by Geoff Wolak
‘I’m a medic with the Royal Air Force, just here for a few months.’
‘Oh. How far are going to run?’ she asked, and I wondered why.
‘Maybe twenty miles.’
‘Oh. There is a limit of half an hour per machine when it’s busy here, just so you know.’
I glanced left, none of the machines in use. ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ I panted out. ‘Thanks.’
I completed twelve miles in a reasonable time, got my swimming trunks on, keen to explore, and showered before entering the pool area, still getting odd looks. I eased into the cool water and completed ten lengths before exiting and trying the sauna. I had just one fat old guy for company, and he ignored me.
Leaving the sauna after ten minutes, I was soon face to face with a guy in his thirties that stopped dead. He looked me over, and I wondered if he was gay or something. He did, however, look fit and toned.
‘You must be him. I’m Captain Harris, Intel at the base.’ He put out his hand and we shook. ‘Cold beer?’
‘Never say no,’ I quipped.
We headed off. ‘You have a reputation for not drinking much.’
‘I don’t get hammered like the rest of the guys, bad for training, sir.’
‘Please don’t call me sir in here,’ he whispered. ‘They don’t know, and I want to keep it that way. There’s a lady here that I see, and she thinks I’m a salesman.’
‘And what’s so wrong with Army Intel?’ I pressed.
‘The posh ladies don’t like military men. Well, many of them in here anyway.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind. Any ... nice ladies?’
‘Plenty,’ he said with a smirk.
At the bar he bought me a beer, and I noticed a few nice ladies in their thirties. But still, they were nice.
‘You all settled in?’ he asked.
‘Just got a flat today, not far from this place, wanted a good gym nearby.’
‘This is the only good gym, a few officers use it, none of the lads – so no gossip.’
‘A good point, yes.’
He took a moment. ‘One of the lads was sentenced last week, life, for murder.’
‘Yeah, who’d he murder?’
‘His ex-wife, local girl, big stink about it. But many go off on one, and when they leave ... well, they drink a lot, look for work, don’t get work, beat up the wife and in-laws and go to prison. There are a lot of ex-troopers in prison, many in prisons around the world.’
‘I’ve met a few of the wankers, and I avoid old timers, and I’d never go to a reunion. The bullshit issued there would fertilize Hereford.’
‘You’ve learnt early on what they’re like,’ he said with a smile.
‘Some of the people here, like Taffy Davies, you’d pass them in the street and not notice, and I doubt Davies could fight off a bunch of girl guides,’ I said.
‘It surprised me when I first came over, and most are just regular family guys, and they want to go home at 5pm and pick up the kids from sports. Prime Time should be called Family Time, but the way they look at it – if you add up the hours they spend on deployment, then across the year, that works out at forty hours a week or more.’
I nodded and sipped my beer. ‘It surprised me a bit, but I would use the time for training.’
‘Some do. Some run ten miles a day or more. And that’s the thing, there’s a vast contrast between them. Some of the lads have been there for twenty years, and they couldn’t run a mile without falling over. Still, they have skills and experience, but they poison the minds of youngsters. You’ll hear an experienced man telling a youngster that it’s all a waste of time and that they are better off elsewhere. Personally, I’d bin them.’
‘So would I.’
‘It’s also a bit clicky, in that “D” Squadron gets most of the best men, yet the squadrons are supposed to be equal, and certain troops are better than others, and if they don’t like someone they get rid of him, not leave it down to the C.O.’
‘If they try that with me they’ll regret it.’
‘I heard you hit Rizzo,’ he said with a smirk. ‘He’s one to watch.’
‘He’s not a threat to me,’ I firmly stated. ‘Few are. So tell me, why so many Intel and Signals bodies around?’
‘There are often as many Intel and Signals officers and NCO’s around as there are lads with guns. The way it works, MI5 in Hollywood, Northern Ireland, gets a tip-off, or they tap a line, and that’s passed up the line for assessment, which could lead to actioning, and that has to go up to the Joint Intelligence Committee or COBRA if it’s serious, or maybe just the duty officer signs it off for a police raid.
‘If the JIC action it for the UKSF Directorate, then that could mean an SAS team sent to ambush someone in Northern Ireland, but the information goes to Army Intel London, and they do the planning, and then it goes to the SAS as an Operational Order, and the SAS make a plan in conjunction with the Intel staff, but they could reject it under some circumstances.
‘If it’s serious, then COBRA meets, maybe with the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary there, usually their deputies, and there’s an SAS representative. You may even have the Prime Minister sat in on it.
‘MI5 in Northern Ireland can’t just pick up the phone and send in a team, it has to go through a hundred sets of hands and get formal permission.’
I nodded, knowing most of this. ‘And the kick-off intel can come from MI5, SIS, GCHQ or the Police.’
‘Or people like 14 Intel.’
‘What’s their exact role? The Det?’ I pressed.
‘They were formed in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, basically spies for the Army, but using Army staff, and many accused them of helping loyalists to kill – which I am sure they did. You see, the Army wanted to control Mi6, but the civvies weren’t having that, so 14 Intel was a knee-jerk reaction - as much out of spite.
‘Their role now, with others, is to go in with the troops in any theatre of war and to provide local irregular intel – meaning sneak up and peek, but recently they’ve enlarged their role in Northern Ireland to act more like spies on the ground and to even send in teams instead of the SAS – there have been political clashes with your lot for some time about who does what.
‘And 14 Intel, they want the SAS to be a department within their organisation; they’re out to rule the world they are. They had a dedicated SAS team with them in Northern Ireland for years.’
‘They send in teams?’
‘They have about fifty so-called front line people, all current UK military on secondment, some ex-SBS, ex-Marines and Paras, and even a few ex-SAS. They launch armed patrols in Northern Ireland because your lot don’t want to do that all year round. There’s a logical division between surveillance, and storming a house. 14 Intel did the boring surveillance, then your lot stormed in, but half a dozen 14 Intel lads were caught and killed in Ireland.’
‘I read about some of it.’
‘A whiff of collusion still hangs around, and after a beer some of the 14 Intel staff will admit to planting bombs and making it look like the IRA. They have some bad people, and they’re never to be trusted,’ he warned me.
I nodded. ‘Good to know early on.’
‘We have Signals at the base as well. If a Squadron goes somewhere, signals maintain the long distance communications, often just supplies and admin. A four man team doing something interesting abroad could have thirty support staff behind them.’
‘The thin end of the wedge,’ I said. ‘And the ghostly “E” Squadron, the Increment?’
‘You’re not supposed to know, neither am I, but they’re not so clever. They’re ex-members, part time work protecting diplomats in shit holes like Colombia, but – technically – they could be used by SIS for their wet work, as they say. And your relationship with ... SIS?’
‘Why does everyone think that?’ I asked with a screwed up face. ‘I did some VIP bodyguard work, senior RAF officers to start, and that repeated itself during the Gulf War, which m
eant I was rubbing shoulders with spooks. One senior officer was a bad boy, drink and drugs, local prostitutes, and I helped clean up the mess, which brought me into the Intel circle.
‘I never shot anyone, jumped out of a plane, or silently killed a lady assassin by shagging her to death.’ He laughed. ‘I drove cars and I was discrete, and I hid drunk senior officers and helped them avoid arrest in Saudi.’ I held my hands wide. ‘That’s it. My worth to them ... was that I resisted when questioned, and I don’t blab about it.’
He nodded. ‘They have high hopes for you here.’
‘Yeah, well I have a way of disappointing people,’ I said with a sigh.
The next day I was on the range with Taffy, and he worked me hard. He laid out ten pistols, and he had added dirt to some of them. He had also set up ten small targets the size of playing cards, which I had to hit ten times after cleaning each pistol. He sat back with a newspaper, started an oven timer, and I sighed.
I found dirt in the barrel of the first pistol and cleaned it, soon firing ten rounds in rapid succession, and then onto the next one. There I found dirt around the firing pin. On the third pistol, I cleaned it, but testing it by cocking and firing empty I felt something jamming, so had to clean it again. I fired it without blowing my own face off.
After lunch, Major Bradley called me in. ‘Sit, sit,’ he urged, his face in a file. ‘Right, first aid – you don’t need that,’ he said without looking up. ‘Parachute Basic you’ve done.’ He looked up. ‘Night jumps?’
‘Three, sir.’
‘Enough. HALO you’ve done, map reading?’
‘Shit hot, sir.’
‘Figured that. Swimming?’ He looked up with a smile.
‘Just about stay afloat, sir.’
‘Sniper School?’
‘No, sir, looking forwards to it.’
‘Scuba diving?’
‘PADI exams 1 and 2, sir.’
‘Re-breather course?’
‘No, sir, would love to do one.’
He made notes. ‘Driving?’
‘Advanced, sir.’
‘Jeep maintenance?’
‘Advanced, sir.’
‘Cross country motorbike?’
‘Some, sir.’
He made a note. ‘Three tonne truck?’
‘Qualified, sir.’
‘Geography and politics?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Shit hot, sir?’
‘Canoeing?’
‘Some, sir.’
‘Boat with outboard engine?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Jungle course you’ll need to do. Explosives?’
‘I read the book, not done any courses, sir.’
He looked up and sighed. ‘Well, that cuts a lot out of your basic training.’
‘I’d like to do the combat survival course, sir.’
He made a face. ‘If you like. There’s one ... a few weeks away I think. What would you like to do first?’
‘Sniper school, sir.’
He made a note.
‘I’d then like more training on tracking, forest movement, hiding, and trapping animals.’
He eased back. ‘Magsee is best, retired a while back, runs a civilian course a few times a year. He spent time in the jungle with local tribesmen. I’ll contact him. A few days with him and you’ll improve no end.’
‘And small team tactics, sir, that’s my one weakness.’
‘Sergeant Crab has that in mind for next week already.’ He eased back. ‘What do you make of Captain Marks?’
‘Seems like a nice officer, sir.’
He nodded, and went back to his file. ‘Oh, PTI’s wanted to meet with you. Most want to string you up because they never invented QMAR, rest are big fans, but don’t get sidetracked with them.’
I spent a day with Crab and others on the dated AK47, plenty of rounds fired, then moved onto the AKML – long barrel AK47, and I fired it with both iron sights, simple tube sights, and with a telescopic lens, down at the Ross-on-Wye range. With the telescopic sight fitted I was hitting playing cards at 500 yards.
The M16 was next, and many hours were spent on drills and cleaning before firing at Ross-on-Wye, again with a telescopic sight. At 500 yards I could again hit a playing card, but did not do as well as I had done with the AKM, which I preferred.
I chatted to Captain Marks for a while, but he struck me as public school idiot; all the right connections, not so much the smarts. He asked about the London Marathon, boxing, and we chatted for half an hour, but we got along because I showed him more respect than the others. Technically he was the boss of the troop, but in reality Taffy Davies and Sergeant Crab were senior and led the troop, the captain often taking their advice.
A day with the GPMG across at the Sennybridge range and Crab was happy, but then I had to go through all the historic weapons; the SMG, the light machine gun – top loading, revolvers and .22 bolt action rifles, .303 rifles from the Second World War, UZI sub-machine gun.
That led to more modern weapons, some quite strange, but a rifle was a rifle and the basics were all the same. I threw a dozen grenades near Sennybridge, and learnt the drills for blowing up grenades that had failed to blow up themselves. I even got to place a Claymore and detonate it by pulled in a long chord as we hid in a concrete bunker. We had set-up man-size targets prior to the detonation, and they were shredded, a valuable lesson learnt.
With the Major calling me in, he said, ‘Your weapons skills are fine, as good as this lot, better with your armourers knowledge, so what areas are you weak in?’
‘Moving targets, moving and firing, sir.’
He nodded. ‘Sennybridge Range, the one with the targets that are controlled from the hut. I’ll organise it, send a few others that could do with some sharpening up.’
In the mornings I was running around country roads, trying to find a good course, and in the evenings I was training at the hotel gym and settling into a pattern, and I would often eat a meal there, sometimes with Captain Harris from Intel, and he was starting to treat me more like a mate than an enlisted man. He also appreciated my ability to attract the ladies, as well as my ability to charm them once we were sat chatting.
Then I noticed that the gym opened at 6am and so I popped down the next day, finding them cleaning at 5.45am. I slipped onto a running machine and started a two hour fast jog, getting to the base just in time for the morning meeting, after which I had breakfast as many of the guys headed home.
The following lunchtime a guy called Swifty came and introduced himself and sat with me. I had heard all about him because he was supposed to be as good as Rizzo, a marathon runner, but was also rumoured to do ‘jobs’ for other units. He was renowned for revealing little about himself - his private life or work.
‘The famous Swifty,’ I noted.
‘The infamous Wilco.’
I smiled. ‘You have a reputation for not blabbing, which is rare around here.’
‘You also have that reputation, and you don’t drink much.’
‘Drink kills muscle, and brain tissue. Can’t drink and maintain peak performance,’ I pointed out.
‘True, and I’m using QMAR ... in detail.’ He chewed his food. ‘So, these rumours about you in the Gulf...’
‘So, these rumours about you doing jobs...’
He smiled. ‘I know Bob Staines.’
‘You trust him?’
He took a moment. ‘Yes.’
‘Me too, up to a point.’
‘He hinted that you cleaned-up a mess in Saudi.’
I tackled my food. ‘Senior officers, drink and drugs and prostitutes and ... small boys.’
‘Ah. Kept it out of the press.’ He nodded.
‘How long you been in?’
‘Two years.’
‘That would be a short timer to many, yet you’re well respected,’ I noted.
‘Some do, some blab about it down the pub. If they know that you’ll do the job without blabbing you get more jobs, and if you do those
OK you get more dangerous jobs and ... there’s no limit to where you could go.’
‘Nor how hard you could fall ... when they no longer require your services.’
‘There is that, so ... you have to choose your friends. But still, I could trip in the shower, parachute could fail, Intel in Northern Ireland could be crap and I get killed. It’s all a risk.’
I nodded. ‘I don’t mind risk, but I do mind the idea that someone might send me on a job without planning it correctly.’
‘If they respect you, they’ll plan it with you.’
I nodded. ‘Food for thought. How do you get on with Rizzo?’
‘He’s good, I’m better, you’re better still.’
I smiled widely. ‘I’m good at some things, but I don’t have all the courses nailed yet.’
‘Don’t need them, just need to see through the fog. Rizzo can’t see through the fog, you and I can, Bradley can. You don’t fight your way into a place, you think your way in. Smurf would open fire from five hundred yards and then try and flank them.
‘You and I would realise that the ... easiest option would be to blow the local rickety bridge, and when they cross the river in canoes you pick them off. Often, you need to be a lateral thinker, and the most obvious choice is always the wrong one.
‘I once puzzled how to get into a place, was about to give up when I noticed the drains. I blocked their drains, and when they got fed up they came out to have a look. I put a device on a jeep, and they drove back inside, an eight hour timer. I was over the border when it went off.’
I smiled. ‘Lateral thinking, yes.’
That Friday night I ventured out with Bob and Smurf for a drink, and we came across Rizzo and his two mates. I bought all three of them a drink without asking, Rizzo’s two mates pleasant enough. We stood together, but apart, two separate groups.
When I saw Rizzo eyeing a girl, I observed him, Smurf suggesting that Rizzo generally shagged ugly birds, and was not very good with the ladies. I headed towards the gang of girls they were eyeing.
‘Ladies,’ I said in my sexy tone. Then I studied each one.
‘Something wrong?’ a girl puzzled.
‘Just trying to see who’s the best looking, but it is hard to choose.’
