by Simon Mann
Coebus is my first shot. He and I drink a beer at the bar of the Sandton Towers, where we have drunk many. We shoot the breeze for one bottle, then I ask, ‘Come on, Coebus – how about it? One last op. A big one… You know how bloody bored you are.’
‘For a government? Or against a government?’ he asks. That’s Coebus: straight to the jugular.
‘Against the heads, this time … but it needs doing bad.’
‘No, Simon – not one against the heads – not yet – maybe when the girls are older – when they’ve left school – they need me too much…’
I thought about it. Coebus is an old woman now. Or is Coebus right? To take his job as a single father so seriously?
For God’s sake. That’s not how the West was won. Was it?
Then I need my numbers. Pounds, shillings and pence. I’ll get them from Niek and Crause. I’ve been out of the game a while. What are the costs? Men, weapons, aircraft. These ops are a business, even if they are life and death. I have to put together a cashflow.
Then – again back in the UK – the Boss and I discuss the possibility of us becoming the contractors for EG’s fishery protection programme. This would give us good cover for having a boat, and crew, on the target. The Boss gives me a copy of a US proposal. Some outfit from Texas: BAT Systems.
I look at BAT’s proposal. It’s wildly over the top. So much so that it has to be a cover. Then two sources that I run it past tell me it’s just that. BAT are a front for some ex-SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) and ex-Delta guys. That BAT’s EG coup plan had been close to execution when the CIA had got cold feet. Langley binned it. In the BAT bin.
I give this titbit to the Boss. He laughs. ‘So! You heard about that one, did you? How interesting. You have some good sources, I see. Well done.’
I draw up our own fishery protection proposal, which the Boss then sends to his contact in EG. Our proposal goes down well. We even get praise from this contact down there – I assume he is the Minister for Defence, or Fisheries, or some such. Then a meeting is arranged with a man who is apparently a go-between, and a Mr Fix-It, with President Obiang.
The meeting was a waste of time, but I let it pass. I put it to the back of my mind. It would have amazed me then to know how Amil Hammam was to play a part in my story.
But right now I’m trying to work out how to get a recce into EG. Fast.
The principal investors are all over me to get on with the job. At one point I say to them that I have revised my estimate downward, from 150 to 80. The least number of troops that I need to do the op.
‘Eighty?’ The Boss sneers. ‘If you want to know what I think, you could do this with eight.’
Think about it. What does that mean?
Meantime, there is one job of overriding priority that I need to do in EG. Fast.
Niek du Toit, an ex-commandant, is someone that I met through a guy called Paul Heyns. Paul is dead now. Killed in February 2003 in the CAP 20 aerobatics aircraft he was training in. I sometimes used to fly with him, in his Pitts Special and other assorted flying machines.
Paul nearly killed me once. He was showing me how short a take-off his Short Take-Off Husky could do. From the pumps to the runway and across it. One hundred and fifty feet at the most. Except that we didn’t take off – not without bashing into the dirt bank on the far side of the runway. Paul’s only comment was that my briefcase was heavier than it looked. Paul wasn’t just good at tight aerial manoeuvres. He was good at tight business ones.
Paul used to do the trickier EO procurements in the Angola and Sierra Leone days. I met Niek because he worked for Paul in his arms-dealing outfit, the South African government-licensed weapons-trading company Military Technical Services Pty Ltd (MTS).
Although Niek had worked for Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone, our paths hadn’t crossed. At that time there were 1,800 people in EO. Tony Buckingham and I were happy not to be well known. When I first met Niek – which must have been in 2000 – it was at a four-ball meeting at the Jan Smuts International Holiday Inn in Johannesburg: Paul, Niek, myself and one Mark Thatcher.
I check out Niek with Coebus, and Crause, and several others. Everyone says the same: very courageous, very professional. He is close to the old 32 ‘Buffalo’ Battalion crowd.* That is good, because those men are black. They are good, not expensive and much less provocative. In the situation we will be in, of suddenly running an African country – albeit very briefly – black is gonna be beautiful.
I like Niek du Toit’s super-serious manner and his Afrikaner way of working. Nothing is too hard. Nothing too difficult. I had wanted to use him just for recruiting the men and for the weapons procurement. But if I can’t have Coebus to lead the Op, then I’ll ask Niek.
We agree to meet.
MAY 2003: ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
The Baur au Lac hotel, on the city shore of Lake Zurich, screams ‘Money!’ Jawohl, Mein Herr. Dollars. Pounds. Euros. Schweizer Franken. Bitte schön… This is our RV.
The inside glitz is upstaged by the sumptuous gardens. The landscape designer had aimed for ‘Garden of Eden’. He hasn’t fallen short. It’s lunchtime.
I sit outside in the sun. All around me are slim, blonde, toned, tucked and tanned trophy wives, drinking white-wine spritzers with their Caesar Salads.
Through thick bush, I spot Niek. He’s seeking me out, squinting in the bright light. He’s in khaki trousers, neutral plaid shirt, boots. Over his shirt he wears one of those sleeveless khaki drill war-correspondent waistcoats. In some places just wearing one of those things will get you shot. He looks like a movie actor who’s stumbled onto the wrong set.
Niek joins me, orders a beer, then takes out an enormous mobile phone to make a call. He adjusts the electric toothbrush-like antenna so that it is vertical. I can feel the X-Ray trophies gawping. They’re thinking as one: what kind of man has kept a phone like that these last 20 years? An electric brick… Has he just stepped out of a time machine?
I wish Niek wasn’t doing this. The phone is not a mobile. This is an Iridium handheld satellite phone. Latest kit.
When he finishes, I tell him, ‘I don’t think this is the best spot for us.’
‘Agreed,’ he says, draining his beer in three gulps.
I lead him to a jetty on Lake Zurich. We board one of those 50-foot tourist/commuter boats: the MV Brunhilde. No one is following us. The boat is almost empty. It putters off. We stand on deck, eyeing the billions of pounds’ worth of real estate that litter the sapphire-ringed shoreline.
I watch Niek glare hungrily at the mansions and yachts.
He’s been soldiering all his life. He’s developed a kamikaze disregard for his own safety. After this meeting he’s on his way back to more war-torn rainforest, in Liberia. That was where the other party to his both-ways satellite phone call had been hiding. There the rebel force Liberians United for Democracy and Development (LURD) are trying to depose another rank tyrant. President Charles Taylor.
I know about Taylor and Liberia because I only just got out of Monrovia alive, back in ’89. I had been working for the then Finance Minister to President Doe – one Emmanuel Shaw. He, Jonathan (an ex-Mossad pilot) and I had to escape in Shaw’s old Beechcraft Baron light twin.
We only just made it off the ground, small-arms fire helping us pedal faster down the crappy single paved runway of the James Spriggs-Payne Airfield, in the heart of Monrovia.
The three of us barely flew out one end of the shanty crap city, as Taylor machine gunned his way into the other. The firing at us came from the Presidential Guard. Meant to be Shaw’s bodyguard, they were in fact his would-be jailers. Doe trusted only two blacks: Black Magic and Black Label. Doe was famously executed: on the beach, by chainsaw.
The ex-Mossad crowd, sixty or so Israelis who were meant to be Doe’s bodyguard, not surprisingly ran away. Doe wasn’t worth an African Alamo ending. This close protection team sped off in style.
The Israeli bodyguard team had all made so much money illegally trading diam
onds (mostly walked in from SL) that, when the balloon went up, they could zoom around the corner to safe Conakry, all in their polished Sunseeker speed yachts. But all of that’s another story.
On the Brunhilde, I brief Niek on the EG coup plan. I ask him to lead the troops. I make it clear that I want him to be my commander on the ground.
You hire the men, you buy the kit, you own the plan, I tell him. Just so long as I like the plan too. I know from before that these South Africans must feel that they are running their own little show … that at least they are running their own little show. ‘Moenie sy gat krap nie.’ ‘Never stand in another man’s shadow.’
There are two golden rules we’re going to follow, I explain. This Op is against the heads: not the way we’ve worked before. This Op is exotic.
I tell Niek the rules. Number one: men and weapons shall only ever meet right at the last minute, and for the least time. In this case, that will be when we are on our way in to Equatorial Guinea. The longer they are kept apart, then the more easily deniable is the op. That’s the old Provo rule and they know what they’re doing by now, to be sure, to be sure. The Boyos. Number two: Severo Moto has to be with me, and with the men, when – finally – we are both armed and on the wing. If we’re caught without Moto then we’re the bad ass mercenaries. They – whoever they are – will throw away the key. But if we are caught with Moto, then we’re the close protection team of a senior statesman going home to make an election happen.
Angels.
Niek takes the job. No surprise.
We both agree our top priority. A recce. Put men on the ground. I have to find out if the horrific tales I am told about EG are really true. The Boss tells me. Moto tells me. The web tells me. But I must tell me. Is this guy, President Obiang, really as bad as he is painted? I need my own eyes and ears, but I am too toxic. It is too early for Niek to go. We need others.
Once on the ground our agents can seek out deals and projects. We’ve used this MO before. We plant them in the target country to set up businesses. Then we can move in people, goods, money. In and out.
Setting up the right businesses in Africa takes you to the right people. It’s what we called Bongonomics, in dubious honour of the late and unlamented leader of Gabon, President Omar Bongo. African politicians love foreign investors. Get to the politicians and you quickly get to the top hombre. Once you’re with the number one, then the treasure box flies open.
Niek has the right men for that job. We agree to send them in straight away. We both remember the old tag: ‘The only good cover is real cover.’
Remember that one, girls.
Niek has already come up with a plan for the coup. He will speak to his friend Sekou Conneh, the head of LURD. Niek is sure that our offer will be grabbed. If we bung the rebel leader some cash, he’ll provide 200 of his LURD fighters – with their weapons and ammo – for our op.
Getting these fighters into EG from Liberia would be my task. I’m a sailor, of sorts. I know that I can pick up a small coastal cargo ship in the Baltic, something like 20,000 tons, for £800,000 or so. With the EU chopping and changing shipping regs, cargo ships are going cheap. I am sure I can pick up a ship for less than a million. I’ll sail her to Southampton. Pick up kit and stores. Then I’ll sail her down.
Around the corner. Left at the lights. To Liberia.
I’ll close the shore at night, at an agreed safe spot, then ferry Niek and the 200 men and weapons aboard. We’ll ferry using the half-dozen rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs) that we’ll need on board anyway. For the beach landing.
Getting Moto onto the MV Princess Maud is a slight problem. He is worth too much to be allowed to wander around in a Liberian jungle war. I hit on the idea of parachuting him into the sea just before we pick up the troops.
A child can do it. It’s 100 per cent safe. Almost no training needed. The UK MoD let their civilian staff do it as a perk. Or used to. For his parachute jump, Severo will fly with Crause out of the Canaries. This is not a customary airline.
We will then sail directly to EG’s capital, Malabo, on Bioko Island: just over 1,000 nautical miles south-east of Liberia: at eight knots, six days’ steaming.
Our men inside EG will be waiting for us at an agreed beach landing spot. They will provide the vehicles. By then they will have the local knowledge to transport our commando raid to the palace in Malabo. And to the other targets: the KPs.
The Princess Maud will then act as our fire base. Naval Gunfire Support (NGS) with four 82mm mortars and two 23mms on board, she will be a floating battery. A match for anything. She will be able to give massive fire support if, God forbid, it is needed. She will also give us a five-star E&E plan.
On the sun-kissed waters of Lake Zurich, this is what Niek and I agree. This is Plan A.
Niek’s next step will be to get together with the head of LURD to agree terms, and then with him and me, to shake hands … and pay. We cannot but laugh for the joy of plotting such a wonderful piece of Grade A, Plan A derring-do. In such a bountiful bourgeois picture-postcard setting.
Days later, Niek calls me. He’s in the jungle. He’s hard to hear, talking on that Iridium satellite phone of his, but the LURD leader, Sekou Conneh, has leapt at our offer. No surprise. A goodwill bung of $20,000 will kick things off. Niek has set up an RV for the three of us, in a fortnight. All I have to do is get the money from the Boss. Turn up.
The Boss loves Plan A. At our weekly meeting he promises the loot. Seven days later, another meeting: no loot. I know he’s loaded. What’s $20,000 plus travel to a man with his money? He’ll have it for me next day. Then the day after that. So, the day before I fly to Conakry, capital of the Guinea Republic (not to be confused with Equatorial Guinea), I still don’t have the $20,000.
I phone one of the other backers. ‘I’m being fucked around,’ I tell him. ‘I’m supposed to be sorting out LURD tomorrow, but I haven’t got the cash.’
Two minutes later I get a call from the Boss.
‘What are you doing? Going behind my back?’ he hisses.
Get off the bloody phone, then, I say to myself. I understand what he means but I don’t care. I just want the money. The money I have been promised every day for the last fortnight. I have a mountain to climb. He tells me to meet him at an appointed location. My mind is ablaze. He’s been winding me up to get a move on, then – when I come up with a firm plan – he and his money melt away.
What is he playing at? Does he want to go ahead with this thing or not? Am I being set up? Who’s pulling the Boss’s strings? Or am I fucking this thing up? Have I done something to make him lose faith in me?
Or maybe he’s just following his golden rule. The golden rule of the super-rich: never use your own money – use someone else’s. ‘OPM’, the fat cats call it. Other People’s Money.
I arrive at the appointed location. The Boss’s chauffeur is there to meet me. I’ve been told that this big fat lump is ex-SAS. He is, kind of. He’s ex-21 SAS, the TA part-timers. But the Territorial Army SAS, 21 and 23 SAS Regiments, and the Regular Army SAS, 22 SAS Regiment, are from different planets. That isn’t the point anyway. With this guy’s weight of lard he wouldn’t last an hour on Selection – 21 or 22.
Fatty holds out to me a thick brown envelope, tugged from inside his tight jacket. He cranes his neck around. Conspiratorial, seeking out spies.
‘That’s for your trip… Watch yourself with that much cash on you,’ he mutters.
‘Do please fuck off,’ I want to say, but keep it to myself.
Thirty-six hours later, I’m in the rainforest of the Guinea Republic, very close to the borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia. I’m with Niek and the Liberian rebel chief, Sekou Conneh.
Rainforest rain rattles down all around us. Dawn in the High Veldt.
We discuss the deal, with no mention of the target. I hand the LURD leader the envelope. He counts the notes, his face lighting up. In this neck of the wet woods, $20,000 is a war winner.
The 200 men and
their weapons are on stand-by, Sekou Conneh tells me. As soon as he gets the lump sum – the next and major instalment of $500,000 – the men and equipment will be released, for training under Niek, and thence to execute Plan A. The pay and rations of those men, along with compensation scales for injury and death, are down to us. The amounts are agreed and noted, between Niek and Sekou. Or will be.
I get back to the UK. I learn that other elements of Plan A are firming up. My contacts have sourced vessels for sale in the Baltic. The right ships at the right prices. Pals in the Special Boat Service (SBS) have directed me to the best RHIBs and outboard motors for this kind of op. I pencil orders with suppliers.
I’ve been down to my local B&Q in Southampton. I’m putting together a costing for our software kit lists. In this game, software has nothing to do with computers. Software means all kit, minus weapons, ammo and any other undeniably war-fighting stores. It’s rations, webbing, clothing, cooking gear, water containers, tents, medical supplies, defence stores, axes, spades, picks, ropes, machetes… A list without end.
At the same time I’m making contact with air crew, sailors, suppliers. All the people that I will shortly put on stand-by. Of course none of these contacts knows what I’m up to. Not yet.
But Plan A is ready. The Boss has agreed to my wheeze to parachute Severo, but I have to jump with him. That’s fine. Water jumps are fun. I look forward to telling Severo – in flight – that he will be leaving the aircraft before it lands. How badly does he want to free his people?
All I need now is the lump sum, then it’s RED ON… GREEN ON… GO GO GO!
*Known as ‘The Terrible Ones’, Os Terriveis, 32 ‘Buffalo’ Battalion was one of the SADF’s most feared units during the Border Wars with Angola and Namibia. It was made up mostly of Angolans recruited from the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), a militant outfit who fought for and won Angolan independence from Portugal. Later, FNLA allied itself to the UNITA rebels.