Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men)

by Ranulph Fiennes

  Military adviser to BBC for Internal Security Program ’73

  Sultan’s Bravery Medal ’75 (Oman active service 1974–76)

  London District duties ’76

  Height 6′4″. Weight 200 lbs. Hair brown. Eyes gray.

  Languages: Arabic, French, German

  One of Spike’s practices before selecting a Local was to discover his views on a number of topics, some apparently immaterial. Mason’s responses were also filed:

  Abortion: “I think Parliament has got it about right. I don’t think a woman should be forced to give birth to an unwanted child, especially if it is diagnosed early on to be disfigured. Many handicaps can now be diagnosed twenty-two weeks into pregnancy, and a termination should be at this early stage or not at all.”

  Racism: “A whole industry has sprung up around this issue. Ostensibly to prevent racism, it has the opposite effect by noisily drawing undue attention to the subject. People should be treated the same and, if black or brown, they should neither be penalized nor rewarded. Positive discrimination is counterproductive.”

  Arming the Police: “This would be a dreadful mistake. The police on the whole know very little about firearms. The training given to those officers who are occasionally authorized to carry firearms is inadequate.”

  Sounds: “Dislike: Radio 1, Radio 2, airport announcements, in-flight announcements, women gossiping, telephones ringing, BBC reporters’ voices, children whining, traffic.”

  “Like: clocks ticking, birds singing, stags roaring, children laughing, huge explosions, wind in trees, foghorns.”

  Smells: “Dislike: gangrene, B.O., fast food, car exhaust, wet sleeping bags, hospitals, nylon socks, dog shit, instant coffee, government offices.”

  “Like: the sea, sawed timber, mown grass, heather, cordite, wood smoke, Harrods Food Hall, clean children, cigar smoke, the African bush.”

  People: “Impossible to categorize. Everytime I have tried to do so I have found an exception to the rule. But if I had to paint a stereotype of the sort of character for whom I reserve particular derision … chin sticking in rather than out, watery eyes, runny nose, wispy red beard, CND amulet around the neck, plays guitar in modern church services, goes to prenatal classes with the wife after she has been made pregnant by the milkman, lives in Hampstead, faints when a car backfires, vegetarian, no sense of humor, follows trends, reads the Guardian, feet smell despite (or because of) sandals, uses words like ‘totally,’ ‘at the end of the day,’ ‘up and down the country,’ ‘ongoing struggle,’ etc.”

  Germaine Greer: “An intelligent and interesting woman. Unfortunately a horde of shrill harpies have taken over the feminist issue in much the same way as strident black activists have the race industry. If someone applied to me for a job I would appoint the person most suited to it, regardless of sex.”

  Politics: “In a nutshell I am a right-winger, but there has been almost as much interference with personal freedom under the Conservatives, even if they have been more subtle about it. Government should be kept to a minimum. People should be able to get on with their lives unimpeded by bureaucracy, nannying, hectoring and meddling by ignorant politicians anxious to make their names.

  “Socialism is a religion espoused by fools, crooks or liars or, as in the case of many people at the BBC, people who are all three. It has failed miserably, but the more dimwitted of its adherents have still not realized this.

  “Liberalism is not much better. There are just fewer crooks and more fools. There are some honorable exceptions but not many.”

  Coming from the majority of people, these responses would have put Spike off right away. A fascist bigot, a narrow-minded elitist, were descriptions that sprang to mind. But he decided, and the recruit-trawler agreed, that Mason simply liked to appear bluff and autocratic.

  The passage of time and a number of testing jobs at home and abroad had confirmed Mason to be a fair-minded man, a friend to anyone regardless of background, once he had decided they were genuine.

  Like the rest of the Locals, David Mason operated for Spike without remuneration and often without payment even of his expenses. He knew only that the Committee of the Feather Men commanded Spike’s loyalty and stood for freedom and democracy. They aimed to operate within the law to protect individuals or to prevent crimes, where the official arm of the law was powerless or too undermanned to be effective. For the most part Spike worked the Locals within their home areas, where they were likely to be streetwise. This also saved travel expenses. Few of the Locals knew one another since Spike kept them apart as far as possible.

  David studied the scanty contents of the file Spike handed him. It contained street maps of Bristol and the personal details of one Patrice Symins, drug dealer. When David laid the file down and stubbed out his cigar, Spike told him the background.

  “Two weeks ago the only daughter of a Chippenham accountant, once a squaddie with C Squadron in Hitchin, died of drug abuse. She was supplied by the same group who organized her introduction to heroin when she was a student at Bristol University last year. The police know all about the dealer, Symins, but can prove nothing. There is a local Hungarian who has helped us in the past. He knows the city like the back of his one good hand. He will be your guide. Symins is well protected, which is why I want you to back up our Local, a Welshman called Darrell Hallett.”

  They talked for an hour. Then Spike Allen handed over some equipment and left. David sighed. He had asked for a day to recover from palace duties, but Spike’s hit was planned for that Monday night.

  5

  A great deal of redevelopment took place in Bristol during the mid-seventies, but Pennywell Road, though only a mile from the city center, remained a shoddy backwater skirting the fringes of St. Paul’s and joining Easton with the old market district.

  A number of self-contained housing estates and small industrial units lined both sides of this long, ill-lit road, as well as a smattering of derelict and vandalized lockups. In one such unit a kangaroo court took place on the evening of Monday, November 1, 1976. The functions of judge and jury were assumed by Patrice Symins. His five colleagues, uniform in their bulk and ugliness, stood around a sixth man whose hands were secured behind him to the plumbing of a disused wash basin.

  Symins wore an ermine-collared overcoat and leather driving gloves. He grinned a good deal as he spoke, either because he admired his own teeth or because he had been told his smile made him look charming. He was a tall, rangy man of about fifty who enjoyed the considerable influence he wielded within his particular sphere of the Bristol drug scene.

  Jason had been seen twice with “snouts” operated by Lionel Hawkins of the local drug squad. Both times he had loudly proclaimed his innocence. The men were old friends of his and he had not the faintest idea that either was a snout. Symins knew he should have acted the first time but he had a soft spot for Jason, who had worked for him since his arrival in Bristol. Twice was not just suspicious, it was downright incriminating; and Jason must now serve as a memorable example to others.

  “You can sweat it out a bit, Jason. Think about yourself, mate, and you’ll be the first to admit you done bad wrong. We will be lenient this time. You squeal again—so much as get seen in spitting distance of those bastards—and next time it’ll be terminal.”

  Symins ran his hand over his bald head, donned a cloth cap with a loud check and turned to the Cockney black girl, his secretary and mistress since she was fifteen.

  “Get the cars up, Di. I don’t want you here when Jason gets the surgery. Your stomach’s flat and firm, okay, but is it strong enough? A masonry drill grinding through our friend here’s kneecaps will not be a beautiful thing, my love. Not to see and not to hear. So we’ll go back to the office for an hour or two, leave you there, then come back with the Bosch.”

  The cars, parked four hundred yards up the street, responded to Di’s phone and arrived at the lockup.

  “Harry, be a good lad and wait here with Jason,” Symins ordered. “Any t
rouble, you fix him any way you please, but leave him compos mentis for the joy to come.”

  Darrell Hallett drove south from his parents’ small farm in Tenby. He always felt at ease with the world after visiting them. The Avenger car headed east over the Severn Bridge, then south down the M5. Rowntree, the chocolate manufacturers, owned it and the sample boxes of Yorkie bars in the rear. Darrell was star salesman for his district and he knew it. He had worked for Rowntree for four years since leaving the Forces.

  He was at heart a country boy, and most weekends he returned home to grab his rod or twelve-bore. From the age of five Darrell, with his three brothers, had spent every spare moment in the woods and fields, poaching, egg collecting, destroying wasps’ nests by hand and jumping from treetops. By the age of ten Darrell could paunch and skin a rabbit in under sixty seconds, then sell it for two bob to the local butcher. He knew the separate signs and the smells of the fox, the stoat and many other woodland creatures.

  Born the year the Second World War ended, Darrell was a natural fighter. From kindergarten onward he punched his way through half a dozen school playgrounds and, when still a youngster, became Air Training Corps Welsh Boxing Champion. In 1962 he joined the RAF Regiment and became Middleweight Champion of the RAF and the Combined Services. Trained by Dave James, he was asked by the great Al Philips to turn pro. He was a streetfighter with gloves on, but he loved Forces life too much and missed his chance for the international ring.

  Darrell spoke with a gentle Welsh accent. Honesty was a religion to him and, despite his air of latent aggression, his temper was slow to rouse and his reputation for honesty and fairness had seen him reach the rank of sergeant with his regiment. He worked in the sixties in Cyprus, Singapore, Malaya, Zambia and South Yemen, as part of the rearguard to the Empire’s mostly honorable retreat from the colonies.

  In 1970, two years before Darrell became a salesman for Rowntree, he was accepted into the ranks of 21 SAS Regiment (Territorials), and four years later was recruited into the Feather Men by Spike Allen, who needed a highly mobile Local in the Southwest.

  Darrell eased the Avenger off the M5 at Junction 18 and down the Portway to Hotwell Road. Bristol was not his sales area but there were few towns in the Southwest he did not know reasonably well. He parked by the side of the Iceland Freezer Center in Easton Road and crossed the street to the Pit Pony pub.

  Rows of Victorian terraced houses and ill-lit streets abounded in Easton, an area of ethnic hodgepodge. There were dozens of small, shabby pubs, but the Pit Pony was different. It had recently been redecorated, and the management had kept the original atmosphere of a local working-class haunt where you could safely take your wife so long as her dictionary was wide. The walls sported brass Davy lamps, pit-pony harnesses, shovels and other coal-mining accessories ranged above wooden booths in which stood tables and benches.

  Darrell ordered two pints of Guinness and took them straight to the corner booth where Jo was waiting for him.

  “Good to see you, my friend.” Jo’s East European accent clashed with his checked Viyella shirt, tartan tie and immaculately pressed tweed suit. At 6:15 p.m. the pub was still fairly empty, but after greeting Josef Hongozo, Darrell fed the nearby jukebox with enough coins to keep their conversation drowned for a while.

  “It’s been a while, Jo,” he said, shaking the Hungarian’s left hand. A Soviet tank had torn off Jo’s right hand during the 1956 Budapest uprising, but now, at forty-nine, he could still beat all contenders at arm wrestling.

  Darrell gave Hongozo Spike’s file on Symins. He felt it was unlikely to contain information that Jo did not already know, since, for a week now, he had shadowed the drug dealer’s every move. The little Hungarian looked up sharply and said, “This man is evil, you know, a bastard! He is killing our city’s young people, even little children.” Jo disliked drugs in any form, even medicines when he was ill. Drug pushers he loathed.

  Only Darrell and Spike knew of Hongozo’s help for the Feather Men. Darrell had recruited him two years earlier after a meeting in The Ravers transport café in Bristol’s Stapleton Road. Darrell had spent three hours there awaiting darkness with interminable cups of espresso. Jo, the café owner, had time on his hands and, being a gregarious sort, pounced on his lone clients for a friendly chat. One thing had led to another.

  Jo’s early life, like that of millions of Europeans, reflected the human miseries of the mid-twentieth century. Born near the Yugoslav-Hungarian border, in the farming village of Keleshalom, he had been haunted throughout his childhood by the pervasive shadow of Hitler. Local Nazis would mark village trees with the names of non-Nazi folk. “When Hitler comes,” they would leer, “you will dangle there.” The Stormtroopers came and many villagers died, were raped or starved. Then, in 1945, the Soviets arrived and the horrors continued.

  Jo had joined the freedom fighters and shared their predictable defeat. Two years after the uprising he fled to the West with his wife, Maria. In February 1958 he settled in Bristol, where there was already a large Hungarian population. For five lean years Jo worked at the Parno-Yates washing-machine factory. He saved enough money to buy two lorries, set himself up as a haulage contractor, and cashed in on the 1965 Severn Bridge and Coventry Airport projects. He prospered and became known throughout the expatriate community as a generous donor to those in need. But his marriage suffered from his frequent absences and he parted from Maria. He then bought the café and became a solid British citizen.

  Perhaps Jo saw in Darrell a bit of himself in his freedom-fighting days. Whatever his motives, he had become Darrell’s anchorman whenever Spike sent the Welshman to the Southwest’s capital of crime.

  The only time Darrell had ever seen a glint of anger in Jo’s eyes was when he offered to pay his expenses. The Hungarian had hit the bowl of his clay pipe against the heel of his shoe and shaken his head.

  “I will help you to help freedom, to hurt the dirty buggers who make trouble. I have had to leave my beloved Budapest because of them. Now you give me a chance to hit them a little. That is enough. Don’t talk again of money.”

  The Pit Pony was filling up with uniformed men and women. Raucous laughter and expletives; banalities in place of conversation.

  “The city bus depot is just up the road,” Jo explained. “The drivers bring their conductresses here before going home to their wives.”

  Darrell spotted a tall executive type with a Dunlop travel bag. He nudged the Hungarian. “That’s him. Christ, he stands out like a spare prick at a wedding.” He went to the bar and offered David Mason a beer. They had never met before but each knew that Spike was unlikely to pick a rotten apple. The jukebox was silent now but drinkers were shoulder-to-shoulder and a Concorde could have flown by at street level unnoticed.

  Mason was thankful he had hired a Ford Escort. The Porsche would have risked more than its paintwork in the pub car park, where groups of mostly white young rowdies sat on the low brick wall looking for trouble or anything that might alleviate their boredom.

  “We have two hours before Symins goes home at 8:30 p.m.,” said Jo. “He is as regular as the clockwork. He is due back at what he calls a justice session anytime now. Then home. I will take you to see what sort of bugger this man is even with his own men. Then I know you will not pussyfoot like English gentlemen later tonight.”

  “Is he local?” Mason asked. “I mean, has he always been on the Bristol crime scene?” Spike’s file had been positively skeletal.

  Jo shook his head and relit his pipe. “Not local, no,” he replied, “but in the two years he’s been here, he’s cut himself a strong corner of the local drug market.”

  Darrell thought Jo was wasted as the owner of a transport café. He had an amazing knack of ferreting out details, an ability that had saved Darrell time and embarrassment on a number of occasions. Symins, Jo now told them, had spent much of his youth in Australia after his family emigrated from London in the mid-fifties. By the end of the sixties he was worth £300,000, having benefited
from the burgeoning Sydney drug scene. When the Sydney police put on the pressure, Symins, and others like him, moved to Pakistan. He thrived until, in 1975, the Pakistan police found a ton of cannabis in a boat that he owned.

  Symins returned home to Britain. His first attempt to set up shop in Isleworth, West London, met with a bloody nose from the entrenched dealers’ heavies. Cautiously he tested the water elsewhere, eventually deciding on Bristol, where his girlfriend, Diana, had close relatives already pushing drugs in St. Paul’s.

  “Our Mr. Symins took things slow and easy at first,” Jo explained. “Didn’t make the mistake so many of them do: rushing into someone else’s kitchen. That’s the quickest route to concrete boots. He settled down with his black bitch and her cousins and sussed out the ground.”

  Jo explained the territories. The Bristol criminal fraternity are far more provincial than their London counterparts, seldom operating beyond the clearly defined boundaries of their often long-established fiefdoms. To find an uncontested niche took Symins quite a while. The black district of St. Paul’s offered a network of dark streets where white prostitutes operated by black pimps serviced a nonstop fleet of curb crawlers. The police, in a vain attempt to control drug pushers and prostitutes, had turned many streets into cul-de-sacs. Black gangs had then lured police patrol cars into these traps and beaten up the officers. Touché. The result was no-go areas, the territory of black capos, and no place for the likes of Symins despite the drug opportunities offered at the nightly she-beens, illegal drink parties open to anybody with fifty pence to pay for a Guinness or Red Stripe.

  Westbury on Trym was a respectable, middle-class area where few drug targets existed, but neighboring Southmead looked ripe. Built in the thirties to house folks from the inner-city slums, the place was all red brick and, to Symins, had the signs of good pickings. But he was several years too late: Southmead was in the grip of a local family, and Ronnie and his trio of hulking sons dealt summarily with would-be poachers.