by James Adams
He had read about the Regiment and accorded it the kind of status that politicians reserve for Churchill or strategists for Liddell Hart. But he had been surprised to find that they didn’t go to the SAS headquarters at Sterling Lines in Hereford at all. Instead, the coach had taken them through the town and then south-west on to the A465 Abergavenny road. Just after Kenderchurch, about ten miles outside Hereford, the bus turned left and into the small village of Pontrilas.
The camp lies just outside the village and is spread over about a hundred acres, surrounded by a wire fence topped with razor wire. The whole perimeter is regularly patrolled by armed Military Police who interrogate anybody who stops anywhere near the camp. Such security is something of a farce, however, as a village road runs straight through the middle of the camp. At various times, the SAS have tried to get the road closed on security grounds, but each time the local farmers have protested and the road has stayed open.
Inside the camp there are buildings, bunkers, firing ranges and an extremely difficult obstacle course which the SAS training sergeants love to tell outsiders takes the Regiment’s men eight minutes to complete. Stewart staggered around in twenty-five minutes and felt completely wiped out at the end.
The week they spent was continually humiliating for the SPU men. The SAS trainers tried to build up their confidence but it was clear that they wanted standards of which the policemen were incapable. Where reaction times of seconds were required, they often took minutes; where initiative was needed, the police simply could not solve the problems.
Still, Stewart had been reassured by the emphasis that all the instructors both at Pontrilas and at police headquarters had placed on the security systems outside the Tunnel. It would be impossible, they were assured, to penetrate the security screen. So, the most likely target of all their training would be the lone madman with a knife.
That was one of the reasons why the briefing this afternoon had come as such a shock.
The Tunnel has been taken over by a group of men who we assume are well armed,” the inspector had begun. “Numbers are unclear but we think at least ten men are holding more than seventy hostages inside two train carriages past the ten-mile mark.” He had pointed to the map of the Tunnel to his left and indicated the spot. “Your job is to go in there and gather intelligence on numbers, arms and the location and nature of any defences.
“I want to stress that this is a reconnaissance mission. You are to avoid contact with the terrorists and you will only use your weapons if you are fired upon. We are making this a unit-strength operation so that if anything does go wrong, you will be able to get out again without difficulty.”
“Fucking hell,” John had muttered to Stewart. “No numbers, no weapons and no location. This sounds like a right fucking disaster waiting to happen.”
Stewart had nodded, the band of fear already tightening across his chest.
Now he could hear the rasping of his breath inside the respirator grow in volume and frequency the further down the Tunnel he walked.
He was about halfway down the small group that was spread out over about thirty yards of the Tunnel, with men moving along either side, some on the walkway along the right wall and others moving either side of the tracks.
“Blue unit, I can see the carriages ahead,” Stewart heard in his headphones. The point man, moving forty yards ahead of the rest, had picked up the heat from the people inside the carriage through his night-vision goggles. Stewart narrowed his eyes, trying to see something in the darkness. He wanted the reassurance of a hot spot, some kind of target that would reduce the fear from the unknown to the known.
It was the point man’s body that broke the photoelectric beam that ran across the Tunnel. By breaking the beam, an electrical relay in a tiny integrated circuit tripped, allowing the current to flow to the electric detonator. It was the final connection in the circuit, which heated the element inside the device and in turn set off a chemical reaction within the explosive compound.
The first flat package of Demex exploded with a shattering blast of heat and light. The ball bearings that had been so carefully stuck to its surface sprayed out with a noise like the hum of a swarm of bees. There was no room for the ball bearings to spread into a wide arc and they struck the scout’s body with tremendous force.
A single ball bearing pressed into the flesh makes a small indentation, pushing the skin into a tiny hollow made by the circle of metal. Fifty ball bearings hitting flesh at 5,000 feet per second behave very differently.
The man was struck in the chest and staggered under the impact. His Kevlar vest protected his heart and lungs from the worst of the blast, but the cover stopped at his waist and it was his abdomen that bore the brunt of the assault. Each ball bearing forced its way through the skin with devastating power. Unlike a bullet which has a point to drill a hole, a ball just punches a hole through the body mass. Flesh, blood vessels and bone were literally torn apart as twenty of the little metal spheres bludgeoned into his frame. In fractions of a second, his legs were severed from his torso and the man collapsed on the ground. His lungs and heart, which had been so well protected by the Kevlar vest, continued to pump his life away into the pebbles on the Tunnel floor.
Dai Choi had prepared his trap well. The single Claymore with the photo-electric cell was connected by wire to the other mines that led back down the Tunnel towards the entrance. He had positioned them high and low and on both sides so that anyone coming behind the first man to break through the light beam would be caught in a withering crossfire.
Stewart neither saw nor heard the lead man die. He saw the first explosion and felt the shock wave. Immediately there was a series of ear-rupturing explosions that seemed to compress and pulverize his body. There was the sound of angry hornets and then the screaming began. He could hear the cries of men all around him; horrifying and invisible. He looked around frantically but could see nothing, his night-vision goggles turned into a white fog by the blaze of the explosions. Instinctively, his hand reached up to his respirator and tore at the straps. He tossed it aside and looked around searching for John, for answers, help, a target, anything that would explain what had happened.
He saw fires where some of the men had been caught directly by the blast of the explosives and their clothing had been set alight. He looked again for John and saw his friend lying by the track. Black blood was fountaining out of a gaping wound in his throat like oil from a gusher. He could see the whites of his friend’s eyes and heard him try to say something but the effort was too much and the eyes closed. He watched a moment longer as pumping blood ebbed and then died.
He turned to run, his only thought now one of escape, the light of the Tunnel mouth a tiny imagined window beckoning in the far distance.
At the first step, his leg collapsed beneath him and he fell to the ground. He looked down and saw a hole the size of his fist in his right thigh. He could feel no pain and at first it was as if the terrible wound belonged to somebody else. Then his mind made the connection from what he saw to his own flesh and sinew. He turned to one side and heaved vomit on to the track.
He could feel the wetness of the blood soaking his leg and he tried to stuff his fist into the wound to stanch the flow, but it made no difference. He tried to raise himself but again his leg collapsed beneath him. He tried to cry out but he seemed to have no strength left. Suddenly a quick, deep chill swept the length of his body. He laid his head back against the ground, feeling the sharpness of the pebbles against his skull. The last sounds he heard were the tortured screams of the wounded and the dying echoing and re-echoing down through the darkness of the Tunnel.
In the train carriage, Kate Carr had been woken by the explosions and the screams. She had been dozing in the darkness. Although they had only been underground for around twelve hours, she had lost all sense of time. Her watch had marked the passage of the minutes and the hours but those facts seemed somehow unrelated to the reality of her position. The tension had exhausted her and the l
ack of communication with her captors or with her fellow passengers had given her no relief from the strange mixture of boredom and terror which is the experience of all hostages.
She had been sleeping with Emma’s head in her lap and her husband Tom beside her in the aisle seat. Their captors had banned all conversation so there had been no opportunity for reassurance or plotting. Nor had they been allowed to leave their seats, despite the pleas of the elderly and the parents on behalf of their children. The result was that the carriage was filled with the pungent stench of sweat and the sickly aroma of faeces and urine.
They had all woken up with the explosions and for a moment they had hoped that rescue was imminent. Then when the sounds grew no nearer and there appeared to be no sign of alarm among their captors, they knew that whatever had happened it meant nothing good for them.
Kate watched as Dai Choi came into the carriage, his body dark and ominous in the yellow emergency lighting. He was shining a torch ahead of him, letting the beam run across the faces of the passengers to left and right. As he came level with their seats, the beam caught Tom square in the face and, to her horror, stopped.
She saw the Chinese’s hand reach into the beam and then grip Tom’s arm to pull him up. She pushed Emma aside and tried to get out of the seat to help her husband. Dai Choi let go of Tom’s aim and, with an almost casual gesture, flicked his hand across the middle seat and into her face. She was tossed back against the carriage wall, her head a flaring mass of agony.
By the time she had recovered her wits, Tom was halfway down the aisle, struggling in the grip of Dai Choi and another of the guards. Emma was sobbing, her child’s instinct making her keep her distress as quiet as possible to avoid attracting any further unwanted attention. Kate put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders to provide a reassurance she did not feel. She tried to follow her husband through the window but could only see a very narrow angle of the track. The dark shadows came briefly into her line of sight and then moved away. A moment later she heard a bang and saw the flash of an explosion reflected against the Tunnel wall.
She knew it had been a gunshot, had known from the moment the gunmen had come to their seat what the end was going to be. She imagined his body falling to the ground and lying there crumpled, lifeless and alone. Crying silently, she brought Emma to her and rocked her gently back and forth against her breast.
*
Dai Choi ordered two of his soldiers to pick up the body and they dragged it to the back of the first carriage, the shoes of the dead man making small clicking sounds as they bounced over the gravel.
At the end of the second carriage, the Chinese had opened the rolling steel shutters and put two of the escape ladders that are provided with every carriage on to the track. A white Vauxhall Cavalier had been rolled down the improvised ramp and on to the track. Kang Sheng hotwired the ignition to start the engine. Then Tom Carr’s body was dumped in the driver’s seat, strapped upright and his hands laced through the steering wheel and tied.
One of the terrorists got into the passenger seat and steered the car down to the carnage that marked the spot where the assault team had been destroyed.
Strolling behind the car, Dai Choi reflected that his men had indeed set the perfect trap. Bodies littered the track and his nose wrinkled as his nostrils took in the powerful stench of fresh blood mixed with the sweetness of burned flesh and the sour smell of cordite. The occasional scream or groan broke the silence as the wounded looked in vain to their visitors for succour.
His men poked among the bodies, turning some over to inspect for signs of life, moving others out of the way of the moving car. Once the vehicle was through the trap, it stopped and the terrorists opened the back doors. Four of the wounded men were piled into the back seat, their bodies flung into the car so that limbs dangled outside the open doors. Dead bodies were piled on top until the car looked like a twentieth-century version of a wagon used to carry away the dead during the Black Death.
Dai Choi stepped forward, slid a piece of paper over the end of a knife blade and then plunged the weapon into the chest of the unfeeling Tom Carr. There was a sighing sound as trapped air escaped from the dead man’s lungs.
Dai Choi put the car in second gear, jammed Carr’s foot on the accelerator and took off the handbrake. Uncertainly at first, and then more smoothly as it picked up speed, the car with its awful cargo began its journey out of the Tunnel.
Twelve hours earlier the scene that Harry Ritchie had seen as he entered the Tunnel was familiar and dull. Two enormous circular holes let into a concrete embankment marked the entrance to the British Tunnel and the exit of the French line. For 200 yards back from the entrance, concrete walls lined both sides, to control rock slides and to help draw off rainwater from running directly on to the tracks and then into the Tunnel.
Now, the scene was very different. The tracks were covered with all the equipment that the Army and police find they need in a crisis. Furthest away from the Tunnel mouths, several Army and police trucks were parked. Inside, men played cards, drank tea and listened to directional microphones aimed at the Tunnel or watched infra-red cameras to spot any movement. Closer to the Tunnel, barriers had been set up to stop the terrorists in the unlikely event that they found a way of driving the train out and making their escape. Behind the barriers, snipers rested their rifles and other men watched anxiously through thermal imagers, infra-red systems and even, for those lower down the totem, simple binoculars.
The site was filled with people. There were the Army in green camouflage, the police response units with their distinctive blue berets, the Special Forces dressed all in black, ordinary coppers in their blue uniforms and ambulance men who had moved forward as the first explosions came echoing out of the Tunnel.
The whole area was flooded with harsh white light from the portable floodlights set up as darkness fell.
Half an hour earlier, there had been the noise of organized chaos as people ran back and forth with messages, the chatter of portable radios and the revving of car engines. Now there was silence as everyone waited for news from inside.
When the first explosions had been picked up by the microphones, there had been a hurried conference among the commanders. Attempts to raise the men on their radios had failed but that was not unexpected as their communications system would not work out of line of sight. The police inspector who had briefed his men wanted to go in immediately, but wiser counsel prevailed and they decided to wait and see what had happened before taking a decision on what to do next.
Then, suddenly, the door to one of the Army radio vans opened and a head appeared around the door. “There’s a car coming,” the voice shouted and then the head ducked back inside.
There was a flurry of activity as police and Army took the positions they had been assigned in the event of an attack. There was a brief clatter as weapons were cocked and launchers primed.
The front line could hear the noise of a revving engine interspersed with a crashing, grating noise as a car lurched from side to side against the Tunnel walls. Out of the darkness a white shape appeared, first a blur and then defined as a small saloon car. Then it was out of the Tunnel, engine still revving, careering straight for the first crash barrier. A popping sound echoed through the air as the car tyres hit the spikes in the road and punctured. There was a crash as the car hit the concrete block.
For a moment there was silence apart from the hissing of the car radiator spurting water on to the engine block. A strangled cry from inside the car broke the spell and there was a rush for the vehicle.
Constable Frankie Ward of the Blue Berets was the first man to reach the driver’s door. He wrenched it open and then jerked back as the carnage inside the car was revealed. The ride had thrown the bodies around so that blood now covered the roof and the seats and the windows.
There was no honour for the dead. The men who minutes earlier were husbands and sons were now just brutalized objects. The act of opening the door had freed Tom Carr�
��s body from its bindings and it slid gracelessly out of the vehicle so that the waist and chest hung down, the head just touching the ground.
Constable Ward had to bend in what might in different circumstances have been thought a gesture of respect for the dead. But the note pinned to Carr’s chest was now upside down and he wanted to see what it said. It read simply: “Keep Out. You were warned.”
CHAPTER XXII
The debriefing from the Adams meeting had taken two hours and Dickens did not get home until nearly midnight. His wife was already in bed and he walked through to the sitting room to pour a whisky and try to wind down.
Sitting in the armchair staring at the empty fireplace, he thought back over the meeting. He had listened to the tapes at the barracks. Aside from the background hiss of the rain and the occasional crackle as a drop hit the mike, the recording had been perfectly clear.
Now he replayed the conversation in his head, searching for subtleties and nuances that he might have missed. He decided it had gone well. Adams had no idea that the British had listened to the conversation in the caravan between himself and Kelly, had no idea that all those conversations had been recorded for months from a small hide in the hillside directly behind the caravan. From there, a micro-transmitter beamed the information to Army headquarters at Knock where it was pored over by the intelligence analysts and then disseminated, with the sourcing suitably disguised, to Box, the RUC and others who might be interested.
That intelligence meant that Dickens had gone into the meeting well prepared but not necessarily with a winning hand. It all depended on how Adams would respond to pressure. It would depend too on how much he wanted to cling to power and how much he felt threatened by the current ascendancy of the militants in the Movement.
Dickens sipped at his whisky, allowing the liquid to do its work, the burning in his throat the prelude to the relaxing effect it would have once it reached his stomach.
