Using a 500-lire coin, I partially unscrewed the trim panel from the side of the passenger footwell, stuffed the three sheets of information on the SA-14s down the gap and had just finished screwing it back together when APOCALYPSE returned. `OK, everything's in order,' he announced, 'Let's get on our way to Milan.'
We navigated northwards through the busy Rome traffic and were approaching the entry to the A1 autostrada when we came upon a carabinieri roadblock controlling the traffic flowing on to the motorway. Four uniformed officers were questioning the driver of a battered Fiat 500, their dark-blue Alfa-Romeos parked alongside. As we drew closer, one raised a white gloved hand, indicating for us to pull in. `Shit' exclaimed APOCALYPSE, a little too vehemently. We drew to a halt just as the little Fiat accelerated away in a cloud of blue exhaust smoke.
One of the carabinieri strutted over to APOCALYPSE's window, dark glasses hiding his eyes. `Documenti,' he snapped, clicking his fingers.
APOCALYPSE looked at me, bemused. `He wants your driving licence and insurance details,' I urged.
`I haven't got them,' replied APOCALYPSE with a shrug of his shoulders.
The carabinieri glared back. `Documenti,' he repeated, then in accented English, `Passport.'
APOCALYPSE shrugged his shoulders, `I left it in my hotel,' he replied, speaking slowly and deliberately.
The carabinieri beckoned to his boss who strutted over and barked out a few orders. `Chiavi,' he demanded impatiently, while the first carabinieri went round to the front of our car to send the registration number through to their control centre. The officer reached through the window, grabbed the ignition keys and ordered us out of the car. Two other carabinieri started searching the boot. `Whose car is this?' the senior officer asked in heavily accented English.
`It's a Hertz rental car' answered APOCALYPSE.
The officer conferred on his radio again and ordered us to wait. I had expected to be arrested but still was not sure if this was a mock arrest or whether we had genuinely stumbled into one of the many random traffic controls on Italian roads. Surely the DS would not plan a mock arrest to this level of detail? That smoking Fiat 500 pulling away as we arrived was so plausible. Could this be a real road block? Was the exercise was about to go spectacularly wrong?
The senior officer came back and snapped a few orders to his subordinates, then turned to us. `There are some irregularities in the paperwork of your car. You must come with us to the station while we investigate further.'
They bundled us into the back of separate Alfa-Romeos, carabinieri clambering in either side of me, SMGs cradled in their laps. Two other officers took charge of APOCALYPSE's Fiat. With sirens blaring and blue lights flashing, we hurtled down the autostrada, traffic parting in front of us.
We turned off ten kilometres later and pulled into a carabinieri station in the shadows of the flyover. My captors wordlessly dragged me out of the Alfa-Romeo, escorted me into a large room and pushed me into a chair in front of a substantial steel desk. Four armed guards stood over me. Another officer walked in, causing the guards to spring to attention. He was dressed in civilian clothes and spoke impeccable English. `I'm sorry to treat you like this, but we have had intelligence that two mafia contacts were making their way up to Milan in a car like yours. We need to eliminate you from our enquiries.'
He handed me some forms and ordered me to fill in details of name, address, occupation and date of birth. The DS would check that we had remembered all the basic details of our alias cover story. I handed back the paper and the civilian cross-examined me on them. I answered confidently, determined not to let him catch me out so easily.
One of the carabinieri who made the original arrest entered and interrupted proceedings. `Capitano, ho trovato niente nella macchina.' It was close enough to Spanish for me to understand that they had failed to find anything incriminating in the hire car. The captain glared at his subordinate and irritably ordered him to go back and continue searching. Eventually they would find the papers hidden in the door panel, but hopefully it would take them a while. Meanwhile, I rehearsed in my head a cover story to explain their existence.
The captain questioned me politely for the next hour, checking through the minutiae of my cover story. It reminded me of the Mendoza police interrogation in Argentina. I did not diverge from my cover story and he was starting to run out of justification for holding me when the carabinieri returned, triumphantly clutching the photocopies. The captain studied them for a few minutes, then turned to me. `So, Dr Noonan, if you really are a historian as you claim, how do you explain these papers in your car?' He shuffled through them in front of me. `They appear to be detailed descriptions of a shoulder-launched anti-helicopter weapon, which we know the mafia have just acquired from Libya.'
I faked an innocent expression. `I've never seen them before,' I replied, shrugging my shoulders. `They must have been left in the car by the previous hirer.'
It was a plausible explanation. The captain had not uncovered even a tiny chink in my cover story, but I knew he would not release me yet as the DS would want to hold me until my cover was broken. The captain got up and left.
Half an hour later, he returned. His mood was more hostile. `Dr Noonan, I do not believe your story. I am arresting you under Italian anti-terrorist laws. You do not have the right to call a lawyer.' He snapped his fingers. Two of the four guards handcuffed me and frogmarched me back outside. Their grip on me was vice-like. If these guys were acting, they were doing a good job. As they pushed me towards the two Alfa-Romeo patrol cars, I caught a glimpse of the Fiat. The wheels were off, both front seats and all the carpets were stripped out and the bonnet insulation had been pulled away. Foolishly, I couldn't hold back a smirk. One of the guards noticed and, as he bundled me into the back of the Alfa, he gave my head a stealthy bash against the door pillar. Armed carabinieri climbed in on either side. One of them blindfolded me, then thrust my head down between my knees, viciously tightening the handcuffs a couple of notches so they bit into my wrists.
They dragged me from the car, stiff, aching and still blindfolded some 40 minutes later, and escorted me indoors. I didn't know it, but I was at the main carabinieri HQ just outside Rome. The blindfold was pulled away and I found myself in a small cell, no more than ten feet by ten feet, furnished with a simple iron bed with a mattress and one pillow. In the corner was a continental-style hole-in-the-floor toilet, with a shower rose above it.
One of the guards released the handcuffs, letting blood flow back into my numbed hands, and ordered me to strip. As I removed each garment, he shook them and examined them carefully for hidden objects. The scrap of paper bearing the details of the ship and end user certificates was still in my right sock. Steadying myself by leaning on the mattress, I pulled off the sock, secreting the wedge of paper between thumb and palm. Handing the sock to him with my left hand, I steadied myself with my right hand as I pulled off my left sock. As he examined and shook it, I slipped the incriminating evidence under the pillow.
My clothes were stuffed into a black bin liner and the carabinieri handed me a pair of grey overalls a size too small, blindfolded me again, then handcuffed me face downwards to the bed. The heavy door clanged shut so probably the guards were gone, but I waited for five minutes, listening carefully, before moving. There wasn't much slack on the chain of the handcuffs but by sliding them along the rail of the bedstead I groped for the scrap of paper under the pillow, transferred it to my mouth and swallowed it.
Lying chained to the bed felt isolated and slightly humiliating, but it was just an exercise. I tried to imagine what it would really be like to be caught working under natural cover. Ball told us that it had happened only once to an MI6 officer. He was working in Geneva when, unbeknown to him, a fellow guest in his hotel was murdered. One of the staff had noticed the officer chatting - wholly innocently - to the guest earlier in the evening, so he became a key suspect. At 4 a.m., the police burst into his room and arrested him. His cover story was solid, however, an
d he survived the police interrogation. He was eventually released.
It seemed like hours before the door opened again. The guards unlocked me from the bed, handcuffed my wrists, hauled me to my feet and man-handled me down a corridor and out into welcome fresh air. It must have been just after nightfall because the still air was laden with dew. The guards forced me up some stairs and into another building. I heard the guards whispering something in Italian to a third person and then got a whiff of the strong, unmistakable smell of stale cigarettes and whisky, indicating that Ball was nearby. The guards pushed me onwards for a few more yards, forced me into a chair, handcuffed my wrists behind me and pulled the blindfold away.
I was in a large high-ceilinged room, big enough to be a school dining-hall or army drill-hall. Twenty feet or so in front of me three interrogators sat behind a long desk on a low stage. In the middle was an athletic-looking man in his early 40s, whose groomed jet-black hair and perfectly symmetrical handlebar moustache suggested that he spent a lot of time in front of a mirror. To his right sat the captain who had interviewed me earlier in the carabinieri station. To his left sat a dark-haired woman, whose heavy wrinkles on a once-attractive face were explained by the foul-smelling cigarette she was holding. The three stared at me impassively and disdainfully and it felt like several minutes before the moustache spoke.
`So, Dr Noonan,' he began imperiously. `I understand from my colleague that you are a historian, visiting our town of Velletri.' He paused for effect. `Let me tell you. We don't believe your story. We have intelligence that you are involved in an operation to smuggle weapons from Sicily to the IRA. What have you got to say for yourself?'
`Rubbish!' I replied with convincing irritation. `Your intelligence is wrong and you've arrested the wrong person.'
The moustache questioned me for 20 minutes or so, cross-examining me on details of my cover - my fictitious date of birth, address, where I worked, how long I had worked there, names of members of my family. The only thing he didn't ask was the name of my dog.
Then it was the wrinkly's turn to question me. `Who is this woman, Maria Vialli? Where did you meet her?' she asked cattily, holding her business card.
`Why not ring her up and ask her,' I replied. `Better still,' I added, `why not ring Monsignor Berlingieri, the priest at the church of Mary Magdalene?' My interrogators looked at each other, seeking inspiration. It was not going well for them.
The moustache snapped his fingers and the guards behind me sprung forward, blindfolded me and dragged me back to my cell. They gave me a glass of water and slice of bread before shackling me on to the bed again. It seemed like four or five hours before they took me back before my interrogators where they asked me the same questions again, only this time more impatiently. `We have interviewed your companion, with whom you were arrested,' snapped the moustache. `So tell me, Dr Noonan, where did you meet him?' Hoping that APOCALYPSE had stuck to the agreed cover story, I explained that he had seen me reading The Economist in a cafe‚ and had introduced himself as a fellow Brit. APOCALYPSE must have remembered, because the moustache seemed satisfied with my explanation. He changed tack. `Do you know who I am?' Without waiting for a reply, he continued. `I am Major Claudio Pagalucca, of the airborne carabinieri.' He puffed out his chest with pride. `I have three medals, won for bravery. Do you know what that means?'
I was tempted to reply flippantly but bit my lip. `No, I've not a clue. I'm just an academic - that sort of thing's got nothing to do with me.'
Pagalucca looked deflated. The airborne carabinieri are Italy's equivalent of the SAS. Their role is to work against the mafia and they are parachute-trained in order to launch surprise attacks against mafia hideouts in Sicilian valleys. When asked the same question in his interrogation, Hare had been unable to resist a jibe at Pagalucca's vanity. `Some sort of parachuting aerial traffic warden, is it?' he replied flippantly. Pagalucca held him in detention for four hours longer than the rest of us.
Between interrogation sessions, the only discomfort was boredom, and there was no physical hardship. The resistance to interrogation exercise I had done in the TA was tougher physically. But whereas on the SAS exercise the actual interrogation interview was easy - we just had to ensure that we did not give away any more than our name, rank, date of birth and army number - here the difficulty was keeping every detail of our cover story entirely consistent between interrogation sessions. One little slip would be spotted and exploited ruthlessly and once the cover story started unravelling, it would be very difficult to retract the damage. But by my third session, some four or five hours later, my interrogators had not prised open my story. Pagalucca gave up and only the wrinkly asked a few easy questions. The session lasted less than ten minutes, so I guessed that they were close to releasing me.
I had not been in my cell for long when the door opened again. The guards pulled off my blindfold, released my handcuffs and handed over the bag containing my clothes. I fumbled for my watch. It showed 5 p.m., just over 24 hours since the arrest. Once I was dressed, the guards led me out into the evening darkness over to another building up a short flight of steps and, with a friendly smile and a handshake, indicated that I should go inside.
Ball, Long, Eric and APOCALYPSE were all waiting to shake my hand inside the room. `Congratulations,' said Ball. `We had to let you out early. We just couldn't pin anything on you - you did an excellent job.' He ushered me over to a trestle table laden with food, beer and wine. `We'll debrief you properly later. For the moment, get yourself a drink.' Over a beer, Ball explained what was going on. `Some of the others should be along in a while, but they've still got a bit of explaining to do...'
One by one, the other students emerged from their captivity to join us around the buffet table and to tell their stories. Spencer was the next to be released, an hour or so later. He had pretended to be a priest and although the cover story held for a while, it unravelled when he was asked to say a few prayers and had been unable to even recite the Lord's prayer in full. Markham panicked when he saw the roadblock and threw the papers and the thousand pounds out of the window of the moving car, causing chaos on the autostrada. Bart had done well. His cover as a scientist was too complicated for Pagalucca to probe with any authority and his prodigious memory had enabled him to maintain a consistent cover story. Castle's suit and business cover was not plausible in his small market town and his story folded. Forton's cover was as a chorister on a tour of churches in Rome and when Pagalucca asked him to prove his singing prowess, Forton started and did not stop, to Pagalucca's irritation.
But there was something else that was still puzzling me about the exercise. Ball was standing on his own in the corner, as ever with a cigarette in one hand and a whisky in the other, rocking gently backwards and forwards with a satisfied smile on his face. `Jonathan,' I asked, `where's that pretty blonde you put next to me on the plane? Is she not coming tonight?'
`What girl?' Ball replied, genuinely bemused.
`Oh come on,' I replied, `the girl you put next to me on the plane to test my cover story.'
`Nothing to do with us!' Ball assured me. `You missed an opportunity there,' he laughed.
We flew back from Rome to Southampton the next morning on the S&D Hercules C-130 at spectacularly low level over the Alps. Arriving back at the Fort that evening we were demob happy. We had spent an intensive six months in each other's company and had got to know each other well. Even Bart and Markham were now mates. Officers on the same IONEC tend to keep in touch throughout their subsequent careers and no doubt we would too, but for the moment we were all keen to get into our new jobs. Our IONEC scores and first Head Office postings were to be announced the following day.
There is a formal performance appraisal system in MI6. Approximately every six months line managers summarise a subordinate's performance on a `Staff Appraisal Form' or SAF. The most important part of the SAF is the overall grading or `box number'. A `Box 3', signifying a satisfactory performance, is the median and the grade most
commonly awarded. `Box 1' is outstanding, `Box 2' above average, `Box 4' substandard; `Box 5' indicates a seriously deficient performance and can lead to a rapid exit from the service. Each SAF is sent to personnel department where they play an important role in determining the career structure of each officer, deciding postings and seniority. Ball and Long were responsible for preparing our SAFs on the IONEC and the following day they gave us the morning off while they considered our grades.
While they deliberated, Nixon kept us busy with a shooting competition down on the Fort's outdoor range. We were now moderately proficient and could handle a Browning 9mm safely, which was an improvement on when we started. Most of the time most of us managed to hit the centre of the figure 12 (half-size man) target from ten metres on a fast draw with the Browning, and we were accurate at that range within a few centimetres with the Heckler and Koch MP5. Hare ironically reckoned that he had personally shot more rounds of 9mm during the IONEC than during his entire eight-year army career. Our training was a wasteful extravagance, but one that we all enjoyed. Even the mild-mannered and liberal Forton, who initially regarded guns with distaste, now approached the lessons with relish. One round of Nixon's competition was to knock down empty beer cans against the clock with the Heckler & Koch set on its single-shot setting. Forton won by flicking the sub-machine gun into automatic mode and spraying the row of cans with a full magazine, grinning wildly like a raver on ecstasy.
The Big Breach Page 11
