Killer Elite

by Ranulph Fiennes

  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 pr
oblem?”

  “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 killers 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 amp; 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 amp; 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?”

  “I believe you have a book about the Dhofar war in 1969 written by an ex-Army officer.” De Villiers gave her the title. “Do you have a copy, please, or know where I can get one?”

  After several minutes the girl returned sounding pleased with herself. “We have no copies left. It went out of print in early 1977, was reprinted in ’78 and no copies have been available for eleven years. Sorry.”

  “Is there no way I can borrow or copy some sort of master copy of the book?”

  “Not with us but maybe a secondhand bookshop, you never know.”

  De Villiers could see he had run out of options. He contacted Tadnams for the first time in months and was relieved to find one of his old contacts. It was agreed they would “do a drag” for the book as soon as staff was available.

  In fact de Villiers found the book for himself in a run-down antique shop in Kilburn. The book was battered and dog-eared with various paragraphs heavily underlined, some pages removed, and comments scribbled in the margins by, de Villiers deduced, an ultra-left-wing student in the seventies.

  He was charged twenty-five pence for the book and went back to his hotel to read the key passages.

  There was no doubt in his mind. They should not have killed Milling. He could see only too clearly why the error had been made. At the time the Clinic knew only that their target was the white officer in charge of Operation Snatch. They had learned from Brigadier Maxwell and others that there was only one Army unit in the region of Operation Snatch and that the only officer from that unit involved in Operation Snatch was the then Captain John Milling… QED.

  The book, however, now revealed to de Villiers that the adoo had been deceived into making more or less the same false assumption as had the Clinic. The sultan’s Intelligence officer, one Tom Greening, was a clever sod who had secretly ordered up a roving desert unit from the South Yemen border zone and sent them by night to execute the ambush many hours away from their normal patrol area. Had the real Operation Snatch officer not written this book, Milling’s identification would never have been questioned.

  As it was, in light of this new information de Villiers had no option but to call Bakhait.

  “You are quite sure this is the man?” Bakhait asked.

  “A hundred percent,” de Villiers replied. “I have it in black and white.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “I believe so.”

  “If he is, go ahead.”

  De Villiers telephoned Tadnams. They suggested he check the Who’s Who of International Writers. “It gives all authors’ updated addresses,” he was told.

  47

  Darrell Hallett had time on his hands. He had recently passed his yearly relicensing exams and continued success could mean promotion to Area Manager. Life-insurance sales was a highly competitive business and Hallett was determined to do well. Right now, however, after the exertions of the exams, he had given himself a few days’ rest. He took his rod and tackle down to the river and
spent many happy hours with the latest Colin Thubron book in his lap and a straw in his mouth.

  Next day, October 5, the weather precluded fishing, so he decided to pursue his other great hobby, collecting travel books. His favorite topics were sailing, mountaineering and wild river journeys, but he also collected all books by certain travel authors and, where possible, had them signed.

  Hallett telephoned a number of publishers including Hodder amp; Stoughton, whose book list included more travel subjects than most of their competitors. Hallett was put through to Kate Farquhar-Thompson in the publicity department and he asked for a copy of a book about a Canadian river journey entitled Headless Valley. She disappeared, presumably to a computer.

  “Sorry about the delay,” she said cheerily. “It’s odd. Someone rang not long ago about the same author. He wanted his book on some Arab war. I’m afraid it’s the same for you as it was for him. We have no copies left. Headless Valley is out of print. You will have to try the secondhand shops. You could make a start with Foyles… okay?”

  She was about to hang up. He could hear her other phone.

  “Wait a second,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  He paused, not quite certain what was niggling him.

  “Listen. Thanks very much for your advice… Can you tell me who called you about the Arab war book?”

  “No,” she replied after a pause. “Sorry, but it was two or three weeks ago and I get a lot of inquiries. I think he was foreign. Maybe American… I think he mentioned Amman or Oman.”

  He thanked her, hung up, and reached for a brown book on his top bookshelf. It was a long shot but Hallett believed in the saying “Better safe than sorry.” He called Spike.