by Shaun Clarke
Since little could be done for the dead, LanceCorporal Wilson, a medical specialist, temporarily staunched the wounds of the two hostages with field dressings. Satisfied that he had done all he could here, Taff left Alan Pearson to cover Lance-Corporal Wilson and continue questioning the group still huddled on the floor, while he and TT went downstairs to take part in the evacuation of the building.
Even before the survivors were moved out of the smoke-filled telex room, Alan Pearson, now cooled down, and Jock McGregor, still level-headed, tried identifying the ‘worms’ who had wriggled their way into the huddled group on the floor. The hostages, some with eyes streaming from CS gas, others covered in the blood of those wounded or killed, all dishevelled, most in shock, were bundled out one by one, then passed by the chain of Red Team troopers along the corridor with its smouldering curtains, bullet-peppered walls and blackened carpets, down the smoke-wreathed stairs, across a hallway reeking of CS gas, all the way out through the relatively untouched library and onto the rear lawn, where darkness was falling.
The first ‘worms’ were easily identified because, when wriggling into the huddled hostages, they had forgotten to remove their green combat jackets. Others, however, had had the sense to do so and were marched with the genuine hostages down the stairs to the lawn, where the female hostages were already face down on the grass, their hands and feet tethered.
One of the terrorists did not make it that far. As the last of the hostages was being ushered out of the telex room, the Red Team searched the suspects and were put on their guard by two who seemed too wary and alert to be hostages. Leaving both men to the last, they waited until the other hostages had left, then ordered the smaller, more nervous of the two suspects to lie face down on the floor. When the man did so, he turned his face to the side and stretched his arms above his head without being asked, like someone experienced in this kind of thing. When Pearson, standing over him and aiming his MP5 at his spine, asked him who he was, the man simply described himself as a student. Not believing him, Pearson stepped away, kept him covered, and ordered Jock McGregor to search him. McGregor did so, running his hands over the suspect’s body, then pushing his legs open and squinting into his crotch. There he saw the glint of metal – something that resembled a pistol magazine – and then a holster tangled up in his trousers.
Suddenly drawing his arms in towards his body, the suspect started rolling over onto his back. Just as he was turning, Pearson fired a short burst into his spine, killing him instantly and punching his body, belly down again, onto the floor. When McGregor turned the body over, he found a hand grenade as well as the magazine for a .38 Astra revolver. Frisking the dead body, he came up with an Iraqi identity card, naming the man as 25-year-old Makki Hounoun Ali, a Baghdad mechanic.
Just as McGregor was handing the identity card to Pearson, the latter started seeing double. Realizing that the burns on his legs were hurting dreadfully and that the pain was giving him double vision, he ordered McGregor to stay in the telex room while he went to find a medic before he collapsed. Turning away to leave the room, he suddenly felt nauseous, saw double again, then did indeed collapse. Shocked, McGregor leaned over him, checked that he was still breathing, and realized that he had passed out from a combination of pain and exhaustion. Using the throat mike on his S6 respirator, McGregor called up the special medical team, asking for a stretcher.
As McGregor was thus engaged, the second suspect, Feisal, who had an Afro hairstyle and was second-incommand of the terrorist group, slipped away into the smoke and gathering darkness to mingle with the last of the freed hostages on their way down the stairs.
The members of Blue Team who had cleared the basement and ground floor had met up with the rest of Blue and Red from the upper storeys to form the chain along which the remaining hostages were now being passed – or, as some would later have it– thrown from hand to hand down the stairs and out through the library, then onto the lawn to be trussed up like chickens for more intensive body searches and interrogation. Brutal though this would have appeared to the uninitiated, it sprang from the SAS troopers’ fear that the terrorists might have hidden an explosive charge on one of their own or on a hostage as their final response to this assault.
Taff was standing in the chain, next to TT, about halfway down the smoke-wreathed main staircase linking the first floor to the ground, when he heard the sounds of what he thought was a scuffle above him and shouted a warning to the members of Red Team up on the landing. In fact, it was only the last of the hostages who were stumbling down the stairs, most either frightened or shocked, their eyes streaming from CS gas. Then Taff, with many years of hard experience behind him, saw a face that was calculating rather than scared, which is all he needed to know.
‘That one’s a terrorist!’ he bawled. The sound of his voice cut through the fearful atmosphere like a knife as those dark eyes under an Afro haircut stared down in panic. Instantly recognized as a terrorist by his green combat jacket – Taff’s outburst having merely confirmed it for the doubtful – he was struck on the back of the head by the butt of a trooper’s MP5. Crying out and staggering forward a few steps, he then advanced down the broad stairs almost at the crouch, his hands over his head as he was punched and kicked down by the chain of troopers. When he drew level with Taff, the Welshman saw that he was holding a Russian fragmentation grenade with the detonator cap protruding from his hand. Without thinking twice, Taff removed the MP5 from his shoulder and slipped the safety catch to automatic. Unable to shoot because his fellow SAS troopers were in the line of fire, he raised the weapon above his head and brought the stock down on the back of the terrorist’s neck, striking him as hard as he could. The man’s head snapped backwards.
At that moment, the four Red Team members at the top of the rubble-strewn stairs opened fire simultaneously, emptying their magazines into the terrorist even as he was falling. First convulsing wildly in the murderous hail of bullets, then rolling down the stairs and coming to rest on the floor, the terrorist spasmed and vomited blood. He then opened his hand to release the grenade, which rolled a short distance across the floor and then came to a stop, making a light drumming noise on the tiles. Luckily its pin was still in its housing.
After hurrying down the stairs to frisk the dead man, Taff withdrew a wallet containing an identity card and some other papers, naming the dead man as Shakir Abdullah Fadhil, also known as Feisal. Pocketing the identity card and papers, which he would pass on to the green slime, Taff leaned over the body to make a rough count of the bloody wounds, which totalled, as far as he could see, forty. Satisfied, Taff made his way through the library and out onto the rear lawn.
For some time after that incident more gunshots reverberated throughout the embassy as Red and Blue teams blasted away locks to check other rooms. The fires started with the burning curtains had now engulfed the top of the building and the smoke was forming black clouds that drifted all the way down.
The integral UHF radio headsets in the S6 respirators crackled into life as the controller informed his men that the building was ablaze and must be abandoned.
‘The embassy is clear. I repeat: the embassy is clear.’
Outside on the rear lawn, most of the hostages were still lying face down on the grass, their feet and hands bound. Those remaining were being processed the same way.
The BBC sound recordist, Sim Harris, also bound hand and foot, was asked to identify any surviving terrorists. There was only one left. Identified by Sim Harris and PC Lock, as well as by the other survivors, he was Ali Abdullah, also known as Nejad. Dragged roughly to his feet by Taff and TT, he was handed over to the police and driven away with all dispatch.
Taff, TT and Alan Pearson were still standing on the lawn when Marty, having hurried down from the command centre, arrived in their midst. Gazing at the hostages still lying on the grass, then at the burning, smoking embassy building, he grinned with a great deal of pleasure and said, ‘Who dares wins.’
‘Damned right,�
� Taff retorted.
To be continued…
Also available in the ‘Exit Club’ series as Kindle ebooks:
Book One: The Originals Book Two: Bad Boys Book Three: The Professionals Book Five: Old Comrades
GLOSSARY
agal small Arab cap or band for holding a head-dress in place
ARU Air Reconnaissance Unit
ASU active service unit
atap a kind of jungle palm
BBE Bizondere Bystand Eenheid
beasting psychological trick of pleasantness followed by abuse, used by Directing Staff (DS) during exercises
Bofors gun light anti-aircraft gun
casevac casualty evacuation (a casevac CCO
changkol
chappal
COBR
COMMCEN COPS
CQB
CT
CT
DPG
DPM DS DZ
E and E Exfiltration Fincos FOB
Fred (a Fred) futah
GEO
gharries Ghibili GIGN
GPMG green slime nickname for members of the SAS Intelligence Corps GSG-9 German border police antiterrorist unit
HALO high-altitude, low-opening, said of a certain kind of dangerous parachute jump
Int and Sy Group Intelligence and Security Group helicopter)
Clandestine Communist Organization a kind of hoe
Indian sandal
Cabinet Office Briefing Room communications centre
close-observation platoons
close-quarter battle
communist terrorist (note: two CTs, see next)
counter-terrorist
Diplomatic Protection Group
disruptive-pattern material
directing staff (in exercises)
drop zone, a landing zone for
parachutists
escape and evasion
surreptitious withdrawal of troops, spies etc., esp. from danger
field intelligence NCOs
forward operating base
a tout for MI5
long-sleeved Arab robe
Spain’s Grupo Especial de
Operaciones
horse-drawn carriages
a hot, dust-carrying wind
Groupment d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie
general-purpose machine gun
jarit left
a meal of raw pork, rice and salt, Ju Stukas
Keeni-Meeni
kijang
Kremlin, the kukri
kunjia LMG LRDG LUPS
LZ
maroon machine
Milos
MIOs MPI
MSR
NITAT
NOCS OP padi
parang
PC
PIRA to putrefy buried in the ground in a bamboo shoot, favoured by the Dyaks of Borneo
German fighter planes
Swahili term used to describe the
movement of a snake in the grass, adopted by soldiers as a description of undercover work
a barking deer found in the jungle nickname for the intelligence Section of Regimental HQ
a machete
Omani knife
light machine gun
Long Range Desert Group
laying-up positions, dug out of the desert floor or earth, usually for sleeping in
landing zone
Parachute Regiment troops in Northern Ireland
military intelligence liaison
officers
military intelligence officers mean point of impact, a term used by marksmen
main supply route
Northern Ireland Training
Advisory Team
Italian Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza
observation post
Malayan paddy-field
large, heavy Malayan knife also used as a weapon
patrol commander
Provisional IRA
PNGs QRF R and I
RAOC
Rattan
REME
RTU RV
samsu
SARBE SAS
SBS
seladang
Senussi
SF
shemagh
souk
SOP Tab
TAOR
Tapai
ulu yomping passive night-vision goggles quick-reaction force
resistance to interrogation
Royal Army Ordnance Corps Malaysian climbing palm
Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
return to (original) unit, a form of punishment for misdemeanour rendezvous point
a strong spirit made from rice surface-to-air rescue beacon Special Air Service
Special Boat Section
wild ox or bison of Malaya Muslim fraternity found in 1837 security forces
a type of shawl worn around the head by Arab peoples
Arab market-place
Standard Operating Procedure route march
tactical area of responsibility a rice wine favoured by the Dyaks of Borneo
Malayan jungles as known by the natives
a colloquial word for marching
Other Kindle e-books by Shaun Clarke Underworld Red Hand
The Opium Road Dragon Light
