Free Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men) by Ranulph Fiennes

harm to show the others that Patrice Symins was not a man to cross. Word of Jason’s drilling was bound to get about the city and that could only help Symins’s reputation as a hard man. He felt pleasantly tired.
    As he made to move, Diana slipped a caressing hand lightly over his crotch. “Not tonight, Josephine,” he laughed. “I’m knackered, love.” His philosophy was simple with Diana where bed was concerned: sleep with her only when horny, otherwise there was no point. Familiarity would dull the edge of his reactions to her sensuality.
    Symins kept no gun at hand in his house. He trusted his security systems and staff enough to feel totally at ease. There were alarm buttons in those rooms he frequented but at home he liked to drop his antennae and relax. Tonight he lazed in the jacuzzi and then, as usual, took the day’s
Financial Times
to bed with him, for he handled his own considerable investment portfolio without advisers.
    Soundlessly Hallett and Mason moved out from behind the heavy brocade curtains and across the soft carpet. Not until the blade of Hallett’s penknife was pressed into the side of his Adam’s apple did Symins even sense his visitors’ presence. His first thought was for the alarm button beside his bed. Hallett read his mind. “The systemsin your suite are both cut, so forget the heavies. The slightest move of your head and you will undergo the fastest cricothyroidectomy since the Korean War.”
    Mason pulled the duvet off the bed, placed plastic handcuffs over Symins’s wrists and then lashed his feet together. Only then did Darrell withdraw his knife. On evenings such as this both Locals had often regretted Spike’s dictum that they should never carry firearms when in Britain.
    A pretentious chandelier of crystal baubles dangled in the middle of the ceiling. Mason applied his weight to its centerpiece. “Solid,” he exclaimed and, locking Symins’s hands behind his back, he joined the cuffs to the chandelier with a loop of parachute cord. He then pulled steadily until Symins’s arms were taut and the drug baron was standing on tiptoe to counter the sharp pain in his shoulders.
    “This is known in Tehran’s Evin Prison as the Savaki Meat Hook,” David explained, “but we must ensure silence before the next step is taken.”
    “How much money do you want?” Symins mouthed. “Name your price and I’ll give you cash here and now.”
    “He comes straight to the point, doesn’t he?” said Darrell, forcing his thumb into the side of Symins’s mouth with the same action he used for training gun dogs. He forced Symins’s socks into his mouth, then tied the cord of his dressing gown firmly around his neck and open mouth like a horse’s bit. “Soundproof,” he muttered. Together they hauled at the parachute cord until Symins could reach the floor with his toes, but only with great difficulty.
    Mason sat on the end of the bed, lit up a Montecristo Number 5 and leafed through the
Financial Times
. This was Darrell’s pigeon. Jo had remained in the rhododendrons below, safe from Symins’s Rhodesian ridgebacks due to the bags of aniseed powder he had sprinkled liberallybetween where the others had crossed the wall and the drainpipe leading to Symins’s bedroom window.
    “Who are we?” Darrell asked Symins, and getting no reply, jabbed him in the stomach, so that he swung back and forth gently until the tips of his toes were again able to take some weight and alleviate the excruciating pain in his arms. “We are two of many men who have been asked to watch you. Wherever you go in this country, we will not be far away. Ten years from now we will be keeping tabs. What you do with your own people, boyo, is not our concern. If they put up with your sadism, so be it. But”—Darrell gave Symins another shove on behalf of Jason—“your drug activities will cease completely as from tonight. To help you never to forget this evening, we will stay with you for an hour or so. If,