Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men)

by Ranulph Fiennes

  Inch by inch I lifted my rifle. The sun was in the east behind the man, outlining him. Only his shadow falling on the thicket shielded my eyes, stinging with sweat, from the direct glare. He peered straight at me now. I remember thinking, He has seen us. He is weighing his chances.

  My voice seemed to come of its own volition. “Drop your weapons or we will kill you.”

  The big man moved with incredible speed, twisting at the knee and bringing the Kalashnikov to bear in a single, fluid movement. I squeezed the trigger automatically. The guerrilla was slammed backward as though caught in the chest by a sledgehammer. His limbs spread like a puppet and he cartwheeled out of sight down the grassy slope.

  Behind him the other man paused for a moment, unsure what to do. I became aware of his face beneath the jungle cap.

  He looked sad and faintly surprised. His rifle, a Mark IV .303, was already pointed at my stomach when a flurry of shots rang out. Two of my section fired simultaneously.

  The man’s face crumpled into a bloody pulp, the nose and eyes smashed back into the brain. Bullets tore through his ribs and a pretty flowering thorn bush caught his body at the top of the grassy slope.

  My signaler crawled on his belly from the thicket. There might be other adoo behind these two. Expertly he searched the corpse, bringing back rifle, ammunition and a large satchel stuffed with documents.

  I glanced south: the bush was glinting with movement, dark forms scurrying toward us through the scrub. There was little time for making decisions; the other sections would be awaiting orders.

  I flicked the national radio switch, no longer bothering to whisper.

  “All stations! Five! Withdraw now … over.”

  Fatigue forgotten, the men needed no encouragement and broke from their hides to fan out in a long, straggling line. Speed was their only hope and they moved with the wings of fear. Shots sounded from behind but no intercepting group materialized in front of us and the adoo never quite caught up with our retreat.

  Back in Thamrait the soldiers slept like dead men but I found sleep elusive. I had often shot at people hundreds of yards away, vague shapes behind rocks who were busy firing back; but never before had I seen a man’s soul in his eyes, sensed his vitality as a fellow human and then watched his body ripped apart at the pressure of my finger.

  I tried to force away the image of his destruction but his scarred face stayed watching me from my subconscious. A part of me that was still young and uncynical had died with him and his comrade, the commissar, spread-eagled on a thorn bush.

  The memory passed as quickly as it came. The man behind the flashlight spoke again. “The need for justice is not eliminated by the passage of time. You will go now back to your car and drive to the point where you dispose of the bags every week on Monday evening. You will get out and unload the bags. No more, no less. Do nothing stupid, for we will have you covered at all times.”

  One of the man’s colleagues hissed for silence, whispering, “I saw movement by the roadside.”

  Two men went out to check. I could see little, my vision impaired by the flashlight.

  It must have been a false alarm, for the men returned and I was prodded back to the Montego’s driving seat, one man climbing into the seat beside me. My brain raced. I remembered the old Army maxim taught during resistance to interrogation training: make your escape move as soon as possible after being caught. Desperately I tried to concoct a workable plan.

  My passenger spoke. He had a hard, East London accent. “Wait until the Volvo moves out. Then go. They will turn left out of the lane. You go right and down the hill as you normally do. Do not exceed fifteen miles per hour.” My brain continued to race, but in neutral. No plan of action materialized. I felt like a rabbit in the presence of snakes.

  I counted four men climbing into the Volvo immediately ahead. As the fourth closed his door, it happened. From the lane’s T-junction with the road some fifteen yards ahead an intense white light beamed down the lane. My eyes hurt and I turned away, clutching at them and fearing I was blinded. I expected the sound of bullets and shrank back behind the steering wheel. But I heard only the noise of breaking glass and a quickly cut-off scream.

  The passenger door of the Montego was flung open and the man beside me disappeared as though sucked from the car. The all-consuming light was switched off and the night was black as pitch, the silence punctured only by the sound of oaths and muffled violence. This tailed away but for the scuff of rubber soles on tarmac. Then a car started up and someone climbed into the Montego. I felt a hand grip my shoulder and a friendly voice said, “Cheer up. They’ve all gone. You’re in no danger.”

  My vision slowly began to return.

  “Thank you, officer,” I said. “Are you from Dulverton, or Minehead?” I found myself naming the two district police stations.

  “Don’t you worry where we’re from. Just hang on right there a minute and I’ll explain.”

  Dimly I saw a vehicle reverse into the lane with only its side lights on; almost certainly a Range Rover, judging by its silhouette. On its roof an orange glow and the glinting parabola of a satellite dish, probably the light source. Doors slammed and the vehicle accelerated away. A large van then reversed toward us, similar to a standard high-roofed Transit laundry van. The back doors were opened and an interior roof light revealed an empty, cell-like cargo space lined with mattresses.

  Four men approached the Montego, all with dark ski goggles hanging loose around their necks and carrying what appeared to be police truncheons. Their faces were streaked with black lines and unrecognizable. The man beside me spoke rapidly and the others dispersed. Soon I watched as five figures, all with their hands on their heads, entered the rear of the van. The doors were closed and the vehicle drove off, heading north toward Porlock.

  “Come back for a drink,” I said, trying to make out the features of my rescuer. “I would like my wife to meet you. I really can’t thank you enough. Who were those people?”

  “Call me Spike.” He shook my hand. “Don’t be surprised but I am not from the police and nor are my men. We are your friends and we have hunted those men for a long time. A very long time. Who were they? Well, that will take a wee while to explain.”

  “Whoever you represent, Spike, I will forever be grateful, but come back to the house—”

  He lifted his hand. “Do you trust me?” he asked quietly.

  “Of course.”

  “Listen. I have a great deal to do and very little time. I must ask you to speak to no one at all about all this. Your car is undamaged. No one has touched you. The police will think you have had a bad dream, to put it politely, if you tell them what happened. They will ask what has been stolen and they will look for motives.”

  He paused but I said nothing. I could see the sense of his words.

  “On Thursday you will be driving to London. Correct?”

  “Why, yes. How do you know?” I asked.

  “Never mind. Come to this address at 11:30 p.m.,” he said, scribbling on the back of a card and giving it to me, “and I will personally explain everything. Until then tell no one, not even your wife. There’s no point in upsetting her. Remember this, you are no longer in any danger. All those who wished you ill are accounted for. Okay? Do you agree?”

  I felt I could trust this man. His features were clearer to me now. He had a large, careworn face. His gravelly voice was North Country and steady.

  “No problem,” I told him. “I will see you on Thursday and talk to no one.”

  He shook my hand again. “You’d better dump the rubbish and get back home or your wife will think the Highland cows got you.” He smiled and left. His car must have been along the Porlock Road.

  I emptied the trailer and returned home. My wife seemed to notice nothing amiss. “Your supper’s in the oven,” she said.

  49

  On Thursday, October 25, 1990, I represented Dr. Hammer at the annual dinner of the International Board of the United World Colleges. Many me
mbers from various countries, such as Sonny Ramphal, Secretary General of the Commonwealth, had come to say farewell to their long-serving director, who happened to be a personal friend of mine. I was very sorry indeed to see him go, but my mind was filled with curiosity and a certain degree of apprehension about my imminent visit to see the man called Spike.

  From the dinner in Mecklenburgh Square, I drove my American colleagues back to Claridges, then walked through Grosvenor Square, and reached the address on South Audley Street at 11:30 p.m.

  Spike, respectable in a gray suit, ushered me into the hallway. The house appeared to be both office and home, well furnished but functional, and we climbed the stairs to a sitting room, expensively decorated, where Spike introduced me to the “Colonel,” a fit-looking man, probably in his late sixties. I recognized him at once although at least ten years had passed since the days of the committee meetings in which we had both participated.

  “You are surprised?” Colonel Macpherson smiled. “Wondering perhaps how I could possibly be involved with such reprobates as Spike here? I will explain. Do sit down.”

  He sat behind a fine, dark desk and, a master of economy with words, explained that he was part of a small group of people around the country who, for a dozen years and more, had hunted a band of contract killers in the pay of a Dubai merchant. These men sought to carry out revenge murders in return for the deaths of the merchant’s four sons during the Dhofar fighting in the late sixties and early seventies.

  I shook my head in amazement. Had such a tit-for-tat feud involved the IRA, I could easily have believed it, but all the Arabs I had ever known were gentle folk who believed in the will of Allah and seldom bore grudges. Nevertheless, the colonel was deadly serious and I could certainly think of no other possible rationale for the events in the barn.

  “May I ask what happened to the other men they were after?”

  Macpherson shook his head sadly. “Our people were not able to prevent their deaths. In your case we were in the right place at the right time. We had watched them watching you for the previous three weeks, but we were never sure where they would strike until one of our men pointed out that your only recurrent weekly activity was your dustbin removal. We predicted their strike and Spike was ready with eight others and suitable gear.”

  “And the killers? Where are they now?”

  Macpherson looked at me closely. “Ranulph, I know something of your past. I know that your nonfiction books have sold well, that you were in the SAS and, of course, the Sultan’s Armed Forces. Fate has brought you into contact with us, however briefly, and at the same time into contact with the contract killers.”

  He paused, but I made no comment.

  “After much soul-searching, we have reached a decision. This has been forced upon us and we do not take it lightly. It is the lesser of two evils. We have reason to believe that one of our past members, now an ill man, intends to publish a book about our existence and our past activities. This book will be a sadly warped version of the truth.” He turned to Spike and nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Rather than have this happen,” Spike said, “we have concluded that we need the true story told.” I listened carefully, for his voice was low and expressionless. “The other would-be author must find that he has been preempted and no publisher will reckon it commercially worthwhile to take on his vitriolic tale.”

  “May I ask how you are so sure this other man’s account will be as you describe it?”

  “We have a lady friend,” Spike replied, “who works as his secretary. About two weeks ago she saw the outline synopsis of his work—a tissue of distortion, as she described it—and was horrified.”

  He tapped two folders that lay on his lap. “She has copied a series of papers held by this man—I will call him Bletchley—and given them to us. They are the detailed reports by our field operators on their attempts to catch the contract killers. Bletchley intends to base his book very largely on these papers, so we must do the same. We always protect the names of our people, but some will, through these files, be known to Bletchley, and if you decide to write our book, we can make them available to you along with the contents of these files.”

  “What other materials would I have?” I asked.

  “The full and very detailed results of my debriefing of the senior contract killer. It amounts to his life story and, contrary to what you might expect, is not that of an archetypal villain. You will also be able to ask me whatever questions you feel appropriate and necessary to complete your account of the events.”

  “Is the aim to produce a story of your group’s history?”

  “Negative. We can tell you only about our involvement in the long hunt for the people who planned to kill you on Monday.”

  My head swam. I never sit on decisions. I believe in intuition. If I were to agree to this book, I would have to shelve my novel and many months of work on it. On the other hand, I could always publish the novel in a year or two, whereas this offer was on a “now or never” basis. There was another issue too. I instinctively liked these people and felt a deep, personal gratitude to them.

  “Spike, Colonel, I do not want to sound ungrateful but I must ask you three up-front queries. It may take me a long time to write your book, assuming I find a literary agent willing to take it on. I am expecting to lose my job with Armand Hammer in the near future and I have a wife and farm to support. Will the revenue from the book be mine?”

  “All of it,” Macpherson replied. “We want only a widely published work giving a fair and balanced picture of the events.”

  “Secondly,” I pressed, “since it is my name that will appear as author, any libel suits that may result will be directed at me, not you. I will, therefore, need to go and see anybody mentioned by name, even the next of kin of the dead men, to obtain their approval.”

  Again Macpherson nodded. “Obviously the next of kin will know nothing of the killers, but they will be able to tell you what they think happened to their husbands. So you will be able to cross-check what we tell you.”

  “Good. My third point concerns my own safety. How will I know that the people in Dubai will not hire other men to kill me?”

  Spike smiled. “You have my personal assurance. One of our men will be in Dubai next week. You will never be troubled again.”

  “I will write your book,” I told them, “providing the facts tally and, of course, assuming I can find an agent and publisher.”

  We shook hands. For the next three weeks, whenever my normal work allowed, I met Spike in the same room, and together we prepared a framework by which I could relate the events accurately but in a readable manner. For a while there were two areas of disagreement. I needed the real name of a real person within the Feather Men in order to authenticate the book.

  “You have at least twenty real names already,” Spike had protested.

  “I do not have yours or the colonel’s.”

  “You do,” he replied with a smile. “Simply check the names of your 1979 Export Committee.” He became serious. “We had already identified the need for an indisputable means of authentication. Much as the colonel dislikes the idea, there is no alternative. You will have his identity.”

  “And yours?”

  “That,” said Spike, “will not be necessary.”

  My second problem was an inability to explain to prospective readers, at an early stage of the book, the nature of the work of the Feather Men. I needed a single example, but Spike refused with persistence. Involvement with the killers, yes; any other operation, definitely not. In the end I made my point and was given an account of a 1976 action in Bristol involving two of Spike’s men whose identities would anyway be revealed by the book.

  On November 6 Spike informed me that the man he had sent to Dubai, his Arab specialist, had just called him. He had seen the sheikh the previous day and shown him a photograph of de Villiers in captivity as well as the video taken in the Exmoor barn. Under threat of exposure to the Royal Oman Police and t
he British authorities, the sheikh had handed over the original films and video copies of the previous activities by the killers. He also promised, in the name of God, that he would cease all further involvement with his father’s thaa’r. The aim of his father had been to reinstate his sons in Dhofar. That, he could see, was no longer an option.

  During the winter of 1990 and the following spring, I traced and visited twenty-six people who were still alive and, wittingly or unwittingly, had been involved with the events of Spike’s story. Some aspects of his account initially struck me as implausible in the extreme but again and again I found that the facts and the figures tallied.

  Since none of those I approached knew of, or even suspected, the contract killers’ intentions, I had to present the series of events, especially the point where their own lives had been affected, as pure hypothesis. This was especially important in the case of the next of kin of the four men, whom I had no wish to alarm or distress.

  After reading the field reports of Spike’s Locals, I met three of them and tried to ascertain their personal motivations and memories of the events. As they were instinctively reticent, I was not as successful as I would have wished, except in the case of David Mason, with whom I was at an advantage as I had known him in Oman, in Antarctica and in London. I had always thought of him as a rather cool and arrogant individual. But after three long interviews with him to discuss his reports in depth, I came away with a very different picture. He cared deeply for certain principles and people. His strength of character and the depth of his resolve were awesome. I would not have wanted him as an enemy.

  I decided to include the SAS Headquarters in my list of people to visit, but Spike advised against it. “They will kick you out of the door, Ran. Forget it. Any noncurricular activity is anathema to them. They know nothing about us nor have we ever involved any of their members, past or present.”