Despite the ‘blow back’ or recoil from her own weapon, she was quite happy standing upright, offering a slimmer target, knowing that any opponent would have to go for her head if he wanted a kill shot and that was a near impossibility whilst turning ninety degrees, aiming and firing in one smooth movement.
The Sister was not surprised that, despite being faced by a nun with a gun, Jamal reacted instantly, and so she waited for him to turn. In a second he was facing her and squeezing the trigger, but he was too late. She had anticipated her shot and had aimed at the point where his chest would be when he had fully positioned himself. Another advantage of the target shooting stance, she thought.
Jamal fell back under the impact of the shot to his chest, his trigger finger tensing and sending a round high and wide into the stonework a metre in front of the nun and way above her head.
As he fell backwards a second carefully placed round found exactly the same spot, but now that spot was occupied by Jamal’s lower jaw, and the nine millimetre round entered just between the jawbone and the chin, passing through his tongue and the roof of his mouth before destroying his ear canal and exiting through his skull just above his ear. By sheer good fortune, the 9mm parabellum grazed his brain without inflicting a fatal blow.
Jamal fell to the floor, his gun skittering loudly across the well scrubbed stone floor. Sister Margaret Rose walked slowly towards him, keeping her gun trained on him the whole time. The would be assassin was lying on his back, eyes open, fear of dying written on his face. His body went into a series of massive spasms which lifted his body from the ground. Brain damage, the Sister thought to herself.
“Sister Margaret Rose, that is enough. There will be no cold blooded killing in God’s house.”
If she was being honest, the nun with the gun would probably have put one more slug into his head if she had not been interrupted, more out of mercy than out of any need to protect herself. Instead she stepped over the dying man and retrieved his gun. Sister Angelica was already kneeling over the failing terrorist, holding his hand and speaking calmly as she promised him that he would soon see his God and he would be released from his mortal anguish.
Sister Margaret Rose watched in stunned amazement as Sister Angelica placed he hand gently on Jamal’s forehead and whispered;
“Your mother and sisters are waiting for you.” On hearing the words, Jamal stopped shaking, his body relaxed and the fear that had shown in his eyes disappeared. His brown eyes widened, softened and teared up. Five minutes later he was pronounced dead by the paramedics.
***
Jamal’s body was taken to the USA on a covert flight, along with the hysterical author Hasan Yasin. In Washington DC a grateful FBI Director rang Thames House to thank his MI5 counterpart for seconding a British operative to the Cuban arena and for running an operation that would have been logistically impossible for an American agency to carry out alone.
For her part, Sister Angelica would not say how she knew that Jamal had sisters who had passed on before him. All she would say was that, when God wanted you to know something that would bring comfort to a suffering soul, he would allow his servants to be his mouthpiece.
Later that day Sister Margaret Rose passed through the airport in full regalia, purportedly heading to Rome via Panama, but actually diverting to Heathrow to land in the UK as Gillian Davis.
Chapter 43
National Shrine, El Cobre. Cuba. Present Day, Thursday 9am.
When Gillian looked into the bathroom mirror she saw exactly what she had wanted her watchers to see. A pretty woman with long fair hair who had been overly enthusiastic when applying her make up. Her long dress covered her entire body and legs. Not even her feet were visible. In short she looked like a WAG or soap star on holiday.
With a deft move of her left hand she removed the wig, revealing a dark short bob hairstyle, one so beloved by women of the cloth. The difference it made to her appearance still shocked Gillian, even though she’d had eighteen hours to get used to her new look.
The day before in, the women’s spa at the hotel, the Cuban hairdresser had pleaded with her new client not to have her magnificent long mane of fair hair butchered, but Gil was insistent. The hairdresser muttered to herself in Spanish as she cut the hair short and coloured it with a French semi permanent crème which the chart described as being Noir: Nombre Une, or almost black. Two hours later the Hairdresser threw up her hands in despair and called Gil a “Mujer Loco”, or crazy woman, when Gil admired her new cut and then proceeded to take a long fair haired wig from her bag and place it over her new style, making herself look exactly the same as she had when she had walked in.
The Chameleon lived up to her nom de plume and minutes later she was clad from head to foot in black, with her face scrubbed clean of make-up. Gil did not need make-up to be pretty, but she looked very different from the heavily made up woman who had walked into the bathroom.
“They only ever see the uniform,” she said to her reflection.
Sister Margaret Rose, as she had now become, was dressed in a traditional habit with a pristine white coif covering her neck and head. She wore a plain silver ring on her left hand that denoted she was a Bride of Christ, and a large silver Crucifix hung from her neck on a black cord and rested on the pristine starched white coif. The outfit was completed by a black woven woollen belt which had her Rosary hanging from it and a pair of unfashionable spectacles glazed with plain glass. Once she had crammed her few belongings into the traditional, top opening, hand held black bag, the image would be complete. The passport and picture were now almost eight years old, but the hairstyle was identical and the picture was clearly a freshly scrubbed younger version of the Sister Margaret Rose who would fly to Nassau in the Bahamas very soon.
***
“Sister Angelica, I am so grateful for your help. I appreciate that seeing a worldly woman like myself wearing these sacred robes must be hard for you to bear,” Sister Margaret Rose pondered.
“Nonsense, my child, we will do whatever it takes to further the Holy Mother’s work under this godless communist regime. And in that regard I must thank you for your generous donation. I assure you, even without it I would have assisted you without any hesitation in return for your brave efforts on behalf of this order in 2005.”
Gillian Davis knew that her six figure donation would keep the nuns of El Cobre in funds for a year or more. Three more nuns of varying sizes and shapes gathered in the corridor as Sister Angelica hugged Sister Margaret Rose, blessed her and bid her a safe journey. The shortest and oldest nun, Sister Therese, took the bag and exited the dormitory with the three taller nuns.
***
Thom Passarell was already fed up of coffee, and the tourists had only been gone forty five minutes. He looked up to see four nuns exiting the building. It was a somewhat amusing sight; three were tall and had their hands concealed in their capacious sleeves, their arms in a cradling position. They were giggling. The last nun was about four feet six inches tall and she scurried behind the others with a stern look on her aged face that spoke volumes about her disapproval of her younger sisters’ public behaviour.
Light relief over, Passarell ordered another coffee and resumed his observation of the Basilica’s sole public entrance.
***
Inside the Basilica, Sister Angelica examined her handiwork and smiled at her finished product.
“I feel a little vulnerable dressed like this, Sister Angelica,” the novice nun admitted, temporarily concealing her Novice’s calf length work habit under Gillian Davis’s flowing summer dress, and replacing her veil with a flowing wig of fair hair.
Sister Angelica looked at the heavily made up face of the young woman and worried that she looked a little too much like a dancer at the Copa Cubana, but that was how her predecessor had arrived. Handing the novice a pair of Gillian Davis’s oversized sunglasses, she gave final instructions.
“Your veil is i
n the handbag. When you get to the Ducal Hotel restaurant, eat the set lunch and sit in the back, well away from the window. When the bus arrives to take the tourists to their next destination, go into the hotel restrooms, discard the dress, wig, hat and sunglasses, scrub your face and replace your veil. Wearing the habit under the dress will be warm, but it is the only way.”
The older nun paused for thought. “After you have done that, walk straight to the front desk and ask the concierge to order you a taxi. I want you back here in three hours.”
The novice was excited and nervous in equal measures as she passed an hour waiting for the bus.
***
When the tourist bus arrived, Thom Passarell looked over to ensure that his quarry was in the throng. He need not have worried; the sun hat, the glasses and the flowing summer dress stood out from the scantily dressed crowd who clambered aboard the bus, which then headed for the old city and lunch. Thom paid his bill. He was in no hurry. He knew exactly where the bus was headed.
***
At 10:30am Sister Margaret Rose presented her passport and boarding card to the uniformed customs official. He glanced at it with little interest before making a joke.
“The Bahamas, Sister? Perhaps you will be getting a nice tan.” He laughed at his own joke as the nun glared at him, only her face and hands visible. In a broad Irish accent the nun rebuked him, using the name on his badge.
“Christos, how would your mother feel if she knew how you treated the servants of the Saviour whose name you bear?”
The man visibly blanched, then offered a subdued apology as he quickly stamped her exit visa into her passport.
Gillian Davis smiled as she headed to gate 107 and her seventy minute flight to Nassau in the Bahamas. If everything worked out according to plan it would be almost 2pm when her followers realised that they had lost her, by which time she would be on a casino cruise ship bound for Fort Lauderdale.
***
Thom Passarell was annoyed with himself when he lost contact with his quarry. For almost an hour he searched high and low in the hotel, but she was nowhere to be seen. Passarell knew that she had not climbed aboard the bus, which had waited an extra ten minutes for her to show.
Nonetheless, he wasn’t worried. Some time later that night she would return to her hotel room and to her belongings, and when she did his team would be waiting.
Chapter 44
Nassau Cruise Terminal, Festival Place, Nassau Thursday 1pm
The seventy minute flight from Havana to Nassau had proven uneventful. The fifty seat turboprop aircraft, which was owned and run by Bahamasair, was comfortable enough and the aircraft appeared to be relatively new. The De Havilland Dash 8, painted in a yellow and aqua branding, had landed exactly on time at the Lynden Pindling International Airport.
Passing through the capacious airport building was swift and efficient. Less than thirty minutes after touching down, Gil had exited the hangar sized terminal building and was waiting at the courtesy car stand, where a jolly Caribbean man in a bright yellow and green shirt was awaiting her arrival.
“We will have you on your cruise liner within the hour, Sister,” he smilingly promised, not questioning why a nun should be considering a cruise, let alone a casino cruise.
The Chevy sedan almost floated along John F Kennedy Drive on its way to the cruise terminal before turning onto Coral Harbour Road. The sun was shining, the skies were a pristine and cloudless blue and there was little or no traffic to contend with. Gillian began to relax.
Eventually the car pulled into a side road and a multicoloured building constructed of timber, in the old Colonial style, stood before them. The sign on the top said “Starbucks”. They were everywhere. Gillian tipped the driver well and entered the modern cruise terminal. Her first port of call was the restroom.
Gillian removed the nun’s habit and all of the associated accessories, to reveal a pair of shorts and a Hollister So-Cal Tee shirt underneath. From the nun’s bag she extracted a foldaway Suzy Smith shoulder bag, which she proceeded to fill with her toiletries, a change of underwear and her make-up. At the bathroom counter she applied make-up to her face and gel to her hair, spiking it to make it a little more contemporary. Satisfied that she looked nothing like Sister Margaret Rose, but perhaps more like her bad sister, Gillian packed the black case with the nun’s habit and paraphernalia. Slipping her old passport into the concealed pocket at the bottom of the bag, she retrieved the new passport she was about to use for the first time and slipped it into her pocket.
The DHL man behind the Terminal Cargo Counter was happy to despatch the nun’s bag back to Cuba for his attractive new customer. He grinned widely, white teeth gleaming as he spoke.
“For you, Lady, I have a special rate, just forty eight dollars.” Gillian paid in cash and checked the address on the DHL plastic sack that encompassed her escape disguise. Satisfied that it would reach Sister Angelica intact, she left the cool interior of the air conditioned terminal building and stepped into the sun to walk the few yards to the large cruise liner berthed at the jetty. As she walked along the paved walkway, she turned to look back at the bright orange and yellow building proudly displaying a sign which read “Festival Place” and wished that she could stay awhile. The Bahamas were such a friendly group of islands.
Gillian walked along the gangway and stepped up to a handsome young American man dressed in a white dress uniform with a naval cap and shorts. He announced himself by name and rank and wished Gillian a safe return to the United States. He scanned her passport but took little notice of its contents; she was, after all, an American passport holder returning to the States on a casino boat.
***
Unbeknown to her MI5 bosses, in 2007 Gillian had started a long and quite laborious process to obtain American Citizenship, a social security number and a US Passport. She had only received them after her third face to face interview at the US Embassy in London at the end of 2009. Given that her entitlement was based entirely on her paternity - she was born to a US citizen, who was her father - her shiny new passport gave her name as Gillian Miles. In due course Gillian Davis, Sister Margaret Rose and two other identities would become history, and she would be like everyone else - one name, one identity, one future.
Sitting at the bar sipping a Margarita, Gillian Miles looked across the casino floor beyond the slot machines and over towards the Blackjack table. Perhaps she would try her luck later. She rubbed her finger around the edge of the cocktail glass, displacing the salt, and sipped her drink. The orange flavoured liqueur slipped across her tongue with a slight acidic tang. That would be the lime. Then the Tequila hit. She would have to be careful. She didn’t want her first entry to the States as a citizen to be on a stretcher. Gil had played many parts and had many skills, but she had realised at an early age that she reacted to alcohol very quickly and that if she wanted to be sharp she would just have to be abstemious. The last thing Gillian Miles wanted was not to be in control. That was her weakness, and also her nightmare.
Gillian took a quick glance at her watch as she felt the boat pull away from the jetty. It was 2pm. About now her watchers in Cuba would be wondering how they had lost her in a hotel with one main entrance. She smiled as she imagined the confused looks on their faces when they realised that she was never returning for her suitcase, her clothes and her hair straighteners.
Chapter 45
Green Earth Fashions, Church Place, London, Thursday 7pm
The fashion shoot was coming to an end. Katie was wearing the last of the summer range of dresses made from fair-trade cotton. So far she had worn a plethora of tee shirts, shorts, jeans, scarves, jackets and skirts. The mission statement of Green Earth Fashions was to produce high quality fashions from cotton and other sustainable materials secured from reputable sources. The entire supply chain was under the control of Maxi Jameson, former actress, singer and flower child.
Katie was much more astute than Dee had given her credit for. Katie had asked to see the cer
tificates and audits that showed where the materials had come from and who had manufactured them. Once she was satisfied that the evidence was in order, she asked to see copies of the payslips for the Sri Lankan girls and women who had tailored the clothes. Noting that some of the girls were as young as twelve, she asked to see Maxi. There followed a long discussion which resulted in Maxi persuading Katie that the girls were still in education but that they had to help support their parents, and for many it was a choice between selling their sewing skills or their bodies.
It was only after this twice yearly audit that Katie donned the first of the outfits. She had now been sitting in front of the lights for almost five hours and when she was finished, at 8pm, she would be hosting a video web chat with Green Earth Fashion customers and fans of the Clara Campbell movies.
Dee had taken the opportunity of leaving Katie with the Green Earth security men for an hour, earlier in the day, when she had been able to meet up with Geordie.
***
It was hard to believe that just a week had passed since the assassination of the Hokobus, and Pete was still feeling the effects of his failure to protect them. He walked past St. James’ Church on Piccadilly, glancing down St James’ Place to see if there was any sign of Dee outside Green Earth’s premises. There wasn’t. It was unlikely anyway because, although the freezing conditions had passed for the time being, it was still wet and cold in the capital. As if to confirm his limited expectations of the weather, a steady drizzle started to fall. Pete walked briskly on past the stone entrance of the BAFTA offices and Princess Arcade to Ristorante Bagio, which combined a cafe and restaurant. As he opened the door, Franco stepped up to greet him and shake his hand vigorously.
“Mr Pete, so nice to see you again! You wanna use my upstairs office for stake out again?”
“No thanks, Franco, I just want a drink and maybe a bowl of pasta,” Geordie replied as he removed his leather jacket.
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