Friday 4 November 2011

2174 Le Carré Mission part 2 and Toy Soldiers

One of the constant issues in my life has been the relationship between the individual and the state closely followed by such concerns as the role of the independent organisation and the individual and the balance between democratic states and organisations. Running through all of these considerations is the challenge which every individual experiences of maintaining consistency in their relations with others, their integrity and commitment to the truth whether as parent or between government and the people. There are those who have attempted some successfully, to construct all embracing systems of thoughts and behaviours through religious, political and social systems to achieve this although I suspect as the core of everything is the need for personal survival and the survival of those one cares about. In recent weeks I have listened to account of mothers who have left their husbands, extended families and all that they know to walk in horrendous conditions without or with little food and water great distances in attempt to bring their children to where they have been told help is available.

Human being are said not be able to bear too much reality of this nature and indeed as I get older and questions about my own future survival loom larger I find the distress of empathy, albeit at a distance, is sometimes more than I can bear which is why I frequently bury myself in the dramatic fictions of experience although I continue to demand integrity even when the ending satisfies the need for a meaningful sense of justice, continuing survival, resolutions of mysteries and uncertainties, the belief in life everlasting, in the possibilities of heaven on earth as well as in some form of afterlife and in my instance to die at peaces with everyone and myself.

I like the character of Salvo, Bruno Salvador sufficiently to hope that his experience over one weekend bringing about a peaceful settlement and better future for the people of his childhood ends well although as I read Le Carré’s Mission song for first time against my outline knowledge of recent events in central Africa especially the Rwandan massacres and the ongoing civil wars of the Congo, I doubted if there would be any such outcome, especially given my knowledge of previous writings of Monsieur Le Carré. It also seemed unlikely that the finding his emotional and sexual soul mate in Hannah, the nurse finishing her training in the UK from the homeland would end in their happiness, for he appeared to be his father’s son and any break down of his existing marriage unless it was from the initiative of his wife was destined to have repercussions given their respective backgrounds and her father‘s occupation. I had already wrestled with how the British Consul in Kampala had fixed for him to enter orphanage in the Sussex downs as a UK citizen when the more likely destination would have been Eire.

As with the small state of Malta Eire and not Northern Ireland is famed for producing Catholic priests who serve Rome and the rest of the world although in the most recent decades Poland and some Africa countries have enriched the churches of the UK and elsewhere as much a sin their homelands.

But I am in advance of myself again as when I left the adventure of Salvo for this is how he regarded his $5000 weekend assignment to an island in the North Sea where a small group of representatives from the warring factions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were to hold talks to bring peace, at least in the Kivu part of the country rich is various minerals especially coltan needed by the mobile phone industry. I broke off my narrative as he had reached the island with his immediate guide explaining that in order to bring about an agreed and signed contract between the parties it was necessary for him to spy on the parties by pretending he was limited in the languages and dialects available to him and that in translating one language to another he should remember the diplomatic nature of the exchanges and which meant in practice toning down threats and insults.

The island of their destination remained unknown although with a flying time of two hours from Luton he was able to calculate he was in the North of Scotland or some Danish or Nordic outpost but seemed less likely given the requirement to by pass the usual posting of flight plans and passenger list although it is possible for one to have been posted with false identities although the transfer of extensive listening and communicating technology would have required a custom’s check or some official sanctioning otherwise the passage of terrorist firearms and explosives within Europe would be easier than I have feared.

Their small craft landed in a field close to the sea where they were a short distance minibus ride to a country house crossing cattle grid and with a Great Hall entrance and from here was shown to his bed with the promise of a long hard day on the morrow and the comforting thought that if he screwed up they all would. On waking he attempted to identify his location from the window of his well appointed en suite all mod cons room without success but he puzzled over men at work on an outside building when had he been less innocent he should have immediately grasped was the establishment of listening and communication technology and a clue that had the location been UK such arrangements would have been made prior to their arrival.

It is at this point that he sees someone from the plane that he already knew. The voluble Welsh Spider who had taken the role of catering organiser but he knew from the listening centre in the bowels of the MOD known as the Chat Room. The significance of this added to the view that although the leader was no an employee of Her Majesty’s government, the operation was however clandestine. He also noticed three “bulked out anoraks” outside the property although he does not disclose if they are evidently armed. He hoped his investigation of the house would yield a clue to his location and the large library room offered one opportunity except from the spine lettering the books appeared to have been printed in the various languages of their authors and the glass fronts of the book cases were locked, A sense of the proportions of the property could be gauged from a separate snooker billiards table room albeit three quarter size.

In is on the next stop of his unguided tour that he encountered a man from Beasacon who explained that he was skilled in International jurisprudence and employed as a lawyer by their host syndicate and which Salvo assumed had a cover story similar to his own. The man did explain that his every day skill was to create a holding company in Martinique for example which was registered in Switzerland and owned by an anonymous Liechtenstein foundation which is owned by you and all for the purpose of avoiding all together or paying as little tax as legally possible. He had forgotten to bring his lap top (which struck me as the reality on which most clandestine operations flounder) and therefore had borrowed one with Anglo Saxon keyboard and therefore he was at a loss without knowing how to locate the keys with accents to create the draft contract for the participants in French.

Now this is where I express surprise because via the Internet it is possible to obtain keyboard language switching programmes which remedy this problem as long as you know the appropriate form in which to type in one language and convert to another so that it makes sense to the eventual reader. The Internet front page should also have been a clue to the language of the location.

The man appeared as voluble as the Welshman offering the additional information that the contract would be between three parties but would have no name and cover hypothetical eventualities. Further questioning revealed that it would centre on an unspecified event and be written as an agricultural contract which fitted into the requirements that Salvo if pressed would say that his employers (Channel Islands based) provided agricultural technology to the Third and Four worlds.

It was at this point that that the Frenchman yielded information for the observant Salvo which he was able to connect to the Lord Brinkley of Sands because in order to illustrate the nature of his craft Salvo was told that the man had previously negotiated a timeshare contract for an offshore property company that went into liquidation and which therefore no longer existed and the directors did not exist because the company never had a name, Salvo remembered a story in the newspaper of his wife which linked Lord Brinkley with the headline: Peer’s Eldorado was Pie in the Sky.

The Frenchman also revealed that in contrast to Salvo’s payment he was getting two hundred thousand Swiss Francs in cash and in small denominations. This highlights he differences in experience but also perspectives and between the amateur and the professional in such affairs between the representatives of nations and peoples.

Summoned together he found an English breakfast of sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs that had few takers and he had barely started to eat a portion of smoked salmon when Maxie announced that the panic, whatever it had been, was over and everything was no on schedule according to plan. Philip and the gang of three will touch down in two hours and ten minutes. He then announced that the Royal Party would arrive 20 mins later. Conference starts at eleven thirty, lunch two fifteen subject to progress with a five thirty latest closure. He then called for Brian Sinclair and the second part of his sealed orders.

He was shown into the makeshift operations room in which some twenty four locations in the house and grounds were identified as being bugged and automatically recorded on the banks of recorders. He was shown his chair and explained that he would told via the controller Sam who to listen to live and to translate fast. In off time he would be told what tapes to skim through and what to report to the “people who can use it.” It was the job of the Welshman to keep the system working and of Anton to ensure the whereabouts the subject are located each identifiable through a system of coloured lights on a master location board.

Salvo having tried a number of times to find out more about Philip for the umpteenth time and was rewarded after a fashion, told that he was freelance, a consultant whose speciality was Africa and English but different from the others who had ties but were para. There was further enlightenment that elsewhere there was a conference officially taking place on the future of the Eastern Congo ahead of the forthcoming elections were it was anticipated there would be much ranting and no outcome, that is at the conference, but alas I suspect at the elections! Three of delegates said they would prefer to rest than take the tour of fish smokeries and sculpture parks but were on their way to this second unofficial get together where through previous contacts and hard work by Philip they were in the process of forming an alliance which it was hoped to seal over the course of the day.

The key was the Mwangaza at whose mention a bright light came across the face of Salvo because this was name he had been told of by Hannah in adoration for he was presented as cross between Nelson Mandela and Gandhi, who she had heard address a crowd of supporters in Birmingham. He had followed in the footsteps of Lumumba after his assassination by the CIA in 1961 and in great rebellion of 1964 he had been wounded. Now he spoke of lasting peace and reconciliation and the departure back over the border to Rwanda of the surrogate armies and genocidal militias. On being told this Salvo had remembered the words of father: One Kivu at peace and free of the pet of foreign exploitation but willing to embrace those who will to help the use of the natural resources for the betterment of the people. Now I used to talk like that in my youth but in the late age of worldly experience, I ask you what dangerous stuff to inflict on a child anywhere let alone under the African sun. But then of course we continue to do to our children in fairy stories of various kinds.

The purpose of Maxie’s enlightenment of Salvo was that he should know in advance the languages used by the participants and this led to him explaining that the Muslim Hammas former fanatical whose Arabic tone Salvo had identified at the home of Lord Brinkley was the Lebanese Christian covert middle man that had brokered the proposed alliance on behalf of the great man. It was then that dear Salvo once more posed the question: what was to be the successful outcome of the conference that he was told a little more of the truth of the Big Lie..... Which in addition to giving the country back to its people Maxie added was to “make money and get a fucking life”

For the second time his week I watched film at midnight which led to going to bed at 2 am and rising the next day at 10am. The film was the 1991 Drama Toy Soldiers. The core story is not original. Wayward rich kids become good when faced with life or death challenge. I have read that there has been criticism at the time of the violence involved given that it is film which would appeal to weekend audience of the teenager and young adult. From my perspective the violence content is well below that of the horror and blood lust available most weekends in most cinemas, nor did I find the violence gratuitous.

In Bogotá Columbia the son of a drug warlord has taken over the Palace of Justice to prevent his father being extradited to the USA. He had taken a number of staff hostage and hurtles a woman to her death from a window in order to exert further pressure on the authorities. When he finds out that the man is already in USA custody he takes the presiding judge away in their helicopter and hurtles him out of the craft once they are airborne.

The action switches to the Regis High School at an unknown destination in the United States which takes the wayward children of the rich and powerful and which have usually been expelled from other establishments. Interestingly they also have scholarship pupils whose parents think it is a bonus to participate. It is a small establishment in substantial grounds taking 93 pupils but a full compliment of staff enabling high academic attainment for those prepared to make the effort with fees to match. As is often the case the most troublesome have the most rich and well known parents and form an alliance of mischief which includes painting the car of the nearest town Sheriff with Rejects in pink as well as renaming the school front entrance board. Punished the group retaliate by moving the entire contents of the offices of school head and deputy out on to the front lawn reassembling exactly as in situ. The deputy, played by the excellent Denholm Elliott, admits he is tempted to spend the day in the sunshine. There are two more examples of their disinterest in formal education which are combined into one after bedtime adventure.

The group have made a den in the basement of now demolished building which they reach from the basement of the kitchen in the main building. Here they listen on speak telephone to adult phone line chat from a special phone which one of the group has rigged so that they use the extension line of the line of principal. They are also drinking the latest alcohol experience which is vodka with crème-de-menthe which tastes and looks like mouth wash in branded bottles and which the instigator has already sold eight bottles and great profit. Up late in his pyjamas and dressing gown the Principal detects the call and finds the den. Rather than expel the ring leader he says that he is determined to make something of the young man and his leadership potential.

Part of the group has been the son of the Federal Judge appointed to try the case of the extradited drug baron and suspecting an attempt will be made to kidnap the young man he is moved to a safe location. This is where the film falls down because anyone worth their salt in the Justice system would have posted additional security to the existing one person on the gate given the financial and political clout of the young men at the establishment.

We are privy to an incident on the Mexican Border when posing as migrants the son and his men not only kill the police of the border patrol but destroy the vehicle with a mobile rocket. This should have immediately alerted the authorities that the expected attack was on its way and take appropriate additional security measures. This also is the second time that I am mindful, albeit this film was made before 9/11 of the ease at which Terrorist are shown able to cross the border and make their way to the selected destination.

They arrive at school and take control with men placed on the roof of the main building and in the Bell tower, with others in the grounds and the in the building after comprehensively wiring the building with explosives so that if any of the wiring in touched the whole thing will explode. There are two detonating controls one stationery along the bomb control unit and the other a remote taped to the arm of the son. There are hourly head counts and where the departure of one person will lead to the death of five and so on. The gate guard was killed at their arrival and the Principal was the Sheriff and his painted car when they take over takes place so he is outside the building while inside his deputy has assumed the role without revealing the principal has departed. This is the second flaw because although the gangster leader gets his men to go through the files of all the boys he appears to have left those of the staff alone.

From this the leader of the group works out that there are sufficient of the rich and powerful to get their way including the son of a Mafia chief with whom drug baron has done good business. This man attends the parental briefing in the local town much to the interest of the authorities. He gets a message to the incarcerated drug lord who in turn gets a radio message to his son that the boy should be released. The gangsters have eliminated the phone system and use short wave radio to communicate.

Before this situation arises the group of the hostage kids have been put together with two others not previous of their group and this includes a technology whiz kid with a flying saucer plane with remote control. This is to be key to solving the crisis. Understandably the first White House reaction is one of we do not negotiate with Terrorists and the location of the school, the threat to explode and to kill is such that planning an assault is likely to mean casualties possibly on a large scale.

Meanwhile the self styled leader of the Rejects develops a three stage plan. The first is to provide those on the outside with the maximum intelligence so they portrait sketch all the Terrorists and provide a visual map of their location and timetable of movements as well as what they can of the wiring, the explosives and control devices. The second is that they could disable the ability to blow up the school by switching the chip in the main detonation unit to that in the flying saucer plane and thirdly to get the school into the den basement which would be protect from the blast if the school was exploded.

Having devised the plan the first task is to get it to those outside. To achieve this an elaborate plan is worked in which the plane is used to distract attention while the boy leader uses the their everyday means of getting out of the school and into town. The first part works well but when the boy leader runs into troops around the perimeter, instead of accepting the information and letting him get back before the next roll call he is taken to the command post and to which the school head is also taken by helicopter to identify the boy.

The commander says that the plan is too risky and that anyway the decision has been taken to try and negotiate and that the boy cannot return. He breaks away taking a jeep but because of the watch on the top of the house he is unable to move while the role call is made and finding that one is missing four boys and the deputy are selected for execution if the missing boy does not arrive. Two helicopters are used to distract attention and he arrives, takes off his clothes and gives himself a quick shower to arrive in the nick of time explaining he failed to hear the bell. He is taken to the Terrorist and Principal’s study where he is given several skin cuttings strokes on his backside because like the Terrorist leader he was uncontrollable until being disciplined in similar fashion.

Then events take a turn which leads to the suggested plan put into practice. As the Mafia leader admits to another colleague, his son really hates him, but he loves the boy and wants him taken out of the hostage situation. As mentioned the incarcerated Drug baron is able to get a coded message out via his lawyer after being informed of the situation which is then transmitted to his son and the boy is released. This is too much for the young man who does hate his father and has not wish to abandon his friends, attacks a guard and take a machine gun and is killed in an exchange of fire with another guard. The Son of the drug lord generally regrets the failure to release the boy and allows the Principal to come with appropriate officers to collect the body and for the teaching faculty bar the “Principal” to be released although they may have been released earlier as part of the negotiations and when they have been given 24 hours to reflect further on the demands.

The Mafia leader is understandable outraged by the death his son despite the protestations that it was accidental, and orders action which results in the murder of the Drug baron by other prisoners. This is another flaw because the man albeit on remand is being kept with other prisoners and an attempt is only made to move him when there appears to be rioting with setting things on fire.

The authorities realise that once the news of this gets to the son he is likely to retaliate by killing the boys and therefore an assault has to be made with the plan given to them the best and only way of trying to minimise the casualties. They therefore signal their intention to proceed by focusing a searchlight which until then moved around the ground on to the bedroom where the young leader’s party have been placed together. The young leader has been devastated by the death of his closest friend and his confidence undermined in the plan and has to be persuaded by the others to go ahead. They remain unaware that an assault is to be made anyway.

The final part of the film also has dramatic tension and immediate general believability. The power for the area of the school is cut off so that the news of the death of the father is prevented ant the terrorist say they will act if it is not switched back on within the hour. The principal draws on a map how the assault force can enter the grounds by the way used to get the plan out to them. I was surprised how small the force for this is which is just as well that the Principal told to stay behind decides to follow shortly.

There is good tension built as the boy leader with the help of one other uses the air conditioning system to get from a bathroom into the Principal’s Study and there switches the chips as the toy plane was not shot down or destroyed after confiscation but placed in the office which the boy leader noted when he was taken to be disciplined.

However during the assault one of the guards on the roof manages to drop a grenade on to the trio of government below as they are killed by battle helicopters. The principal finds two dead and one injured and immobile, takes a weapon and makes his way up to the balcony outside his office just in time to prevent the killing of the boy leader by the son of he Drug baron who was also about to tamper with the control unit to blow up the establishment after seeing the pressing of the remote set off just the toy plane and not the explosives. In the cross fire as those coming down from the helicopters and entering through windows in standard fashion reached the doorway of the room also open fire. The principle is shot in the shoulder and Terrorist leader show dead.

Meanwhile the rest of the boys plus the deputy have made their way to the hiding place where the deputy is fortified by some of the vodka that was not yielded to the principal previously.

Forgotten event was the death of a master attempting to save a boy who was trying to phone out. The boy lived but the mast dies making a total of two adults and one boy from the schools and, two special services with the head one special services injured.

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