Chapter 1: Vigilante

March 1973, age 18

My eighteenth birthday was a school day — boo, hiss! I had double Art first thing and History after lunch. I would normally have had a flying lesson in between, but today I had to go to the office.

Two gentlemen were waiting in my office on the 32nd floor of Marvel Tower, but my assistant, Freya, first directed me to Dan’s office.

“Finn, come in, come in. This is Alex Slayden. I’ve asked him to act as your solicitor for today.”

I offered the man my hand. “Good to meet you, Alex.” I was an adult now, so I wasn’t going to call everyone sir anymore. “Call me Finn. So why do I need another solicitor, and why you?”

“The short answer is that turning eighteen means you are no longer protected by your grandfather’s will. As a child, his solicitor had a duty to represent your interests, like when your uncle sued for custody. As an adult, you need your own representation, and your grandfather’s solicitor can’t do that as it would be a conflict of interests. My firm has a longstanding reputation as one of the best in London, so I think you’d be in safe hands with us.”

“And the company solicitor wouldn’t do?”, I asked.

“As general counsel, his duty is to the company, not to you personally.”

“Fair enough”, I replied. “You have something for me to sign?”

He handed me a single-page document, and I was about to sign it when he loudly said: “STOP!” I was a little taken aback.

“Finn, first lesson of adulthood: NEVER sign a document without reading it first. The only exception would be a contract that’s too long to read, in which case you must check that your lawyer’s initials are on each page and that the pages are numbered and stapled. Your signature is worth your fortune now. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “I do. Thank you.” I read the engagement letter carefully, signed it and handed it over. The three of us then went to meet the others in my office.

“Mister Pearson, good to see you again”, I said to my grandfather’s old lawyer, shaking his hand. He was getting on a bit, so deserved the ‘mister’. Then turning to our in-house lawyer, “Tom, how’s everything going?”, offering him my hand too. We’d met many times before.

“All good, thanks. Happy birthday, boss.”

“Thank you. Let’s sit.”

We sat at the circular table in one corner of my office. Mr Pearson took the lead. “Well, Finnley, today’s a big day. What we have to do here is very straightforward.” Taking out a document and passing it to Alex, he continued, “The first thing we need you to sign is the instrument of trusteeship. By signing it, you acknowledge the terms of your grandfather’s will and accept the duties of trustee. Dan will also sign it as executor, vesting those duties in you.”

We each examined the document and signed.

“Under the terms of the will and the company’s bylaws, you now have full authority to hire and fire the members of the board, except for me. Dan is currently both Chairman and Managing Director. Tom is General Counsel and Company Secretary. I am an ex officio member as your grandfather’s solicitor, and my sole function here is to ensure compliance with the will.” Another document was handed to Alex. “Dan tells me that you wish to assume the post of Chairman, in which case you need to sign that paper, dismissing Dan and appointing yourself.”

I turned to Dan and said, “Sorry, Dan, you’re fired.”

Alex handed me the document with a nod of endorsement, so I scanned through it and signed.

“Excellent. All done. I shall have those filed.” Looking at me he said, “Happy birthday and congratulations on your appointment.” Then to Dan, “Congratulations on your semi-retirement!”

After some chuckles and back-slapping, Alex gave me a business card and took his leave, and the rest of us decided to have a brief board meeting.

“So”, I said. “I’ve never chaired a meeting before. Please tell me if I do anything wrong. Dan, what needs discussing?”

Tom started taking minutes as Dan spoke. “Normally, these meetings would follow a set agenda, but I suggest we forego that today and just deal with the main issue at hand: the potential merger and floatation of our engineering divisions.”

This was new. I asked, “Where did that idea come from?”

Dan replied, “Andrew, head of operations, is almost as sneaky as you. Since we bought the shipyards on the Clyde, he’s been thinking up more ways to protect them from nationalisation. You remember what that’s about, Finn?”

“Of course. But I thought we’d got the protection we wanted through the frigate contract?”

“We did. This is an extra layer. His idea is that by merging our air, sea, road and rail interests into one large company, we could sell 10% of the shares on the stock market, and give 5% to our workers as a small-scale worker cooperative. That gains us two things. First, public ownership of shares makes us harder to nationalise and would help divide public opinion. Second, workers owning a chunk of the company might swing the unions against nationalisation, especially if we also give them a seat on the board. No Labour government wants to face a battle with the unions.”

I grinned. “Sneaky. Tell Andrew I like how he thinks. What are the downsides?”

Tom answered, “There’s a conflict of interests. We only own 60% of BAC and 51% of EE Traction, the rail division. So our partners, Vickers-Armstrong for BAC and English Electric for EET would both end up owning stock of the new combined company. That’s fine, except that Vickers have their own shipyards that compete with ours. If the two end up competing for the same contract, Vickers would have a conflict.”

“Okay. So what’s the solution?”

Dan answered, “Either (1) they sell off their shipyards, (2) we buy-out their share of BAC so they’d no longer be involved, (3) they merge their shipyards with ours as part of the new company, or (4) they block the merger.”

I smiled, seeing where this was going. “I assume we’d push option 3, saying to them, ‘Hey, either merge with us or lose your company to nationalisation’.”

Tom looked at Dan and said tongue in cheek, “He’s not stupid, is he!”

I wagged a finger, “I can fire you, remember?!”

Dan lightly smacked the back of my head, telling me to behave or else. I mock-glared at him, then got back to business. “Would we still end up with majority ownership?”

Dan sighed. “That is the other big question. Our four divisions aren’t equal, so they’d need an independent valuation. Best guess, our four divisions merged, we’d own about 76%. Merge the Vickers shipyards as well, and we’re down to 59%. Diluted to create the new shares for floatation and workers, 49%. We’d still have control, but not an outright majority. Just means we have to work a bit more collaboratively.”

“Can we live with that?”, I asked looking at each in turn.

Dan: “Yes.”

Tom: “Yes. The Vickers Shipyards would be a valuable addition, so it’s worth it.”

Mister Pearson: “There are no compliance issues. Personally, I’d say yes.”

I nodded. “Good. Talk to Vickers and EE, see what they think. What’s next?”

When I got home from school that afternoon, Grandpa’s letter was waiting for me. I read it alone in my room and found it moving, but a little anticlimactic. The attached notes about the year to come had some interesting points, but there were no huge revelations. Perhaps he was breaking me in slowly.

The day after my birthday, Friday, was when the celebrations began properly. I had considered various party options and my friends had, of course, given their opinions. While we didn’t agree on much, we had a consensus that the party needed to be epic and take full advantage of the unlimited budget.

We thought about flying a large group of friends somewhere warmer than Britain (it was March, after all), but I rejected that as a bit excessive. Tommy suggested the idea of doing a mini-Glastonbury, hiring some big-name bands and spreading the party over a weekend. We all liked that idea, so that meant finding a venue that was either close enough to go home each night, or somewhere that the entire group could stay for the duration.

Once we started thinking about venues in the latter category, the solution was obvious. The company owned a country estate up in Leicestershire, complete with a manor house, grounds large enough for a big marquee, a race track and an airport next door.

So I invited almost all of my year group past and present (other than a few arseholes), to a weekend extravaganza. Friday after school, 200+ kids loaded into a fleet of coaches and were driven to the private terminal at Heathrow, where a British Caledonian VC10 awaited us. The cabin crew suffered the rowdy group for a short 30-minute flight north to East Midlands Airport, and another fleet of coaches took us the last two miles to Donington Hall.

That was the first time I’d been to the hall, and I thought it was stunning. At least from the outside. It was almost dusk when we arrived, but light enough to see the grand facade that was kind of a cross between a medieval castle and a gothic cathedral. Inside, the best that could be said was that it was habitable. It needed some serious TLC.

So our entire group camped indoors, the boys on the ground floor and the girls upstairs. The huge marquee in the grounds was easily large enough for a stage at one end, dancing kids in the middle, and tables piled high with food at the back. Friday night the live music began around 7pm, and Saturday would be the same. Daytime Saturday we had arranged toys to play with, in the shape of cars and planes. Pretty much everyone (except my sister and her small entourage) was in my school year and had their drivers license, so we had cars of every shape, size and age to try out on the race track. Each car came with an adult instructor as we weren’t about to let 17-year-olds drive a Ferrari unsupervised! Still, the boys had permanent erections from the cars.

I personally hadn’t bothered getting my drivers license, though I’d had enough lessons to be allowed behind the wheel. We also had a selection of aircraft ready at the airfield, including my Tiger Moth, so rides were available to those who wanted them.

Invitations had specifically said ‘no presents’ as I didn’t want people to be obligated. There were still a few, including a card from my old flame Ellie which entitled the bearer to a weekend of non-stop sex. I’d have to think about that one.

On the final night, near the end of the festivities, I was grabbed and forced on stage so the band could lead everyone in a rock version of happy birthday. Never before had I been so embarrassed, pleased, touched, impressed and slightly drunk all wrapped up into one. It was an awesome weekend.

Barely a week after taking control of the company, the first big test of my leadership arrived. It was the end of school on Thursday, headed to the carpark, when one of the backup guys appeared and handed Ewan a note. He scanned it and passed it to me. It was bad news. Two of our staff in Sierra Leone had been shot dead.

I was a bit stunned. Something like this was inevitable when you operate in tough parts of the world. We even had response plans ready. But that hadn’t prepared me for the initial shock, nor the sadness and anger that followed. What if the dead men had kids? I might now have to make the sort of visit that I’d been on the receiving end of eight years earlier.

I looked at Ewan and told him, “Call a code for me please: JUNGLE-STORM.”

“Christ! You sure?”

“Yep”, I replied. “And I’m going myself.”

“That’s going to make Dan’s day”, he replied sarcastically before speaking into his radio.

We returned home quickly to pack a bag before heading to the airfield. JUNGLE-STORM was the plan to send the security rapid-reaction team from Marvel Tower to Africa. Our business jet was being fuelled, a pilot called in, and flight plans filed. We already had people in Africa that could do most of what needed doing there, but the dozen guys on the team had all been selected personally by Dan for being both outstanding at their jobs and utterly trustworthy. These were not guys that would blab down the pub about their exploits.

At Brooklands airfield, our Jetstream aircraft was being inspected by one of its usual pilots, Captain Kevin. I knew him, as he’d taught me on this very plane.

“Hi, Kev. Ready for my flying lesson?”

“Er, I thought this was an emergency trip to Africa?”

“No, you’re mistaken. This is a pleasure trip to Africa to build my flying hours. The guys travelling with us are just my security. Got it?”

He gave me a wary look. “You’re the boss.”

As we finished the visual checks, a fleet of Range Rovers pulled up carrying the team. And Dan.

“Coming to play babysitter?”, I asked him.

“No, not this time. I’m your best military strategist. You need me.” I did, so I didn’t argue.

It was 5pm by the time we took off on the first leg of our journey to Gibraltar, which meant it was nearly 9pm when we arrived. I hadn’t done much night flying, so this was useful, if nerve-wracking. At least Gib’s tower controllers were British, and the strip had modern lighting and approach systems. The refuelling was quick, thanks to our friends in the British government, and then we were off to Mauritania.

Nouadhibou International Airport didn’t consist of much more than a few shacks and a ramshackle hangar. Our arrival at 1.30am was well beyond their normal operating hours, but money can buy you anything in a poor country like theirs. So we parked the plane on an isolated corner of their apron and got a few hours sleep.

The airport near Sierra Leone’s capital didn’t have runway lights, so we timed our pre-dawn departure from Mauritania to reach Lungi at sun-up. From there, a helicopter was waiting to fly us 150 miles east to the mining town of Koidu. This was a town where the company had made inroads. We operated the big diamond mine south of the town and had begun investing in infrastructure. A run-of-the-river power plant was now providing electricity; a sewage plant had been built with streets dug up one by one to connect homes, and a new clinic had begun providing free health care. So we were popular here. Unless you were a diamond smuggler. They didn’t like us at all.

One of the first things we’d done when we took over the mining concession was to build customs stations at each of the country’s main entry/exit points. The army was then tasked (thanks to our friend the corrupt President) with stopping diamonds from being smuggled out. We even paid a bounty for recovered stones. So the smugglers hated us, and the story that emerged from our people in Koidu was that five gunmen had attacked one of our out-of-town mines.

“So where are they now?”, I asked.

Our senior in-country guy smiled as if he’d been clever and wanted to show off. “We believe they stayed overnight in this village”, he pointed on the map. “We’ve got eyes on, and they look quite comfortable there, so it might be their home. Unfortunately, everyone and their mother has an AK47 in this country. So we either go in heavy and accept collateral damage, or we maintain the observation post and wait for them to go off on another jolly.”

“No police around there?”

The guy laughed, which didn’t impress me. “No. This country has police in the big towns, but that’s it. The rest is lawless. It’s jungle wild-west without the sheriffs.”

“Wrong”, I corrected. “We’re the sheriffs. We go in, today.”

I looked to Dan, wondering whether he’d back me. He looked at the map for a moment then commented, “There’s high ground on a ridge a hundred yards east. That where your OP is?” The other guy nodded. “We need to surround the village, so we put half our guys on the ridge, the rest in the trees. We’ll need a megaphone and a local translator. When we’re in position, we get their attention and use the megaphone to demand the attackers’ surrender. If they have family in the village, they may want to avoid bloodshed. If they don’t, the locals will want rid of them and might force them out.”

“And if not?”, the other guy asked. “Do we hold siege or move in?”

“Finn?”, Dan asked, passing the question to me. He was testing me.

“We’ll judge it on the ground”, I answered to Dan’s satisfaction. “Can you find some camo gear for me please?”

“You’re NOT going”, Dan stated firmly.

“Yes, I am. That ridge is a good distance away. Perfectly safe. And we need to make decisions in theatre.” I’d been prepping for the officer entrance tests and knew my terminology.

Getting dressed up in camouflage was a lot of fun. Sneaking through the jungle, where there was no shortage of snakes and creepy crawlies ... well, I’d asked to go and couldn’t complain. When we got to the ridge, we discovered that ‘village’ was perhaps an over generous term. It was eight or so houses. No village cricket pitch. Not even a pub.

The first part of the plan went fine. Our team were hidden surrounding the village, with solid cover positions. They then fired a volley into the air, and the translator announced our message on the megaphone. But that caused nearly two dozen men and boys to come out waving machine guns, firing randomly into the trees. Their aim was the opposite direction from the ridge where we were, so when Dan gave the order to open fire, the villagers took fire from every side and didn’t stand much chance. It was a bloodbath. The only consolation was that the women and children had stayed indoors.

Half an hour later, we received word that the village had been cleared and was safe to enter. What we found was gut-churning. Many of the village men were now dead, including a boy of about thirteen. I really hoped that these were indeed the people who attacked and killed our men.

One injured local man was dragged in front of Dan and me on his knees, his arms held out to his sides by two captors. “This is the ringleader”, one of our guys announced.