The man in question was Reginald Hall. Just under fifty, he was a stocky ex-small-arms instructor, regimental sergeant major, retired, of the SAS, Britain's Special Air Service. In the old days he headed up a unit known in the press as the CRW, Counter Revolutionary Warfare section, called "the special projects blokes" by those on the inside.
He finally quit after successfully leading an assault on the Iranian embassy in London on 5 May 1980—which, to his astonished dismay, was televised live. He'd gotten famous overnight, and after thinking it over for a weekend, he decided the time had come to cash it in. These days he ran a small company that purportedly bought and sold used sports firearms. That was a polite way of saying he dabbled in the international arms trade, though not in a big way. But whenever ABM needed a special piece of equipment, as often as not Reggie found a way to take care of it.
He did not do it for love. Even though he was happily retired down in Dorset, Thomas Hardy country, with a plump Welsh common-law wife, he occasionally slipped away—much to her chagrin—to take on special ops for ARM. Maybe his neighbors thought he had bought their matching Jaguars with his army pension or the sale of used Mausers.
"I'll call him as soon as we hang up. He spent some time in the Emirates or some damn place and claims to speak a little Arabic." He was thinking. "Okay, who else could we use?"
"How about the Flying Dutchmen?" Hans said.
He was referring to the Voorst brothers, Willem and Hugo, both former members of the Royal Dutch Marines' "Whiskey Company." That was the nickname of a special group officially known as the Marine Close Combat Unit. Both bachelors, though never short of women, they lived in Amsterdam and took on any security job that looked like it would pay. They also ran a part-time aircraft charter operation.
"We might need a chopper for the insert. Think they can handle it on such short notice?"
The Voorst brothers would occasionally arrange, through their old connections, for a Dutch military helicopter to get lost in paperwork for a weekend. Whiskey Company was a club, and everybody was going to retire someday. What went around came around. Besides, there was plenty of spare change in it for those who made the arrangements.
"With nobody paying? It'll take some fast talking."
"So far, this thing's being done on spec. We're just making good on a job."