Soldier Spy

by Tom Marcus

  As we all piled out of the room for the third time, I couldn’t hear the shredder kicking into action, instead the papers were being read and assessed by the instructors. You could sense the fear in people who’d used this opportunity to sleep, expecting it to be like the last two nights. The next day there was a massive cull of volunteers as the instructors weeded out those who they didn’t want to work with in their unit.

  Those of us that remained were given new ‘known as names’ and allowed to remove our candidate numbers. It’s affectionately called Baptism. No one is allowed to know our real names so we are given new ones. The training major couldn’t decide on a name for me.

  ‘What are the initials of your full name, 211?’

  ‘TCM.’

  ‘Right, well you can’t be named TM because the lads would call you trademark for ever, and despite what you think, I’m not that cruel. TC it is then. No longer number 211.’

  After six months of brutal training I became one of the youngest people ever to pass selection to become part of a deeply secretive, deniable covert counter-terrorism unit in Northern Ireland.

  I excelled. Growing up on the streets, I was comfortable being around danger; it was like wearing my watch. Without it I felt naked and isolated but with it on my wrist I felt normal, at home, peaceful. People just don’t get how you can be calm and content sitting among the most dangerous terrorists and mass murderers, but for me it became my world. Working in the Falls Road in Belfast, surrounded by the murals reminding you of the threat you faced if caught, didn’t faze me. We were armed with our pistols and always had Heckler and Koch rifles in the cars. It’s one of the very few places in the world where you can travel from the most stunning landscapes, turn a corner and be faced with traffic lights that are surrounded by armour casings to stop them being broken during the constant riots.

  I owe Northern Ireland a lot, especially the Special Ops unit. Twice a year we receive new arrivals, the handful of volunteers who pass the selection course. This latest course was the first in a few years I didn’t return to Hereford to train, as I was needed as a commander on a large operation. I think a decision was also made to change our approach in the selection process, to tone down some of the situation-awareness training. I was quite often called in to play the aggressive hostile local, but with no guidelines or parameters it became difficult to assess when the exercise was going too far. If I could see one of the volunteers was not dealing with the situation or driving out of the roadblock as they should, I’d start smashing the car up with a crowbar and, if I sensed they were crippled by fear, I’d keep going and drag them out of the vehicle through the windows. It wasn’t a case of not being able to switch off my aggression; I just fell into the role and made it as realistic as possible. Sometimes that would cause the volunteers on selection to shoot me with a blank 9mm loaded in their pistols, or they’d end up in a crying mess having shat themselves.

  One cold night just before Christmas, a couple of years after I’d joined the unit, we deployed up to RAF Aldergrove to provide armed protection for our SF Hercules landing with the latest successful volunteers. After no sleep for the last seventy-two hours, they were completely exhausted, but one of them instantly stood out: Lucy, who would become my wife.

  She is one of the very few women to have ever passed the course, which offers zero dispensation for females, who have to do everything the men do. As the training team walked off the plane ramp in front of the recruits, I held my HK53 rifle slightly tighter, desperately wanting to look more professional without appearing as if I was trying to impress her. It was love at first sight. Having spoken to the training team before they returned to Northern Ireland, I knew she was an incredible shot on the ranges. I was sold hook, line and sinker.

  A few days later we had our Christmas party. As we were a deniable unit, the detachment officer in charge, a major, didn’t want us drinking on the streets of Belfast through fear of being caught, so we had our own bar within our secure compound. Every year we’d all buy the ‘bar’ a Christmas present, and my present that year was a bottle of absinthe, which I managed to share with Lucy. The warrant officer in charge of security within the unit joined us for a few glasses, but stopped after he started hallucinating!

  It was clear Lucy and I just ‘got’ each other. I loved how she took the piss out of me while being interested in what I had to say. Up till then I had thought that love was utter bollocks and people were lying about how they really felt about their partners. It was at that point I found my soulmate, someone who made me think of life outside this covert world, someone who made me want to go and eat ice cream while walking round Giant’s Causeway. Ultimately this woman, who was matching me glass for glass from the bottle of absinthe, made me think I was more than just a covert operator.

  Within days of that amazing night at the unit bar in which Lucy and I got absolutely smashed on the contents of that green bottle, we had decided to get married. Four months later we managed to get five days’ leave at the same time and got married at a small town hall. From that point on we become known as Mr and Mrs Smith, and while I’ll never be as good-looking as Brad Pitt, Lucy will always surpass Angelina. Being married to someone who was trained to kill in the Special Forces training ground of Hereford is the perfect recipe for happiness.

  As my experience grew I was given more responsibility by the MI5 officers who handled my covert operations on a day-to-day basis. Soon I was recruited directly into the service. At the time applications for the Security Service/MI5 were close to 100,000 a year, so they really had no need to tap people on the shoulder any more.

  My handler, a senior intelligence officer who’d been with MI5 for over ten years, brought me in for a debrief while I was in the gun cage reloading magazines for my Sig Sauer 228 pistol. As I placed my weapon on his desk, he spoke in quieter than normal tones, aware of the other intelligence officers and admin support who shared the same open-plan office.

  ‘What you do for me on the ground is perfect, but I need more from you. I want you to officially join the service,’ he said.

  This was unexpected, but I was beaming with pride inside. Poker face on, I let him continue; these intelligence officer types always had an angle they were working. ‘The Islamic extremists are out of control on the UK mainland, we have the Russians and Chinese doing whatever they want, and the recruitment teams are hell-bent on bringing in posh cunts with degrees. We need you on the ground. You’re comfortable on the streets.’

  As I desperately tried to conceal a smile that I could feel emerging on my face, Ian hit me with more good news, ‘And obviously while the pay isn’t huge, you’ll make more than you do with the army here. Sound good?’

  Sensing this could be the best career move I ever made, and could potentially give me the chance to escape the hole of debt I was struggling to get out of, I barely let Ian finish his sentence. ‘Roger that, boss, when do I start?’

  That was the day my covert career stepped up yet another gear, and soon after the 7/7 attacks on London I officially became part of MI5 after working under their direction unofficially for years. My world was dark, no colour, no right or wrong and no back-up. People like me exist to fight those no one dares face. I wasn’t the last resort; I was the only option.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Even though I was tapped on the shoulder to join MI5 by my handler, I still had to go through the majority of the surveillance training everyone else has to do. Of the staff who join the Security Service with a view to joining an operational team, whether that be agent handlers, method of entry teams, technical installations or surveillance, 99.9 per cent will have applied via the traditional methods, either by responding to an advert in the paper or through the MI5 website. Nearly everyone coming through the system, therefore, will be trained in exactly the same way, hence the reason I went through most of the training too, so I could understand the surveillance team’s methodology, how they move together, etc. The truth is, surveillance officers from MI5 are
unquestionably the best in the world. It was a nice feeling when I was recruited to know that I was going to be further trained to become the best I could possibly be.

  Because I didn’t live in London at the time I started training for the surveillance team, I was allowed to stay in one of the service’s safe houses in North London. It was the first time I’d lived in the capital. I obviously knew where Thames House was, and most people these days recognize the building; you only have to look at the armed police who patrol outside of it twenty-four hours a day and the security bollards on the pavement to realize this is a sensitive building. When I received my instructions detailing the date and time I was to go to Thames House, I wasn’t surprised to read that I was required to enter via a more discreet door rather than the main row of front doors at the centre of the building. The side entrance was a heavy, bomb-proof door leading straight into a tiny security room lined with thick ballistic glass. Inside was a team of very alert security staff, who immediately looked at me with suspicion as I walked in, beckoning me over to the intercom.

  I gave my real name and the reference number from my paperwork, and was directed to put my bag and jacket through the X-ray scanner, which was exactly like the ones you get at airports.

  ‘Photo ID, please.’

  Responding to the metallic voice, I handed my passport into a small hatch that snapped shut as soon as I dropped it in. No more than thirty seconds had passed when another door behind the scanner opened up and a security guard appeared with a metal detecting wand, ready to scan me.

  ‘Shoes off, please, sir. Do you have any metal objects in your body, surgical pins, etc.?’

  Even though they were calling me ‘sir’, I still got the feeling they didn’t fully trust I was who I said I was. I’d take that as a compliment because of how I looked and acted; if people in a posh building like this thought I looked out of place then I’d look right at home on the streets.

  Once the scanning and body search were over, I put my shoes back on. I hated wearing shoes and smart clothes at the best of times, and I felt slightly awkward kneeling down on the marble tiles tying my shoelaces, while the security guard towered over me. As I stood upright the guard handed me back my bag and knocked on the window to signal one of the other security team to make a call for someone to collect me.

  Surveillance training lasts months and is followed by a year on probation. It’s probably one of the longest training courses of its type in the world, definitely the most intense, and is broken down into very distinct blocks of skill sets. Every course usually starts with five or six ‘candidates’ who attend a Security Service induction on the first day, in which you go through basic administration like having your pass issued; for those who are operational you sign for your service credit card and alias address details, and of course for the thousandth time you sign Section one of the Official Secrets Act.

  After an hour or so of initial general Thames House briefings, the induction is then split off into different branches, or departments as they are known within Thames. B Branch, for example, comprises all the administration and security roles, everything from pay to discipline; G Branch all the international counter-terrorist roles. The surveillance teams come under A Branch, specifically A4. Those in the intelligence community, not just in the UK but the whole world, who knew of A4, knew it was the home of the most effective surveillance operators in existence.

  We were led up to the fourth-floor training room, walking past the ‘tubes’. Every single MI5 employee will have walked through these tubes at some point; they are the security pods that you slide open once you activate them with your unique pass code. Once you step inside, it assesses your weight and height to determine if it’s only you inside the tube and you’re not being held at gunpoint. When the tube is happy you’re not a threat or under duress, it closes the door behind you and slides open the other half of the tube in front, allowing you to walk into the building. That’s your door into work.

  The service has a strict no-phones policy inside the building, so once you’ve passed through the security tubes there are thousands of tiny lockers for employees to place their phones in. The woman leading us towards the A4 surveillance training room explained that the lockers were for Thames staff. ‘Operators don’t have to use these, so don’t worry about them,’ she said.

  It was already starting to become obvious that surveillance officers were treated differently here, and I liked that. In the awkward silence as the six of us entered the lift, I sensed that the other candidates on this course were nervous. Leaving the lift, the woman guiding us through this maze walked alongside me, guessing I was uncomfortable in a suit. ‘Don’t worry, tomorrow you won’t have to wear that monkey suit!’

  When we were herded into the training room, I stayed quiet, found a chair and sat down. The chief instructor, Darren, wasn’t there yet. The room was a fairly typical briefing, instruction-type layout with a few differences, namely it had key historical artefacts from A4’s surveillance history: old radios, the first pin-hole cameras and so on. The others on the course, three guys and one woman, were nervous, and you could tell they didn’t know what to expect. I was sure that the woman was ex-military, due to the way she held herself: petite but strong.

  Eventually Darren walked in and started the introductions, going round the room, asking our first names and shaking everyone’s hand.

  I was last to be welcomed by him. ‘TC, you’re Ian’s boy, right?’ he asked.

  I was relieved that Ian had told the training team about me, and the fact that he’d told Darren my known-as name out there made me relax about the whole thing. From that point on I knew this was no longer a pass-or-fail course for me, it was about learning the service’s way of operating compared to the military methodology.

  Darren was a cockney, and couldn’t look less like an officer in Her Majesty’s Security Service: earrings, long shaggy hair, gold rings, tattoos, basically everything you would imagine from a London wide boy doing dodgy deals on the streets. I liked him. He explained that he’d been in A4 for years, having come from an undercover police drugs team. Continuing his introduction to the course, he told us we’d meet the rest of the training team soon, who would be with us day in day out for the next six months.

  ‘Before I bring the rest of the training team in, I just want to wish you the best of luck in passing this course. Not everyone does, but you’ve done the hard bit by passing the application process; 47,000 people applied for the seat you’re sitting on. Take pride in that.’

  I saw a hint of a smile from two of the guys when Darren said that. The woman whom I suspected was RAF glanced at me with a knowing look; she was proud she’d made it this far but was determined not to show it.

  ‘That said, be mindful of the fact that one, maybe two, will fail this. Statistically some of you won’t pass. Now, being potential surveillance officers you will have noticed that TC there is known to us. He was recruited, so if you start to struggle and you don’t feel you want to talk to us about it then for fuck’s sake use him.’

  As Darren opened the door the training team piled in, fifteen serving surveillance officers and three Met police advanced driving instructors from the Advanced Driving Unit (ADU). It was a free-for-all of handshakes welcoming us to the service. As we all got acquainted, I noticed Darren in the corner of the room talking to the head of the ADU, and the guy who I presumed was the most experienced surveillance operator in the corner of the room near the door. He’d clearly mentioned me to them as they both looked over at me at the same time. I was either in for an easy time, or the pressure would be ramped up to push me to my limits and see what I was really capable of.

  A good ten minutes of introductions and camaraderie had passed when Darren shouted up and asked the training team to leave so the driving instructors could give us a briefing. The first phase of the surveillance training is advanced driving, where candidates are taught how to drive at speed and move through red lights safely.

  �
�Right, what we’re going to do is teach you how to drive. Get rid of those bad habits and get you driving in a way that is progressive and safe. You WILL learn police commentary, the police safe system of handling and driving at speed.’

  The driving instructors weren’t surveillance operators. You could tell a mile off these guys were Met police, and their specialism was driving. Stressing certain words, they wanted to let us know that if we didn’t pass the driving phases, we couldn’t continue with the rest of the course; a typical power play from people who felt inadequate so needed to assert their position despite not being operators.

  ‘IF you pass the different driving phases we have for you and you are assessed to be of the same standard as police advanced instructor level, then you will be trained to forget everything you know … Why is that, TC?’

  As the other guys on the course looked at me for an answer to the instructor’s question, I maintained my posture and didn’t shift. I needed to let the instructors know I was respectful of their position but that I wasn’t intimidated by this first day on the course.

  ‘Because where we are going to be working, no one drives like a police officer. Undercover police look like undercover police and it stands out a mile if you’ve got your hands at the ten and two position on the steering wheel in the middle of Bradford.’

  The instructors all gave a slight smile at my answer; they knew I was having a little dig at undercover police, but thankfully they respected that and didn’t take it the wrong way. The other guys on the course didn’t even recognize that I was having a bit of banter with them.

  ‘Right, shall we get out of here then and go and see the cars you’ll be driving for the next few weeks?’

  The head driving instructor apparently had a reputation for failing people on their driving assessments – he noticed absolutely everything. Ian had warned me about him before I started my course; he’d fail people if their gear changes weren’t smooth enough or if they weren’t making enough progress in the corners. So it was sod’s law that, as we walked into the car park, he told me and the ex-military woman I now knew as Emma that he’d be our instructor, and it came with a warning, ‘TC, you’ll be with me. If Emma doesn’t pass, neither will you. Got it?’