'Covert' © 2001 All Rights Reserved. By Ian Lumley. Based upon a true story.

Chapter 1: The Assassination.  November 1985 

Apprehension tugged at the pit of his stomach as he shuffled towards passport control. It was the final stage of the journey and despite his tough Brooklyn upbringing he was tense and nervous. The P&O Pride of Calais  had just docked at Dover and the terminal building bustled with people hurrying.

His work was usually carried out in the States, this was his first time with a false passport. Despite this,  he was getting better at hiding his uneasiness. He had come from New York, into Orly Airport Paris, out of France and on to the ferry at Calais and now he was approaching the immigrations desk at Dover. The officials wouldn’t notice his increased heart-beat, or the cloth linings of his brown, leather gloves sticking to his palms.

The queue was a mixture of travellers;  out-of-season holiday-makers, back-packers and students returning home for Christmas, and many smart-suited businessmen. Dressed in a well-cut, suit and overcoat, and carrying a brief-case, he joined the long line of people moving slowly forward.

The crossing was calm and the gentle swaying motion of the ship had lulled him into a fitful sleep in the rest-lounge. New York seemed days away now, the journey almost felt epic.  Aeroplane to Paris, train to Calais, ship to Dover, and if he got through customs into England, the final stretch would be completed by car. Still, there were only a couple of more days, and if all went well he would be on his way home, his credibility intact and his reputation enhanced. His thoughts returned to the queue, there were just five more people ahead of him. Just five more people… the line was moving forward, slowly and inexorably…

Brooklyn born in 1953, to Italian parents, he snatched his first purse at the age of nine, progressed to car theft and built a reputation for ruthlessness and violence. At  fourteen he did time in a youth correction centre for stabbing a rival gang-member in a Brooklyn street-fight. Despite prison terms for crimes ranging from robbery to blackmail and pulling a gun on a Roman Catholic priest, by 1973 the police regarded him as little more than a petty criminal. His life changed when he met an Italian millionaire businessman. Ricardo Riccheldi became a mentor and close friend, introducing him to protection rackets, to drug dealing and to thugs who taught him to beat the hell out of anybody who stood in his way. It was inevitable that his talents accelerated him through the Italian hierarchy and at the age of 22 he was taken to witness his first hit. It was brutal. His bosses wanted to know if he had the stomach to become a contract killer,  so they gave him a demonstration…

It was three in the morning when they took him to the derelict brownstone on the edge of The Bronx. There were three of them… big, fat, unfit men, wearing red coveralls, and two of them had baseball bats.

He didn’t know what the guy had done, he just knew he had crossed them. The first two blows smashed his legs to stop him running, and while he writhed on the floor screaming in agony and begging for mercy, they systematically and methodically bludgeoned him, until his body was a glistening  red pulp from the neck down. It was hard, physical work. They took turns, and pounded the bats into the body. Soon rivulets of sweat ran down their faces and mingled with the splattered blood on their forearms. They had to pause for breath every five or six blows and after short time the screaming was replaced with a terrible, constant moaning. They continued, without feeling, like workmen, until the moaning dropped to a quiet, gentle whimper… then they stopped.

There was a brief discussion and their speech came in short, breathless bursts as they discussed the open coffin. Eventually, they agreed, so they left the face intact. The victim was meticulously and expertly beaten, so he would live for another two or three hours in agony. Then they left him there, as a warning.

His thoughts returned to passport control and how vital this trip was. The line moved slowly forward. His pulse was gaining slightly and he could feel the tension inside as his turn came nearer. The immigration official was an attractive dark-haired woman in her early forties. Her bright-red lips, her magnolia face, her crisp, white shirt all added to the air of officialdom as she checked each passport like a quality control inspector on an assembly-line.

Outwardly calm and confident, inwardly, the stress was unmistakable, yet at the same time it stimulated and sharpened his sense of excitement. As he approached the desk,  she smiled her bright-red, good morning smile and accepted his passport without speaking. A quick look at the photograph… a brief comparison with his olive-skinned face, a nod of acknowledgement and she waved him through.

The rumble of baggage trolleys mingled with babbling voices as passengers jostled for position heading for customs. All the hustle and bustle seemed to be happening through some kind of filter in his head as he focused on the final obstacle.

Centring his attention on the ‘Nothing To Declare’ door, he strode through and relaxed a little, realising he was now officially in England. Pausing briefly, he scanned the room. Calmer now, he drank in the atmosphere. The smells of coffee and frying bacon teased his appetite as he looked around studying the scene.    

The hall thronged with people, some held up name-cards. Welcomes and handshakes were going on around him as his gaze tried to penetrate the jostling crowds. After a moment, he saw what he was looking for. A small man, a business man holding up a card with the name ‘P. T. J. WILSON’ on it in large, black, felt-tip letters. The three initials ‘P. T. J.’ were insurance in case there was another ‘Wilson’.  He walked over, shook hands and smiled at his accomplice. It was just another friendly meeting in a room full of meetings.

A short time later the two men  headed up the hill out of Dover in a small maroon Ford.

‘Good trip?’ said the driver.

‘Yeah. I suppose. Planes and boats and trains… that’s a song isn’t it?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Christ!’ said the Italian.

‘What?’

‘I wouldn’t wanna drive over here.’

‘It’s only what you’re used to.’

‘It’s crap this wrong side of the road stuff. A stick shift too. I ain’t never drove a stick shift.’

The realisation   this was a minor irritation made him relax more. What was left of the tension drained from his body and his mind began to work over his plan.

‘As I said,’ said the driver. ‘It’s what you’re used to. I would find your country strange as well.’

‘Yeah… well…’

They lapsed into an awkward silence. Neither man wanted to know anything about the other, there was no link between them, this was purely a professional relationship, and it had to stay that way. They would talk over the plan later… even though each knew exactly what was expected of them.

*********

A crowd of Seychellois exiles, about 150 of them, were outside the Seychellois High Commission in central London.

Passionate and extremist, swathed against the cold, they faced their sixth long,  English winter away from home.  Bright, piercing eyes shone from dark skinned faces. Clenched fists punched the air, as they circled, chanting fanatically ‘RENE TYRANT! RENE OUT!… RENE TYRANT! RENE OUT!’ Crude placards and banners jabbed upwards as they spilled off the pavement into the road.

The demonstration had Metropolitan Police approval and barriers sealed off part of the road. Traffic diversions were implemented, causing jams tailing back into the surrounding roads, creating yet more irritation for drivers on London’s chaotic streets.   Just a handful of Policemen were grouped together opposite, watching quietly. They weren’t expecting trouble.

A Blue Ford Transit van was parked a little way up the street from of the demonstrators. Inside the van,  concealed in the back, were a couple of Special Branch officers with long-lens cameras. After a few moments of whirring and clicking shutters, one of the plain-clothes officers got out of the van’s rear doors and walked along the road till he came to the crowd of demonstrators. Pausing, he studied  them intently and selected a tall, thin, dark-skinned man, with thick-lensed spectacles, and approached him.

*********

The drive from Dover was straight-forward and uneventful though traffic was heavy as they skirted the south and west of London. The driver knew the victim lived in Edgware and his mind was constantly going over the route to the victim’s house. Hours had been spent at home studying the London A-Z street directory. The escape route was complex, and because he couldn’t risk being seen practising in the area, he had photo-copied the route, enlarged it and marked it in bright red crayon to give him a clearer view of the course. Knowing he would only get one or two rehearsals, he devised a simple code as a memory-map: 1R, 3R, 5L, meant; first right, third right, fifth left. Every fifth group he added the first two letters of the street name as a focal point should the map proved inaccurate. Consequently, 2L/BI would mean second left into Bishop Street. The difficult thing, of course, was  he literally had to know it backwards to escape.

The plan was to take his passenger to check the equipment, settle him in his hotel, where he could grab a few hours sleep, and do a couple of practise runs later that afternoon.

As the Seychellois demonstrated outside the High Commission, the driver guided the maroon Ford through a network of side-streets about a quarter of a mile from Ealing Common. Driving through a maze of Victorian terraced houses, he came to a narrow, cobbled, alleyway that led to a piece of deserted land and twelve, double lock-up garages. Graffiti shouted obscenities from the garage doors. Apart from the sharp slap of a sheet of polythene flapping in the wind, all was quiet, the commuters long-gone. 

Stretching their legs after the long drive, the two men got out of the car and the driver unlocked the steel door to garage number six. He parked the car inside next to another car covered in a dust sheet. Closing  the garage doors behind them, they removed the dust-sheet to reveal a white Vauxhall. The Italian’s apprehension was beginning to change to trepidation, his pulse increased as he walked round to the rear of the Vauxhall.

Authority, control, power… these were the feelings that brought a spark to his soul, they lifted him, they made his spirits soar, but now these feelings had diminished, he was in someone else’s hands and everything, but everything, depended upon the contents of the Vauxhall’s boot being exactly as specified. If they weren’t he would have to cancel the contract and that would be deemed a failure.

It was cold and damp in the lock-up and the sharp, peppery smell of cats filled the Italian’s nostrils. The driver stood to one side and watched as the Italian unlocked the  boot. Bringing his mental checklist to the front of his mind, he studied the contents:

A stone-coloured, full length, double-breasted raincoat, without  belt. The buttons, though left in place, did not function as the coat was modified to fasten and unfasten using a long strip of Velcro. A pair of black, leather gloves. A small radio receiver, complete with belt-clip and earpiece. A two-litre vacuum flask containing hot water, towel, face flannel and bar of soap. A  plastic carrier bag with a black Afro-style hairpiece, a small sponge and a tub of Max Factor Negro 2, warm brown, pancake stage make-up and a  large, loop of leather. Sewn on to the loop was a thick, metal, spring-loaded clip, the kind usually fitted to a heavy-duty key-chain. He placed the leather-loop round his neck and checked to see if the clip swivelled on its pin at his waist. He grunted with satisfaction as the clip turned full circle, smoothly.

Next his gaze turned to a section of the boot-carpet over the empty spare tyre compartment. Slowly pulling it up, he looked at the Uzi sub-machine gun nestling in the well and the small white envelope  taped to the barrel. Placing the envelope to one side, he lifted out the gun and tested its weight. He expertly disassembled the gun to its basic components and swiftly reassembled it. After checking the magazine clip, he placed the Uzi reverently on the floor of the boot.

His attention turned to the envelope. Inside was a Polaroid snap of his eight-year-old son Tony. It was a bright, cheerful photograph. The boy grinned happily into the camera, he stood next to Uncle Ricardo  who was also smiling. But it wasn't a real smile. Ricardo’s eyes always wrinkled in the corners when it was a real smile.  They had been playing baseball. Tony was wearing his catcher’s glove and Uncle Ricardo was holding a baseball bat… but his smile hadn’t reached his eyes..

*********

Later that day, in an urban semi-detached house on the corner of Havencourt Avenue, Edgware, thirty-four years old Rui Moreau was just finishing his evening meal. He pushed his plate to one side and picked his spectacles up from the table and polished them meticulously. His expression was vacant,  his eyes were blank, unfocused and gazing into the future.

Rui hated the cold English weather. He hated living alone and longed to return to the sunshine and warmth of his native Seychelles… and one day he would not only return… but return in triumph. For the past seven years, his life-blood, his fanatical ambition, his very reason for living was driven by the desire to depose President Rene.

Originally, all he wanted to do was to help restore James Mancham to power as the rightful President. But gradually, as Mancham’s ambition faded, Rui’s had grown. Imperceptibly at first, like a tiny spark landing on dry, forest tinder, his desire had ignited. And then slowly and cautiously, it took hold and spread through his soul. Fuelled by the misery and depravation of his people, the feeling grew stronger and stronger within him, until eventually he realised  he was chosen. He would rescue his people from tyranny and persecution, he would be paraded through the streets by the grateful population, a conquering hero - glorious, triumphant and victorious.

Snapping himself out of his dream, his thoughts went to tomorrow’s meeting and how important the day would be. The evidence, the hand-written statements, was scattered on the table in front of him. He read them through again for the hundredth time, and gathering them up, he  placed them neatly into the black, cardboard folder. The day had gone well, he was pleased with the demonstration and hopefully tomorrow would be better.

********

The  rehearsals went well. On the first run the driver consulted the A-Z once. A side-street, formerly a through road, was divided into two, with concrete bollards, making two no-through roads. This meant a minor alteration to the route, easily absorbed into his memory-map. The second rehearsal was perfect and executed with confidence, even the back-up route was tested and the run-through proved  faultless. 

*********

Next morning, Rui Moreau was clearing his breakfast things away when his eyes fell on the black cardboard folder lying on the kitchen table. He was due to hand it to a reporter from The Sunday Times later that day. It contained a three page description of an alleged plot by President Rene of The Seychelles to murder Rui at the home of a friend in Cannes.

Ricardo Riccheldi was a millionaire Italian financier and alleged to have dealings with the Mafia in New York. Rui said in his dossier that Riccheldi, a confidant of President Rene, had hired someone to murder him and his friend Alberto, another wealthy Italian. Rui had formed a close relationship with Alberto and hoped  he would fund his efforts to remove President Rene from power. The killer had smuggled weapons into Paris from the Seychelles in the diplomatic bag but the plot went disastrously wrong when the assassin burst into the villa in Cannes, mistakenly thinking  Rui and his friend Alberto were there.

Rui’s thoughts went back to the day before when he was demonstrating outside the Seychelles high commission in London. A group of about 150 Seychellois dissidents were shouting ‘ RENE TYRANT!…  RENE OUT!’ and waving placards.  

They were well-organised, well-behaved and Rui thought again how successful the day had gone. Things had past without a hitch, there was no violence and even the Police were good-natured. The Police were watching the demonstrators quietly from across the road when a plain-clothes officer, seemed to appear out of nowhere and approached the demonstrators. The policeman knew Rui, and gently guiding him away from the crowd, he spoke softly in his ear. He warned Rui  the Police believed he was in severe danger, he felt it was a serious threat and Rui should be alert and extremely cautious. Rui thanked him for his concern and said he knew  his life was in danger, but nothing would divert him from his political ambitions.

Today’s meeting with the Sunday Times was vital and could even prove to be his salvation. The appointment was at 2 p.m., plenty of time but it would take well over an hour to get there, Maybe he should leave earlier… just to be sure..

*********

As Rui was thinking what time to leave, the Italian and the driver opened the steel door of the lock-up garage in Ealing. The white Vauxhall inched its way out of the garage.Soon it was  leaving Ealing and heading east along the North Circular road. At Neasden, the driver turned left going north, he was  apprehensive and tense but in control. The Italian was relieved  the equipment met the specification, and though edgy and tight, feelings of power, confidence and anticipation were running in parallel. His mind constantly played over the next phase of the plan… it was vivid, like a loop of film rolling through his head, perfect in every detail.

The Vauxhall turned off  Honeypot Lane into the side streets of Queensbury and came to a halt in a quiet cul-de-sac at the back of a pub car-park. This was a waiting place. They were running early, and timing was everything. It was also an escape point on the back-up route. If things turned bad, and someone gave chase, the car-park would give them an escape route to a network of foot-paths into a housing estate. If need be, they would abandon the white Vauxhall, race through the footpaths on foot where cars couldn’t follow and collect the back-up vehicle. They were less than five miles from Havencourt Avenue, less than five miles from the rush of adrenaline and exhilaration that like a drug would fire the Italian to another level of consciousness. He was approaching his crisis, his climax, yet he was puzzled and wondered how he could be so high, yet at the same time feel so calm  and composed. Soon, he would become two people… one detached, dispassionate  and in command, the other fulfilled and exhilarated.

*********

Rui looked at the clock… 9.36 a.m. Still plenty of time. Perhaps he would leave early; maybe meet a colleague from the Movement Pour Le Resistance to talk about the days ahead when Rene would be thrown into one of his own stinking jails. This thought sent his mind racing back to 1979 when he spent nine months imprisoned without charge or trial.

His nostrils flared and his top lip curled as the sickly stench of the cell came back to him. He heard the sound of keys jangling as the food hatch opened, he saw the filthy metal bowl full of maggot-ridden fruit, the constant buzzing of flies round the bucket in the corner, he remembered the gritty feel of the earthen floor beneath his body as he desperately tried to sleep… the stale air, the hot, stagnant darkness, all these memories surged back, pouring more fuel on his hatred and bitterness. Snapping out of it, he forced himself to think positive thoughts. If the Sunday Times took his dossier seriously and published, maybe the BBC would pick it up, then ITN.. and Rene wouldn’t dare do anything!

Yes, he made the decision… he would leave early. He telephoned one of his compatriots, and arranged to meet him shortly. Placing the black folder in his briefcase, he checked to see if he had picked up his spectacles’ case and walked through into the hall to collect his overcoat. It was cool and blustery outside but at least it was dry and sunny. He brushed his overcoat and looking in the hall-mirror, he straightened his tie, glanced down to check his shoes and he was ready. He wasn’t conscious of the faint sound of a car engine ticking over, a little way up the street outside.

********

The five mile trip from Queensbury had taken just under 25 minutes. The white Vauxhall turned off the Edgware Road into a labyrinth of side-streets. They were quiet urban streets. There was the occasional dog-walker, or shopper with head down scurrying to the Edgware Road, but most people were out, earning their living.

Cruising slowly past a row of white, rendered, semi-detached houses, the driver turned in to Havencourt Avenue. The Italian confirmed the target’s house, and turning round, the driver pulled in and waited round the corner. The Italian’s mind now entered an almost out-of-body state. His heart-rate was faster than normal but controlled. Each job felt better, on this occasion he had never experienced such clarity of thought, the very centre of his mind was in tune with his senses and operating on a higher level. His head was on one side… waiting… listening to the hiss of static in his ear-piece.

As Rui came out of his front door and started to walk down the short path to the pavement, the Italian came marching round the corner. The sun glinted on Rui’s spectacles as he paused and waited for the man to pass the end of the path, but the Italian slowed, turned and stopped at the gate. Probably going to ask directions… thought Rui, but the Italian just stood there. By now, Rui was half-thinking  the man didn’t have a reason for stopping. The Italian called his name. Rui acknowledged instinctively and walked towards him.  

The killer ripped open the front of his raincoat and the Uzi swivelled rapidly into view. Rui couldn’t grasp what was happening, the man seemed to be pointing something at him, he saw the spitting yellow fire, heard the sharp, staccato burst and as 14 white-hot shells ripped into his chest it dawned  he would never return home, he would never see his islands again. The force of the bullets slammed into his body and hurled him back down the path, he collapsed at his front door. There was no pain, just shock, numbness, and a bewildering sense of frustration. Rui couldn’t move, he was paralysed both physically and mentally; he watched his bright-red, arterial blood spurting on to the concrete. He heard the sound of running footsteps, screeching tyres, someone screamed, the roar of a car fading into the distance, then a strange rushing, whirring sound, he was incredibly light-headed, so dizzy, the ground was slowly turning… it gradually became a spinning whirlpool accompanied by a crackling, bubbling sound in his head, he could barely see, it was so misty… so gloomy… so dark so...

*********

Whipping the Uzi back under his rain-coat, the assassin raced round the corner and threw himself into the rear of the white Vauxhall. The driver stood on the accelerator, let out the clutch and roared away with tyres screaming. Easing the accelerator back slightly, he headed off into the maze of side-streets. Twisting and turning, 1R, 2L, 3L…  they were soon streets away from Havencourt Avenue. It had gone well, the assassin was elated… riding high, the adrenaline gave a heady rush as the driver engineered his way through the side-streets functioning like a computer -  sequence, logic, calculation.

The assassin’s brain wasn’t aware of the ride back to Ealing, he was playing it all back. Another loop of film was running through his head… this time it was the look of puzzlement on Rui Moreau’s face as he saw the Uzi, followed by the dawn of understanding as his chest disintegrated. Back at the lock-up, the assassin washed off  the make-up, changed back into his business clothes and left everything in the back of the Vauxhall as he had found it. Just three hours later he was boarding flight BA6914 at Heathrow Airport.

As the Italian’s plane took off for New York, the driver returned to the lock-up, now on foot. Walking up the alley-way he took a key from his pocket and opened the door.  His orders were clear and concise. He was to drive the car up to a scrap-yard near Hemel Hempstead, take the vehicle into the breaker’s yard, leave the key in the ignition and walk away without speaking to anyone. It was a bit of a drag not getting a lift back, as the yard was out in the sticks on an old farm-site, but he was being well paid and a two-mile walk back into Hemel Hempstead was no big deal.

He did exactly as ordered. The oil-soaked mud sucked at his black, patent shoes as he walked from the car. Someone was watching him through the mud-splattered window of a dirty Portokabin. As he hobbled out of sight,  a man wearing a set of oil-stained overalls, emerged from the Portokabin blinking in the sunlight and carrying a plastic container full of petrol.

He went round to the boot of the car, removed the Uzi from the tyre-well and stripped it down. The smallest items… recoil spring, trigger assembly, magazine springs and firing pin were hurled round the scrap-yard at random. The larger items… the barrel, stock and butt were left in the vehicle. The magazine still had eleven live rounds in the clip. These were carefully removed, broken down and scattered around the inside of the car. He also removed and drained the petrol tank, he wanted the vehicle to burn, not explode. The task completed, he drove the car up to the crusher, and leaving everything inside, he poured petrol all over the vehicle, inside and out.

There was a  loud WHOOSH! as he threw the flaming rag. He retreated as the flames roared and crackled, the paint blistered, melted and dissolved, the hot gases inside the car expanded and blew the windows out with a loud BUMPH! A column of black smoke rose into the sky as the tyres burned away steadily… a frequent sight from the breakers-yard. Two hours later the crane’s grab ripped through the roof of the smouldering vehicle as it hoisted it and dropped it into the press.

The metal screeched and screamed as the hydraulic force pushed the steel ram slowly into the blackened shell. The frame twisted and bent and the car crumpled like cardboard. Inside, the gun’s stock and snub-nosed barrel, already twisted beyond recognition by the heat, bent and snapped like a dry twig. It took just a few minutes to compress the blackened hulk, and its contents, into a dense, rectangular block of metal… roughly the size of a coffin.

*******

On television that night, Edward Stourton news reporter for ITN, interviewed Sir James Mancham, (former Seychelles Prime Minister). He said he believed it was a political assassination carried out by someone on behalf of Albert Rene, President of The Seychelles.

There were a few witnesses to the killing, though understandably, no-one wished to be named. One neighbour said the killer was a black man, of  average height wearing a long coat. Another passer-by said she had seen a white car, she didn’t know the make and she certainly didn’t get the registration number.

Much later, Detective Inspector Ronald Shaw told the inquest   in his view,

Rui’s murderer was a professional assassin and he believed the killer was now out of the country.

Dr Herbert Philips, the Coroner said: ‘This was the evil backlash of terrorist activity which involved people living in this country but was not the concern of citizens of this country’.

Not surprisingly, he recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.

**********
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