The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue

by Frederick Forsyth

  Proof positive was established and the clincher was the two missing toes, amputated when Roschmann fled the British through the border snows in 1947. With the ferry refusing to have the corpse back, the Paraguayans buried it in a gravel bank just back from the water’s edge.

  So today the bones of the Butcher of Riga lie in an unmarked grave in a gravel bank beside the Paraguay River. It took a bit of time but eventually, thanks to the movie, job done.

  DOGS OF WAR

  Just as my years in France had convinced me the OAS was not going to succeed in toppling Charles de Gaulle, my years in Africa taught me something else.

  This was that in the immediate aftermath of the colonial era, there were several independent republics on the continent so small, so chaotic, so badly governed and defended that they could be toppled and taken over by a small group of professional soldiers with the right weaponry and a few dozen loyal levies. Thinking to write my third novel and set it in Africa, I notionally selected three.

  Top of the list was Equatorial Guinea, an island republic off the coast of Nigeria. It had once been Spain’s only African colony, linked to an enclave on the mainland called Rio Muni. For a while, under Spain, it had been a stopover for Biafra-bound food flights by the International Red Cross. Independence came in 1968 and it plunged into chaos and terror.

  The ruler was Francisco Macías Nguema, a Fang from Rio Muni. He was probably mad and certainly savagely cruel. He transferred his government to the island, then called Fernando Po, now renamed Bioko. He had a small army of Fangs, which terrorized the indigenous Bubi people. His cruelties soon became legendary. But behind the screen of terror, he was immensely weak.

  His bodyguard/army was hung with weapons, but he was so paranoid that they had no bullets because he could not trust them. Had he fallen, no one would have come to his aid. His fellow Fangs were hundreds of miles away, the Bubi loathed him, and the very few diplomats and aid workers left despised him.

  He lived in the barracks of the former Spanish gendarmerie, converted into his fortress, on top of the national armory and the national treasury, which he had confiscated. If that one building fell, so would the republic.

  Researching all this was no problem. There was no need for me to risk going there, so I did not. But I was able to talk to a score of former inhabitants, mainly Spanish, who gleefully explained how he could be toppled by a small attacking force. One remarked, “To knock off a bank is merely crude. To knock off an entire republic has a certain style.”

  With control of a republic comes membership to the United Nations, international loans, arrest-free diplomatic passports, and various other Christmas treats. There was even an exiled rival in Madrid who could be installed on the presidential throne as a puppet successor.

  There need only be five rules. Strike hard, strike fast, and strike by night. Come unexpected and come by sea. Parenthetically, the eventual book was imitated twice. In 1975, the French mercenary Bob Denard attacked and took over the Comoro Islands, at the top of the Mozambique Channel.

  He was acting with the knowledge, assistance, and on behalf of the French government. Amusingly, as his French mercenaries came up the beach in the predawn darkness, they all carried a paperback edition of Les Chiens de Guerre (The Dogs of War in French), so that they could constantly find out what they were supposed to do next. Denard succeeded because he came by sea.

  In 1981, South African mercenary Mike Hoare tried the same trick on the Seychelles, but failed because he came by air.

  For my own story, I soon had all in place—the men, the ship, the target—but lacked vital knowledge. The weapons. Where in Europe could a clandestine mercenary operation secure its weapons? The cover story would be a plausible private-sector operation involving deep-sea diving for oil exploration and upon invitation.

  But the African levies to be picked up en route, one of the subplots, would need submachine carbines and plenty of ammunition. The half dozen mercs would need a heavy machine gun, RPGs (then called bazookas), grenades, 60mm mortar flares, and explosive charges. All that would also require practice and rehearsal time, hence the long, slow cruise on a small merchantman out at sea.

  But where to get all this stuff? Back then I could not call on informational help from the authorities. To find out, I would have to penetrate the world of the black market arms dealers and see it from the inside, and I was not prepared to attempt a thriller without such vital areas explained.

  My contacts advised me that the heart of the black market arms world was in Hamburg and its kingpin was a certain Otto X, who posed as a respectable businessman—but then they all do. So to Hamburg I went with another advance from Hutchinson, which was very happy with the sales of the first two.

  I thought it unwise to use my own name, so I took that of the pilot who flew me out of Biafra and declared I was Frederik van der Merwe, a South African. I even had papers to prove it, prepared by the forger who had taught me about false passports in The Day of the Jackal. Mr. van der Merwe was the youthful assistant of a South African multimillionaire wishing to assist Jonas Savimbi in the Angolan civil war. And thus I managed to get into the inner councils of Herr Otto X.

  There I learned about End User Certificates, the documents purporting to come from a reputable sovereign government entitled to purchase defense equipment for its legitimate purposes. For a fee, Otto X could obtain false ones on the right-headed paper and signed by a “purchased” African diplomat assigned to an embassy somewhere in Europe. It was all going swimmingly, until something happened that I had not foreseen.

  One morning, Herr Otto X was in his limousine when it stopped at a red light next to a bookshop that was launching the German version of Der Schakal (The Day of the Jackal) that same day. There was a display in the window, but one copy had fallen over and on the rear cover was a picture of the author.

  Herr Otto X found himself staring at Meneer van der Merwe and suffered a complete sense-of-humor failure. Fortunately I had an unknown and unsuspected friend at court. I was in my hotel room opposite the main station when the phone rang. There were no introductions. A voice spoke, clearly British, with the clipped tones of education.

  “Freddie, get out of Hamburg now. And I mean now. They are coming for you.”

  Like my father in 1938, I did a runner. I grabbed my passport and a fistful of money, left the luggage, and went down the stairs, past the receptionist and across the Station Square. I did not bother with the ticket office, but went straight for the trains. One was just beginning to move, its doors closed but with one window wide open.

  I went through it on a forward roll and landed on the lap of a plump German businessman, who also lacked the gift of humor. I was still apologizing when the conductor appeared to check tickets. No ticket.

  I explained I had just had time to catch the train, which was gathering speed through the suburbs, and asked to pay in cash.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Well, where are you going?” I replied.

  “Amsterdam,” he said.

  “What a coincidence. A single to Amsterdam, in economy.”

  “You are in first,” he said, “you’ll have to move.” So I got my ticket, apologized again, and went to find a harder seat.

  My father’s younger brother was living and working for a British company in Scheveningen at the time. He managed to get me a passage on a merchantman out of Flushing for England.

  Back in my London flat, I gathered my research papers around me, sat down, and wrote The Dogs of War, presenting the manuscript to Harold Harris just before the deadline.

  I wondered about the voice on the phone that had saved my bacon in Hamburg. The only explanation that made sense was that also in the circle around Herr Otto X was another infiltrator from a body I knew only as the Firm, checking on behalf of my government on possible arms sales to the IRA. But I never found out who he was, and so far as
I know, never met him.

  The spring of 1973 was restful. I had completed my three-novel contract, had no ideas for a fourth, and was just beginning to see some serious money coming in. Then I dropped by at John Mallinson’s flat for a drink, and someone else, on her way home from a modeling assignment, also came by. She was an auburn-haired girl whose legs seemed to go on forever. We married in Gibraltar that August.

  And a letter came from David Deutsch, the producer appointed by John Woolf to make the film of Jackal. It had filmed in London and was then shooting all the French scenes in Paris. Would I like to come over for a visit and meet the star, Edward Fox? Of course I would.

  I knew the face because, months earlier during preproduction, Fred Zinnemann had asked me to his office for a consultation. With his Old World Viennese courtesy, he explained there was a problem with the casting.

  The Hollywood studio that would distribute the movie wanted a known star. Michael Caine had been interested, ditto Roger Moore. Charlton Heston had begged for it. But Zinnemann wanted a man who, though an excellent actor, was still little known enough to vanish in the crowd, as the Jackal was supposed to do.

  In his Mount Street office, the director solemnly placed six photos before me, all postcard size. They were all of handsome young men, blond, staring at the camera.

  “Which, for you, is the Jackal?” he asked. I scanned them all and placed my finger on the bottom right-hand photo.

  “That one.”

  “I am so glad. I have just signed him. His name is Edward Fox.”

  The other five were male models. Edward had already gained his spurs as Lord Trimingham in Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between. But internationally, he was still relatively unknown. The Day of the Jackal was going to change that.

  AN UNUSUAL DINNER

  Fred Zinnemann was a brilliant director, but it was as if he were two men. Off the set, he was Old World courtesy personified, but on the set he was a miniature dictator. Perhaps he had to be to get the films made; there are some very large egos in filmmaking.

  He was staying at the Hotel Warwick in the rue de Berri, just off the Champs-Elysées, with Edward Fox very much under his wing and control. He did not really want his new young star going off into town at night, lest he be late for the early starts that were necessary to get out to the studio and into makeup.

  I arrived at the hotel on time and he introduced me to Edward. Dinner was friendly, but slightly formal, and ended rather early for the City of Lights. I suspected Edward might have been up for a more adventurous evening.

  As we were crossing the lobby toward the door and out of earshot of Mr. Zinnemann, I asked if he had actually ever met a contract hit man. He said he had not.

  “Would you like to?” I asked.

  “Well, as I am supposed to be playing one, it might be interesting,” he said.

  I told him that at eight the next evening, there would be a taxi parked across the street with me in it. He should just cross the road and jump in.

  It was quite a long shot, but I was lucky. I hoped Armand would be in town, and when I contacted his doting sister, she said he was indeed, and she would tell him to call me at my hotel. He rang just before midnight and I told him what I had in mind. He seemed amused, but would not come to the Eighth Arrondissement, setting up a “meet” in the heart of the red light district at a café-bar I had never heard of.

  Of the six mercenaries who had stayed on in Biafra after the bulk of the French-supplied contingent ran into an ambush and then to the airport to evacuate themselves, as I said, I really liked only three: Alec the Scot, Johnny the Rhodesian, and Armand.

  Armand was lanky and swarthy, with the black hair and eyes of his Corsican ancestors. He spoke rarely, but observed the world with an ironic half grin.

  He had gone to Biafra only because the chief of the Brigade Criminelle of the Paris police had advised him in the friendliest way that he should leave Paris for a while to avoid an embarrassing arrest. There were no hard feelings, the spirit being that we all have to make a living.

  So he had joined the group being organized by Jacques Foccart, the French government’s Mr. Dirty Tricks for Africa, to be led by ex-Legion legend Roger Faulckes. When the French contingent ran for home after a week, Armand stayed on, and indeed to the end.

  I discovered that he had actually sought out the Irish missionaries and monthly handed over his pay to buy more food for the children. He also told me, when I learned of it, that he would be immensely displeased if word got out. One did not lightly displease Armand, so I kept quiet.

  Armand had never really been a gangster in Paris because he never joined a gang. But he occasionally acted as settler of accounts between the gangs of the Paris underworld. The city police had no objection to the place being cleaned up a bit, which was why they mostly left him alone.

  On one occasion, Madame Claude, proprietress of the corps of the best call girls in Europe, felt she was being followed, possibly with intent to kidnap. She, too, consulted the chief of detectives, who recommended she engage Armand to look after her.

  A week later, her driver again noticed the lights of the stalker car in his mirror. Armand, sitting beside him, asked him to pull over and stop. The car behind did the same. Armand got out and strolled back to have a word. There was a brief conversation through the side window of the car behind. It hung a U-turn in the middle of the boulevard and drove off. That was the end of that.

  Although he was much younger than her, Madame Claude developed a huge crush on him, made more so by his polite disinclination to take advantage. So she offered him the choice of her school of extremely pricey ladies—on the house, so to speak. But he preferred, as he put it, to roll his own, so he left her employ.

  The bistro he had stipulated was down a side street, and as the taxi entered it, we noted that both pavements were lined with streetwalkers. We got out, and as I paid the driver we received a chorus of the usual salutations.

  “Alors, blondie, je t’emmène? Tu veux monter, non?”

  Edward, who had been to Harrow, of course did not understand a word, but the sense was clear enough. It was a warm night, their dresses were minimal, and their bosoms jacked up to resemble party balloons. I settled up with the taxi and ushered him inside.

  There was a bar, then a bead curtain, and the dining area behind it. We penetrated the curtain and joined Armand at the table in the far corner, where he was toying with a citron pressé (he did not drink alcohol).

  Introductions made, we had a civilized dinner. Armand spoke no English and Edward schoolboy French, which is to say very little indeed. I interpreted. With his innate manners, Edward asked no really embarrassing questions, so there were no tense moments, until the end.

  And that was not the fault of any of us. Word had spread to the bar area and thence to the street that there was a film star dining inside. The French are film crazy, and the idea of a real film star a few yards away was to the streetwalkers as a large fly to a salmon. They invaded the dining area, shoving their figures at us both until they realized that only Edward was in films. Then they were making him some very bawdy suggestions.

  The future Jackal was pink as a traffic light, the underworld executioner was laughing his head off, and I was trying to get the headwaiter so that I could settle up and escape. Then Armand was gone, out the back via the kitchens, and I have not seen him since. The bar owner summoned a cab by phone and I was able to deliver Edward back to the Warwick and Fred Zinnemann pretty much intact.

  Forty years later, at a garden lunch party at my home, I told the anecdote to a merry audience to explain how we met. Edward was there with his wife, Joanna David, who had never heard it. I ended by saying that in forty years I had never told him what it was the girls were saying to him. He leaned across the table.

  “No,” he said, “you never did. What was it?”

  “They were offering you freebies
. Whatever you wanted. On the house. And in their world, that is a very serious compliment indeed.”

  He thought it over.

  “I don’t suppose there is any point in going back?”

  As we are both well into our seventies, I very much doubt it.

  PERFECT JOY

  If you were to ask ten people for their definition of perfect joy, you might well get ten definitions or a few less than that. Pretty high on the list would be that moment when a father gazes down at his newborn child, the tiny face puckered in outrage at having been expelled from a safe, warm womb into a world of troubles. Of these, it knows nothing and from them must be protected, which is where the lovelorn father comes in.

  There will be other choices, including palm-fringed lagoons or a hole in one while winning the U.S. Open. Reject all of these, for I know what is perfect joy, because I have seen it.

  The call, when it came in summer 1973, was as always terribly diffident. Could we possibly get together for a chat? Of course we could. They did not want me to come to Century House in case someone saw me. And a lunch booth in a restaurant, however expensive and discreet, can always be bugged by a waiter working for the other side.

  So it was a safe house, in reality an apartment in a block, scanned daily and certainly before every use. It was so discreet that I have forgotten where it was, save only it was in Mayfair, London. There were three of them and they were not from the Africa Desk, but concerned with operations in East Germany, so I did not know them. But they knew me, or at least the contents of my file.