Sergei retreated away from the supermarket entrance and waited. Several minutes ticked by before ‘she’ emerged. He ducked down behind an SUV. He saw her stop in the entrance and look around almost as if she was expecting someone to be there.

Ayesha came out of the supermarket and after another quick glance around, she made her way across the car park towards the traffic lights. Sergei watched her press the button to allow pedestrians to cross. After what seemed an eternity, the lights changed and she walked off into the darkness.

Sergei stood up and breathed a sigh of relief. That gut feeling he’d had a few times in his life had saved him again. This woman was not all that she appeared to be. The items that she’d put into her basket told him several things and none of them were good. While her behaviour could with a wild guess be construed as laying a trap for Segei, what swung it for him was seeing her put six cucumbers into her basked along with picking vinegar and a half kilo of salt.

Anyone who has been brought up in rural Russia knows that autumn is when you pickle cucumbers and fish for the winter. As a child, he would often watch his mother eat a whole cucumber with just a bit of salt. Those clues were what had triggered him. Ayesha was not whom she portrayed.

Her reaction in the car park was the final part of the puzzle. It was as if she knew that he was following her right from the moment he’d left the office. He’d almost stepped into a trap. That was not good, not good at all. He should have used one of his many disguises. That mistake was down to his carelessness. Her shopping? While her facial features could be that of a European Russian, they could also be from any of the Slavic countries in Europe. After WW2, Russia, west of Moscow was a mess of peoples and not all of them were from the states of the USSR. Hitler conscripted people from across Europe to serve and die on the eastern front. The cucumber habit caused him to thank the lord that he’d already consulted Sam about her. If she was a wanted criminal from another country then he might get away with killing her and not face retribution from Sam and his team of trained killers.

Sergei waited in the darkness at the edge of the car park for almost half an hour before walking along the main road towards Wokingham. At the next bus stop, he caught a bus into the town and went to his temporary residence all the time trying to analyse what had gone wrong. Only when he nearly stepped out right in front of a car to cross the road did he concentrate on getting home in one piece. For an almost critical moment, he'd looked right instead of left at a crossing and had nearly stepped into the oncoming traffic.

Sergei wasn’t happy with what had happened that evening.

He spent the evening trying to explain that ‘gut feeling’ but couldn’t. This was most unlike him. He had lived on certainty ever since he had made his first kill. That kill had been the result of uncertainty in that he’d almost killed the wrong man. He vowed from then on, he would not make the mistakes that come from not being certain about both his plan and the possible outcomes.

He could not put his finger on what he’d missed. Were the cucumbers a clue or a diversion? His, only answer was that one that he did not like. Every which way he sliced and diced it, it always came back to the same result, he wasn’t in control.

Sergei knew one thing and that was that he didn’t like it one bit.

He’d not been ‘in control’ ever since that first message arrived but after the events at the supermarket, he felt strange and uneasy. He was not used to being in total control of his operation. This time the mysterious ‘Uncle Vanya’ and this woman were in charge.

---

Sergei was later than usual when he arrived at the Offices in Reading. He’d even had to queue up at Pierre’s for his Bacon Baguette and Coffee. His already foul mood wasn’t helped by the arrival of a new encryption key from ‘Uncle Vanya’.

An hour later, the follow-on message arrived.

"Well, Chameleon,
I expected more from you. I never thought that you were a chicken but you are. I saw you duck out of your encounter with 'her' at the supermarket. That is not like you. Did you eat something bad for your lunch? I saw you eating it in Forbury Gardens. I told you that I was watching you. Perhaps you should remember the words to that classic song from 'The Police', 'Every Breath You Take'.

However, given the time you have taken on previous contracts, I have to wonder if I am putting undue pressure on you. I am in no rush and the ends do justify the means.

Just remember that my eyes are on you…
Until next time,

Uncle Vanya.”

Sergei would have thrown something if there was something convenient to hand. Thankfully, there wasn’t anything suitable around.

He felt that he’d been played for a right Charlie by ‘Uncle Vanya’. His only thought was to get out of town and start thinking again about everything. He didn’t have an idea about where he could go to take his mind off yesterday’s debacle if only for a few hours.

He Googled ‘things to do near Reading’ and one item in the results stood out.

“That will be a change,” he muttered to himself.

After clearing away his things, Sergei headed for the Railway Station and a train to Wokingham. He was going to collect his van.

---

A visit to Silchester Roman town proved to be the perfect antidote to his malaise. The sun even managed to break through the cloud that had hung around for a couple of days.

Gradually, some of the words in the latest missive began to make sense or rather a sort of sense that while crazy and illogical was clear to Sergei.

Sergei cursed himself for being so lax and not living up to his ‘Chameleon’ nickname. It was time to rectify that for the next phase of the operation.

---

He didn't go into the Reading Office the next day but headed to a nondescript industrial unit near the old film studios in Denham, Buckinghamshire. He was well known to the operators of the unit and was welcomed like a long-lost son.

It was early afternoon before he emerged and loaded four cardboard large boxes into his van.

He wasn’t done but headed a few miles to another unit on the Slough Trading Estate being careful not to get caught by the plethora of speed cameras on the A355. That bit of road had in his opinion, far too many cameras than it needed and that it was purely for revenue rather than road safety but even so, he didn’t want to get caught. Any speeding fines would end up going to his sister in France and he’d never hear the end of it.

Sergei left the second unit carrying another large cardboard box. He was thankful for driving the van. His cargo would remain invisible until he’d parked the van in the garage at his temporary home.

On his way there, he stopped at a supermarket in Maidenhead and bought some more food. He’d decided that he wanted to cook some Paella because he missed the food in Puerto Soller.

Sergei spent the next day busy in the house preparing himself for the work ahead. He ended the day by packing some items into his backpack and an overnight bag ready for the next phase of his plan.

---

He went into the Reading office the next day carrying the backpack and overnight bag. Before starting work for the day, he went out for a baguette, this time, a Cheese and Ham Salad and a visit to a couple of shops that were on the nearby Broad Street. He needed a few accessories.

Back in the Office, he set to work. He didn’t rush there was plenty of time before he put it into action and that was at the end of the day.

At eighteen minutes to five, a very different-looking Sergei left the Office. Now, he looked like a sixty-year-old woman. She followed the majority of workers who were heading for either the Railway Station or their busses home.

Ayesha caught a No 17 bus that was going to ‘Wokingham Road’. No one batted an eyelid at this smallish slightly hunched late middle-aged woman with greying hair who was carrying a handbag that was very much past its use-by date.

The clear weather of a few days earlier had turned into a steady rain. At the terminus of the No 17’s route, she got off and put up an umbrella and walked off into the gloom. She walked towards the town of Wokingham and stopped at the next bus stop. There, she waited for the next Bus to Bracknell. With any luck, ‘she’ would be on this one.

To her dismay, ‘she’ wasn’t on the bus. Sergei/she shrugged her shoulders and went home. Once she was off the bus, she came alive. There was a possibility that ‘she’ had changed her tactic and had come looking for Sergei. He’d learned a long time ago that being cautious was key to survival.

Sergei walked up and down the road past where his rented house was situated. There was no sign of anyone watching the house but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She’d have to find another place to stay for the night.

A train took her back into Reading whereupon, she went into the Office and half an hour later Sergei left by a back door. He’d booked a room at a nearby cheap chain hotel and spent the night wondering what had gone wrong… again.

Sitting in his room, he reviewed the events of the day. After a bit of reflection, he smiled. He was out of practice with the ‘chameleon’ part of his repertoire. As for not jumping to conclusions about ‘her’ having twigged that he’d adopted a female persona, he’d have to do a bit of sleuthing the following morning to confirm it one way or another.

---

Sergei rose very early the next morning and went to the office to change into another character. This time, it was of an older man who was dressed as some sort of manual worker complete with a 'Hi-Viz' jacket and work boots. An unkempt goatee beard completed the disguise.

By 08:00, he was on a bus travelling from Wokingham to Reading. As the stop at Winnersh approached he looked at the group of people waiting to board. To his relief, she was there. What was different was that she had a red nose. Just before it was her turn to board, she sneezed.

Workman Sergei breathed a huge sigh of relief. Immediately he regretted it but none of the other passengers sitting at the rear of the lower deck looked at him with disdain.

‘She’ boarded the bus, showed her pass and went upstairs without even a glance in his direction.

He guessed that she’d caught a cold and had not been at work. His slight panic of the previous day had been for nothing.

---

Now that ‘she’ was back in circulation, Sergei could turn his attention to what would happen next. Most of the decisions that he needed to make, were still up in the air and waiting for a reply to his email of a few days before but it would not hurt to start making plans for the various alternatives that he could see.

He also took some time to enhance the selection of disguises that he could use depending on the situation. The numerous charity shops in the town provided a lot of what he needed. Staff in the shops twigged that the female clothes were for him to wear but not in the way they might have imagined. One great purchase was a winter coat. It was almost vintage in that it was made by Jaeger but the quality was great and for £20, it was a steal.
Some things, such as wigs and shoes were ordered over the Internet for delivery to the office.

With so much 'stuff' stored there, Sergei increased the security of the place. Extra cameras and sensors were obtained from a source in London. He took the train to Paddington and did the exchange on the Circle Line platform at Bayswater. His supplier went one way, and he went the other. Half an hour on the train, and he was back in the office with everything he needed.

---

Just before he left the office for the day, Sergei checked his email. He smiled when he saw an email waiting for him.

“Suggest meet same place as before, 11:00 three days from now. The attached brief will make very interesting reading.”

Sergei replied in the affirmative and after checking that ‘she’ was on the bus as usual; he took the train to Wokingham feeling a lot happier with himself. He even resisted reading the attached brief to the email on the train. It could wait until he was in the relative comfort and safety of his rented home.

[to be continued]