Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men)

by Ranulph Fiennes

  “Which files?” Macpherson asked her.

  “The Dhofar-connection deaths, 1977–87,” she replied.

  “Do you think he really intends to go to have them published?” Spike asked.

  “If he was able to think clearly about the results of such a book,” Macpherson replied, “no I don’t. But the man is, in my opinion, no longer compos mentis. I am not worried for myself but we must not allow the founder’s good name or yours to be falsely tarnished by the warped and inaccurate version of events that Bletchley’s deranged blatherings are likely to be. His revelations, in the hands of the wrong MP, caring nothing for the truth, could be immensely damaging and serve to blemish the founder’s enormous achievements for this country.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Spike.

  “I will privately approach the top libel lawyer, Peter Carter-Ruck, for advice. Maybe such a book could be stopped on some libel basis. I will let you know but there is something else that may make it impossible for Bletchley ever to write this or any book.” He passed Spike a single typed sheet of A4.

  “Before you read that, let me tell you something of Bletchley’s background. He was adopted when his parents were killed in a train crash in the 1920s. After Sandhurst he joined a rifle regiment in 1938 and saw action against the Italians in the western desert in the early forties. He was one of only a few officers with desert experience to be promoted to the Army Staff in Cairo and he did an excellent job, which greatly helped turn the tables on Rommel. At the end of the war he faced rank reduction from lieutenant-colonel to captain, so he left to become an accountant.”

  “A far cry from his current City preeminence,” Spike commented.

  “Quite so,” Macpherson agreed. “But his timing was good and he ‘left the profession’ at a time of postwar expansion to become finance director of an independent company. He never looked back and retired at fifty-five in 1972 to a plethora of nonexecutive directorships and top charity appointments. Until his illness developed, everybody admired him. He was the perfect chairman: respectable, pedantic and safe, undeniably clever and rich in influential friends.”

  “What is his health problem?” Spike asked. “Does anybody know?”

  Macpherson nodded at the paper he had given Spike. “Read it,” he said. “If I am right—and all the symptoms seem to fit—then Bletchley was first affected, in character only, in the early seventies. The physical signs first became marked only last year. That précis was prepared for me by a friend in Edinburgh.”

  Spike read the text aloud: “In 1872 the American, George Huntington, first defined a disease, which is now named after him, as Hereditary Chorea (chorea means to dance). Huntington wrote, ‘The disease is confined to few families and has been transmitted to them as an heirloom from generations way back in the dim past. It is spoken of by those in whose veins the seeds of the disease are known to exist with a kind of horror. The disease is now understood a great deal better and certain drugs can delay its dread progress although it is still classified as incurable. One in every 20,000 people worldwide is affected.

  “ ‘Twenty or even forty years may separate the first tiny mood changes that signal the onset, from the chronic mental and physical afflictions that lead to death, usually by asphyxiation whilst eating.

  “ ‘The disease may strike at any time and, when the onset is first experienced only after fifty years of age, the victim can continue with intellectually demanding work for many years, providing the subject is familiar.

  “ ‘If either or both parents have the disease, then one or more of their children will sooner or later suffer from it. However, since they may remain apparently healthy until they are middle-aged or older, they are likely to marry and infect further generations.

  “ ‘Once the disease decides to show itself, the deterioration, though often imperceptible day by day, is inexorable. The victim may suffer no physical problems for some years but his or her character will undergo insidious change. Friends and family will be upset and hurt. Divorce may follow. Inevitably, sooner or later, certain muscles will spasm and this will gradually spread through the body until each and every voluntary muscle is shaken puppet-like.’ ”

  “Luckily,” Macpherson commented, “Bletchley never married.”

  “Poor devil,” said Spike. “I would not wish such horrors on any man.”

  “He may yet write a book,” Macpherson said. “He may retain at least partial clarity for years to come.”

  44

  Eleven years after de Villiers’s meeting with Sheikh Amr, he returned to Dubai in December 1987 to collect the final payment of $2 million from his son Bakhait. The assignment had cost him the lives of both his Clinic colleagues. Tadnams checked thoroughly but no whisper ever surfaced as to Davies’s fate. De Villiers did not waste time, nor gray hairs, on useless theories.

  In a way the deaths of his colleagues, assuming Davies was dead, were a bonus. Not only would the Dubai payout remain all his but any threat in years to come from ghosts in his past was minimized.

  Bakhait’s younger brother, the junior partner in their retailing empire, welcomed de Villiers but showed no interest in the purpose of his visit. That whole matter had nothing to do with anyone but Bakhait, who was absent. “He has been in Iran for seven months now. I have done all I can to have him released.”

  “Released?” De Villiers did not understand.

  “Yes. He is in the Gohar Dasht prison. The Pasdari, the Revolutionary Guards, arrested him on some pretext of spying for Iraq. It is, of course, untrue, although he spent much time on business in both countries. It is a trumped-up charge to earn foreign currency.”

  “How so?” de Villiers asked.

  “They knew I would send money to obtain his release. Those mullahs are devils. Each time they make contact, it is a different man and each time it is to say they need more money. To carry out an investigation into my brother’s innocence is, they maintain, a very expensive business.”

  “So when will he be free?”

  The Dhofari shook his head, his normally friendly face creased with worry. “All I get is promises. I dare not hope too much anymore. I continue to send the money and to look after his family. Insh’ Allah he does not suffer and will come back to us soon.”

  De Villiers contained his feelings. There was no good to be had from venting his frustration. He was owed $2 million, and once he was paid, he was freed of any further involvement. No more contracts. No more contact with the agencies. Only Anne and La Pergole. He could see that fate had placed him in an impasse with no course of action other than patience. Bakhait was the only signatory to the checks and de Villiers was not about to bust Bakhait from an ayatollah’s jail.

  De Villiers left Dubai with the promise that, as soon as Bakhait was released and returned home, Bakhait’s younger brother would call him. He retained the video taken in Mac’s bedroom as well as the report on the Clinic’s relevant actions and Mac’s obituary in the Evening News, a local Hereford paper.

  45

  … In July 1990, on a cool and lovely day, they rode through the vineyards to the Vrede Huis ruins and enjoyed the sunset as they discussed the summer house they planned to build in the clearing.

  Anne must have caught a cold, or so de Villiers thought at first. Flu followed, with a bad cough and breathlessness.

  The doctor came but Anne did not respond to antibiotics. De Villiers drove her to the hospital with fullblown pneumonia, and an X ray showed that her lungs were infected by pneumocystis. There being nothing else wrong with her health, the doctors began to suspect the AIDS virus and, two days later, informed de Villiers that Anne was HIV positive. The doctors agreed that the source was likely to have been the blood transfusion she had received after the road accident four years before.

  De Villiers was devastated. He felt personally to blame. Anne appeared to take the news calmly. “God will look after me,” she murmured. “Will you be able to visit me, my love?”

  He vowed to stay with her
. He telephoned hospitals and specialists in Europe and the United States. He wanted only the very best treatment for Anne and the most up-to-date drugs. They had no insurance to cover treatment for an incurable disease, and as full-time, unpaid foreman at La Pergole, he had earned no money for three years. Jan Fontaine had left many bad debts and although they had coped by eating into his invested capital and then by selling off parts of the estate, de Villiers knew he could not hope to pay for the top-class treatment he was determined Anne should receive. For the present they remained in South Africa and he visited her daily. He became an avid reader of medical journals on all AIDS-related topics, searching for mentions of hopeful-sounding breakthroughs.

  In the long hours spent by her bedside he marveled at the unshakable confidence and serenity Anne obtained through her religious beliefs. He too, for the first time in his life, began to think and talk about God; sometimes even to believe. He prayed for her deliverance, for a miracle cure or at least a remission.

  There was plenty of time to reflect on his own life. Slowly, painfully, he allowed himself to think back through its dark pages, to ask for forgiveness and purge himself, one by one, of the killings.

  The day came when, for the first time, he willed back the long-dormant memories, so long and forcefully shut away, of the color and the horror of the night in Vancouver when his family died.

  The little blond Anna, his youngest sister: they had never found her body. Try as he might he could not bring back the details of her features. He saw only the face of his sleeping Anne and, confused subconsciously by all his medical reading, the dreadful marks of Karposi’s sarcoma ravaging her skin.

  On August 22 he received a call at La Pergole from the Tadnams office in Earls Court. The client in Dubai required contact.

  De Villiers telephoned and, to his surprise, was answered by Bakhait.

  He told Anne, as he said goodbye, that he would return just as soon as he could. He would not go but for the fact that it was his best chance of paying for her treatment in Washington or Los Angeles, in a place where he could have a bed beside hers, and where they might even have a cure before very long …

  46

  In August 1990 Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to pull out of territory they had won from the Iranians after years of bitter fighting and at a cost of many lives. Towns that to Iraqis in 1990 meant as much as Verdun and Passchendaele to Europeans in the 1920s were given up overnight. The pull-out from Meymak, Mehran and the Kalleh Qandi heights in Ilem province was accompanied by Saddam’s announcement of the release of some 50,000 prisoners of war.

  President Rafsanjani was naturally delighted by this unexpected largesse from his archenemy, and on August 18 the first 1,000 Iraqi prisoners were released by Tehran. Bakhait came out with a later batch on August 21 and vowed never to do business with either country again.

  After an extravagant welcome-back feast in Dubai and an updating on the affairs of the business, Bakhait learned that de Villiers had, two years before, completed the thaa’r.

  De Villiers could see immediately that Bakhait had not enjoyed his time in Iran. He was thin and cadaverous, his hair had receded and he walked with a faint stoop. Certainly he looked far older than his thirty-one years and had lost his natural bonhomie. Nevertheless, he made de Villiers welcome and apologized for his earlier absence.

  After the customary coffee and small talk Bakhait studied the Clinic’s written report on the location and identification stages of the fourth operation. He looked at the photographs, the medical reports and the obituary, then slotted the video in place and watched Mac, apparently listening from his bed, being accused by de Villiers of killing Bakhait’s brother Mahad.

  The Dhofari, showing no sign of emotion, wrote out a check for $1 million.

  “As regards the final payment, for completing the entire assignment, I have a single query. Yesterday I forced myself to review the earlier films. As you know I did not agree with the pursuance of this whole matter, but I am a man of my word and I pledged my father on his deathbed that I would see the family thaa’r through to its end and reestablish our good name in our homeland.”

  De Villiers nodded, quite unaware of what was to come.

  “The Kealy film and the Marman video raise no doubts in my mind, but the Milling film should have been queried when first you showed it to me. I was at the time eighteen years old and I made the mistake of accepting evidence which, I can see now, will not only prove inadequate but may raise doubts in the minds of the relevant Jarboatis in Dhofar as to the correct identification of the killers of my other three brothers.”

  The original Milling Super 8 film footage had been transferred onto video and together they watched as de Villiers accused John Milling of killing Salim bin Amr. When the film ended Bakhait raised his arms.

  “Can you not see the problem?”

  “No,” said de Villiers. “I have no problem with that.”

  “But Inspector Milling clearly states that he did not kill my brother Salim. He even tells you that the officer responsible for the ambush openly admitted his role in a book.”

  “That is true,” de Villiers agreed, “but I have experienced such flights of the imagination from condemned men on other occasions. It is not uncommon. If Milling had really known of such a book, he would certainly have known its title and the name of its author. He would have revealed both key points then and there. Surely you can see that?”

  “You assume that he had no honor.” Bakhait gave a small smile. “I look at this man Milling’s face and I see a strong personality. A soldier who would not have another man killed to save his own neck.”

  “With all due respect,” said de Villiers, “I cannot agree with you. We are talking of a European, not a Muslim.”

  “You are very cynical about your own race,” Bakhait commented.

  “I am not European but, yes, I have over the years noted a different set of priorities between the true followers of Islam and the majority of Western Christians.”

  Bakhait stared straight at de Villiers. The Dhofari’s face was set. “I cannot accept the thaa’r as settled nor my pledge complete until this is thoroughly checked out. Did you search at all for a book such as Milling refers to?”

  “We contacted main retailers in New York and London. There was no such book available.”

  “Does that mean it does not exist?”

  “Not at all, but the circumstances did not warrant an exhaustive search due to the rationale I have already explained. It is conceivable that some officer had printed a book privately rather than through a known publisher. Or there may have been such a book but, by the time of our inquiry, it might have gone out of print, become unavailable.”

  “So a more detailed check would be needed to entirely eliminate the possibility that Milling’s ‘book’ exists or existed?”

  De Villiers nodded.

  Bakhait was a successful businessman. Ambitious and anxious to make up time wasted in the stinking Iranian jail, he wished above all to succeed in his own homeland. He had complete confidence that he could expand the business not just to Muscat and Salalah but throughout Oman. He could become a senior citizen, a minister. There was no end to the possibilities. He already shone in the Gulf States but, as he had grown older, the urge for recognition in his own land had become a grail of which he had often dreamed in the long Tehran nights.

  The other side of the coin was the thaa’r. The family of his cousin Hamoud would not wish to see him back. Without exoneration and acceptance by the Jarboati elders, he could never be safe, nor could his young family, without constant vigilance. He did not wish to spend his life looking over his shoulder.

  He addressed de Villiers as he would his accountant. “I would like you to check thoroughly the assertion of Inspector Milling. All your expenses will be covered. If, as I personally expect, you find that an error has been made, then that is God’s will; you will not be to blame. But my father’s wishes, to which I am bound, were to avenge all four kil
lers of his sons, my brothers. One of these killers may still be alive. The payment cannot therefore be made. Either we must have incontrovertible proof that there is no such book and never was one or we discover that the book and the author exist, in which case you still have work to do.”

  Between 1977 and 1990 considerable progress was made by many libraries and retailers in the computerization of their books by title and by author. This did not help de Villiers, who knew neither detail. He knew only the subject matter and, to within five or six years, the publication date.

  Back in London he visited a number of shops, starting with Hatchards and Harrods, then branching out to lesser-known but well-stocked shops dealing in secondhand books. When asked, as he often was, for the book’s general classification, he guessed at War, History, and Arabia.

  After a frustrating week, he finally made progress on September 17. Arthur Probsthain & Co.’s Oriental Bookshop was one of many shops that he telephoned. The receptionist who answered his call passed him to a Mrs. Sheringham, whose accent sounded Germanic and who, according to the receptionist, knew everything about every book ever published.

  “Good afternoon, my name is Lawrence. I am researching on Middle East matters and am looking for a book on the Dhofar war in Oman, Arabia. Do you have anything that deals with the late-sixties period of that conflict?” After a number of forays from her end of the phone, the redoubtable Mrs. Sheringham finally established three possible titles and their publishers.

  Thanking her and cursing to himself, for he had earnestly hoped for a negative outcome to his search, he called the publisher of the most likely of the three titles, Hodder & Stoughton of Bedford Square in London. The receptionist passed de Villiers to the publicity department, as was her wont with all inquiries about noncurrent titles.

  “Kate Farquhar-Thompson. Publicity. Can I help?”