Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men) (6 page)
Read Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men) Online
Authors: Ranulph Fiennes
Underneath his greatcoat David wore his dark blue “number one dress tunic.” The trousers sport a broad red band and are worn outside “Wellingtons,” footwear that looks like cowboy boots minus the high Cuban heels. Since the tunic jacket is often too warm when worn beneath a greatcoat, many officers dispense with it except in very cold weather. One lieutenant was badly caught out when summoned into the royal presence and invited to make himself comfortable. He wore only a Snoopy T-shirt under his greatcoat, and Her Majesty was not amused.
At 8 a.m. sharp David crossed from the palace to the “Birthday Cake,” as Guards officers describe the Victoria Memorial, and then across to the far side of the busy roundabout. Many officers, frightened of being run over, take the slower route to St. James’s Palace, by using the pedestrian crossing at the Buckingham Palace end of Constitution Hill, but David regarded this as a waste of time. He carried his sword menacingly free of its polished steel scabbard and, since his bearskin appeared to perch on his nose, obscuring his vision, the traffic invariably screeched to a standstill and let him pass.
On arriving at St. James’s Palace, he acknowledged the shouldered rifles and salutes of the sentries and entered to eat a full cooked breakfast in sumptuous surroundings. In the officers’ sitting room on the first floor, he paused to look at the
Times
headlines. In a revenge raid following the murder of white farmers, Rhodesian commandos had penetrated deep into Mozambique. During the night, at midnight, 3 a.m., and 6 a.m., while his ensign, the young and rather green Second Lieutenant James Manningham-Buller, had inspected the St. James’s Palace Guard, he had inspected the Buckingham
Palace Guard. Now he wrote up his Guard Report and signed for his mess bill.
David paused in front of a large mirror inside the door of the officers’ guardroom and adjusted his calf-length, blue-gray greatcoat and the brass-link chin strap of his bearskin with its six-inch green and white plume. He emerged from the guardroom without bending. In his bearskin David was almost eight feet tall, but the doorway had been designed with just such problems in mind. He returned to Buckingham Palace, causing en route a motorcyclist to collide with a taxi.
At 10:30 a.m. Major Charles Stephens, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, handed over to the New Guard to the camera-clicking delight of the tourists.
As the majority of the New Guard marched off down the Mall with the Corps of Drums, the Old Guard, including David and his men, headed for the nearby Wellington Barracks to the tune of “Liberty Belle.” As well as being good marching music, this was also the signature tune of the television comedy series
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
. David had nobbled the Band Sergeant-Major, who substituted the correct final note with a huge, discordant fart from the tuba as in the Python version. This was enjoyed by the troops and tourists alike.
David gave his orderly his uniform for cleaning back at the Guards Barracks in Caterham, south of London. Then, in slacks and a tweed jacket, he located his R-registration Porsche 911 Targa convertible and drove through near-empty streets to his flat in South Kensington.
Letting himself in, he noticed a white, two-inch-square card with the rest of his mail. The card was blank. He felt a surge of anticipation, for this was no ordinary caller.
David, a great believer in priorities, went into the kitchen, switched on the kettle and put hot water in the teapot. Then, without removing the brown paper band
that circled its butt, he lit up a Montecristo Number 5 cigar. He smoked half a dozen a day and especially relished his first post-palace-duty puff.
Spike Allen was standing by the bookshelf and greeted David with a creasing of the skin at the corners of his eyes. David disguised his pleasure. “You break in here on a Sunday morning when I am knackered by forty-eight hours of ensuring the Queen’s personal safety.” He gestured at the copy of the
Times
that lay beside a green cardboard file. “I had assumed you were in Mozambique leading the attack.”
Spike grimaced. “I hope you’re not sardonic with Her Majesty. Sarcasm ill becomes an officer of the Welsh Guards.”
David had been on a sniper’s course in West Germany when one of Spike’s talent-trawlers had spotted him and, a year later, Spike had made the approach while David was on a demolition and explosives course with the Royal Engineers. The committee had specifically instructed Spike never to recruit from the Armed Forces and, in the case of ex-soldiers, no one who had ever served with the regular (22nd) Special Air Service Regiment. Spike had adhered rigidly to this rule until 1971, when a specialist job in Edinburgh had proved beyond the expertise of his two dozen operatives—his “Locals,” as he called them—in Britain. He had needed a man with up-to-date military contacts and skills.
He managed on that occasion by himself but decided then and there to recruit a suitable person from Her Majesty’s Forces. Since he and he alone knew the identities of the founder, the committee members,
and
the Locals, and since the committee entrusted the work of running the Locals entirely to Spike, no one objected to the recruitment of an active soldier because no one except one or two of the other Locals knew about it. Ignorance was bliss, decided Spike, who was a realist.
David had worked for the Feather Men for four years, and Spike had every cause to congratulate himself on his choice. He knew the details of Captain Mason’s file, as he knew those of every one of his Locals. Spike was married with two children, but the Locals were his extended family and Mason, Local 31, was a star performer. His file read:
Born Oxford 8/13/51.
Arrogant but fiercely loyal. Old-fashioned but quick, confident and decisive
Eynsham Park, Witney, Oxon; 97a Onslow Square, South Kensington
Eton. Mons Officer Cadet School. 1st Bn. Welsh Guards
Skills/Abilities: Cross-country runner BAOR Championship ’71, ski, marksman
Instructor—Sniper’s Course BAOR ’72
Northern Ireland 1971–72
O. C. IS/CRW weapons trials 1972/73
Demolitions/Explosives courses ’72
Best Regimental handgun shot ’73
Military adviser to BBC for Internal Security Program ’73
Sultan’s Bravery Medal ’75 (Oman active service 1974–76)
London District duties ’76
Height 6′4″. Weight 200 lbs. Hair brown. Eyes gray.
Languages: Arabic, French, German
One of Spike’s practices before selecting a Local was to discover his views on a number of topics, some apparently immaterial. Mason’s responses were also filed:
Abortion: “I think Parliament has got it about right. I don’t think a woman should be forced to give birth to an unwanted child, especially if it is diagnosed early on to be disfigured. Many handicaps can now be diagnosed
twenty-two weeks into pregnancy, and a termination should be at this early stage or not at all.”
Racism: “A whole industry has sprung up around this issue. Ostensibly to prevent racism, it has the opposite effect by noisily drawing undue attention to the subject. People should be treated the same and, if black or brown, they should neither be penalized nor rewarded. Positive discrimination is counterproductive.”
Arming the Police: “This would be a dreadful mistake. The police on the whole know very little about firearms. The training given to those officers who are occasionally authorized to carry firearms is inadequate.”
Sounds: “Dislike: Radio 1, Radio 2, airport announcements, in-flight announcements, women gossiping, telephones ringing, BBC reporters’ voices, children whining, traffic.”
“Like: clocks ticking, birds singing, stags roaring, children laughing, huge explosions, wind in trees, foghorns.”
Smells: “Dislike: gangrene, B.O., fast food, car exhaust, wet sleeping bags, hospitals, nylon socks, dog shit, instant coffee, government offices.”
“Like: the sea, sawed timber, mown grass, heather, cordite, wood smoke, Harrods Food Hall, clean children, cigar smoke, the African bush.”
People: “Impossible to categorize. Everytime I have tried to do so I have found an exception to the rule. But if I had to paint a stereotype of the sort of character for whom I reserve particular derision … chin sticking in rather than out, watery eyes, runny nose, wispy red beard, CND amulet around the neck, plays guitar in modern
church services, goes to prenatal classes with the wife after she has been made pregnant by the milkman, lives in Hampstead, faints when a car backfires, vegetarian, no sense of humor, follows trends, reads the
Guardian
, feet smell despite (or because of) sandals, uses words like ‘totally,’ ‘at the end of the day,’ ‘up and down the country,’ ‘ongoing struggle,’ etc.”
Germaine Greer: “An intelligent and interesting woman. Unfortunately a horde of shrill harpies have taken over the feminist issue in much the same way as strident black activists have the race industry. If someone applied to me for a job I would appoint the person most suited to it, regardless of sex.”
Politics: “In a nutshell I am a right-winger, but there has been almost as much interference with personal freedom under the Conservatives, even if they have been more subtle about it. Government should be kept to a minimum. People should be able to get on with their lives unimpeded by bureaucracy, nannying, hectoring and meddling by ignorant politicians anxious to make their names.
“Socialism is a religion espoused by fools, crooks or liars or, as in the case of many people at the BBC, people who are all three. It has failed miserably, but the more dimwitted of its adherents have still not realized this.
“Liberalism is not much better. There are just fewer crooks and more fools. There are some honorable exceptions but not many.”
Coming from the majority of people, these responses would have put Spike off right away. A fascist bigot, a narrow-minded elitist, were descriptions that sprang to mind. But he decided, and the recruit-trawler agreed, that Mason simply liked to appear bluff and autocratic.
The passage of time and a number of testing jobs at home and abroad had confirmed Mason to be a fair-minded man, a friend to anyone regardless of background, once he had decided they were genuine.
Like the rest of the Locals, David Mason operated for Spike without remuneration and often without payment even of his expenses. He knew only that the Committee of the Feather Men commanded Spike’s loyalty and stood for freedom and democracy. They aimed to operate within the law to protect individuals or to prevent crimes, where the official arm of the law was powerless or too undermanned to be effective. For the most part Spike worked the Locals within their home areas, where they were likely to be streetwise. This also saved travel expenses. Few of the Locals knew one another since Spike kept them apart as far as possible.
David studied the scanty contents of the file Spike handed him. It contained street maps of Bristol and the personal details of one Patrice Symins, drug dealer. When David laid the file down and stubbed out his cigar, Spike told him the background.
“Two weeks ago the only daughter of a Chippenham accountant, once a squaddie with C Squadron in Hitchin, died of drug abuse. She was supplied by the same group who organized her introduction to heroin when she was a student at Bristol University last year. The police know all about the dealer, Symins, but can prove nothing. There is a local Hungarian who has helped us in the past. He knows the city like the back of his one good hand. He will be your guide. Symins is well protected, which is why I want you to back up our Local, a Welshman called Darrell Hallett.”
They talked for an hour. Then Spike Allen handed over some equipment and left. David sighed. He had asked for a day to recover from palace duties, but Spike’s hit was planned for that Monday night.
A great deal of redevelopment took place in Bristol during the mid-seventies, but Pennywell Road, though only a mile from the city center, remained a shoddy backwater skirting the fringes of St. Paul’s and joining Easton with the old market district.
A number of self-contained housing estates and small industrial units lined both sides of this long, ill-lit road, as well as a smattering of derelict and vandalized lockups. In one such unit a kangaroo court took place on the evening of Monday, November 1, 1976. The functions of judge and jury were assumed by Patrice Symins. His five colleagues, uniform in their bulk and ugliness, stood around a sixth man whose hands were secured behind him to the plumbing of a disused wash basin.
Symins wore an ermine-collared overcoat and leather driving gloves. He grinned a good deal as he spoke, either because he admired his own teeth or because he had been told his smile made him look charming. He was a tall, rangy man of about fifty who enjoyed the considerable influence he wielded within his particular sphere of the Bristol drug scene.
Jason had been seen twice with “snouts” operated by Lionel Hawkins of the local drug squad. Both times he had loudly proclaimed his innocence. The men were old friends of his and he had not the faintest idea that either was a snout. Symins knew he should have acted the first
time but he had a soft spot for Jason, who had worked for him since his arrival in Bristol. Twice was not just suspicious, it was downright incriminating; and Jason must now serve as a memorable example to others.
“You can sweat it out a bit, Jason. Think about yourself, mate, and you’ll be the first to admit you done bad wrong. We will be lenient this time. You squeal again—so much as get seen in spitting distance of those bastards—and next time it’ll be terminal.”
Symins ran his hand over his bald head, donned a cloth cap with a loud check and turned to the Cockney black girl, his secretary and mistress since she was fifteen.
“Get the cars up, Di. I don’t want you here when Jason gets the surgery. Your stomach’s flat and firm, okay, but is it strong enough? A masonry drill grinding through our friend here’s kneecaps will not be a beautiful thing, my love. Not to see and not to hear. So we’ll go back to the office for an hour or two, leave you there, then come back with the Bosch.”
The cars, parked four hundred yards up the street, responded to Di’s phone and arrived at the lockup.