Ranulph Fiennes - Killer Elite

Marman looked about the Antelope, searching for he knew not what. I should not have left the Army, he thought; that was when things started to go seriously wrong between us. He looked at his watch: 6:15 p.m. He would have to hurry if he was to make it back for his favorite part of the day: a hot bath listening to Radio 4. He took his leave of the others and left.

At the door to the pub, Marman was suddenly aware of a brawl going on fifty yards down Eaton Terrace and right beside his pride and joy, a brand-new, red and black Citroen 2CV. Two men were slugging it out on the narrow pavement, right against his car. Breaking into a run and ignoring the huddle of jeering bystanders, Marman found his car key and got in. He would be bloody annoyed if there were any dents. The 2CV might look like an upturned bucket but it was highly economical and that was increasingly important after six months without a job. One of the combatants, a black man with a bald and bleeding skull, bounced back against the passenger door as Marman, swearing, pulled away and accelerated out of Eaton Terrace, vaguely aware of blue lights flashing to his rear.

Past Battersea and well into Clapham, he turned into Blandfield Road. Since his divorce three years ago he had grown close to a lovely girl named Julia, but they lived their separate lives and Marman had purchased his Clapham terraced house with his Army savings. There were usually a couple of art students renting a bedroom, but that evening his only current tenant was out on the town, so he had the house to himself.

Marman’s house was directly opposite the shop of a friendly greengrocer who often looked after his keys and mail. Marman parked as close to home as he could and let himself in. He flung his blazer and tie on to the sitting-room table, poured himself a whiskey and rushed upstairs. As usual, he left the front door ajar, for he was a sociable sort and few days passed by without some friend or other dropping in. Marman was not worried by security. As he often said, “There’s nothing worth stealing, except for my radio, and if they want to get in, a lock won’t stop ’em.” Within minutes Marman was in a foaming Badedas bath with his drink beside him and the radio drowning out all other sounds.

Meier double-parked immediately outside 9 Blandfield Road and, at 7:05 p.m., as soon as the signature tune of The Archers began, he nodded. “Davies says Marman never misses the program and likes to listen in his bath. The door is half open. The camera is all set.”

De Villiers carried two plastic salesman’s bags, one containing brochures about life insurance. Once in the sitting room, he went directly to the blazer. Davies had assured him that Marman’s black Economist diary was normally kept inside the inner pocket. De Villiers swore silently after glancing at the handwriting: it was too small for the 1600 ASA film in the Olympus XA4 to cope with without using a tripod or flash. The result might prove too grainy, when enlarged, to be legible. Better to play it safe, especially as there was little danger of interruption. Meier, in the car outside, would find a pretext to stall any visitor and they knew only Marman was at home.

From one of the bags, de Villiers took out Meier’s custom-made foldaway frame. He placed the diary on the table, ensuring that its open pages were kept flat by the strip of piano wire that stretched between the legs of the frame. Next he slotted the Nikon F2 camera into place, pointing down and some seventeen inches above the open diary. Meier had selected a slow, fine-grain film in conjunction with a flash attachment and manually set the optimum exposure. De Villiers pressed the plunger of the cable release and took a single photograph of each set of pages for the month of November. Six minutes later he was once again with Meier and the diary was back in Marman’s blazer pocket.

The surveillance period was the key to success. In Marman’s case, Davies had been patient and professional from the outset. After three weeks, still without a hit plan, he had given de Villiers his considered advice. Go for Marman’s diary, for he keeps it with him and uses it like a yuppy does a Filofax. From his forward planner pick a date when he is out of London and alone in his car, and set up a road accident.

Davies also recommended that they fudge the warning film. Since the days of Kealy, video cameras had become widely available and video film easily edited. In Marman’s case it would be almost impossible to serve him notice of pending death without building a major embuggerance factor into any subsequent accident plan.

The problem with Marman was his unpredictability and his almost obsessive love of human company. He was hardly ever alone. His girlfriend Julia was with him on and off much of the time after she finished her daily job at J amp;B Whiskey, his art student very often spent all day and night at 9 Blandfield Road, and a constant stream of friends, mostly ex-Army, kept dropping in to converse over stiff drinks.

When Marman went out, there was absolutely no pattern to his movements. Job-hunting appeared to be the motive of some of his calls but more often he went instinctively to one of half a dozen pubs, such as the Antelope, where he knew his friends would be. He would join them on extended tours between various “in” watering holes, until a party was mentioned, whereupon the whole group would head off to change for dinner if applicable, or straight to the flat of the party-giver, not returning home until the early hours.

Since the Clinic never reacted to mere happenstance, de Villiers had agreed with Davies and gone for the Marman diary.

At a Tadnams safe house in Trebovir Road, a run-down basement next to a Slav-owned hotel, the photographed pages of Marman’s diary were studied in detail.

“On Saturday he will spend the day wine-tasting at the Hurlingham Club,” Meier observed.

“His girl works there, so she is likely to be with him,” said de Villiers dismissively.

“But afterward,” Meier’s finger stabbed at photographs, “he goes for drinks with Poppo. Saturday night is always good for us. Who is this Poppo?”

“Forget it.” De Villiers flicked to another sheet. “We have only three suitable events in the whole month and all are out of London. He will travel alone in his Citroen. We know that. We have the timing, and the routes will be obvious from any road map. I say we concentrate on these and forget his London life.”

There was no further discussion of the diary entries and Meier began to look like a cat anticipating a bowl of cream.

De Villiers pinned a map of England to the wall. “Marman will be making four specific journeys over a three-week period. Two in the west of the country, one to Suffolk and one to Rugby. The most detailed is down here,” he said, indicating the general area of Salisbury Plain. “We know exactly when Marman will be traveling between two known points… Meier,” he looked up at the Belgian, “what are your thoughts?”

The response was immediate.

“The ‘Boston brakes.’ It must be. It cannot fail yet nobody will ever suspect sabotage.”

Davies was shaking his head. “It failed in Boston, boyo, so why not here?”

“It did not fail,” Meier snapped. “You know that. Circumstances in Boston changed at the last minute so we abandoned my method. But everything was ready and would have worked. I rehearsed for two months on the old airstrip with the Tighe brothers in the stock cars. I could take over control at five hundred yards and by the end I had a hundred percent success. One hundred percent. That is not failure… boyo!”

De Villiers raised his hand. “Okay, okay, keep your skin on, my friend. I have every faith in your brilliance, but what if we go ahead with your Boston brakes on his Salisbury journey and it does fail?”