Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men) Read online

  Spike was also reticent when pressed about the fate of the surviving contract killer and his cronies from the agency.

  “Are they dead?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Did you pass him to the police?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He would have walked free from any court. We had no proof. No evidence. His defense lawyer would have laughed our story right out of the Old Bailey and all the way back to Dhofar.”

  “Do you believe what he told you?”

  “Yes, strange as it may seem. But I do.”

  “He need have told you nothing.”

  “What he told me tallies with the events. Have you not found that in your recent research?”

  I had to admit this was true. “Where, if you have released him, is he now?”

  “NTK,” said Spike. “Neither you nor our book needs to know.”

  I could see he would not budge. “What happened to his girlfriend, or rather wife, Anne? I can hardly write a book leaving such items in midair. A reader would want to know.”

  “Too bad,” said Spike.

  I gave up asking. In the spring and summer of 1991 I described these events with complete attention to accuracy. Some of the dialogue and the emotions, the inner thoughts and the assumptions, are, of course, mine. In fiction there is always a villain. But real life does not fit into neat themes. To my mind Sheikh Amr and his son Bakhait were honorable men. De Villiers was dealt the cruelest of blows in childhood. Evil, like good fortune, can arrive on the wind and out of the clouds, attributable merely to the whim of Fate.

  As to my own chance involvement in these events, I am truly thankful that the Feather Men exist, or existed. Without them I suspect there would have been a hit-and-run accident on an October night on the Porlock Road. I am, I suspect, only one of many people in Britain who, over the past twenty years, have good reason to be grateful for their protective presence. Otherwise, my life has changed not at all except that I no longer take the rubbish out after dark. I leave the bags out during the daylight hours and to hell with the foxes.

  EPILOGUE

  Neither Colonel Macpherson nor Spike Allen ever divulged to me the identity of the committee’s founder, but the week before I met them there was an Associated Press news release:

  David Stirling, Founder of Elite British Unit, Dies.

  London—Colonel Sir David Stirling, 74, who in World War II founded the Special Air Service, an elite British Special Forces unit, died Sunday after a long illness, according to his biographer, Alan Hoe.

  The Special Air Service, or SAS, with its motto “Who Dares Wins,” remained on active duty after the war and has kept its reputation for swift, clandestine and effective action.

  Born Archibald David Stirling on November 15, 1915, the son of a Scottish brigadier general, he joined the Scots Guards at the outbreak of World War II. Six months later he transferred to No. 3 Commando Group of the Brigade of Guards and went with them to the Middle East.

  He persuaded military authorities that “an army within an army” was needed to make secret raids against the enemy. With six officers and sixty enlisted men, he became known as the “Phantom Major” among the troops of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps after destroying at least 250 enemy aircraft and scores of fuel and ammunition dumps in attacks behind German lines.

  In 1943 Colonel Stirling was taken prisoner in Tunisia. He escaped, was recaptured and was transferred to Colditz Castle prison camp in Germany, where he remained a captive for the rest of the war …

  On the morning of Thursday, February 12, 1991, an IRA action unit mortared the Gulf War Cabinet meeting of Prime Minister John Major at 10 Downing Street while, a few hundred yards away at the Wellington Barracks, a great assembly of SAS men, past and present, converged to pay their last respects to the Phantom Major.

  Sir Fitzroy Maclean, giving tribute to the man whose name would always be synonymous with the Special Air Service, mentioned that, “Even his closest friends seldom knew what he was up to.”

  The keening notes of “Flowers of the Forest” played by a single Scots piper reached out from the Guards Chapel to the deserted streets of Whitehall and across the frozen lakes of St. James’s Park.

  Colonel Tommy Macpherson and Spike Allen knelt in different pews to the words of the Celtic Blessing:

  Deep peace of the running wave to you

  Deep peace of the flowing air to you

  Deep peace of the quiet earth to you

  Deep peace of the shining stars to you

  Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you …

  Outside the snowflakes settled, light as feathers, over Whitehall.

  GLOSSARY

  57-pattern type of military body harness and belt used by infantry (lighter than carrying a rucksack)

  abra local type of boat used in Dubai creeks

  adoo enemy

  arrondissement district

  ayeb enemy

  baht Thai currency

  bedu-ar-ruhhal true desert bedouin

  Bin Dhahaib unit a PFLO reginemt

  brocanteur antique dealer

  cochon pig

  dhille metal coffeepot

  dishdash skirtlike wraparound garment worn in Oman

  DMS rubber-soled army boots

  falaj underground water canal

  Fan Pen y Fan mountain

  fardh a subdivision of the sharia

  firqat group of ex-communists fighting for the Sultan’s Forces

  FST Field Surgery team

  gatn dry mountain zone in Dhofar

  geh schnell, mach schnell, man get a move on, man

  ghadaf palm

  ghazu intertribal raid

  hadiyth the Prophet’s sayings

  indee mushkila I have a problem

  Ingleezi English

  insh’ Allah God willing

  jebali mountain man

  jebel mountain

  jellaba Arab female attire

  khadim slave, ex-slave

  khareef monsoon (mist)

  khayma tent

  laqat high-quality frankincense

  LAW antitank rocket

  leaguer up to make camp (usually temporary halt only)

  loomee lime

  majlis inner “socializing” room

  MAM the headquarters complex of the Sultan’s Forces

  MFO Military Forwarding Organization

  min fadlak please

  Muaskar al Murtafa’a see MAM

  mughir incense tree of a type to be found in arid gravel desert

  muqanat killers, falaj-diggers

  murrim compacted dirt

  nejd arid desert region

  OG green cotton uniform worn by British Army in jungle regions

  PMN antipersonnel mine

  qadhi religious judge

  qithit blood money

  rashiyd wiseman

  RMP Royal Military Police

  SAF Sultan’s Armed Forces

  sanuk Thai beverage

  sharia Islamic rules

  shebeen illegal drinks party

  shemagh headcloth

  shimaal dry desert wind from the north

  sooq market

  sous-chef underchef

  tamimah headman of local tribe

  tapineuse entrepreneur/freelance prostitute

  thaa’r blood feud/revenge killing

  travelo transvestite

  tuk-tuk Thai rickshaw

  va te faire sauter ailleurs, conasse rude comment

  Wahidaat a Wasata wa Sharqeeya a PFLO regiment

  wizaar Arab wraparound robe

  To four brave men—

  John, Mike, Michael and Mac

  I am not of that feather to shake off

  My friend, when he must need me.

  —Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank the thirty-two individuals who helped me to research the events described in
this book and to check the accuracy of my account. For reasons that will be apparent, I cannot name them, but they will know who they are and be assured of my sincere gratitude.

  I am especially grateful to the close relatives of John Milling, Mike Kealy, Michael Marman, and Mac.

  To Bridgie, who, on May 7, 1977, gave birth to Patrick John Milling, who today bears a striking resemblance to his late father.

  To Pauline and Lucia, at whose request I have withheld Mac’s full name for security reasons.

  To Maggi and to Nancy, widow and mother, respectively, of Mike Kealy.

  To Rose May and the parents of Michael Marman.

  All have been more than helpful and patient with their advice.

  My thanks also to Jan Milne for her patience and support, and to Frances Pajovic for her good humour and efficiency.

  Ranulph Fiennes