House of Snow

by Sir Ranulph Fiennes Ed Douglas

  At precisely the same time that Devyani was talking to Raju Karki, the atmosphere within the billards room became unsettlingly bizarre. The crown prince began to fall about as though he were roaring drunk. He then slumped to the floor and appeared to have passed out. It was as out of character as it was embarrassing. Fortunately, most of the older family members were with the queen mother in her separate chamber. The king had not yet arrived but was expected at any minute. For the crown prince to be found unconscious would be a catastrophic breach of protocol, made worse by the fact that he was supposed to be hosting the evening.

  Paras tried to revive Dipendra. “Not here, it’s inappropriate,”he tried to tell him. “The king has arrived.” But it was no use. The crown prince appeared to be out cold. So four of the younger generation decided the best thing was to get him out of the billiards room immediately. They staggered under the weight of his unwieldy body, brother Nirajan and Captain Shahi taking an arm each while Cousin Paras held up his feet. Princess Shruti’s husband, Kumar Gorakh, followed behind as this bizarre cortege lurched over the little bridge and up the steps leading to the crown prince’s private apartments. They hauled him to his bedchamber and placed him on a low divan. Switching off the lights, they left Dipendra to sleep it off and returned to the party in time to be present for the king’s arrival, as was only proper.

  *

  King Birendra had been working late, as usual. This particular evening he had been closeted with his principal press secretary, Mohan Bahadur Panday, going over the details of a rare interview with a magazine editor. After years of self-imposed seclusion, Birendra was becoming more open with the press. As the discussion drew to a close, Panday asked and was granted permission to leave at about half past eight.

  Rather than be driven around to Tribhuvan Sadan, Birendra chose to walk. Since his heart attack two and a half years earlier, the king had been advised to take more exercise. It was only five minutes’ walk from his office, but even so he was accompanied by one of his ADCs, Colonel Sundar Pratap Rana. When he reached Tribhuvan Sadan, the king went straight to the small chamber where the queen mother was holding court, so that he could immediately pay his respects. Colonel Rana left him at the entrance, knowing, like the other ADCs, that this was a “family only” evening, then walked on to the ADCs’ office. It was less than a minute away. Both he and the other officers on duty could easily be called, if needed.

  The queen mother was surrounded by royal relations when the king walked in. They hurried to greet him, then everyone raised a toast to Queen Mother Ratna’s health. She responded by suggesting that they replenish their glasses. In the world of palace etiquette, where things are said indirectly, this was a clear hint that she wanted a private conference. So most of the royal uncles and aunts departed, leaving only King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, and Princess Helen with the queen mother. The four of them remained closeted in the private chamber for twenty minutes. What precisely they discussed is not known, though with three senior royal ladies present the subject of marriages – and not just Dipendra’s, but plans for his brother, Nirajan, to marry a suitable Rana girl – may well have received their attention.

  There are many reasons why Dipendra, intoxicated or not, should have wanted to absent himself while this kind of conference was going on. It was humiliating to be talked about in such a manner. Besides, he knew that all three royal ladies did not support his plans to marry Devyani. He did not need to hear echoes of their disapproval. It was preferable to absent himself entirely, even if it meant acting the drunken idiot.

  The opinion of many who saw him falling about – that he was only acting rather than physically intoxicated – seems be borne out by what happened next. He had been left in his bedroom, apparently fast asleep on the divan, at a little after half past eight. He must have roused himself almost immediately, for just a few minutes later two servants sent by ADC Gajendra Bohara after he received the telephone call from Devyani found the crown prince trying to undress himself on the bedroom floor. Together they helped him, after which Dipendra went to the bathroom and apparently threw up. One of the servants believes he heard retching noises through the bathroom door. The crown prince then returned to his bedchamber and ordered the two servants out.

  The next thing he did – just seven minutes after being deposited apparently unconscious on the divan – was to call Devyani again. Vomiting may have helped to clear his head, but it seemed to have been a remarkably swift recovery. She took the call on her mobile phone. Her memories of what was said are confused: “He said he’d call tomorrow; then he said good night.” Next, according to Devyani, he asked again about something he had already mentioned earlier, but then hung up before she could reply. She says she then called back, and Dipendra told her: “I am about to sleep. I’ll call again in the morning.”

  Strangely, there is no record of that second call in the otherwise meticulous log kept by Nepal Telecom, only of an attempt to reach him from the land line of Devyani’s friend, Debina Malla, which was automatically transferred to the palace switchboard, as is customary. Whoever was calling in hung up after one second. Obviously they wanted to talk to Dipendra and no one else.

  In his last conversation with Devyani, the crown prince seems clearly to have intended to return to bed. In fact, he did the opposite. He dressed himself again, this time in military fatigues: camouflage vest, black socks, ill-matching camouflage combat jacket and trousers, his army boots, and a pair of black leather gloves. His next move was still more sinister. He assembled and checked his weaponry: the favorite 9 mm. Glock pistol; a stubby MP5K submachine gun; his preferred assault rifle, the Colt M-16; and a SPAS twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun, along with magazine pouches and webbing for carrying spare ammunition.

  As Dipendra was about to leave his rooms, his faithful orderly, Ram Krishna, called out: “Shall the emergency bag be brought, sir?” The emergency bag contained weatherproof clothing, insect spray, a flashlight, spare batteries, and other items that might come in handy when the crown prince went trekking. Seeing his master dressed up in military gear and carrying guns, Ram Krishna quite reasonably assumed he was going on some overnight sortie outside the palace. “It’s not necessary now,” was Dipendra’s curt response.

  *

  Once the king had ended his private conversation with his stepmother he rejoined the rest of the guests in the billiards room. The talk among the older men was about the army and whether it might be deployed against the Maoist guerrillas – all in a guarded, indirect manner, of course. The king, eschewing alcohol, was drinking a Coke on his doctor’s advice, but he nonetheless sent for a cigar. It was one of the pleasures he still allowed himself occasionally.

  One of the royal uncles, Rabi Shamsher Rana, engaged him in small talk. Another uncle, Maheshwar Kumar Singh, came up and apologized for his wife being unable to attend the party because of her arthritis. Birendra commented that many family members suffered from gout, uric acid, and high cholesterol.

  He was still holding forth about the family’s tendency to high cholesterol when something moved just beyond the French doors. At first, nobody noticed the “dark figure” dressed in camouflage fatigues, a peaked cap, black combat boots, and black leather gloves.

  General Rabi claims he first recognized the crown prince and realized he was carrying at least two guns. “I thought he looked at me,” the old general recalls, “and I think he smiled.” Others describe Dipendra’s face as expressionless throughout. Everyone present agrees that he never spoke a word.

  “The king was standing by the billiards table,” Ketaki remembers. “I was nearer the door than the others and saw Dipendra walk in.” At first she thought he was playing some kind of practical joke. “Isn’t he too old to be dressing up like this?” she asked her sister, Princess Jayanti.

  Most of the people in the room thought Dipendra had come to show his father something. General Rabi saw the little MP5K submachine gun and assumed it was a replica or toy gun. At first King Birendra
just stood motionless beside the billiards table, the glass of Coke still in his hand. Then he took a step toward his son. Without uttering a single word, Dipendra advanced with a gun in each hand and released three rounds at the king.

  The retort of the submachine gun in such a confined space was deafening. Maheshwar, who was standing near the king, at first thought it had come from the TV. “It was very near my ears, and I thought my eardrums had burst. I blinked. I turned to see what was happening.”

  Others were better placed to observe as events moved rapidly on. “The gun rode up and some bullets went into the ceiling,” says Ketaki. “It didn’t seem that dramatic. There wasn’t lots of ceiling coming down on us or anything.”

  “There was a burst of three shots,” specified General Rabi Rana. He knew his firing drill: Bursts came in fives, in threes, or just single shots. But he had no idea how to react to the situation unfolding before his eyes. “I just stood there watching. I knew he was a happy-go-lucky person, but this was no way to fool around. Then I saw the blood rushing out of the king’s side. I screamed for an ambulance, but it seems no one heard.”

  During that first attack King Birendra was struck by two 9 mm. bullets from the stubby German-made submachine gun. For a few moments he remained standing, long enough to put down his glass very slowly. Looking toward his son, he said very quietly: “Kay gardeko?” – “What have you done?”

  According to General Rabi, who was standing beside him, King Birendra started to collapse toward the left. Blood was already seeping out of a wound to his neck. The crown prince meanwhile retreated through the garden doors and out onto the veranda.

  Still no one in the room moved. They could not believe what had just happened. “We did not think that he intended to kill,” said the king’s youngest sister, Princess Shobha. “We thought the gun had gone off by mistake.”

  Once Dipendra had returned outside, the wave of stunned silence that had engulfed the room evaporated. General Rabi and others rushed to assist the king. Dhirendra’s son-in-law, Captain Ravi Shahi, was a trained army doctor. “His back!” he cried out, calling for assistance to support the king, who by then had collapsed on the floor and was bleeding profusely.

  Suddenly there was total confusion. “People were in a complete panic about who or what was going on,” Maheshwar testified. “I felt the queen had left. Perhaps she went outside? Maybe to the back? But she left. Then Princess Shanti began waving both her hands, wanting to know what had happened, and immediately went outside. Probably to call for help, what else? And as I recall, Princess Sharada also followed her.”

  Although King Birendra lay stricken, having taken two heavy-caliber bullets fired at point-blank range, he was still alive. Captain Shahi tried to staunch the flow of blood from the neck wound. “I am also hit in the stomach,” murmured the king.

  At that moment Dipendra strode back into the billiards room. Outside, on the veranda, he had swiftly rearmed. The Italian-made pump-action shotgun had been discarded. This time he carried the M-16 in his right hand, the machine pistol in his left.

  He must have seen the group trying to help the king, heard his father’s voice, and knew his mission was not accomplished yet. “If the crown prince had not returned at that precise moment,” a palace secretary said later, “he might have thought the king was dead. Then things would have turned out very differently.”

  The crown prince had thrown down the submachine gun he had fired at the king. Possibly it had jammed, though later it was found to be in perfect working order. More probably he wanted someone else in the room to pick it up. That way their fingerprints would be left on the weapon used against the king, not his, since he taken care to wear gloves throughout. Or maybe through some twisted sense of personal honor, he wanted to give his victims a chance to strike back, to justify what was coming.

  It was the wounded king who made a move to pick up the fallen submachine gun. But as he reached toward it, Princess Shobha stopped him. “I said, ‘Leave this,’ and snatched it. The magazine came out and I threw it away.” It was a snap decision, no doubt based on her desire to prevent any more bloodshed. But it was one she has lived to regret. She had mistakenly thought that she was disposing of the only weapon in the room. As the magazine fell free and clattered to the floor, the last realistic chance of stopping the killing was thrown away.

  Ketaki recalls how careful Dipendra was not to allow anyone to come around behind him. With hindsight, she sees the way in which this first phase of attack was executed as being “coldly calculated.”

  Dipendra had, after all, selected his prime target: his father, the king. With him out of the way, the crown prince would by the Royal Constitution of Nepal automatically be proclaimed king, whether he was a murderer or not. “The king is dead; long live the king” still applies in such cases, for the throne can never be left vacant. And if Dipendra had been declared king, then someone else could have been made a scapegoat for the royal murder. All the other family members, placed under house arrest, would be cowed into agreeing to the official version of events. And Dipendra would finally be in charge.

  Certainly Dipendra’s subsequent actions show he needed to be certain he had killed the king. Now armed with the M-16 assault rifle, he fired off a burst at his father, again at point-blank range.

  The king’s youngest brother, Dhirendra, was the first to make a move toward the crown prince. “Baba, you have done enough damage,” he said. When his appeal to reason failed, Dhirendra tried to restrain his nephew physically. Dhirendra was a powerfully built man and had been trained in karate, but he was unarmed. Before he could get near enough he too was cut down by a burst of automatic fire through the chest.

  Any warped logic or planning that might have explained Dipendra’s actions so far seems to have been abandoned completely at this stage. Two others were caught in the fusillade that killed the King’s brother. Kumar Khadga went down with bullet wounds to the chest that were to prove fatal. Princess Shruti’s husband, Kumar Gorakh, was shot in the neck but survived. He recalls being targeted by the light on the M-16’s telescopic sight. “When he held up the gun there was a flash. I thought, ‘This is the end.’ That was when I was hit.”

  Princess Shruti was rushing to her father’s aid when she heard her husband mutter, “I also have been hit.” She changed direction and tried to comfort her husband, cradling him in her arms. Sadly, that was enough to attract the gunman’s attention. He fired again. Princess Shruti was wounded through the elbow and sustained internal injuries that would prove fatal.

  Kumar Khadga had also fallen out in the open. His wife, Princess Sharada, went to him and lay over his body, sobbing, “What has happened to you, what has happened to you?” Blood spread across the floor.

  *

  A second time Dipendra retreated through the doors to the veranda. He was only outside a few seconds before advancing once more. Now he let off long bursts of gunfire, spraying the room indiscriminately. Three of his aunts, princesses Shanti, Sharada, and Jayanti, went down in the hail of bullets. Princess Sharada was trying to shield her husband with her own body. Princess Jayanti was trying to retrieve a mobile phone so that she could call the ADCs. That may have inflamed the gunman even further. He fired another burst into the fallen bodies. All of them sustained fatal injuries.

  Ketaki was luckier, in some respects. She took one bullet through the lower arm and another that blew away the top of her shoulder, but she lived. “I didn’t realize it at the time,” she said, “but the blood had spurted all over my face and head. It must have looked like I had taken a bullet in the head, which is probably why I am still alive.” Another of Dipendra’s aunts, Princess Komal, had a bullet pass through her left lung. It missed her heart by centimeters; she was extremely fortunate to survive. As the wife of King Gyanendra, she is now Queen Komal of Nepal.

  Most of those hit had been standing or lying out in the middle of the main hall, where there was no furniture to hide behind and any movement would immediately dr
aw the gunman’s attention. Another group had taken cover behind tables and a sofa at the far end of the sitting room. It was Paras who had urged them to take cover there, shouting to others still out in the open to duck and stay out of the line of fire.

  Meanwhile, the killer was moving about the room. He approached the body of the king and kicked it around with his army boot, to make absolutely sure his father was dead. He did the same to his younger sister. Her wounded husband, Gorakh, recalls how methodically Dipendra “returned and picked out those who had been hurt, took aim and shot, took aim and shot.” It was chilling. Ketaki saw him “swing the gun so casually and just shoot them again. It was deliberate. You could tell by the look in his eyes.”

  Then Dipendra walked over toward where most of the survivors lay huddling. Cousin Paras saw him standing by a tall chair right in front of them. “We fell in his direct gaze,” says Paras, who began pleading for their lives. “What have you done, sir?... Please leave... What are you doing?... Only we are here... just us... Please go.”

  “Well, if he had hit all of us...” Paras left the ensuing bloodbath to the imagination. Besides himself, there were Maheshwar Kumar and General Rabi; his sister, Prerana; his wife, Himani; and three of Dhirendra’s daughters. One of them, Princess Sitasma, was hiding behind the sofa. She had recently returned from being a student in Scotland, and only seconds before had narrowly escaped a bullet that went past her forehead. From her place of hiding she looked up to see her gun-toting cousin looming over them all. “Dipendra came, looked at us, and left,” is how she put it.

  For the gunman it was a bizarre exercise in absolute power, holding the lives of these people in his hands. But with a flick of the head, as though to signify, “You may live,” he left the room. If he had decided to fire again at that group the eventual death count would have been doubled.

  *

  The king and twelve other family members lay dead or wounded inside the billiards room. But so far Queen Aishwarya and her younger son, Prince Nirajan, had been spared. Shortly after the firing started they had both gone outside. Ketaki remembers seeing the queen “marching out of the door” in pursuit of Dipendra. At the same time, the badly wounded Dhirendra said, “Either she’ll disarm him or she’ll get shot too.” It was an all too accurate assessment.