Ranulph Fiennes - Killer Elite

“So what do we do?” asked Spike.

“I will privately approach the top libel lawyer, Peter Carter-Ruck, for advice. Maybe such a book could be stopped on some libel basis. I will let you know but there is something else that may make it impossible for Bletchley ever to write this or any book.” He passed Spike a single typed sheet of A4.

“Before you read that, let me tell you something of Bletchley’s background. He was adopted when his parents were killed in a train crash in the 1920s. After Sandhurst he joined a rifle regiment in 1938 and saw action against the Italians in the western desert in the early forties. He was one of only a few officers with desert experience to be promoted to the Army Staff in Cairo and he did an excellent job, which greatly helped turn the tables on Rommel. At the end of the war he faced rank reduction from lieutenant-colonel to captain, so he left to become an accountant.”

“A far cry from his current City preeminence,” Spike commented.

“Quite so,” Macpherson agreed. “But his timing was good and he ‘left the profession’ at a time of postwar expansion to become finance director of an independent company. He never looked back and retired at fifty-five in 1972 to a plethora of nonexecutive directorships and top charity appointments. Until his illness developed, everybody admired him. He was the perfect chairman: respectable, pedantic and safe, undeniably clever and rich in influential friends.”

“What is his health problem?” Spike asked. “Does anybody know?”

Macpherson nodded at the paper he had given Spike. “Read it,” he said. “If I am right-and all the symptoms seem to fit-then Bletchley was first affected, in character only, in the early seventies. The physical signs first became marked only last year. That precis was prepared for me by a friend in Edinburgh.”

Spike read the text aloud: “In 1872 the American, George Huntington, first defined a disease, which is now named after him, as Hereditary Chorea (chorea means to dance). Huntington wrote, ‘The disease is confined to few families and has been transmitted to them as an heirloom from generations way back in the dim past. It is spoken of by those in whose veins the seeds of the disease are known to exist with a kind of horror. The disease is now understood a great deal better and certain drugs can delay its dread progress although it is still classified as incurable. One in every 20,000 people worldwide is affected.

“ ‘Twenty or even forty years may separate the first tiny mood changes that signal the onset, from the chronic mental and physical afflictions that lead to death, usually by asphyxiation whilst eating.

“ ‘The disease may strike at any time and, when the onset is first experienced only after fifty years of age, the victim can continue with intellectually demanding work for many years, providing the subject is familiar.

“ ‘If either or both parents have the disease, then one or more of their children will sooner or later suffer from it. However, since they may remain apparently healthy until they are middle-aged or older, they are likely to marry and infect further generations.

“ ‘Once the disease decides to show itself, the deterioration, though often imperceptible day by day, is inexorable. The victim may suffer no physical problems for some years but his or her character will undergo insidious change. Friends and family will be upset and hurt. Divorce may follow. Inevitably, sooner or later, certain muscles will spasm and this will gradually spread through the body until each and every voluntary muscle is shaken puppet-like.’ ”

“Luckily,” Macpherson commented, “Bletchley never married.”

“Poor devil,” said Spike. “I would not wish such horrors on any man.”

“He may yet write a book,” Macpherson said. “He may retain at least partial clarity for years to come.”

Eleven years after de Villiers’s meeting with Sheikh Amr, he returned to Dubai in December 1987 to collect the final payment of $2 million from his son Bakhait. The assignment had cost him the lives of both his Clinic colleagues. Tadnams checked thoroughly but no whisper ever surfaced as to Davies’s fate. De Villiers did not waste time, nor gray hairs, on useless theories.

In a way the deaths of his colleagues, assuming Davies was dead, were a bonus. Not only would the Dubai payout remain all his but any threat in years to come from ghosts in his past was minimized.

Bakhait’s younger brother, the junior partner in their retailing empire, welcomed de Villiers but showed no interest in the purpose of his visit. That whole matter had nothing to do with anyone but Bakhait, who was absent. “He has been in Iran for seven months now. I have done all I can to have him released.”

“Released?” De Villiers did not understand.

“Yes. He is in the Gohar Dasht prison. The Pasdari, the Revolutionary Guards, arrested him on some pretext of spying for Iraq. It is, of course, untrue, although he spent much time on business in both countries. It is a trumped-up charge to earn foreign currency.”

“How so?” de Villiers asked.

“They knew I would send money to obtain his release. Those mullahs are devils. Each time they make contact, it is a different man and each time it is to say they need more money. To carry out an investigation into my brother’s innocence is, they maintain, a very expensive business.”

“So when will he be free?”

The Dhofari shook his head, his normally friendly face creased with worry. “All I get is promises. I dare not hope too much anymore. I continue to send the money and to look after his family. Insh’ Allah he does not suffer and will come back to us soon.”

De Villiers contained his feelings. There was no good to be had from venting his frustration. He was owed $2 million, and once he was paid, he was freed of any further involvement. No more contracts. No more contact with the agencies. Only Anne and La Pergole. He could see that fate had placed him in an impasse with no course of action other than patience. Bakhait was the only signatory to the checks and de Villiers was not about to bust Bakhait from an ayatollah’s jail.

De Villiers left Dubai with the promise that, as soon as Bakhait was released and returned home, Bakhait’s younger brother would call him. He retained the video taken in Mac’s bedroom as well as the report on the Clinic’s relevant actions and Mac’s obituary in the Evening News, a local Hereford paper.

… In July 1990, on a cool and lovely day, they rode through the vineyards to the Vrede Huis ruins and enjoyed the sunset as they discussed the summer house they planned to build in the clearing.

Anne must have caught a cold, or so de Villiers thought at first. Flu followed, with a bad cough and breathlessness.

The doctor came but Anne did not respond to antibiotics. De Villiers drove her to the hospital with fullblown pneumonia, and an X ray showed that her lungs were infected by pneumocystis. There being nothing else wrong with her health, the doctors began to suspect the AIDS virus and, two days later, informed de Villiers that Anne was HIV positive. The doctors agreed that the source was likely to have been the blood transfusion she had received after the road accident four years before.

De Villiers was devastated. He felt personally to blame. Anne appeared to take the news calmly. “God will look after me,” she murmured. “Will you be able to visit me, my love?”

He vowed to stay with her. He telephoned hospitals and specialists in Europe and the United States. He wanted only the very best treatment for Anne and the most up-to-date drugs. They had no insurance to cover treatment for an incurable disease, and as full-time, unpaid foreman at La Pergole, he had earned no money for three years. Jan Fontaine had left many bad debts and although they had coped by eating into his invested capital and then by selling off parts of the estate, de Villiers knew he could not hope to pay for the top-class treatment he was determined Anne should receive. For the present they remained in South Africa and he visited her daily. He became an avid reader of medical journals on all AIDS-related topics, searching for mentions of hopeful-sounding breakthroughs.