Hampton Sides - Hellhound on His Trail - The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. And the International Hunt for His Assassin

Wood held the application in his hand for a while. Not knowing what else to do with it, he laid it in the "possibles" pile--and got back to his monotonous work.

ON THE AFTERNOON of June 4, Ian Colvin, 700a foreign-desk journalist and editorial writer for London's Daily Telegraph , was sitting in his office when the phone rang. "Hello, this is Ramon Sneyd," the caller nervously said, in a garbled American accent Colvin couldn't quite place. "I got a brother lost somewhere down in Angola, and I've heard you've written about the mercenary situation down there."

"Yes."

"Well," Sneyd continued, "I think my brother's with the mercenaries. Can you put me in touch with someone who can help me find him?"

Colvin was not particularly surprised by the call; it was true, he had written a book about the colonial wars and mercenary armies in Africa and had developed an extensive circle of contacts in that world. To his credit, this man Sneyd appeared to have done some homework. "Do you have a telephone number of Major Alastair Wicks?" he asked Colvin.

A British-born Rhodesian mercenary with a swashbuckling reputation, Wicks had been involved with armed conflicts in Biafra and was a high-ranking officer in an outfit called the Five Commando Unit down in the Belgian Congo. Though Colvin knew Wicks well, he was reluctant to give out a phone number. "But give me your name and a phone number," Colvin offered, "and I'll forward it on to Major Wicks."

At this point, Colvin could hear an electronic chirping on the line--Sneyd was clearly calling from a pay telephone, and the shrill beep-beep-beep indicated that he needed to shove another sixpence into the slot. "Uh, wait a minute," Sneyd said, "I got to put in more money." But he evidently couldn't dig out his coins fast enough--the phone connection cut off.

Colvin's phone rang a few minutes later. "This is Sneyd," a voice said, sounding somewhat flustered. "I was just talking to you." Listening as Sneyd repeated his shaggy-dog story about a long-lost brother, Colvin began to think that his caller was "odd" and "almost unbalanced." Sneyd was adamant to the point of desperation about getting himself to Africa, and seemed to think that if he could only get in touch with the right person, his airfare would be paid for in exchange for his promise to serve a stint as a soldier.

"Again," Colvin reassured him, "I will be delighted to forward your contact information on to Major Wicks."

"OK," the caller said. "That's Ramon Sneyd. I'm staying here at the New Earls Court Hotel."

Right, Colvin said, and Sneyd hung up.

SNEYD HAD MOVED from the Heathfield House to the New Earls Court Hotel only a few days before. Though the little hotel was just around the corner, on Penywern Road, the weekly rent was cheaper and the accommodations a little nicer. Besides, Sneyd thought it prudent not to linger too long in any one place--especially after his aborted jewelry store stickup in Paddington.

The hotel was a four-story walk-up, with Doric columns and a blue awning covering a cramped vestibule; it was near the Earls Court tube stop and Earls Court Stadium, where Billy Graham had recently conducted a series of wildly successful crusades. For another week, Sneyd remained faithful to his usual nocturnal schedule, keeping to his brown-wallpapered room all day, receiving no calls, and taking no visitors. "He was nervous, 701pathetically shy, and unsure of himself," the young hotel receptionist, Janet Nassau, later said. Feeling sorry for him, Nassau tried to make conversation and help him out with a few currency questions. "But he was so incoherent," she said, "that nobody seemed able to help him. I thought he was a bit thick. I tried to talk to him, but then I stopped myself, I was afraid he might think I was too forward--trying to chat him up."

For Sneyd, a far bigger worry than the peculiarities of British money was the fact that he scarcely had any money at all; his funds had dwindled to about ten pounds. But on June 4, the same day he called the Daily Telegraph journalist Ian Colvin, Sneyd worked up his courage and resolved to finally dig himself out of his financial straits.

That afternoon he put on a blue suit and pair of sunglasses. Then, at 2:13 p.m., he walked into the Trustee Savings Bank in Fulham 702and stood in the queue until, a few minutes later, he approached the till of a clerk named Edward Viney. Through the slot, Sneyd slid a paper bag toward the teller. At first, Viney didn't know what to do with the rumpled pink bag. Then, on closer inspection, he saw writing scrawled across it.

"Put all PS5 notes in this bag," the message demanded. Viney caught a faint glimpse of the man's eyes through his shades and realized he was serious. Glancing down, he saw the glinting nose of a revolver, pointed at him.

Viney quickly emptied his till of all small denominations--in total, only ninety-five pounds. Sneyd was displeased with his slim pickings, and he leaned over the counter and craned his neck toward the adjacent till. "Give me all your small notes!" he yelled, shoving his pistol toward the teller, Llewellyn Heath. In panic, Heath backpedaled and kicked a large tin box, which produced a concussive sound similar to a gunshot. The noise startled everyone, including Sneyd, who leaped away from the counter and sprinted down the street. Two tellers took off after him, but he lost them, ducking into a tailor's shop, where for five minutes he feigned interest in buying a pair of slacks.

At Trustee Savings Bank, Edward Viney surveyed the premises and realized that the robber had left his note behind, scrawled on the pink paper bag. When the bobbies arrived, Viney handed them the bag--upon which, it was soon discovered in the crime lab of New Scotland Yard, the robber had left a high-quality latent thumbprint.

IN TORONTO, an investigator with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Detective Sergeant R. Marsh, was given a copy of the latest passport application that Constable Wood had placed in the "possibles" pile. Working off the details in the application, Detective Marsh quickly deduced that "Sneya" was merely a clerical error, and then tracked down the real Ramon George Sneyd.

Even though Sneyd was a Toronto policeman, Detective Marsh initially had to regard him as a possible suspect in the King assassination--or at least a possible co-conspirator--and he began the interrogation in a distinctly adversarial posture. "Mr. Sneyd," Marsh said, "on April 4, 703a killing took place in Memphis, Tennessee. The American authorities are seeking a suspect. That suspect later took up residence here, in Toronto, under the name Ramon George Sneyd. What, if anything, can you tell us about this?"

Constable Sneyd was flummoxed, to say the least. He searched his memory for any incident, any stray encounter in which someone might have filched his identity. Then he remembered.

"About a month ago," he replied, "I received a telephone call from a stranger who asked me, 'Is this Mr. Sneyd?' He wanted to know if I'd lost my passport--he said he was with the passport division and was making a routine check. I said, 'You've got the wrong Mr. Sneyd.' But then he asked me again, wasn't I Ramon George Sneyd, born in Toronto on October 8, 1932? I said, 'Yes, but there must be some mistake. I've never had a passport. I've never applied for a passport in my whole life.' The man apologized for the mistake, and hung up."

Sneyd's story was convincing enough that Marsh soon let this very confused policeman go. The passport that had been issued to "Sneya" was obviously phony.