Immediate Action

by Andy McNab

  I knew there were some coffees that you couldn't take out of the country, the penalty being something like a six-year prison sentence.

  They were throwing out tons and tons of drugs all over the world, but if you took coffee beans home, you landed up in prison.

  "Yeah, what's the best coffee to take home from all the different blends and roasts and so on?" Slaphead asked.

  "You don't want any of that shit," one of them said.

  "Our favorite is Nescaf instant."

  And ag we found out, they were right. Some of the coffee was dire.

  The first morning I took the group, I'd asked their names. "I am one of three Joses," this boy had said; in my confusion at using Spanish for real for the first time, I took it to be one of those long compound Spanish names and replied, "Pleased to meet you, One-of-three-Jos&s."

  The name stuck.

  We talked about the situation here with the cartels running everything and the fact that all the farmers were workin for them.

  "If you're a farmer,",he now said, "and the government came along and they give you two dollars an acre to grow corn-and that's it,"no health system, just a little bit of schooling, and you're living in a tin hut in the middle of the jungle-and then along come a cartel, and they say, 'You grow for us, we'll give you seven dollars an acre; we'll also build a football pitch, we'll give you medical care, and we'll also educate your kids," what do you do? Of course you grow coca leaf; you don't care about what happens to the gringos. The farmer just thinks, Where's it going? It's going to America. I hate the Americans, so I'm getting my own back; fuck them, it's their problem, the monkey on their back."

  The police knew they were losing the battle, but most of them were there for exactly the same reason-job security. They had families to feed, and they didn't particularly give a tuppenny damn if the Americans had the cocaine or not. All they knew was that they were making money out of fighting it and securing food for their families.

  They'd got the nation behind them, and quite rightly so; if I'd been a farmer, I'd have been growing for them.

  Their whole culture revcilved around the drug trade.

  Marijuana and coca plants were a part of everyday life, so plentiful they even grew at the roadside. In fact the police themselves used to wrap coca leaf around sugar lumps and suck away: they believed it would make them macho and virile. As far as they were concerned, it kept them strong and alert to go and fight the cartels, and nobody seemed to spot the irony.

  "The whole culture is based on violence," they said.

  "In the towns the secret police will drag young street urchins out of the sewers where they live and kill them."

  At night, apparently, the ordinary sounds of the cities were punctuated by gunfire.

  "A bus crashed over a hillside in the jungle about a month before you arrived. When the rescue services arrived on the scene, they found all the local villagers scavenging through the wreckage. Many passengers had survived but were injured. The villagers ignored them in the rush to rip the watches and the rings and wallets off the corpses."

  "It's true. The police had to cock their weapons and start shooting the villagers to get them away," said One of-three-Joses. "And as soon as they left, some of the police started doing exactly the same."

  "There is a disregard for life," another fellow said.

  "Life here revolves around death."

  We had two interpreters with us to get all the technical details over.

  Bruce was from D Squadron and had only one arm; the other on'e had been blown off. The Regiment always kept its cripples. We had blokes with one arm, one eye, one leg; two blokes in B Squadron only had about six fingers between them. There was a wonderful picture in the interest room of them on a mountain-climbing course, trying to tie knots with only a couple of fingers each. Some blokes had lost legs or suffered disabling gunshot wounds. One bloke who turned up for every Selection to run around the hills and man checkpoints had only one arm and one eye.

  It was just part and parcel of life; if they're living quite a harsh existence and spending time on operations, people will get injured or shot or collect diseases that impair them at a later date.

  They were kept in the Regiment for two reasons. First, if we were ever in the shit, we'd know at the back of our mind that even if we were hurt, we'd have a future. Second, why pension off somebody who has experience and knowledge that could be used in training?

  We started looking at the tactics we would need to carry out the task of attacking a DMP. At this stage we didn't know exactly what we were going to be attacking, so there was a bit of guesswork involved.

  We took it from the real basics, looking at the sort of equipment they had, which was essentially a bit of belt kit, a weapon, and their uniform, and that was it. Then we looked at how they were going to move with it and how they were going to live in the field. They had a problem with hard routine. They liked to have the big fires going at night to keep themselves warm and boost their morale and couldn't immediately see the tactical benefits of shivering in a sleeping bag and eating cold food. This was where the bonding and the friendship came in. We did hard routine ourselves, and they copied us.

  We got out in the field for days on end and practiced moving tactically around the jungle and the savanna.

  They learned to hold up before last light, get into a little L.U.P, and stand to; at first light they stood to again, ready to move off.

  After a while they actually enjoyed it; it was something different, it looked macho, and everybody else wanted a piece of the action.

  We spent weeks teaching them OPs and how to hide up and watch locations.

  They'd be holed up for a couple of days and have to report what they saw, and they got very good at it.

  We also taught them how to do close target recces on locations: to go in, try to get as much information as possible on the target without being seen, then watch it and, when the time was right, hit it. They could destroy all the ether, chemicals, and processing equipment, but what they really wanted were the skilled people who did the processing; once they were out of the picture the cartels would have to replace them, and we presumed the supply wasn't infinite.

  Map-reading lessons were hilarious. There's a big myth that the natives of a country will know the,"r way instinctively around the jungle. The fact is, nine times out of ten, they're as stuffed as everybody else is without a map, and they just stick to high ground, tracks, and rivers.

  In my experience of people in the Middle East, the Far East, Asia, and Africa, the locals always knew the easiest route-and they found it by following the animals, which always take the easy option. Take the boys off that route, and they're scratching their heads.

  When they travel across savanna for hundreds of miles, they're not navigating, they're following minimal herds. if the animals got lost, so would they.

  We got all forty or fifty of them together in the cookhouse after breakfast because it was the biggest sheltered place where we could get the maps spread out on tables and get them around. I hated the sessions, because the place was stinking.

  Gar taught the map reading. "This is the compass," he'd say. "We take a bearing like this."

  The rest of us would be moving up and down the tables, checking and helping where we could. It was a total gang fuck. We had to interpret to the soldiers what was going on; they then had to come back with any questions, which had to be answered. It just went on and on.

  In the end we'd just start laughing, and they'd join in. Gar would go mad and shout: "Stop! Come back in half an hour." He would then compose himself, after giving us a bollocking for not taking it seriously.

  We had to teach them how to look at the ground and interpret the map-to be able to say, "Okay, we found a DMP; now we've got to tell people where it is." It's hard enough in the British Army to teach soldiers how to map-read; it's not a science, it's in art, and the only way a recruit can get a feel for it is by getting on the ground and practicing the skills.<
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  Once they'd got the basics of using the compass, that was it; as far as they were concerned, it was the best lesson of their lives.

  Officers started calling by, saying, "Any chance of one of these compasses?" Not to use, mind-they just wanted them dangling on their uniforms to make them look good.

  These guys were going to be fighting in a "real time" war, and they needed a taste of realism. More important, though, we were practicing in the areas where they would be operating anyway, so if the shit hit the fan during training, we had live ammunition on hand. They weren't too impressed to start with, most of them looking very worried about the possibility of shooting themselves. After a while, however, they got into it and then started to come over all macho, swaggering all over the camp.

  "They think they're going to go off and kill every fucker," I said.

  Gar said, "We'll soon put paid to that."

  He got some P.E, and we rigged it up around the training area. We had all the boys lying down ready to go forward, as if they were on a start line. One or two of them were lying there giggling and chanting,

  "Rambo!

  Rambo!"

  As they started to move forward, we initiated the explosives.

  There was shit flying everywhere; they could feel the pressure of the explosives, and then dirt and bits of wood showered down on them.

  They hit the ground, then looked around sheepishly, suitably cut down to size. Some of them looked as if they were going to cry They quit the Sly Stallone routine after that.

  We had to knock all that shit out of them because as soon as the first one of them got killed, and there probably would be quite a few killed, they would be in for a very nasty shock.

  We were getting invitations back to their houses when they had their two days off every couple of weeks. We had to try to dodge and weave as diplomatically as we could, because we didn't really want to get too familiar.

  We wanted the bonding relationship, but we wanted it in slow phases; otherwise it would affect the training.

  Apart from that, we wanted to get downtown, have a shopping frenzy, and generally get around and see the place and have some fun.

  By now we'd gradually weaned them off the great big daggers and six-shooters that had been hanging off their kits. We'd convinced them that the thing about kit dangling all over the place is that it gets entwined in the undergrowth and leaves sign. We'd actually got them looking fairly professional.

  We'd got them tactically okay and they we're doing live attacks on different targets, training for every eventuality. What we now started looking for was certain aptitudes required by a recce-cum-OP-cum-attack force.

  Their job would be to find the locations, look on the map, find out where they were, and get as much information on the places as possible.

  They would then go forward with an attack force to take the place out or put in an OP and gather more nformation.

  OP work calls for people who are naturally quiet, not active or hyper sorts. They have to spend a long time in a cramped position, just observing-two, three, maybe four of them in a location, gathering as much information as possible and sending it back over the radio so that the F.O.B can plan and prepare. The ideal is to attack when.the processing personnel are there and all the equipment is in place. Then you can get the personalities, as well as the kit, and close the place down.

  The people in the OP might be there for two or three weeks, living on hard routine, shitting in plastic bags, 418 pissing in water canisters, not moving around, and under severe pressure because they were right on top of the target; because they were operating in the jungle, they were going to be much closer to the target than if they were out on the savanna.

  We were also trying to pick out the natural leaders.

  There were designated leaders with ranks, but that didn't mean to us they were the right ones; people got ranked for certain things, not necessarily their command of man management or leadership.

  It was a pain in the arse trying to bring on the natural leaders because the system was so regimented. Everything had to be done diplomatically and by giving the prospective leaders responsibilities rather than stripes.

  By picking the most capable blokes, we had more chance of getting the result that we wanted: the successful completion of a task. And because it was highly likely we would be there with them, we'd also stand more chance of getting out alive. The best man in my group was One-of-three-Joses.

  Every chance we had we'd get downtown. I found it quite a modern, cosmopolitan city, with mega office blocks, big shopping centers, and good-class hotels. But as in many other places, it was very evident that the locals had either enormous amounts of money or absolutely none.

  Ultramodern skyscrapers stood next to derelict shanties; Mercedes limos drove over holes in the ground where the sewage system had collapsed and kids had taken shelter.

  The city was also one of the dirtiest and noisiest places I'd ever seen.

  People seemed to throw away their rubbish wherever they were standing, and music blasted out in the streets, restaurants, and long-distance buses; it seemed to be an integral part of daily life, culminating at night in discotheques, tabernas, and private parties.

  The blare of TV was just as bad. It appeared that sets in Latin America had two unique features: It seemed impossible to switch them off until late at night, and the volume control had only two settings-very loud and deafening.

  The traffic noise was something else. I'd heard antiquated A.P.C.S that were quieter than some of the deathtraps running around. Traffic jams seemed frequent, and the etiquette if you were stuck in one seemed to be to lean on your 'horn until you moved. When vehicles were not stuck in a traffic jam, it seemed important to the locals that they be driven at well above maximum recommended revs. I'd already seen buses flying at breakneck speed down twisting mountain roads; in the city they speeded up. There was an amazing variety of taxis, ranging from old American Fords, made during the time of JFK, to brand-new Mazdas.

  There were traffic lights everywhere. You could cross the road on either green or red and have an equal chance of being hit. I found it paid to look both ways several timels before sprinting across, even if it was a one-way street.

  Living and working in Dodge City, we all needed to wear concealed weapons. I was sitting in the breakfast bar of the hotel one morning when a couple of whiteeyes turned up. Normally I'd have just given them the once-over, but this time it was a double take. By the way they wore their shirts I guessed they were carrying weapons. Then it dawned on me that I knew their faces: They were two ex-members of G Squadron.

  Sometimes, on different jobs around the world, we'd be working and see somebody we knew. Nothing would be said; everybody would ignore one another. They didn't know what we were doing or who we were supposed to be, and vice versa. Until one approached the other, there'd always be a silly little standoff.

  Eventually the ritual finished, and it was okay. They came over and sat down.

  "How's it going?"

  "Not too bad', Another part - of this ritual was not really getting straight down to what you wanted to talk about. Most people were cagey when it came to discussing their activities.

  We chatted away about normal things, as you do when you bump into ex-members of the Regiment on the other side of the world. We stagged everybody down that we knew and discussed what was going on in downtown Hereford.

  After a while I asked the question, expecting a "Fuck off, big nose"' in reponse: "So, what are you doing then?"

  "We have a close protection job here for a while, up north. Are you still in or are you working?"

  Straightaway I realized that they were having the same doubts about me.

  I decided to play them along for a while.

  "Yeah, I've been here for a few weeks now on a training job. The money is good, but the people can be a pain in the arse."

  "What's the money like? Maybe we could get a job with you?"

  "Same as if you were
a corporal in the Regiment."

  T. their job, it turned out, involved protecting people against the cartels.

  I wondered if ex-members of the Regiment really were working for the cartels, earning fantastic amounts of money, adopting the same attitude as everyone sitting around us in this hotel; if these people want to use drugs, more fool them. Allegedly lots of Americans and Canadians were working for the drug barons; the Yanks were advising, teaching, and sorting out the business end. The cartels had fantastic wealth; working for them would probably be a cozy number. But lucrative as it might have been, I didn't think it was for me.

  A meeting was fixed for the following week, but by then other events had overtaken us.

  Things had not been going well. We'd been intheater for a while now, and every time we'd gone in against a DMP we found we'd captured the Marie Celeste. Security had been fearsomely lax.

  Corruption appeared to be a part of life; it wasn't unknown for helicopters, on the way to pick up troops for an attack, to fly over some of the processing factories as anearly warning. I felt we were fighting a losing battle.

  However, Gar gpt us in the hut one day and said, "Right, there's a change in the system. We're going to go and look for a plant over in the west.. We'll get you in there covertly. You go and find the place, take it on, and then and only then will we brin the helicopters in.

  What's more, you'll report directly to us on the net back in HQ."

  We looked at a map that was spread out on his table.

  "We know there's a plant in here somewhere," he said, indicating an area of about sixteen square kilometers.

  "We'll take four patrols in to go and look for it-that's four Ks each.

  The patrols are Tony's, Andy's, Rod's, and Terry's. If we find it, we'll take it, because this is getting to be a pain in the arse.

  "Once an'y of you find the target, I want you to put a CTR in. I want photography, I want video, and I want as much information as possible sent over the net to me.

  I'll then organize the helis. We'll keep it strictly between us; the boys are not to know until we actually go on the op. Once we're on the ground we'll give them orders.