Читать книгу Kidnap the Emperor! - Jay Garnet, Jay Garnet - Страница 7

Those who had met Sir Charles Cromer over the past twenty years knew him only as a calculating financier, who seemed to live for his bank, seeking a release in his work from a stultifying home life. In point of fact, he was a closet gangster, utterly amoral, and with more than a dash of sadism in him. This aspect of his character had long been suppressed by his intelligence, his social standing and the eminence of the professional role he had inherited.

Only twice in his life had Cromer truly expressed himself. The first time was at school, at Eton. There, as fag and junior, he had borne the crushing humiliations imposed upon him by his seniors, knowing that he too would one day inherit their power. His resilience and forbearance were well rewarded. He became a games player of some eminence, playing scrum-half for the school and for Hereford Schoolboys with a legendary fearlessness. He also became Head of House. In this capacity he had cause, about once a week, to dispense discipline in the sternest public school traditions. Sometimes he would preside, with awful formality, over the ritual humiliation of some unfortunate junior who would be beaten in the prefects’ common room. Meanwhile the prefects themselves read idly, disdainfully refusing to acknowledge the presence of the abhorrent object of Cromer’s displeasure. Sometimes, for a lesser offence, the beating would be administered in his own study. Both occasions gave him joy.

It was at a House beating in his own study that he once allowed his nature to get the better of him. The boy concerned had dared question the validity of his decision. The insolence of the suggestion drove the eighteen-year-old Cromer into a cold and dedicated anger. The beating he then delivered, with the full weight of his body, drew blood beneath the younger boy’s trousers. When examined by a doctor, marks were even found on the victim’s groin, where the cane had whipped around the side of his buttock and hip.

The traditions of the school demanded complete stoicism. Even after such a caning, the boy would have been expected to shake hands with his persecutor, then continue life as normal. He might bear the stigmata for weeks, but he would say nothing, nor would anybody else.

This time, however, there was a comeback. The boy’s father was a Jewish textile manufacturer determined to buy the trappings of English culture for his offspring. The boy himself was less certain that he needed them. Cromer’s actions decided him: he telephoned his father, who appeared the following day, pulled his son out of school and obtained a doctor’s report. Copies of the report were passed to the headmaster, the housemaster, Cromer’s parents and his own solicitor. It was only with the greatest skill that a public scandal was averted. Cromer himself, who was amazed to find that he was considered to have done something amiss, was severely reprimanded. It changed his attitude not at all. But it did teach him that, if he wished to indulge in such activities, he would have to cloak them in a veneer of respectability.

The only other time that Cromer was able to let himself go was in Berlin immediately after the war. He had been too young to see any active service. The war was over just as he finished his training. As a newly commissioned second lieutenant, he flew into Tempelhof airport in Berlin in July 1945, the first time the victorious Russians had allowed the Western allies into the former German capital. Berlin was still a charnel house, a wilderness of buildings torn apart, squares and streets littered with rubble, a population half-starved. Cromer rapidly saw that he had been presented with a unique opportunity. The occupying troops were the élite, buying goods, labour and sex with money, cigarettes, food, luxury goods. Marks were worth nothing; sterling and dollars were like gold.

For the first year, when the Germans were still regarded as the enemy and the Russians as friends, Cromer was in his element. He transferred in his own cash and bought for derisory sums anything of value he could lay his hands on. It was amazing that so much had survived the war unscathed – Meissen china, Steinway and Bechstein grand pianos, hallmarked silver, exquisitely embroidered linen, nineteenth-century military paraphernalia by the ton, even a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. He hired a warehouse near Tempelhof and had it sealed off. For two years, he packed in his treasures. He was by no means the only one to take advantage of the Berliners in this way, though in the scale of his operations he was practically unique.

In early 1948 Cromer, now a captain, was given as administrative assistant a teenage second lieutenant, Richard Collins. For Cromer, this turned out to be a providential appointment. As well as fulfilling his normal duties, organizing patrols and the distribution of food, Collins was soon recruited after hours to supervise the stowing of Cromer’s latest acquisitions. It was not a demanding job – a couple of evenings a week at most – but it was regular, and he was promised a share of the proceeds.

One evening in May, when Collins was closing up for the night, a task he had been taught to do surreptitiously, he heard a crash around the corner. He ran to the side of the building and was in time to see a bottle, flaming at one end, sail through the newly made hole in one of the windows. A Molotov cocktail.

Collins knew it would be caught by the wire-mesh netting inside the window and guessed it would do little damage. Hardly pausing, he sprinted into the rubble-strewn shadows from which the bottle had come, in time to see a slight figure vanishing round the next street corner. Collins was young, fit and well fed, and the teenage fire-bug, weakened by years of malnutrition, had no chance of escape. Collins sprinted up from behind and pushed him hard in the shoulders. The German took off forwards into a heap of rubble, hit it head on and collapsed into the bricks like a sack of potatoes. Collins hauled him over, and found his head dreadfully gashed and his neck broken.

Collins heaved the body across the unlit street and into a bombed building. He then ran back to the warehouse, retrieved the guttering, still unbroken bottle of petrol from the wire grill, stamped out the cloth, poured the contents down a drain, slung the bottle away into the roadside rubble, listened to see if the crash and the noise of running feet would bring a patrol, and then, reassured, went off to find Cromer.

Cromer knew what he owed Collins. He used his own jeep to pick up the body, and by three o’clock in the morning the German had become just another unidentified corpse in a small canal.

There had been some mention of German resentment against profiteering, but this was the first direct evidence Cromer had had of it. He saw that the time had come to stop.

Within a couple of months, Berlin was blockaded by the Russians and the airlift was under way. Planes loaded with food and fuel from the West were landing at Tempelhof every three minutes and taking off again, empty. Except that some were not empty. It took Cromer only two weeks to organize the shipment of his complete stock in twin-engine Dakotas, first to Fassberg, then on to England, to a hangar on a Midlands service aerodrome. A year later, demobbed, Cromer organized two massive auctions that netted him £150,000. In Berlin his outlay had been just £17,000. Not bad for a twenty-four-year-old with no business experience and no more than a small allowance from the business he was destined to take over.

Now Cromer the racketeer was about to resurface.

After lunch Cromer returned temporarily to his hermit-like existence. His staff did not find his behaviour peculiar; there had been crises demanding his personal attention before. He made two telephone calls. The first was to Oswald Kupferbach in Zurich, to an office in the Crédit Suisse, 8 Paradeplatz – one of the few banks in Switzerland which have special telephone and telex lines solely for dealing in gold bullion.

‘Oswald? Wie geht’s dir?…Yes, a long time. We have to meet as soon as possible…I’m afraid so. Something has come up over here. It’s about Lion…Yes, it’s serious, but not over the phone. You have to be here…I can only say that it concerns all our futures very closely…Ideally, this weekend? Sunday evening for Monday morning? That would be perfect…You and Jerry…I’ll have a car for you and a hotel. I’ll telex the details.’

The next call was to New York, to a small bank off Wall Street that had specialities comparable to Cromer’s – though little gold, of course, and more stock-exchange dealings – and a relationship with the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company similar to Cromer’s with Rothschild’s. He spoke to Jerry Lodge.

‘Jerry? Charlie. It’s about Lion…’

The call had a similar pattern to the previous one – prevarication from the other end, further persuasion by Cromer, mention of mutual futures at stake and, finally, a meeting arranged for Monday morning.

In an elegant courtyard of Cotswold-stone farm buildings, some seventy miles north-west of London, Richard Collins raised an arm in a perfunctory farewell to a customer driving off in a Land Rover. A routine morning’s work. One down, twenty-five to go, a job lot from Leyland.

A lot of people envied Dicky Collins. He looked the very epitome of the well-to-do countryman in his tweed jackets, twill trousers, Barbour coats. His Range Rover had a Blaupunkt tape deck, still something of a rarity in the mid-1970s. The farmhouse, with its courtyard and outbuildings, was surrounded by ten acres of woodland and meadow. It was an ideal base for his business, which was mainly selling army-surplus vehicles. In one of the stone barns, converted into a full working garage, there were five Second World War jeeps in various stages of repair, a khaki truck that had last seen action in the Western desert, and several 1930s motorbikes, still with side-cars.

The business turned over quarter of a million. He took £25,000, more than enough in those days. He was forty-eight, fit, successful, unmarried, and bored out of his bloody mind.

For almost ten years he had worked at his bloody Land Rovers and jeeps and trucks, ever since he finished in Aden and Charlie Cromer had given him a £100,000 loan to buy his first 100 vehicles – in exchange for sixty per cent of the equity. Both had judged well. It was a good business, doing the rounds of the War Department auctions. Now things were drying up, prices were rising. Any old jeep you could have got for £100 ten years before now fetched £2000 and up. It was a specialist field, and Collins knew it well. Once he had loved it. The sweet purr of a newly restored engine reminded him of the real thing.

After Aden, he was happy to settle. Hell of a time. Fuzzies fighting for a stump of a country and an oven of a city. Chap needed two gallons of water a day just to stay alive. No point to it all in the end, with Britain pulling out. Not like Borneo – that had been a proper show, all the training put to good use.

Now he was sick of it. Country life could never deliver that sort of kick. Money? It was good, but it would never be enough to excite him. The place was mortgaged to the hilt, the taxman was a sadist, and even if he sold, Charlie Cromer would take most of the profits.

Boredom, that was Collins’s problem. There was old Molly to do the house. The business ran itself these days, what with Caroline coming in two days a week to keep the VAT man at bay. Stan knew all about a car’s innards and could fix anything over twenty years old as good as new. Collins had other interests, of course, but keeping up with publications on international terrorism and his thrice-weekly clay-pigeon practices hardly compared with jungle warfare for thrills. There were parties, there were girls for the asking, but he wasn’t about to marry again. What had once been a comfortable country nest had become a padded cell.

‘Major,’ Stan called from the garage. ‘Phone.’

Collins nodded. He walked through the garage, edging his way past a skeletal jeep to the phone.

‘Dicky? Charlie Cromer. Got a proposition for you.’

Monday, 22 March

That morning, Sir Charles Cromer, Oswald Kupferbach and Jerry Lodge were together in Cromer’s office. The Swiss and the American sat facing each other on the Moroccan leather sofas beneath the Modigliani. Both had been chosen for their present jobs only after an interview with Cromer, who had judged them right for his needs: astute, experienced, hard. Kupferbach, fifty-two, with rimless glasses, had practised discretion for so long he never seemed to have any emotions at all. Professionally, he didn’t. His one passion was personal: he was an expert in the ecology of mountains above the tree line. Lodge – his grandparents were Poles from the city of Lodz – was quite a contrast: bluff, rotund, reassuring. He found it easy to ensure he was underestimated by rivals.

Between the two on the glass-topped table was newly made coffee and orange juice. Sir Charles was standing, coffee cup in hand, having just outlined the approaches made to him by Yufru.

He concluded by saying: ‘So you see, gentlemen, why we had to meet: I have the strongest possible reasons for believing that the Emperor is not dead. I further believe that unless we move rapidly and in concert, we shall shortly be presented with documents bearing the Emperor’s signature demanding the release of his fortune to the revolutionary government of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

‘This would be a financial blow that we, as individual bankers, should not have to endure. Indeed, the sums in gold alone are so vast that their release would devastate the world’s gold markets. While the short-term implications for our respective economies are not pleasant, the implications for our banks and ourselves as individuals are horrendous.’

The Swiss was thoughtful, the American wide-eyed, caricaturing disbelief.

‘Oh, come on, Charlie,’ he said, ‘that’s got to be the most outrageous proposition I’ve ever heard. What are you on? I mean, my God.’

Kupferbach broke in: ‘No, no, Jerry. It is not so foolish. It fits in. There have been a number of approaches in Zurich for loans. They need the money. But their propositions are unrealistic. The World Bank might consider a loan for fighting the famine, but, of course, it would be administered by World Bank officials. They don’t want that.’

Lodge paused. ‘OK, OK,’ he said at last, ‘let’s follow it through. Suppose the old boy is still alive. Suppose he signs the papers. Don’t you think we could persuade the Ethiopians to leave the gold with us? After all, they have to place it somewhere, don’t they? We arrange a loan for them based on the reserves. They buy their arms and fight their goddam wars, and everyone’s happy. Hey?’

‘It’s possible,’ Cromer said slowly, ‘but it doesn’t look like a safe bet to me. You think Mengistu would pay interest, and if he did, do you think his successors would? Would you invest in a Marxist without any experience of international finance who came to power and preserves power through violence?’

‘I agree. But what do you think would happen if we received these documents and simply ignored them?’ replied Kupferbach.

‘Whadya mean, Ozzie?’ said Lodge. ‘We just don’t do as we’re told? We say we’re not going to hand over the funds? We tell the Ethiopians to go stuff their asses?’

‘In brief, meine Herren yes.’

‘If all this is true,’ said Cromer, ‘that thought must have already crossed their minds. In their position, what would your answer be?’

‘Right,’ Lodge said, jutting his lower jaw and biting his top lip. ‘Jesus, if I was them, I’d make one hell of a storm. Major banks refusing to honour their obligations? Yeah, they could really have a go at us. International Court at The Hague, questions in the UN, pressure on other African countries to make holes in Rothschild and Morgan Guaranty investments in the Third World. We’d come out of it with more than egg on our faces.’

‘Of course,’ added Cromer, ‘to do that, they’d have to reveal that Selassie was still alive. It would make them look pretty damn stupid.’

‘Yes, but they have less to lose.’ It was Kupferbach again, a clear thinker with a coolness that more than matched Cromer’s. ‘Mengistu could write off the previous announcement of the Emperor’s death as a necessity imposed by the revolution. The publicity would be bad for them, but could be catastrophic for us.’

Cromer looked at the two of them in turn.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I have been thinking of nothing else for the last two days. I have rehearsed these arguments many times in my own mind. If the Emperor signs those papers we are lost.’ He paused. ‘We are left with no choice – we have to assume the Emperor is still alive, and we have to get to him before he signs anything.’

Cromer’s two colleagues looked at him expectantly.

‘What the hell are you suggesting?’ said Lodge.

‘We have to do the decent thing. We have to kidnap the Emperor.’

They stared at him.

Lodge shook his head in disbelief and went on shaking it, perhaps at the very suggestion, or perhaps at the impossibility of achieving it.

‘Jerry, Oswald: don’t fight it. It’s the only answer. It’s either that or immediate retirement. I don’t know about you two but I have a very real future in front of me. The Emperor has none. Getting him out, we win all ways. We save him, and we save his fortune – and ours.’

‘You goddam English,’ said Lodge. ‘You think you can still act like you had an Empire. Where I come from, the CIA do that sort of thing, not the goddam bankers…’ He trailed off, still shaking his head.

Kupferbach seemed to be way ahead of him. ‘I see, Charles. You have been doing much preparation for this meeting. May I ask, therefore, why you needed to include us?’

‘For the first step, Oswald, the first step. Getting to Selassie. I think I know how to do it. We still have one card to play. Supposing he is still alive, supposing the Ethiopians make him sign the documents, supposing they are dated for just two days before we receive them, I still do not believe we would have to comply. We could argue that the signature must have been produced under duress, since it is clearly contrary to everything the Emperor has expressed in the past. I think we could make such a refusal stand up in a court of law. Of course, it would not do to let things go on that far. As you say, Oswald, the publicity would be catastrophic. But likewise, they would not get their money.

‘I think we can pre-empt a crisis. We tell them that signature under duress would not be acceptable, quoting UN Human Rights legislation. I also think I could suggest a way around the difficulty: I will propose that the signature be made in the presence either of the bankers concerned or of their duly appointed representatives, in a situation in which the Emperor could be seen – for that particular day, at least – to be in good health and not the object of undue pressure, physical or psychological.

‘That, gentlemen, is how we gain access.’

‘Hold on there a tiny minute,’ broke in Lodge, ‘you’re losing me. You mean this has to be done for real? We have to go and meet the Emperor?’

‘Well, not we necessarily, but yes, there has to be a meeting between our people and the Emperor. And there are, of course, a number of other implications. The Emperor will have to be in a fit state to hold such a meeting. But then, presumably, he has to be in a fit state to sign the documents at all, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to produce him in a reasonable state of health.

‘A further implication – and this is where I need you – is that the documents for signature have to be genuine. Only in that way can we guarantee access. We have to see what the Ethiopians want from Selassie, and we have to agree to them in advance. And Selassie will agree.’

‘Yeah?’ said Lodge, sceptically. ‘Tell me why.’

‘One good reason – only with our co-operation can he assure the financial future of his family abroad. I’ve already had the family on my back several times. It is clear that, in a year or two, they will not be able to support themselves in the manner to which they have become accustomed. There are several children and countless grandchildren. All will need financial help, which they will not receive unless Selassie signs what will become, in effect, his last will and testament, one that must also be agreed with the Ethiopian government and ourselves. Everything must be prepared in secret, but as if it was for real.

‘Thereafter, our duty to ourselves is clear: we cannot allow Selassie actually to sign the papers.’

Collins arrived in London early on Monday evening, parked his Range Rover in a garage off Berkeley Square and strolled round to Brown’s hotel in Dover Street. He just had time for a bath, and a whisky and water in his room, when the internal phone went to announce the arrival in reception of Charlie Cromer.

The two dined at the Vendôme, where sole may be had in twenty-four different styles. It took Cromer two courses and most of a very dry Chablis to bring Collins up to date.

‘And now,’ he said over coffee, ‘before I make you any propositions, I want to know how you’re fixed. How’s the business?’

‘You’ve seen the books, even if you don’t remember them. The profits are there. But there’s a problem with the management.’

‘Fire him.’

‘It’s me, Charlie. It was a joke.’ Cromer shrugged an apology. ‘I’m bored. I’ve been thinking about getting out, taking off somewhere for a year.’

‘Not a woman, is it?’

‘No. I have to keep my nose clean around home – get a reputation for dipping your wick and business can suffer.’

‘So do I take it my call was timely?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Good. You can see what I need: a team of hit men, as our American friends say. We’ll have to work out the details together, but, for a start, we need two more like you, men who like danger, who like a challenge, cool and experienced.’

‘What are you offering in return?’

‘To you? Freedom. I’ll arrange a purchaser for the company and turn any profits over to you. I would imagine you will come out of it with, say, £100,000 in cash. In addition, $100,000 to be deposited in your name in New York and a similar sum to be placed in a numbered account in Switzerland.’

‘That sounds generous.’

‘Fair. I have colleagues who are interested in the successful outcome of this particular operation.’

Collins had decided to take up the offer in any case. ‘Yes. I’m on. I still have a few contacts in the Regiment. I can think of a couple of chaps who may be interested.’

‘There’s another thing,’ said Cromer. ‘You will all have to act the part of bankers. For obvious reasons, I can’t go. Wish I could.’

‘No, you don’t, Charlie. It’s far too risky.’

‘You’ll be handing me a white feather next.’

‘For us, Charlie. Kidnapping an Emperor is quite enough for one job. Spare us looking after you.’

Tuesday, 23 March

Back in the Oxfordshire countryside, Collins had only a few routine matters to attend to. He had to confirm a couple of sales, vet a US Army jeep that would eventually fetch at least £3500, and say ‘yes’ with a willing smile when the village’s up-and-coming young equestrienne, Caroline Sinclair, wanted some poles for a jump. But most of his attention was given to tracking down Halloran and Rourke.

It took several calls and several hours to get to Halloran. He learned of Halloran’s rapid exit from the SAS, and of his re-emergence in Ireland. A contact in Military Intelligence, Belfast, looked up the files. Halloran had blown it: he was never to be used again. For them, Halloran had turned out more dangerous than an unexploded bomb. There had been reprimands for taking him on in the first place. A couple of his Irish contacts were also on file.

‘What’s this for, old boy?’ the voice at the end of the line asked. ‘Nothing too fishy, I hope?’

Collins knew what this meant. ‘Nothing to do with the Specials, the Army, the UDA, the IRA or the SAS. Something far, far away.’

‘Good. In that case, you better move fast. The Yard knows he’s in London. Looks like the Garda tipped them the wink. Could be a bit embarrassing for us if they handle it wrong. Do what you can.’

Collins made three more calls, this time to the Republic – one to a bar in Dundalk and one to each of the contacts on MI’s file. At each number he left a message that an old friend was trying to contact Pete Halloran with an offer of work. He left his number.

At lunch-time, the phone rang. A call-box: the pips cut off as the money went in. A voice heavily muffled through a handkerchief asked for Collins’s identity. Then: ‘It’s about Halloran.’

‘I’ll make it short,’ said Collins. ‘Tell Pete the Yard are on to him and that I may have an offer. Tell him to move quickly.’

‘I’ll let him know.’

The phone clicked off. It could have been Halloran, probably was, but he had to be allowed to handle things his own way.

An hour later, Halloran himself called.

‘Is that you, sir? I had the message. What’s the offer?’

‘Good to hear you, Peter. Nothing definite yet. But I want you to stay out of trouble and be ready for a show. Not here – a long way away. You can come up here as soon as you like. You’ll be quite safe.’

He had assumed Halloran, on the run, tense, perhaps bored with remaining hidden, would jump at it. He did.

‘But what’s this about the Yard?’

‘Just a report that your name has been passed over. Are you sure your tracks are covered? Maybe nothing in it, but just look after yourself, will you? Phone again tomorrow at this time. Perhaps I’ll have more.’

The second set of calls was simpler. From the SAS in Herefordshire to the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia was an easy link. He had no direct contact there, but didn’t need one. He was told Rourke was on his way home. The call also elicited the address of Rourke’s family – a suburban house in Sevenoaks, Kent. Rourke senior was still a working man, a British Rail traffic supervisor. Mrs Rourke answered. Oh yes, Michael was on his way home. Why, he might be in London at that very moment. No, they didn’t know where. He liked his independence, did Michael. They hoped he would be down in the morning, but anyway he was certain to call. How nice of the major. Michael would be pleased to re-establish an old link. No, they didn’t think he had any immediate plans. Yes, she would pass on the message.

Rourke phoned that afternoon within an hour of Halloran. He was still at Heathrow, just arrived from Jo’burg.

‘Can’t tell you yet, Michael,’ said Collins, in response to Rourke’s first question. ‘But it looks like a bit of the old times. Lots of action, one-month contract. Can you be free?’

There was a pause. ‘I’m interested.’

Again, Collins made a provisional arrangement. Rourke would be back in contact later that evening.

Collins’s final call that afternoon, shortly before four o’clock, was to Cromer.

‘Charlie. Just wanted to say the package we were lining up the other day looks good. The other two partners are very interested. We’re ready when you give us the word.’

‘Thanks, Dicky. I have a meeting later which should clarify things. I’ll be in contact tonight.’