Bodyguard (7 page)

Oggy was already there and took me to Abdullah’s room but
nothing
had changed. He had nurses swooning all over him and he lay there playing the hero. There was a small amount of shrapnel and the odd bandage but, my God, he was still alive – unlike poor Kameron. When he saw us, he turned into a terminally ill patient going for an Oscar. To rub it in, I passed dead Peshmergas on trolleys on the way out. That was the true level of the mess that the blue on blue had caused. I had done the decent thing – and that was it. I hoped I never saw him again.

There was still work to be done amid all this. I hadn’t even called home, although London had rung Sue. She knew the score. We were up against it – two hours from doing a live into the Six – all of us traumatised but in denial and Fred a whizz kid on the edit but desperate to get out of there. We worked our bollocks off on autopilot and John went live on the roof at the top of the bulletin.

Again, the legend was at his best at the end of a day nobody will forget. Afterwards, we hit the bar and I broke my golden rule of never drinking on tour. We downed a beer and raised a glass to our late friend Kameron. Earlier we had also been to see his mother. ‘God gave us Kameron and now he took him back,’ John put it beautifully. Kameron had been the main breadwinner for the family, yet they didn’t really know the danger he was putting himself into – they thought he was a translator for the papers. He had told John he had wanted to work for us out of friendship and adventure – the wailing at the family home told us they’d had no idea he was risking life and limb.

You can only grieve so long in this game. There was no word from Jim in Tehran either. We were so knackered and insular ourselves that we’d barely spared a thought for Kaveh that day. It was extraordinary that all this had happened at the same moment he was laid to rest.

I finally spoke to Sue and, of course, she was worse than me. My girls had been told as well. As we hit the sack that night, there was indecision and uncertainty over whether we should come or go. We decided to sleep on it. 

In the morning, we revisited the bomb site for
Simpson’s World
on BBC World. We spent half an hour walking round the scene. John asked me for my thoughts as the camera was rolling. I loved it just like the first time back in the bar at Charleroi. I was now well and truly bitten by the TV bug.

But you could see the crater and the scorch marks in the earth. The blood from the bandages where Kam had died was still there. Things like this happen, as sad as it was. In my head I wasn’t carrying the same baggage as the day before but I still knew it was time to go home. A translator called Huwer approached us and said that, with all eyes on Baghdad, he could take John and Tom to Kifri. John was adamant that he wanted to continue and told me to go home. Fred was already on his way and Dragan too wanted to see his baby for the first time.

I was split – my responsibility was to John but he had ordered me back. I also had to look out for Fred and Dragan. Ultimately, I took my lead from John: if he said go, then go I would.

On 11 April, we were driving home, overland to the border and on via Istanbul. It had been the right call to go. On the 9th, the Yanks staged the money shot of the toppling of Saddam’s statue. John hadn’t made it in time for the fall of Baghdad but, my goodness, in chasing the story he found himself at the heart of it. As for me, what I was asked to do next couldn’t have been more extreme.

A
couple of months later, I was on the plane to Boston. This trip was like no other – a welcome break from paperwork and
numerous
trips back to Baghdad to set up the Bureau there. In that short time, Iraq had changed so much it bore no resemblance to the country that had taken Kaveh and Stuart out and nearly did for John and me.

My old friend Sam Bagnall had called. ‘Would you like to
infiltrate
the world of the Hells Angels?’

What? Too bloody right; you couldn’t get me out there quick enough. Sam had already got some undercover stuff in the can: would I like to go to the legendary annual event that Hells Angels from all around the world fly into? I was heading for the World Run in Laconia, New Hampshire. My mission was simple: were they all long-haired, drug-dealing, gun-touting individuals? This was right up my street. Whatever covert pieces I could get would be the icing on the cake after Sam had got access to a former American cop who’d been working undercover as a Hells Angel for the previous two years. We had also sent an overt crew into the media scrum for general views of Laconia and bog standard interviews with the local police – but this stuff was ten a penny, and all the international news crews had the same footage.

Jason Gwynne, the producer whom I had worked with on the Sam Hammam show, was also coming with me. He trusted me, knew 
I could handle myself, and of course my bald head on a good day could persuade you that I was borderline Hells Angel.

‘What do you know about Hells Angels?’ Jase asked.

‘They ride bikes and have leather jackets and wear their colours on their back,’ I stereotyped.

‘Do you know how they get the colours on their backs?’

‘Well, I know you become a “prospect” before you become a Hells Angel. You wear your “chapter” on the back of your jacket, but you don’t have the Hells Angels wing.’

If there was a test to pass, I had walked it. Most people didn’t know this much. I felt like I had been given a bonus when Jason confirmed the trip. My wife Sue just laughed.

It was becoming a great year for me in terms of making a name for myself at the BBC and I was absolutely loving it. Bob Forster was still around but Caroline Neil, the Head of High Risk who had worked undercover herself, was a breath of fresh of air. She told me this was a great gig, I had to go, and she would sign it off. Too right, it was; I was off to get pissed for the BBC.

I had found out just a week before that I was heading to Laconia with around a thousand international angels of the hellish variety. In that seven days, all I could see were Hells Angels – any sign of a bike or long hair or leather jacket and I was honing in on them. Now I was going to be in their midst, that was all I thought about. I had no idea where Laconia was but there was no stopping me. This jolly had Craig Summers written all over it.

At the top of my thought process was one thing – I was being paid to work, drink and film all weekend with a bunch of bikers all day and night. This was going to be brilliant, and hey, if we got a story, too, happy days! I was living a dream that people would have paid millions for, acting a role out for the cameras. My military and TV worlds had merged – I needed a cover story, commonly known as my ‘legend’.

I googled what you needed to become the perfect Hells Angel. I soon realised that I couldn’t pretend to be something I wasn’t – there
was no point trying to penetrate that close-knit family. I didn’t invent some chapter that could trip me up. I was into bikes and had heard about The Run – that was as close as I would get to pretending to be one of their gang.

Instead, I was on leave from Iraq, had touched down in Boston, and was on a road trip with my old mate Jason, who had never been to the States before. I would talk about all the Yanks I had met in the Gulf and they would lap that up. I kept to the basic rule of the false ID – stick to something you know, and keep it simple. I could talk army bollocks all day long and have them eating out of my big military hand. If only they knew that their own fucking idiots had dropped a bomb on me just a few months before.

In real terms, the Boston leg was true, followed on by a nightmare drive down to Laconia in really shit bad weather and a stop at your typical small American motel. (My appetite for the BBC credit card hadn’t waned, but I needed to stay somewhere right for the role.) We had caned the beers on the flight over, and Jason told me he loved the cover story. If he was filming, he knew I could do the talking and engage an audience without suspicion on my two favourite subjects – war and myself!

By the Saturday morning, we were good to go. Just outside Laconia, we had to get to 65 Fillmore Road. This was the massive Hells Angels’ house – all their meetings took place here. It was where the action was, but it was no go. The fraternity had put a barrier across the road. I could see the huge trees and the clubhouse, bar and log cabins behind it down this dead-end road. We weren’t getting in there and there was no point trying to slip in. I’d leave them to discuss their drugs and guns and whatever else.

Police and media were all over the town – the locals feared gang warfare. The truth was the opposite. It wasn’t that kind of event; it was more a huge stag party over three days talking bikes. It didn’t get more interesting than that. 

I dressed in t-shirt, jeans, jacket and Timberland boots – as casual as you could get in what was lumberjack country. In my t-shirt was a camera – Jason and I would split the day and film half each.

Our first port of call was Tower Hill Tavern at Weirs Beach. I didn’t rush in to get my weekend bender underway. I would say I wasn’t actually holding court at the bar before 11.00, but it was close! Jason, too, was a reasonable drinker – and that was the only essential qualification for the part. There was no point standing there holding a lager shandy among all these
hairy-arsed
Hells Angels and all their birds with their tits hanging out when the AC/DC came on. The only way to get involved was to drink.

By 15.00 it was heaving. We were in for the long haul. I was glad we’d got in early to stake out our position at the bar, rarely leaving the counter (although the piss breaks came more frequently), always establishing our stories by laying it on heavy with the staff so they could vouch for us if it all kicked off later.

For much of the time, I got chatting to some Argies. I was gobsmacked they had come all the way from Buenos Aires. How stupid of me. It became clear to me very early doors – this was the World Cup Final for Hells Angels! They were loving it though, as I was; talking bikes was a piece of piss. They asked me about Iraq and I hammed it up a bit. I didn’t bring up the Falklands but it was at the back of my mind and, deep down, I was doing the maths to see if I could still live the lie that I had been serving then as well as now, even though I actually had been there for real in 1982. The voice in my head was urging caution. You never knew who you were talking to, and I didn’t want to get carried away. What if I was so tanked up that I deemed myself so perfect in the role that I bullshitted my way into some story, and one of their relatives had been killed living General Galtieri’s dream, and they suddenly placed me at the scene of the crime? Fucking hell. I loved this gig, but have a word with yourself, son. 

Around half three, I knew we had struck gold. Into the bar walked a new bunch of Hells Angels. The only way you could tell one lot from the other was that chapter on the back. These guys said ‘Windsor’.

The only banter we had to deflect was to explain why we were there: having got in position early with the bar staff meant that they could often finish our story for us. We loved spotting the various groups – Germans, Danes, Argies, Brits. This was it big time and it was starting to get rowdy.

‘All right, guys, you from England?’ the Windsor lot asked us.

And out we trotted the cover story again.

‘Cool,’ they said. ‘What was it like in Iraq?’

I knew I had them. In one sentence I had turned them around, moving from suspicion to getting to the heart of what they were about – talk of war and guns – and they loved it. All their tough-guy posturing counted for nothing but respect to us when they found out we were the real deal, making them look like pantomime horses. Except, of course, we weren’t! To win them over further, I asked a couple of dumb questions. I knew obviously they didn’t have their bikes with them, but asking about them when Harleys came up in the conversation helped me throw the spotlight of respect back in their direction. They loved meeting real heroes and having their own egos stroked when I sought every drop of information about their pride and joy, but these guys were pussies.

All I was thinking was the bigger the bike, the smaller the cock; and, of course, was Jason rolling? He didn’t let me down. We were a great double act – me talking the sweetest of all cover stories and feigning naivety in their presence; Jason getting everything in an eight to ten hour filming session. Occasionally we would have a team meeting in the bogs, changing the battery behind a locked door in case anyone tried to kick it in. Sometimes Jason would go on his own – my only concern was a pissed-up angel stumbling in through the door but I felt Jason could handle himself and I would just let the beer keep on coming. 

‘Is it true what they say about the Hells Angels?’ I asked one of these pissheads.

‘Nah, it’s all rubbish,’ he replied.

‘I’m sure I read about the Windsor Hells Angels; didn’t someone get shot?’ I went in for the kill.

‘That was years ago,’ they dismissed it.

Clearly it had happened – and I hadn’t been told to specifically target any particular chapter. I loved showing my innocence to them but in the same breath letting on that I had a small amount of knowledge. They loved the sound of their own voices as much as I did mine! When I asked them if they had security cameras in their own clubhouses, they wouldn’t shut up. They were eating out of my hand. I quizzed them on guns and I went for them on drugs – they told me they could get coke anytime anywhere in the UK.

‘Did you kill any fucking Ragheads in Iraq?’ they were thriving now.

‘Yeah, a couple,’ I lied.

They started asking me about the weapons I was using. I just turned it around back on them.

‘You carry guns don’t you?’ I goaded.

‘It’s illegal innit? Hahaha.’ one of them gave the game away.

I knew none of these had never even been in a fight let alone a war zone. I was something they dreamed of being. The beers were flowing; I was bigging myself up, bragging about my Iraq money and getting the rounds in.

Then the Yanks started joining in. ‘So you killed some sand niggers? Brilliant!’

They might have come for bikes, but I’d stolen the show. Even if Norman bloody Schwarzkopf had walked in, I knew exactly what I was talking about.

Jason and I did have a quick conference. We were well on the way to Smashedville, and we couldn’t blow it now, so we decided to knock off the booze a bit. Well, just a small bit. It was rammed, smoky, and the lights were going down. People were coming rather than going; 
leather was the outfit of the hour. If you suffered from claustrophobia, you’d be dead. The fog of marijuana wafted across the bar through the flashing disco lights – it was like a 1960s dance hall.

By around six, the Windsors had gone, replaced by a gang from Sacramento. Jason felt we had enough. The only way to get anything new was to leave and head for another bar. At eleven, the police turned up. Their concern was about not disturbing the neighbours – never mind that the whole bar was stoned and as pissed as a fart. As they dragged a few of them out, we were licking our lips, thinking they were going to throw everyone out and the Angels were going to kick off. We were waiting on pepper spray, cuffs and tear gas, but it never came.

One of the coppers tried to move us on until I fed him the Iraq bullshit. The policeman bought the whole thing too, telling us how he wanted to sign up and hunt bin Laden. I had him in my pocket as well. It gave the mob the chance to flee back to the clubhouse. Suddenly the streets were empty. Jason and I realised that we were fucked in every sense of the word. Pissed, but with no chance of getting back to the motel. There wasn’t a cab in sight.

I pulled rank, so to speak. ‘We’ve been drinking all day. I don’t mean to be rude but is there any chance you can give us a lift back? I’ve just come back from Iraq. You know what it’s like.’ I said.

He clearly didn’t. He paused for a moment, then said he couldn’t – that was against the rules.

Once again I played the Iraq card. Jesus – I knew my other
identities
better than I did myself! Let’s face it, I had been in Iraq and was bombed there, but there’s a fine line between telling that story and making up a whole heap of shit that you were breathing down bin Laden’s neck in the Tora Bora caves.

He hesitated, then saw the hero in me and told us to jump in the back. He drove us like royalty the five or six miles back to the motel! If I had pushed it, I think I could have got an out-rider or one of those dicks talking into his lapel – they totally respected 
the whole war thing. As for me, I just loved what a ridiculously good actor I was.

Back at the motel, we heard a kerfuffle.

‘You fucking bastards.’

‘What the hell was that?’ I said to Jase.

Not all the Angels had gone to the notorious clubhouse. I couldn’t believe my luck – half of them had rocked up at Crossroads! We dashed for our kit and made for the balcony. It was all kicking off outside.

We pegged it into the car park and headed towards our vehicle. The plan was to do a 360, lurk in the bush round the back, drop Jason off and hit the record button. It didn’t matter how pissed we were. I re-entered the car park sheepishly and texted Jason to find me.

Ultimately, the footage was too dark – you could just about make out three or four thugs having a go at these other Angels, but it was mostly shadows as the lighting was poor.

Then the cops turned up. Fucking brilliant. If it had been the same guy who had dropped us earlier, then that would have been the icing on the cake. Either way, we had nailed them on the piss, scrapping and bragging about their guns and the coke.