Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men) Read Online Free PDF Page A

this, that he and his family be exiled from the country that lies between the Hadhramaut, the Rhubh al Khali and the sea. This exile to be until such time as he avenges each and every one of his dead children. Thanks be to Allah, the gracious.”
    The Ashrafi sat down. To Baaqi, no one’s fool, this judgment was a clear reprieve, or at least a second chance for Amr, and as such a better deal than he had dared hope for. He had seen the Ashrafi’s black looks at the Lenin Regiment men and their open comradeship with Hamoud. He thanked God for sending these thugs at such a timely moment.
    • • •
    Baaqi’s relief was short-lived. Events overtook, or at least modified, the Ashrafi’s pronouncement when, five months later, Amr’s favorite son, Tama’an, a fighter with the Bin Dhahaib unit, was killed in the western war zone. Amr was sad at his latest bereavement but not bitter. He knew that the scandal of his inaction had spread beyond the hearths of the Bait Jarboat and he suspected correctly that Tama’an’s death would bring matters to a head.
    Amr still felt no inner desire for vengeance. The day set by the Ashrafi passed and he had still avenged none of his sons. The elders came to him and asked if he knew of any reason why the edict of the conference should not be carried out. There being none, as far as he could see, he bowed to the inevitable. Failure to comply would mean death for his family, so, in the autumn of 1975, he said farewell to Baaqi and his remaining supporters and left Dhofar forever, taking with him his closest kin.

3
    De Villiers immersed himself in the demimonde of Paris night life. He needed a honey-pot trap, but with a difference. Davies meanwhile watched the judge, sought out his “pattern,” meticulously logged his every move. It was early October 1976. In two or three weeks the pair would meet and put together a schedule for the judge’s death. The lady client had specifically ordered that the target’s posthumous reputation be disgraced. So de Villiers concentrated on the sordid. He ignored the obvious tourist traps of Pigalle, Montparnasse, St. Germain des Près and the Champs-Elysées. All expensive froth and no action; or, as Davies put it, “All mouth and no trousers.”
    The hostess masseuses offering gentlemen “the ultimate body massage,” the pseudo-Thai girls with their body-body bathrooms and the quick hand- or blowjobs of the parks—all these lacked the extreme denigration de Villiers sought. Zoophilia was available; indeed the Paris milieu interfered only “if the animals suffer.” The most commonplace were canine séances but there were also studios with donkeys, horses, pigs and monkeys. Most of these dens of iniquity made their profit through selling videos of the action.
    De Villiers considered the possibilities of pedophilia, rampant in Paris with pedophiliac rings and films featuring two- to twelve-year-olds of both sexes, but decidedagainst it. Not with a member of the judiciary. It lacked the ring of truth, and he was a perfectionist. In his experience most pedophiles had one thing in common: they were men whose careers put them in close contact with children. Social workers, vicars, schoolteachers, but not judges.
    He looked into the closed world of sadomasochism. There were only four women in Paris who specialized in flagellation and “tortures.” Their clients, who averaged one or two visits per month, were forbidden to touch them and yet paid 1,000 francs per hour. Not the sort of scene de Villiers was seeking. Too parochial; a strange face would stand out a mile.
    By the end of his first week in Paris, having made short work of the private-subscription orgy clubs and the exhibitionists of the rue de Roland-Garros, de Villiers was concentrating on the gay scene and in particular the graveyard where his old favorite, Edith Piaf, resided. In the late seventeenth century a Jesuit named Père Lachaise was confessor to Louis XIV. The graveyard that is named