Ralph had met me in the foyer of the Embankment Offices. He had scurried straight over to me, his tall thin frame, very round shouldered, had given the impression that he had carried a small hump on his back. Ralph had taken me straight up to Sir Barry K…’s penthouse suite of offices, on the top floor of the building, overlooking the Thames. I had first met Sir Barry K…when I had joined the Section, back in 1969 – then he had been an Operations and Project Planner. Ex-Royal Air Force, his minimalist office, with its contemporary furniture and chairs, had been suitably adorned with paintings and photographs of aircraft – from Spitfires to Lightning Jet Fighters. Over the years, Sir Barry had progressively worked his way up through the corridors of power, being knighted in 1983, for his services to the country. In 1989, he had taken over as head of Section 9, from Sir Douglas D….
“Martin, old chap, so good of you to come in at such short notice,” he had greeted me, getting up from behind his desk to come round and shake my hand, his grasp firm but warm. With his military precise cut blond hair, he had been as smartly dressed as ever, immaculate tailored suit, crisp white shirt and Windsor knotted RAF tie – only his expanding waist line had betrayed his advancing years. “Do take a seat,” he had then offered, pointing to one of the two chairs in front of his desk.
I had taken one – Ralph had taken the other, Sir Barry going and sitting back down behind his wide desk.
“We’re in a bit of a pickle, Martin,” he had started to explain. “Yesterday, one of our Junior Foreign Service Officers, at our consulate in Amman, Jordan, decided to go on walk about. Apparently, he had a bee in his bonnet about a phosphate mine in northwest Iraq. Though that the Iraqis might be mining Uranium ore there – what was the name of the place, Ralph?”
“Akashat, Sir Barry,” Ralph had quickly confirmed.
“The stupid bugger crossed over the Jordanian-Iraqi border first thing yesterday morning, and got a taxi to take him to this Akashat place,” Sir Barry had continued. “By all accounts, his intention had been to pick up a few rocks and bring them back for analysis. But he hadn’t counted on the quarry being guarded. He was held at the mine, and subsequently arrested and detained by local police.”
“And you would like me to go in and ‘extract’ him?” I had asked.
Sir Barry had taken in a deep breath, and then had exhaled slowly – deliberately. “I’m afraid it is not an ‘extraction’ that we are looking for, old chap,” he had quickly declared. “That would take time to arrange – and time is something that we don’t have the luxury of. Unfortunately, this Junior Foreign Service Officer had been entrusted with information, which, at all costs, must not fall into Iraqi hands.”
By exception, there was only one alternative to an extraction – ‘elimination’.
The matter must indeed have been very serious – as had been the deteriorating diplomatic and military situation, with regards to the Iraq. Even so, what had been implied by Sir Barry had seemed a bit excessive.
“I suppose you have thought about just simply asking for him back.” I had suggested.
“He’s not a bloody ball that’s been knocked over into a neighbour’s back yard, Martin,” Sir Barry had responded instantly. “If we tried to go through diplomatic channels to get him back, then the Iraqis would presume he was important to us, and integrate him – and we simply cannot afford for that to happen.”
“It might have been different if the Iraqis were planning to take him to Baghdad,” Ralph had nervously interjected. “Then we could have made direct diplomatic representation to them – and that would have at least kept him comparatively safe from any serious attempt to interrogate him.”
“But, the crafty buggers know that we would make those representations – so they are not sending him to Baghdad,” Sir Barry had cut straight back in. “Instead, they are sending an interrogator to Akashat, to ‘interview’ our man, there – and that must not happen, at all costs!”
“I need some specifics,” I had said. I could quite clearly understand the point that Sir Barry had been making – urgent elimination had indeed been the only option. But, I had needed confirmation.
“Specifically, we need him killed before the Iraqi interrogator gets hold of him!” Sir Barry had stated, emphatically.
Well, that had been specific enough!
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Early the very next morning, that Friday, had seen me ensconced in the rear seat of a black Range Rover. Complete with blacked out windows, it had been in a convoy of three identical matching Range Rovers, speeding through the streets of Amman, Jordan.
Situated immediately behind the General Army Headquarters, had been the palatial Headquarters of the Dairat al-Mukhabarat al-Ammah or, as it is more locally called, the Mukhabarat; the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate, the GID…the infamous Jordanian Intelligence Agency – somewhere that, being invited ‘for a cup of tea’, could have potentially ominous connotations! But, I had invited myself, out of common courtesy and expected etiquette – you don’t do anything on Jordanian soil without talking to the GID, first! In fact, the whole operation had been totally dependent on their full cooperation and help. The plan had been kept simple in concept and execution – whenever possible, my plans always are. From the Jordanian-Iraqi border, I would be flown by one of our people, by helicopter, to within a few klicks of Akashat, some two hundred kilometres inside Iraq. I would be flown out at dusk, Friday evening, and picked up again at first light, the following morning. I would make my way on foot to Akashat, and to where our man from the Embassy was being held at the local police station – which, in those days, had been situated on the outskirts of the town, close to the railway tracks. There, I would locate our man from the Embassy and resolve the situation. While the plan had been simplicity, itself – my cover had been slightly more convoluted.
I was to be N.F. W…, a Junior Technician in the RAF. He had ostensibly been a member of the flight crew of a C-130 Hercules tactical transport aircraft, on route from RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus; via the King Abdullah Air Base, situated north-east of Amman, in Jordon; to Diyarbakır, in southern Turkey, with permission to use Syrian airspace. The departure of the Hercules from the King Abdullah Air Base would be at the same time as our planned departure – dusk. Although the Hercules had been cleared to use Syrian airspace, an hour into the flight the pilot would radio that they were experiencing failure of the on board navigation and radar systems – and because of the ‘failure’, the plane would accidentally, on purpose, stray into north-east Iraq. The pilot would also transmit that they had been experiencing problems with the large rear cargo door, opening and closing, by itself. And, that is where my cover story had begun. Junior Technician N.F. W…had gone rearwards to work on the door’s hydraulics, in an attempt to permanently close and seal the door. Unfortunately, not wearing a harness, Junior Technician N.F. W…had been sucked out the rear door. Fortunately, he had been wearing a parachute at the time. So, if captured by the Iraqis before having chance to complete my work, I had a fairly plausible cover story. I had fallen from the Hercules and had parachuted to safety. And what of the real Junior Technician N.F. W…? He had been killed in road accident three weeks before, in Cyprus, and had been literally kept on ‘ice’ for such an occasion.
Entering into the tall glass fronted foyer of GID Headquarters, I had been quickly ushered through the wide white marbled floored corridors, past numerous dark panelled doors to an elevator set in a highly polished frame of bur walnut, and edged in gleaming gold. The elevator door had close immediately after I and my two escorts had entered. One of my escorts had punched a series of buttons on a key pad by his side. Instead of rising, the elevator had remained motionless, a mirrored door silently sliding open behind us. This had opened out into a large bright area. With white marble tiles throughout, the far wall had been constructed completely of dark tinted glass, in front of which had been placed a magnificent gilded French Louise XV writing desk. The immaculate, Savile Row suited figure, who had
been sitting behind the desk, had risen up from behind its ornate frame and had walked directly over to greet me.
His Royal Highness Prince H…, despite his slender stature, had an imposing sense of presence – so different from the slightly introverted young Prince, who I had first met some years before.
How the man had changed – or should I say the boy.
CHAPTER FIFTY
When I had first met the Prince, he had been a young Second Lieutenant, in the Jordanian Special Forces.
In the spring of 1975, the world had been full of radical revolutionary fervour, and the Middle East had been no exception. Patrick and I had both been working in the UK, when King Faisal, of Saudi Arabia, had been shot to death by the son of his half-brother. While to the outside world, the Saudi’s had tried to imply that there had been no plot or conspiracy to assassinate King Faisal, merely the act of a deranged mad man, acting alone; the Saudi courts had declared his nephew officially insane – immediately prior to his beheading! The truth had been somewhat different. Indeed, at the time, there had been a lot of conflicting inter-family rivalry. King Khalid, who had succeeded Faisal, had delegated responsibility for state security to his half brother, Crown Prince Fahd, appointing him as First Deputy Prime Minister. One of the first tasks that Fahd had undertaken had been to quietly purge those pro-western royals, from the extended members of the royal family, who had welcomed the assassination of Faisal. They had openly believed that the demise of Faisal would allow more outwardly liberal and westernised members of the lineage to take power – beliefs and opinions that could not, and would not, be tolerated! What had then followed had been a spate of unfortunate accidents and rapidly hastened terminal illnesses, in quick succession, throughout certain persuasions of the extended Royal Family. But, three of these minor Saudi Royals, siblings; two princes and a princess, had managed to evade arrest and had fled the country – fleeing to the Principality of Monaco.
We had been engaged directly by the Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah; the General Intelligence Presidency, the GIP – the intelligence agency of the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Apparently, I had been very well recommended to them by the Moroccan Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, the DST – the Moroccan Secret Service. I had also carried out a piece of work for the Saudis sometime before, in the Yemen. The brief from the Saudi GIP had been precise. Subtleness and discretion had been explicitly required and demanded. Nothing to cause concern or outrage from those Western countries, that the Saudis had been trying to solicit technology and military aid from – especially the United States.
Patrick and I had needed time to prepare and plan, and what better place to prepare and plan than the superlative luxury of the Hôtel de Paris, in Monte Carlo, itself – after all, we had been on a more than generous expense allowance! The self exiled royal brothers and their sister had also taken up residence at the prestigious hotel, taking adjoining apartments on a top floor; their small entourage of servants relegated to a two star hotel, in a nearby back street. We had spent the best part of the following week discreetly shadowing the royal siblings as they had enjoyed the pleasures of Monte Carlo…and very pleasant it had been, too – as we had also shared and experience those same pleasures. Posing as Canadian property developers, looking for potential sites to build and develop within the Principality and the local area, we had easily blended into the backdrop of the rich and the famous. Shadowing the royal trio had been surprisingly easy, especially as they had not strayed too far from the Hôtel de Paris. They had normally combined breakfast with lunch at one of the Hotel’s restaurants, before retiring to the sumptuousness of their suites, to remerge again punctually at 9:00 P.M. in the evening, for dinner. After dinner, the Royal trio, along with some of their servants, had walked across the small park area of the Casino Square to the Casino de Monte-Carlo. There, they had played badly until the early hours of the morning, drinking excessively and loosing hundreds of thousands of Francs in the process. The older brother and his sister had generally left the Casino in the early hours of the morning, returning back to the Hôtel de Paris, where they had immediately retired to their respective rooms – the princess to have a long soak in the bath; her elder brother to down a couple of bottles of vintage Dom Pérignon; and the servants to return to their cheap hotel accommodation. The younger prince had been the exception, though – in more ways than one. He would leave the Casino regularly at 1:00 A.M. in the morning, getting a taxi to take him the short distance down the Avenue Princesse Grace, the cab dropping him off at a collection of beach huts on the other side of the boardwalk. There he had engaged in a variety of different sex acts with male prostitutes, who had plied their wares behind the huts, everything from oral sex to sodomy – both giving and receiving. After his being pleasured, or having given pleasure, the younger prince would then hail a taxi to take him directly back to the Hôtel de Paris, where he would go straight to his suite, without waiting for the return of his older siblings, who would arrive back to the hotel sometime later. The activities of the exiled royals had never varied during the whole time that we had them under surveillance. They had followed the same pattern of activities every day, utterly repetitive and completely predictable…and we do so like repetitive predictability – it makes our work so much easier!
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Sunday had seemed as good as any other day to carry out their elimination.
We had spent the day in preparation, not catching up with the royal trio until later that evening, joining them at the Casino de Monte-Carlo. The older brother had been playing Chemin de Fer, hogging the ‘bank’ and nosily tearing up any offending cards that had failed to secure him a ‘natural’. The princess had been at the roulette table, covering every available square with chips, squealing with delight when the ball had landed on one of her numbers; blissfully oblivious or completely unconcerned that her vast spread of bets had been slowly bleeding her dry. Her younger brother had been playing Blackjack, doubling up with his bets after each losing hand until he had won again, or until he had exceeded the table limit. Then he would argue with the floor manager, berating the poor man when he would not extend the table limit for him, and then had insisting on playing two hands, at once.
I had sat down at the same table as the younger prince, buying in for a far more modest amount and playing my hands with a calm shrewdness – much to the apparent annoyance of the royal. I had been dealt a pair of aces; diamonds and spades, but had declined the offer from the croupier to split the aces and play them as separate hands. The young prince had called me a ‘fool’, for not doing so – rebuking me for not taking the ‘best bet’ on the table. Once split, each ace would have been dealt one card only and, unless there had been a substantial number of high cards left in the deck, with the dealer’s faceup card being a ten, it could have been a bad bet.
It is possible to ‘count’ the cards at Blackjack, allocating a positive or negative score to low or high cards, thereby establishing an approximation as to the probability of the number of low or high cards remaining in the ‘shoe’. I don’t do this – I don’t have to. As with all things, I have complete recall of events, their patterns and sequences – and this applies to cards, too.
This innate instinct had told me that there had been more low cards than high cards, left in the ‘shoe’, and I had bet accordingly. I had drawn another card, being dealt the eight of clubs – giving me a count of ten with the two aces that I already had. I had then ‘hit’ again, this time being dealt the six of hearts – a count of sixteen. I had hit one last time, for a third card, drawing the four of clubs – giving me a collective count of twenty, which had beat the dealer’s eighteen. Later on, the prince had been dealt a pair of aces, splitting them and being dealt a two of hearts to the first ace, and a three of clubs to the second ace – two loosing hands against the dealer’s sixteen. Patrick had left the Casino before mid-night – he had preparations to complete. I had followed later on just after 1:00 A.M. –
immediately after the young prince had left for his nightly nocturnal fix of carnal ‘pleasure’. The young prince had hailed a taxi, from immediately outside the casino, to take him to his eagerly anticipated night of debauchery at the beach huts. I had walked the short distance, taking me no more than ten minutes, at the most.
That morning, the young prince must have been quickly gratified – emerging back on to the Avenue Princesse Grace, a little after 1:30 A.M. Crossing over the Avenue, to the opposite carriageway, the young prince had waited under a street light; ready to attract the attention of any passing taxi to take him back to the hotel. But, that morning, the only attention that he had managed to attract had been Patrick; sitting patiently at the wheel of a stolen, small twin axle petrol tanker – small, but big enough, and heavy enough, for our needs. Parked on the same side of the carriageway, just over two hundred metres away, Patrick had put the tanker in gear and had moved forward along the Avenue towards where the young prince had been standing. In that short distance of two hundred metres, the tanker had probably gotten up to a speed of no more than thirty or forty kph – not very fast, but fast enough.
Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family Page 25