Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men)

by Ranulph Fiennes

  In October 1977 four Palestinian terrorists hijacked a Lufthansa airliner. They were acting in support of the Baader-Meinhof gang and demanded release of the gang’s leaders from German jails. A German commando unit from GSG-9 was tasked to release the Lufthansa hostages with help from an SAS officer, Major Alistair Morrison. (Morrison had relieved Kealy’s group at Mirbat five years before, and in 1979 he was one of the first to learn of Kealy’s death on the Brecon Beacons.) Barry, then a sergeant, was tasked to accompany Major Morrison with a supply of special SAS flash-grenades. The hijackers led the Anglo-German team a merry dance and in Aden they murdered the airliner’s pilot. Flying on to Mogadishu in Somalia, they dumped the body on the runway, ending any remaining chances of negotiation. Morrison and Davies then led the highly successful attack by GSG-9, and both men were later decorated for their courage.

  Barry was well respected in the SAS but he was by nature an entrepreneur and had for a long while been interested in the housing market inside Hereford. In the late sixties he found an excellent house in a suburb of Hereford for his friend Mac and soon afterward introduced him to a lovely girl named Pauline, who became Mac’s lodger and later his wife.

  The two men turned into Salisbury Avenue. It was Saturday. Pauline was at work in town but they had called at her shop, Chelsea Girl, to collect the house keys.

  “Pauline says the fits are slowly getting worse despite Mac’s medication. His dark moods come more frequently. It must be very difficult for Pauline.”

  Jock nodded. “He’s a lucky man having those lassies for wife and daughter. They will stand by him to the end.”

  37

  After medication Mac slept for nine hours uninterrupted by the dreams. He awoke refreshed and looking forward to the visit from his friends. He was a quiet, proud, and very private man. So long as he was employed in honest work he could keep his head up, no matter how bad the fits. Unfortunately this caused something of a vicious circle since hard work quickly made him exhausted and prone to worse attacks. To fend them off he would increase the tablets, which in turn made him drowsy and brought on the dark, destructive moods.

  Mac hated the moods and the way he behaved when under their influence. He wished above all to be the best possible husband, father and friend, and he hated feeling exhausted. But to give up his job, to be unemployed and dependent entirely on Pauline’s work, would be more than his personal pride could bear.

  During these run-up weeks to Christmas he had to work twice as hard at Sun Valley Poultry, for the chicken orders came thick and fast and everyone was on overtime. He earned £160 a week, Monday to Friday, and, despite the fits, had held the job down for several months. Sun Valley was on the far side of town and Mac traveled by bicycle. The pills often affected his balance and made him wobbly. Pauline, he knew, was increasingly worried, especially since a recent incident when a passing van had knocked him off his bicycle on a roundabout.

  He fussed around the sitting room and puffed up the cushions. There was little to do as Pauline kept the place immaculate. Lucia was away at a ballet class in Church Road.

  Jock and Barry arrived and Mac soon forgot his worries. They spent a merry afternoon in reminiscence, laughing over once shared hardships and recalling long-forgotten faces brought alive by Jock’s photographs.

  After tea, Mac began to show signs of tiredness and Barry discreetly suggested it was time to leave. Jock promised to return the following day to collect his album, and when they were gone, Mac sat alone with a lager and thumbed slowly through the pages. He stopped at a photo captioned “Operation Dharab, January 1975.” The two men with an 81mm mortar tube were shirtless, bronzed and lean. Mac and Tosh Ash in their prime on the day both were wounded by the same bullet. That day Mac unknowingly became a marked man.

  Operation Dharab was planned as the biggest army offensive of the five-year war against the communists, an attempt to attack the guerrilla stores center of Sherishitti, a complex of caves deep in guerrilla-held mountains. First an army force of 650 men would seize the ridgeline position of Defa, then advance into the beginning of the densely foliated zone that began two miles to the south, and on to a pair of bald hilltops known as Point 980. This position overlooked the valley of the caves, two and a half miles to the east. From Point 980 the final advance would be launched at Sherishitti.

  The main army force was Jebel Regiment (JR), John Milling’s old unit, supported by Red Company of Desert Regiment (DR), whose second-in-command was Captain David Mason. Each of the four companies would have firqat guides and SAS liaison men attached. Two SAS troops and a strong firqat contingent would lead the advance under the command of SAS Major Arish Trant. Mac, Tosh Ash, and their mortars would accompany this group.

  On January 4 the Defa position was secured and the advance began. The SAS, after heavy fighting, secured an advanced position and finally Point 980. As over five hundred soldiers arrived at this feature, the SAS moved on to another hill, coded Point 604. As they prepared for the night, a small group went forward to lay trip wires and claymore mines just ahead of their position. Tony Shaw, close friend to Mike Kealy and about to take over the SAS squadron in Dhofar, was the point man and leader of the mine-layers. An adoo patrol attacked them and there were casualties on both sides.

  A great deal of confusion and indecision held up the advance the following day, and the overall Dhofar commander, Brigadier John Akehurst, summarily removed the officer in charge and replaced him with Major Patrick Brook, Mike Marman’s predecessor as Armored Car Squadron leader.

  Patrick Brook and the SAS major sent three of the companies east through dense scrub to gain positions above the caves before a final attack on Sherishitti. This move began on the morning of January 6, but the lead unit, Red Company DR, went a little too far south, a fact they recognized once they reached the wide, open valley that led to the caves. Their company commander, Major Roger King, suggested holding their position along the edge of the great clearing in order to give cover to a further advance by 2 Company JR across the open ground.

  Two Company’s acting commander, Captain Nigel Loring, arrived and surveyed the wide valley ahead. His firqat liaison man, an experienced SAS sergeant, advised him, “Don’t go across. It will be suicide. Go around the clearing.” But Loring could see that the open area was well covered from two sides by men of Red Company, and knowing that speed was of the essence, he stood up and led his men out into the sunny clearing, overlooked on the far side by the rocky hillside that was his objective.

  When Loring and his lead platoon were well into the open the adoo sprang their trap. The far slope exploded with sound. There was no cover, so wounded men were hit again and again until they lay still. Captain Ian MacLucas was hit by seven bullets. Nigel Loring was killed. The killing ground echoed with the groans and the entreaties of the dying. To break cover and enter the valley from either side would require an act of great courage.

  The Red Company soldiers and the SAS returned fire as best they could and certain individuals risked all in a crazy attempt to rescue the wounded. One of these was Sekavesi, the giant Fijian who had been with Mike Kealy at Mirbat. Another was Captain David Mason of Red Company, who, weaving from side to side, forced himself through the maelstrom of bullets, rockets and mortar explosions and spent two hours under fire to succor and rally the wounded. He finally staggered back with his friend, the wounded MacLucas. His escape unscathed was miraculous. Within months he was awarded the Sultan’s Bravery Medal.

  When all their wounded were retrieved, and only the dead left behind, the Sultan’s Forces withdrew to Point 980. Behind them they heard the single shots of the adoo firing into the bodies in the clearing.

  Jebel Regiment had suffered thirteen dead and twenty-two wounded. Ian MacLucas, saved by David Mason, was still a paraplegic in 1991. Many adoo, mostly of the Bin Dhahaib unit, were killed in Operation Dharab. One was Mahab bin Amr Bait Anta’ash, the second son of Sheikh Amr’s first wife. He was ripped apart by mortar fire from the SAS mortar
position.

  Mac and Tosh Ash of the G Squadron SAS mortar group were both wounded by the same adoo bullet and evacuated by helicopter. Barry Davies was pulled back to take over command of the mortars.

  Mac felt a wave of tiredness and carefully laid the album down on the carpet. He was asleep, so Pauline answered the door the next morning when Jock called in, before returning to Aberdeen, to collect his photographs.

  As Jock left he noticed, as he had the previous evening, a black Volkswagen Polo parked close by the bus stop opposite Mac’s house. The driver, a woman in dark glasses, was reading a magazine and did not appear at all bothered when Jock walked purposefully in her direction.

  “Could you tell me the time?” He leaned over so that his face was close to hers.

  She smiled and wound down the window. “Nine-fifteen,” she said and returned to the pages of Cosmopolitan.

  Jock thanked her and returned to his car. The accent was Midlands with no foreign inflection, but that was no guarantee. Why was she there, and been there the previous day? Only a keen, suspicious eye would have picked up any significance in her presence, only somebody who knew of Mac’s uniquely hazardous status. Knowing the various terrorist organizations who might have good reason to fear and therefore to hate the SAS, Jock was fully aware that a man with Mac’s history and health would be a prime target for any of these groups.

  Distinctly uneasy, Jock stopped off at a pay phone in town and called his old comrade-in-arms and longtime friend Detective Constable Ken Borthwick of the Worcester Police. He would know whom to alert.

  38

  They met on a bench overlooking the Serpentine and surrounded by noisy Canada geese. Spike had not been in touch with Mason for almost a year and the latter was pleased at the short-notice summons.

  “Do you remember the events of January, February and March 1975 on the Dhofar jebel?”

  Mason was surprised by the question but he had good reason to recall the period with clarity.

  “I lost some good friends at the time. Do you want a potted history?”

  Spike nodded.

  “I was attached to Jebel Regiment for the disastrous attack on Sherishitti, an adoo weapons store, and I worked closely with their officers. Later, in mid-February, at a base called Hagaif, the soldiers from one of the companies involved at Sherishitti mutinied against their major and forced him to leave by night alone in his Land Rover into enemy territory. Three weeks later two of the remaining Hagaif officers and the pilot of their helicopter were shot down and killed. I knew all of them well.”

  Mason paused to light a cigar.

  “Four days after the Hagaif mutiny, at my own base close to the Yemen border, I spent the hairiest night of my life. Seven men from another company set out on a patrol via a narrow track below a cliff face. The adoo had sewn the track with PMN plastic mines and three of the men were hurt, two losing feet and a great deal of blood. A second group were sent to help but they too ran into mines and only added to the casualties. With another officer, I took a small unit out around midnight and carefully made it some seven hundred feet down the cliff to the first wounded man. There was little we could do but haul the mine victims up on stretchers. One died just before dawn. When I came to one of the wounded he held up the remains of his leg for me to dress. All he said was, ‘Al lahham, al qadam, kull khallas.’ The meat, the foot, all finished. “At every step we knew that our own feet might be blown into fragments. A bad night to remember.”

  Mason looked up and saw that Spike was waiting. “That was it. A period of setbacks, or so it seemed at the time. Soon after my friends crashed at Hagaif, two other Bells were shot out of the sky with further fatalities and an SAS Land Rover was destroyed east of Hagaif by a landmine.”

  “Did you know the occupants?”

  “Of the Land Rover? … Yes, probably, but not well enough to remember their names.”

  “Well, the driver was the finest mortar man in the regiment.” Spike took a sheet of A4 from his briefcase and scanned it. He put on spectacles to do so. Anno Domini, Mason thought wryly. “You will find his full name and personal details in a file I will give you.” Spike tapped his case. “When the Land Rover was blown up, he was thrown forward and badly injured. At the FST unit in Salalah the surgeon diagnosed that the part of his brain controlling his character had been damaged. I will call him Mac, the nickname used by his friends then and now. He appeared to recover very quickly and was soon able to rejoin his squadron out in Belize, sent there to counter the Guatemalan threat. He was promoted to sergeant but had increasing problems with concentration. His attention simply wandered from the job at hand.”

  Spike handed the file to Mason and continued. “About a year after the mine injury, the SAS were forced to retire Mac. He received a handsome Army pension and continued treatment by the very best military medicos. A rehabilitation course—he chose welding—was not a success and Mac retired to his home in Hereford and a succession of local jobs. His condition has slowly deteriorated but he still holds down a job and lives with his family and may well continue to do so for years to come.”

  Spike swiveled on the bench, looking directly at Mason. “As an Irishman, Mac is careful to keep a low profile—ex-directory and so on. I was called on Saturday night with a warning that somebody is having Mac watched. The police have checked that there is no evidence of known terrorist involvement, so they are not interested.”

  Mason was nodding. “You think it’s our friends again?”

  Spike gazed out over the water. “Milling … Kealy … Marman … all dead … Smythe missing. This may be our chance to catch the people responsible. Maybe not, but it is worth an effort.”

  Mason agreed and Spike promised him the support of three other Locals, including Hallett. He told Mason to warn Mac without alarming him unduly; also to give him an ankle-buzzer, a single-frequency alarm transmitter, which Spike handed to Mason in an envelope.

  “Search the local hotels for the Sumail men. The old photos may be a bit out of date but better than nothing.”

  When Mason left, Spike remained with the geese. The committee, he knew, would not approve. They would veto any further action involving the Dhofar-connected killings. That was why he had not asked them. For the first time he had instigated action by Locals without committee approval or even awareness. If they should find out, Spike realized, there would be a move to get rid of him. But they need never know, and he was damned if he would miss out on this chance to catch the killers.

  39

  In November 1986 Sheikh Bakhait received a video and file on the death of Major Michael Marman. A check for $1 million was paid to de Villiers, who passed on an appropriate amount to Davies.

  Meier’s death caused neither man undue concern but they were baffled by the origins of Smythe. His car, his clothing and his behavior had shed no light on his identity. The binoculars that he carried were almost antique, certainly not equipment on issue to field agents of Special Branch or the Secret Intelligence Service. They agreed that the two men who had previously crossed their path, during work on the sheikh’s contract, had been similarly difficult to classify.

  De Villiers shrugged. “We will get nowhere hypothesizing. Whoever they are, they cannot know our identities and they have only one more chance to intercept us.”

  De Villiers returned to Anne at La Pergole, tasking Davies to concentrate on locating the sheikh’s fourth man to the exclusion of all other work. This Davies proceeded to do with the utmost care. Not $1 million but $2 million were at stake for the completion of the sheikh’s contract. Even so, Davies was thoroughly wary.

  He spent an unprecedented amount of time in Cardiff with his wife and, since this frustrated her normal philandering, he found her difficult to please without maintaining a shower of expensive gifts, weekend flights to exotic spots and healthy checks for the business. In between bouts of wife-cosseting, Davies rented a small flat in Hereford and, over a five-month period, frequented a number of local pubs known to be
haunts of the SAS. He perpetuated his standard cover as an insurance salesman and became known as a congenial divorcée who liked nothing better than to dispense alcoholic largesse and enjoy good company. Determined to raise no suspicions, Davies asked no questions and merely bided his time, listening and waiting for the right contact.

  Sheikh Amr had been specific. His son had died fighting Sultanate troops near Sherishitti on that fatal day in January 1975. Together with two other jebalis of the Bin Dhahaib unit he had been killed by a mortar barrage from the army position on the twin bald hills to the east of Zakhir. De Villiers’s discovery of the book SAS Operation Oman had revealed that the man in charge of the mortars on that day was not, as they had thought, a Sultan’s Forces soldier but rather an SAS mortar controller.

  In May 1987 Davies joined two of his Hereford pub acquaintances for a meal at a fish and chip shop called Chancers. He was introduced to the owner, a friendly, hard-drinking fellow who also owned an adjacent wine bar and upstairs restaurant. Davies became a regular patron of the wine bar and a confidant of its owner, Tosh Ash, ex-member of G Squadron SAS.

  Tosh and his wife had in 1986 purchased the Golden Galleon fish and chip shop and the adjoining premises. They had worked hard to convert the site and lived in a comfortable flat above the restaurant. By the following spring the place was a proper little gold mine and the wine bar attracted many of the older SAS men of Tosh’s generation, who enjoyed the atmosphere of the long, narrow bar, audiovisual jukebox and ceiling-suspended monitor screens, as well as palatable wine at good prices.

  Despite Davies’s growing friendship with Tosh and the fact that he was not after information that could conceivably be described as classified, let alone secret, the months passed with no sign of progress. Davies knew that, to an SAS man, secrecy is a fetish. All his careful preparations would be wasted were he to ask a single question out of place. So he kept his patience and explained the delay as best he could when de Villiers made inquiring phone calls.