Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men)

by Ranulph Fiennes

  One of the drinkers, a bear of a man with a hand that completely eclipsed his pint beer mug, was a Fijian whom Bob recognized as an SAS sergeant. He and his friends began to swap memories of long-lost friends from Borneo days, and the Welshman was visibly enthralled. The conversation shunted around to talk of a Fijian named Labalaba whom everyone seemed to know, and then somebody mentioned Salalah.

  “I was in Salalah,” the Welshman interjected, “posted to the Muscat Regiment from the Fusiliers. Small-arms instructor to help introduce the boys to the new FN rifle.” He beamed. “It’s really nice to meet people who were there too. Doesn’t happen very often.” He bought them a round. Bob Bennett was included but Ken took his leave.

  The Grapes emptied well after closing time and Bob followed the Welshman’s red Escort at a discreet distance. After dropping his girl off in the center of town the Welshman headed west on the A438 toward the village of Brobury. The Escort turned into the drive of Brobury House, at which point Bob parked by the roadside and disappeared into the shadows of the well-kept gardens. He knew the place well. It had recently been bought by an American couple.

  The Escort passed by the main house and parked in front of two small cottages down a tarmac lane. Bob had seen enough. He returned home to Hereford and his wife, Lyn.

  Spike Allen spent forty minutes six mornings a week jogging in Hyde Park. He seldom enjoyed the exercise but, in his mid-forties, he had to compensate for his love of good food or join the pear-shaped majority. At 8:30 a.m., when he returned to his flat, his wife had already left for the British Museum, where she worked as a curator’s assistant.

  As always, Spike checked his answering machine. He was to call a number in Worcester. The number was not that of a Local but it did figure on his Informant Sheet. This was a list of noncommittee individuals, mostly from the Midlands, Wales and the South of England, who volunteered pertinent information to which the committee might wish to react.

  The number responded.

  “Hallo, Ken. Spike calling back.”

  Ken Borthwick, an ex-SAS sergeant-major and currently a detective constable, did not waste time on pleasantries. “Spike, you may think this is a long shot but here goes anyway. Last night I had a drink at the Grapes with Bob Bennett, an ex-B Squadron lad on leave from Germany. I left the pub early but Bob called me early this morning with a potential problem. He does not know about you or our connection. He called me merely because I’m with the Force and because I saw the Welshman before I left.”

  “The Welshman?” Spike queried.

  “Yes. He had a light Borders accent and made out he’d been with the Welsh Fusiliers. He mingled with some of the lads and said he’d been seconded to the SAF in the early seventies. Bob thought nothing of it at first but, for a Sultan’s Armed Forces man, this fellow was pretty damned ignorant. He kept referring to the lads down in Dhofar as SAS not BATT, and he told a story about an SAS officer whose name he had forgotten but whose batman was a cousin of his. Since no SAS officer has ever had a batman, this grated on Bob.”

  “Hardly enough to brand the Welshman as undesirable,” Spike commented.

  “True, but as the evening progressed the fellow kept muttering about Mirbat and in particular about the 1972 shindig there. Bob thought he was fishing and, since Bob was himself involved that day at Mirbat, he decided to follow the Welshman. He left him at a bed and breakfast on the Hay road.”

  There was a pause. “So?” said Spike.

  “So we may have another case like Tim Shand. Remember, the lad from G Squadron who the IRA traced to his home in Ross last year. We put a watch on him for a week but nothing happened, so we cleared out and, a month later, he found a key-set two-pound car bomb clamped to his Peugeot.”

  “But,” Spike said, feeling he was missing the point, “I thought you said this Welshman was fishing for Dhofar, not Belfast, connections?”

  “Poor Spike,” Ken’s voice oozed sympathy, “menopausal run-down and hemorrhoids of the brain. If you were trying to identify which of the Grapes clientele were with the Regiment and not merely ex-Army, would you sew your web of Belfast silk? ’Course not. Give the Provos a break, mate.”

  Spike did not rise to this. “So you go along with Bob’s suspicions, do you, Ken?”

  “In principle,” was the firm reply. “I saw the Welshman, only briefly, but I sensed unease and the guy had a hard, mean cut to his features. Listen, Spike, us boys in blue would not react to this sort of random suspicion without more evidence of intent. There’s no point in my even trying to alert my bosses. I’d merely get a lecture on the current lack of manpower and the sorting out of priorities.”

  “Okay, Ken,” Spike sighed. “Give me the details of the bed and breakfast and I’ll do what I can.”

  Spike ate a bowl of Alpen cereal laced with maple syrup and washed down with percolated Douwe Egbert coffee. Mastication always helped him think. He decided on John Smythe, a freelance photographer who had left the SAS Territorials a year before because of a heavy demand for roof insulation. John was on the lump and dabbled in any highly paid work, normally scaffold erection, that could be done without the tax man’s knowledge. He had phoned Spike a couple of months before to complain that life was slow and what was the point of being a Local if Spike never called him.

  Although Hertford, John Smythe’s hometown, was close to Hitchin and a recruitment basin for C Squadron, 21 SAS, Spike had received no calls in that area for many months. He would leave Hallett, the usual West Country Local, alone, but respond to Borthwick’s call by putting Smythe on to the Welshman.

  At 5 p.m. Muscat time de Villiers took a booked call to England from one of the booths at the Cable & Wireless office in the town center, the only available way of placing an international call from Oman.

  Davies, at Brobury House, was waiting and explained in cryptic terms that the SAS were a closed-mouthed, hypersuspicious crowd of bastards and he had nothing to report.

  “Never mind,” said de Villiers, “we have positive identification and need you over here like yesterday. The office will give you details but you must speed up your visa by going to the embassy soonest.”

  Two hours after Smythe was installed with binoculars, vacuum flask and his car radio tuned to Radio 4, the red Escort turned right out of the drive of Brobury House and sped east.

  Smythe had learned a good deal about surveillance merely through past failures. He now carried a box of accessories to improve his results. When Davies parked the Escort in Trebovir Road, close to Earls Court underground station, Smythe stayed with the car. Once the Welshman was gone, he took a slightly crushed Coca-Cola can from his box of tricks and placed it in front of one of the Escort’s rear tires. Back in his own car, he settled down to sleep as soon as he had switched on the receiver unit of his Coca-Cola gizmo. A green light pulsed at him. It would continue to pulse until a set of contacts in the can were mated by pressure. The light would then go out, to be replaced by a series of beeps loud enough to waken Smythe from the deepest of slumbers.

  On February 27, 1977, eight of the committee met at Bob Mantell’s home in Richmond, a quiet semidetached house close to the East Sheen Gate to Richmond Park.

  The meeting had been called by Spike at short notice and absentees included Bletchley, who had been hospitalized for a checkup, according to his housekeeper.

  Colonel Macpherson, who detested meetings on Sundays, was in a testy mood and keen to speed up procedures. This suited Spike. He explained the Hereford background to Smythe’s surveillance activities.

  “The day after the Welshman arrived in London, he visited 64 Ennismore Gardens, the Omani Embassy, and our Local followed him into the Visa Section. After a long wait, during which both men filled in No Objection Certificate application forms, the Welshman was summoned into the inner office. Mr. Alfred Jones was the name called out by the Omani official. We have no further details other than the number of his rented Avis car and a rather poorly focused photograph taken by our Local.”


  “When does this Welshman Jones fly to Oman?” Macpherson asked.

  “That is the reason I asked for this snap meeting,” Spike replied. “Calling myself Alfred Jones, I telephoned Gulf Air Reservations and asked for confirmation of when my secretary had booked my flight to Muscat. I said she was sick and had taken my diary out of the office.” Spike paused to check his notes. “Jones is scheduled to fly to Muscat via Doha and Dubai on Gulf Air Flight 006 next Saturday.”

  “Do we have contacts in Oman?” Michael Panny asked.

  “No one,” Spike said, having checked with Mantell. “But I have a friend at Kendall’s who handles contract officers’ liaison with the Omanis. He can fix visas for me without too many questions being asked.”

  “Why should we need a visa?” Macpherson’s bushy white eyebrows were raised.

  “We have only one suspect,” said Spike, “the Welshman, whose current whereabouts are unknown because our man lost him shortly after he left the embassy. Either we have someone follow the Welshman when he catches his flight for Muscat or we drop the matter.”

  “Never mind dropping it,” the don commented acidly. “I can’t see why you picked it up in the first place.”

  “Then you have no business with your intellectual airs, Don.” August Graves was, as ever, Spike’s dependable ally. “Even I can see this Welsh geezer is up to no good.”

  Macpherson, seeing a slanging match shaping up, cut in. “Spike has taken the effort to get this far. Now we must decide if we should follow up. We have a chance surveillance of a possible IRA threat to one or more of our Hereford fraternity developing into something very different. So now we have a conundrum. Why should anyone go to the trouble of fishing around SAS-frequented watering holes with the apparent intention of identifying SAS soldiers through their involvement with some long-past incident in Dhofar? And why should this same character then rush down to the Omani Embassy with the likely intention of going to Muscat as soon as he can get a visa?” Macpherson looked around the room. “Any ideas?”

  There was no immediate response and Macpherson did not wait for the inevitable speculation.

  “Since there are no clues at all,” he continued, “other than the probable involvement of the SAS in some unknown context, I suggest we send a suitable Local, if there is one, with a brief to watch the suspect’s actions in Muscat and learn what he can.”

  “I have an excellent man who once served in the Sultan’s Armed Forces.” Spike was on cue. “He speaks passable Arabic and is unmarried. If he is prepared to go, I will need to pay his basic expenses.”

  The committee were obviously intrigued by a matter unlike any previous project to have come their way. There was enough of an existing, if questionable, threat to the SAS community to warrant their interest. No police force would be remotely likely to follow up so indeterminate a lead, and the only obvious obstacle was that of funds.

  “We have more than enough in the slush fund to cover a return flight and two or three weeks’ basic accommodation,” Jane offered without being asked.

  So it was agreed with less bother than Spike had anticipated. Now he had only to locate the best man for the job.

  13

  At 9 p.m. on the last day of February, Mason drove the Porsche with studied legality through the streets of East Berlin. He was in uniform. He had dined with a cavalry friend at an echt Berliner restaurant with an unpronounceable name. The occasional shabby Trabant loomed up in the gloom, and the white faces of the drivers stared at the Porsche with palpable hostility.

  Mason passed through Checkpoint Charlie on his ID card, joining Heerstrasse just beyond the Brandenburg Gate. The wide and ramrod-straight Heerstrasse is governed by synchronized traffic lights. If you cruise at a constant thirty miles an hour you can travel its entire length without having to stop. Mason had quickly cottoned on to the principle that sixty miles an hour was a simple mathematical progression. When that speed had succeeded without a hitch, he wagered and won fifty pounds from brother officers by covering the same distance at 120 mph.

  Two minutes’ drive to the north of Heerstrasse, Mason arrived at Wavell Barracks, home to a major portion of the British Berlin Garrison which, in March 1977, included a parachute battalion, a battalion of the Welsh Guards and a cavalry squadron. The armored might of the British in Berlin totaled twelve tanks. Their allies, the French and the Americans, were similarly equipped while, ranged against them, were the 12,000 battle tanks of the Warsaw Pact. The fatalistic attitude of Mason’s CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Guthrie, and most other Allied officers in Berlin was understandable.

  Mason was scornful of the neighboring Allied forces, the French to the north with their canteen full of cheap and nasty wine that ate through its plastic bottles after three weeks in storage and, for the most part, thoroughly useless conscript soldiers. He made an exception of their regular officers and NCOs, many of whom had been crack Foreign Legionnaires in their day.

  The Americans to the south he briskly summarized as “lots of possessions, lots of money, and enormously fat wives with a nonstop diet of fries and junk food.”

  The Porsche growled by the battalion sties where the battalion pig-corporal was feeding his charges on battalion swill. Mason parked outside the officers’ mess and shivered in the raw Berlin chill.

  He glanced at his pigeonhole in the foyer of the officers’ mess. Nothing there: nobody loved him. He went upstairs to the anteroom. Even the snooker table was deserted. Guardsman Coleman appeared from nowhere, smart as a laundered penguin, and gave him a gin and tonic without being asked.

  “Message for you, Captain Mason, sir. About an hour ago. Please contact your uncle in London.”

  Mason’s only “uncle” never went to London. He sighed but experienced the familiar prickle of anticipation that went with a call from Spike Allen. He picked up a copy of the Times, determined to enjoy his drink for five minutes.

  His moment of peace was interrupted by two tiresome second lieutenants who flung themselves into neighboring chairs.

  “Nearly made it with Angela last night,” one said in an undertone, preening himself in an especially nauseous way that Mason detested.

  “Bad luck actually,” the subaltern continued. “Just as the adorable Angie was stretching out those quite wonderfully long, brown legs, one of those bloody wild boars from the Grünewald executed a raid on the Everleys’ dustbins directly below her room.”

  The Everleys were a married couple from one of the resident units whose nanny from Kent was then the rage of most unmarried officers in Wavell Barracks. Quite how the hugely unimpressive subaltern had attracted the girl was a mystery to Mason. The last time the garrison had been called out at night for a “Rocking Horse” (the NATO code name for a rehearsal response to a Soviet attack), Angela’s current lover had failed to appear and was accordingly confined to barracks for three months.

  Mason’s bête noire continued his lament. “The Everley children woke up and screamed at the crashing bins. Angela froze on me. She quite dried up. Those damned pigs ought to be shot.”

  Mason grunted, mentally congratulating the dustbin-loving pigs, and left the room to book a call from the phone booth beside the anteroom. Because of the late hour, he was put through almost at once. Spike explained the background to the Muscat mission. Mason was obviously suited for the job. Spike had provisionally reserved him a seat on the 10 a.m. flight from Heathrow on March 5. Could he make it?

  “Your timing is as lousy as ever.” Mason cursed his luck. He was due to start his annual leave on March 4. He and another officer would be skiing in Italy for a fortnight. There was no way, he knew, that he could hand over his Berlin duties until midnight on March 4. On the other hand he tried never to let Spike down. He made up his mind.

  “I will check out the timings, Spike, and phone you back in an hour or two.”

  Mason made a number of calls and his mood began to improve. His second conversation with Spike was a reverse-charge call placed from a booth outside th
e barracks. The anteroom phone was anything but confidential.

  “By absconding on my leave some seven hours earlier than permitted,” Mason spoke with some relish, “by bribing a Royal Military Police NCO and by driving extremely fast during the night of March 4, I will just about be able to make the flight. My skiing friend, if asked at some later stage, will insist that I was indeed in Italy with him drinking Glühwein and scorching the black runs. He assumes, I imagine, I’m going to have two dirty weeks with some married woman.” Mason inserted a hardness into his tone. “So I’m all set providing that you, Spike, will bend some of your normal rules.”

  Spike responded with a sigh. “If you are thinking of taking any items with you, as per Cyprus, forget it.”

  “No item, no Muscat, I’m afraid, Spike. I have great respect for your maxim in the UK but I have risked life and limb for two long years in Oman and the reason I am alive today is my maxim of self-preservation.”

  Spike never wasted time in pointless repartee. “I have told you to travel legally. If you have other intentions, I know nothing about them.”

  “Good,” said Mason. “The other matter is my expenses. Travel, accommodation, two thousand Deutschmarks for a gift to my RMP friend, and all incidental expenses.”

  “No problem,” said Spike. “I will use your second passport to process your No Objection Certificate through Kendall’s and have it ready for you at Heathrow along with a photograph of the Welshman.”

  Mason placed a further reverse-charge call to a close friend, Patrick Tanner, at his London flat. He apologized for the late hour but he urgently needed Patrick’s help along much the same lines as the previous year and involving more or less the same equipment. After some good-natured banter, Tanner copied down a complex shopping list. Most of the gear was to be had from Mason’s own safe room on his parents’ Oxfordshire estate. Mason’s father was a touch old-fashioned and did not take kindly to strange civilian friends of his son turning up to stay overnight unless, of course, David was with them at the time. On the other hand he was immensely proud of his son’s service record and any brother Guards officer was always welcome. For this reason, the previous year David had ensured a friendly welcome for Patrick Tanner by having him stand in for an actual Guards officer named Douglas Erskine-Crum, whom his father had heard of but never met. Tanner agreed that he would again present himself as Erskine-Crum, and Mason called his parents to warn them of his arrival the following evening. He would be needing a bed but no breakfast, as he must leave in the small hours for Scotland.