Killer Elite

18

Cha Cha brought tea and gently woke John Milling.

“Six o’clock, sah’b.”

“Thank you, Cha Cha.” John smiled at the thought of the day ahead. “We go to beach today. Okay? You make us picnic. We take Oliver. You have free afternoon. Okay?”

The Kashmiri spoke little Arabic and even less English. “Okay, fine, sah’b. Excellent picnic but not today.”

“Not today?” John’s eyebrows rose.

“Not today.” The albino’s thin eyebrows mimicked John’s. “Today you fly helicopter. Telephone call from headquarters… so I bring you early cha.”

Milling’s heart sank. The bloody office had changed the duty roster again.

In deference to the Kashmiri he flung his wizaar about his middle and stomped to the telephone. A few angry words with the Duty Operations Officer confirmed his worst fears. Richard Shuttleworth or one of the others had been taken off cadet training and now his Sunday was ruined. Bridgie was surprisingly mild in her reaction. After they were all dressed and breakfasted he drove her and Oliver the short distance to the Royal Flight swimming pool and told her he hoped to be back for lunch. They were both disappointed by the dashing of their plans. John suspected a last-minute request by the Cadet Training Major that Milling, and only Milling, be in charge of the familiarization flights purely because he spoke fluent Arabic, whereas his brother pilots spoke little or none.

He drove to Air Wing HQ deep in thought. While still adamant that no word should reach Bridgie of the attempt on his life, if that is what it was, he was distinctly worried lest the two nutters show up again when she and Oliver were at home during the four or five days that remained before their leave in Europe. He made up his mind to see a discreet friend of his, a major in the local Criminal Investigation Department. Maybe some unobtrusive surveillance of his house could be arranged just for these four days. Yes, he would fix it first thing tomorrow.

At 7:20 a.m. Meier called Davies. Local anesthetic cream had eased his discomfort but he was relieved to hear de Villiers’s instructions, since he was bored stiff with the confines of the Gulf Hotel. He was to arrange three separate bookings for the earliest available flights, De Villiers to Amsterdam and the two of them to Paris.

“And the action?” Davies asked.

“This morning,” Meier replied and hung up.

Mason, who was in the act of ordering a taxi for later that morning, just missed the short conversation.

At 7:30 John Milling poked his head around the door of Chief Superintendent Bailey’s office. “Morning, boss,” he said with a meaningful grin.

“Sorry about the flight change, John,” Bailey said, “but that’s the way it is. All well with Bridgie and Oliver?”

“Yes, fine, but I can’t say we’re not looking forward to our leave.”

John changed into flight gear and met up with his crewman, Ali. Together they went to the Ops Room to complete preflight preparations, then out to the flight lines where their Augusta Bell 205 A-1 had been thoroughly checked by the engineers.

Two minutes’ prestart checks.

Two minutes’ windup.

Wave away the external start-up facility.

Open throttle to Flight Idle.

Call Air Traffic for take-off to depart east to Qurum.

Immediate clearance received.

Lift-off from dispersal and down taxiway, climbing to 500 feet.

Over Qurum Police Training School in seven minutes.

Land on H circle on parade ground and shut down engine.

John would relay the above sequence of instructions in Arabic, without notes, to an assembly of police cadets, men who had progressed through the ranks and been selected for commissions. Air familiarization was one of the more exciting sections of their training. John would be able to take only thirteen cadets at a time, so three flights were scheduled in tight succession.

This was to be an introduction to helicopter usage. Safety rules. Magazines off and weapons cleared before mounting. Only approach from where the pilot can see you. Never approach from the rear, not even the baggage bay, without the crewman in attendance. Watch out for uneven ground where clearance is minimal and decapitation occurs in an instant.

John’s manner was easy, confident and humorous. The cadets soon warmed to the subject and the more apprehensive among them began to relax.

Mason arrived at the Air Wing thirty minutes early but the police chief was occupied until 8:30 a.m. They shook hands and Bill Bailey did not press Mason for his identity. He could sense at once that this was no imposter and decided he was probably a spook from either Whitehall or ORD (Oman Research Department), the local equivalent of the UK’s Special Branch.

Mason kept it simple and unambiguous. A group of dubious characters were under surveillance. Two days before, one had been heard to say he had fixed the machine of Chief Superintendent Bailey. Not in so many words but that is how it had clearly come across. The man was employed by J amp;P and working in this very building. Why Bailey should have been chosen as a target was not known. Mason handed Bailey a sheaf of photographs, saying, “I am afraid your worker is the man wearing the hat. His features are partially shaded in all the shots but hopefully you might click as to his identity.”

“We have a number of transient workers here but none who would be able to sabotage one of my helicopters. The machines are always checked thoroughly by my engineers before each flight.” Bailey was pensive for a minute. “On the other hand the hangar workshop is being altered at present and the J amp;P people have a pretty free hand… Come down to the hangar with me. You never know, you may recognize the man right away.”

There were two J amp;P electricians at work but neither had been to the hangar before and they could not identify Meier from the photographs. Bailey took Mason around the hangar. A number of pilots, engineers and staff were about but no one familiar to Mason. Back in Bailey’s office Mason thanked him for his time and agreed there must have been some mistake. Nevertheless Bailey said he would hold on to some of the photographs for a while and watch out for any man fitting the description of Floppy Hat. He would also have his flight engineers keep an especially keen eye open for any irregularities.

“How do I contact you if this man should turn up?” Bailey asked.

“Call this number in the UK, leave a message and we will call you back.” Mason gave the police chief Patrick Tanner’s home number. If any of Mason’s stray pigeons ever did come home to roost, Patrick was a past master at denial. Mason needed to know if Floppy Hat should reappear after he was himself back in Berlin.

The two men shook hands and Mason returned to his hotel. He was booked on the next flight back to Europe. He could do no more. He would risk a great deal for Spike and all that he stood for, but not to the extent of a court-martial for absence without leave. Once back in Europe he would write out a full and meticulously detailed report to give, with all the photographs, to Spike.

The cadets were excited. John had explained how low they would be flying. The first thirteen moved out to the parade ground in their smart khaki uniforms and blue berets. They practiced embarking in the correct fashion and Ali strapped them to their seats. Nine faced each other in the forward hull section and four faced outward in the compartment on either side of the hellhole.

The helicopter left the ROP Training Center at Qurum, heading north for the nearest point of the coastline. It was on schedule: 1000 hours by John’s battered Rolex. At Ra’s al Hamra, Cape Donkey, he banked sharply east and the real flying began, as reflected in the faces of the wide-eyed cadets in the main cabin. John Milling was at his happiest, his most confident, when flying low and fast with total concentration. The helicopter hugged the beach, skirted cliff faces, and skimmed the glassy sea with as much precision as a sports car on the contorted course of Germany’s Nurburgring. The rotors often scythed within yards of rock walls and the students thrilled to their pilot’s expertise.

Mina al Fahal Bay flashed by, where the dark outlines of the stingrays and sharks were briefly visible. John scanned the instruments. All felt and looked well. They continued at one hundred knots, fifteen feet above the white sands. Darsait Headland loomed ahead. For mid-March the temperature, eighty-five degrees, was well above average and, in such high-density altitude conditions, the Bell was close to its maximum “all-up” weight. The rocky bluff of Darsait now filled the entire width of the forward windscreen. Immediately south of the helicopter and on the rim of Fahal Beach, secretaries and executives glanced out from the windows of the Shell Market offices. At the last minute John raised the Bell’s nose by pulling back on the cyclic control and sacrificing air speed to gain height. At this point his intention was probably a sharp torque turn to seaward. But one hundred knots at the bottom of the climb reduced to a mere forty knots at the cliff top, so he immediately reduced the collective lever, allowing the torque reaction to turn the helicopter’s nose left and seaward while he pushed the cyclic control forward to regain his speed by a shallow, thirty-degree dive. Having gained one hundred knots of air speed, he would pull out just above sea level.

Things did not go as planned. At the back of his mind John registered an abnormal sound. Not alarming, but not standard either. A muffled and unattributable thud. He turned briefly to check if a cadet had done something silly but all seemed in control.

The pressure that is normally trapped within the actuator to resist the feedback loads from the rotor is between 500 and 700 psi. With the lee-plug blown, hydraulic fluid was excreted in a thin, solid jet. Within seconds all hydraulic assistance to the collective control ceased to exist.

Some thirty feet above the surface of the sea John began to raise the Bell’s nose and to pull in the collective pitch with his left hand. To his surprise the collective felt extremely stiff. He knew the still air and heavy load were rendering the control responses a touch sluggish, but this was something else altogether. Frowning, he glanced at the air-speed indicator. The needle registered ninety knots. With a mere fifty feet to go-ample leeway had the lift response been normal-he hauled with all his considerable strength to exert the necessary pull on the collective, in excess of thirty-five pounds, despite the constraints of his seated position.

Aware of sounds of uneasiness in the main cabin, John found time to shout over his shoulder, “ Maa shekhof. Maa shekhof. Kull shay ba stawi zehn, insh’ Allah ” (“Don’t worry. All will be well, God willing”).

But all was far from well for, at this critical moment, a combination of unrelated factors came together: John’s relative inexperience of high gross weights at higher than normal density altitudes combined with the sudden hydraulic failure.

John fought hard and nearly won the aerodynamic battle. He turned the dive into a bouncing blow with skids and belly. His mind raced to stay ahead of the developing emergency. He would not accept that the situation was irretrievable. His greatest fear was that the helicopter’s nose would contact the water, and to avoid this, he needed a delicate response from his controls; this he did not have.

John’s concentration centered on the stubborn collective lever and this had the subsidiary effect of coarsening his handling of the cyclic lever. He pulled the Bell’s nose up a little too far and became immediately concerned lest the tail rotor strike the water.

To level out he pushed the cyclic forward. Once again his touch was a little too heavy. At two or three feet above the water, a little too far was too far and the nose touched the sea.

John’s veins stood out on his forehead as he wrenched up on the stubborn collective with his left hand while simultaneously attempting a delicate correction to the nose with his right.

A lesser pilot would have lost control at that point. John kept his head to the last. Somehow he managed to claw the Bell out of the water, but was still caught in a lethal dilemma. Above all he needed delicate controls to lift the nose without ditching the tail. Once again a minute and unavoidable overcorrection made the nose touch the leaden surface of the sea.

Although the Bell’s hull had leveled out at the moment of impact, the deceleration effect of the initial immersion was catastrophic. The gear box was torn from its mountings and smashed its way forward to shear through the roof of both cabin and cockpit. The massive control feedback caused a momentary surge of pressure to some 5,000 psi and dislodged a number of lee-plugs within the other two undoctored cylinders.

John and Ali, haltered by lap but not shoulder straps, catapulted forward and were knocked senseless by the instrument panel.

The stricken Bell floated for some seconds. Then, in less than a minute, she sank to the seabed some forty feet below. The cockpit filled with water. John and Ali drowned without regaining consciousness.

A rescue operation was swiftly mounted. Within minutes men with scuba gear, including George Halbert, were inside the hull, hoping for survivors trapped in an air bubble. Five cadets failed to escape; the rest surfaced and were quickly rescued. Had the machine nosedived on the first impact, all on board would certainly have died.

The meticulous investigation and the resulting accident report concluded that the crash was caused by many factors. The blown lee-plugs were noted but no suspicion was aroused.

Three days later in Berlin, after reading of the accident in the Times obituary column, Mason phoned the Air Wing in Seeb. Bill Bailey was away but another officer told him, “There is no question of sabotage. It was either pilot error or some mechanical defect.”

Bill Bailey was sure that the accident could not have been connected with sabotage. He was uncertain of Mason’s identity or whereabouts since there was no response from his answering machine and Mason himself never reappeared. He realized that there could be no connection between Mason’s visit and the unfortunate accident but even so he passed the photograph of Meier to one of the Omani police officers peripherally involved in the accident investigation. No follow-up action was possible, for there was no starting point nor indeed any reason for any inquiries.

The Times obituary on March 22, 1977, for John Milling was straightforward: “On 20th March, as a result of an air accident in Oman, John, late of the Royal Marines serving with the Royal Oman Police Air Wing, beloved husband of Bridget (nee Wallis) and dear father of Oliver, much beloved son of Desmond and Diana, Co. Antrim.”

An article in the Globe and Laurel, the Royal Marines’ magazine, stated, “It is a fitting tribute to John and a measure of the respect and fondness in which he was held that the news of his death brought messages of sympathy from His Majesty Sultan Qaboos and Omanis and Britons throughout both countries.”

John was buried in the Christian burial ground that overlooks Mina al Fahal and the Gulf of Oman. A great many friends, Christian and Muslim, were present. Eminent Omanis and simple soldiers were saddened by the loss of a true friend of their country.