by Tom Marcus
I was a bit heavy-handed and perhaps coming across a bit holier than thou, but the message was right. We work among the public, never being seen but watching everything, ready to rip apart the predators as they hunt the weak.
As Ryan opened the door, he seemed to be considering what I’d said.
‘Tom, the team means more to me than anything else I’ve ever cared about.’ Turning to look at me, he lowered his voice slightly. ‘When my time is up, I will go out knowing the people that have killed me won’t be anywhere near you or the team.’
‘Bro, wait. It’s all about the people at home, those are the people who need you in this team. Please.’
I hadn’t realized how important Ryan was to me until this moment. Maybe it was a result of trying to be a friend to him after watching him break down in the gym. I didn’t know and didn’t care. I just knew it shouldn’t end like this but I could see his mind was made up.
‘Catch you on the flip side, brother,’ was all he said, then headed for the stairs that would take him deep into Thames House and the admin department that looks after everything from our cover identities to our pay. Watching Ryan walk away, still in his bloodied gym kit looking like he’d been mugged, I knew that was the last time he’d be in a team car. Once the team and group leaders knew he was resigning they wouldn’t put him on the ground. He’d spend the next few weeks sorting his paperwork out, handing kit in and taking any outstanding leave he had left.
I felt dejected as I locked my car. A set of headlights swung round and I saw my team leader, Graeme.
I walked towards his car, and realizing I had news he pulled up, lowering his window.
‘Ryan’s leaving the teams. He’s gone to hand his notice in.’
‘Fucking twat!’ Pure anger was directed onto Graeme’s accelerator pedal, car wheels spinning as he barrelled into an open space. Then he was out and striding towards me.
‘What did he say?’ Graeme was pissed; losing an operator, especially one as good as Ryan, is disruptive and unsettling to your team.
‘That he has no family, no one in his life. And he’s done.’
That did stop him in his tracks, although only briefly. ‘Fuck’s sake. OK, thanks mate, see you in the briefing room, I’ll go and find Ryan.’
But whatever Graeme said, if he even did say anything, obviously had little impact, because that was the last time I saw Ryan – a combination of our team being flat out on MAGENTA STOAT and Ryan going through the clearing process of leaving MI5.
After that day’s briefing, we all ran down to our cars to get out on the ground quick, no time to think about Ryan or anything else personal. We’d just been told that MAGENTA STOAT and LAST DAWN felt confident enough to go ahead and attack our communications system. The method they were about to use was incredibly advanced and complicated, but that didn’t matter to our team. We were focused on finding them both and bringing in the arrest teams.
No sooner had the team gone through our radio checks than Base was straight onto us. ‘All stations, MAGENTA STOAT and LAST DAWN now thought to be in the area of Vauxhall Cross and the southern end of the bridge, STEEL BADGE is in play.’
‘Team Leader, roger. Base, can you let Six know.’
‘Base, roger, doing it now.’
Fuck, most of us – including me – had gone over Lambeth Bridge or up past Westminster, but both targets were actually right near MI6 on the south side of the river. This was the first time I’d ever operated this close to Thames House or Vauxhall Cross.
The tyres on the car struggled with the speed I was taking around a roundabout. There were already members of the team coming into Vauxhall, cars, people on foot, every available asset we had to find these two before they managed to start their plan.
As we searched the area we had to be mindful of how naturally alert everyone is outside the MI6 building. It’s a lot more recognizable than Thames House and stands out a mile. We knew the targets were here somewhere, but if they were hidden they could potentially be initiating the start of their plan to gain remote access to monitor our comms.
‘Base, do you read Group Leader?’ Derek was on the ground with us, but I hadn’t seen him at the briefing and couldn’t see him out here.
‘Go ahead.’
Every member of this team was desperate to find MAGENTA STOAT and LAST DAWN but, just like me, they’d be listening intently to what Derek was about to say.
‘I’ve just been speaking to a friend at Six up on the seventh floor. Can we play these guys at their own game, make this whole place a pressure cooker and flush them out?’
‘Base, yes, we think that’s a good idea. What would you like us to do here?’
Derek outlined his plan to go overtly loud and make it clear we were looking for the targets. ‘Green Team, stay hidden and cover all the routes in and out of here, including someone on the water. Bring in marked police cars with the blue lights on, lock Six down and bring their security to their access points, making them visible. At the same time drop the mobile network for this immediate area.’
‘Base, roger that. Give us sixty seconds to set it up.’
‘Team Leader, roger all the last. Zero Six, can you ditch your car and get down to the pier just to the west of Vauxhall Bridge? I’ll have a police boat pick you up so you can light the water up.’
‘Roger that, I’ll be there in three zero seconds.’
The level of coordination needed to go into this at lightning speed would be putting the operations officer and the support team to the test.
‘Zero Six out on foot, can someone watch my car just south of the bridge?’
‘Team Leader will. Cheers, Zero Six.’
Ditching the car on the main road, I ran across to the pier and could already see a police boat coming in fast.
The police boat had three armed officers on board, one piloting, one standing next to him and one in the back holding a spare life vest who was intending to greet me. The boat swung around quickly, edging into the pier, and I jumped straight on, startling the guy in the back who was obviously used to helping people aboard after they had shored up.
‘Can you head back towards the bridge on the south side?’
Nodding, the pilot gunned the throttle and the boat pitched back with the power, then slowed down again within seconds as we got underneath the bridge.
‘Can you shine your searchlights onto the bank below the building and underneath the bridge please?’
‘No worries, what am I looking for?’ The officer next to the pilot was incredibly fast and efficient at his job.
‘Anything that shouldn’t be there. Can we put the blue lights on too, the same as the uniform cars up top?’
By hitting the lights we were putting the pressure on from the water as well as the land. The guy in the back of the boat had put the life vest down and was using his own high-powered torch to search. Over the radios I could hear Base relaying that they were about to drop the mobile network in this immediate area.
‘Thanks Base, from Group Leader, wait for them to come to us now, we know they are here.’
‘Zero Six from Group Leader, can you make more of an impact on the water please? Bigger, noisier.’
No point replying, I didn’t want to big time it in front of these guys, and besides, Derek and the team would see I’d heard the transmission soon.
‘Can we put the sirens on too, and start doing fast patrols of this bank,’ I said. ‘We need it to be loud!’
‘I can do loud!’ said the pilot. I got the sense this police team were loving all the tearing about on the water.
Two more police cars on blue lights came flying over the bridge above us just as Derek had another suggestion: ‘Can we have some foot crews down in the tube at track level just in case they try and escape down there?’ He wasn’t short of volunteers.
Getting bounced about on the boat, I turned to the officer on the back who was still searching the darkness with his light. ‘Can I borrow that vest please?’ I ha
d to raise my voice over the sirens. The police officers were helping us here, and making sure I stayed safe would help solidify our relationship.
‘Sure.’
‘Have you got a police hat too?’
‘You want another boat on this?’ The co-pilot clearly wanted to give us everything we needed.
‘If it’s available, yeah! Shouldn’t be much longer now.’
The pilot yelled back, ‘We’re on shift handover so the crew might not be ready yet.’
The co-pilot was moving his search light with one hand and pulling his phone out with the other, to ring and check for the availability on another boat.
I was following the searchlights when the co-pilot shouted back to me, ‘Eh, is this you?’ He showed me his phone screen. ‘No signal?’
‘No, that’s not us, could be the bridge maybe? Blocking the signal.’ It was us.
The co-pilot and pilot exchanged a look; they knew I was lying. Suddenly I heard one of my team running and then Jenny’s words filled the radio. ‘STAND BY STAND BY, I have control of MAGENTA STOAT and LAST DAWN, they are both running east of Vauxhall Grove!’
Tapping the pilot to get his attention, and talking into his ear, I said, ‘Can you take me back please, we’re done. Thanks very much!’
Giving a thumbs up and a cut sign across my throat to the co-pilot and the officer in the back, I started removing my life vest, constantly adjusting my feet to cope with the speed of the boat as it pitched around back to the pier.
As it pulled in I thanked everyone and then I was out and running back towards my car.
‘From Base, Executive Action coming in now.’
The strike team was obviously in place ready to hit the two men the moment we had control. The police cars had already moved off and Vauxhall Cross was back to its normal self, with the security teams downgrading their presence. As I sat in my car listening to the radio, I could hear Jenny updating the team. ‘Executive Action has control of both MAGENTA STOAT and LAST DAWN.’
We’d got the fuckers. A quick look at my phone screen showed that the team back in Thames House had already brought the mobile phone network back up.
‘All stations from Base, cease and withdraw back to the garages at Romeo Papa.’
It made operational sense not to return to Thames House from here, given the level of overt pressure we had just exerted. Despite it being late at night there were still people around – no point handing them a gift and letting them see us all drive back into Thames House.
Safely inside the off-site garages, we all stood around while Derek told us one of his stories from back in the day. Ryan should be here to hear this. I hoped he’d made the right decision leaving the teams.
Derek stopped talking as he noticed the the operations officer walking stiffly towards us.
‘Great job, Greens. Treating the area as a pressure cooker worked perfectly. Get yourselves home, I’ll send a team message out soon with the details of tomorrow’s job.’
What?! That’s it? A priority-one target had just been stopped and we didn’t get to hear anything else? Graeme wanted to know more, we all did.
‘Anything else on LAST DAWN or MAGENTA STOAT?’
The operations officer looked confused by the question, as if he had already told us what we needed to know. He glanced over to Derek for some back-up.
Derek, who’d been leaning against one of our cars, straightened up. ‘Does it matter?’ No one answered as we weren’t sure whether it was a rhetorical question or not, and he was a group leader after all.
Trying to reassure us, he moved a step closer. ‘Look, you guys know this is what we do. The bullshit afterwards doesn’t matter to us. We find the targets given to us and pass the intelligence on. If these two have been put on a plane back to the motherland, so what? Does it affect how we hunt the next target?’
There was silence throughout the team, but the way the ops officer twitched slightly when Derek mentioned them both being sent back to the motherland was very telling.
‘Guys, we don’t get told the ins and outs of every target before or after for a very good reason. We’ve only got so much brain capacity and we need that focused on the targets we are going after. Trust me, deal with what’s in front of you, nothing else. It’s easier.’
Derek was right. And I was tired, hungry and just wanted to be home.
13
SERVING HIS COUNTRY
He was found lying in a pool of his own sick in a tiny flat that stank of urine and excrement. It looked like a rabid dog had been locked inside for weeks.
But it wasn’t a rabid dog. It was my dad. He’d separated from my mum and was living on his own. I hadn’t seen him for years, Lucy hadn’t even met him, and if I’m brutally honest I didn’t think about him very often. Until I got the call. I’d just pulled into my driveway, late home again, when my mobile rang.
‘He’s dead,’ my sister said. Quite a few years older than me, she hadn’t been around much during my childhood, but we stayed in touch as adults.
I was so late Lucy was already up getting breakfast ready when I walked in. I closed and double-locked the front door on autopilot. I wasn’t sure how I felt.
‘Tom, you OK?’ Lucy could tell something wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t sad, nor shaken. I felt like I’d been told about an event from my past I’d managed to block out and forget. Now it was all coming back to me.
‘Yeah. My dad. He was found dead late last night.’
‘Oh God, Tom, I’m sorry. How? What happened? Does your sister know?’
Pushing me onto a chair at the kitchen table, giving me some water, Lucy was expecting me to be gripped by grief. Why wasn’t I more upset?
‘Yeah, she knows, she just rang and told me. They don’t know what happened but I know. He drank himself to death. Got to be.’ Realizing I was desperately thirsty, I downed the glass of water in front of me. I wasn’t sure if I was dehydrated from the job or if this was an emotional response.
Lucy patiently waited for me to open up. Although I refused to talk about what I was going through with my team I didn’t really feel the need to hide my real thoughts about my dad.
‘He always had a problem with drink, I think because he went through some pretty bad times in the army. I remember as a kid, when he couldn’t afford to buy vodka, he’d get his alcohol fix by drinking his aftershave.’
As I heard my son calling out from his bedroom, I broke off and went to see him. I was determined now more than ever that I would be the father and husband my own dad should have been if he’d ever had the help or courage to face down his demons.
The funeral took a while to arrange given that his cause of death had to be determined. It turned out that the constant drinking had weakened the muscles in his heart, causing it to explode in his chest. The way he died was horrific, but given his mental state I was relieved he was dead. Not because I hated him but because he was now at peace.
I don’t feel any bitterness over the way he treated me, nor any great anger. Yes, my childhood was shit. But it made me who I am today. It wasn’t my dad’s fault he acted the way he did. He was clearly suffering from mental health injuries from his time in the military and the only way he could cope with that was by drinking so heavily he could no longer be held hostage by his own thoughts.
On the day of the funeral, I travelled to his home town, where the service was taking place. At the crematorium I met his brother, the only one of his siblings who came that day. My uncle looked just like my dad, with his traditional side parting, greying and receding hairline and a small thin frame. But that was where the resemblance ended: my uncle was not an alcoholic. He wasn’t ever in the military.
My uncle did a double take when he saw me for the first time since I was a toddler. ‘You look just like him . . .’
He was warm and sincere. A good man. Leaving him talking to my sister and a few distant relatives I’d never met before, I walked towards the back of the hearse. I could see one of my two requests
had been granted. The Union Flag was placed on top of Dad’s coffin, perfectly ironed with no fold creases to be seen. I could only think how proud he would be to see it there. Despite his huge faults, my dad still served this country and that should always be respected. And he tried to be a decent human being. It’s hard for any of us to get it right all the time, there is no manual, and when you self-medicate with alcohol, you’re going to end up in a bad place if you don’t get help.
I hated funerals, because I didn’t need reminding we would die, and it was sombre there.
‘Now, Tom, are you going to carry the coffin in?’ my uncle asked in a hushed tone.
‘Yeah, but not on my own!’
My uncle burst out laughing, then cried a little. ‘You are just like him, Tom. He would always make a joke of the darkness.’
Maybe that was his problem? What if I am just like my dad?
We eased his coffin out of the hearse – myself, my uncle and four other men, all strangers – and carried my dad inside the church.
Coffins aren’t heavy, at least not with my dad inside. When he died he was around seven stone; the alcohol had wasted much of his muscle mass and his bones had become weaker too.
The sermon didn’t last long. No one gave a eulogy.
Towards the end of the service my second request was granted and ‘The Last Post’ rang out, so significant for the military, serving or veterans. It was the first time in years I had stood to attention, but with my head bowed I could see in my periphery one of my dad’s cousins looking at me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking but I didn’t care. I wasn’t standing there to impress others, or to look like a martyr; Look at me, I’ve lost my dad. I was there to pay my respects to a person who served our country, and who should have been my dad but never got the chance.
It took a while for us to get the ashes, but I made sure I was going to scatter them. I only ever remembered my dad being happy once, when he was next to the sea. Lucy and I made a trip to Portsmouth to put him to rest in the water. I’m not normally one for symbolism but despite everything I wanted to do the right thing for him.
