The Predator

by Denis Pitts

  At a time of depression and recession in a dangerous climate, security shares on the various stock exchanges were, of course, gilt-edged for the investors.

  *

  On an exceptionally bright and sunny day, certainly for the beginning of a British autumn, Brigadier General Sir Roger Appleyard, late of the Royal Horse Guards and, until one week previously, the commanding general of British Security Forces in Northern Ireland, contemplated roses and retirement in the perfectly kept garden of his Berkshire manor house.

  Like so many cavalry officers he was a thin, wiry man, taller than average, with a pale, wrinkle-free face and penetrating, intelligent eyes. He sported no mustache and the only indication of his military calling was the cavalry stance he occasionally assumed: right knee slightly bent, the heel of that shoe raised, with the toe pointing minimally outward.

  The Appleyard family had owned this manor house (it had no other name; the address in Who’s Who gave it simply as “The House, Manton Magna, Berkshire, tel Manton Magna 201”) and the entire village of Manton Magna for four centuries.

  The house itself was an imposing, moated Elizabethan building with a long, sloping garden that led to a wide, fast-flowing trout stream. The garden was open to the public eight times a year (proceeds to charity); the house remained private, despite the ever-increasing cost of keeping it that way.

  Looking now from the rosebeds at the mellow, half-timbered building, Sir Roger figured that an acre or so of Norfolk reed thatch was desperately in need of replacement. It had been a wet summer, and the interior of the house carried the faint, sour scent of mildew.

  For how long, Sir Roger wondered, could he continue to live the life of a gentleman of independent means? At the turn of the century, the Appleyards had been the fourth richest family in Great Britain. The fortune had been founded on successful plunders of India and Africa by obscure but shrewd ancestors who had invested well in British coal mines and the cotton industry. They had owned a quarter of this county, and their lands had run with those of the monarch.

  They were the scions of the Conservative party, the Knights of the Shires, the very foundation of the British establishment. No conservative Prime Minister, nor, indeed, any cabinet minister of real rank or standing was ever appointed without the Appleyard seal of approval.

  Sir Roger had been retired from the army much sooner than he had expected. It was a political retirement.

  The tactics he had employed in Northern Ireland had been direct and brutal. For several years before, British soldiers had been forced to use soft, half-hearted measures to maintain order between two increasingly hostile civilian armies.

  Immediately upon his arrival in Belfast, the new general had called a staff meeting. No longer, he told his officers, would there be namby-pamby tactics. Real bullets would be used against the ringleaders of riots, snipers would be flushed out with hand grenades, and summary justice could be meted out by any officer with the rank of major. There would be no courts-martial for alleged brutality.

  The measures had succeeded quickly in bringing a cowed peace to that country. But it had also brought about massive bomb outrages in London and other cities, which, in turn, had led to counter-atrocities against the Irish communities of Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool.

  A furious socialist Parliament had demanded the recall of General Appleyard. Within a month, this gentle aristocrat had become known as “The Butcher of Belfast.” The Minister of Defense had flown to Ireland and fired him on the spot.

  In his short-lived appointment, Appleyard had been responsible for the deaths of some five or six hundred people, but this had lost him none of his friendly equanimity.

  He talked about it rarely, but when he did, usually in his club, he explained that such casualty figures were not exceptional in the history of his family. And in his particular case, the results had been effective, much to the embarrassment of the government.

  When a reporter asked him about his future plans, Sir Roger had smiled and said, “My only plan is to breed a Derby winner, cultivate the perfect rose and catch a seven-pound trout on a seven-ounce trace.”

  On this particular morning he was alone in the garden and the house was empty. The school term had started and, earlier, he had driven his only son to the railway station. His wife was out on a charitable mission in the village.

  Sir Roger had refused any kind of security aid in his retirement, even though he had been named a key target by both Loyalists and Republicans in Ireland. He cherished the belief that no suspicious stranger could enter his village without his being told within a matter of minutes.

  With a contented ruthlessness, the general was cutting a Victory rose back to its very limits when he heard the telephone ringing inside the house.

  He walked across the lawn, pruning shears in one hand, sucking a thorn from the other. As he crossed the creaking drawbridge into the house, he hoped the ringing would stop. He was irritated by the constant demands of the press, and even the death threats had become boring now. The telephone continued to ring as he walked down the long, beamed hall which was lined with the armor of his soldier ancestors.

  “Manton Magna 201,” he said. “Appleyard speaking.”

  “General, my name is Alex Chivers. We met at Ascot and the Newbury races.”

  “Ah yes, Chivers. You outbid me at the last blood-stock sale. Whatever happened to that filly?”

  “She’s in foal in Kentucky at the moment. I’m still trying to produce the perfect thoroughbred.”

  “Aren’t we all.” The general chopped at the air with the shears. “What can I do for you, Chivers?”

  “My European chairman would like very much to meet you, General.”

  “Becker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why me?”

  “We can be with you in an hour — that is if you don’t mind our helicopter landing on your meadow.”

  “Not at all. It’s all marked out. My chaps used to drop me there. What’s this all about?”

  “We’ll be with you in an hour.”

  *

  Sir Roger was raking together a large pile of rose clippings when the helicopter arrived at Manton Magna. It circled the village twice and then landed out of his sight behind a row of beech trees. He was forking the cuttings onto an antique wheelbarrow when the two men made their way through a gap in the trees and joined him.

  They shook hands all around.

  “Like some coffee?’ the general asked.

  “Thank you, yes.”

  “Has to be instant, I’m afraid. Wife’s out and I don’t understand the damn percolator.”

  “If it’s no trouble.”

  The three men walked slowly over the lush lawn toward the house.

  Chivers was dressed in a well-cut charcoal-gray city suit. Becker looked ready for golf: he wore a blue windbreaker and white trousers.

  Appleyard wasted no words.

  “Becker, I don’t know a great deal about you except that you are an altogether powerful man in the money field and that you own Standfast.”

  “A good investment in these troubled times.”

  “Are you offering me a job?”

  The kitchen of the manor house was a big, airy room constructed around a massive cooking range. The general put a kettle down on a glowing hot ring and took three china mugs from a shelf. “Milk and sugar?”

  “I like your directness,” said Becker.

  “I’m a direct person.”

  “May I speak to you in confidence?”

  “I’m used to confidences. But I’ll tell you at once that if it is my name you want to use on your letterhead, it will be an expensive item. I don’t like phantom directorships.”

  “No question of that.”

  “What, then?”

  The kettle started to whistle and the general filled the mugs.

  “What’s the job?”

  Becker sat in an upright kitchen chair at a wooden table, the top of which had been bleached by scrubbing. H
e opened a slim leather attaché case and took out several sheets of paper.

  “I’d like to leave this document with you, and I’d like you to consider the monumental implications of its contents. But before I hand it to you, I require your word that you will treat it with absolute confidence and not mention even so much as its existence to another living soul.”

  The general turned away and stared out of the window.

  “I could not possibly accept that condition, and you know it. Come to the point.”

  Becker closed the attaché case.

  “The paper, general, is a report prepared by the intelligence branch of Standfast. It is a carefully documented, well-evidenced analysis of all urban guerilla and subversive political groups in this country. With names, dates, places, facts. It contains a blueprint for the eventual takeover of Britain and, indeed, the whole of Europe by various activist organizations. In your position in Ireland, General, you must have been aware of the potential danger of these groups.”

  “We had good intelligence. But why bring that report to me? Don’t forget I’ve been fired. Why not Special Branch?”

  “Because Special Branch is an arm of the government and this report indicates that several members of the government — including, possibly, even the Home Secretary — may well be part of a massive conspiracy.”

  The general took a well-worn briar pipe from his trouser pocket and began to pack it with tobacco from an oiled leather pouch. He talked slowly and quietly.

  “Becker, listen very carefully. Over the past few years we have seen many changes in this country. I’m a Tory, an anachronism like this house. I think I read you rightly. I know a lot of chaps, well meaning ex-soldiers, like me, who have talked about running their own private armies, seeking volunteers to keep the workers down. I imagine you are going to make suggestions of that nature to me.”

  “You are ahead of us,” said Becker. “We are discussing a job in relation to Standfast, which is a completely legal, registered public company.”

  “But it will involve secret activities?”

  “Yes.” Becker’s voice was heavy. “I must tell you, General, that we will deny that this conversation ever took place.”

  “Naturally. The fact is that a private army which plots against the government of this country is a treasonous organization, no matter how noble its motives. My family has done many things in its history but we have never subscribed to treason.”

  “Your oath was to the King.”

  “Is the King in danger?”

  “In a communist revolution, of course.”

  “Is the King in immediate danger?’

  “No.”

  “Then I regret that I cannot help you, gentlemen. If this document contains what you say, it should be placed with New Scotland Yard immediately. I have the name of a most trustworthy man there who served with me in Belfast.”

  The general lit his pipe, and the smoke drifted across the kitchen in a gray haze.

  “General,” said Becker, “you are either being exceptionally cautious or you are seriously underestimating the danger to this country. I urge you to read this paper.”

  Sir Roger smiled at his visitors.

  “Times are hard. My undergardener has gone off to make automobile axles and I have thirty rosebuds to attend to.”

  The two men rose.

  “Don’t worry, Becker. I shall not say a word about this meeting. I admire your motives but I cannot say I admire your methods.”

  “General,” said Becker, “I shall leave this card. If you should change your mind, call either of these numbers and Chivers or I can be with you at very short notice.”

  A few minutes later, the general was trundling a wheelbarrow of rose clippings when he heard the helicopter climb away from the meadow. He watched it thoughtfully as it wheeled over the beech trees and headed toward London.

  *

  “Manton Magna 201, Appleyard speaking.”

  “General Appleyard? This is the Daily Express in London.”

  “Come on, old chap, you know I’m not talking to the press.”

  “But, sir, since the news ...”

  “What news?”

  “General, I’m very sorry to have to tell you ...”

  “What has happened?”

  “Your son was killed this evening by a bomb put under his bed at Eton.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “General ... I’m very sorry.”

  “Thank you for telling me. Will you clear this line now, please. I must speak to the college.”

  As soon as he replaced the receiver, the phone began to ring again.

  “Sir Roger, this is the bursar of Eton College. I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for some terrible news.”

  “I have just heard. The boy is dead?”

  “Yes, sir. Killed outright.”

  *

  The burial was a simple affair at the Appleyard plot in the Manton Magna churchyard. Six villagers carried the casket. The rector read the most abbreviated form of funeral service.

  A big crowd of villagers, strangers, reporters and television men had watched the cortege drive along the poplar-lined lane that led to the churchyard.

  The church itself was filled.

  The casket had been lowered into the grave; the pall-bearers and the rector had retired, leaving General Appleyard and his wife, an elegant woman who bore her grief with calm dignity, alone with the shattered remains of their only son.

  “Come on, old girl,” Appleyard said quietly. “Let’s go home.”

  He put his arm around his wife and started to ease her away from the hole in the ground. She was reluctant to move from the graveside and he gripped her more strongly.

  Then he heard the crack of a distant rifle shot and felt her body soften and fall through his arms. Instinctively, he threw himself on top of his wife, but even as he touched her he felt his hand on the warmth of a giant open wound. Her life blood was pumping freely through his fingers.

  There was a second shot; a third shattered a gravestone.

  The general thought professionally: “Armalite. Cadmium-coated explosive bullet. Five hundred yards or less.”

  He rose, his dark suit coated with blood, and walked deliberately toward the distant clump of bushes, whence, he guessed, the bullets had come.

  He was an open target. But there was no more shooting.

  *

  In London, Jean-Paul Becker operated from the offices of A. D. Chivers Holdings (International) Limited, an early-Georgian red-bricked house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, which had been chosen carefully for its proximity to the Battersea heliport and Heathrow Airport.

  The Georgian character of the house had been scrupulously maintained. Although there was a bank of four computers and an attendant row of Telex machines chattering to their counterparts all over Europe and the rest of the world in the basement, the soundproofing gave a sense of total unworldly calm to the rest of the house. Heavy pile carpeting silenced footsteps; the tall windows were double-glazed, and the sound of heavy traffic outside was only a distant murmur.

  Chivers had become typical of all Becker executives. Goodlooking, cultured, and exceptionally capable, he had a talent for getting his name and picture in the major gossip columns. He lived in a townhouse in Pimlico, on a street inhabited by cabinet ministers and lesser politicians. His country house was a white Palladian mansion on Ashdown Forest in Sussex with four hundred acres for pheasant shooting.

  Like all Becker’s men, Chivers worked hard for the handsome salary he received.

  Each morning at seven-thirty he walked from Pimlico to the office, where he spent an hour preparing a market intelligent assessment for the Centra computer in Elba.

  Then he read the morning papers, marking articles with a red pencil for photographing and storage on a roll of 8mm film, which, in turn, was copied and sent to a data library.

  The rest of Chivers’ day was essentially that of most board chairmen in London. He was
in control of seventy-two Becker companies, ranging from a guided-missile homing device factory in Plymouth to several large fish farms in Scotland, with some 556,000 employees and total share capital of six billion dollars.

  He was the chairman in every sense, but he knew that in the vaults of the National Westminster Bank in Cheapside there were a number of large envelopes, carefully sealed, containing blank share certificate transfers. These papers, if signed by Becker or his nominees, would deprive him at once of every vestige of power.

  On one morning that Becker was in London, two meetings were postponed and lunch was kept free for an expected visitor.

  The general, dressed in a pinstriped navy-blue suit, wore a bowler and carried an umbrella.

  The experience of the past seven days had grayed his face, but, in some way, he seemed more erect than Becker had seen him in the garden that day.

  “I can’t tell you how terribly sorry I am about the monstrous things that have happened to you,” said Becker. “In such a short time, too, since we met.”

  “Tell me about the job,” said Appleyard.

  “You don’t want to read the report first?”

  “No. I merely want to know that you are offering me the opportunity to destroy the kind of people who destroyed my wife and son.”

  Becker took the general’s umbrella and bowler. “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “A drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The general sat down.

  “Tell me about the job.”

  “General, I’m glad you used the word ‘destroy,’ rather than saying something about bringing such people to justice.”