THE MASTERMIND 187

The friend knew something was wrong. Days later he got an- other call from Le Roux, ordering him to fly to the Philippines and meet at the Mandarin Oriental hotel. When they sat down, Le Roux told him that he had "placed Dave on permanent vacation." "Those are the exact words he used. He was always very careful. I asked him why. Paul said, 'You have to understand, I have part- ners in Colombia. Dave was stealing from me. If I didn't take care of this, they would take care of me.' Then he said to me: 'You ever try and steal from me, you ever try to get out, and I will liquidate you.'"

There were varying accounts floating around the Le Roux merce- nary community of how Smith ultimately met his end. McConnell later heard that he had been snatched, drunk, off of P Burgos Street, thrown into a van, and driven to a remote location. "My understanding was that he was placed in a shallow grave and given a telephone," McConnell said. Le Roux, according to this version, was on the other end of the line. "He says, 'You see what happens?' Then they shot him and buried him." Another version claimed that Mexican cartel hit men had been brought in for the job. Still another had it that Le Roux had him thrown off a boat, much as Moran Oz had been, except with fatal consequences.

The actual facts matched pieces of the rumors, but with one key difference: Le Roux had been present for the job, together with a former South African policeman named Marcus. I tracked down Marcus on LinkedIn, where he listed Southern Ace on his employ- ment profile. When I told him what I'd heard about Dave Smith's murder, he seemed almost relieved to confess the details to me. "I've done some pretty horrible shit with him," he said of Le Roux. "You know, what can I say? I was there, I was involved. My life was pretty fucked up."

Le Roux had first hired Marcus in the summer of 2010, he said, after he responded to an email forwarded by a fellow South Afri- can security contractor. The note was from an organization seek-