by Tom Marcus
Ah, here we go.
‘Go ahead, no change. Vehicle still southbound towards the MIKE TWO FIVE.’
‘Stations, it’s believed BROKEN LAPTOP will be joining the others at Heathrow Airport, we have Red and White team with Special Branch airside. Once confirmed on their flight to New York, we’ll let them run and withdraw. Roger so far, any station?’
The team leader was almost instantaneous with his response.
‘So far.’
‘FBI and CIA teams will take them on once they hit US soil. Base OUT.’
I didn’t like letting these guys run to the States; it was clear they were conducting a recce for the attack over there now. The intelligence officers must have enough evidence from Red and White team on the other targets to know the flight over to New York was going to be safe and they weren’t going to try to take the plane down.
When we let targets run free to travel outside the country, we always see them through the border checkpoints, in this case airside. Once they have gone through the security checks and into the departures part of the airport and can’t return back to the normal open area of Heathrow Airport, we leave them alone most of the time. If necessary, we’re able to quickly get through to airside, as well as using the one-way glass you see at every checkpoint in airports. It comes in extremely handy when we need to confirm targets’ identities when they’re leaving the country, or arriving.
The rest of the journey down to Heathrow was straightforward and Red team confirmed BROKEN LAPTOP was through the security gates and airside with the rest of the targets.
‘Stations, cease and withdraw back for debrief. Acknowledge down the list, please.’
We were miles away from our starting point in Yorkshire; I knew it would be another night in a hotel tonight, making full use of my grab bag in the boot. It was starting to become a regular feature in my life, staying away from home and living in hotels. The only bonus of this was my wife didn’t have to spend as much on the weekly food budget because I was away and I had the service-issue credit card to keep me fed. Our daily food allowance with the service was about £50. That was my family’s weekly food budget. What the service gave me to feed myself for a whole day while out on the ground if we had to stay away would feed all of us at home. I needed to be at home with my family. I missed them more and more each time I was away, but the more I was away the better off we would be.
Eventually the whole team reconvened and as the debrief ended we quickly discussed security and tactics before the other teams arrived for their debriefs.
‘OK, we need to discuss what happened to me and TC up in Yorkshire near the mosque. As you all know, police undercover teams have been in the area lately cracking down on child grooming. Our friends in Special Branch told the ops room that while trying to find a target the police used a mosque car park to turn around in. While turning around they crashed into a car just as people were leaving the mosque after last prayers.’
‘Fucking hell …’
Nick summed up our feelings quite well as the team leader continued to tell us the rest.
‘I know, the police team didn’t stop, they panicked and drove straight out as the crowd tried to close the gates thinking they were under attack from the National Front again. The police team smashed through the gates and drove off. Their car was a grey VW, same as ours. They thought the same police team was back, hence the reason they fucked our car up trying to kill us.’
‘How can we stop this happening again?’
The team looked a bit sullen and serious as I asked the question. I didn’t want to go through that again and it makes operating in the area incredibly difficult when the place is red hot and everyone is looking for white faces in cars that aren’t local.
‘Special Branch are setting up a compromise sheet that is internal to the police but which they will pass to us daily on the quiet. It’s shit but we have to just be mega aware. Special Branch are dealing with local uniformed police and the community leaders to see what is being said about our incident but in terms of them knowing who we are I think we are OK.’
As we left the briefing room, picking our hotel details up, we exchanged banter with the other teams waiting to come in for their debrief.
‘All right, you bunch of pricks! Lost any targets lately?’
‘Hahaha! Fuck off, TC, but let us know when you want to join a real team!’
‘Yeah, yeah, your fucking mum loves our team!’
As the laughter grew we made our way down to the underground garages, back to the cars to leave towards the hotel, and the other teams filed into the briefing room. I loved the banter between teams and within our own team. It’s very military in its sense of humour, and almost any situation can be made better if you take the piss out of someone’s mum.
Checking into the hotel a good thirty-minute drive across London, we used our alias names and cover company details and addresses. I was tired now. It didn’t seem that long ago that I was inches away from being lynched in Yorkshire and now I was checking into a hotel in London using a false name, and I still hadn’t spoken to my family to let them know I wouldn’t be home today.
Walking to my hotel room, I made my usual mental note of fire exit routes and quick ways I could leave the building other than the main entrance. As I entered the room, I saw the familiar sight of fresh, clean bed sheets in the dim light. I was exhausted, mentally drained but I knew tonight I couldn’t fall asleep. I was afraid, frightened that if I fell asleep I would have another nightmare. They were getting stronger and it was taking longer for me to regain my composure. If I climbed into bed for a proper night’s sleep I knew I would plunge into the darkest corners of my mind.
I’m not a hard man, I don’t have a reputation for being this urban street fighter, and when people think of me, I know they don’t see a muscle-bound ninja. There are people in the world who show their teeth to display their strength and aggression and there are those who cower at the sight of that fierceness. I’m the relentless one, the scruffy runt who despite everything thrown at me remains positive in his mindset that anything can be achieved. When I joined the army I was at the back of the long runs in the hills, but I refused to give up. I weighed just 105 pounds as a boy soldier at the age of sixteen, but I would carry more than half that on my back on exercises and operations.
I wasn’t a skinny boy turned Captain America type, I just refused to give up and be looked at as weak. Here I was, former Special Ops with the military, nearly five years’ experience working in a Top Secret deniable unit in Northern Ireland and recruited to MI5 as a surveillance officer. And despite all that, I had tucked myself up in the corner of the room, back to the wall with a light purposely aimed in my face to prevent me from falling asleep because I was scared of what lay waiting for me if I closed my eyes.
I was a fucking joke.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Standing in the corner of our bedroom, it was like we’d been burgled. I was dripping with sweat and completely naked. I saw my wife sitting on the bed, holding her knees to her chest with genuine fear in her eyes, the type of fear I see when I’m operating on the ground.
‘Are you OK? What happened?’
As I rushed over to her, she started crying. I now knew what had happened. I’d had another nightmare, but this was something more than a nightmare. I couldn’t remember what had just occurred but it was clear I was reliving something and fighting something or someone. As I scrambled to get the bed covers off the floor to stop my wife getting cold, I could see the scrapes and rashes on my knuckles.
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No, you just flew out of bed, shouting and hitting everything. We need to get you help. You’re not sleeping.’
Putting her hand over my knuckles, I collapsed on to her like a newborn baby. It was only then I noticed my heart rate racing as I tried to switch my focus on to my wife’s fingers running through my hair. What the fuck was happening to me? It felt like my mind was running a parallel life to the
one I actually thought I was living. For some reason my brain wasn’t processing or dealing with something properly. I wasn’t hungry or dehydrated, and I was in good health physically. Was it some sort of brain injury or sleeping disorder?? Fuck knows, but one thing I was sure about: this had to stop. Not only were my operating skills on the line if I couldn’t function properly, but I didn’t want to be that person who scared his family.
We didn’t have any internal doors on our house; we had scraped enough money together to buy our house but couldn’t afford to finish the refurbishments at that moment so we made do with curtains over the door frames separating the rooms. I went to check on my son who I was praying had slept through all this. Picking my path to walk out of the room over the clothes, plugs and glasses of water I’d knocked over during my sleeping fight for survival, I pulled the curtain slightly to the side to see my son fast asleep on his back, mouth wide open, snoring as usual. Thank God for that.
‘He’s asleep. I’m so sorry. It was a nightmare. I’ll ask for some help from a doctor in the morning.’
‘You’re meant to be deploying tomorrow afternoon, aren’t you??’
My wife was right, and it stopped me in my tracks climbing back into bed. I could hide this from my team and try to crack on, but if this got any worse I risked hurting my family emotionally. No, fuck it. I wouldn’t become that person who put their work before their loved ones. My wife believed in me, and I needed to get this sorted out. Anything, as long as it gave peace of mind to her. But I knew it would mean having to talk to a professional at some point, and God knows what they were going to say or diagnose me with. I just hoped there wasn’t anything physically wrong with my brain.
That morning, sitting with my son downstairs while he watched cartoons, slowly starting to wake up, I thought about how I was going to approach this with the service. If there is a general medical problem, like you have food poisoning or tonsillitis, then we’re allowed to see our normal family doctor. But, if our illness relates in any way to our work for MI5 then we have to see medical professionals in house who have Top Secret clearance so we can talk openly about our reasons for seeing them. Nurses, doctors, physios – basically anyone who service employees may need help from.
I knew I couldn’t go to my team leader with this. We were meant to be deploying against Irish targets again and I’d nearly always end up in a pub drinking all day, keeping control of the targets while the rest of the team waited outside, ready to pick them up when they left. We had a welfare department within Thames House but I’d never thought I would be asking for their help. In true public-sector style, though, the service wanted to make sure it was seen to be looking after its employees, so the welfare people had a fair amount of power when protecting someone who needed help for whatever reason, whether that be financial or medical.
While Lucy was putting my son’s cereal out, I went upstairs to make the phone call. The bedroom was tidy, all evidence of me freaking out in the night now gone, apart from the broken skin on my knuckles and my dented pride.
‘Switchboard.’
I only had an extension number for the welfare team so I had to ring the main number for Thames House. It’s manned twenty-four hours a day but the people answering the phone are specially trained not to give details away about the building, or which organization the telephone number belongs to, hence the ‘Switchboard’ welcome. Once you give an extension number that matches, they will ask for a name of whomever you want to speak to within that extension.
‘869497.’
‘Who are you trying to speak to?’
‘Welfare.’
‘One moment, please.’
I knew the call would be recorded; everything going in or out of Thames House or its regional operating centres is monitored and stored electronically.
‘Sue speaking, how can I help?’
‘My names TC, I’m A4 …’
I couldn’t get past the opening line, my words just wouldn’t leave my mouth and after a few seconds they wouldn’t even form in my mind. I didn’t know what to say.
‘TC, do you need to talk?’
‘Yeah, but I don’t know …’
Fuck me, I was shit at this, I must have sounded like a right twat on the phone.
‘Are you supposed to be deploying operationally today?’
The welfare team were well trained, and they knew virtually every department, its roles and the demands they faced. She knew if I was meant to be on the ground today I was at risk if something was on my mind.
‘Yeah, I am. Nightmares. Having nightmares.’
‘OK, don’t worry, TC. Listen, I will speak to your group leader, let them know you can’t come in today.’
Cutting her off, this panicked me massively. I hated the idea of letting my team down and, perhaps even more, I didn’t want to miss out on the operation.
‘No, I can go in, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have called.’
‘TC, it’s fine. Look, no one else will know. I’ll make up a cover story for you and tell your group leader that a family member is ill and you need the day. That’s OK, isn’t it?’
In true typical spy style, we lie to our own to facilitate our goals. It was a story my group leader and team would buy easily, so I softened to her approach, and it gave me confidence that making this call was the right thing to do.
‘OK, so now what? I need to get some sleep but I’m not sure what’s happening.’
‘Well, why don’t you come in to talk at our offsite office? Have you got a team car?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got a car with me.’
‘Great, I’ll text the address to your service mobile and when you get here press the intercom, and I’ll come and get you. No one from A4 or A Branch as a whole is in this building so you won’t be seen.’
Sue wanted to reassure me that this was in complete confidence. She gave the impression she’d dealt with operational staff before, and she knew that my primary concern was being seen talking to welfare by anyone in my team or A4. I’d done some questionable things in their eyes over the years, and it would be the nail in the coffin for me if I was spotted talking to welfare.
As I ended the call, Lucy walked into the bedroom with our son, typically upbeat and positive. I felt incredibly lucky to have a family like this.
‘Not going on the ground today, just driving down to speak to welfare. Just to see if they can get me sleeping through. Hopefully won’t be long.’
‘That’s good, just text me on your way back and we can have tea in the garden this evening, it’s meant to be quite nice all day.’
Driving towards the offsite location to meet Sue, I felt weird. Really uncomfortable without my operational kit on, no covert radio, no passport and spare radio battery strapped to my ankle. I actually used the car’s normal radio to listen to music on the way in. I’d never used this car’s normal radio before because I’d usually be focused on the team’s transmissions. This is what normal people must do when they drive to and from work.
I parked the car at a multi-storey roughly ten minutes’ walk from Sue’s building, I didn’t want to risk anyone from A4 recognizing a team car, and if I was meant to be with a family member in hospital as part of this cover story I needed to make sure I didn’t leave any loose threads. As I left the car park I walked a big loop around the streets, taking natural look-backs on my route at traffic lights. I had no problem walking into the most dangerous situations in the world with known killers, but put me en route to talk about personal shit and I become one of my jumpy targets, paranoid as fuck.
The text message from Sue said to press the buzzer marked number 5. This covert facility on a normal street in the centre of London was either hiding in plain sight with the number ‘5’ on the intercom buzzer or it was simply how the numbers fell for welfare and I was drawing conclusions that out of the seven buzzer numbers on the intercom the one I needed was marked with a 5. Jesus, I needed to get a life.
‘Hi, I’ll be down in a few seconds.�
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Obviously Sue had seen me on the semi-covert dome cameras above the large doors, which was a relief because I really didn’t want to say who I was or what I was doing stood on the steps to this impressive old building.
I heard several locks being moved, then the door opened and I was met with a smile, the kind of motherly smile the other kids used to get at school. Sue ushered me in without any arrogance or the clinical manner I’d expected from something like this. Walking towards the next set of sealed bomb-proof doors, she scanned her pass and entered her pin code to give us access to the main stairs that led up to the fifth floor.
‘Do you want some water or juice?’
‘No, I’m good, thanks.’
So far, so good. I had answered a gentle question without clamming up, so maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. Hopefully they would give me something to help me sleep and I could reset my brain activity to allow me to have normal dreams.
‘OK, so you’re going to be seeing a lady called Pam, she’s lovely and has worked for the office a long time. She’s cleared to talk to you; actually her husband used to be in G Branch and has a good understanding of A4.’
Waiting on the comfy chairs outside a group of small offices, this place felt a world away from Thames House but had gentle reminders that this was still very much a building hiding secrets. Every door had key-coded locks, no Security Service information on the walls about the purpose of its employees inside, all the standard stuff you’d expect when inside offsite facilities. It didn’t take long before a door opened and Pam welcomed me with another smile, asking me to come into her office.
Now, usually when meeting someone for the first time professionally you’d be met with ‘How can I help?’ or ‘This is what I do here and I can help you by … ’ Not here. I was met with Pam sitting down in a chair about three feet away from me, smiling. Fucking smiling, nothing else, no words, no gesture for me to talk, nothing. I wasn’t the one needing help, this crazy fucker was the one needing her head seeing to.
