by Andy McNab
I had a wife, a child, a happy life in a small village, and everything was perfect.
The future looked rosy.
Kate was still in nappies, and just to sit there and hold her was very special. She had my eyes, and I never got tired of looking into them.
We were staking out a bomb factory in an old Victorian house that was halfway through renovation, with whitewashed windows and bare floors. We knew it was a factory because Dave I and I had been in it the night before.
We'd cleared the house, pistols in hand, in a semicrouch. The kitchen was bare concrete. Standing in the middle of the floor was an industrial coffee grinder; there might as well have been a sign up saying BOMB FACTORY. We knew they would be mixing bomb ingredients at some point. From now on we would have to stay It on target," watching as people went in and out of the house. Low explosives don't last that long if not protected from the elements. Once a bomb was made, therefore, they tried to use it as quickly as possible; we had to be there to stop that.
"That's two men, green on blue jeans, brown on black jeans and bald."
"That's them into the house. Over."
"Alpha. Roger."
The stakeout took forever, and we h'ad to walk past the target to try to make out what was going on. Had they finished? Were they still at it?
"That's Delta going Foxtrot [on foot]."
Alpha replied: "Delta's Foxtrot."
I got out of my car. I was wearing a pair of jeans, market trainers, and my blue bomber jacket. My hair looked like an eighteen-year-old football player's-long at the back, with short sides.
It was greasy, and I looked as if I had just got out of bed and was going to sign on.
My car was old and in shit state to go with its owner.
We were in Derry, between the Bogside and Creggan estates. The names suited the area, dark gray and cold, lines of terraced houses going up the hill toward the Greggan. It was winter, and I could smell peat smoke.
Alpha, who was the team leader on the ground, wanted someone to walk the alleyway that was between the back of two rows of houses. I was nearest and hadn't walked past yet.
I clicked my comms: "Delta, check."
"Alpha."
As I got nearer to the alleyway, I noticed two lads on the corner.
They looked more or less the same as me, apart from the cigarettes in their mouths and the rolledup newspapers in their back pockets. They were sitting on a low wall at the entry point to the alleyway. Were they dickers? I didn't know.
The weather was cold and damp. This was good; I could get my hands in my jacket pockets and get my head down, walking as if I was going somewhere.
As I turned right into the alley and looked uphill, there was nothing.
The alleyway was just hard mud, filled with old cans and dogshit. The two boys took no notice as I walked past. It seemed they were waiting for the bookies to open.
It was a horrible feeling going up that alleyway, knowing that these people were behind me. I walked with a purpose, not hesitating or looking behind. I kept looking at the ground, as if I was in a bit of a daze. I was a bag of shit, so I walked like a bag of shit.
Tucked in my leans I had my 9MM Browning and plenty of rounds.
If they said anything to me as I went in, I would have to try to avoid answering.
"Alpha, Delta, check?"
They wanted to know how I was doing.
I couldn't talk on my radio; the two boys would hear.
I clicked my pressal button twice to send two quick bursts of squelch.
"Alpha, roger that."
Everyone now knew things were okay.
The back door was closed, but I could just hear the faint buzz of the coffee grinder in the back of the house; they were still making the bomb.
People were passing; I could not talk yet, but I could hear everyone else on the net.
"Alpha, November, going mobile." Eno was off somewhere else.
"Alpha, roger that. Delta, check."
Click. Click.
"Roger that, are you past the house yet?"
Click. Click.
"Is the grinding still going?"
Click. Click.
I went into the corner shop and got a pint of milk and the Sporting Life. Now I would take a walk past the front and see if I could make out anything inside.
"Alpha, Lima, I have Delta walking back to his Charlie."
"Alpha."
Rich had seen me and was telling everyone what was happening. He had been in the Det for years and was an excellent operator. He often had clashes with the head shed as he was a very outspoken person; however, whatever he said made sense.
"Delta's complete [back in the carl."
"Alpha."
I was now in my car, and I drove off.
Nothing happened for about two hours. I was still part of the stakeout but not on top of the target, as I had already been exposed.
This didn't mean that I'd hang slack. There was still a job to do.
Everything that passed me I had to check it out. As well as see who was in the area so I could report it to others, I could detect the mood of the place: Does it look any different today? 1-f so, why?
This was not a place that the tourist board would recommend.
There was nothing passive about this work.
Only a few months before, an operator was shot near where I was sitting.
He'd been doing exactly the same as I was, parked up and waiting to go and do something.
The players saw him, must have thought there was something wriggly, went and got their weapons, and head-jobbed him.
I was parked in a line of cars outside a row of terraced Victorian houses. I had the newspaper open and was eating a sandwich. In front of me, about a hundred meters away, was the road that the target was on, crossing left to right.
Alpha was talking on the net and organizing things to make sure he had a good tight stakeout when all of a sudden a blue flash went past me, two up (two in the car). I saw a face looking down the road; he was aware.
I tried to cut in on the net. "Stand by, stand by. Charlie One is mobile. That's Charlie One mobile."
I couldn't get in; Alpha was still on the net. I had no choice but to "take" it. "That's Delta mobile."
I carried on talking on the net, burning up the road toward the target car. I wasn't worried about the compromise factor now. It wouldn't matter if I was leaving chaos behind me, as long as the players in front didn't notice anything. The important thing was not to lose that bomb.
If we did, we were talking about a lot of dead people. Passing a junction, I looked down left but couldn't see anything. I raced downhill to the right, down toward the Bogside. As I passed two junctions, I kept giving a commentary: "Stand by, stand by. Charlie One's mobile. Down towards the Bogside."
At last I got on the net. "That's at the Bogside, still straight, still straight. He's going towards the Little Diamond [an area of the Bogside]."
"Lima's mobile. Lima's trying to back you." Rick was driving fast toward me.
I found the target again just as it went into the Bogside and closed up.
"That's possibly two up, Sierra sixty to sixty-five.
He's moving!"
"Alpha."
"November, Roger that."
The rest of the team were now racing toward the scene. To lose contact with the bomb team could be fatal.
The passenger was turning around, looking straight at me. I tried to look casual; we had a bit of eye-to-eye contact, and I looked away.
I wanted the bomb to get to its destination, us to find the new hide, get the device, and put a stop to their plans. To have a contact was pointless; we wouldn't know the whole picture then.
I was up at him now, and he was still looking straight at me.
"That's confirmed, two up, very aware."
We were not going to do anything yet as they might take us to another safe house. But if they were going to place the bomb, we would be there. We just had to
keep with it.
By now I had the skill to give a commentary on the net, telling everyone what was going on, not moving my lips, trying not to catch the eye of the boys in the car but at the same time stay with them.
"He's turning left. Stop, stop, stop. Delta's Foxtrot."
He got down to the bottom past the Bogside and turned left toward the Little Diamond.
"That's now left towards the Little Diamond. He's going into the first o tion left." I knew the c' back to pity front; I'd spent so many hours learning it and walking it; I knew where all the players lived, what their' kids looked like, where the kids went to school. I knew this was a dead end. "That's a stop, stop, stop! stop, stop, stop!"
I drove past their car and went off onto the waste area of the Rosville Flats, the area of the Bloody Sunday shootings, where there was a car park. I stopped and got out. I had to get on the ground straightaway so that by the time he'd parked I was out and walking.
"Lima's Foxtrot."
Rick was right behind me and stopped his car as soon as they turned into the Bogside. I saw him walking into the dead end of the estate. That took a lot of bollocks; he didn't know what he was walking into. Were they armed? Were they ready with the bomb; was it now being brought out and moved into another wagon? Was it going to be an armed bombing?
As I walked toward the open square of the estate, I saw-an old converted container lorry that served as a shop. Children were running around; women were hanging off the balconies. There were a few cars parked up.
There was nowhere to go, but we had to make it look as if we were going somewhere. It was no good knowing just that the bomb was in the Bogside, because i the estate was a warren of little alleyways.
We needed to know precisely where it was and who was handling it.
Rick walked past the shop and then saw the car. I followed to back him up in case of dickers or a trap.
He said, "Stand by, stand by. Charlie One's being unloaded.
That's now being unloaded."
I said, "Delta's backing. Delta's backing you, Lima."
"They're loading it top left-hand side. It's getting unloaded into the top left-hand side flat. That's confirmed.
That's confirmed."
Rick was walking through the alleyway. As he got further out, he was able to talk. "Alpha, Lima. The device was unloaded, and it went into the top left-hand flat. There were about three people holding it, and there were two dickers. It looks abandoned. There's some boards up on the windows."
"Alpha, roger that."
By this time I could hear the other cars in the area, keeping an eye out for other players. They would be watching the entrance to the square; the players might just be putting it in there, priming it up, putting it in another wagon and running it out. That bomb now had to be controlled all the time. It mustn't go anywhere.
Not so easy in the Bogside, but we did it.
The decision was made to lift the bomb by having the police raid the square and take it. There was nothing much said in any newspaper, national or local, about the incident. It was just another "find."
PIRA -put it down to a tout, but it wasn't anything of the kind.
It was the Det spending hours of intelligence gathering and surveillance.
The way this was done was by people being in these hard areas and getting up against the targets. If that bomb had gone off, tens of people could have been killed.
Such incidents made me glad that I had been sent to the Det. They made me understand how professional they were and not just Walter Midis.
Having said that, I itty Waits. would never admit it: they were still the By now I was a corporal and things looked promising.
Eno and I were team leaders in the Det and even considered coming back for a second tour. The words of the CO at the time of the great press-gang had been: "What we want is a complete soldier, one who can operate from both sides of the coin. The only way you are going to get operational ex erience on the other side ising to the Det." p by goHe was scoffed at then. But now I knew he was right.
The Regiment were getting the most highly trained and operationally experienced soldiers in the world, capable of manning a GPMG in a slit trench or walking around an alien environment, blending in and gaining information, and I was very proud to be part of that.
Eno, Brendan, Dave 2, and I were out on the ground one day, following two boys out of the Bogside up toward the Creggan Estate.
They were moving carrying rifles and radios wrapped in black bin liners.
On the net I heard, "Stop, stop, stop." The boys had stopped somewhere behind a row of buildings. Eno came on the net "That's them now complete. That's now complete-o'the of the gardens. Wait wait That's now complete the row of gardens-twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six."
We now knew that they were messing around in the area of those gardens and Eno could see them. As he walked past the fence that ran parallel, he looked left out of the corners of his eyes. "They're putting it in the coal shed. They're putting it in the coal shed.
Wait wait That's confirmed, the weapons are in the coal shed."
Brendan, the team leader, still in his car, came back: "Alpha, roger that."
We'd just spent the last three hours following these people around. We'd picked them up in the Bogside, where there was a hide that we knew contained weapons. The Bogside was a maze of sixties-style concrete and-glass flats and maisonettes linked by alleyways and dead ends. The place was in shit state. Dogs barked and skulked; kids hollered and hurtled around on push bikes or kicked balls against the wall. Women shouted at one another over the landings.
Unemployed men sat on steps, smoking and talking. It was November, and at three-thirty in the afternoon it was very cold.
We wanted to make sure where the weapons were going to. We "took" them from the Bogside up toward the Creggan, and now they were behind these three houses.
The Creggan was on the opposite high ground, the other side of the valley, looking down on the walled city of Derry. Unlike the Bogside, it was laid out in long lines of brown-brick terraced houses, a big estate with a central grassy area and shops and a library. By the time we got up there it was just starting to get dark and I could see my breath. I was wearing an old German army parka, jeans, and trainers.
My hair was still long and greasy, and I hadn't shaved for days; I blended in well. I felt quite happy in these areas now; we'd been on the ground for some time and were well tuned in. And at the end of the day I had a big fat gun tucked inside my jeans.
These were hard areas, and there had been a lot of contacts. I laughed to myself when I remembered the phrase "passive surveillance."
I thought, There's fuck all passive about being in the Bogside, following two blokes with weapons, going up to the Creggan to see what they're going to do with them.
Eno came on the net. "I'll go for the trigger."
Alpha came back, "Roger that. November's going for the trigger."
We now had to control the weapons; if they were moved from that spot, we had to know and be able to follow them, wherever they went.
If they stayed put, the plan was to get them out of the coal shed later that night and lark them there and then on the spot. Either way we would have control. The problem was hanging around in the Creggan for that amount of time. Everybody on these estates was very aware, from small children to old grannies. There was always an atmosphereof high tension. Two weeks before, a soldier had got shot straight through the head, and everybody on the estate was well pleased with the effort.
Eno was at the bottom of the garden, down a little walkway that ran between some garages and the garden itself. He was tucked in to one side; if he got discovered, he'd just pretend that he was having a piss and then walk away. This was where all the CQB training and skills came in; it was deciding when the situation demanded that you pull that gun.
He whispered, "November's got the trigger. I'm down the bottom of the path, between the garages and the gardens."
"Alpha, roger that. November's got the trigger."
Eno was going to stand there in the dark, about fifteen meters from the weapons. If there was no need to move until midnight, he wouldn't.
Brendan was further down the road in a car, ready to back Eno if anything happened. Dave 2 and I were just swanning around, me in my eight-year-old Volkswagen GT waiting to respond.
I parked up. It was now about five-thirty in the evening, and all the streetlights were on. Smoke started to pour from the chimney pots, and I could, smell burning peat and coal. The field across the road was a jumble of wrecked cars and roaming horses. It was starting to drizzle.
I got out of the car and said, "That's Delta going Foxtrot.
"Alpha, roger that-Delta's going Foxtrot."
I heard: "That's Golf going Foxtrot."
We were all off to the Spar shop down the road. I bought my "blending-in" items-a can of Coke and a copy of the Sun-and lounged against the wall. Dave 2 bought a bag of chips from the van outside and joined me for a brief chat.
I drove around the block, parked up somewhere else, and went for a walk.
It was about seven o'clock when I heard Enos voice, calm as ever: "Stand by, stand by.
That's two Charlies coming in."
He gave the registration numbers and descriptions of the cars.
"That's three Bravos coming out. One with long dark hair, jean jacket, and jeans; one with a blue nylon parka and black trousers; one with a green bomber jacket and blue jeans.
"It's looking all very businesslike," he said. "It isn't a social thing. They're very aware. Something's on."
I sat in the car, reading the Sun and drinking my Coke.
Alpha acknowledged. Other call signs went mobile, orbiting around Eno.
About twenty minutes later I heard: "Stand by, stand by. That's three Bravos Foxtrot towards the car. That's at the cars, still going straight. They're walking towards me. They're starting to put masks on. Possible contact.
