Ranulph Fiennes - Killer Elite

Between 1977 and 1990 considerable progress was made by many libraries and retailers in the computerization of their books by title and by author. This did not help de Villiers, who knew neither detail. He knew only the subject matter and, to within five or six years, the publication date.

Back in London he visited a number of shops, starting with Hatchards and Harrods, then branching out to lesser-known but well-stocked shops dealing in secondhand books. When asked, as he often was, for the book’s general classification, he guessed at War, History, and Arabia.

After a frustrating week, he finally made progress on September 17. Arthur Probsthain amp; Co.’s Oriental Bookshop was one of many shops that he telephoned. The receptionist who answered his call passed him to a Mrs. Sheringham, whose accent sounded Germanic and who, according to the receptionist, knew everything about every book ever published.

“Good afternoon, my name is Lawrence. I am researching on Middle East matters and am looking for a book on the Dhofar war in Oman, Arabia. Do you have anything that deals with the late-sixties period of that conflict?” After a number of forays from her end of the phone, the redoubtable Mrs. Sheringham finally established three possible titles and their publishers.

Thanking her and cursing to himself, for he had earnestly hoped for a negative outcome to his search, he called the publisher of the most likely of the three titles, Hodder amp; Stoughton of Bedford Square in London. The receptionist passed de Villiers to the publicity department, as was her wont with all inquiries about noncurrent titles.

“Kate Farquhar-Thompson. Publicity. Can I help?”

“I believe you have a book about the Dhofar war in 1969 written by an ex-Army officer.” De Villiers gave her the title. “Do you have a copy, please, or know where I can get one?”

After several minutes the girl returned sounding pleased with herself. “We have no copies left. It went out of print in early 1977, was reprinted in ’78 and no copies have been available for eleven years. Sorry.”

“Is there no way I can borrow or copy some sort of master copy of the book?”

“Not with us but maybe a secondhand bookshop, you never know.”

De Villiers could see he had run out of options. He contacted Tadnams for the first time in months and was relieved to find one of his old contacts. It was agreed they would “do a drag” for the book as soon as staff was available.

In fact de Villiers found the book for himself in a run-down antique shop in Kilburn. The book was battered and dog-eared with various paragraphs heavily underlined, some pages removed, and comments scribbled in the margins by, de Villiers deduced, an ultra-left-wing student in the seventies.

He was charged twenty-five pence for the book and went back to his hotel to read the key passages.

There was no doubt in his mind. They should not have killed Milling. He could see only too clearly why the error had been made. At the time the Clinic knew only that their target was the white officer in charge of Operation Snatch. They had learned from Brigadier Maxwell and others that there was only one Army unit in the region of Operation Snatch and that the only officer from that unit involved in Operation Snatch was the then Captain John Milling… QED.

The book, however, now revealed to de Villiers that the adoo had been deceived into making more or less the same false assumption as had the Clinic. The sultan’s Intelligence officer, one Tom Greening, was a clever sod who had secretly ordered up a roving desert unit from the South Yemen border zone and sent them by night to execute the ambush many hours away from their normal patrol area. Had the real Operation Snatch officer not written this book, Milling’s identification would never have been questioned.

As it was, in light of this new information de Villiers had no option but to call Bakhait.

“You are quite sure this is the man?” Bakhait asked.

“A hundred percent,” de Villiers replied. “I have it in black and white.”

“Is he alive?”

“I believe so.”

“If he is, go ahead.”

De Villiers telephoned Tadnams. They suggested he check the Who’s Who of International Writers. “It gives all authors’ updated addresses,” he was told.

Darrell Hallett had time on his hands. He had recently passed his yearly relicensing exams and continued success could mean promotion to Area Manager. Life-insurance sales was a highly competitive business and Hallett was determined to do well. Right now, however, after the exertions of the exams, he had given himself a few days’ rest. He took his rod and tackle down to the river and spent many happy hours with the latest Colin Thubron book in his lap and a straw in his mouth.

Next day, October 5, the weather precluded fishing, so he decided to pursue his other great hobby, collecting travel books. His favorite topics were sailing, mountaineering and wild river journeys, but he also collected all books by certain travel authors and, where possible, had them signed.

Hallett telephoned a number of publishers including Hodder amp; Stoughton, whose book list included more travel subjects than most of their competitors. Hallett was put through to Kate Farquhar-Thompson in the publicity department and he asked for a copy of a book about a Canadian river journey entitled Headless Valley. She disappeared, presumably to a computer.

“Sorry about the delay,” she said cheerily. “It’s odd. Someone rang not long ago about the same author. He wanted his book on some Arab war. I’m afraid it’s the same for you as it was for him. We have no copies left. Headless Valley is out of print. You will have to try the secondhand shops. You could make a start with Foyles… okay?”

She was about to hang up. He could hear her other phone.

“Wait a second,” he said.

“Yes?”

He paused, not quite certain what was niggling him.

“Listen. Thanks very much for your advice… Can you tell me who called you about the Arab war book?”

“No,” she replied after a pause. “Sorry, but it was two or three weeks ago and I get a lot of inquiries. I think he was foreign. Maybe American… I think he mentioned Amman or Oman.”

He thanked her, hung up, and reached for a brown book on his top bookshelf. It was a long shot but Hallett believed in the saying “Better safe than sorry.” He called Spike.

Three days after Hallett’s call to Kate Farquhar-Thompson, Colonel Macpherson caught the 4:15 p.m. shuttle flight from Glasgow and reached his home in Archery Close at 6:30. Spike’s Mini was parked farther down the cobbled mews.

After a dram, Macpherson led Spike through to an inner room.

“So they are back again?” he asked.

“There is that possibility, Colonel. It is a very slim lead; certainly not enough to enable us to entice the police into providing protection.”

“But enough to raise your concern or you wouldn’t have brought me south in a rush.”

Spike nodded. “I would hate to ignore it.”

“Very well,” said Macpherson. “There’s nothing to be lost, providing we have no repetition of the A49 event. Strangely enough, I met your new ‘target’ about twelve years ago on an export promotion committee onto which I was inveigled by Campbell Adamson.”

“I will check on his background right away and start to alert the Locals,” said Spike.

“How many?” asked Macpherson.

“That may depend on where the target lives, but in principle, I would like to give this high priority. Two teams of four if I can find them.”

“I agree,” said Macpherson. “Give it all you’ve got. I had stopped hoping we would ever catch these people, but I would pay a high price to run them to earth. I blame the demise of the committee largely on them.”