Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men)

by Ranulph Fiennes

  An old school friend from South Africa, a hotelier with resorts in Mauritius and Namibia, gave Quinn an address that galvanized years of vague intention into excited action.

  Quinn was without children but proud of his pretty Eurasian wife, Davisee. He took her into his confidence at once, and made her an integral part of his plan.

  Twice over a period of four months he flew to Johannesburg, each time to the plush offices of diamond dealer Krannie MacEllen. These were situated within the Diamond Exchange Building at the corner of Quartz and de Villiers Street on the northern edge of the city. Mentioning the name of his hotelier friend, Quinn discovered, made him checkable and therefore more acceptable to MacEllen, a naturally suspicious person.

  Had Quinn wished to settle in South Africa, he could have done so without too much trouble but he believed in the domino theory. Once Rhodesia fell, South Africa and Namibia would not be long in following suit. He wanted his money in the safest of places, and this he believed was Geneva. Davisee, who would be classified as colored in South Africa, persuaded Quinn that they should settle in London.

  On his third visit to Johannesburg, Quinn handed MacEllen a suitcase containing $2 million worth of Rhodesian dollars. MacEllen, an optimist who rated Ian Smith’s chances of winning as high, had agreed to exchange Quinn’s Rhodesian money, then at an all-time low, directly for diamonds. Because Quinn was buying with cash, he avoided the standard government duty of twenty-five percent and so had good reason to keep clear of Internal Affairs and their Customs agents.

  The meeting was held in MacEllen’s office. The room was electronically monitored. Even if Quinn had been a police plant, any recording device, whether a passive recorder or an active bug, would have been identified, warning MacEllen to conduct no unofficial business. Equally, if Quinn were to have announced that he was a Customs agent only at the very moment MacEllen handed him diamonds in exchange for his money, then MacEllen could easily maintain that the relevant stones were officially registered. After all, a quantity of stones of all varieties passed legitimately through his hands most weeks of the year.

  Like many diamond dealers the world over, MacEllen’s business was mainly official, his polishing work above-board, and his stock of unofficial stones—well hidden by supporting documents—were stored alongside his official supply. Because he held a government warehouse, or VSJ, number he could buy and sell without tax payments, but only in business with other VSJ number holders. As he also held a standard rough-diamond dealer’s license he could always state, should the Quinn deal fall foul of the law, that he was intending to “prepare a full and legal invoice shortly.” He was as knowledgeable as any IDB (Illegal Diamond Buying) policeman from John Vorster Square as to the exact statutory powers that he possessed.

  MacEllen counted out Quinn’s money and handed him a parcel containing almost a thousand carats of polished diamonds, all large, brilliant, flawless stones with the highest-grade colors and quality. He then gave Quinn the address of an elderly Jewish jeweler in downtown Kerk Street. The Quinns went there at once by taxi and received the jeweler’s receipt for the diamonds. He sketched them various designs for possible settings and Davisee selected her favorite. The jeweler promised to have everything ready in five to six weeks, exactly as specified by the Quinns.

  Two months later they flew to London, the most popular destination for South African émigrés since—despite the generally foul weather—it has always remained a daily destination for South African Airways and has a population generally sympathetic to the lot of white South Africans. On top of which few South Africans ever learn to speak anything but Afrikaans or English, so their choice of a new country is limited. By the end of 1976 London was the third biggest “South African” city after Johannesburg and Soweto.

  The Quinns stayed at the Savoy Hotel within easy walking distance of the Hatton Garden diamond market. They experienced no trouble at all with Customs at Heathrow, simply wheeling their trolleys through the Green section. Over half their diamonds adorned the curvaceous body of Davisee, fashioned by the Johannesburg jeweler into a body set. She felt wonderful, like a film star, but she had fasted throughout the thirteen-hour flight, including the Nairobi stopover. Despite this precaution the act of walking was decidedly awkward due to the presence of a condom containing cotton wool wrapped around the three best stones. These had been kept back from the jeweler at a last-minute whim of Davisee.

  In the back room of a Hatton Garden diamond dealer recommended by his Mauritius hotelier friend, Quinn deposited the jewelry and the three unset stones. He watched as the in-house setter deftly extracted the stones from the low-carat gold clasps and setting, turning the jewelry back into a mere scattering of polished diamonds.

  The dealer then spent half an hour checking every stone, his face registering neither pleasure nor disappointment. The Quinns were on hot coals but refrained from showing their impatience.

  At last the dealer gave a peremptory sigh. “The three stones that you kept separate are fine and I am prepared to give you $200,000.” He looked up at Mr. Quinn.

  There was a pregnant silence, broken at length by an exasperated Quinn. “And the rest? What will you give me for the rest?”

  The Jew’s heavily jowled face was expressionless, his grape-black eyes marbled by thick lenses.

  “Nothing, Mr. Quinn. I can give you not a cent for the rest of these items. You will not find a dealer anywhere in Europe who will buy these from you. They are all fakes. The chemical name is cubic zirconium. Since you are obviously no fraud yourself, I assume you have been duped by the person who sold you these stones.”

  The Quinns were devastated. Their world had collapsed and their dreams of a happy, secure future built on a lifetime of hard work turned quickly to bitter resentment, to blind hatred, and finally to an all-consuming desire for revenge.

  Quinn obtained an introduction to the London criminal fraternity through a lawyer friend of the dealer and, after parting with £500 in cash to a middle man, received a visit from a representative of Tadnams Light Removals.

  • • •

  A lack of current employment and an ever-gnawing curiosity about Anne Fontaine attracted de Villiers when his agent mentioned a South African job. He met up with the unfortunate Mr. Quinn and, having been briefed as quickly as possible, took a British Airways flight to Johannesburg.

  Within a fortnight de Villiers had homed in on the fairly common malpractices that had so impoverished his new client. He anticipated an easy job with no need to summon Meier or Davies.

  Krannie MacEllen, he discovered, had given Quinn real diamonds, but at a heavily overpriced value. He had to all intents and purposes stolen several hundred thousand dollars of Quinn’s money.

  The Johannesburg jeweler, a crafty craftsman, had substituted cubic zirconium for the real diamonds, knowing that once they were set, the fakes would be very difficult to detect, even by an expert, until removed from their settings. The refractive index of CZ, and therefore its fire and brilliance, matches that of real diamonds.

  De Villiers telephoned Quinn with his findings. Did he wish both men terminated? Quinn burst out that he wanted his diamonds or his money back. If that was not possible, then he wanted revenge. De Villiers pointed out that he dealt in removals, not retrieval work, but that for twice the initially agreed sum of $100,000 plus expenses, he would do his best. Either Quinn’s goods would be recovered or the guilty parties targeted.

  The fraudulent jeweler, being of a nervous disposition, gave de Villiers all of Quinn’s original stones that he still possessed and a cash payment in place of those he had sold. His personal policy was to yield and live to thrive another day.

  Krannie MacEllen appeared to be timidity personified on de Villiers’s first visit, promising he would collect a suitable amount of cash by the following day. De Villiers sensed trouble. Five hours before the agreed upon time for the cash handover, he arrived in a hired car and parked outside the Cinerama building, directly opposite the Star
Cinema Complex and the Diamond Exchange that housed MacEllen’s office. De Villiers watched the plainclothes members of the Hillbrow Flying Squad slip a tight and unobtrusive net around the building. He gave them six out of ten for the subtlety and camouflage of their agents. MacEllen had blown his survival option.

  MacEllen and his family kept a powerboat by their riverside house—he called it their dacha—on the banks of the Vaal River outside the city. With or without friends, they went there most weekends to relax, float on air beds or cruise with a braiifleis, or barbecue, hamper.

  De Villiers bought himself diving gear and struck on a Sunday morning when the dealer and his rowdy colleagues were water-skiing.

  When MacEllen’s pudgy corpse was laid on the riverbank there were clearly no marks of violence nor any other reason to suspect a cause of death less mundane than a heart attack or severe cramp.

  De Villiers made arrangements for Quinn to retrieve his diamonds and cash. He kept both the original killing fee and the subsequently agreed upon retrieval bonus. With time on his hands he took a South African Airways flight to Cape Town, intending to photograph the wildlife and some of the 2,500 species of mostly flowering plants that grew in the Cape mountains. For a week he camped out, exploring the Hottentots-Holland range. He came away happy, with what he knew to be superlative shots of baboons, dassies—the rock hyrax of the Bible—long-tailed sugarbirds and multicolored sunbirds, all against a riot of blurred background color.

  The urge that was de Villiers’s real reason for coming to the Cape grew steadily more undeniable during the days and nights in that lofty paradise, and on the eighth day he drove his rented Moke to Tokai. He would revisit the Vrede Huis ruins with a packed lunch, take some pictures and return to Cape Town.

  The ruins were unchanged and de Villiers again felt that intense feeling of belonging, but now a stronger, keener need interfered with his sense of well-being. All day he dallied at Vrede Huis, and for the first time in ten years allowed himself to think back to his days at La Pergole.

  In the late evening as rolling mists—the mythical pipe smoke of pirate Van Hunks—closed over Devil’s Peak and the ramparts of Lion’s Head, de Villiers found his feet and his heart were set for the distant spinney of silver trees, the landmark he had used many times to return to La Pergole through the vineyards.

  The Anglo-Arab stallion was Anne Fontaine’s favorite horse. Four evenings a week she rode around the estate, and in fine weather farther afield through the Tokai pinewoods and the gum groves of Platteklip. These outings were her only pleasure. She rode bareback in a thin cotton dress, the better to savor the power of the horse.

  Sometimes, and despite her surroundings, Anne wished that she had never been born. She craved children yet could have none; the doctors did not know why. She yearned for love and there was only jealousy. She craved sexual satisfaction but her natural sensuality was denied outside marriage because of the stern moral code of her formative years. Only once had she known a man with whom her loins could have run wild and Luther be damned.

  Within the cold walls of her marriage there had been a great deal of sex, all quick and mechanical. The remaining mystery was how disgust had not driven her permanently frigid.

  A crescent moon edged into view above the distant silver grove, and Anne murmured to the Anglo-Arab, pressing her thighs inward and gently shortening the rein. She would cool the stallion by walking the last mile of vineyard.

  Jan Fontaine was more often than not in the hospital these days, and because of his evil temper, changed from one clinic to another with an alacrity that depended on the flashpoint of the relevant staff. Anne dreaded each visit, the bedside interrogations, the increasing and irrational bitterness. Divorce was inconceivable to her, amounting almost to mortal sin, but many a time she found herself fighting off the wish that her husband would die.

  Anne had been a virgin bride, as was then expected. Her first sex with Fontaine had been a brutal shock. The man was sensitive only to his immediate lusts and these were quickly quenched, for Anne was satin-tight. The early years were hellish enough, but after his injury he could no longer perform an active role and things became even worse. Now he expected her to satisfy his urges as though she were a paid whore or some hotel call girl.

  The rhythmic motion of the horse faltered and Anne slipped easily to the ground to check his front hooves. She found a chip of granite in the frog and prized it loose with a nail file she carried for that purpose. The stallion snorted, nosing the air, and Anne clearly saw the figure of a man on the sandy track to the house.

  She passed him by, attempting to avoid eye contact, for this was no time nor place to chat to a stranger. She would, on reaching home, alert Samuel to the presence of a trespasser on the estate.

  The man had stopped, statuelike, when he heard her approach, but only when she had thankfully passed him did she hear him call her name. She had heard that voice so many times in her dreams. Was it possible or was this the ghostly robber, Antje Somers, come down from his legendary lair in the foothills?

  Few words were spoken. Time ceased to exist. They were back in the forest clearing of ten years earlier. The stallion grazed beside the track and the world was far away.

  Their bodies moved as one in the moon shadows of a bamboo island. As wild as animals, as gentle as hedonists, as abandoned as their instincts dictated. Each had long nurtured fantasies of this act—the one through many killings, the other through a thousand hot nights of hopelessness.

  For three wonderful weeks they met in the evenings: out of sight of prying eyes, for there is no gossip machine, no jungle-drums telegraph system half so efficient as the Cape grapevine.

  When de Villiers was forced to leave for overdue work in Europe, he told her the date he would return.

  “I will live for that day,” she said, her eyes abrim with tears of pure love.

  De Villiers was a sensitive, loving human being when he left South Africa …

  20

  The khareef flies, as small as European midges or Canadian “no see-ums” but more aggressive, crawled over his forearms and sucked blood from his neck. His shirt was soaked with the monsoon drizzle and his spectacles were misted up. On June 1, 1972, Mike Kealy, SAS troop officer at the jebel outpost of Tawi Ateer, the Well of the Birds, was squatting in the orange mud in a glade above the camp. His SLR (self-loading rifle) lay within easy reach but his concentration was focused entirely on the iridescent plumage of the hummingbird that hovered less than two paces from his knees. Wingtip to wingtip, Mike estimated the body size as two and a half inches—a tiny masterpiece of nature—and he sorely regretted that for once he had failed to bring his camera.

  Khaki rivulets veined the clay soil around islets of fern and bidah gladioli. From the overhanging cliffs above to the edge of the clearing lianas fell in dank profusion. Tamarind trees and wild citrus shed their burdens of rain in a nonstop and rhythmic tattoo while all manner of crawling, hopping insects animated the undergrowth.

  Mike’s lifelong fascination with nature ensured that he was never bored during the long, gray days of the 1972 monsoon. At home on the Sussex Downs, around his home at Ditchling, Mike’s father had lovingly taught him all he knew about the then abundant fauna of the area. Mike’s only sister had died young, and the Kealys’ world revolved around their son. After Eastbourne College he had passed into Sandhurst, keen for a career in his father’s old regiment, the Queen’s Surreys.

  In 1965 he was commissioned and, after six years as an infantry officer, joined that small but elite group selected, from the many who try, to be SAS officers. With four months of intense specialist training under his belt, he was sent to B Squadron, then commanded by the jovial little dynamo Major Richard Pirie.

  Mike did well but he found life far more tense and competitive than during his years of infantry soldiering. Then, he had commanded mostly amenable teenagers on humdrum exercises. With the SAS he found himself appointed to 8 (Mobility) Troop, generally considered the regimen
t’s best. A dozen or more veterans of several wars and secret operations around the world constituted the twenty-seven-year-old officer’s new charges. These were men who accepted nothing at face value, who questioned orders with a cool appraisal based almost always on experience, whereas Mike’s thinking was often the result of classroom military dogma.

  His first few months with the troop were a far tougher test than even the SAS selection course. He was on sufferance from day to day and he knew it. Not a few aspiring young officers, elated by success at selection and proudly sporting their newly awarded winged-dagger badge, have found themselves unacceptable to their designated troopers. In such cases the officers always moved on, not the troopers.

  Unlike in infantry regiments, where each officer has a personal batman-orderly to attend to his needs, the SAS officer will often find himself cooking for his radio operator while the latter is busy with codes and ciphers on arrival at a “basha” (improvised tent) site for the night. One way of speeding the process of acceptance into a troop is, of course, for the officer to prove himself in battle. This was Mike’s first four-month tour in Oman, and so far the adoo had opened fire on his men only once.

  On June 8, 8 Troop were helicoptered down from the jebel to the coastal town of Mirbat. This village of fishermen’s shacks huddled in isolation on a stormy promontory under the shadow of a three-thousand-foot escarpment. Two small mud fortresses protected the jebel side of Mirbat, and the broiling monsoon breakers prevented any attack from the south. A tangle of barbed wire ringed the forts and the town from west to east, starting and ending in the sea.

  Mike and his eight men took over a lone mud hut known as the Bat-house between and slightly to the south of the two forts. The village itself squatted in poverty and squalor between the Bat-house and the sea.