But what was Britain’s rôle? How, if at all – to quote a Times leader headed NO COLLUSION – had the British got their trotters in the American trough? Once again all eyes turned to the British Embassy in Panama, and its relationship or alleged lack of one with a sometime Oxford student, Noriega victim and noted scion of Panama’s political establishment, Mickie Abraxas, whose ‘mutilated’ body was found dumped on waste land out-side the town of Parita after he had been ‘tortured and ritually assassinated’, purportedly by a special unit attached to the presidential staff. The Hatry press broke the story. The Hatry press gave it its spin. Hatry tele-vision networks spun it a bit harder. Soon every British newspaper across the spectrum had its own Abraxas story, from OUR MAN IN PANAMA to DID SECRET HERO SHAKE HANDS WITH QUEEN? and CHUBBY BOOZER WAS BRITAIN’S 007. A more sober and therefore largely unregarded report in a struggling independent broadsheet said that Abraxas’ widow had been spirited out of Panama within hours of the discovery of her husband’s body, and was now purportedly recovering at a safe address in Miami under the protection of one Rafael Domingo, a close friend of the dead man and prominent Panamanian.
A hasty refutation put out by three Panamanian pathologists claiming that Abraxas was an inveterate alcoholic who had shot himself in a fit of depression after drinking a quart of Scotch whisky was greeted with the derision it deserved. A Hatry tabloid summed up public reaction: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU’RE FOOLING, SEÑORES? An official statement by the British Chargé, Mr Simon Pitt, to the effect that ‘Mr Abraxas had no formal or informal ties with this Embassy or any other official British representation in Panama’ was made to look particularly absurd when it was discovered that Abraxas had been sometime President of the Anglo-Panamanian Society of Culture. His tenure had been curtailed ‘for health reasons’. An expert on espionage matters explained the hidden logic of this for the benefit of the uninitiated. Having been ‘spotted’ by local intelligence operatives as a potential British agent, Abraxas would for cover reasons have been ordered to sever all overt ties with the Embassy. The proper way to do this would have been to concoct a ‘dispute’ with the Embassy in order to ‘alienate’ Abraxas from his controllers. No such dispute was acknowledged by Mr Pitt, and Abraxas may have paid dearly for this want of imagination on the part of British intelligence. Informed sources reported that the Panamanian security authorities had for some while been interested in his activities. A Shadow Minister on the opposition benches who had the temerity to paraphrase Oscar Wilde to the effect that one man dying for a cause did not make that cause valid was duly pilloried by the tabloids with one Hatry organ promising its readers shocking revelations about the man’s luckless sex life.
Then one morning as if to order the spotlight turned to THE PANAMA HAT-TRICK, as they were henceforth dubbed, namely the three British diplomats who in the words of one commentator had ‘sneaked their goods, women and wagons out of the Embassy compound on the very eve of the ferocious US air assault’. The fact that they were four and one was herself a woman was not allowed to spoil a good headline. A luckless Foreign Office spokesperson’s explanation for their departure was met with hilarity:
‘Mr Andrew Osnard was not a regular member of the Foreign Service. He was temporarily engaged for his expertise on matters related to the Panama Canal in which he was highly qualified.’
The press was delighted to note his high qualifications: Eton, greyhound-racing and go-karting in Oman.
Q: Why did Osnard leave Panama in such a hurry?
A: Mr Osnard’s usefulness was deemed to have expired.
Q: Was this because Mickie Abraxas had expired?
A: No comment.
Q: Is Osnard a spook?
A: No comment.
Q: Where’s Osnard now?
A: We have no knowledge of Mr Osnard’s whereabouts.
Poor woman. Next day the press was proud to enlighten her with a photograph of Osnard making no comment on the ski slopes of Davos in the company of a society beauty twice his age.