‘Why did the chicken cross the road? – because he was pushed!’
As the tanker had nearly drawn level with the young prince, I had stepped out from the shadows of the trees immediately behind him, where I had been quietly standing unnoticed. A simple leg sweep, and firm push in between the shoulder blades, had been all that it had taken to propel the young prince under the wheels of the petrol tanker. Patrick had brought the tanker to a gentle halt and, guided by my hand signals, had carefully reversed back up, positioning the dual nearside rear wheels of the truck directly over the crushed body of the young prince. Taking the keys from the tanker’s ignition, Patrick had jumped down from the cab, and had gone to the rear of the truck to admire his handy work. With that typical beaming smile of his, he had come and joined me on the sidewalk.
“Dhems dhat leves by de oil – dies by de oil,” he had cited in an overly exaggerated, broad Southern Irish brogue, patting the side of the petrol tanker and smiling – not one of his more sensitive quotes, considering the circumstances.
We had already previously checked out of the Hôtel de Paris, first thing on the Friday morning, moving to a nearby hotel – but the weekend bar staff and night porterage had not known that. Passing by the statuettes of nymphs, flanking the arched doorways, we had entered the magnificent foyer of the hotel – Patrick pausing at the bronze statue of Louis XIV on horseback, long enough to rub the horse’s raised knee, polished shiny by the hands of superstitious gamblers over the years. I had smiled at him – every time we had gone by the statute, Patrick had repeated the ritual of rubbing the horse’s knee.
“What!” he had exclaimed, raising his arms up and shrugging his shoulders. “It’s supposed to bring you good luck.”
“It didn’t bring the prince much good luck – did it,” I had quietly replied, nodding my head in the direction of the Avenue.
The two surviving royals had returned to the hotel, with their small entourage, just before 3:00 A.M. – we had been sitting in the bar, drinking copious amounts of coffee, patiently waiting for their return. We had remained in the bar until the royal’s entourage of servants had left for their own hotel accommodation, some fifteen minutes later. Pausing long enough to purchase a bottle of Dom Pérignon, which had been chilling in a silver plated ice bucket, we had ostensibly: ‘retired to our rooms.’ We had used our stay at the Hôtel de Paris to thoroughly familiarise ourselves with the hotel: the arrangement and layout of the various floors, rooms and suites; the shift patterns of the hotel staff; and its alarm and security arrangements – we had left nothing to assumption or chance. The royals had been situated in adjoining suites on the seventh floor of the Rotonde wing of the hotel, overlooking the Mediterranean – and it had been to the princess’s suite that we had made our way to, first.
Using copied hotel pass keys, we had let ourselves into the living area of the palatial suite, with its classical style of French salon furniture in sumptuous cream patterned embossed silk and gilded gold. We had stopped in the living area just long enough to take off our black ties and evening suites, dress shirts, shoes and socks – hadn’t wanted them to get wet. Entering the lush bedroom of rich burgundy, enhanced with deep red and gold highlights, we had taken an assortment of thick luxuriant white hand towels from the linen cupboard, situated in the small passageway, which had led directly to the bathroom. The bathroom had been in dark grey marble, with white fittings and large gold Rocco framed mirrors, obscured by the condensation that had covered their reflective surfaces. In the centre of the steam filled room had stood a deep rolled top bath, filled to the brim with piping hot soapy water – the princess fully reclined in its warm soothing embrace, a hot flannel covering her pretty face. She had been as beautiful naked, as she had been dressed – but that was not going to save her! With a towel in each hand, I had silently moved to the foot of the bath, Patrick taking up position by the side, to my left. Thrusting both of my arms into the hot water, my seeking hands had quickly found her slender ankles, clasping and locking over them. Even before she had time to realise what had been happening, I had straightened up, lifting my arms as I did so – pulling her under the surface of the water. Unable to move her legs, the princess had tried to grab hold of either side of the bath. But Patrick, also with towels in either hand, had leaned over and taken hold of both of her wrists – gripping them firmly together. The princess had desperately struggled and threshed about in the bath water. She had been strong – but not strong enough. Very quickly, the initial ferocity of her struggles had subsided to a mere few spasms of feeble token resistance…then she had been quite still. Together, Patrick and I had lifted the princess’s body half out of the bath – no mean feat considering that she had been a deadweight, and that her skin had been covered in a slippery solution of soap and bath oils. Then we had let her limp lifeless body drop down on its right hand side, into the bath again, causing water to spill out over its sides. Having positioned the body to give all the appearance of someone having slipped in the bath, grabbing hold of her long flowing black hair, I had pulled the princess’s head up out of the water and had smashed her pretty face forcibly down on to the rounded rolled rim of the bath. It had the desired effect, though…her delicate angular nose and right cheekbone, fracturing against the side of the hard, unyielding, enamelled cast iron bath – as if she had struck her head, when falling. The wet hand towels; which we had used to prevent the telltale signs of finger marks and bruising appearing on the body, we had dropped on to the marbled floor, directly by the side of the bath…lending yet more credibility to the lie that the princess had slipped on the wet marbled floor and had fallen into the bath – truly, a tragic accident.
Dried and dressed, five minutes later we had been tapping on the door of her brother’s suite.
“Le service de chambre, Votre Hauteur” – ‘Room service, Your Highness,’ I had called through the door, Patrick holding up the ice bucket and champagne, so that it could be clearly seen through the spy hole in the door.
Whether or not the prince had already had drunk his quota of two bottles of Dom Pérignon, that morning, we shall never know – but he was not to have the pleasure of sampling the one that we had brought. As soon as the prince had opened the door, Patrick and I had barged in, each grabbing him under the armpits, frog marching him backwards through the living area of his suite, straight out on to the balcony…and straight over the low wrought iron railing – straight down on to the pavement, seven floors below.
He didn’t make a sound – that is, not until he had hit the pavement, below…and then it had been more of a muffled ‘thud’ than anything else, as far as I can recall.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The Saudis had been more than delighted with our work for them. It had been everything that they had asked for. Although the ‘accidents’ had caused a few raised eyebrows throughout the intelligence communities, of the West, it had still represented the absolute culmination of subtleness and discretion that the Saudis had requested. However, subtleness and discretion had been diametrically opposite of what the Jordanians had required.
Like the Saudis, the Jordanians too had been plagued by political dissidents and the real threat of insurgency, within their royal kingdom. But, unlike the Saudis, where the insurgents had been trying to overthrow a traditionally fundamental Islamic regime and replace it with a more liberalised pro-Western government; the Jordanian insurgents had wanted to replace their very much pro-Western liberalised government, with a fundamentally radical Islamic regime, governed by the strict dictates of Sharia law. In retrospect, it would have been far easier for them to have relocated to Saudi Arabia, than try to overthrow the Hashemite dynasty of King Hussein of Jordan. Ever since the September of 1970, and the uprising of the Palestinian Black September Movement against the Hashemite royal dynasty, King Hussein of Jordan had been dodging the blades, bullets and bombs of militant dissidents. By the end of the July, the following year, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PLO, and the vast majorit
y of their fighters, had been pushed out and expelled from Jordan into Lebanon. But that had not stopped the attempts on King Hussein’s life – or those of his family. After the assassination of King Fiscal, the Jordanian Intelligence Agency, the General Intelligence Directorate, had gone into maximum overdrive and had uncovered yet another plot against King Hussein. This plot, however, had been by home-grown Jordanian fundamental extremists – intent on the assassination of the King and all of his immediate family. With highly professional expediency – and with a certain amount of extreme ruthlessness – the GID had successfully managed to arrest all the insurgents, apart from some of the leadership. They had fled to Hamburg, in Germany – out of the reach of the GID…or so they had believed.
The Jordanians had been very impressed with the work that we had carried out for the Saudis, and had engaged Patrick and me to carry out similar for them. But they did have two stipulations. Firstly, absolutely no subtlety – absolutely no discretion, what so ever. They had wanted examples set – and you can’t set examples with subtleness and discretion, can you? Their second requirement had been at the direct behest of a senior Royal – requesting that we should take his nephew, His Royal Highness Prince H…, along with us, to Germany. Normally, this would have been something that we would not have considered, because of the potential risks associated with working with someone who was unknown and unproven. Nevertheless, there had been some operational merit in taking him along with us. After all, he had been a Second Lieutenant in the Jordanian Special Forces and should, therefore, not be that much of a liability – we could always leave him back at the hotel, if push came to shove. Also, as we would be moving in and around a predominantly Arab area of Hamburg; the St Georg quarter, with its high number of Arab students attending the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Patrick and I would stick out far less if we were accompanied by an Arab. But the real decider had been that the young HRH Prince H…had personally known the plotters – and could readily identify them.
The young Prince had been very keen and ‘most eager’ to participate in the forthcoming ‘adventure’ – but first, we had to address his appearance. His neatly cut hair and carefully trimmed moustache may have been perfectly acceptable for the Jordanian military, but not for the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Not much could be done about his meticulously barbered hair – not enough time to grow it to a suitably fashionable length. So, much against the Prince’s earnest protest – we had his head completely shaved. We did leave him with his moustache, but with strict instructions not to shave and to grow a beard – or stubble, in the time that we had left before going to Germany.
Prior to our arrival in Hamburg, I had been in direct communication with our contact in the German Chancellery, advising them as to our intent. The Germans had only been too happy to sanction our visit, supplying us with comprehensive intelligence and surveillance information on the six ‘candidates’ that we had been interested in – after all, we had just completed carrying out a similar piece of work for them! The information that they had supplied to us had been invaluable – information on: daily movements, contacts, safe houses and meeting places. There had been very little left for us to do apart from verify the intelligence, plan, prepare and execute – easy peasy, lemon squeeze.
You should always cut off the head of the snake first, and then the rest of the body is easy to destroy as it thrashes round helplessly, blind and without direction.
***
The leader of the Jordanian dissident plotters had just returned from Friday afternoon prayers, when we had ambushed him.
While he had been attending the mosque, we had forced quick drying body filler into the door lock of his second floor apartment, which had been situated immediately in front of the stairwell. And, as the two body guards had endeavoured to open the door, the three of us had silently come down the flight of stairs leading from the next floor. So preoccupied had the leader of dissident plotters and his bodyguards been with the stubborn lock mechanism, that they had failed to notice our presence – that is, until it had been too late. Leaving HRH Prince H…on the stairs, with Patrick on the right, myself on the left, we had quickly crossed over the landing towards the unsuspecting Jordanians. The bodyguards had still been struggling with the door lock when we had shot them both dead. ‘Double tap’, two shots each – point blank in the head…both men killed outright, dropping instantly to the floor. In a state of confusion and shock, the dissident leader had turned around to face us; his arms raised slightly up, the palms of his hands towards us – as if surrendering himself to our custody.
But we had no intention of taking anyone into custody!
Raising the barrels of our silenced Berettas level to his face, Patrick and I had about to kill the man when we had been interrupted by a voice, from just behind us.
“May I, please,” HRH Prince H…had asked, in a soft polite tone, as he had joined us on the landing.
Patrick had looked questioningly over towards me. I didn’t have an issue with the Prince killing the dissident leader, and had indicated so, with a shrug of my shoulders – and Patrick had handed his gun over to the young Prince. For the briefest of moments, HRH Prince H…had cradled the Berretta in his hands, fondling the gun with slow deliberate strokes of his fingers. The dissident leader, on recognising the Prince, had started to plead with him, whimpering in staccato high pitched Arabic, apologies and entreaties for his life.
The young prince had smiled as he had raised the Berretta up to point directly at the man’s sweating face. “adh-Dhhāb M al-Lh Ndmā Tmwt,” he had said in a soft reassuring soothing tone. ‘Go with God when you die.’
The dissident leader had raised his hands up, palms outward, in an instinctive futile attempt to protect his face. HRH Prince H…had immediately dropped his aim, placing the end of the gun’s suppressor over the man’s crutch – and had fired. Apart from the clatter of the ejected cartridge case on the floor of the landing, for a moment, all had been quite. Then the dissident leader had let out a low gasping moan, his hands dropping down to hold his crutch, blood seeping out from between his fingers. The Prince had taken a step back, to admire his handy work, and had then shot the man again, a hands width above the previous wound that he had inflicted. The man had gasped again, but that had been all that he could do – the diaphragm of his stomach had gone into spasm; preventing him from drawing air. The next three shots that the Prince had fired into the dissident leader had all been a palm’s width above its former, progressively moving up the middle of the man’s torso. Then, as if suddenly bored with the whole process, the Prince had shot the man deliberately in the right eye.
“Thank you – that was truly most exhilarating,” HRH Prince H…had thanked Patrick as he had handed the smoking gun back to him.
Patrick had taken the gun, his head tilted slightly to one side, a slight puzzled frown and an obvious inquisitive expression on his face. ‘What?’ had been his unspoken question to the Prince.
The Prince had recognised and had correctly interpreted Patrick’s facial expression. “This maggot, and the rest of his worthless gang of murderers, would have slaughtered my entire family – if they had been allowed the opportunity,” he had positively snarled at Patrick
Patrick had gone to say something, but had thought better of it – the Prince had been in full flow.
“They would have killed my father and mother; my brothers and sisters; my uncles and my aunts, my cousins – they would have slaughtered us all.” The Prince had paused to look down at the collapsed lifeless body of the dissident leader, before continuing: “Under the circumstances, I think that it is most right and proper that he should be made suffer a little, before dying – before sending him on his way as a gelded eunuch to paradise, to his everlasting and eternal frustration of not being able to be gratified by his seventy-two virgins.”
“Fair enough,” Patrick had agreed, a wide grin creasing through his dark black beard.
“Time to go,” I had added.
Next, we had killed two birds with one stone – or, less figuratively speaking – four Jordanian dissidents with a couple of concussion grenades, while they had breakfasted in the rear room of a Lebanese café.
The last of the group, on hearing of the killings of his compatriots, had tried to flee. His intention had been to board an express train, at Hamburg Central Station, to take him on to Munich – but he had ended up under the wheels of a passing goods train, instead!
Any way – I digress slightly.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“As-salamu `alaykum,” the immaculately dressed Head of the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate had greeted me, extending his right hand out to place over my left shoulder, ‘Peace be unto you,’ he had said as he had kissed me on the cheek, his Arabic refreshingly crisp and perfect; quite unlike the confusing, phonetically garbled Moroccan dialect, which I had been taught. “Şbā al-Khyr – Mārtin. Mrbā Bkm,” he had added. ‘Good Morning – Martin. Welcome.’ He had then turned to his two bodyguards, standing immediately by the door that I had just entered. “He is my brother from another mother,” he had informed them both – a semblance of a smile on his face.
Through the years, both his military and political career had progressed at a predetermined accelerated pace. In the January of 1991, His Royal Highness, Prince H…, had been a Military Secretary to King Hussein. He had also been Head of the General Intelligence Directorate and a Commander of Jordanian Special Forces, responsible for Anti-Insurgency. He had also been the ‘Main Man’ to talk to. Nothing happened in Jordan without his knowledge and approval – not if you wanted to still retain his cooperation and, more importantly, your fingernails!
Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family Page 26