Wings of the Morning (9 page)

‘I understand what you’re saying well enough, but I’m not troubled by that. I’ve always had to buck a few trends. What I don’t know is why you want me. I’m
untried and untested. What is it that I’ve got to offer?’

Sol said, ‘We need help, Davy. We need some more firepower. Look here,’ and he bunched himself forward on his chair, ‘we have an excellent small company which is set and ready
to expand. But I’m growing a little old and tired before my time. There’s reason for that and I’m content that Martin has told you about our family history. I can’t go on as
I am forever.’

There was a silence between them, a lull over which washed the background rumble of the conversation which was engrossing Martin and King and the rattle of the secretary’s typewriter.
Finally, Sol continued.

‘And there’s another matter which is all to do with Martin. I’m glad you know already that he’s not my son in the strict meaning. But in terms of love and companionship,
he’s everything to me. Even so, Martin is his own person. He has his own characteristics, his own skills and his own strengths. He’s an individual. I can’t do without him, but
equally, Martin can’t replace me.

He needs help you see. He needs the courage and confidence which flows from having a friend and confidant to share the triumphs and tribulations. But also, Davy, this business has to have a lead
salesman, a champion who will get out there to proclaim our cause and to shout about our qualities. Of course, Martin is himself one such quality, but he will never say so, not to himself and much
less to a customer.’

It made sense. David could see that there was a role for him in this burgeoning enterprise, and the prospect gave him a surge of excitement. He was hugging this to himself when he became
conscious that the background noises downstairs had fallen quiet. He glanced at Sol and took in the quantum change which again engulfed his host. Sol became the instant nervous wreck, pushing
himself to his feet, pulling his jacket about him, moving with crabbed and hurrying steps to the head of the staircase whilst running shaking hands through his hair. David remained seated as he
listened to Sol’s small feet pattering on the stairs and heard his obsequious greeting as he descended into the view of the visitors.

‘Gentlemen, good afternoon. A pleasure to see you as always, Mr Riley and of course also Mr Mervyn.’

‘Who’s this?’ Riley’s well remembered voice responded with quiet venom as he jerked a finger in King’s direction. Sol’s flustered reply came in a higher than
normal pitch.

‘Oh, just a working colleague from the United States. Here for a few days. He’ll excuse us I’m sure. Why don’t you come upst...’ and his voice trailed off as he
realised that he had left David there which would require more explanation.

At that moment, an unexpected confidence calmed David: what was it that King had told him? Something about the right way coming to him. Perhaps it had. He rose from the conference table and
stepped down the stairs with as much poise as the awkward spiral permitted. Riley and Mervyn stood dominating the room. Smart, professional and infinitely threatening as before. The highly polished
shoes winked at him again. At their side, Sol fluttered, shifting his feet and dabbing at his beard. Martin sat upright and motionless behind his large and cluttered desk. The three girls were wide
eyed and frozen, one standing by the bank of files, two sitting at their desks. In front of Martin, with his neck turned in mild curiosity, the King lolled in a visitor’s chair, entirely
relaxed. He had put on a pair of heavy, horn rimmed spectacles which gave the aura of the remote intellectual to his long, lank frame. He was in his shirt sleeves, his jacket thrown around the back
of his chair.

David stepped up to stand toe to toe with Riley and to look him in the eye. They were of much the same height. Riley spoke to him.

‘Didn’t I warn you last time? This isn’t your business. Just get out of here and take the black with you. I have things to do with this man here’, he gestured
dismissively at Sol, ‘I don’t need interruptions.’

David stood his ground, his self confidence growing with every millisecond. He sensed Mervyn stiffen in anticipation. David needed to stretch this defining moment and willed himself to wait, to
stand there motionless and unspeaking. Only the scuffing of Sol’s shoes, marking time on the floor, broke the silence.

It seemed an age before Riley lost the initiative by speaking again.

‘Last chance,’ he said. ‘Leave. Both of you. Now.’

Cue at last for David and he found that he could speak calmly and without tremor in his voice, standing tall and placing his hands on his hips.

‘Wrong,’ he said, ‘it’s you two to go. Immediately. I’m in charge here now. I don’t need you or whatever other scum stand behind you. Just bugger off.’
And he reinforced his challenge by staring into the gimlet eyes of Riley, ignoring the antics of Sol who was leaping like a flushed partridge.

A look of incredulity flashed across Riley’s features before he recovered to push his face closer to David’s.

‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with, my friend,’ he hissed, ‘but that’s OK. I’ll give you a lesson you won’t forget. Mervyn.’

This was an action command. Mervyn moved into motion with a speed surprising in such a big man, taking one step backwards to give himself more room and putting one hand into his jacket pocket to
come up with an obscene looking cosh, black leather covered, a foot and more long yet looking lost in his giant paw. He raised it high, committed to wreak mayhem and pain.

But he achieved neither, except to himself. There was really no contest and afterwards, David was to feel almost sympathy for these two hapless, small time thugs. The King came out of his chair
like a striking black snake, moving with a speed and fluidity which took Riley and Mervyn completely by surprise. The villainous cosh had hardly started its descent towards David’s head
before King was there, catching Mervyn’s arm with one hand, plucking the weapon from his grasp with the other. He thrust the cosh into the gaping pink mouth of the big man, twisting it to
produce a shattering scream as the teeth broke and simultaneously using the massive body weight as a pivot against himself so that Mervyn was turned and dumped flat on his face on the floor with a
crash which shook the desks and filing cabinets. King showed him no mercy. He pulled Mervyn’s right arm up behind his back into the near vertical, placed a foot on the barrel neck, selected
the little finger and simply pulled back on it until the snap could be heard by all in the room to be followed by renewed bellows of outraged agony. One of the girls added her own scream, her eyes
open like moons and her hand rising to cover her mouth which yawned open in shock. Sol skittered, pulling at his beard. Glancing sideways, David could see Martin still sitting upright behind his
desk, rooted to the spot. King just stood there, casually holding down his vanquished opponent. He looked at David as if for further instruction.

There was something of a play here and David found that he could slip easily into his role. He addressed his aside to King as if from commander to hired gun.

‘Don’t damage him further for now.’

Bringing his face up again to Riley who had not moved an inch, he went on.

‘Now. You’ve heard and seen. I’m running things here and there’s no room for you. Take your baboon and get on back to your boss. Tell him to leave me and mine alone for
good, starting right now. Or someone is going to get properly hurt. Understood?’

They stood with eyes locked for a few seconds before Riley broke the contact and David knew he’d won. Riley turned aside, mumbling to himself in a message of reassurance.

‘Yeah, well. This little outfit’s not worth the trouble anyway.’

He gave Mervyn a nudge in the ribs with his polished brogue. King released the ham like wrist and stepped back. Within another minute they were gone, Riley leading the way, followed awkwardly by
the huge Mervyn, blood dripping from his mouth and his damaged hand cradled in front of his great belly as he bumped his way through the door frame.

Left alone, the owners, staff and friends of Kirchoff and Son looked silently at each other until Sol could bear it no longer and let out a wild whoop of triumph before sweeping David into a
great bear hug.

‘I’ve found a new recruit,’ he bellowed to the world at large, ‘and a second son!’.

Looking over Sol’s shoulder at Martin, David was amazed to see him applaud this outburst. The three girls looked shocked and relieved while King beamed like a midwife completing a
successful delivery.

It was a good moment for David. That day and hour was the start of it all for him.

THE OXFORD FIVE — 1970

The first day of a new decade saw all five of the Oxford contemporaries pass through London’s Heathrow Airport.

The first to arrive was Kingston Offenbach who had flown overnight from New York. He was sorry to have cut short his Christmas visit to his mother but duty called. He released the belt on his
Pan Am seat, reflecting that London had now become more home to him than New York. He looked out of the small window at lights flashing in the dark, cold dawn and realised that he was looking
forward to getting back into this miserable climate.

King liked London and he liked its people, but the real lure lay in the job. Part of that was down to good fortune — tasks and timing which spelt opportunity — but also, he was damn
good at it. Over the last few years, the growth of traffic in hard drugs had become a pressing problem for the US Administration, threatening security and costing millions of dollars. For America,
most of the problems came from the south, from the continent of South America via Central America and through the Caribbean. Therefore, the efforts of the CIA and complementary organisations were
concentrated in that direction. If King had been a member of that team, he would never have gained the experience and seniority which he now enjoyed. The European region had been seen as less
significant, but during the last two years, things had changed with drugs being trafficked through North Africa. This was the opportunity for King and he made the most of it with his ability and
characteristics. Despite the colour of his skin, still unusual for Europeans moving in his circles, King built a reputation and acquired respect. His technical credentials could not be questioned
and his analytical skills stood out sharply. He was a good listener and could do so in reasonable French and a little Spanish. But what most noted was his calm, his composure and his ability to
work with others. The added bonus was that drug supply sources in Africa were critical and there was no other member of the team who could blend into that background as he could.

The plane doors were open now and the King was moving. He carried only hand luggage and was intent on getting into his office at the American Embassy. The following day, he would chair the first
meeting of a working committee including delegates from Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. He wanted to be well briefed and prepared and that meant no recovery sleep from his flight over.
The tall, lithe figure slipped quickly through the quiet airport and was soon lost to view.

King would have loved to have dallied a few minutes to catch a cup of coffee with David Heaven and Conrad Aveling, but he had no way of knowing that they would be in Heathrow that day. David had
spent another Christmas with the Aveling clan at Barrington Park and was now off on his travels again. He had lost count of the number of times during the last five years when he had passed through
Heathrow en route to wherever, but he had never lost the appetite for this itinerant lifestyle. He relished the flights out and relaxed on the trips back. He had found his true metier and he was
contented in his work.

And they were succeeding. Kirchoff and Son was no phenomenon. There were several similar companies in England which were busy metamorphosing from colonial trading houses into
manufacturers’ export agents. The oldest could trace their origins from the days of the Raj and the times of imperial expansion, but during the 1960’s the famous wind of change was
blowing strongly. New-found political independence for the previous colonies brought changes to the commercial scene so that many of the former brokers in Europe developed into providing an export
service for manufacturing companies which were keen to expand into new markets across the world.

This was the business sector for Kirchoff and Son. Sol had seen the opportunity. He had moved steadily to establish the business in helping to sell products with which they could identify and to
places of which they had some knowledge. They installed themselves quietly and built up their business in slow and measured style, the warm flamboyance of father contrasting productively with the
conservative care exercised by son. Sol’s contacts, together with his natural flair, were the drivers to their expansion and equally valuable was Martin’s reserve and determination to
temper daring with prudence.

David Heaven’s arrival had contrived to strengthen the characteristics of both father and son. David loved the international scene and discovered in himself a natural ability for languages
and became quite fluent in French with a reasonable ability in Portuguese. He was always interested, without being pushy, in the business of others and was ever alive to how Kirchoff’s could
expand their business base. Sol and Martin were amazed by the number of new clients whom David had introduced from unlikely beginnings — stray conversations on aeroplanes or in the single
hotel bar of some remote town in the wilds of Africa.