The Big Breach (12 page)

The Royal Air Force provides a small detachment of around ten pilots known as the `S&D flight'. They are selected by the RAF for their outstanding skills and most arrive with prior experience in the special forces flights which service the SAS and SBS. They operate a Hercules C-130 transport aircraft and a Puma helicopter, are trained on many other military aircraft, and because they may be required to fly commercial aircraft the lucky selectees also obtain civilian commercial pilot's licences. The C-130 is mostly used for delivering or recovering equipment at overseas stations which are too big or dangerous to travel in a diplomatic bag, and the Puma is used for ferrying MI6 personnel and VIPs around the UK, particularly on the shuttle run between Head Office and the Fort. It can frequently be seen at Battersea Heliport or over London on such journeys, distinguishable from normal RAF Pumas by the large undercarriage containing long-range fuel tanks.

The army provides a detachment from the SAS regiment, called Revolutionary Warfare Wing in Hereford, and the navy provides a small detachment from their Special Boat Service in Poole. Both have similar roles as far as MI6 is concerned and are known collectively within the service as the `increment'. To qualify for the increment, SAS and SBS personnel must have served for at least five years and have reached the rank of sergeant. They are security vetted by MI6 and given a short induction course into the function and objectives of the service. If they have not already learnt surveillance skills, they take a three-week course at the Fort. Back at their bases in Hereford and Poole, their already substantial military skills are fine-tuned. They learn how to use improvised explosives and sabotage techniques, as well as advanced VIP protection skills, study guerilla warfare organisation and practise advanced insertion techniques - for example high-altitude parachuting from commercial aircraft or covert landings from submarines. Advanced civilian qualifications are acquired: several of the SBS Increment have commercial ship's skipper's tickets in their alias name, enabling them legally to hire, say, a fishing trawler.

On the IONEC, a week of the course is dedicated to familiarisation with the increment and the S&D flight and `military week' was eagerly anticipated by most of us.

After being issued with a set of military fatigues and boots so outdated they looked like they were SOE relics, we set off from the Fort helipad in the S&D Puma. It was just after nightfall and the cabin of the helicopter was lit by the dim, red emergency exit lights. Using infra-red night sights, the two pilots showed off their impressive low-altitude skills by flying at high speed over the rolling west country farmland, often below the normal military legal limit of 50-feet, a privilege given only to the S&D flight. Every few minutes, one of the pilots cheerfully called out over the intercom, `Everyone OK back there? Just sing if you feel sick.' Nobody replied, though Bart was looking pale. Half an hour later, the Puma hovered to a standstill a couple of feet off the ground in the corner of a dark field. `Jump,' screamed the loadie, pushing us out into the darkness, and the Puma roared off into the night. As my eyes adjusted, I realised that we were in the SAS's Pontrilas training area in Wales. `What are we supposed to do now?' asked Hare to nobody in particular, `Pretend to be sheep?' Bart groaned and threw up, splashing Castle's boots, but before we had time to laugh an authoritative voice rang out from behind a nearby hedge, `Over here, lads.'

We shuffled over to where two shadowy figures waited. One was no more than five foot six inches tall and of slight build. The other sported the sort of moustache favoured by soldiers. He spoke first, in a strong Brummie accent. `I'm Barry, the 2IC of RWW. The purpose of tonight's exercise is to give you a little insight into some of our work, so that when you're back at your comfortable desks, you'll have an idea what it is like for us out in the field.' With that, he turned away, expecting us to follow. Barry's smaller companion was more amiable and trotting alongside us, introduced himself as `Tiny'.

Tiny was also a sergeant in RWW and was one of its longest-serving members. It was easy to see why he would be useful - his diminutive frame and modesty were advantages in undercover work. As Tiny himself explained, `I once spent a whole evening trying to convince my mum I was in the SAS, but even she wouldn't believe me.' It was difficult to imagine how he could have passed SAS selection, but all members of RWW must do so. The only exemptions are the few female officers who are occasionally seconded to RWW from the army intelligence corps.

We trudged in silence in the drizzle for ten minutes or so until Barry called a halt. Tiny pulled out a folding spade from his small backpack and started digging. In a minute or so he uncovered a plastic screwtop container, about the size of a beer keg. It was a cache, just like the ones I had dug up in Belgium, and it contained survival rations, water, maps, compass and money. `We often bury several of these overseas to support emergency exfiltration contingency plans for you guys,' Tiny explained. He then showed us how to bury it, leaving no sign of disturbance, and gave us tips on how to record its location succinctly and unambiguously. Tiny finished his demonstration and lead us back to the field we had come from. From his backpack he fished out eight NATO issue torches complete with infra-red filters, handed them out to us and arranged us in a `T' shape, the standard pattern used in NATO for guiding down helicopters. We pointed our torches skyward and in seconds the Puma roared into view out of the darkness. We piled into the back, keeping well clear of Bart.

We were dropped off at a small military airfield a few minutes away. It was just past midnight, cold, and the drizzle had thickened into driving rain. Forton was getting fed up and Castle looked disinterested. We followed Tiny out of the wet into a small classroom just below the airfield control tower. A woman in her late 20s, dressed in outdoor casual clothes, waited by the blackboard. She introduced herself as Mags, a captain from the Army's shady agent-handling Force Reaction Unit, on attachment to the RWW, and gave us a lecture on the next stage of the exercise, a simulated agent emergency exfiltration using the S&D Hercules. She explained how we would have to spread out in a set pattern along the runway and use our infra-red torches to guide in the aircraft, and then she numbered us off, assigning us each a position in the pattern. Turning to Barry, who was standing at the back of the class, she snapped, `Hand out the comms, sergeant.' Barry glowered back and gave each of us a Motorola walkie-talkie. Mags assigned Forton and me to opposite sides of the far end of the landing pattern and we trudged off down the runway together. `Troll-bitch from hell, isn't she?' Forton laughed.

As we reached our assigned positions, Mags's voice crackled over the Motorolas. `Alpha one, confirm position, over.' I turned to face her at the far end of the runway and, as she had instructed, flashed the letter A in morse on the torch. `Bravo one, confirm position, over,' she called for Forton, but he was still chatting besides me and just turned to wave his torch like a child with a sparkler. `Bravo one, get in position immediately, over,' snapped Mags. Forton sauntered over the runway and Mags continued checking off the rest of the pattern. She got as far as Barking when her instructions were blotted out by Forton singing into his Motorola, turned on full power, his best rendition of `Strangers in the Night'.

Forton reached the fourth verse before the Hercules screamed into view and drowned him out. With its props on full reverse thrust and its tyres screaching in protest, it halted in an astonishing short space. The rear ramp dropped and a Range Rover burst out and tore off down the runway towards the control tower. As briefed by Mags, we ran to the aircraft and clambered into the spacious hold. The aircraft executed a sharp U-turn and accelerated back down the runway as we clung to the webbing seats inside, took off, flew a tight circuit and landed again. The rear ramp was already half-open as the plane touched down, giving a view of the Range Rover hurtling down the runway after us. With the aircraft still rolling, the Range Rover hurtled up the ramp at alarming speed, the RWW crew strapped it down and only seconds after touching down we were airborne again. `That was an example of how we do hot exfiltrations,' Barry shouted over the roaring engines.

We spent the night at Stirling Lines, the SAS's headquarters in Hereford, dining in the officer's mess. It was an honour, because normally only SAS personnel are allowed to set foot in the building. After dinner, Barry stood up and spoke. `I've arranged an interesting talk. I'm sure it will be a humbling experience for all of you.' He glowered at Forton and lead us into a meeting room by the mess. A stocky, dark-haired soldier was waiting, standing by an overhead projector. As we settled into our seats he stared blankly at the wall behind us and waited until there was silence before he spoke. Quietly he introduced himself and for the next hour he told how in the Gulf War his eight-man Scud-hunting patrol, Bravo Two Zero, was compromised and ambushed, and how he was captured and tortured by the Iraqis for several months. He spoke with no trace of boastfulness, emotion or humour, as if he was telling us about a trip to buy a bit of wood from B&Q. When he finished, he thanked us for our attention and left.

We trooped back to the bar in silence. It was some minutes before Spencer spoke up. `It would make a cracking book, that would.' For once, Spencer was right. Andy McNab published his story a year later and it became a worldwide best-seller.

The next morning, the Puma picked us up and took us down to the Special Boat Service's base in Poole, Dorset. The SBS contribution to the increment is much smaller than RWW, only about 15 men. As one would expect, given its naval roots, the SBS increment is oriented towards marine operations and its men are expert frogmen and underwater demolitions experts. Many have served also in Commachio troop, the Royal Marines' maritime counter-terrorist unit, or in their Mountain and Arctic Warfare cadre. The SBS increment is primarily employed by MI6 to place tracking beacons on ships whilst they are anchored in harbour.

The beacon is about the size of a house brick and to work effectively it must be placed high up on the ship's superstructure. We were given a demonstration in the indoor swimming pool by an SBS sergeant of the lightweight drysuit, recycling breathing apparatus and compact collapsible ladder used to covertly approach and board a ship in harbour.

The SBS increment also operates MI6's mini-submarine, about the length of two cars. The pilot and navigator sit astride the cylindrical forward hull dressed in drysuits and breathing apparatus. The rear half of the craft flattens into a passenger compartment which is just large enough to carry four persons, packed together like sardines. The compartment is flooded during a dive and the drysuited passengers breathe air piped from the craft's onboard supply. The mini-sub is used for infiltrating specialist agents into a hostile country and for exfiltrating compromised agents.

The SAS and SBS increments are complemented by another specialist cadre who occasionally participate in increment operations and we were also introduced to their skills during military week. These 20 or so men and women, known collectively as UKN, encompass a diverse range of specialist skills. Only the small `core' who are on call full-time draw a modest salary from MI6. The rest work unpaid and take time off from their real jobs to participate in MI6 operations. Their core skill is surveillance and counter-surveillance. To blend into foreign streets, some are drawn from ethnic minorities and many have a good command of foreign languages. Other skills are diverse: one is a pilot who, though working full-time for an air-taxi company, is prepared to drop everything to help out in an MI6 operation when required. Another is a yachtmaster who provides his boat when required. UKN have an odd status in the office because they are regarded as agents rather than staff, so we dealt with them under alias. They are also deniable assets - if an increment soldier were captured in an operation, MI6 would initiate diplomatic efforts to secure their release, but UKN have no such reassurance. They would be denied and their only hope of securing release would be through private legal action. As they clearly cannot get insurance on the commercial market, they take enormous personal risks every time they go abroad.

Although Ball and Long kept us under continuous assessment on the IONEC, most emphasis was placed on our performance in the final exercise, known as EXERCISE SOLO. Traditionally SOLO took place in Norway with the cooperation of its secret service. But our SOLO was to be hosted for the first time by SISMI, the Italian secret service.

The decision to base SOLO in Italy was taken for political reasons at a high level in both countries. MI6 had been in liaison with SISMI before, but the relationship was tetchy and weak. MI6 regarded southern European liaison services as unprofessional and insecure and SISMI preferred to work with the CIA and the BND (the German external intelligence service). Recent developments, however, had brought MI6 and SISMI closer. SISMI was doing some good work against its recalcitrant southern neighbour, Libya, and MI6 wanted access to this intelligence. SISMI's relationship with the BND was also going through a difficult patch, so they regarded bolstering links with MI6 as a useful insurance policy. MI6 proposed to SISMI that they cooperate on training exercises as a means of cementing the relationship, so the Italian-based SOLO was born. In return, MI6 offered to host training on its home turf for SISMI's new recruits.

Because of the political background to the decision, it was important that the exercise was a success. Ball and Long spent a month in Italy prior to the start of the IONEC, planning the exercise with the help of SISMI and Rome station.