by Andy McNab
They conferred for a minute and, while it was all in Farsi, from the tone I pretty much knew how the conversation was going – Mr MD was wondering how much he could reveal to a Western technical journalist, and Majid was reminding him that this was a showcase of Iranian capabilities so he shouldn’t hold back.
Whatever passed between them, Mr MD relaxed. He started to tell me about a new shoulder-launched missile called the Misagh-3, which he claimed was even better than the latest versions of the American Stinger.
I jotted some notes and stuffed the brochure he gave me into my day-sack. If nothing else, it made me look like I knew what I was doing while I worked out how to get to M3C instead of listening endlessly to what the Iranians were doing in the name of the Great Republic.
53
Majid took me into a room constructed from three adjacent Portakabins. It looked like it had been air-dropped into Iran from the 1972 Ideal Home Exhibition, and the cigarette smoke hovering at face level gave it that extra stamp of authenticity. The work surface running around its edge was covered with brown Formica. The floor was covered with red and black marbled lino tiles that did their best to camouflage the burn marks from stubbed-out butts. Air-conditioning units were built into the wall, but none was switched on. They probably didn’t work.
On the left-hand side, some local journalists typed away on desk-top computers that Alan Sugar would have fired immediately. The light grey plastic had been turned black in places by years of handling, and the air vents looked like coked-up exhaust pipes. Several more journos jabbered into Bakelite telephones set up alongside them.
On the far side of the room two or three foreign journalists pounded away on their laptops. One was the guy with the jungle hat and long lens I’d spotted earlier. A TV in the corner was belting out Iran’s version of Sunrise. Same colour scheme, same rolling news at the bottom of the screen. The only thing missing was Eamonn Holmes. And his tie.
Majid waved his arm to clear some of the smoke from an Iranian journalist standing next to us. ‘This is the press centre. From here, Mr Munley, you can file your stories to your editor, check the latest announcements from companies at the show or simply relax. You will find everything that you need here, including free Internet access. Know that all your editorial needs can be met in this room. And if there is anything we haven’t thought of, then all you have to do is ask.’
Only part of me was listening. The rest was tracking a girl who’d just walked into the room. The scarf on her head didn’t quite cover her hair, which was so naturally blonde I knew she couldn’t be Iranian. She looked a whole lot like the one from Abba I’d fancied big-time as a teenager. I used to sit in the NAAFI as a sixteen-year-old boy soldier with my pint of Vimto and a steak and kidney pie, waiting for Top of the Pops to come on. ‘Dancing Queen’ had been number one for what seemed five years, and this boy soldier always hoped her reign would be extended one more week.
As she manoeuvred past us and sat down under the TV, it was like having Cinza walk by at the funeral. The Red Sea parted. I studied her face. And why not? Every other man in the room was. The high cheekbones gave her away. She was Ukrainian or Russian; eastern European, for sure.
The bit of me that wasn’t tracking her and listening to Majid was trying to work out how I could access the chalet line that Kettle had told me about – the VIP area where the execs hung out away from prying eyes; the place where the real deals were done and maybe Altun would be. I needed to head over to M3C and get an invite.
‘Majid, I need to do a comparison of the missile system I’ve just seen with what the Russians are developing in the same field. Are M3C exhibiting here?’
Majid riffled through the show guide. ‘They are in Hall Two, at Stand Three E – next door, in fact, to the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Complex. You know this company, I suspect, James… Do you mind if I call you by this?’
‘No problem, mate.’ I knew I should have said James at the airport. Never mind, he was coming around.
Majid inclined his head in a mock-bow. ‘After you have visited the Russian stand, I can take you to see the director of Shahid Hemmat. You will like this company very much, James. It represents the very best of our Iranian technology. Doubtless you heard of the rocket that Iran put into orbit last year? The company that built it was Shahid Hemmat. You will be able to give your editor a real exclusive, believe me.’
You had to hand it to him. When his days in the Revolutionary Guard ended, he could always become a salesman for Iran plc.
54
In the middle of the M3C stand was the SA-16M, the missile that Kettle had asked me to look out for. It was spotlit from above and the placard beneath it was printed in Farsi, Russian and English. A number of salesmen in mega-smart suits tried to get eye-to-eye as Majid and I studied the latest addition to their company’s product range. I wondered how much of a discount they offered for gold.
For once, Majid was out of his depth. M3C wasn’t Iranian and he had no authority here. What he really wanted to do was to haul me next door, so I could big it up with the guys who’d pitched Iran into the ballistic-missile club – or, as he put it, ‘The peaceful pursuit of the commercial space business.’
The Russian stand was among the biggest and slickest at the show. Behind the weapons and the display boards, there was a reception area staffed by two heavily made-up girls with orange electric-beach tans, their heads covered with red scarves. Their eyelashes fluttered like electrocuted daddy long-legs. Just beyond them was a row of office windows. Shadows moved behind half-closed blinds. A squat Russian with a shaved head came out and barked at the salesmen, then disappeared.
I stepped up onto the stand and approached one of the mega-suits. ‘Do you speak English?’
‘Leetle…’
‘Jim Manley, ADTM.’ I handed over one of my business cards.
One of the other suits stepped forward. He’d gone to the trouble of Anglicizing the name on his card. It read: ‘Paul (not Pavel) Sergeyev, Media Relations’. Great, the company spin-doctor.
‘Hello, how can I help you?’
I explained who I was and what I was after. The mega-suit and Paul (not Pavel) went into a huddle with one of the girls who began hitting her keyboard.
I turned to see Majid deep in discussion with a little guy in a white turban and brown robe at Rockets R Us across the way. He must have been warming him up for me.
Paul (not Pavel) reappeared by my side. ‘Mr Manley, please forgive me for taking so long with my colleague. We just wished to check your magazine. Of course.’
His flawless English carried a hint of an American accent. ‘Now, please let me show you our wonderful SA-16M.’ He pointed towards the missile with an open hand, like a game-show host introducing tonight’s star prize.
55
I followed Paul (not Pavel) the few steps to the missile. ‘Mr Manley. Your magazine, it’s a good publication. I have just seen that we have our people translate it for our technical staff.’ He smiled. ‘They learn much from it. What do you need to know about the SA-16M?’
‘You could start, I guess, by telling me something about its status. Is it in production yet?’
‘Yes, yes, it’s in production.’
‘And what’s so special about it? The SA-16 has been around for years.’
He nodded. ‘It remains a favourite with our customers.’
I didn’t remind him that a whole load of those customers were terrorists. ‘So, talk me through it.’
Paul (not Pavel) lifted the green tube off its stand. He stood with it on his shoulder. ‘The SA-16, as I’m sure you know, Mr Manley, has no IFF interrogator. The SA-16M – the improved version you see here – retains the simplicity and robustness of the original design but adds the IFF interrogator. We are conscious that customers demand high levels of safety and assurance from the weapons that we sell them and so we have provided Identify Friend or Foe technology in our product. Nobody wants to be responsible for… What do you British call it? A blue-
on-blue? A friendly-fire incident, anyhow…’
‘Is that it?’
‘Well, there are some further modifications, but it would be wrong of me to discuss them in any depth.’
‘Countermeasures? It’s got to be. It’s all about getting the missile past the aircraft’s defences, isn’t it?’
‘You know your subject, Mr Manley. You look like you were once a military man…’
‘I was in the British Army. Way back. We used to fire the Blowpipe system. Not the easiest of man-portable weapons to use.’
Paul (not Pavel) laughed sympathetically. He was right. Blowpipe was a heap of shit. ‘I, too, was in the army, for many years. That is why I know this is an excellent piece of engineering for the man on the ground.’ He shrugged a little to adjust the weapon still on his shoulder. ‘It is completely fire-and-forget. It is so simple, a child could use it. And, with the SA-16M, the added bonus is that it is effectively immune to all the very latest countermeasure systems.’
I pointed at the missile. ‘I hear the seeker’s faulty.’
He laughed again, but uncomfortably this time. He took it almost as a personal insult. ‘No, these rumours are just that, rumours. We have been improving the seeker’s capability. It has been a period of development, not repair.’
‘Could you knock down an Apache with one of these?
He paused. ‘Mr Manley, you are drawing me into a technical discussion that I would prefer not to have. So let’s just say that with the SA-16M and even the non-IFF version, the SA-16, we have found an ingenious way of combating dark flares. That took some time to perfect. But if you know how to discriminate against dark flares, then you can defeat all countermeasure systems. You understand what I mean?’
I nodded. I did.
‘I expect you would like a simulation, yes?’
He handed me the missile launch tube. It felt pretty much the same weight as the Stingers I’d used in Afghanistan – against the Mi-24 Hinds these lads had flown in the eighties. Paul (not Pavel) looked the right sort of age to have been there. I threw it onto my right shoulder.
Paul (not Pavel) directed me to look through the sight. ‘First thing you must do is position the aircraft within the range ring – you need to keep it positioned there throughout the engagement sequence. The SA-16M is an all-aspect missile, which means you can engage the target from any angle. You understand?’
I nodded.
‘Next, you must interrogate the aircraft to see if it is friendly or not. The IFF interrogation switch is on the left-hand side of the gripstock. Here. You’ve got it?’
I felt for the switch with my thumb.
‘If the aircraft is friendly, it will transmit a coded signal back to the IFF interrogation system within the launcher. The system emits an audible signal that tells you whether the aircraft is confirmed friendly, possible friendly or unknown.’ He flicked a switch on the simulator console.
I heard a succession of short electronic beeps coming from the missile by my ear.
‘You hear that? That tells you the aircraft is a confirmed friendly.’
The beeps changed into a succession of longer signals.
‘This means possible friendly…’
The longer beeps changed into one continuous signal – a high-pitched wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
‘And this means the aircraft is unknown – for our purposes, therefore, it is the enemy. Clear so far?’
Clear, I told him. It was very much like a Stinger, but easier. Like he said, a child’s toy.
‘So, now you must select the arming switch, here on the other side of the gripstock. Feel it?’ He directed my forefinger to the switch. ‘Now, push it forward. This readies the weapon for firing – super-cooling the seeker to allow it to lock onto the target’s primary heat-source, most likely its engine. When enough infrared energy is detected, you will once more notice a high-pitched signal – there, you hear it?’
Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…
Like before, only louder.
‘That tells you the seeker has a firm lock and is tracking the heat-source.’
Once the missile was tracking the target, there was precious little its pilot could do, Paul (not Pavel) said. The missile operator just had to flick a switch forward of the gripstock from safety to armed, then pull the trigger. Provided the aircraft was below 10,000 feet, its destruction was 99.9 per cent guaranteed.
Where the SA-16M differed from any other system on the market – certainly one this affordable, Paul (not Pavel) added, with a smile you’d normally get from a car salesman – was that it defeated all known countermeasures. He didn’t mention those mysterious dark flares again, but I had already lodged the term and Kettle could translate when I was back in London.
I couldn’t quite see why the Taliban or a group of head jobs on the Heathrow flight-path would need Identify Friend or Foe technology: as far as they were concerned, everything up there was the enemy. But what worried me most was that Saddam’s doors could buy a shed-load of this shit.
I heard raised voices coming from the neighbouring stand. The Shahid Hemmat Industrial Complex had been invaded by the Iranian press corps. Photographers, reporters and film cameramen were jostling for position. Some even seemed to be coming to blows as they tracked an entourage a dozen strong, some wearing military uniform, moving between the ballistic-missile and space-launcher models. At the centre of the entourage, in the glare of the film camera lights, was the guy in the white turban and brown robe.
I turned to Paul (not Pavel). ‘What’s happening, mate?’
The Russian looked at his watch. ‘It’s Mohammad Kermanshahi, the leader of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He’s here for the press conference.’
‘What about?’
‘We are making a joint announcement with the Iranians.’ He glanced nervously at his watch again. ‘You will have to excuse me, Mr Manley. I need to make my way to the conference hall.’
When I turned back to Rockets R Us, I could see that Majid was being swept along by the crowd, against his will, towards one of the exits.
56
I slipped off the M3C stand and made my way to the exit furthest from the one I’d seen Majid jostled through. I pulled out the map of the exhibition centre and took a second to orient myself. The chalets were on the far side of the facility. A hatched line on the map indicated that they were segregated from the rest of the site by another level of security. The head shed didn’t want any Tom, Dick or Abdul invading their space as they talked business away from the prying eyes and ears of the exhibition halls. I wouldn’t even want to mix with people like me. If Altun was here, he’d want to be tucked away somewhere like that.
I passed through an exhibition hall filled with artillery pieces, rocket launchers and mortars, crossed the open area with the petal-strewn tank and fighter aircraft, and reached a barrier manned by a couple of AK-carriers. One was checking a pass by the driver’s window of a Toyota pick-up laden with bottles of mineral water and Zam Zam, Iran’s answer to Coca-Cola. I’d guzzled gallons of it in Afghanistan and got to quite like the stuff. It reminded me of the Strike Cola my mum used to buy in the Co-op to keep the dentist busy.
The guard returned the driver’s papers, raised the barrier and waved the truck through.
I flashed my press pass with the confidence that said, ‘Here it is, look at it, and fuck off,’ and kept moving. I ducked under the barrier and kept walking. Ahead of me was a row of single-storey executive Portakabins, with flags fluttering out front.
I pretended I knew where I was going and pressed on.
I found myself in a kind of avenue. The corporate hospitality suites stretched away to either side of me. There were clearly big bucks to be made here if you were in the mood to trade arms with the pariah state.
It was mid-morning and the sun was already high in the sky. The avenue was filled with people making their way to and from the chalets. Cars with blacked-out windows rolled past me. Crates of food and drink were off-load
ed into kitchens. The aroma of spicy food hung in the air.
It was hardly the Excel Centre, but it was busy. Among the Russians, Ukrainians, Moldovans and a dozen other dodgy former members of the Soviet Good Lads Club, I was just another white face. No one paid me the slightest attention.
I pressed on, turning to give the M3C chalet the once-over as I did a walk-past. It was much like their stand, bigger and slicker than the competition. The M3C logo, a stylized arrow bisecting a circle with a red star in it, fluttered on the company flag. A couple of BG straight out of Central Casting flanked the glass entrance. They were wearing sun-gigs and suits that couldn’t hide the weapons beneath their jackets. Five feet beyond them, engines running, were three very shiny black Mercedes saloons.
I’d walked past the chalet when I heard a crackle.
I turned.
One BG had a radio up to his ear. He brought it down and waffled back.
The other half snapped to attention and pulled open the door.
A third BG waited in the front passenger seat of the middle Merc.
A moment later, a man with slicked-back hair, sun-gigs and a khaki windcheater stepped out into the sunshine. He paused, as if to smell the air, and looked about him. He seemed particularly pleased with himself. Then, escorted by one of the BG who’d been on the door, he walked slowly down the steps and slid into the Mercedes.
I had a possible.
57
I dropped onto one knee and made like I was tying a shoelace. I tried to get my Nikon up. Too late. The Mercedes pulled out of its parking slot and headed in the direction I’d just come from.
I doubled back as quick as I could against the flow of people.
