After two months in Chelmsford I was transferred to Standford Hill prison on the Isle of Sheppey. It was an improvement, but I still didn’t know when I’d be getting out. Of course, I hoped that I’d be released early for good behaviour, but there was no guarantee of that. And the pressure ratcheted up dramatically one day when I had a difficult call with Emilie. The moment she picked up the phone I could tell there was something wrong.
‘It’s money,’ she said, when I finally got it out of her.
‘You getting tight?’
‘I’m really sorry, Ant, I’ve been trying my best. It’s getting tricky. I’ve been doing the sums. If we don’t start getting an income soon we’re going to have to declare bankruptcy.’
‘Bankruptcy?’
‘Sorry, love. I’ve been looking for work that I can do in the evening when the kids …’
‘No, you don’t,’ I told her. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’
‘So what am I supposed to do?’
‘I’ve got a parole interview this afternoon,’ I told her. ‘I can’t promise anything. I’ll do my best.’
I walked back to my cell ringing with shock and failure. I lay in bed for the next three hours, thinking, ‘What an embarrassment. How shameful.’ This was, without doubt, the worst thing about being inside. I’d become a burden on Emilie and my children. She’d even had to lie to the kids about me, telling them I was away with the military. I didn’t belong in this place and I could never risk a return visit under any circumstances. And that meant resisting the gang life. It meant fighting that war of temptation in my head, and it meant fighting that instinct for violence that had been trained into me. I wasn’t prepared to accept the excuses I heard again and again from former servicemen: ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine’ or ‘I’m a soldier. I’ve been trained this way and you can’t change me.’ That was all rubbish. If I could train myself to be one of the most elite soldiers in the world, I could train myself to be one of the best civilians.
At 3.30 p.m. I turned up at the parole office, spick and span – and nervous. This would be the most important meeting of my life.
‘I’m here for my interview,’ I told the woman on reception.
‘Name?’
‘Middleton.’
She typed at her computer, barely even looking at me.
‘You’re cancelled. Come back next week.’
‘Cancelled?’ I said. ‘That can’t be right.’
‘You need to return to your cell.’
‘Why has it been cancelled?’
‘You need to return to your cell immediately.’
‘I’m just asking for a reason. When am I going to be seen?’
‘Do I need to call a prison officer?’
I wanted to take a chair and launch it through the window. Instead, I made my way slowly back to the cells, breathing deeply, trying to hold it together. I was in prison for violence. One hint of aggression and any chance I had of parole would be blown.
As I turned the corner a young Scouser lad with a bowl haircut was coming the other way. He leaned in towards me as he passed, a hair’s breadth from barging my shoulder.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I muttered.
He stopped. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Sorry, mate, I’ve just been told my parole interview’s gone back a week,’ I said. ‘I just want to get out of here.’
He laughed in my face.
‘Fuckin’ hell, sort yerself out, la. Can’t you even handle a little bit of bird? I’ve done more time inside than you’ve done on the shitter. You need to fuckin’ man up, la, or you’re going to get what’s coming to ya.’
I could see the button in front of me. I could push it. I wanted so badly to push it. I just wanted to wipe the floor with him, smear him into the concrete, to belittle him, to let him know that he was nothing, that he was just a little gobshite.
‘All right, mate,’ I whispered.
I took a step back and watched him go on his way, with his cocky, bow-legged, shit-in-pants walk. If I’d had a couple more months to serve I’d have followed him into his cell and given him a shoeing. But I couldn’t. The war wasn’t with him, it was with myself. The effort it took not to knock him out was so immense I thought I might be having a stroke.
When my parole interview finally came it was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences I’d had. Behind the table, with their folders and pens, the parole officer, the prison chief and a social worker studied me with bored contempt.
‘You’re serving a term for a violent offence,’ said the parole officer. ‘What exactly have you changed about yourself?’
‘I’m just keeping my positivity,’ I said. ‘There’s a lot of pressure to push back in here, but I’ve been a model prisoner. The reason I’ve managed to do it is my family. They’re waiting for me. I made a silly mistake due to alcohol. It was an error of judgement that ended up with me in this situation. I will never make that error again.’
‘Right, Mr Middleton,’ said the prison chief. ‘Take a seat in the waiting area for ten minutes. We’ll call you in when we’re ready.’
Sitting in that room, with my right foot twitching, I counted every single movement of the clock’s second hand. Finally, I was asked to come in and take my seat.
‘On this occasion,’ said the parole officer, unsmilingly, ‘we have decided to allow you to serve the rest of your sentence at home, on a tag.’
For the next two days I hid in my cell. On my final morning I gave away everything I had, apart from the clothes I was wearing, to the other inmates – brand new trainers, brand new clothes, my radio, my books. I was determined that nothing to do with prison would contaminate my home life. I was escorted outside the gates to a guard room, where I was processed. The form-filling was endless. Then they had to go through the process of removing me from all their databases – getting signatures from the gym to take me off that database, then signatures from the health centre to take me off that database. It almost felt like a final test, just to see if I would snap.
After more than two hours I gave them my final signature. I had money left over from my canteen funds and they handed me £28.50 in a little money bag, as if I were a child. The prison officer arrived, shook my hand and wished me good luck. Then he opened a door and I simply walked out into the street. It was an ordinary day in the ordinary world and, just like that, I was in it.
Someone in a vehicle sounded their horn. On the other side of the road there was a small parking zone. Sitting in the family car was Emilie. I waited for a gap in the traffic and then ran across. I jumped into the passenger seat and she flung her arms around me.
‘Don’t ever do anything like that again,’ she said. ‘Promise me. No more fighting. I need you, Ant. We need you.’
I squeezed her tighter and felt her body soften.
‘In your arms is my safe place,’ she whispered, close to tears. ‘It feels like home.’
‘You are home,’ I said. ‘This a new beginning.’
I pulled away and looked deep into her beautiful green-brown eyes.
‘This is where my life begins.’
LEADERSHIP LESSONS
The war is always in your head. You can’t trust your body. It tells you it’s got nothing left when it’s still a hundred miles from breaking. And when it does actually break, it heals. The only true war you’ll ever fight is with your own mind.
Be aware that situations can completely transform in an instant. On that night in Chelmsford I thought I was being the good guy, helping prevent a silly situation turning ugly. I was so caught up in my role as the hero, it simply hadn’t occurred to me that I would end up being the villain. That transformation took seconds.
If it feels like ‘temptation’, it’s a bad decision. It’s easy to spot when a negative has presented itself to you – because you find yourself using the ‘T’ word. If you’re tempted, as I was in prison, resist. You will rarely regret it.
Don’t knock police officers ou
t. Obviously.
LESSON 8
THE POWER OF INTELLIGENT WAITING
After my release from prison, the lure of instant respect and easy riches as part of a criminal firm wasn’t the only temptation I had to resist. One day a representative from an African government asked me to take out the leader of the opposition, a gig for which I’d probably have been paid around £100,000. It would have been a pretty straightforward job, given that I’d have had the support of the government in question, but I didn’t need to think about it for long. I’m not an assassin.
Although more conventional private security work soon started coming in, I did still receive the occasional unusual and intriguing offer. In March 2013 I took a call from a well-connected associate, a former Marine named Iain. My instructions were to be at a Middle Eastern restaurant on the Old Brompton Road at 11 a.m. sharp. The staff were just opening up when I arrived to find Iain already waiting at an outside table, along with a dark-haired guy in an expensive-looking camel-hair coat.
‘Good to meet you, I’m Ant,’ I said to the stranger.
He replied in an accent that was a mix of well-spoken English and Arabic. He was perhaps Saudi Arabian or Iraqi. ‘Thank you for coming. I’ve heard some good things about you.’
‘Good to know,’ I said. ‘Who from?’
‘People,’ he smiled. ‘Please. Sit down.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, noting that he hadn’t actually told me his name.
After the waiter had arrived with a plate of sweet pastries and an elaborate silver pot, from which he poured us each a strong black coffee into a glass cup, the man opened a leather satchel and took out an A4 envelope.
‘I work as a correspondent for a certain family, organising this and that,’ he explained vaguely. ‘I have a job that I need carrying out expertly, discreetly and with the kind of efficiency’ – he paused and looked at me and then Iain as he said the word – ‘that men of your calibre and experience specialise in.’
‘Go on,’ I said, shuffling forward in my seat.
The correspondent pulled a small sheaf of documents from the envelope. His fingernails were perfectly manicured, the backs of his hands appeared waxed and, around his wrist, he wore a thin, bejewelled bracelet.
‘I would like you to secure the release of this girl, Khalida Gulbuddin.’
He showed me a school photo. The girl looked mixed-race, with dark bobbed hair and large hazelnut eyes. She was smiling happily and openly at the camera.
‘Someone’s got her?’ I said, pulling the picture towards me. ‘Where is she?’
‘To the best of our knowledge she’s currently in Jordan. Her father is a powerful man, from Jordan himself, and has recently divorced my employer, Khalida’s mother. There was a court case here in London. Custody was awarded to the mother. Unfortunately, shortly following the verdict, the father, whose name is Abdul Gulbuddin, took Khalida on a holiday to Jordan to visit relatives and failed to return. He has been gone for five months. In that time we have received no contact from him or anyone else in Abdul’s extended family. My employer has now run out of patience.’
‘I take it the local police ain’t doing nothing?’ asked Iain.
‘Well, just as I said, Gulbuddin is powerful, wealthy.’
The correspondent moved his head left and right, as if weighing something up.
‘And, more than that, it is also a cultural issue. In that part of the world a man’s wants and wills always take precedence over a woman’s. If the man wants the child, the man gets the child. If the woman cries about it, then so what? She is only a woman.’
I flicked through the court documents. ‘And this is all we have to go on?’
‘It is not much,’ he admitted. ‘But we do have one more thing.’
He took the papers from my hand and turned them over. On the back, written in navy blue ink from a fountain pen, was a Middle Eastern name and a string of numbers.
‘This is the phone number of a friend who works for the Mukhabarat,’ he said, pointing to one of them.
‘What’s that?’ asked Iain.
‘Jordan’s security service,’ he said.
‘I know them,’ I said. ‘One of the best in the world.’
‘That’s right,’ the correspondent nodded. ‘Our friend is high up. She might be able to help you with some local information.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Well, I feel confident we can get a result for you.’
I glanced at Iain. He didn’t look like he was confident at all. But then neither was I.
‘I hope that you can find Khalida,’ he said. ‘Please take my word for it, my employer is profoundly distressed by all that has happened. As a father yourself, I’m sure you can imagine. She needs you to succeed, very desperately. You are her final hope.’
As soon as I got home I called the number the correspondent had given us for the agent at the Mukhabarat. At first she was apologetic.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you with this,’ she said. ‘At least not actively.’
‘What about contacts?’ I asked. ‘Addresses? Ideas of where she might be?’
‘I can give you a couple of addresses, yes. Gulbuddin’s father and his brother.’
‘That would be a great start.’
‘And if you can’t persuade them to give the girl up, or at least tell you Abdul’s whereabouts, I also have something else. The personal cell phone number of Nagid Hajjar, the head of Jordan’s Public Security Directorate – the national police.’
‘His cell phone?’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘He will not know where or how you got this number. It will be a signal to him, if you call him on it, that you are connected. But please, don’t tell him it was from us.’
Three days later, Iain and I pulled up in a taxi outside a large white house in a dusty suburb. The sun was pale yellow, the sky was pale yellow and the streets were covered in a layer of pale yellow sand. We were a short drive out of the twisted, choked and manic ancient centre of Amman, Jordan’s capital, where we’d landed hours earlier. Iain paid the driver, who glanced back at us silently and nervously. I wasn’t surprised he was uncomfortable. In his rear-view mirror I glimpsed our reflection. We’d deliberately gone for the thuggish look: sleeves rolled up, hair gelled back, muscles protruding. As I waited for all six foot five of Iain to unfold itself out of the cab, I felt a narrow trail of sweat slowly finding its way over the tattoo on my neck of the Grim Reaper with a glinting sickle. We’d need some luck, discipline and rigorous planning to pull this off, but I was determined we’d get Khalida back for her poor mother.
The gates of Gulbuddin’s father’s house were twelve feet high, heavy and black, with gold initials worked into the ironwork. They were also unlocked. The building behind them was surprisingly modest, two storeys high with a flat roof. There was a white Toyota Hilux parked outside the garage and a security light flicked on as we approached, despite the fact it was still early in the afternoon. A single dove perched on a grubby window sill, eyeing us coolly.
Iain knocked loudly, ignoring the bell. Our luck was in. Within seconds the old man appeared, grey bearded, hawk-nosed and visibly shocked – it was obvious from our appearance we weren’t selling Girl Scout cookies.
‘Mr Gulbuddin?’ I asked.
‘Who are you?’
‘We’re looking for your granddaughter, Khalida,’ I said. ‘She belongs back in the UK. We’ve been sent to fetch her home.’
‘And what are your names?’ he said. ‘Who sent you? What is your right to come here, knocking on my door?’
‘That doesn’t matter. We’re an independent investigation team.’
I gave him a piece of paper on which I’d written the number of the pay as you go mobile I’d bought downtown.
‘I want to reassure you that our main interest isn’t you, it’s the girl. We need to get her back with her mother, as per the court’s wishes.’
‘I don’t know where that girl is,’ he said. ‘I have not seen her for two
years.’
Iain took a half a step forward. The old man pulled back into the shadows. Just as he was about to close the door, I shot my arm out and held it in place with my open hand.
‘Mr Gulbuddin, we know that isn’t true,’ I said. ‘So why don’t you have a think about it? Please call me. If you don’t, we will be back. We’re not leaving this country until we find her.’
‘Well, that went shit,’ said Iain, back at the hotel.
He’d followed me into my room for a debrief and was sitting on the edge of my bed.
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘You didn’t think he was just going to scoop her up out of her crib and hand her over, all wrapped in swaddling clothes?’
‘I didn’t think we’d be knocking on doors and asking politely,’ he said. ‘That’s not why we’ve been hired. We’re not little old ladies. They want force. Pressure.’
‘This isn’t some smash-and-grab raid,’ I said. ‘We can’t go in all guns blazing. We’ve got to wait.’
‘Wait?’ he muttered. ‘Like old ladies at the bus stop.’
‘You don’t get it,’ I said. ‘Waiting is our best strategy right now. Waiting is force. Waiting is pressure. Waiting is a weapon.’
As frustrated as I was with Iain, I could also sympathise. The younger me would have simply smashed the fuck out of the grandfather, the grandmother and then the uncle. I’d have left them with no teeth and had them writing the address of Khalida’s father across their kitchen tiles in blood.
But then what would have happened? We’d have been arrested and tortured, and then we’d have vanished. They’d have found us, weeks later, in some ditch with a bullet in the backs of our heads. We didn’t have the cover of the armed forces behind us now, no flag of protection. There’d be no helicopter support for us, no airlifts out of tricky situations. We were on our own, in a stranger’s land, and that meant playing a smarter game.
First Man In Page 17
