Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men) (40 page)

He reached for his coffee and gulped at it greedily, spilling some down his shirt and over the table. For a while he could not talk and his head jerked sideways in a series of violent spasms. The condition slowly eased, although his shoulders continued to shake and beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. Nobody spoke.

Again a burst of indignation and anger. “How
dare
you, Allen, follow your own private war, which this has undoubtedly become, and without reference to the committee? You have caused untold harm. If this escalates, even our founder’s name will be besmirched. Everything I, many of us, have built up over so many years, all torn down by your stupidity. There is but one course now and that is damage control. The committee must disappear from being and, I tell you now, I will personally consider what I shall do to protect my own reputation.”

Drained, Bletchley slumped like a dying spider. Jane watched him with obvious concern but did nothing. Mantell filled the gap. “I can only agree with our chairman’s decision. Extremely sad though it makes me, any course other than disbandment would be to court extreme unpleasantness for each and every one of us. I suggest a show of hands.” There was a general nodding of heads and the matter was put to an open vote.

Only Graves and Tommy abstained; the rest voted in favor of disbandment. Mantell telephoned the founder
and relayed his vote, which, to the unspoken surprise of most people present, was in favor of Bletchley’s motion: immediate closure and destruction of all records. Existing business was to be curtailed as neatly and speedily as possible by Mantell working alongside Spike.

The Feather Men, it appeared, ceased to exist as of Monday, December 14, 1987.

The following morning Macpherson took a further step since, with no further action from the Feather Men, he feared the possibility of an unchecked continuation of the Dhofar-connection killings. During his 1983–84 tenancy of the office of High Sheriff of Greater London, he had made many police friends. Now he telephoned the most senior of them to ask for an immediate off-the-record meeting.

Later that day he told his friend that certain people with whom he had served in the past had uncovered the fact of, but not the motive behind, a series of murders of ex-Forces personnel. The most recent incident involved Mac in Hereford, and there was reason to believe a man thought to have been killed two days previously in a road accident on the A49 was one of the killers. He knew no more and could say no more, but could the four cases be reexamined?

The police officer called Macpherson back three days later. There was no mention of any death on the A49. “We have looked at the files on the deaths that occurred in the United Kingdom and we cannot see any grounds for reopening them unless some new motive and/or evidence is produced.”

Macpherson had expected this response, but felt he owed his action to those who had tried to protect the killers’ targets. He received a worried call from Jane the following week and as a result met up with her and Spike at the London office of the founder. Jane, torn between her loyalty to the movement as a whole and her
personal devotion to Bletchley, owned up to an action she much regretted. At Bletchley’s insistence and in the state of shock that followed disbandment, she had taken Bletchley a single clutch of files before undertaking the soul-destroying business of burning all the records that she had lovingly prepared, collated and filed for so many years.

Only when she had delivered the files had Bletchley made clear his reason for wanting them. He had made up his mind to write a book and reveal how
his
movement had been derailed by Macpherson and others, how even the founder himself had been hoodwinked into condoning the following of dangerous, unethical paths, how a magnificent and pure concept had been dragged into a mire of vigilantism, and how he, Bletchley, disassociated himself from the unfortunate results. He had appeared terrified lest his zealously nurtured reputation be blemished by a police investigation and the resultant publicity owing to the Davies fiasco or, should that not materialize, some similar future indiscretion.

Jane had attempted to dissuade Bletchley from such a course but the man was delirious. He had refused to give Jane back the files.

“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.”

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.

 … 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.