by Tom Marcus
‘SHARP PENCIL walking east towards the rough area of the mosque, can anyone help me out with a street name?’
Fatima was in control of him, I was about twenty metres behind her, but knew why she was struggling with street names down here. We hadn’t deployed down this street before and most of the graffiti suggested we’d struggle to find a street sign anywhere. We weren’t getting an answer from any of the vehicle call signs. This didn’t happen that often, but we were obviously in a communications black spot.
‘You are going out, mate, and I’m still backing.’
This was a rough area, so I relaxed the voice procedure to give her a bit more confidence that I was in her ear and backing her up. I was comfortable in places like this but equally Fatima could go into areas I couldn’t; we all had our strengths and right now she needed to feel mine – that I was calm and there was nothing to worry about.
‘Thanks, TC. He’s still walking down, but if he turns off I will clear you round?’
‘No worries, mate.’
I was hoping that even though we couldn’t hear the team on the radio they would be able to hear us. Fucking typical. First we lose him leaving his house, now the radios go silent when we’re out on foot.
‘TC, he’s turned left down that alleyway. If I clear you round, can you go with and I’ll try to get round to the mosque?’
Alleyways are always shit and never a good idea. He was probably using this one as a cut-through. We’d had such a long day, we couldn’t lose sight of him now. If we got sight of him going into the mosque then at least we had a new starting point but if we lost him now we’d have no way of knowing for sure where he was.
‘Yeah, mate, let me know if you can see the end of the alley, please.’
If Fatima could see straight through it would be slightly safer knowing it was clear; last thing I wanted to do was go walking into an alleyway with the target holding a knife waiting for me, especially as I was dying for a piss!
‘OK, SHARP PENCIL down the alleyway and no sign, I can’t see the other side. I’m going to continue to the mosque, see if I can pick him up there.’
Fuck’s sake, this wasn’t good at all. The target had been out all day without doing anything glaringly out of character, but we needed to keep hold of him to make sure the whole day wasn’t a waste. We couldn’t talk to any of the cars or the Operations Centre and we were in one of the hardest areas in London on foot with no back-up, and I was about to turn down an alleyway.
‘Roger that, mate, checking the alleyway now.’
Forcing my legs to keep moving, I could feel something deep inside my gut willing me to stop walking down this alleyway. I was being stupid here. The target wasn’t in attack-planning phase, he was a facilitator. I shouldn’t be going down this alley when I couldn’t see the end of the narrow dark tunnel. Was it my ego forcing me to continue walking or the will to keep hold of the target? Walking into the mouth of the alleyway, I was now committed, because turning around would look unnatural to anyone who might be watching. The target turned down here roughly forty-five seconds ago and it did look like a common through route for locals; that didn’t make me feel any better though.
‘MIKE ZULU PAPA.’ Shit, it was the red Golf with the gang members from earlier, parked on the street just up from the alleyway, now empty. It made sense that the occupants either lived near here or did business in this area but as I walked further down the narrow alley all I could think about was why this car was back. My train of thought was broken by the overpowering smell of cat shit as I worked my way through bin bags and puddles.
I could feel my heart racing. I wanted to speed up and get to the other end. Choosing my steps, I tried to remain as quiet as possible and resisted the urge to look behind me. If I was about to walk into a drugs deal I could probably talk my way out of it but if I was walking into a trap I’d be screwed. Navigating the slight curve of the alleyway, I could now see I was about fifteen metres away from the exit, which was lit by the rear lights of a vehicle I could hear driving away. As the light slowly disappeared I emerged from the alley. No sign of SHARP PENCIL on a small street lined with terraced houses in need of repair.
Stay calm, don’t speed up. Stay focused. I whispered into my radio, needing to hear from Fatima to make sure she was OK. Crossing on to the other side of the street to put some distance between me and the alley, I walked to the end of the street, hoping I’d come into an area in which my radio would work with the cars.
‘Alley clear.’
‘Roger, no sign near the mosque, I have direct of the entrance.’
‘ALL FOOT CREWS, SECURITY CHECKS.’
The team leader had clearly been trying to reach us for a while and was getting worried. I didn’t know whether this was a good sign or not. On one hand we could now talk to the car teams, but on the other we’d have to tell the team we’d lost control of the target. Fatima and I had both got on the net to let the team know we were OK, when we all got a very abrupt message to stop the operation.
‘TC, Fatima, shout your positions immediately; we’re coming to pick you up.’
‘I’m direct on the mosque, ten metres north of the Tube entrance on the east side.’
‘TC, can you get to Fatima’s position in thirty seconds?’
‘Yes, yes.’
Something had gone wrong here; surely us losing control of the target hadn’t been such a massive fuck-up that it warranted two operators coming together and being picked up? Everyone on the net was dead quiet apart from the team leader who was talking a lot faster and louder than normal. Turning out of the street, I could see Fatima’s position. As I walked over, I saw one of our team cars already pulling up to her, and she got into the front passenger seat as I walked towards the rear of the vehicle. I could see the odd local teenager walking past taking notice of the car and us getting in; it didn’t look right. We’d never be so obvious as to do things like this. We looked like an undercover unit here; it looked shit.
The car accelerated away before I’d even put my seat belt on in the back. I adjusted it to give me enough slack so that I could sit forward to speak to the team leader, who was driving through every single red light we came across. I asked what was going on.
The team leader ignored me for a brief second, then he pressed the car’s radio push-to-talk button and shouted, ‘All stations, all stations, STEEL BADGE, STEEL BADGE!’
He was still accelerating as we hit 90mph.
I could hear the engines screaming as everyone in the teams acknowledged in turn. I’d never seen my team leader like this before. He was scared, as though he’d spent the last half-hour panicking. I glanced at Fatima; her eyes were wider than normal. This was frightening her. Still no reply from the team leader as he interrogated the operations officers on the net. ‘Base, anything further on SHARP PENCIL?’
‘Negative. Local police CTU informed.’
Just as the team leader was about to press the talk button again to reply I could see he was going to try to make the car six inches slimmer than it actually was between two buses. The wing mirror smashed off on Fatima’s side of the car, making her jump; she was really starting to lose her composure now. Trying to comfort her, I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.
‘Roger, figures three out now, security checks, stations.’
This was the second security check in as many minutes, so I knew we were in trouble. Releasing my grip on Fatima’s shoulder I sat back, tightening my seat belt again, knowing it was fairly likely we’d lose the other wing mirror at this speed. The whole team acknowledged the security checks with their vehicle numbers in double-quick time, engines still working at full capacity in the background of each of the radio transmissions.
Eventually we pulled into our covert garages away from Thames House, and even this was odd because we hadn’t deployed from here that morning. Was the building under threat? As we went through the huge security gates, armed police manned the gates on the street and behind them, uniformed s
oldiers holding their rifles, clearly on edge. Whatever was going on, people clearly thought it was about to happen any moment now. It wasn’t until we made it into the secure garage compound that my team leader relaxed and slowed down. I was never one to flap and panic in situations like this, and as far as I was aware nothing had actually happened yet; hopefully not, anyway. No point in panicking, it only made the situation worse.
Half of the team were already in the garage in a Docklands warehouse, leaning on their cars, deep in conversation about what had just happened. These old buildings are getting harder to come by, but until the developers got their hands on it, it was still ours. I still had no fucking idea what was going on. The three of us got out as the rest of the team arrived. It looked like we were about to have our debrief here. Behind the last team cars I noticed the operations officer who’d been running our support that day walking in too.
‘OK, roll call, let’s make sure everyone is here.’ The operations officer was taking the lead on this, and as the team leader ran down the list of operators, we all shouted back with varying degrees of sharpness, ‘Here!’, which I’d never, ever done before. It was clear now that the threat wasn’t against our buildings, it was against our team.
‘We now know that the white bag SHARP PENCIL had when he left his house was passed to one of his associates. It contained walkie-talkies and video cameras. His vehicle recorded what was being said on those walkie-talkies from SHARP PENCIL’s in his car. He had recruited a team of approximately twenty males to run counter-surveillance for him. To save me explaining the hours of audio footage recovered by A2A I’ve brought this brief clip.’
As surveillance operators we’d hardly ever be given access to eavesdropping audio like this. While the clip was playing I watched the faces of my team, and I knew from how pale they were turning that a few of them felt sick as the realization started to kick in. First all we heard was static and general driving noises, but then came the very real voices of the team that was hunting us: ‘Yeah, yeah, bruv, that fucking white van is back, same reg.’
‘Sweet, so how many we have now? Six, seven?’
‘Let’s take one of them. We’ll wait on the cut through and take them straight to Imran’s.’
‘Everything is ready, bruv. We’ll do ’em quick, though, they might have trackers on an’ shit.’
Some of the team were now looking over in my direction with the realization that it was me they were planning to take hostage as I entered that alleyway.
Pressing stop on the Dictaphone, the operations officer continued. ‘The plan was to take one member of your team in the back of a rented van as SHARP PENCIL left the alleyway near the mosque. We believe they would have been moved to the house on Highgate Road in Kentish Town. That house was just raided by Police CTU Green team and they found a video camera, a black flag and three butcher’s knives. The floor was covered in plastic sheeting.’
The operations officer told our team leader quietly that she’d update him the next day if she got any more intelligence, then walked out of the garages. Our team leader waited until she had left to start talking to us. ‘How did we miss this?’
We all looked at each other, waiting for someone to speak. This hadn’t happened before: never before in the UK had so many of us been identified and set up for execution on British soil. For whatever reason, the target’s team backed out at the last minute, which meant I kept my head on my neck. No one wanted to offer any opinions. Some of the team were clearly shocked and frightened that one of us had come so close to being beheaded.
The team started slowly and quietly discussing as a group and some individually with each other how we could possibly have missed this. SHARP PENCIL’s friends had managed to follow us all day, employing some of the same surveillance tactics we use until they were sure they had our entire team. I could sense the air of defeat among us.
‘Let’s get back out there!’
The team leader looked at me as I said this, and his face said it all really. He wanted us to calmly discuss our tactics and methods and how our entire team was compromised, not make suggestions for getting everyone back out on the ground.
‘These are our fucking streets, they are NOT in control, we are!’
‘TC, we’re not going back out. Let’s see what intelligence comes through and let the intelligence officers do their job. They’ll decide when and who we go out against next.’
I was furious, not at the target for daring even to think about trying to take me hostage as I left that alleyway, but for the lack of aggression in the team. It was like we were in hiding, but we were meant to be the hunters, not the fucking prey. I understood the need for a level head and to look at the big picture, but every fibre of my being wanted to destroy those pricks. Who the hell did they think they were to try to threaten us? We stop fuckers like this from killing the general public every single day, but now that we were the ones being targeted my team didn’t know what to do.
I knew what I wanted to do, but recognized it was the dark side of my personality taking over. My team leader was right, I acknowledged that deep down, but I was struggling to keep hold of my professional edge. I wanted to tear those guys apart, SHARP PENCIL and all his fucking team, I wanted them dead. I was well aware that the Security Service’s policy does not allow us to commit random acts of revenge or murder and that I couldn’t legally do what my ever-darkening soul wanted to. If I’m really honest, I understood that the amount of intelligence gained from that day’s operation would be massive.
The blood was burning through my veins, and my team could see I was angry. They left me alone as we organized transport from this compound to our houses. We were confident we weren’t followed to the garages but we had to be careful. We’d leave in blacked-out minibuses one at a time and be dropped off at our homes. It took hours to get the whole team out and back to their loved ones.
Finally I arrived at home, gone midnight. I knew my family would be asleep as my wife knew never to wait up for me. Walking through the door, I noticed another letter from the credit card company: final demand. How the fuck does someone from MI5 who’s saved countless people over the years and was nearly beheaded just a few hours earlier end up in debt? I fucking hated this, I was a good operator, in certain situations I was one of the best, yet because I wasn’t earning enough I was struggling to do my real job of husband and father. My family never asked for anything, but I wanted to give them everything I could. I grew up with no money, but now with a good job and career I still had no money.
I checked the figure of how much I owed the credit card company, realizing it was another three weeks till payday. I wondered why I was risking my life to save everyone else’s when I was drowning in debt. This was all I knew, and all I was good at, but I had to bring more money in, otherwise the people I should be protecting first would start to suffer: my family. Then an awful thought drifted in – if SHARP PENCIL and his crew had managed to kill me, my family would be financially better off, because the service would pay them high six figures as compensation for my sacrifice. I hated thinking like this. I had to put more hours in and get some overtime money.
CHAPTER NINE
Working up north was always my favourite place to operate, because I grew up there. I felt like I knew these places. Even Moss Side, an area of Manchester that over the years has had a troubled history with gang violence. As a kid I used to float around squats in places like this, sleeping illegally in various types of buildings before ending back at home guessing how much my dad had to drink that morning. It’s actually a lot easier to go unnoticed doing things like this when you’re of primary school age, not old enough for your friends to notice at school and tell someone but not young enough for people to worry if they see you on the streets alone. All the boys at secondary school wanted to be Liam Gallagher from Oasis and wore all the latest Gore-Tex jackets from Sprayway and Berghaus or a Ralph Lauren sports jacket with Rockport shoes. That sort of clothing would be more than our monthly fo
od budget so I would live in old tracksuits from charity shops and ripped trainers. I never thought then that I’d be back here wearing the same type of clothes, trying to blend into the community as an officer for MI5.
Whenever we deploy in potentially dangerous areas like this we have a briefing not just on the target and the wider operation but also on any criminal activity we need to be aware of. For example, if we are going to be working on a Saturday night on the streets in an area where rival gangs are actively trying to kill each other, we need to know. Not because it would stop our operation, but so we can look out for it and, if needed, use that information to help us live our individual cover stories.
I knew these sorts of areas so I wasn’t fazed at all when we were deployed there. As a kid I’d kicked cans around in front of shops and terraces in places like this. I knew the dealers round here would be really sharp, but the runners were the ones who knew absolutely everything that went on in this tight little patch, the ones riding around on their mountain bikes, taking drugs from the dealers to the buyers. Constantly weaving around the street corners and roads, they had absolutely no respect for the police, because the majority of the time the police wouldn’t come into this area, unless mob-handed, as it was far too dangerous at night.
It was in rough areas like this that we’d constantly look out for everyone in the team: you always want to make sure everyone is OK, and particularly in Moss Side. We’d look to have everyone in their team cars for that added level of protection. Operating at night meant it was also a lot easier to hide in a vehicle in the dark. There aren’t that many people on these streets past midnight unless they are dealing or buying drugs or looking for prostitutes; either way, if you’re on foot at night here, it’s likely you’re up to no good, which means you’re fair game for being targeted by the locals that run these streets.
