this?’
O’Hara considered an answer but Falmouth pressed on, ‘Just remember, where there’s a need, there’s always something or someone to fill it.’
‘And that someone is Chameleon?’
‘Chameleon’s just the beginning.’
‘It’ll do for starters. Who is he?’
‘Ah, who is he indeed? A faceless figure. A wisp of air, never seen by the Players, or none that I’ve met. Chameleon’s all I know, and that from some of the other boys I’ve worked with. But he’s the head of it, I’ve heard that often enough to know it’s the truth.’
‘You don’t know where the headquarters is? Where this Chameleon operates from?’
‘No. I can tell you all I know about him in about thirty seconds. He’s Oriental and he’s been around awhile. That’s why you’re a natural for this one, ok man. You know Japan as well as you know your left hand, and you know the Players, so you can understand the significance of what I’m saying.’
‘How do you know he’s an Oriental?’
‘From Thornley. From others I heard he was the most dangerous one in the bunch. It was Chameleon burned Cohn Bradley.’
‘Bradley’s dead?’
‘Aye. Popped up in the East River with a bullet in his brain. Somebody wanted Chameleon taken out and Bradley thought he was up to the job. Got his bloody head blown off. That’s what you get for thinking.’
‘Who wanted him out?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that, but I would guess it was one of the enemy.’
‘You make it sound like war, Tony.’
‘And that it is. But not a cold war, Sailor,’ and he leaned over and said in a rasping stage whisper, ‘a bloody dollar war.’
‘How does this Chameleon conduct business, how does he run this crazy show you’re talking about, if nobody has contact with him?’
‘Through Master.’
‘Master?’
