The Miernik Dossier

19. REPORT BY COLLINS TO A BRITISH INTELLIGENCE SERVICE.

Prince Kalash el Khatar stopped by my flat on the evening of 23rd May in order to borrow a sharp knife. (Because of his position in the religious nobility, he is much in demand among Muslims to preside over the ritual slaughter of the goats and sheep that are eaten by Mohammedans at this time. Apparently Ramadan, the annual Muslim fast, has either just ended or is about to commence.)

2. Khatar invited me to accompany him on a trip to his home in the Sudan. His father has bought an air-conditioned Cadillac and has instructed Khatar to see that the car is delivered to him at his palace in western Sudan. This involves driving it from Geneva to Naples, accompanying it aboard ship to Alexandria, and then driving it down the Nile and across the desert to the house of el Khatar. The whole trip would take about a month. Khatar anticipates that we might meet some bandits along the way, and he asked whether I might be able to get my hands on a couple of Sten guns. “We shall only need them in Egypt, where the population is not Arab,” said Khatar. “Once we are across the frontier, you will be quite safe so long as you are with me.” Khatar assures me that he has been schooled since earliest boyhood in desert navigation, so there is little chance that we shall become lost in the trackless waste that lies between Khartoum and his home. “If you become lost in the desert,” he says, “you just go back to where you started and begin the whole trip again. It is quite simple. I will teach you to read the stars, in case we become separated.”

3. Khatar intends to invite Paul Christopher, the American, to accompany him. He believes that Christopher will be able to make repairs on the Cadillac if anything goes wrong with it. Further, he thinks that Christopher must be a good shot and an expert outdoorsman. “Americans are very good with motors and firearms,” Khatar says. (The belief that Christopher is any sort of mechanic is, I think, an illusion. But he may be able to shoot a submachine gun well enough, since he was a parachutist in the American Army.) I have no doubt that Christopher will go along on this journey if it materializes.

4. One other companion is being considered by Khatar. This is Tadeusz Miernik, the Pole. Miernik, as I have reported, is about to lose his passport and perhaps his position at WRO. I mentioned these difficulties to Khatar. He waved them away. “I will tell our Ambassador here to give Miernik a Sudanese passport,” he said. Khatar wishes to take Miernik along because the latter, it appears, has a scholarly interest in Sudanese history and culture. Khatar alleges that Miernik has for some time been writing a book on this subject. “He distracts me with his questions about the look of the country, and what he calls social dynamics,” Khatar said. “I hope to shut him up by letting him see it all with his own eyes.

5. I asked Khatar when he intended to begin the journey. “The car will be ready in June,” he replied. “We can leave as soon after that as we wish. As soon as we have the Sten guns.” Procuring these weapons apparently is going to be my responsibility. I explained that automatic weapons are not easy to come by. “Oh, it’s not so difficult. Half the zealots in Sudan have them,” Khatar replied. I asked why he was so determined to have machine guns. “It is better to have them just now,” he said. “There are madmen in Sudan. Everyone knows that.” I pressed him for further details. “One of the forms of social dynamism in the desert,” said Khatar, “is banditry. Part of the local colour, always has been. And just now there are a lot of silly bastards who think that they’re revolutionaries. The Russians gave them guns and bombs and told them to go and kill people. Naturally, people in Cadillacs are very desirable targets. I rather like the picture of old Miernik hosing down a bunch of black Communists with a Sten gun out of the window of an American limousine. If we turn up the radio and the air conditioner, it will be quite like the telly, won’t it?”

6. Subject to your approval, I agreed to go along on this trip. I should be glad of any assistance you may be able to give in obtaining three or four Sten guns, with ammunition.