by Jon King
As the elevator came to rest its doors slid smoothly open, and Henri Paul stepped jauntily out into the carpeted Imperial Suite foyer, shrugging his jacket square on his beefy shoulders and straightening his tie. He knocked twice on the door marked 102 and waited patiently for a reply. He checked his wristwatch—twelve-thirteen am. He had no idea he was just eleven minutes away from completing his final assignment and putting his feet up, for good.
Precisely nine minutes later, as Henri Paul accompanied Diana and Dodi from the elevator and escorted them across the ornate, marble-pillared lobby en route to the hotel’s rear entrance, a black Mercedes 600 gunned its engine out front amid a frenzy of paparazzi activity. For a beat the vehicle’s wheels spun uncontrollably, scorching grooves in the tarmac before screeching off from under the eyes of the panicking rat pack at an unforgiving pace, an olive-green Range Rover in hot pursuit.
Hey! She’s in the Mercedes!
Immediately the roar of scooter-and-motorbike engines firing up filled the night air, accompanied by the sudden dazzle of headlights coming to life, as the pack of paparazzi, believing Princess Diana was in the black Mercedes that had just screamed off in the direction of Place de la Concorde, jumped on their nippy two-wheelers and gave chase. Several of the paparazzi spun off along Cour Vendome in a bid to head the Mercedes off. The rest remained glued to the tail lights of the Mercedes’s rear-guard Range Rover. The chase was on, or so everyone thought. But instead of peeling off along Rue de Castiglione and heading for Place de la Concorde, the Mercedes, still shadowed by the olive-green Range Rover, accelerated past the Castiglione exit and on around Place Vendome—tyres squealing, engine whining. For all the world it seemed as though the two vehicles were being driven by let-loose boy racers who’d decided to use Paris’s most fashionable square as a midnight race circuit. In fact Dodi’s regular chauffeur, Philippe Dorneau, was at the wheel of the Mercedes. The range Rover was being driven by al Fayed bodyguard, Kes Wingfield.
Having completed one terrifying lap of the track the two experienced drivers finally brought the vehicles skidding to an abrupt halt back in front of the hotel some sixty seconds later. The paparazzi had been sold a dummy.
●
Back in the conference hall I was in mid-flow, narrating events as they happened. Absorbed, the audience was mindful of my every word.
“As the two decoy cars screamed away from in front of the Ritz and completed their circuit of Place Vendome, chased by the pack of paparazzi photographers,” I conveyed to the captivated crowd, “Diana and Dodi left by the rear exit and climbed in the back of a waiting Mercedes S280, one that had been driven up from the Vendome underground car park just moments earlier. The company who owned the vehicle, Etoile Limousine, would later reveal that it was ‘the only vehicle available that night’. There were no other limos at their disposal, they claimed. Fact? Fiction? Coincidence? This was the vehicle, remember, that had been identified and fitted up weeks in advance by the MI6 team responsible for the operation; the vehicle that had been stolen at gunpoint and mysteriously returned by the thieves days later, secretly fitted with parasite EMS and ESC chips—the on-board computer chips responsible for controlling the vehicle’s steering and automatic traction. The thieves had also fitted it with a Blockbuster device designed to incapacitate its braking system. The car, ladies and gentlemen, along with its occupants, was fated, even before it set off.”
I paused, as much for breath as effect. It felt as though raw electricity was coursing my veins at this point, and I needed a moment to settle my thoughts, assemble them in some kind of disciplined order. The atmosphere in the auditorium was charged.
At length I resumed: “At twelve-twenty am Henri Paul climbed in the driver’s seat and closed the door, while bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones climbed in beside him and fastened his seat belt. He was the only passenger to do so. But he wasn’t the only one to try. In the seat directly behind Rees-Jones, Diana tried to fasten her seat belt as well, but she couldn’t; it was jammed. As Henri Paul let his toe down on the accelerator and moved off along Rue Cambon towards Rue de Rivoli and Place de la Concorde, ladies and gentlemen, both Diana and Dodi must have felt desperate, as though the wave of uncertainty that had swelled progressively throughout the day was finally threatening to engulf them. They were now less than five minutes from the Alma Tunnel.”
Place de la Concorde, Paris – 12.21 AM
Traffic lights ahead, red. Henri Paul slowed to halt. Checking his rear-view mirror he could see the headlights of a dozen or more paparazzi motorbikes snarling up behind him. He could see, too, Diana and Dodi becoming more and more restless in the back seat, craning anxiously round and peering out the back window at the growing menace on their tail, then ducking back round to face the front. What should he do? Should he wait for the lights to change and risk being ambushed by the rat pack? Or should he jump the lights and accelerate on? The traffic was unusually thin for a Saturday night, he’d already noted, and he felt certain he could make it across Place de la Concorde and onto Cours la Reine without incident. But he was in two minds. He had Mr Fayed’s son, Dodi, in the back, after all. The princess, too.
Should he put their lives in jeopardy by taking such a risk?
Still tossing the dilemma over in his mind Henri Paul again checked his rear-view mirror, and saw that the pack of paparazzi was growing by the second, an ever-expanding bevy of growling motorbike and scooter engines, complete with riders, looming fearsomely behind him and burning to chase him down. He flicked a glance back up at the traffic lights. Still red. In that moment Henri Paul made his decision. Letting the handbrake off he slammed his foot to the floor and squealed off across Place de la Concorde, jumping the red light and then a second red light as he powered on past the junction with Avenue des Champs-Élysées and swerved off right along Cours la Reine, down onto the riverside highway, putting distance between himself and the chasing pack. The image in his mirror told him the ploy had worked; the paparazzi were no longer on his tail. No doubt they were still there, he mused, astride their machines, angry now, and vacillating – should we wait? or should we jump the red light, too? – still simmering there at the traffic lights, waiting for them to turn green. Allowing himself a small grin, Henri Paul focused on the road now stretched before him. He knew he was far enough ahead of the paparazzi by now that it was impossible for them to catch him.
Slightly, he could relax.
Take the exit at Pont de l’Alma and head up to Dodi’s apartment that way, he’d been instructed. At least then you won’t get swarmed by paparazzi in the Champs-Élysées traffic jams.
And that’s why he was now heading along Cours la Reine instead of the Champs-Élysées. It was a standard route anyway, taken by many of the city’s cab and limo drivers to avoid the Saturday night gridlock on Paris’s most famous avenue. It made perfect sense to come this way, especially now that he’d managed to lose the chasing pack.
With these thoughts in mind he again flicked a glance in his rear-view mirror, and was surprised – and no less alarmed – to see headlights closing on him at speed. A beat later he found himself having to squint into the mirror and tilt his head to one side so that the glare of these headlights didn’t blind him.
Who was that on his tail now? It surely couldn’t be the paparazzi because he’d left them snarling and growling back at the traffic lights on Place de la Concorde. So whose headlights were blazing in through the back windscreen now, no more than a car’s length back?
Again Henri Paul squinted into the rear-view mirror, but the headlights beaming back at him now were so blindingly bright he was unable to make out the vehicle from which they shone, or indeed, whether they were shining from a solitary vehicle or from multiple vehicles. He blinked his eyes, once, then adjusted his line of sight to see that Princess Diana was again grappling with her seat belt in the back, desperately tugging and pulling in a futile attempt to release it and strap it across her body. They were travelling very fast now. Diana looked terrified.
Beside her, Dodi looked equally ill at ease, ducking down in his seat and shielding his eyes from the glare of the mystery headlights blazing in through the rear windscreen. In the passenger seat Trevor Rees-Jones unfastened his seat belt and swivelled round to reassure the couple that all was in hand. But all was not in hand, and they knew it. Desperate now, Diana shot Dodi an anxious glance. Everything will be okay, won’t it? Meanwhile Henri Paul returned his gaze to the road ahead, expertly manoeuvring the Mercedes down under the Pont Alexander III flyover and emerging on Cours Albert 1er.
They were now less than a mile from Pont de l’Alma, on a collision course with destiny.
“When Henri Paul joined the riverside highway, ladies and gentlemen, it was twelve-twenty-two am. Though under some duress he remained unfazed, expertly in control of the speeding Mercedes, confident at its wheel. He was an experienced driver, after all, having undergone several advanced driving courses with, among others, Mercedes Benz. He knew how to handle an S280, even at this speed. What he didn’t know, of course, was that this particular S280 had been tampered with.”
I paused, breathed. The audience seemed to breathe with me.
Then: “He had no idea he was screaming headlong into a predetermined death trap,” I put to the sea of spellbound faces. “That the vehicle he was driving had been stolen and fitted up with a Blockbuster device designed to take out his brakes, and a parasite transceiver to enable an agent in situ to take over his steering and drive the car remotely.” I searched the audience for signs of resistance—a hostile look, the shake of a head, even the cynical squint of an eye. I saw none. “So far as Henri Paul was concerned his day’s work was all but done,” I continued. “Keeping his MI6 handlers abreast of the couple’s movements throughout the day; driving them home, now, along this pre-specified route. This, he believed, was the extent of his involvement. He had no idea he’d been set up as the patsy whose blood tests would later tell the lie that he’d been drunk at the wheel, that he’d been driving too fast, recklessly, and that Princess Diana had died as a result of his actions. No, ladies and gentlemen, he had no idea at all that he was being used as the fall guy in such a premeditated and deadly game. But he was about to find out…”
Approach To Alma Tunnel, Paris – 12.24 AM
Take the slip road at Alma, they’d told him. Head back up to Dodi’s that way.
Acutely aware of the headlights still blazing in at him through the back windscreen, filling his mirrors and whiting out the inside of the Mercedes, Henri Paul indicated right and prepared to take the slip road off the highway just ahead. It would take him up to Dodi’s apartment via Avenue Marceau and Place Charles de Gaulle, a route he knew well—well enough that he knew the headlights clinging to his tail would be unable to follow him so aggressively along it without attracting the attention of the police. It was a thought that gave him some comfort. Until he reached the slip road…
What the…?
…In that instant he realized something was very wrong.
Parked broadside across the entrance to the slip road was a motorbike and rider, the motorbike positioned so that it prevented Henri Paul from exiting the highway. Henri Paul’s heart almost stopped beating, there and then. The leather-clad rider was staring back at him from behind a blacked-out visor, looking like some kind of futuristic Robocop seated there astride his motorbike in the centre of the slip road, revving his engine, but not moving. For a beat Henri Paul’s mind panicked—who on earth was that? Who on earth was the mystery rider and why was he deliberately blocking the exit off the highway? There was no question about it: if he turned off the highway onto the slip road he would collide with the motorbike and almost certainly injure the rider as well. He had no choice but to react reflexively and accelerate on towards the approaching maw of the tunnel, a task he managed with some aplomb.
But now there was a second obstacle to negotiate.
What the … where did that come from…?
A white Fiat Uno travelling at a snail’s pace suddenly loomed ahead in the slow lane, its brake lights glowing red as though its driver was slowing the vehicle to an unexpected and abrupt stop, right there on the highway: right there in front of him. Instinctively Henri Paul eased on his brakes and simultaneously heaved the Mercedes tight left in an attempt to avoid colliding with the smaller vehicle. But it was too late. Thud! At a speed closing on 80 miles an hour the Mercedes hammered into the Uno’s tail wing, sending shards of the Fiat’s rear-light casing splintering into the air. It took every ounce of Henri Paul’s driving skills to retain control of the speeding Mercedes as the impact propelled him out into the fast lane and on past the Uno, down into the tunnel. Curiously, the headlights that had clung to his tail all the way from Place de la Concorde remained on his tail, even now, shadowing him out into the fast lane and past the Fiat Uno. Down into the tunnel.
Who the hell was that driving so close behind him? What was going on? Who was driving the Uno and why did they deliberately get in his way?
The road was full of mad drivers tonight!
As if to punctuate this last thought, just as Henri Paul entered the tunnel a second motorbike suddenly pulled alongside him, as if from nowhere, its pillion rider positioned almost side-saddle and aiming what appeared to be some kind of strange weapon at him.
What on earth was happening?!
And now his steering wheel seemed to have a mind of its own. And now his brakes had stopped responding.
What the hell was going on?
Flash!
“Argghhh…!” Suddenly Henri Paul was blinded by a ferocious flash of light fired in through the front windscreen; the flash seemed to come from the strange-looking weapon wielded by the motorbike’s pillion rider. As the motorbike powered on through the tunnel, leaving the Mercedes in its wake and swerving violently out of control, Henri Paul slammed the heels of his hands tight against his stinging eyes and rubbed, uselessly.
Who were they…? Why were they attacking him…?
These were the last actions Henri Paul ever performed, the last thoughts his terrified mind ever processed. Two beats later he was dead.
“Right, I said I was going to show you exactly how Princess Diana was murdered, the smoking gun,” I said, my adrenaline up now and feeling like raw energy enlivening every cell in my body, and mind. “That’s precisely what I intend to do now.”
Beside me, on a small table next to the rostrum, my laptop was sitting open and primed. Stepping to one side I fingered the touchpad and a three-dimensional animated sequence appeared instantly on the screen set up on the stage behind me. It was the 3-D animation our friend Steve O’Brien had designed specifically for us.
“Okay, look, this is the Mercedes,” I said, identifying the vehicles in the animation with my laser pen. As I aimed the pen at the screen a small red dot highlighted each of the vehicles in turn. Every eye in the audience followed that dot. “This is the motorbike blocking the slip road off the highway, and this is the white Fiat Uno. Now watch. As Henri Paul realizes his exit route is blocked and accelerates on past the slip road, here, the Uno suddenly comes into play and forces Henri Paul out into the fast lane—exactly where they want him to be. As incredible as it may sound, ladies and gentlemen, every manoeuvre the Mercedes makes from here on in will be choreographed, precisely.”
I ran a finger across the touchpad and moved the sequence on.
“Of course, this wasn’t the only reason the Uno and its occupants were here. Forcing Henri Paul into the outside lane was just one of a sequence of predetermined manoeuvres designed to make the Mercedes crash. Look…”
Again I moved the sequence on. “…Here, as the Mercedes overtakes the Uno, the person sitting in its front passenger seat hits a button on the remote control he’s holding and a small device known as a Blockbuster explodes beneath the Mercedes’s bonnet, blowing out its brakes. Simultaneous with this its steering is taken over by the same remote control, which is tuned to the parasite transceiver inserted by the operatives who stol
e the Mercedes prior to the crash. In short, ladies and gentlemen, at this point the car was no longer in Henri Paul’s hands. It was being driven remotely from the front seat of the Fiat Uno. Henri Paul stood no chance.”
A wave of incredulity swept the audience. Seeing for the first time how the operation was most likely carried out was undoubtedly challenging, and perhaps for many, difficult to digest. Even so, none seemed entirely overwhelmed.
“As Henri Paul dipped down into the tunnel this second motorbike here entered the fray,” I said, pinpointing the motorbike on screen with my laser pen. “Two operatives were riding that motorbike. In the hands of its pillion rider was an anti-personnel strobe gun, which fires directional pulses of light so intense they’re capable of blinding a person for up to four minutes. As the motorbike roared past the Mercedes, its pillion rider fired the strobe directly into Henri Paul’s eyes, through the front windscreen—there!” Again I fired my laser pen at the screen behind me, its red dot fixing on the motorbike and the Mercedes, which were now side-by-side at the tunnel entrance. “Do you see, ladies and gentlemen? Henri Paul is blinded by the strobe gun and immediately he begins to lose control of the Mercedes. At this point the special ops technique known as the Boston Brakes kicks in, and the Mercedes is seen to perform a distinct and recognizable set of manoeuvres characteristic of this particular operational method, the Boston Brakes. There, look, the Mercedes swerves first one way, then the other way, then back again into the concrete pillar.”
The image on screen illustrated the words as I spoke them.
“First one way, then the other way, then back again into the concrete pillar—a telltale sign of the Boston Brakes. At the moment when the parasite is activated and the steering is transferred to the remote, at that precise instant, what’s know as a ‘downpoint’ occurs, a split second where neither Henri Paul nor the remote is in control. For this split second the vehicle is effectively driverless, and it’s this that causes the left-right-left manoeuvre to occur as the person working the remote fights to regain control of the vehicle. If you’re looking for the smoking gun, ladies and gentlemen, look no further. This is it.”