Ranulph Fiennes - Killer Elite

Meier nodded violently. “In the impossible event of failure there, I move the equipment to the car of another suitable third party and we catch up with him later here.” He indicated Suffolk. “But I tell you for sure: it cannot fail if I am on the controls.”

De Villiers was pensive. “Certainly we need to ensure total lack of suspicion at this stage to avoid any interested party connecting Marman with Kealy and Milling. There can be no doubt that the Boston brakes is perfect from that point of view.”

“If you are both dead set on it,” Davies sighed, “as I can see is the case, then we’d be better off down south. We know some of the coastal geography, at least.”

The previous summer the Clinic had worked for a Paris-based agency that used them from time to time. De Villiers suspected that the client was a drug baron, controlling the Channel route into Britain from Deauville, and wanted a rival group wiped off the map without creating ripples. Although gang warfare was not exactly the Clinic’s field, the fee was good.

Davies had pinpointed the target’s landing and handover spot as a desolate stretch of Pagham Harbor Nature Reserve to the north of Church Norton, in West Sussex. Having observed two previous handover ceremonies, he decided that a seaborne attack by Tadnams heavies in the narrow harbor, or a land attack as the French rendezvoused with their reception party, would both lead to major mayhem. To achieve a surprise attack, the Clinic had obtained through a Saudi purchasing agency a twelve-seater, forty mph hovercraft with a quiet engine and twenty inches of obstacle clearance. The Tadnams group had approached over mud flats, done away with the four-man French crew using silenced HK53 submachine guns, and towed their boat out to sea without reaction from the land-based reception party. They failed to locate the heroin but sank the trawler in forty feet of water before hovering back to the mainland.

“Marman’s Wiltshire return journey is scheduled for the afternoon of Tuesday, November eleventh. Is ten days sufficient time for you, Meier?”

“I will start collecting the gear together immediately with help from the agency. I can see no problem on that score. The difficulty will, of course, be finding a suitable proxy.”

De Villiers did not hesitate. “Marman will be at home this evening, so Davies and I will pay him a visit with the video. You go ahead with a full proposal for Wiltshire on the eleventh that we can decide upon tomorrow.”

Had Meier objected to the timetable, he would have done himself a favor, but his brilliance did not extend to seeing into the future.

The door of Marman’s house was ajar on the evening of Monday, November 3. Inside, oblivious to the draft, he was entertaining an old friend from his days in Dhofar. The two men occasionally met for a drink and to set the world to rights.

“I could always tell he was a chancer,” Marman exclaimed, commenting on the recent resignation of Jeffrey Archer, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, following accusations of involvement in a sex scandal. “That lewd smirk gives him away.”

“You are quite wrong,” said his guest. “I have it on the best information that the woman was put up to it. A prime case of carefully planted disinformation. Once the smear has been disseminated, especially when the dirt is fairly credible, the victim will never live it down. Archer will be tarnished in the minds of the majority long after they have forgotten the actual details of the supposed scandal”-he knocked cigar ash onto the carpet-“and in this case the timing is excellent. The accusation was published on the twenty-sixth in the knowledge that Archer would reply the very next day… and what happens on the twenty-seventh… the Big Bang, of course, the City’s greatest event in decades. Not much space left in the daily rags for Archer’s repudiations at the time when he most needed to scream them far and wide.”

Marman nodded. “His wife’s a good-looker. I could do more than sketch her if she gets fed up with hubby.”

“Not bad, your latest offerings, Mike. Where did you do them?”

The offerings in question were a handful of pencil and charcoal sketches of nudes, mostly reclining on a beach or emerging from the sea.

“Ah yes, did I not tell you? Had an excellent sailing holiday in the Med. It helped me to sort myself out and think positively about life. Indeed a great time was had by all. That lass actually had her bikini on at the time I sketched her, sad to relate.”

“You’re very good at it, you know.”

“Stripping girls in my head, you mean… Thanks,” he laughed. “I do feel much better for the time away. I was beginning to be very down in the dumps after months of negative responses to my job-hunting. Makes you feel you’re over the hill, a has-been with no prospects but the dole.”

He rose to fill their glasses. “To employment,” he said, and they toasted his prospects. “Next week I’ve a couple of good meetings lined up. You’ll remember Searby, Brook and Amoore, all good lads in Oman. Well, they’re helping out with likely leads.”

“How’s Rose May these days?”

“I see her most weekends when I collect the lads.” He was silent for a while, slowly turning his glass about. “I miss her, you know. Julia’s a very good friend, an angel, and Gillie, just up the road, is like a sister to me. But it’s not the same. The loneliness, the regrets, what could have been. Footloose and fancy-free sounds good but it’s not for me.”

“I wouldn’t call you footloose. What about this place?”

Marman’s rather lugubrious expression lightened. “Yes, it’s a lifesaver. That was dear Gillie, of course. It was her suggestion to get in on the property market, and my God she’s proved right. What with the hugely increased value of the investment and the rental income, it’s been a boon. But I still need a job. Two sons at Bousefield’s and I do want to do my best by them. Rose May’s a good mum but everyone needs a father.”

Marman’s own father, a brave RAF pilot in his day, had emigrated to Australia in 1962 when Michael was seventeen and determined to become a cavalry officer. When his family had departed, Michael stayed with his grandparents in Kingston. A quarter of a century later, apart from one brother in the RAF, he seldom saw his family. The 9th/12th Lancers had given him the best years of his life. They had been his home but now he was on his own, a fish out of water. Never mind. He was a fighter. He would start a new life…

Marman realized he was in danger of appearing morbid. Boring hosts and party-poopers were anathema to him. He changed the subject to that of mutual friends and was soon back to his normal, cheery form.

There was a heavy knocking at the door and Marman’s friend rose to depart. “I’d better be going, Mike, or Monique will be wondering where I am. I’ll probably drop in for a dram next week sometime.”

At the door he was confronted by two plainclothes police officers. One, holding an identity badge, addressed him with obvious deference.

“Mr. Marman, sir, could we trouble you briefly?” He introduced himself and his colleague.

“No. I am just leaving. This is Mike Marman. Been up to some naughtiness, has he?”

He left and Marman ushered in the unexpected visitors. They accepted the offer of tea and while Marman fixed the kettle they sat down so that Davies was able to correctly position the briefcase that concealed a Sony video camera with a wide-angle lens.

Marman, they suggested, had, at 6:40 p.m. on Thursday, October 30, been in a brawl outside the Antelope public house, 22 Eaton Terrace, which had upset members of the public. His own car had been reported by two bystanders as having fled the scene on the arrival of the police. Marman vehemently denied any involvement in the fracas.