‘Does that qualify me to work with you big-timers?’
‘Well, it’s a good start,’ O’Hara had to admit.
‘Thanks a damn bunch,’ she said.
‘So we got a code, where do we go from here?’ the Magician said, ignoring their banter.
Eliza had set up a temporary key—definition library in the computer, replacing the letters on the keyboard with the code letters, and had typed almost all of the information from Lavander’s notebook into the computer.
‘What’s the file name?’ the Magician asked her.
‘LAV/1.’
The Magician typed out ‘LAV/l’ and the screen filled with rows of words and figures. Many of the entries were names of banks with lists of deposits under each heading. Most of the remaining entries, however, were names of companies with coded lists of figures under them.
‘Christ, here’s a bank in Grand Cayman with over a hundred grand in it!’ The Magician was genuinely awed.
‘So far, there are deposits listed in there for almost a million dollars,’ Eliza said, ‘but that’s not what’s really interesting. He’s got production figures, oil-field capacities, refinery operations, everything you can imagine on a dozen or more oil companies, how much they say they pay for crude oil, how much they really pay. It’s an encyclopaedia of juicy information.’
She pointed to two figures on the monitor screen. ‘Published Reserve Capacity versus Actual Reserve Capacity,’ she said. ‘In every entry, the actual reserve are millions of barrels higher than they report. They’re lying to the public, O’Hara.’
‘What’s so surprising about that? They kill people, blow up oil rigs, assassinate politicians. What’s a little lie to the public mean to them? They have to do something to justify ripping us off.’
‘That’s a bit cynical, isn’t it?’
‘Realistic,’ O’Hara said.
‘What’s all this got to do with Chameleon?’ the Magician asked.
‘I’ve said all along, there’s got to be a pattern to this. An objective other than just killing for profit. I think we’re right in the middle of some kind of international oil scandal.’
‘Maybe Hinge killed Lavander to get this book and you beat him to it — maybe it’s just that simple,’ Eliza said.
‘It’s a possibility,’ said the Magician.
‘Yeah, in which case every company in that book has a motive for killing the old boy,’ Eliza said.
‘We need to turn up one bad guy, O’Hara said. ‘Without at least one client we can name, the story falls flat. What the hell motivates the people who hire Master? Who wanted Lavander assassinated? Why was the Thoreau sabotaged? Why was Marza’s car blown up? Who was behind the murders of Simmons and the rest of them? Not just generally. Specifically, why were these things done?’
‘I could make a coupla good guesses,’ the Magician said.
‘Not worth a doodly-shit,’ Eliza said. ‘I see his point.’ ‘And if we can’t get it?’ said the Magician.
‘What we need is Chameleon himself,’ said O’Hara. ‘You tried military and naval intelligence, right?’
The Magician nodded.
‘How about the OSS?’
‘Their files went into the CIA when they reorganized,’ the Magician said. ‘I’ve already checked them.’
‘How about inactive cases?’ O’Hara said. ‘Maybe they’ve got him cubby-holed somewhere. Go back to MI. I’ve turned up more than one sleeper by checking deep.’
The magician punched Military Intelligence Files and queried the index.
‘Hell,’ he said, ‘we got “Inactive, US,” “Inactive, Europe,” “Inactive. . .“ Look at all this shit.’
‘Call up Inactive and run Chameleon through them all.’ The Magician started pounding Izzy’s keys and kept coming up with the same answer: ‘No such file.’ Then, under ‘Inactive, Japan,’ they got a strike:
—Chameleon. N/O/I, Head of Japanese training unit for intelligence agents. On list of war criminals, 1945—1950. Believed killed at Hiroshima, 8.6.45. Declared legally dead, 2.12.50.
Period.
‘What’s N/Oh, mean?’ Eliza asked.
“No other identification,” said O’Hara.
They stared at the entry for a long minute. Finally O’Hara said, ‘He must’ve been on the hot list. Took them five years to declare him dead.’
The Magician said, ‘Not much there.’
‘It seems like it would be a common code name, Chameleon,’ Eliza said. ‘Maybe there’s more than one.’
‘Maybe,’ O’Hara said. ‘Or maybe he didn’t die at Hiroshima.’
‘He’d have to be, shit, close to seventy. That was more than thirty-five years ago.’
‘You don’t stop functioning when you’re seventy,’ said O’Hara. But he tucked the information in the back of his mind for future use.
‘Let’s go on to something else,’ Eliza said. ‘What other outside sources can Izzy tap?’
‘Name it. UPI, the New York Times, Washington Post, Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, the CIA, the British Secret Service, la Surete.
‘Can we feed the names we picked up from Daniov in this thing and scan some of them for information?’
‘That’s what it’s made for, and it’s not “this thing,” Sailor,’ said the Magician. ‘Just call it Izzy. Anything this smart should be treated with a little respect.’
They settled down to work, scanning the wire services and newspapers to get information on the victims, It was tiring because it was boring, typing in requests, getting ‘No info available’ back. Hours went by. It was amazing how many Simmonses and Richmans popped up, obviously not connected. Then they got a hit.
They had queried United Press International to scan Houston newspaper obits from October 1976 through October 1977 for Merrill Wendell Simmons. According to Daniov, he had killed Simmons three years earlier, which would have been in the spring. But the cutout had left his ‘football tickets’ at the box office, which would indicate Danilov was mistaken on the date. It might have been in the fall.
Danilov was mistaken. It had been three and half years.
The machine spelled out:
—UPI/Ref/Houston Chronicle/11.12 .76/p. 1 C @File:
HUCH/76/l1/12/NWS./2555-242.
‘Let’s see who he was,’ O’Hara said.
The Magician typed out the file number and the obit appeared on the screen.
—Houston, 12 November (UPI)—Millionaire oil tycoon Merrill Wendell (‘Corkscrew’) Simmons, former SMU quarterback, who parlayed a single oil lease won in a poker game into the sprawling American Petroleum Corporation, died of a massive heart attack at his home in suburban Houston tonight. He was 56 years old,
The business magnate had appeared in excellent health and had attended an SMU homecoming game in the afternoon. He complained of feeling ill while preparing steaks on an outdoor grill in his backyard and collapsed a few moments later. Simmons was rushed to Houston General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 7:25 p.m.
A fairly detailed biography followed.
‘Well, that’s one confirmed kill for Danilov. Who’s next?’ ft was their first break and it renewed their energy. They kept
seeking information, checking and cross-checking each name and the new leads it created. Slowly, the information began building up.
—Jack ‘Red’ Bridges, President, Bridges Salvage Corp., Tokyo, Japan, died, heart attack, 6.2 1.77.
—Arnold Richman, Sunset Oil International President, died on business trip to New York, 2.9.77,
—Abraham Garcia, President and Chairman of the Board, Hensell Oil Co., died of a heart attack on a business trip to Los Angeles, 9.18.78.
‘That’s the four of them. He must have been telling the truth,’ O’Hara said.
‘This Chameleon has a real hard-on for oil companies,’ the Magician said, ‘Three oil-company execs have been kayoed, plus the Thoreau was sabotaged.’
‘Let’s not forget Lavander,’ Eliza said, ‘he was in oil up to his eyebrows. And speaking of that, all of the companies these guys worked for are in this book. Just look, here’s Hensell... Am Petro ... Sunset...’