It was a fairly straightforward task. Fly into PATA, Pontrilas Army Training Area, just south of Hereford, with the civilian registered Agusta 109 helicopter, and make myself available to the Increment for the following few days.
I arranged to meet up with the ‘Wing’ sergeant major at nine o’clock the following morning, Tuesday the 19th of August, for a briefing.
Although there were fuel and accommodation available at PATA, I decided to fly down that evening and spend the night at a very pleasant hotel just outside Ross-On-Wye, where I could land on the front lawn and park up for the night. I arrived there in good time for dinner, a few drinks and a comfortable bed at the expense of Her Majesty.
As I lifted off the next morning I got a less than friendly wave from a naked man as I climbed slowly past his open bedroom window, before setting the course for the five-minute flight to Pontrilas.
The task was to get four members of RWW onto the island of Sardinia as discreetly as possible.
I decided that the best option was to take off, at about five that evening, and land at Compton Abbas Airfield in rural Dorset. From there the team and I would transfer to a small twin-engine aeroplane, with my old mate Richard as captain and myself as co-pilot, for the remainder of the route into a small airfield north of Cagliari, planning to arrive there just after last light.
The team turned up dressed, pretty much, in the standard rig for SAS soldiers at that time. Jeans, T-shirts, bomber jacket and each carrying a medium sized rucksack.
On any of these sorties I refrained from asking my passengers what was in their baggage – I didn’t care. They were quite likely to be hauling surveillance equipment aids, radios or other technical devices and possibly weapons and explosives. As pilots, we paid no heed to the regulations imposed by the Civil Aviation Authorities regarding the carriage of Dangerous Air Cargo. Or any other regulations for that matter. We considered it was our job to simply get our passengers into a foreign country, with ultimate discretion in any way we could. And that is exactly what we usually managed to do. Most times we would file no flight plan and would fly at ultra-low level to avoid detection by radar. Flying over water in total darkness and displaying no lights we would never climb more than one hundred feet above the surface. Over land we would try to route down valleys in order to use the surrounding hills to provide protection from foreign Air Defence Systems.
After landing at the small, unlit, airfield on the outskirts of Cagliari, I quickly opened the door and, with the engines still running, the guys jumped out and disappeared into the night. The doors were immediately closed, take-off power applied, and we were on our way back to the UK after a visit of less than a minute.
Why a four man SAS team would want to sneak onto the island of Sardinia was no concern of ours. Richard and I parked up at Compton Abbas and made our way to the Fontmell pub in the village just down the road, for the usual drinks and a bed for the night.
Ten days later I was back in the same hotel near Ross-On-Wye tasked with a similar trip to the one to Sardinia. The following morning, I lifted off but was a little disappointed not to have the angry, naked man waving me off on my way to my next MI6 mission.
This time the task was for a different four-man team to be dropped off in a field just outside the French capital, Paris. I didn’t consider it was necessary to use Richard’s fixed wing aircraft for this trip. I would be able to get a quick squirt of fuel at Shoreham just before coasting out and, pop over to Paris and back, with just myself flying the helicopter.
An hour, or so, before darkness my four passengers arrived, looking remarkably like last week’s bunch. Again, no questions were asked. Simply pile on board and wait to be dropped off in the field using no lights and Anvis Night Vision Goggles. (I was one of only a handful of pilots in the UK qualified to fly as single-crew using Night Vision Goggles). After a quick exit, the team again disappeared into the night and I made my way back to the airfield in Dorset where I was met by Richard and Clive, the airfield owner, who rushed me down to the pub before last orders.
The next day I was back at home, now divorced and living on my own. Just like millions of other people around the world, I was stunned when I turned on the radio and learned that Princess Diana and her partner Dodi Fayed, had been killed in a tragic car accident in Paris shortly after spending a few days on a yacht moored off the island of Sardinia.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
EXFILTRATION OF NIMBUS
A text message, ‘Morning hun all well with u after last night?? Love Sandra xx’
The message is not from Sandra, it’s from someone in the office in London. MI6 Headquarters by Vauxhall Bridge. It has come through on a cheap, pay-as-you-go mobile, which I keep with me at all times when I am on standby. This phone has no other purpose than to accept this kind of message from the office.
Sandra probably doesn’t even exist, she or he, is more likely to be some ‘shiny arse’ bloke. A ‘shiny arse’ is someone who spends their working life sitting behind a desk, shining up the arse of their trousers. The sender of the message probably doesn’t even know my real name or anything about me. Agents like myself are never allowed in MI6 Headquarters. We are normally referred to, within the hallowed corridors of Vauxhall, by a four-digit number or, occasionally, an allocated code name.
The text is simply a prearranged instruction for me to get in touch with the office via our secure communication system. I hazard a guess at what they want this time, probably just another bollocking for staying at the five-star Sheraton Hotel instead of the Holiday Inn during my last deployment, or flying first class, despite being told that all government agencies are having to tighten their belts. It has been repeatedly made clear to me that it is now SIS policy that all agents will, whenever possible, travel business or, better still, economy class. I must admit I do have the propensity to wind the ‘shiny arses’ up – a hangover from my military days I suppose. I always try to keep a straight face when I am being given the lecture about the benefits of flying economy class. How important it is for everyone to try to help the service make the best use of its meagre budget and not only that, I will be doing my bit for the whole of the UK economy. I smile and nod, mustering my most sincere expression. There is no way that I will be flying economy class. The lecturer knows that. I, of course, know that, and I know that he knows. I’m also pretty damn sure that he knows that I know that he knows.
I dig out one of the laptops issued to me. On the face of it, it is a bog-standard laptop accessible by a simple password, and once opened displays the usual apps and work found on most normal PCs or laptops. But this laptop is different, it contains a GCHQ cypher, which I am assured is almost impossible to crack and is absolutely impenetrable, unless you have access to the current CAKE. The Cypher Access Key Entry procedure is far more than just an alphanumerical password. It consists of an elaborate sequence of applications which I had to spend hours committing to memory. The CAKE, or any part of it, must not be written down under any circumstances. Access to the cypher by any unauthorised person could, not only, do serious damage to the infrastructure of SIS, endangering the lives of its agents and serving officers, but could seriously compromise the UK government itself.
I open the encrypted message. Short and sweet, ‘Flat tomorrow 1400 briefing for deployment Tue.’ Well, that’s good then, almost certainly not another bollocking unless that comes before the pre-deployment briefing, which has been known.
‘The Flat’, is what is often referred to in SIS circles as an OCP, an Operation Command Post. These rather quaint, jingoistic military terms are still prevalent throughout MI6, but ‘The Flat’, is just that – it’s a flat. Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service rents a few flats, to be used as OCPs, within walking distance of Vauxhall Bridge, normally within the Pimlico area of London.
Our small group of agents designated the acronym UKD, United Kingdom Deniable, are all given keys and we all use the flat for briefings, stashing surplus equipment or clothing, or perhaps
just somewhere to spend the night before, or after, deploying via London. We rarely keep the same flat for more than a year and it would cease to be used immediately if any one of us considered it to be compromised in any way.
Before leaving my home in Moreton-on-Lugg, a small village outside Hereford, I need to become a different person. I open the safe which is secreted in the back of my antique desk which was given to me by Sir David Stirling, founder of the Special Air Service who I worked for, for a short time after leaving the Army. In the safe there are four trays, each containing the paraphernalia needed to give credibility to any one of the four aliases I may wish to adopt; passport, driving licence, flying licences, mobile phone, credit and debit cards, club membership cards, business cards, wallet, watch, rings and anything else that I have allocated to belonging to that imaginary individual. I have four aliases allocated to me. They are, Robert Meacher, known as Bob, Robert Peter Grayling, also known as Bob and the final Bob, Robert Davidson. I also have at my disposal Peter John Elmond, who I call Pete. Surnames are allocated by the office. Christian names we normally tend to keep the same but, of course, there is always the exception to the rule.
I currently have two operational aliases, Grayling and Meacher. One training alias, Davidson and one work-in-progress alias, Elmond, which is an alias that can only be used operationally once much more background work has been completed.
An operational alias takes a considerable amount of time and effort to build up. The idea that a Mi6 agent would be deployed outside the United Kingdom, without having a robust and well-tested alias is bordering on ludicrous.
Bob Grayling has a genuine and well-thumbed UK passport, a driving licence with three penalty points for speeding and a bank account where the credit and debit cards are regularly used. He has an ACA, an Accommodation Cover Address, where he lives regularly with a family that has been carefully vetted and briefed by SIS. Bob is on the electoral role at his ACA. He visits the local pubs and restaurants keeping receipts and cards to be carried in the bottom of his bag or scrunched up in the corner of his pocket for whenever he is deployed abroad. He joins the library, the running and squash clubs, and he gets to know as much about the local area as possible. Anyone who gets to know Bob in and around where he lives is told, that he works overseas and rents a room from the vetted family when in the UK.
Mr Grayling also has a BCF, a Business Cover Facility. Once a suitable candidate, normally the head of a reasonably sized UK company, has been identified, the head and, possibly the managing director’s PA, will be vetted and approached to provide the services of a Business Cover Facility. The head of Bob’s BCF has a private jet, a helicopter and runs a business with interests across the globe which suits him perfectly. He can be notionally employed as, say, chief pilot or a sales manager with all the business cards, brochures, letters and bits and pieces which help to build up a credible employment background.
On his mobile phone are numbers, text messages and emails relating to his job as a chief pilot at Grampian Aviation Limited. Bob’s girlfriend is Donna, who he communicates with regularly and sometimes in ways that he would prefer to remain private, in just the same way that most couples might do.
All this background work is put into place to avoid a foreign official becoming suspicious if he should come across an individual, Billy-no-mates with a brand-new passport, no messages or texts on his phone or laptop and he doesn’t even know the name of the pub just around the corner from where he is supposed to live.
The training alias has just a shallow cover and is used within the United Kingdom only.
Since I am only planning to go to London, I swap my real cards and things for the stuff in the training alias tray and –
“Today Mathew, I am going to be Bob Davidson.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Bob arrives at Paddington Station just a little after 11.30 am, leaving him plenty of time to walk the forty minutes or so to the flat in Lupus Street, Pimlico. He’s the first one there so gets on with the most important job of the day – check that there is enough brew kit available. Hard to tell how many people will turn up for the briefing, could be as many as twenty or as few as two. The number attending depends entirely upon the nature of the job. As it happens there is a total of six today, so no worries about the catering arrangements, the half empty container of milk should see us through nicely.
Apart from Bob, there is his oldest mate within the group, Richard. Richard, like Bob, is a professional pilot, both are highly experienced and hold Airline Transport Pilots Licences for both fixed and rotary wing aircraft. With a total of more than twenty thousand flying hours between them, they make a formidable aviation team. Generally, Bob tends to look after any helicopter flying requirements and leaves the fixed wing to Richard. There is Mike, the Royal Air Force Liaison Officer, a serving wing commander on a three-year secondment to SIS. Neil the Security Officer who tends to get involved with most operations will also be at the meeting. His remit is to maintain an overview of the wider aspects of security and will get his two pennies worth in only if he feels security is being exposed to too high a risk; and there is Robin, a UKD ‘shiny arse’ whose job it is to keep Bob and Richard under control, with very limited success. Lastly, there is David the case officer. He is a regular full-time intelligence officer who will be heading the briefing and will be responsible for the overall operation if it is eventually sanctioned and goes ahead.
Any operations to be carried out abroad must receive ministerial approval before they can get underway and will only be sanctioned once the detailed plans and risk assessments have been considered by the minister.
David starts the briefing with the usual first-things-first. Curtains closed, television on with volume up, but not too loud, all mobile phones on the table with batteries removed.
Although everyone is known to each other, David, firstly, introduces himself then points to each one in turn for them to introduce themselves. Christian names and role within the organisation are all that is needed.
David opens the briefing, “Gents… Sorry, Robin,” he corrects himself, “Lady and Gents, thank you for coming.” He scribbles on the whiteboard next to him, ‘OPERATION CASTAWAY’, and underlines it twice. “For the past two years or so we have been running an agent in Libya, code name Nimbus who, from now on, will be referred to as Charlie One.” He pauses and sticks a mugshot of Nimbus on to the board.
“Charlie One is a nuclear scientist who is trusted by and works closely with, Colonel Muammar Qadafi himself. He is married to Amelia, Charlie Two, and has two sons – Josef, Charlie Three, who has just turned eighteen and about to start university, and finally, Ismal, Charlie Four, who is sixteen.” David again remains silent as he sticks another three photographs of the subjects onto the whiteboard.
“The Colonel is going to be seriously pissed off if – or more likely when – he finds out that Charlie One has been keeping the UK government in the loop regarding Libya’s nuclear weapons development programme,” he says reaching for his notes.
“We, as a service, consider that that time is now fairly close and we have a responsibility and a duty of care to protect Charlie One and his family.” David clears his throat and glances around the room as if addressing each one of us in turn.
“Libyan nuclear scientists, and the like, are rarely allowed out of the country without being very closely chaperoned by Moussa Koussa’s heavies. Koussa, by the way, is head of Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya, the Libyan Intelligence Service’. A fifth photograph, this time of Koussa is added to the gallery.
“The measure of the close relationship between Qadafi and Charlie One is clear from the fact that, not only has government approval been granted for him to travel to Syria next week for a meeting with President Assad, but he is also being allowed to take his family with him and arrangements have been made for Charlie Three to visit Damascus University, with a view to him starting there later this year.” He pauses as if to accentuate the gravity of what we are likel
y to become involved in.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to get the whole family to safety, and I would ask you all to get your heads together for the next hour or so and come up with an outline exfiltration plan. Please bear in mind that the family arrives in Damascus in just three days’ time, and are scheduled to stay for a maximum of seven nights. We have already considered the land and sea options but because of the short window of opportunity, the consensus is that it must be an extraction by air or nothing.” David closes his notepad indicating that the briefing has finished. “Whilst you get started I will get the kettle on. Just shout up if anything other than NATO-standard coffee is required.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
In less than an hour, we have an outline plan. If station staff in Damascus can recce at least two isolated helicopter landing sites, suitable for night operations, within about ten miles from the city centre, and they can also get the family to meet up with the ‘Heli’, then the extraction can go ahead.
Richard will pre-position the King Air 350, and Bob the Agusta 109 helicopter to the Royal Air Force Station Akrotiri in Cyprus on the same day that the family are due to arrive in Syria. On a chosen night, when the weather is deemed to be acceptable for ultra-low level flying over the mountainous terrain of the Lebanon, using no lights and night vision goggles, Bob will fly in from Cyprus and meet up with the vehicle transporting the family to the HLS from their hotel. He will then do a quick arse-about-face back to Akrotiri, where the family will be flown back to the UK by Richard in the King Air. What could be simpler?
After listening to our outline plan David ponders for a few seconds then says thoughtfully.
“Ok. I can sort out the Damascus side of things so let’s get cracking. Bob, yours sounds like the trickiest bit, so you take the lead for the planning please. Give me more detail about your side of the operation and I will put the plans in place for the team on the ground to get the family to the landing site at the right time.”
Kisses From Nimbus Page 18
