Remote Control ns-1

by Andy McNab

  Ron and Melvin might have made a connection between me and the car because of the drive-by. If they were back in circulation by now, they might be able to track us down.

  There was not a lot I could do about it but just sit tight and hope that the mass of cars and the rain would conceal us, because it was far too early for a child to be moving around an airport with an adult man with scabs on his face.

  I turned around in the seat and said, "Are you all right, Kelly? I'm sorry I had to shout, but it was really important to get out quick."

  She was looking down at one of the teddies, picking its fur, pouting.

  I said, "You're not a bad girl and I'm sorry that I told you off. I didn't really mean it, I was just getting excited."

  She nodded slowly, still playing with her furry friend.

  "Do you want to come to England?"

  She looked up. She didn't say anything, but I took it as a yes.

  "That's good, because I would like you to come, too.

  You've been a really good girl, you always do what I say. Do you want to help me again?"

  She shrugged. I leaned over and picked up the other teddy and rubbed its face against her cheek.

  "We'll get Jenny and Ricky to help me as well. How about that?"

  She gave a reluctant nod.

  "First of all, we've got to sort out the bag."

  I got into the backseat and put the duffel between us, opening it up.

  "What do you think we should take out then?"

  I knew exactly what we were going to take out: the blanket and washing kit, because they were the only things I needed now. I said, "What do you reckon? Is that all?" She nodded and agreed as if she'd packed it herself.

  I put everything else into the trunk. The rain was coming down more heavily. I sat with her again and pulled out the blanket.

  "We have to wait here for the next couple of hours.

  It's too early to go to the airport yet. You can take a nap if you like."

  I folded up the bag and made a pillow.

  "There, that's better--cuddle Jenny and Ricky."

  She looked at me and smiled. We were mates again.

  "Are you going away again. Nick?"

  For once I was staying put.

  "No, I'm going to do some work. You just go to sleep. I'm not going anywhere." I got out and sat in the front again. I rested the laptop on my knees and lifted the screen. I checked that the keys were in the ignition and I could easily grab the steering wheel. I had to be ready to move at once if we got spotted.

  I pressed the On switch, and as the screen lit up it cast a glow through the inside of the car. I inserted Kev's floppy disk. I was desperate to read the rest of his report, but first I downloaded everything onto the laptop. As I waited, I said quietly, "Kelly?" There was no reply. The gentle rhythm of the rain had done its job.

  I began reading where I'd left off. Gibraltar had always been a center for international drug trafficking, money laundering, and smuggling, but it seemed that in 1987, Spain not only still wanted Gib back, it also wanted the Brits to clean it up. Thatcher's government told the Gibraltarians to sort it out, but the high-powered speedboats still ran drugs from North Africa. The Brits threatened direct control of the colony if the trafficking didn't stop and, at the same time, ordered a highly illegal operation against police and government officials they suspected of involvement. The boys taking the hush money got the hint and suddenly ceased doing business with PIRA and everyone else.

  My eyes were racing ahead of my brain.

  The closure of the Gibraltar route was all well and good for the war against corruption, but the Colombians were very pissed off. A major trade artery had been clamped, and they wanted it reopened. According to Kev's findings, they'd decided a show of strength was required. They wanted Gibraltar bombed as a warning that the local officials should start co operating again, and they ordered PIRA to carry it out.

  PIRA had a problem with this. It wanted the route re opened as much as the Colombians did, but, after the debacle of Enniskillen, it couldn't run the risk of killing non-UK civilians and invoking even greater international condemnation. PIRA had refused to do it.

  From evidence that Kev had gathered, the cartels' reply to PIRA was blunt: either you bomb Gibraltar or we shift our drug business to the other side the Protestant UVF. For PIRA, not a good day out.

  PIRA's head honchos came up with a solution, and as I read on, I couldn't help but admire it.

  "Mad Danny" McCann had already been kicked out of PIRA and was rein stated against Gerry Adams's wishes. Mairead Farrell, after the death of her boyfriend, had become too fanatical for her own good "a bit of a social hand grenade," Simmonds had said other. PIRA's plan was to send to Gibraltar two players they'd be happy to see the back of, together with Sean Savage, who had the misfortune to be part of the same Active Service Unit.

  The team had the technology and Semtex for the bomb but were told that the explosives were to stay behind in Spain until it had finished its recons and rehearsals. The team was told to take it in once the blocking car was in position, to guarantee the correct placement of the bomb. PIRA then gave the three players bad passports and leaked information to London. They wanted the Brits to react and stop the bombing so that when the three were arrested they could claim to the cartels that they'd given it their best shot.

  We'd been duly told about the ASU, but we'd also been briefed that there would be no blocking car and that the bomb would be detonated by a handheld device. These last two pieces of intelligence meant that McCann, Farrell, and Savage had never stood a chance. They were dead from the moment we thought the bomb was in position and armed, because at some stage one of them was bound to make a hand movement that would be construed as an attempt to detonate the device.

  I certainly wouldn't have taken the chance that Savage was only going for his packet of mints, and Euan obviously didn't when he initiated the contact with McCann and Farrell. In Pat's immortal words: Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.

  A dialogue box came up on the screen telling me that I was running short of power and needed to plug into another power source. Fuck! I wanted to read more. I got back to the screen and read as fast as I could to get the general idea.

  Even though there hadn't been a bomb, the cartels had accepted that their Irish lackies were playing ball. After all, three of their people had been killed in the process. PIRA kept the trade with the Colombians, even though, as Big Al had said, it was thereafter routed through South Africa, then Spain.

  PIRA was in seventh heaven. It had gotten rid of two trouble makers, not quite in the way that it had intended, but three martyrs had been created, with the result that PIRA's cause at home was strengthened, and even more dollars rolled into the coffers.

  It was only the Brits who appeared to have been left with egg on their faces, but even so, no matter how much the inter national community publicly condemned the shootings, in secret most heads of state admired Thatcher's muscular stand against terrorism.

  Fuck it. Another box came up and told me to plug into an external power source. I switched off the laptop and packed it away, full of frustration. I wanted to know more. At the same time I was on a high. If we made it back to the UK with this stuff, I'd have cracked it with Simmonds.

  It was 3:30 a.m. There was nothing to do but wait for three hours or so until the first wave of aircraft started to arrive and depart, creating enough activity for us to blend in.

  I let the backrest down a bit and tried to get my neck into a comfortable position, but I couldn't relax. My mind was racing. The whole operation in Gibraltar had been a setup so that PIRA and the Colombians could keep making money.

  That was one thing, but where did Kev and I fit into the scheme of things? I lay there and listened to the patter of rain.

  For Euan and me it had all started on March 3, less than a week before the shootings. We were both on different jobs and had got lifted off and sent to Lisbum, HQ of the British
army in Northern Ireland. From there it was a quick move by Puma to Stirling Lines in Hereford, England, the home of the Special Air Service.

  We were taken straight to regimental headquarters, and the moment I saw the china cups and cookies outside the briefing room I knew that something big was in the offing. Last time that had happened, the prime minister had been here.

  The room was in semidarkness and packed. There was a large screen at the back of a stage and tiered seats so that everyone got a good view.

  We were looking for somewhere to sit when I heard, "Hey, over here, dick spot Kev and Slack Pat were sitting drinking tea. With them were the other two members of their four-man team, Geoff and Steve. All were from A Squadron, doing their six months on the counterterrorist team.

  Euan turned to Kev and said, "Know what this job is about?"

  "We're off to Gib, mate. PIRA's planning a bomb."

  The commanding officer got up on the stage and the room fell silent.

  "Two problems," he said.

  "Number one, a shortage of time. You leave immediately after this briefing. Number two, shortage of solid intelligence. However, Joint Operations Committee wants the Regiment to deploy. You will get as much information as we know now, and as it comes in during your flight and once on the ground."

  I thought. What the fuck are Euan and I doing here? Surely it would be illegal for us to work outside Northern Ireland? I kept my mouth shut; if I started querying the decision, they might send me back and I'd miss out.

  I looked around and saw members of RHQ, the operations officer, and the world's supply of intelligence corps. The final member of the team was an ammunitions technical officer, a bomb disposal expert on attachment to the counter-terrorism team.

  Someone I had never seen before moved toward the stage, a tea cup in one hand, a cookie in the other. He stood to the right-hand side of the stage by the lectern. There was an overnight bag by his feet.

  "My name is Simmonds, and I run the Northern Ireland desk for the intelligence service from London. The people behind you are a mix of service and military intelligence officers.

  First, a very brief outline of the events that have brought us all here today."

  Judging by the bag, it looked as if he would be coming with us. The lights were dimmed, and a slide projector lit the screen behind him.

  "Last year," he said, "we learned that a PIRA team had based itself in southern Spain. We intercepted mail going to the homes of known players from Spain and found a postcard from Sean Savage in the Costa del Sol."

  A slide came up on the screen.

  "Our Sean," Simmonds said with a half smile, "told Mummy and Daddy he was working abroad. It rang a few alarm bells when we read it, because the work young Savage is best at is bomb making."

  Was he making a joke? No, he didn't look the sort.

  "Then in November two men went through Madrid airport on their way from Malaga to Dublin. They carried Irish passports, and in a routine check the Spanish sent the details to Madrid, who, in turn, passed them with photographs to London. It turned out that both passports were false."

  I thought to myself. Stupid timing by them, really. Terrorist incidents in Northern Ireland tended to decrease in the summer months when PIRA members took their wives and kids to the Mediterranean for a fortnight of sun and sand. The funny thing was that the RUC--Royal Ulster Constabulary-also took their vacations in the same places, and they'd all bump into each other in the bars. These two characters had drawn attention to themselves; if they'd passed through Malaga airport during the tourist season, they might have gotten away with it.

  It turned out that one of the passport holders was Sean Savage, but it was the identity of the second man that had made everybody concerned.

  Simmonds showed his next slide.

  "Daniel Martin McCann.

  I'm sure you know more about him than I do." He gave a no-fucking-way sort of smile.

  "Mad Danny" had really earned his name. Linked to twenty-six killings, he had been lifted often, but had been put away for only two years.

  To British intelligence, Simmonds said, the combination of McCann and Savage on the Costa del Sol could mean only one of two things: either PIRA was going to attack a British target on the Spanish mainland, or there was going to be an attack on Gibraltar.

  "One thing's for sure," he said.

  "They weren't there to top off their suntans."

  At last there was a round of laughter. I could see Simmonds liked that, as if he'd practiced his one-liners so the timing was just right. Despite that, I was warming to the man.

  It wasn't that often you got people making jokes at a briefing as important as this one.

  The slide changed again to a street map of Gibraltar. I was listening to Simmonds but at the same time thinking of my infantry posting there in the 1970s. I'd had a whale of a time.

  "Gibraltar is a soft target," Simmonds said.

  "There are several potential locations for a bomb, such as the Governor's residence or the law courts, but our threat assessment is that the most likely target will be the garrison regiment, the Royal Anglians. Every Tuesday morning the band of the First Battalion parades for the changing of the guard ceremony. We think the most likely site for a bomb is a square that the band marches into after the parade. A bomb could easily be concealed in a car there."

  He might have added that from a bomber's point of view it would be a near-perfect location. Because of the confined area, the blast would be tamped and therefore more effective.

  "Following this assessment we stopped the ceremony on December 11. The local media reported that the Governor's guardhouse needed urgent redecoration" slight smile "In fact, we needed time while we gathered more intelligence to stop it needing rebuilding."

  Not as good as his last one, but there were still a few subdued laughs.

  "The local police were then reinforced by plainclothes officers from the UK, and their surveillance paid off. When the ceremony resumed on February 23, a woman, ostensibly taking a vacation on the Costa del Sol, made a trip to the Rock and photographed the parade. She was covertly checked and was found to be traveling on a stolen Irish passport.

  "The following week she was there again, only this time she tagged along behind the bandsmen as they marched to the square. Even my shortsighted mother-in-law could have worked out that she was doing recon for the arrival of an Active Service Unit."

  There was loud laughter. He'd done it again. I wasn't too sure if we were all laughing at his jokes or at the fact that he kept on telling them. Who the fuck was this man? This should have been one of the most serious briefings ever. Either he just didn't give a fuck or he was so powerful no one was going to say a word against him. Whatever, I could already tell his presence in Gibraltar would be a real bonus.

  Simmonds stopped smiling.

  "Our intelligence tells us that the bombing is to take place sometime this week. However, there is no sign that either McCann or Savage is getting ready to leave Belfast." He wasn't wrong. I had seen both of them, stinking drunk, outside a bar on the Falls Road just the night before. They didn't look that ready to me. It should take them quite a while to prepare for this one or maybe this was part of the preparation, having their last night out before work started.

  "This is where we have a few problems," he went on. He was working now without his notes. Did that mean no more one-liners? Certainly, there was more of an edge to his voice.

  "What are we to do with these people? If we try to move in on them too early, that would only leave other PIRA teams free to go ahead with the bombing. In any case, if the ASU travels through Malaga airport and remains on Spanish territory until the last minute, there is no guarantee that the Spanish courts will hand them over, not only because of the dispute with the UK on the question of whom Gibraltar belongs to but because the case against them could only be based on conspiracy, which is pretty flimsy.

  "So, gentlemen, we must arrest them in Gibraltar." The screen went blank;
there was only the light from the lectern shining on his face.

  "And this throws up three options. The first is to arrest them as they cross the border from Spain.

  Easier said than done; there's no guarantee we'll know what kind of vehicle they're in. There would be only about ten to fifteen seconds in which to make a positive identification and effect an arrest not an easy thing to do, especially if they are sitting in a car and probably armed.

  "The second option is to arrest the team members once they're in the area of the square, but again this depends on advance warning and positive identification, and their all being together with the device. At the present time, therefore, we are going for the third option, and that's why we are all here."

  He took a sip of his tea and asked for the lights to come back on.

  He looked around for each group as he talked.

  "The Security Service will place surveillance teams to trigger the PIRA team into Gibraltar. The two soldiers who have just arrived from Northern Ireland" Euan caught my eye that was him and me "must give positive IDs on the terrorists before the civil authorities will hand over the operation to the military. You two will not, repeat, not, conduct any arrest or contact action. You understand the reasons why?

  The four men from your counterterrorist team will make a hard arrest only after they have planted the device.

  "Once arrested," Simmonds went on, "they are to be handed over to the civil authorities. Of course, the normal protection will be given to the team from any court appearance."

  He managed a smile.

  "I think that's enough, gentlemen."

  He looked at the commanding officer.

  "Francis, I understand we fly to R.A.F Lyneham in ten minutes to link up with the Hercules?"

  Just over three hours later I was sitting in a C-130 with Euan, who was busy worrying about a black mark on his new sneakers. Kev was checking the weapon bundles and ammunition and, more important as far as I was concerned, the medical packs. If I got dropped, I wanted fluid put into me as soon as possible.