The following morning, with Verger well out of the way, we took a picture of the tube of Colgate he had used earlier. We swapped the tubes over and, by referring to the picture, we made sure that the new tube was lying, in exactly the same position, and was the same shape as the old one.
Our work was done.
Jamil Riaz was on the plane to Jakarta the following day to be reunited with his family.
Nothing was heard of his whereabouts or the state of his health from that day forward.
I had no idea what was in that tube of toothpaste. It was not until some years later, in the autumn of 2006, when I learned of the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian spy who had been murdered in London, that I began to hazard a guess.
The success of Drugstore led to the rapprochement of Colonel Gaddafi after he was confronted with the irrefutable evidence we had gathered. Not long afterwards, the Libyan regime gave up its nuclear ambitions, and then went on to dismantle the country’s Atomic Research facilities.
By then Richard’s health was deteriorating rapidly. After vacating the offices in Dubai and winding up the company, Service Air, he and I were guests-of-honour at a dinner held at Fort Monkton in Gosport. We were presented with mementoes of ‘Operation Drugstore’ and we each received a handsome cash bonus for our efforts.
Sadly, Richard’s illness had, by then, been confirmed as terminal cancer. Soon after receiving the accolades from his friends and peers, and shortly before he was to be awarded the honour of Officer of the British Empire, for his services to the government, he died in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Portsmouth.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
By the start of the new millennium, I was a relatively experienced MI6 agent. Twenty-five years in the army had provided a good foundation for me to operate, confidently, anywhere in the world, often completely on my own and with no backup whatsoever from the office in London.
I wouldn’t say that I was any braver than the next man but, I had managed to become somewhat inured to fear, and could remain calm and unperturbed in scary and, sometimes life-threatening situations. I have always found a sense of humour to be an invaluable asset.
A couple of years earlier in a bar, in a far from salubrious area of Montego Bay, I found myself surrounded by a bunch of heavy drinking cocaine dealers.
I was rather caught off-guard when the Rasta looking guy standing next to me spouted threateningly to his friends who were gathered around, “Don’t speak to this guy. He works for MI5!”
Adopting my almost too pissed to stand up look, I faced my accuser.
“I don’t know the first thing about furniture,” I slurred. “And I have never, in my life, worked for MFI!”
A ripple of laughter went around the bar and the remainder of the evening was spent drinking and joking with my newly formed circle of buddies.
The most important element of being a good Secret Agent is, having the ability to convince people that you are anything but a spy working for Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. I have no doubt whatsoever that I was, at some time, touched with the Blarney Stone, and lying was something that always came very easily to me.
I had been trained to be infiltrated and exfiltrated into, and out of, hostile territories by helicopter, boat, parachute or submarine. Most of the time, however, entry and exit were made by public transport or by simply hiring a car and driving across international borders.
Not all the operations I was involved in were carried out alone or as a couple. Quite often I would be deployed as part of a team. And not all the jobs were, in any way glamorous or could even be described as interesting. One such operation involved providing a safe environment for a meeting between a senior British SIS Officer and an Iraqi agent in a hotel room in Tunis. This routine meeting resulted in, what we thought at the time, was a rather disappointing and boring outcome. It was some time later that the ramifications of that meeting were to prove far from disappointing and boring. The information gleaned from the Iraqi agent would help to shatter the illusion created by the foremost leaders of the Western World.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Just a few months prior to that meeting I had been summoned to the flat in London, and asked to consider the viability of inserting and extracting four-man patrols, clandestinely, onto target areas inside Iraq. The exact details of the targets were not given to me at that time, but I was instructed to work on the likelihood of there being as many as twenty, spread anywhere across the country.
The Russian designed and built Mi8 helicopter was one of the most successful helicopters in the world. Thousands had been manufactured in the old Soviet Union, and were not only used extensively throughout the Warsaw Pact countries but proved to be very popular with civilian operators. They had also been bought by no less than fifty countries around the globe and, most importantly to me, extensively used throughout Iraq.
I decided that I had to know more about the ubiquitous, and very well respected Mi8 – better known in military circles as the ‘Hip’. While I was finding out more about it, I thought it might be a good idea if I could also make myself more useful to the government by getting myself qualified to fly it.
I spotted an advertisement in Flight International magazine, a publication popular with professional pilots. ‘FOR SALE – Newly refurbished MI 8 and MI 17 helicopters’.
The Mi17 was an updated version of the Mi8, the engines and transmission had been upgraded to improve it’s ‘hot and high’ capability. Both versions of the aircraft looked almost identical, the main difference being that the tail rotors were on different sides, the Mi8 having the tail rotor on the port side, and the Mi17 having it on the starboard side.
I contacted the dealer and introduced myself as Captain Bob Meacher. This was one of my aliases which were very robust and could, therefore, be used abroad operationally. I already had in place all the documentation I would need to support my cover story of being a commercial pilot who was working on behalf of a European aviation company who would, at that time, prefer to remain anonymous. I was then invited – at my own expense, of course, to inspect the aircraft which were on an airfield in Estonia.
After my usual ‘dry cleaning’ routine, I took the appropriate tray from Sir David Stirling’s old desk and set off to the airport in my new persona, Captain Robert Meacher. I bought a business-class return ticket to Tallinn via Stockholm from the Scandinavian Airlines desk at Heathrow Airport. I paid by credit card from an account which was regularly used – paying by cash was a sure way of bringing your name to the attention of the authorities, so it was strictly taboo. I carried with me all the documentation necessary to give credibility to my newly adopted alter-ego; passport – well used and with a selection of innocuous looking entry stamps; driving and pilot licences; credit and debit cards; and an assortment of business cards, brochures and letters.
Being Bob Meacher I wore an ostentatious watch and a ring – something that Red Riley would never do. I found them to be annoying, and, of course, that is just what I wanted them to be. I wore them to help prevent Bob Meacher from perhaps signing the wrong signature or giving away wrong personal details in a moment of stress, or when too relaxed, and lacking concentration.
Whenever I travelled I would always keep a book, or a copy of the Telegraph crossword close to hand, to give myself an excuse to avoid getting engaged in any unwelcome cross-examination. Feigning sleep was always a good way to steer clear of any unsolicited overtures from fellow passengers on flights or train journeys.
On arrival at the Lennart Meri Airport in Tallinn, I was met by a middle-aged man in a grey suit and black tie, looking like he was either on his way to or had just come from, a funeral. In one hand, he was holding a small placard will the name ‘Captain Meacher’ in bold letters across it. The other hand he held up to his face while he took a long drag on his cigarette.
As I approached with my right hand extended, he quickly threw down the cigarette onto the airport floor, crushed it un
derfoot, and exhaled a huge plume of smoke, greeting me to Estonia with a lung full of foul-smelling nicotine.
“That’s me,” I said looking at the placard and emitting an affected cough.
“Welcome to Tallinn, my name is Alexi. Please, come with me and I will drive you to your hotel.”
After a short while, we arrived at the Park Inn in the centre of the ancient, and somewhat grubby looking, capital city.
The following morning Alexi took me to an old, disused ‘Soviet Chemistry Airfield’, about an hour’s drive from the city. There was a selection of Mi8 and Mi17 helicopters lined up outside the dilapidated aircraft hangars. I spent a little time looking at them, pretending to show the keen interest of a potential purchaser – then I told Alexi what I wanted.
“They look very good, and I am certainly interested in purchasing one, and quite possibly two,” I said.
“But first I would like to learn how to fly this type. Can you please introduce me to someone who might be able to do that?”
His eyes lit up at the prospect of a potential sale.
“Please give me a moment,” he said, reaching for his mobile phone.
I continued to play the game, of looking interested, and continued with my inspection for the next half an hour, while Alexi made a few calls.
Putting his phone into his pocket as he walked towards me with a smile on his face, he said.
“I have a very good friend who is a major in the National Reserve Air Force who is able to teach you. But first, you must pay ten thousand US dollars for ten hours flying training.”
“When can we start?” I asked, jumping down from the open tailgate.
His hand went back into his pocket. Another lengthy phone call, and then he said, “So long as you have paid me the money, then you will be able to start tomorrow.”
There was always a reasonable amount of money left in each of my alias accounts to be used as a float or to be available for a quick deployment if one should become necessary, so getting hold of the ten thousand dollars did not prove to be hugely difficult.
The following evening, I rang Alexi and told him that I had the money and I was ready to get started.
The introduction to my new flying instructor took me a little by surprise.
“This is my good friend Marion,” said Alexi, as we walked towards the waiting helicopter.
My instructor was indeed, a major in the National Guard, the military-style flying suit leaving me in do doubt whatsoever. Apart from the badges of rank displayed on each shoulder, there were also numerous formation badges and medal ribbons. I later learned that the medals had been awarded for service in Afghanistan, where a long and bloody war had been fought in the nineteen eighties when Estonia was still a part of the Soviet Union.
Marion the Major spoke good English and, picking the words carefully, in a very soft voice spoke to me, as if telling me a story.
“When I was born in 1953, my mother and father very much liked the American movie star John Wayne. You may not know, but John Wayne had the real name, Marion. And that is why they named me, their first-born son, after their hero.
The flying training was fun. Marion was a good instructor, and the Mi8 was very easy to fly.
The most difficult thing to get used to was reading the gauges and instruments in the cockpit, which were all written in Russian Cyrillic. The altitude was indicated in metres, and the airspeed in kilometres per hour, rather than feet and knots, which were the units used in, just about, every other part of the world.
After the ten hours of flying were completed my instructor and I both agreed that I was more than competent to fly and operate the aircraft unsupervised.
After pocketing the improvised Certificate of Qualification to act as captain, I slipped a bottle of Jack Daniels finest ‘firewater’ into the old cowboy’s saddlebag, as a thank you present, and watched him ride off into the sunset.
Before I left I told Alexi that I was very interested in doing a deal with him, and would contact him as soon as I got back home. I never did, of course.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Back in London, I explained that, in order to reach targets anywhere in Iraq, I would need to have available to me an Mi8 or 17, painted in Iraqi military livery, adapted for Night Vision Goggles, and fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks. The extra fuel capacity would give us a useful range of about one thousand nautical miles. With twelve troops on board, I would have to launch, at night, either from Kuwait or Jordan. My controller accepted, in principle, that the undertaking was viable, and it was then allocated the code-name Operation Larkspur.
With the method of inserting the four-man patrols then, more-or-less, organised, I next needed to liaise with the guys who I would be dropping off. And that would mean a visit to my old stomping ground of Sterling Lines, Hereford, home of the SAS.
The sergeant major of the ‘increment’ at that time, otherwise known as Revolutionary Warfare Wing (RWW), was Carl Ryder. Carl was someone who I had lived almost next door to for many years, and we had watched each other’s children growing up together.
I briefed him on the progress of Larkspur, to date, and he was happy, in principle, with our proposed method of insertion and extraction. RWW would provide a team of twelve, armed with as many laser target designators (LTDs) as they could lay their hands on, and mark the targets inside Iraq, once the details of the locations were passed to us.
The LTD was a lightweight, portable device which, when activated, would direct a pulse of laser beams onto a target. The reflected beams could then be identified by a laser-guided munition, such as the Paveway five-hundred-pound, laser-guided bomb.
In order for the teams to position the LTDs covertly, they would need to be dropped off, at least three kilometres, away from each target. They would then walk until they could positively identify the target, and set up the device. Once in position, the LTD could then be left, and activated, remotely, at a later date. Unless, of course, the apparatus was stumbled upon by some innocent goatherd or the like. To minimise the risk of that happening, the team would need to spend time camouflaging the designators and, if considered to be necessary, laying booby-traps. The booby-traps, when triggered by a trip-wire, would destroy the equipment by strategically placed explosives.
Bearing in mind all the relevant factors, we decided to allow four hours on the ground for each target to be marked efficiently. We would, therefore, recommend that three four-man patrols would be inserted, under the cover of darkness, to mark one target each. If we were provided with the details of twenty targets, as was earlier suggested, then we would need seven nights to complete the operation.
The officer-in-command of the increment, Major Keith Eglington, and Carl, were at the next operational planning meeting in London. The plan was accepted and would be activated once the necessary ministerial approval had been granted, and details of the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) sites, had been confirmed by an agent from inside Iraq.
At the meeting in Tunisia, which had taken place only a few months before the invasion of Iraq, the agent confirmed, quite unequivocally, that any WMDs, including stockpiles of gas, had already been dismantled or destroyed.
Shortly after our operational meeting in London, Operation Larkspur was cancelled.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
25th DECEMBER 2004 1528 HOURS
I was tucking into Christmas dinner when the phone rang.
It was my daughter Nina, who was on her honeymoon in Thailand, moaning about having an earache.
“What’s the best thing to do for it, Dad?” she pleaded to me pitifully.
I had knocked back champagne before dinner and one or two large glasses of red wine during it. Not having the faintest idea of what to do about an earache I put the question to the guests around the table.
“Anyone got a guaranteed cure for an earache?” I shouted to the twelve friends and family.
A number of recommendations were offered up from the diners who were also, by then, pre
tty well on their way with the wine.
“Cotton wool soaked in warm olive oil and rammed into the lug-hole. Never been known to fail,” offered our friend Karen.
“My dear departed grandmother used to drown a cockroach in whisky. Stick the insect into her ear and drink the whisky. If it failed to have an immediate effect she would administer further doses, but without the cockroach, until the bottle was empty,” slurred Karon’s husband Tim, who was as high as a kite even before dinner had started.
“No, no, no,” said Kathy seriously. “Hot raisins are what she needs. If she can’t get hold of raisins, then she should try the heart of an onion.”
Pain in the arse brother-in-law Graham, was next to add his pearl of wisdom.
“It’s her honeymoon, for Christ’s sake,” he shouted, spraying bits of, half-eaten, turkey across the table. “She should have better things to do with her time than worry about an earache.”
“Well, there you are Nina,” I said. “A few ideas for you to consider, but probably best if you just have a lie-down. It must be getting quite late with you. Give me a call in the morning. No, on second thoughts, make that the afternoon, and let us know how you are. Goodnight love.”
I was in bed in a deep, alcohol-induced, sleep when the phone screamed next to my ear.
“Who the fuck can that be at this time of the morning?” I chuntered to myself, fumbling to pick up the phone.
It was Nina again. “Dad! I don’t know what to do.”
I interrupted her. “Honestly Ni, I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do for your earache.”
“It’s not that Dad,” she said. “We went down to the beach for breakfast this morning and the sea has disappeared!”
“Don’t be ridiculous Nina. The sea can’t just disappear,” I said softly. Well aware that she did have a tendency to exaggerate somewhat.
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