by Jeremy Duns
Chapter 82
Rachel had found the two of them with one of the black Selous Scouts by the edge of the base, crouched down in a hole in the fence. The man had drawn his weapon on her, but it had taken just a few words to make them realise the true situation. ‘Your husband has taken some men hostage,’ she had said. ‘I’m to take you to him.’
The man had dropped his weapon then, and they had come willingly with her. Rachel had considered countermanding Dark’s orders by trying to persuade the South Africans to intervene, either from a distance via sniper rifle or by invading the carriage from the air, but all such ideas were useless, she knew, as there was too great a risk that Smith and other delegates would be killed. Sandy had told her Dark was prepared to blow everyone in the carriage to smithereens if his demands weren’t met, and it sounded more than plausible.
She had immediately told the Harmigans she was commandeering their jet and pilot. Celia had tried to kick up a fuss, but Sandy had calmed her down. Rachel had quietly repeated the consequences if they didn’t turn up in Carlton Gardens within the next forty-eight hours, and then boarded the plane. She hadn’t glanced back.
At Victoria Falls airport, she found a taxi driver who had insisted he couldn’t drive anywhere until he saw the roll of bills in her hand. He parked at the foot of the bridge and she helped her passengers climb out. There was nobody at the barrier, just the moon shining above and the lights from the central carriage blaring and the roar of the Falls.
It was time.
Chapter 83
A woman walked into the carriage, slender and pale. Dark recognised her at once from the arcade in Brussels, but it was the two figures directly behind her that captivated his attention.
‘Pappa!’ Ben cried, and Dark took him in his arms as he raced across the carriage. Then he walked towards Claire – Hope – who simply leaned against him, sobbing gently with relief. She turned and saw her father and embraced him, too.
‘Mr Dark.’
He looked up. It was the Englishwoman.
‘My name’s Rachel. I’ve been looking for you.’
Dark took a step towards her. ‘Have you arranged for safe conduct for me and my family through Zambia?’
‘For your family, yes. But not for you, I’m afraid. I have instructions from London and they’re adamant you face justice.’
Dark stared at her. He moved his head slightly and glanced back at the carriage. Gibo was still standing there, the detonator in his hands as if glued to them. But Dark couldn’t tell him to set it off. Not now.
He turned back to the woman, Rachel, whose eyes were fixed on him. He didn’t need the detonator, he realised – he could kill her with his bare hands. She didn’t even seem to be armed. Within a matter of seconds he could strangle her as he had done the sentry, and then take Hope and Ben and run, using her father’s contacts across the border, and then on to another destination, away from all this.
But what would be the point? The Service would only send others to look for him, as would the Russians, and who knew who else.
Face justice. What would that entail, he wondered. He very much doubted anyone would wish to see him tried in public. More likely a long and nasty interrogation followed by the rest of his life in solitary confinement. That was what traitors deserved. He thought back to the day four years earlier when he’d stood across the street from the British embassy in Stockholm and contemplated walking in. Instead he had kept running, and as a result he’d met Hope and they’d had Ben – created him, a new being in the world with his own mind and soul. But he’d been living on borrowed time nevertheless. They could hide somewhere and change their names every year – but he couldn’t change his past. Wherever he went and whatever he did, the people he’d betrayed would remain dead.
He glanced across at Hope and Ben. Could he bury his old self so easily now? And could he spend the rest of his life looking over their shoulders as well as his own? They didn’t deserve that. They’d have a better chance without him. Her father would protect them, he was sure, using all the power he had at his disposal. And he would be more powerful after today – if the others had any sense, they’d appoint him their leader.
Dark walked towards Hope and took her face in his hands. ‘I must go,’ he said. ‘Do you understand?’
She caught herself in a sob, but then nodded, and he kissed her on the lips, long and hard and savouring the sweetness of her. Then he crouched down and hugged Ben, squeezing tight and feeling the soft warmth of his cheek.
‘Will I see you again soon, Pappa?’
‘Mamma will take care of you,’ he said. ‘I have to go to England now.’
Ben took this in, then nodded slowly. He lifted a hand and placed it over his heart. Dark closed his eyes and took a breath, then in one movement stood, turned and began walking towards Rachel Gold.
Author’s Note
A summit between Ian Smith and black nationalist leaders did take place in railway dining car 49 on Victoria Falls Bridge on 25 August 1975. However, there was no siege. It was instead a short-lived affair that achieved very little and broke up in acrimony. I’ve created a fictional version of the summit, compressing some events and altering others entirely, but I’ve also incorporated many real details, drawing on contemporaneous reports, memoirs, declassified government files and other sources. Talks between the two sides eventually led to Rhodesia becoming Zimbabwe in 1980, with ZANU’s Robert Mugabe being elected the country’s leader, a position he still holds.
Ian Smith, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Roy Jenkins, Ndabaningi Sithole and Joshua Nkomo were of course all real people, as is Kenneth Kaunda. Pyotr Ivashutin was in the KGB and then in the GRU, but I’ve imagined that he took Kim Philby’s impish suggestion about SIS being a front for another service seriously. Matthew Charamba shares similarities with several Zimbabwean leaders of the era, but isn’t intended to represent any one of them. The character Iwan Morelius is named after the Swedish thriller connoisseur who died in 2012, in tribute to his friendship and encouragement and a memorable meeting in Stockholm. Skål, Iwan.
The Selous Scouts existed and operated much as I’ve described within Africa, but not (as far as is known) in Europe. My main sources on this unusual regiment and its methods were very generous feedback from veterans and the memoirs of its leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly. Roy Campbell-Fraser is my invention, though, as are his politics and motives.
The document mentioned in Chapter 8, ‘Towards the Summit: An Approach to Peaceful Change in Southern Africa’, was real, and I’ve drawn on the discussion of its contents in David Martin and Phyllis Johnson’s The Chitepo Assassination. That book also concludes that Rhodesian intelligence was responsible for assassinating ZANU leader Herbert Chitepo, a theory supported by several other sources, including the memoirs of Reid-Daly and the book See You in November by Peter Stiff, which purports to be a biography of one of the assassins.
The Spear is inspired by several clandestine and private intelligence groups of the era, notably The 61, an alongsider organisation to SIS; GB75, established by Colonel David Stirling, the founder of the SAS; and Tory Action, set up by George Kennedy Young, who had been deputy director of SIS.
British special forces did co-operate with Malays during and after the war, including with the indigenous Senoi Praaq. Tom Gadlow’s conversion to Communism is partly inspired by George Blake’s in North Korean captivity, but also by the experiences of John Cross, whose memoir, Red Jungle, shows his empathy for the Communists he lived and worked with in Malaya during the war. Cross never became a Soviet agent as a result, but I’ve drawn on his experiences and also extrapolated from Nigel West’s fascinating entry about him in his A to Z of British Intelligence.
Select Bibliography
Declassified files
‘Rhodesia: Sithole’s Views on Victoria Falls Meeting’, confidential cable from US embassy in Lusaka to the Secretary of State, Washington DC, and other embassies, 21 August 1975, US National Archives, 1975LU
SAKA01593, US National Archives.
‘Rhodesia: Gabellah’s Views Before Bridge Meeting at Livingstone’, confidential cable from US embassy in Lusaka to the Secretary of State, Washington DC, and other embassies, 22 August 1975, US National Archives, 1975LUSAKA01597, US National Archives.
‘Vorster–Kaunda Meeting at Victoria Falls’, secret cable from the US embassy in Lusaka to the Secretary of State, Washington DC, and other embassies, 24 August 1975, US National Archives, 1975LUSAKA01612, US National Archives.
‘Rhodesia: Grennan Sees 50-50 Chance For Settlement’, confidential cable from the US embassy in Lusaka to the Secretary of State, Washington DC, and other embassies, 27 August 1975, 1975LUSAKA01642, US National Archives.
‘Rhodesia: Botswana’s Version of Victoria Falls Talks’,confidential cable from the US embassy in Gaborone to the Secretary of State, Washington DC, and other embassies, 29 August 1975, 1975GABORO01150, US National Archives.
Books
Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (Sceptre, 1991)
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (Basic Books, 1999)
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World (Allen Lane, 2005)
Tennent H. Bagley, Spy Wars (Yale University Press, 2007)
Tennent H. Bagley and Peter Deriabin, The KGB: Mastersof the Soviet Union (Robson, 1990)
John Barron, KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents(Bantam, 1974)
Tim Bax, Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia’s Elite Selous Scouts (Helion and Company, 2013)
George Blake, No Other Choice (Jonathan Cape, 1990)
Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action (Brandon, 1984)
Genrikh Borovik, The Philby Files: The Secret Life of the Master-Spy – KGB Archives Revealed, ed. Phillip Knightley (Little, Brown, 1994)
Gordon Brook-Shepherd, The Storm Birds: Soviet Postwar Defectors (Henry Holt & Company, 1989)
John Cross, Red Jungle (Robert Hale, 1957)
Andrew DeRoche, Black, White and Chrome (Africa World Press, 2001)
Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service (Touchstone, 2000)
Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State (Grafton, 1992)
Ken Flower, Serving Secretly (John Murray, 1987)
Fodor’s Guide to Europe (Hodder and Stoughton, 1969)
Paul French, Shadows of a Forgotten Past: To the Edge with the Rhodesian SAS and Selous Scouts (Helion and Company, 2013)
Anatoliy Golitsyn, New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1984)
Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (Bloomsbury, 2010)
Roy Davis Linville Jumper, Death Waits in the ‘Dark’: The Senoi Praaq, Malaysia’s Killer Elite (Greenwood Press, 2001)
Roy Davis Linville Jumper, Ruslan of Malaysia: The Man Behind the Domino That Didn’t Fall (CDR Press, 2007)
Christer Leijonhufvud, Stockholmarnas 70-tal (Trafik-Nostalgiska Förlaget, 2013)
Judith Lenart, Berlin to Bond and Beyond (Athena Press, 2007)
David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, The Chitepo Assassination (Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1985)
Martin Meredith, The Past Is Another Country – Rhodesia: UDI to Zimbabwe (Pan, 1980)
Paul Moorcraft and Peter McLaughlin, The Rhodesian War: A Military History (Pen & Sword, 2011)
Jan Morris, Destinations: Essays from Rolling Stone (Oxford University Press, 1982)
Malcolm Muggeridge, Like It Was (Collins, 1981)
Joshua Nkomo, The Story of My Life (Methuen, 1984)
John Parker, Rhodesia: Little White Island (Pitman, 1972)
P.J.H. Petter-Bowyer, Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot (30° South Publishers, 2005)
Kim Philby, My Silent War (Grafton, 1989)
Michael Raeburn, Black Fire! Accounts of the Guerrilla War in Rhodesia (Julian Friedmann, 1978)
Ron Reid-Daly and Peter Stiff, Selous Scouts: Top Secret War (Galago, 1982)
Ron Reid-Daly, Pamwe Chete: The Legend of the Selous Scouts (Covos-Day Books, 2001)
Ian Smith, Bitter Harvest (John Blake, 2008)
Claire Sterling, The Terrorist Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981)
Peter Stiff, See You in November: The Story of an SAS Assassin (Galago, 2002)
F. Spencer-Chapman, The Jungle Is Neutral (Lyons Press, 2003)
Viktor Suvorov, Aquarium: The Career and Defection of a Soviet Military Spy (Hamish Hamilton, 1985)
Richard Thurlow, Fascism in Britain: From Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts to the National Front (IB Tauris, 2006)
Anthony Verrier, Through the Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy in an Age of Illusions (W.W. Norton and Company, 1983)
Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton and Henry Robert Schlesinger, Spycraft (Bantam, 2010)
Nigel West, The A to Z of British Intelligence (Scarecrow Press, 2009)
Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, Triplex (Yale University Press, 2009)
Terry White, Swords of Lightning: Special Forces and the Changing Face of Warfare (Brassey’s, 1992)
Acknowledgements
My thanks, as ever, to my family for bearing with me; my editor Jo Dickinson; my agent Antony Topping; everyone at Simon & Schuster who worked on the book; and those who asked not to be named here.
Table of Contents
Half-title page
About the Author
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication page
Contents
1969
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
1975
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
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br /> Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Author’s Note
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements