Ranulph Fiennes - Killer Elite

“Come, help me rise, my little love.” The voice was gentle. As de Villiers’s vision grew accustomed to his low-lit surroundings he saw the girl take the hand of an old man slumped in a leather armchair.

He exchanged greetings. The man introduced himself as Sheikh Amr bin Issa in the passable English of most Gulf Arab businessmen. His was a once strong face creased and prematurely aged by suffering and rendered ashen by illness.

“Sit close, sir, for my voice is weak.” The girl helped the sheikh without difficulty, for he was painfully thin, even emaciated. He bade her bring coffee.

“I do not know your name, only your unenviable reputation. I will waste no time with preamble, for the pain will soon come again.”

The sheikh explained that he owned an expanding chain of retail grocery outlets in the Gulf, Turkey and Iraq. Before long he would open new branches in Cyprus and Iran.

“I have sufficient profit for reinvestment to pay $2 million annually to the Palestinian cause. My sons are at college in England, and last summer I had no thought of summoning a killer such as you.”

The sheikh coughed and took minutes to recover from the pain. If this was his client, de Villiers reflected, he would need to have a contract agreed without delay, for the mantle of death clung close.

The girl brought coffee in a silver dhille with an elegant beak, and tiny cups of fine china. When she was gone the sheikh continued.

“Shamsa, my granddaughter, lost her father seven years ago fighting the Sultanate troops in Dhofar, my homeland. Three of her uncles have also been killed in that sorry conflict. Four of my six sons all killed and none have been avenged.”

Sheikh Amr explained the background of his exile to Dubai. He made sure that de Villiers understood in depth the deadly seriousness with which his people viewed his failure, as their sheikh, to follow the edicts of the thaa’r.

“I have visited Dubai on and off for a quarter of a century and I realize that Westerners, indeed Muslims from outside Dhofar, know very little about my country. The same is true in reverse of many of my fellow jebalis. They do not, for instance, share the historic hatred of the Muslim Arab for the Israeli, simply because Israel means nothing to them, does not touch upon their lives.” The sheikh paused to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead.

“I must tell you that I have not yet seen the passage of fifty years. Some seven months ago I was in good health. Then came the first pains. Within weeks the doctors told me I had a malignant growth in my belly. They gave me a year at the most and I began to think afresh about my life. Bakhait, my eldest surviving son, is my life. He has the gentleness of his mother and my own instinct for business. I want above all for him and his brother to enjoy the success back at home that would soon have been theirs but for our exile; an exile that I have, by my own actions, brought upon them. I have given them everything-unlimited money, the best of educations, both Western and Koranic-yet what will this avail them where it matters most, in the land of their ancestors?”

He sighed and made as though to lay his hand on de Villiers’s arm. But, remembering perhaps the nature of his profession, interrupted the gesture.

“You are now the key to my sons’ future.” He paused. “Their passport back to Dhofar.”

The previous August, when his sons returned for their summer holiday, the sheikh had told them of his new resolve. The thaa’r must go ahead. Neither son was committed to the absolutism of jebali traditions; both had been corrupted by their year in England and by their father’s own liberalism. Nevertheless when Amr demanded that Bakhait give his pledge to avenge the murder of his brothers, a pledge of honor to be repeated on his father’s grave, Bakhait did not hesitate. Devoted to his father and desperately grieved at the news of his sickness, he gave his word as Bakhait bin Amr al Jarboati that he would follow his father’s wishes to fulfill the thaa’r and then return to Dhofar and, if God willed it, to his rightful place at the head of the Bait Jarboatis.

Dhofaris often passed through Dubai and called on family and friends living there. An increasing number flew to the United Kingdom for training in military, engineering, social services and other skills. Amr knew from them that, in the last year, his country had undergone enormous changes. The revolution was over, the new half-Dhofari sultan had granted Dhofaris everything that his father had withheld from them.

Business opportunities were almost unlimited, and political power, at a level previously undreamed of, was now attainable. Young Dhofaris could now contemplate becoming ministers of Oman. But not Bakhait. Should he return to Dhofar-and there was no government ruling to stop him-he would forever need to watch over his shoulder, awaiting the bullet that would surely come.

For three hours de Villiers was left alone with European magazines, chilled loomee juice and a plate laden with the best Sohar dates. Amr bin Issa, riven by deep stomach pains, had retired to his room. When he returned he appeared to be impatient for an answer from de Villiers.

“Listen well,” he said, “for I am asking you to find and execute four men. The method of their killing must leave no suspicion in the minds of even their dearest friends.” If the sheikh expected surprise to show on de Villiers’s face he wasted his time, for he remained expressionless as usual.

“Further,” said the sheikh, leaning forward, “you must remind each man when you identify him of his personal responsibility for the death of my son. You will film everything, the warnings and the executions, and for each audiovisual film that you hand to me or, after my death, to my son Bakhait, you will be paid the sum of one million American dollars by check from my account at the Bank of Dubai. When all four films have been satisfactorily received, we will pay you off with a final payment of a like amount.” He paused. “Do you have any questions?”

De Villiers remained impassive. He thought he had heard every motive under the sun as to why one man should wish to kill another. This was merely a variation on the fairly common theme of revenge. But with what a difference! He could see why the sheikh wished for “no foul play” methods, since suspicion of a chain of connected murders might lead to the involvement of Interpol and thence Royal Oman Police interference. If Amr became suspect his family might be exiled officially by the Sultanate and that would defeat the whole purpose of the killings.

De Villiers also understood why the sheikh needed evidence on film. He must show those who had exiled him solid proof of the “trial” and termination of the guilty parties. But, from de Villiers’s point of view, the act of warning intended targets that they were about to be killed added a whole new dimension to the act. He could picture the reaction of Meier and Davies when they learned of this particular contractual requirement. On the other hand the fee was exceptional.

“I have two questions,” de Villiers said. “Who are these men and by when must they be killed?”

Sheikh Amr explained.

… All night the fires raged along the upper ramparts of Table Mountain. Dogs howled in the valleys, and de Villiers sat naked on his windowsill to catch the breeze and savor the night scent from the bougainvillea terrace below. He could not remember a time when he had been so happy as these past few months at the estate of La Pergole.

In the Cape spring of 1969 he obtained a temporary job as groundsman at the Kenilworth racetrack and, using his one-room flat there as a base, combed the Tokai district in search of Vrede Huis and the de Villiers family.