The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (35 page)

‘Ok then, it’s hidden in Lebanon with a friend of his. Richard, you have to let me go there and find it.’

Cornwall nodded. ‘Very well, I agree.’ He reached into his briefcase and handed Gerry an envelope. ‘In here is a United States passport in the name of Edith Williams and three thousand dollars and a UK passport in the name of Vanessa Davies, plus matching driving licenses. When we get to Toronto I’ll be getting the next flight back to Bermuda. Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to make contact with Dan Hall and find out what the hell Gilgamesh is all about. Then call me.’

Gerry looked at the passports. ‘I don’t think the name Edith suits me,’ she mused.

‘The name Melissa Madbitch suits you better, but I settled on Edith Williams,’ Cornwall replied. ‘Now, from Toronto you take a flight to Denver and then you get a connection to Jackson Hole in Wyoming.’ He handed her a piece of paper. ‘Send me a text to this number to say you’ve arrived. Then hire a car and drive to this location. It’s a campsite and you’ll find Dan Hall there. Take it carefully because Dan won’t be expecting you. Oh and here’s a telephone with fifty dollars credit.’

‘Oh good, do you have his cell phone number?’

‘There’s no telephone or internet coverage where he is.’

‘Oh, ok.’

‘My number’s in the memory under Barnes. By the way, that three thousand dollars is my own money, so don’t piss it away on a business class ticket or high living. It’s too late to get a flight this evening, so we’d better check into a hotel by the airport and you can set off tomorrow.’

‘Ok Richard…thanks. So you do trust me?’

‘Yes…but I still want separate rooms.’

‘Ha bloody ha!’ she retorted but he was pleased to see the small smile she gave him.

On arrival in Toronto, Cornwall watched Gerry Tate walk up to the United Airlines desk and buy her ticket and then he booked an Air Canada flight back to Bermuda. They took separate taxis to the hotel and made no sign of recognition while they checked in at adjacent positions. Alone in his room Cornwall made a telephone call to his wife and was pleased to find her in their room. ‘Hi Fiona, how are you?’

‘I’m fine, just having a beer and watching a Jason Bourne film. He’s much more rugged than you, but not so handsome.’

‘Thanks. Sorry you’re alone, but my flight gets in at ten past twelve so perhaps I’ll be with you for lunch.’

‘Oh I’m not alone; one of the room service waiters is with me, but I’ll get rid of him by lunch time tomorrow.’

‘So long as it’s a waiter and not some billionaire banker who will whisk you away, I’m ok with that. See you tomorrow darling.’

‘Ok, love you!’

‘Love you too, bye.’ He put down his phone and then tried to concentrate on a copy of
The Economist
magazine that he had bought in the airport news store, while checking his watch at frequent intervals. Eventually his phone rang.

‘Felix?...Yes it’s Richard. I’ve sent her on. She’s planned to arrive in Denver tomorrow on United 7842 at 9:30 Mountain Time for onward connection to Jackson Hole, arriving at 12:30 where she should be able to pick up the trail to Dan Hall. I’ve given her the location of his camp site.’

The United Airlines Boeing 757 approached Denver out of a cloudless sky. Gerry leant towards the window and gazed down at the airport with its six runways as the aircraft flew past before turning in for its approach and landing. If Heathrow had that many runways it would eliminate all those annoying delays, she decided, but then half of Middlesex would have to be bulldozed. She checked her watch which had survived days on the raft unscathed, and adjusted it two hours back for the Mountain Time zone. She had an hour and fifty minutes to make her connection to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  She sat back in her seat, finished her diet coke and ran her tongue over her peeling lips and crowned tooth. Soon she would be seeing Dan Hall again. Dan Hall who had told her he loved her. She wondered what he would think of her if he knew that she had spent nearly a week on a yacht with Steven Morris and engaged in enthusiastic sexual intercourse for the first time since she was with Philip. Rather to her surprise she felt uncomfortable at the possibility he would somehow find out.

She had spent a restless night in the Toronto airport hotel room, wondering if she should abandon the enterprise; make her way back home and disappear somewhere. In Europe with its uncontrolled borders she would be able to move around quite easily if anyone came to find her, but she had decided that although that kind of life might suit her for a while, it would leave unanswered all the questions that had been troubling her while she was in prison. She wondered what precautions Cornwall might have taken to ensure she stayed on task. She had seen him watching her as she had checked in but then lost sight of him when she had gone into US immigration pre-clearance where her passport in the name of Edith Williams had been accepted without question. However, his flight back to Bermuda departed thirty minutes after hers so it was no surprise that he was at the airport.

The aircraft touched down to a rather firm landing that shook her out of her reverie. She gazed out of the window as it decelerated along the runway and watched an executive jet taxying past in the opposite direction, one of the hundreds that conveyed wealthy individuals and influential businessmen around the world. She recalled her trip in a similar aircraft to Florida. That flight was only three weeks ago, but it seemed much longer and she felt disconnected from her life before that date by the trauma of her days on the raft
.
As she emerged into the arrivals hall she swept her eyes over the small crowd but she recognised nobody, however she was observed by Neil Samms.  He was wearing a wig of long brown hair gathered into a pony tail, a thick moustache that surrounded his chin and cheek inserts broadened his face. Behind his sunglasses he wore contact lenses which changed his eyes from green to a more non-descript brown colour. He wore jeans and a heavy leather jacket but these were his own clothes and he appeared relaxed and natural in them.

The last time he had talked to Gerry Tate was when they were on board the Gulfstream coming over from Farnborough to Florida. On that occasion she had appeared nervous and uncertain, not at all like the woman he had worked with years previously and who had treated him with obvious disdain, but the woman who emerged off the flight from Toronto was deeply tanned with her hair lightened by continual exposure to the sun. There was an eager look about her as she strode impatiently past the other passengers with a rucksack slung over one shoulder. She walked past the baggage belts and he trailed her to the United Airline transfer desk. He walked up to an unmanned desk where he pulled from his own rucksack a device that appeared identical to a cell phone but actually contained a sensitive directional microphone. He inserted the earpiece and then he picked up an airport information leaflet which he pretended to study.

‘Good morning,’ he heard her saying in her assertive manner, ‘I’m booked on the flight to Jackson Hole at eleven twenty-five.’

‘Ok ma’am, let me just check,’ replied the counter agent. He heard the sound of a keyboard being tapped.

‘Any check-in baggage ma’am?’

‘No, I’m just carrying this,’ Gerry replied. Samms heard the brief chatter of a printer.

‘Ok here’s your boarding pass. You need to go to gate 36 in an hour or so. Have a good flight.’

‘Thank you.’

Samms watched her wander aimlessly for a few moments and then she walked purposefully towards the Coffee Beanery concession. He returned to the ticket desk and booked himself on the 11:25 flight to Jackson. He reluctantly showed his imitation FBI ID to the duty manager but thus ensured that he was not by some calamitous misfortune seated close to, or even alongside, passenger Edith Williams. Samms nodded in satisfaction, and thanked the woman for her help. He walked past the coffee shop and saw Gerry sipping her drink and gazing out into the middle distance. He smiled and then took the elevator to the mezzanine floor and entered the smokers’ bar where he knew she would never go. He ordered a beer and lit a cigar.

An hour later Samms was undeniably nervous as he lined up for boarding. There were twenty others standing between him and Tate but he felt that at any moment she would swing round and recognise him despite the disguise. The contact lenses were irritating his eyes and he blinked rapidly behind his sunglasses. She suddenly swung round, but instead of looking at him she glared at the man behind her.

‘Just hold on would you?’ he heard her call out in a strong clear voice. ‘If you jostle me one more time I’ll deck you!’

There was an immediate buzz of disapproval from her fellow passengers and Samms was a little concerned that some zealous member of security would come over and suggest that she was too aggressive to be permitted to travel, but now it appeared that the incident was over. At least her journey through two major airports had ensured she was unarmed. His own Glock 17 lay in the bottom of his rucksack, permitted through security on the strength of his bogus FBI identity.

At check-in, his inspection of the small Canadair airliner’s seating plan had revealed that she was seated towards the rear while he was in the second row. On boarding the aircraft he took his place as quickly and unobtrusively as possible and read his copy of Classic Bike magazine.

Gerry studied the map of Wyoming and in particular the road from the airport to Jackson and the routes through Grand Teton National Park. Apparently Wyoming was the state with the lowest population density after Alaska, albeit with a large influx of summer visitors to its parks. If Gerry had wanted to hide she would have chosen a densely populated city where strangers would not be noticed, but perhaps Hall’s lack of experience or some personal reason had lead him to this remote spot. She gazed at the seat back in front of her and conjured up a mental image of Dan Hall whispering to her as he placed the gun behind her back. He had given her his phone number and e-mail address on a piece of paper and she remembered pulling the seawater pulped piece of paper from a pocket and dropping it on to the floor of the raft. She hoped that he would be pleased to see her. The Captain’s announcement that they would be landing in fifteen minutes broke into her train of thought. She wondered how liberal were Wyoming’s gun purchasing laws.

‘Then there’s this Remington at nine hundred.’

Gerry picked up the pistol, and checked the action. ‘Ok Hank, is this the cheapest you’ve got?’ she asked. She had not realised that a used hand gun would be so expensive, but then she had been used to having them issued to her free, courtesy of Her Majesty’s Government.

‘That one’s nearly brand new ma’am. I’m out of Glocks for now. They come in at around six hundred. You see I mostly do rifles. Oh wait a minute.’ He bent down and opened a drawer. ‘There’s this Beretta 8000 with an eleven round clip. They’re not popular round here. This is second hand, about twelve years old and you can have that for three hundred, maybe three hundred twenty with the rounds.’ Gerry took the proffered pistol and examined it carefully.

‘That seems ok. Have you got a range?’

‘Yeah, out back.’

‘You don’t happen to sell Tasers do you?’

Hank eyed Gerry carefully. ‘No ma’am, but Marvin does, and you can get that hunting knife you’re after off of him too. Range is this way now.’

Gerry stowed her newly acquired weapons in handy locations inside the cab of her rented Chevrolet Equinox and entered her destination in the satnav. She was about to set off when she remembered one more thing she should do. She pulled out her phone and sent a text message to Richard Cornwall to say that she was on her way.

‘Proceed to the highlighted route,’ a female voice announced for the third time in a slightly petulant voice.

‘Yes, alright,’ Gerry muttered. She put the gearbox in drive and headed off towards Moose. After a mile she passed a General Motors Yukon and without interest she noticed the driver sitting by the side of the road talking on a cell phone.  If he had not been facing away from her with his pony tail tucked inside his jacket, she might have recognised one of her fellow passengers. Neil Samms watched her drive past and then started his rented vehicle. By dint of careful observation and interviews with two somewhat dodgy retailers in Jackson he knew that she was armed and dangerous. He had also watched her walking to the Mountain Rental Company and climb into the white SUV with plate numbers 17 and 4368 either side of the bucking horse emblem.  He waited until five other cars had gone by and she was out of sight before he pulled off the roadside into the traffic and set off after her.

Dan Hall stood in line for the checkout at the general store in Moose muttering to himself that it was about time they opened another till. Since he had arrived at the nearby campsite a week ago he had noticed an increase in the number of vehicles parked outside the town’s stores. Perhaps it was time to move on again, but to where? As summer progressed every site would be getting crowded and there would soon come a time when they would be filling up with campers who had made advanced bookings, which he had no intention of doing. He had driven further and further north but if he drove much further he would be up to the Canadian border and he was not sure if he could safely get through border controls.

‘Good morning and how are you today?’ asked the young woman on the till.

‘Fine thank you,’ he replied, whilst thinking it was a bad sign that he was now a recognised customer. As he packed his groceries away he wondered if he should make plans to move on before the weekend when the sites would become even more crowded. ‘That’s thirty-two dollars and three cents, please.’

‘Er, thanks; here’s thirty five.’

‘Ok, here’s three dollars change and we’ll forget those cents. Have a nice day.’

‘Thank you,’ Dan replied. He took hold of his carrier bags and walked through the exit. As he gazed up the street while waiting to cross the road he saw a woman stepping out of a white SUV, yawning and stretching. He nearly dropped his bags. Gathering his wits he walked with his back towards her to the gap between the general store and the next door hardware store. He put down his bags and peered carefully round the corner in time to see Gerry Tate walking inside the diner outside which she had parked. How in hell had she survived? Even more extraordinary how had she managed to find him? She couldn’t possibly have done it on her own. He resisted the urge to rush over to her. First of all he had to make sure that she was alone. He tried to walk as quickly and as casually as he could to his small Toyota pick-up. He drove the vehicle slowly past the diner and peered in. She was sitting gazing at a map. He so much wanted to go straight inside and speak to her, ask her how she had escaped from the missing aircraft, what had happened to her in the days since he had last seen her. But now whose side was she on? Had she bargained for her freedom and safety in exchange for a commitment to track him down? As soon as he was out of the city limits, he accelerated as fast as the battered old vehicle could manage to get back to his stolen RV.

After he had turned off the road on to the track that led to his camp site he veered off and parked the Toyota amongst the trees. He walked between them until he came within sight of the Winnebago. He gazed around, all his senses on maximum alert for any unexpected presence, half expecting a snatch team to emerge from the woods and take him down. He had to get out of there now. But which vehicle? He could head for the border in the four wheel drive pick up along the dirt tracks he had already mapped out in his head. But all his survival kit was in the RV.

‘Hey fella,’ someone called out in a California drawl. ‘I don’t know if you already checked it, but I reckon your back tyre there’s pretty well flat.’

Dan glanced briefly at the elderly hippy type sitting beside his Harley Davidson motor bike with a cigar clamped between his teeth and then examined the right rear wheel. ‘Shit, you’re right, thanks. Fuck it!’ He bent down further and saw the spare wheel stored in a cage under the vehicle.

He wondered if the guy with the Harley might give him a hand, but when he looked towards him the man had disappeared. He retrieved the lug wrench from its stowage and tried to loosen the first nut. Goddam it, they were on tight! He thought again about driving the Toyota instead when suddenly the nut gave and he started on the next one. He did not see the white Chevrolet Equinox driving slowly between the other parked up RVs and stop fifty yards away neither did he notice the driver walk quietly up and gaze at his straining back.