Killer Elite

33

During the evening of Friday, November 7, Meier stopped the car at a garage in Stockbridge and asked the elderly attendant for the best route to Exeter.

“Well, my friend, I can tell you which way not to go, and that’s by the A30. It may look more direct, but what with its traffic problems and all, you’d be a fool to take it. Go along the A303 as far as you can, close to Honiton, then join the A30. That’s what the folks ’round here all do.”

Two miles south of Stockbridge, Meier and Jake left their car by the roadside on the outskirts of the village of Houghton. The previous night they had visited the houses of three ML executives on the short list. Men from Tadnams had broken into other offices and homes and now the process was being repeated for the last of the listed men. Afterward, Houghton, Meier and Jake had two further calls to complete, at the homes of ML executive Pollock and another nonexecutive director, Sebire.

There were two key items to find, and in the case of Sir Peter Horsley, the nonexecutive director of ML Holdings, both would have to be at his home in Houghton, a fine Victorian house called Park Court, since he worked from there and not in London. The only reason he had been included on the list was that he was as likely to use the A303 to go to Plymouth, as were his London-based colleagues. Tadnams had included a copy of the Who’s Who entry for Horsley, which indicated that he was a man of considerable distinction: “… 1940 Fighter Command… Commands No. 9 and No. 29 Squadrons… Equerry to Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh 1942-1952, Equerry to the Queen 1952-1953, Equerry to the Duke of Edinburgh 1953-1956… Deputy C-in-C Strike Command 1973-1975…” Numerous other achievements were also cataloged and Meier could only hope that, as a retired Air Marshal, Horsley did not warrant government security cover.

Leftover fireworks crackled and fizzed intermittently around the little village, and Horsley’s dogs, a Dalmatian and a large Munsterlander, were decidedly edgy.

Meier and Jake, with a duffel bag, skirted the front drive with its deep gravel noise-trap and, from the magnificent rear garden, spotted Sir Peter in the kitchen with his dogs. His wife was nowhere to be seen.

“Keeps the dogs in there all night,” whispered Meier. “Got their baskets, rugs and food bowls by the Aga and no dog-flaps. We’re in luck.”

Since Sir Peter’s diary was liable to be downstairs they decided to wait until he moved upstairs to bed. Meanwhile they moved to the spacious double garage, built as an attractive and entirely separate two-story unit, some distance from the main house.

The garage swing doors were up and open. One car space was empty. The other was occupied by a shiny BMW Series 7.

“Nip upstairs, Jake,” Meier ordered. “Check that there’s no one up there. I’ll get the machine’s vital statistics.”

Meier opened the duffel bag and slipped into a boiler suit. He disappeared between the front wheels of the BMW with the bag. In a short while he was interrupted by Jake.

“I think we have luck with this man.” He held out a black desk diary.

Meier took off his gloves and the light from his headband flashlight lit up the diary’s pages. “Where did you get this?”

Jake explained. He had mounted the stairs on the outside of the garage and, on the upper floor, entered an open-plan office by way of an unlocked door. There was obviously a noteworthy lack of crime in Houghton. Three large desks occupied the office above the garage, and Jake discovered that Sir Peter, his secretary and his wife all worked there. He could find no diary anywhere in or on the first two desks, but Lady Horsley kept hers open on her blotter, and Jake’s optimism was prompted by two of the entries, one for Monday, November 10: “Depart for Ma’s”; and one for Tuesday, November 11: “P. leaves at 3 p.m., Yelverton by 6 p.m.”

“Looking very good.” Meier nodded and laid a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Well done indeed. Take a note of all the entries from today until November thirteenth, then replace the diary. I am nearly finished.”

Meier noted that with the swing doors closed, and blackout cloth taped over the windows, the place would be light-proof. The walls were of solid brick but a sound baffle was needed to line the inside of the swing doors. He checked the power points and the BMW’s own jackset. They would need Tadnams men on outside watch and a mechanic to help with the work. He noted what he could see of the brake system, the Michelin XVS tires, 40,000 miles on the clock, registration 3545 PH, car type BMW 728i automatic.

Meier and Jake finished their further ML executive checkups at 5 a.m., and by noon on November 8, de Villiers was able to select the file on Sir Peter Horsley from thirteen others. He was by far the most suitable.

All equipment and tools were centralized at the Kent airstrip, a BMW 728i automatic with ABS braking system was purchased along with two “target practice” cars, and the fitting and control rehearsals began in earnest with two days in hand. Meier and Jake, seemingly tireless, were in their element.

Early on Sunday morning Spike received a routine call from John Smythe, who was controlling the three-man Marman watch. There had been no sign of the Welshman nor of any other outside interest in their charge. “Keep at it,” Spike had told him.

Smythe was a quiet, reliable sort and particularly appropriate for the work since he had followed the Welshman to London some nine years before. Still unmarried and self-employed, Smythe had become one of Spike’s key Locals in the Southeast, after moving to Reading in the early eighties.

Mike Marman, after a late night, following drinks with his friend Poppo Tomlinson, had intended to spend that morning doing nothing very much with Julia. He surprised them both with a last-minute decision to go to church because it was Remembrance Sunday. They drove the 2CV to the Guards Chapel in Whitehall and joined a full and enthusiastically lugubrious congregation.

Like many of his old Army friends, also at the service, Mike had pinned his three medals to his overcoat and wore them with pride. He should have had a fourth, the Distinguished Service Medal, but for the decidedly cold shoulder the authorities had shown him ever since his shooting up of the Midway officers’ mess in Dhofar. He chuckled to himself at the memory. Wall plaques, bottles and glasses had smashed into splinters. Officers and staff had jumped for their lives as Major Marman, with a wild yell, had sprayed the main bar with his Kalashnikov assault rifle set to fully automatic. A glorious memory. He had always hated overbearing senior officers, and that episode had given quite a few of them something to think about.

Although Mike had listened in amazement to David Mason’s warning and his remarkable story about the killing of John Milling and Mike Kealy, both of whom he had known, he was not convinced. It was inconceivable that anyone could actually be plotting to kill him. Somehow David had gotten things wrong. Nevertheless Marman’s grin faded as he thought about it. Mason had asked him to mention the threat to nobody and he had agreed not to.

During the sermon, Marman found his thoughts dwelling on death. So many of his best muckers from Army days were dead, killed in the war or in peacetime soldiering. Charles Stopford had recently crashed his Beaver plane into a hilltop at Dummer, the home village of Sarah Ferguson. Then, last weekend, he had called at Rose May’s and only one of his sons had come away with him. The elder son, Alistair, had stayed to comfort his mother. Rose May’s fiance, Alan Stewart, had been killed earlier that week. A talented Thames TV news producer, on his last day’s coverage of the famine in southern Sudan, he had driven over a mine and died of the injuries.

Rose May had said to Marman, “How strange life is. My peace-loving Alan is dead, yet you, after all your years of wars and bloodshed, are still alive and totally unscathed.”