No Fear
Steve Devereux
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © Steve Devereux 1999
First published in 1999 by Blake Publishing
This edition published in 2014 by:
Thistle Publishing
36 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BU
www.thistlepublishing.co.uk
TO ALISON MY LOVE MY LIFE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T hanks must go to all those guys who have supported me during the writing of this book. Some are still serving, some are due to finish their 22 years service, some are out, and some have never been in.
I would also like to thank my good friend Billy Budd, who has been an enduring source of endless banter whilst writing this book and also during those BG jobs we have done together; TG, whose simplistic approach to life always amazes me; Smiler, with reference to Africa; Steve B and Mike P, who lent me their bashas for all those weeks whilst in the Middle East — Cheers, guys! — and my editor, Mr Civilian, who really knows the score.
Lastly, I would like to thank the most incredible lady I have ever loved, Alison. You have had to put up with a lot from me over the years. No other woman could or should have, but you did, and I thank you from the 'heart of my bottom'.
CONTENTS
MAPS
SOMALILAND
MOZAMBIQUE
GLOSSARY
PREFACE
PART ONE
1 MOZAMBIQUE - A NON-REACTIVE CONTRACT
2 COVERT INFILTRATION
3 DAILY ROUTINE
4 ON DEATH'S TRACK
5 COVERING FIRE
6 TEA ATTACK
PART TWO
7 THE LONDON SCENE
8 THE ARAB EXPERIENCE
9 THE UAE AND THE GULF WAR
10 THE WAITING GAME
11 MINE CLEARANCE, SOMALILAND
12 VIPs
13 LIAM AND PATSY
PART THREE
14 THE DIANA TRAGEDY
EPILOGUE
GLOSSARY
ASAP As Soon As Possible
APC Armoured Personnel Carriers
AWOL Absent Without Leave
Basha A place to sleep
BG Body Guard
Bone Incredibly stupid
Bootneck Royal Marine
BTR 60 A Russian-built armoured personnel carrier (wheeled)
Casevac Casualty evacuation
CO Commanding Officer
CV Curriculum Vitae
Dick Dastardlies Would-be pretend spies
DPMs Disruptive Pattern Material
E and E Escape and Evasion
EOD Explosive Ordnance Disposal
Frelimo Mozambique troops
IA Immediate Action drill
ic in command
IHA International Humanitarian Agency
HALO High Altitude Low Opening
high port A weapon drill order where the rifle is held in a high position. Looks comical.
ks kilometres
LO Liaison Officer
MID Mentioned in Dispatches
MSF Médecins Sans Frontières, an aid organisation
NI Northern Ireland
NGOs Non-Governmental Organisations
ops operations
OPs Observation Posts
PE Plastic Explosive
prayers formal or informal debrief (SAS jargon)
REs Royal Engineers
REMF Rear Echelon Mother Fucker
Renamo right-wing Mozambique terrorists backed by South Africa
RM Royal Marine
RTU Returned to Unit
Rupert slang term for an officer
sit rep situation report
SBS Special Boat Squadron
SOPs Standard Operational Procedures
SF Special Forces
Walter Mitties Persons portraying someone they are not — bullshitters, in other words
Weapons
AKM folding stock version of the AK47
AK47 semi and fully automatic 7.62mm rifle
AP Anti-personnel Mine
20mm cannon Russian-made ground-to-air weapon
Makarov standard Russian issued pistol
SA80 5.56mm standard British Army-issue rifle
PREFACE
T his book is not about the SAS. It's about the work I specialise in, 'out of the SAS'.
You'd think that when I left such an élite body of soldiers the world would be my oyster. Multinational companies would be queuing up to employ me to run worldwide security operations. Foreign governments would somehow trace me through covert channels of communication and entice me to come and work for them. I wish I could say that was true. Unfortunately, the SAS's fierce reputation as portrayed by the media (and rightly so) since the Iranian Embassy siege of 1980 scared off these potential employers.
Ironically, the SAS almost put themselves out of a job when they assaulted that embassy. They did such a good job that potential terrorists no longer dared hold hostages in the UK for fear of being wasted before getting their chance to act out their cause on the media's world stage. In some ways I, too, was lucky in that I was involved in the last 'embassy' operation. That was at the Libyan Embassy in 1986, and the result was a negotiated settlement, however you look at it, even though a policewoman — WPC Yvonne Fletcher — was shot and killed in the line of duty. *
That's not to say that ex-SAS men don't keep their hand in with the security industry; they do . One such friend runs one of the biggest personal security operations, for one of the wealthiest men in the world; another handles the security for a premier football club. Many more look after film stars and wealthy Arab families who own entire countries, while still others work for foreign governments, but only on short-term contracts which are either overseen by the British Government or openly sanctioned by it, without first-hand involvement.
On the other hand, there are none of those 'cloak and dagger' MI5 or MI6 jobs on offer that many novelists seem to write about. They would have you believe that such activities are the normal next stage for someone from my professional background. How wrong could they be! The reality is that MI5 and MI6 are far less glamorous than such authors imagine. Sorry about this, guys, but the majority of these people spend their days writing papers and pushing paperclips around, and very rarely leave the secure confines of their offices. I don't know of any ex-members of the SAS who have joined MI5 or MI6. To be honest, if they had, I think they would be bored shitless.
'You're in the big wide world now. No mothering and being told what to do, and more importantly, no regular salary. Just you and your wits to do battle with the commercial world. Good luck.'
That's what the officer, my old boss, had said to me when finally I left the SAS.
He said it with a calmness of someone who'd done his 22 years, with a reasonable gratuity and a tidy pension. And good luck to him. This country had had more than its fair share of his life. He in turn had a sackful of war stories — and two dodgy knees to give him something to think about in a couple of years time, when the war stories were spent.
The commercial world, what the hell was that? I wondered. Having spent the best part of my youth and early years fighting around the world for Queen and Country, I had no idea what the 'real world' was all about, and if most people from my background were truthful, they didn't know either. Why should we? For most of us in the Armed Forces, the challenge of doing the job had been exactly that — doing the job. Being part of the best fighting force in the world and having a good laugh as we did it. Basically, enjoying what we were good at. No n
eed to worry about PEPs or the interest rate; everything in that department was taken care of by the system.
There was an interesting phrase always bandied about when one of us had just accidentally broken a really expensive piece of high-tec equipment, or just 'expended' a £6,000 anti-tank round at a target and missed: 'It's a big firm, they can afford it.'
Someone would say it casually without knowing, or wanting to understand, that 'they' were, in fact, everyone, including ourselves! The tax payers, in other words. But somehow, that truth was never real to us.
We really had no worries. As long as we kept out of trouble and didn't screw up, our pay was there at the end of each month. Why should I worry about the commercial world? That was my attitude. I'm in for life. It was a very short-sighted view.
Towards the end of the 1980s when it seemed that everyone outside the services was getting themselves mortgaged up to the hilt and getting into all sorts of financial worries, my brother said to me, 'You know, Steve, most of us, if we lose our jobs tomorrow, then we only have about three months' savings at the most, if we're lucky, to carry us through while looking for another job. Then the shit really starts to hit the fan. You know what I mean. Money rows at home with the wife. Getting pissed because you're worrying and coming home later and later. Spending more time down the pub with your head in a pint of beer with the Johnny Walker optic winking at you every time you lift your head, wasting what little money you have left. Upsetting your mates for no reason because of your own self-pity. Then, nothing. One day you wake up to find your wife has left you. The mortgage hasn't been paid for three months. The phone's cut off and then you look at yourself properly in the mirror for the first time in weeks. You look like shit and now you smell like shit. It don't take long.'
He said all this jokingly, and I knew this wasn't based on a previous experience of his, but I sensed that this was his own way of getting me used to civvy street and to the fact that now that my honeymoon period after leaving the SAS was over, I had to work for a living. He was, of course, right.
Unfortunately, I'd never had much to do with the intricacies of assessing people's personalities in order to get what I wanted. I'd always been 'black-and-white' in my approach to life, not one to suck up to someone just for personal gain. I took as I found, and generally gave an opinion if warranted. Stroking people's egos to get something or somewhere was not my style. (My approach is still generally the straightforward approach, but I'm working on it!)
Whanging off CVs to prospective employers in the vain hope that I would be called for a real interview for a job — as opposed to having lunch with them only to relate my soldiering experiences over a pie and pint, just so they could see what a man from my background was really like — soon became a pain in the arse. I got nowhere fast.
I spent my own time and money thinking I could learn the ropes of selling or wheeling and dealing in the money markets on the London Stock Exchange, when really all the skills I had been taught in the Paras and the SAS were as useful as a pair of tits on a nun.
I reckoned I could turn my hand to something different from what I had been doing for the past 12 years or so, but this wasn't the case. Soon it was looking a certainty that I was to be doomed to work in the security industry for the rest of my life, a thought that didn't appeal to me one little bit. I'd had enough of roughing it in piss-poor places all over the world, and the dangers of my past way of life held no attractions for me anymore. I'd become bored with being scared and desperately wanted a change. But like most of us in this life, I had to go with what I knew best and where the money was, so at this particular time (the summer of 1990) I had to wrestle with my conscience whether or not to take a particular job which was on offer to me.
There was this vicious guerrilla war raging in Mozambique, East Africa, and had been for many years. I went down to WH Smith's in Hereford and flicked through a copy of a tourists' guide to East Africa. It wasn't much cop, there was no section on Mozambique, only a lightly shaded area on the map, outlining its slug-shaped borders: Tanzania to its north, South Africa to its south and Malawi and Zimbabwe bordering on its west. On the east, Mozambique ran for over 1,000 miles down the Indian Ocean. Shit — one of those countries that you certainly couldn't get a package deal to.
A visit to the reference section of Hereford's library squared me away. It was the first time in 25 or so years that I'd actually been in a library. (The previous time was occasioned by a school archaeological trip.) Libraries are like time capsules, they just don't change. The people, their dress, their attitude are all still the same. The only other time I had been close to a lot of people not speaking but communicating through their expressions and body language was in the jungle; there, too, you might get away with the odd whisper to attract someone's attention. Weirdly I felt quite at home perusing the literature on Mozambique, and the atmosphere left me feeling mentally relaxed.
Two hours later I left with a headful of theme tunes and statistics. Once a Portuguese possession, Mozambique was a post-colonial mess. Still I wasn't too concerned about the country's entire history, only its recent past. I just needed to know those bare facts which would be relevant to me and my safety. So such statistics as it had a population of over 15 million with 600,000 killed in the past ten years, half of them now faced severe food shortages, and two million had been driven from their homes, were all I required to realise that this could be one helluva trip. Maputo was the capital, but that was way down south, in a pretty safe area. The bulk of the fighting was taking place in the central part of the country (around an area named the Beira Corridor) and to the north. The population had been drastically displaced by war, and many inhabitants had travelled south to the relative security of the capital. Looking at it cynically (which, I find, helps a lot in these situations), I guessed one of the good points about this job was if I got any R and R, there would be vast tracts of human-free golden beaches to explore.
Only things turned out rather differently …
PART ONE
War is a continuation of policy by other means.
It is not merely a political act,
but a real political instrument.
Karl von Clausewitz ,
Vom Krieg 1832-34
1
MOZAMBIQUE — A NON-REACTIVE CONTRACT
I t was almost silent now. The convoy had stopped abruptly. The crack and thump of a quick burst of incoming small arms fire was over. I waited in the Land Rover's cab, my weapon sighted in the probable direction of the threat. It was impossible to see exactly where the shots came from, but I knew they'd come from the left.
The sun was up at 12 o'clock and burning through the left-hand sleeve of my DPMs as I held a steady aim. Men, women and children were screaming but I didn't know if any of our soldiers had returned fire. Engines were still revving but no movement could be seen. Motionless, I watched and waited in silence.
Almost immediately, another burst of gunfire spat out from my left and rear.
Fine red dust from the bush track, recently kicked up by 17 assorted trucks had all but settled, leaving just enough in the air to screw up my vision. Luckily I caught sight of the bullet strike markets — they fell well short of my position, but on line. Worse, the dust had filled the Land Rover's cab and I could now feel sweat trickling down the back of my neck, around my ears and down the side of my nose, forming a pastelike crud. I didn't dare risk moving either hand to wipe it off. The slow wet movement was infuriating, but experience had taught me to keep both hands firmly on my weapon and to keep it well sighted. The strange enjoyment of picking the congealed bogies from one's nose was a pleasure that would have to wait.
Suddenly Jimmy — a short pugnacious-looking Glaswegian with more NI contacts under his belt than you could wish for — screamed at me from the driver's seat to get out. I reacted immediately without thinking. We were out of the wagon like a flash, me almost knocking him flying as we both disembarked from his side. Common sense dictated that I did not get ou
t of my side of the Land Rover — the side facing the threat. The whole incident, from the sound of the first shots to de-bussing, took less than five seconds.
We'd just run into a typical 'suck-it-and-see' ambush by Renamo, the faction opposing us. It was the first time that we, 'The Specialists', had made contact with this particular guerrilla organisation. None of us returned fire, it was pointless. We couldn't see anything and if it was a big ambush, they would be still firing at us. Maybe they wanted to test our reaction. Maybe they would test our reaction a bit further up the track, with a much larger ambush. It was a game of chance. Probably it was just a small group wanting to try their luck — shoot-and-scoot tactics, more than likely.
In this sort of situation, driving straight through the ambush, along a track that was unfamiliar to us and which had not been driven on for over a year, would have been the wrong option. A split in our convoy of slow-moving trucks would mean halving our firepower, and since all of our 80-strong force was riding on them, it would have meant a split with them, too. The SOP was that if we got hit really badly, we would all take our chances on foot in the bush — but, of course, as in every contact with the enemy, the ground and the amount of incoming fire would dictate what evasive or aggressive action we took, and if the enemy had sited their ambush tactically, then our escape options would be limited, if not impossible.
I'd learnt a vital lesson in the Falklands War, several years earlier. You can plan, plan and plan, but when the shit hits the fan and all your well-intentioned planning suddenly disappears, you have to improvise. So in this situation, although we were sitting ducks to some extent, a few bursts of 7.26mm small arms fire was no cause to abandon the trucks and make haste into the bush — even though some of our civvy travellers did just that.
Without warning, the 20mm anti-aircraft cannon wedged into the rear of my Land Rover let off a few rounds before it jammed. That was the signal for the rest of the troops to fire; at what wasn't quite clear. I couldn't see any likely targets. It was their nerves, more than likely.
No Fear: The True Story of My Deadly Life After the SAS Page 1
