No Fear

by Steve Devereux

  I was still standing in silence. About 15 seconds later he replied. 'This 50 per cent down in advance. Is this standard?'

  He knew it was. He was playing the game.

  'Yes, sir. That's 50 now and the balance on completion of the job. That's standard for this sort of job, and with all respect, we haven't dealt with you before.' Perhaps that last comment was pushing it a bit but the client didn't seem to be offended — at least, he didn't show any physical signs of it.

  'OK. Since you mentioned dollars, I'll give you the 50 per cent advance in dollars and the balance in sterling. Are we in agreement?' he was now addressing me direct. Making eye contact.

  I gave a three second pause before I answered. 'US dollars?' I said in a tone that implied I had accepted his terms. I knew he was talking in US dollars but even the mega-rich play these silly little games. He might have been talking in Eastern Caribbean dollars which were worth one and a half times less.

  Business is all about the individual power we have over each other. It's an ego game, all about winning. We did the job. We did it well and got a result (which is not always the case), and we even got paid (which, in this business, is not always the case either!).

  As I say, Alistair was successful in what he did. The second time he came to London we discussed what each could do for the other. Nothing serious, nothing written down on paper but a mutual respect for each other's skills and abilities. I liked Alistair. He was another ex-officer I respected and was a bit like me, still trying to make it in the world of business, a milieu very unlike the SAS or the Royal Marines, where your buddy was indeed your buddy and not the Grim Reaper in disguise, ready to stitch you up for a couple of quid; where your word was your word.

  So over a long boozy lunch in Olivers we looked at how our two companies could benefit each other. I told him that at that moment we were waiting to hear from Abu Dhabi regarding an anti-terrorist training package that I had put together for the government there, and that through a Kuwaiti friend we were still hoping for a mine-clearing task for the Kuwaiti Government or for KPC. (At the time I wasn't sure who was holding the reins on this one. I still thought we had a chance with this 'live' project, since the Iraqis had blown up so many oil wells during their retreat and the routes to them had to be cleared of mines before the specialist teams of firefighters and oil workers could get in and stop the flow of oil. Royal Ordnance surely couldn't take on this entire contract, I thought. It would only be a matter of time before they subbed the work out. But that was wishful thinking, and I was totally wrong.)

  We concluded by agreeing that the future between us looked pretty good and if we could work together on joint projects, that would obviously be excellent.

  Within a week of Alistair's return to Africa he was on the phone about a chance meeting with one of the project coordinators of an aid organisation in Somaliland (Northern Somalia), an old British Protectorate which was now another post-colonial mess.

  This chance meeting happened at the bar of the Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi. Just as any two ex-pats from the same country might in an overseas bar, they got talking, explaining to each other what they were actually doing there. This chap, Dave Morton, represented one of the NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations), specifically the IHA (The International Humanitarian Agency), who gave money to this part of Africa. It was his job to co-ordinate all the foreign workers involved with the distribution of aid, such as food, medical services, and the general 'hearts and minds' policy. He and his fellow workers were having a real problem with mines, anti-personnel ones in particular, and he had flown south to Kenya to have urgent phone talks with his people back in Europe. He desperately needed a team of Western mine-clearance experts to come in and sort it all out.

  As Alistair related the story to me by fax and phone over the next few days, it became clear that Somaliland really did have a big problem. The country had literally just finished a long bloody civil war with the people in the south, commonly known as Somalia, in which well over 50,000 people had been killed, and whilst every effort was being made to bring in aid and get the country back on its feet again, aid workers and local people were constantly being taken out by mines. Every day 50 or so people — mainly kids — who had been mutilated by mines were brought into the makeshift hospital at Hargeisa with their limbs hanging off or blown off completely. The aid doctors could not physically cope with this added problem, and furthermore, two of their nurses had recently been casevaced, also victims of mines.

  Throughout the country there were more than 1,000 deaths a day due to mines, out of a population of only one and a half million. It seemed extremely frustrating, as we waited for an answer, that here was a project I knew we could carry out with a great deal of professionalism, and in some respects, with relative ease.

  I had a lot of experience in working in conditions like those in Somaliland. I knew all about how to run the hearts and minds side, getting the population on your side, getting them working not for you but alongside you, and I knew how very important that was to the success of any operation. I had the manufacturer contacts to arrange the technical and support equipment, and also the ability to plan and carry out an operation such as this, whilst Alistair had the local point of contact and was doing all he could in persuading the NGOs and others of our suitability for the project.

  Because of our military backgrounds, both Alistair and I looked upon this operation as a great challenge and we put in as much effort as we would have done had we been back in the SAS and the Marines. It wasn't only the money. I have always got, and still get, a great personal pleasure out of working in these types of environments, a feeling of such satisfaction from being in a position actually to help people who have very little faith left in life.

  Alistair had done such a good job of convincing Dave that Cadogan was the right company to carry out the operation, that all we had to do was submit our costs. Because the urgency of getting a mine-clearance company out and on the ground was so great, we were told that we were not in a bidding race with any other company. Quite amazingly, no other company even knew of this contract! It was my bet that the other UK mine-clearance companies — which you could count on one hand — still had their noses well and truly stuck in the Kuwait trough. A dream come true, this was the answer to all of Forester's financial problems. Even better, funds from the NGOs and other aid organisations had already anticipated the situation in Somaliland, so had allocated funds for mine-clearance; this would cut much of the red tape which usually surrounds such organisations when they release funds.

  So, here was a contract about to land neatly in Forester's lap. All of my costings and equipment lists had already been written for the Kuwait contract. All I had to do was to reconfirm the availability of all the equipment, check out the prices of radios, and change the name of the client on all the pages of the documents.

  To be accurate, the mine-clearance task was slightly different, in that it was essentially a training task, training the local militia and/or population in mine-clearance techniques, rather than a definite 'hands-on' operation where you go out into the minefield with your mine prodder, helmet and body armour and perform the task yourself. My only concern was some friction between myself and Forester as to where we should recruit the team members from.

  Because I was ex-Army, and this was to be a land-based job, my view was that we should recruit from ex-Royal Engineers (in particular 9 Squadron), the Airborne element, or the Royal Artillery (or as it was called then, the Ordnance Corps). I had my reasons. I had worked with these 9 Squadron guys and they knew how to rough it, should the need require; and from reading the reports being sent back from Alistair I knew we would be working in a pretty hostile environment. I was convinced that these well-trained guys could not only do the technical side of the job, but would be able to hack it as well.

  Forester, on the other hand, seemed to favour the Royal Navy option. I couldn't quite get my head around the fact that I'd never seen a minefield on board a s
hip. I'm not saying that the Royal Navy were not up to it — technically they were; but that was only half the job. There's no substitute for having worked out in the field, where the only luxury available was getting into the outdoor shower before all the hot water, heated during the day by the sun, had been used up.

  Nonetheless, against my protests, Forester went with the Navy option. During this period I saw a considerable change in Forester's attitude, not only towards me, but also towards those people (including Alistair) who'd supported him during the build-up phase of the contract. It's strange that as soon as someone gets money, they seem to think they have power over the rest of us. I began to see this in Forester and it was something I informed Alistair about. He had to be made aware that Forester's main concern in all of this business seemed to be how much money could be made out of this contract. If that meant cutting corners and in turn risking the safety aspect of those on the ground, then in my opinion he probably would.

  For over six weeks before the advance funds for this £2.5 million contract (some £250,000) arrived at Coutts Bank in Mount Street, I hadn't been paid — the company could not afford it. This was my decision, to work knowing that I might or might not be paid, taken on the strength of believing that we would get the contract. I had every faith in the project during that time, and I was really keen to get to Somaliland and help these people.

  It was a gamble that paid off, or so it seemed then.

  1 1

  MINE CLEARANCE, SOMALILAND

  I t was a really shitty flight from Charles de Gaulle airport to Djibouti. The aircraft was full to capacity and we must have flown through every bit of turbulence Mother Nature could have thrown at us. The smell of French Disque Bleu cigarettes didn't help either. The entire plane seemed to be smoking this brand. When I disembarked I smelt like I'd spent the past several hours sleeping in camel's dung.

  My first night in Djibouti was spent sleeping on the floor of MSF's main HQ. It was a wooden four-bedroom bungalow, complete with outside loo, in one of the city's more upmarket districts. Having an outside loo gives you some idea of what century I'd just arrived in. Actually, the conditions were not that bad and I was made really welcome by my multinational hosts, mainly French, Belgium and Danish people. They had no problems in hacking it; why should I?

  I'd planned to spend only two days in Djibouti organising the movement of the stores and equipment from a secure MSF warehouse on to the quickest and safest transport I could find to run it up into Somaliland. I was keen to start as soon as possible. Getting the mine-clearance admin phase up and running ASAP before the team flew in was my number one priority. You could say that I was the advance party for the operation.

  My forward planning written back in London went to pot within hours of landing, so I spent two more valuable days running around Djibouti than planned. It seemed that no one had given any thought to transporting our kit into Somaliland. I'd been told back in the UK that all our equipment and stores were to precede me by one day and were being secured by some of the relief agencies, but this was not the case. They had no brief to guard it, only store it, and there was no way I could stag on for the duration over this mass of valuable, very expensive and attractive kit. Still, it was up to me to sort the problem. Thinking on my feet, I hired four of MSF's loyal local helpers to stand guard.

  I had come across aid workers during my trip to Mozambique and they are a different kind of human being. Most are university-educated from middle-class backgrounds and they have given up earning a decent standard of living in order to help those in the Third World. In my opinion, these men and women are the unsung heroes of the charity world. They work in the shittiest of conditions for the most appalling rates of pay, year in and year out, all over Africa and the Far East. Yet we rarely hear about all the good work they do. I equated their working environment to that of the SAS but without the guns — I guess that's why I got on well with them. Like them, I've never had any trouble in roughing it. It's nice to have all your creature comforts all around you, but you don't really miss them when they're not at hand. For example, no matter how many episodes of your favourite soap you miss, whether it's over ten days or ten months, you can generally pick up the storyline when you return to it.

  Danish Dik, a lanky-looking 30-year-old who was one of the agency's field operators, took me out for a beer on the first night. The city reminded me of how Cuamba might have looked 20 years before, but without that Portuguese feel. Djibouti was a throwback to the French colonial days. There was a large French garrison still in residence, mainly the French Foreign Legion and support units. It could have done with a touch of paint here and there to spruce up the once-grandiose buildings on the main drag, and a touch of tarmac wouldn't have have gone amiss.

  Dik took me to a couple of ex-pat haunts to see if we could bump into the crew of C130 Hercules transport aircraft chartered by the US aid organisation CARE, which had been flying food missions in and out of Somalia for the past few months. The idea was to try and get them to sort out my immediate transport problem. I wasn't really going on the piss as such, I was combining business with a bit of pleasure.

  Since it was a Friday, the city was buzzing. It was still early in the evening but following Dik's recommendation we avoided certain bars where the Legion drank. That was OK by me. If they were anything like the bars in Aldershot where I used to drink as a young paratrooper, there was no way I wanted to sample their delights. Also, I didn't want to bump into any ex-British soldier who for some reason had failed the 'all arms' P Company (the parachute course for any member of the British Armed Forces, reputed to be one of the hardest in the world) because he had to RTU and then had done a runner, gone AWOL from his unit and joined the Foreign Legion — all because his missus was being screwed by a Para. A similar story was once relayed to me about a Guardsman when I was stationed in Berlin. Having to do a fighting withdrawal with my new Danish mate out of a bar full of pissed French Legionnaires would be a nightmare. That's not my idea of a good Friday night. It used to be, but not now.

  I'd had experience with the French Foreign Legion a few years back when I did my HALO free-fall course in Pau, France. *

  There was a unit of Legionnaires based there and we jumped with them and often went on the piss with them. It had invariably ended in a fight of some sort. Nothing vicious, just soldiers having pride in their units and reliving past battle honours with a couple of gallons of beer inside them.

  Eventually we ended up in the bar of the Hotel Europa after trawling three less riotous bars in pursuit of the Here aircrew. Dik assured me that they, too, would be out on the piss, so we weren't on a wild goose chase. There was nothing else for the ex-pat to do out here, and really it was the only time when you actually got anything done. You would arrange to meet whoever in a certain bar and discuss the following day's or week's business. This was par for the course all over the world, the ex-pats' way, whether English, German or French.

  Hotel Europa was more civilised and the class of women were a tad on the better side. I got on well with Dik. He, too, was an ex-paratrooper, and since I had gone on a six-week exercise to Denmark with 2 Para years ago where we were pitched up against a bunch of very eager Danish paratroopers, we had a lot in common and much to talk about. It was all anecdotal stuff but he was good company, and like the rest of modern Europe, he spoke excellent English.

  Soon, it was getting near 'Cinderella' time and I was finally giving up the ghost about bumping into this aircrew, at least that night. I was jet-lagged and the local lager was beginning to take effect and as the pores of my skin were continually pissing out this stuff, I was getting a bit agitated. All I wanted to do was get my head down. The bar was far too packed and noisy for my liking, especially for the first night in country. I didn't want to rip the arse out of it just yet, I normally do that on the last day, not the first. Anyway, we didn't find them, so Dik took me back to the basha the way we came, in the standard beat-up Japanese taxi, driven by a local nutter with a
death wish.

  Much to my surprise, the following morning I awoke bright and early, ready to attack the day. My first task was to locate all of the team's equipment and check that everything had arrived and was still secured; after that I would give a quick call to Forester to say all was well. I don't think he had any idea of how things actually worked on the ground, because he was constantly faxing me for progress reports, with questions like, 'How long will it take?' and 'Why do you need that amount of money?' Perhaps he thought that because we were English and we were over here to help these people out, they should be grateful. This was arrogance in him, but he just couldn't help himself. As it was, I didn't phone until I had some news.

  Eventually I managed to meet up with the aircrew at the most obvious place — aboard their Here. They were a mixed assortment of ex-servicemen all wearing bits of their old combat uniforms. The pilot was a chain-smoking Canadian called Baz; his co-pilot, a short aggressive-looking South African, was always ready to spin the odd war story or two, bit of a joker in fact; and the navigator, an American, was a dead ringer for the actor Bill Cosby. All three were old hands and had been flying missions of one sort or another across Africa for years. The loadie, Ted, was the 'new boy', an ex-Bootneck, which was really handy. He had only been part of the crew for just over a year and said that he really enjoyed flying with 'the old men'. Ted and I were about the same age and, like myself, he came from London. What's more, he was a Falklands vet and served with 42 Commando during the war, so we already had much in common, and it didn't take long before I had solved my transport problem. It was a chance in a million that the pilot had pretty much an open agenda — as long as he kept flying relief missions over Somalia, he was doing his job. Having to fly a bit further north on this occasion was no great drama.