by Nick Elliott
He smiled, reminded of his memories. ‘I remember so well. When darkness comes on our second night in those waters, I watch light from algae in water, you know? It all shone in ship’s wake and I think this must be most beautiful, peaceful place in world. Hah! I was wrong.
‘Now remember, yes, I was political officer but also, as third mate I had watchkeeping duties and that night I was on middle watch, midnight to 0400 – you know, graveyard watch.
‘I saw boats at 0215. I log them as fishing craft, one off our starboard bow, other to port. We saw they were closing on us but didn’t know what it meant. Pirate attack against big, fast merchant ship like ours? Never. So not ready for what happened. There was rope holding two fishing boats together – but we didn’t see it. How could we? They moved in way of our heading so when we approach the rope caught on bow of our ship – it—’ he broke off to gesture the bulbous bow, looking to see I understood. I nodded quickly. ‘— it pulled each small fishing boat back and alongside us, either side of ship. We still not understand. Did they need help? We must assist mariners in distress – you know. Duty as old as man going to sea. Of course we would assist poor fishermen. I called captain. He was not happy being woken up but in five minutes he was on bridge. I was on starboard bridge wing and could see, even in darkness, three or four men climbing up ship’s side! They throw grappling hooks up over ship’s rail. They were boarding our ship!
‘I go back into wheelhouse. The helmsman – he was young – had left the wheel and gone out onto port bridge wing. I hear him shout: “They’re armed! Take cover!” Those were last words he spoke. Burst of shooting. I saw him thrown back onto deck. I ran out to him, keeping down low. Shooting almost take his head off. He was eighteen years.’ As Valdis relived the moment, he spoke faster, the memories clearly as fresh and traumatic as if they’d happened yesterday. His English – usually not bad – became more erratic, but the story that unfolded was grimly clear.
‘In few minutes they take control of ship. They tell us sail to anchorage long way off Jolo Island. First thing they do when we anchor is force chief mate to walk plank! They rig gangway, force him along, then push him off. ”This is what we will do. Plenty sharks down there. Hope he drown before they get him!” their leader shout, laughing and pointing down at beautiful calm blue sea. Then one of others fire at the mate in water and sea goes dark where blood spread around his body. They laugh. They call their leader Amir. He spoke some English, but no Russian of course. He said they would keep captain alive to negotiate ransom payment so they had thrown mate overboard as warning to us all. They were pirate men, very well armed with automatic rifles and handguns too. Very violent guys.’
A quarter of a century later, Valdis could still barely tell the story, his voice now a hoarse whisper as he forced himself on. ‘They wanted million dollars, for God’s sake!
‘We told them Soviet Union does not pay ransoms, so they threaten us more. In the end I told this Amir that maybe I could get them some ransom money. You see my position! I knew our own people would not pay a rouble. Even if captain had time to contact Vladivostok he would be told cannot expect assistance. And we knew Russian Navy had no ships in that region. If there were we would have known already. It was part of protocol for us to be told. So I persuade pirates to take me ashore if they want money. Only me.
‘We go on board one of their little boats and head for coast. It took over an hour. There was small village behind beach where we landed. Just a few wooden huts with palm leaf roofs – attap, they call it. People came out to stare at us, but no one said anything. They looked frightened. We drove in old pick-up truck to another village, another hour travelling. In this village there was shack with phone. This whole time they had their guns on me, and I tell you, they were trigger happy.
‘I called number Archie gave me many years ago, only to be used in emergency. My hands are shaking and I have to dial twice. But I get through – and then get transferred to another phone. I thought my heart would come through my chest, Angus! A woman answered the phone. Was his wife. She put me through and I spoke to him in Russian, so pirates think I’m talking to my bosses – lucky they don’t understand, eh! I ask him if he can help. He ask where I am and what happened. Really, I expect him to say he can’t do anything, but he just told me call back in two hours. Then I waited, promised pirates I could help them now. It was longest two hours of my life. Amir got very nervous. He kept asking me who I had spoken to and what was going to happen. Then Archie phoned, and he says he can help but I must prepare my crew for action without letting pirates know. “Tell them we will drop ransom from aircraft sealed in rubber bags with flotation chambers,” he said, and after I told him exact coordinates where we were anchored, I asked him what would happen, but he just told me to be ready and to be alert.’
Valdis was on his feet, pacing up and down the laundry room, pausing to gesticulate at me in his vehemence. ‘I told Amir how ransom money would be dropped from aircraft,’ he continued. ‘He said this to his gang and there was plenty of shouting and laughing. Amir fired his AK-47 in the air. They were crazy guys. We returned to the ship and I told captain to stand by and I had told my contacts in GRU. He wanted to know more but as political officer I outranked him in such matters, so I just told him be prepared for whatever might be coming. We discuss about a rescue but I didn’t know, so couldn’t tell him any more than that.
‘We wait. Pirates tell us they will start killing us, one by one, if they don’t see money coming. They were beginning to not believe my promise, and I was beginning to lose hope myself, but I kept telling them: “Soon you will be rich men”, and that would make them excited. They were simple men but that didn’t mean they were not dangerous. They had moved the whole crew into the messroom where they could guard us. We were crew of thirty-six men. Tensions were very high on both sides, them and us. Many times they would hit anyone who questioned or tried to argue with them. They used the butts of their rifles. We soon learned to keep quiet and keep our heads down. Time went so slowly. The cook fed the pirates and us, but we didn’t eat much and only slept for short times.
‘Finally – just after midnight on fourth day – hell break loose without warning. The noise! Grenades exploding. And there was all the time firing from automatic weapons. Before we knew it, men with masks burst into messroom where we were held.
‘It was all over in less than ten minutes. I hadn’t been told what to expect. I knew this raid was likely but hadn’t told my shipmates. I didn’t want them to get excited and alert the pirates. Now we ducked down and hid as best we could. But by then the pirates had all been dealt with – killed. They were easy to identify – dark, skinny and they were the only ones wearing balaclavas! There were seven of them and they didn’t stand a chance. It was massacre, both out on deck where some of the pirates had rushed out to fight, and in messroom where others were guarding us.
‘One of masked soldiers asked for captain. He talked to him in Russian, not fluent but not bad. Definitely a foreigner. He asked if our ship was seaworthy and ready to continue voyage. The captain said yes, she was. “Then do so,” he said. “We shall escort you from a distance.” And that was it. They were gone before anyone could ask questions. The engineers restarted main engine, we raised anchor and proceeded on our passage to Makassar. We never saw our escort. Captain asked me who had carried out the rescue. I told him I guessed it was Spetsnaz team from GRU but I had not been told. It was just a hunch, I said. He never questioned the foreign-sounding Russian accent. He was glad just to be free. We all were. We were shouting with joy, and the vodka came out. Of course, I believed it was the Royal Navy Marines. I was never told the full story. The British Intelligence agencies like to keep their operations in separate boxes, separate rooms. I learned this later. It makes sense. Only much later the Admiral told me it was Special Boat Service.’
‘Who’s the Admiral?’ I asked as I absorbed this extraordinary tale.
‘Later. Later I will tell you who he is.’
>
‘So what was the upshot of it all?’
‘We got rid of bodies, cleaned up ship and weeks later returned to Nakhodka and carried on our liner service. But orders were issued to bypass Sulu Sea.’ Valdis was calmer now, speaking more slowly and coherently. I could tell the next part of his story had been safely processed into the past, unlike the attack from the pirates.
‘My bosses became suspicious, never mind that I had saved crew and ship. The captain was questioned by the Morflot people. I was too of course, but I kept to my story – that my phone calls had been to contacts in GRU so they should talk to them if they wanted answers. Who did I speak to, they asked? I said I couldn’t tell them. It was risky but I hid behind secret cloak of GRU, which was, still is an organisation to be afraid of. And it was not Morflot’s job to start looking into GRU business. I knew there would be people who had suspicions, but most of Morflot management people were very pleased and they knew better than to ask questions. It was Soviet way: you knew how far it was safe to go, and Morflot demanding details about covert GRU operations was step too far.’
‘Were you not rewarded for saving the lives of your crew?’
‘No, and I didn’t mind that. My shipmates and Morflot colleagues appreciated what I had done and I didn’t want to draw more attention to myself. Anyway, after that my sea career was soon over and I was sent to my hometown of Ventspils, which suited me very well. I was given job in harbourmaster’s office and I lay low there. I met beautiful girl. We married and we had a daughter.’
‘Where are they now, Valdis?’
‘My wife died some years ago. She had stroke and was paralysed. She lived for two years and then I think she gave up. My heart was broken. My daughter works in Vienna now. She is scientist, still training. But I must continue with my story, then you can ask me as many questions as you like.’
‘Valdis, you have my full attention. What else are we going to do in this hellhole?’
Chapter 10
Daugavpils, Latvia
April 1999
Valdis wanted to share all his experiences. It wasn’t just about my having to understand the background, there was more to it than that. He also needed to share a burden. He said he needed my help, but had still not explained what he expected from me. But the story he’d just told was so gripping that for a while I’d escaped from White Swan and was with him and his shipmates on that azure blue sea.
‘I must tell you how happy I am to share my life here with you, my dear friend.’ Valdis was in a buoyant mood induced by his recollections. It wasn’t always easy, but when one of us was down, the other usually managed to lift his spirits.
‘So, after incident in Sulu Sea, when I was settling into new job ashore, I received a signal.’
‘What kind of signal?’ I’d resigned myself to having to make these interruptions as he tended to assume that I would know how his secretive line of work actually functioned in practice.
‘Ha! I cannot give you details of all the tradecraft they taught and set up for me, but the signal told me to meet my handler at Kronvalda Park in Riga. I took time off work, travelled to Riga and went to park as instructed. There, sitting on park bench, was my old friend Archie Anderson! I couldn’t believe it. I was worried to be meeting him in the open like that, but we had both taken precautions to ensure we were not followed or watched. It was winter, it was raining and of course, he had an umbrella. There were very few people about, which made me cautious and nervous. I had seen a woman sitting on nearby bench. She had pushchair and was talking to baby or small child. You know, the way that mothers do, but in the rain? I mentioned it to Archie. He said she was wife of one of their people at the embassy and was there to keep eye open for anyone acting suspiciously. She would alert us with prearranged signal, but I don’t know how useful she really was.’
‘So, what did he want?’
‘We talked of many things, but main reason for his visit was to tell me he was retiring. I was alarmed! I had grown to trust him and although we had not met very often in all those years, I relied on him to look after me and my family if things ever got very difficult – if we would ever have to leave this country in hurry. He told me not to worry, but that my case was being transferred to another department and I was to be assigned new case officer. It had been decided in London that all their agents in Eastern Bloc who had maritime connections, and especially those like me with GRU connections as well, were to be handled by Defence Intelligence, not MI6. My new handler was a rear admiral. He was from Naval Intelligence, which had been merged with other military intelligence agencies back in 1960s. This I knew.
‘And Archie told me something else: that the operation to free our ship in Sulu Sea, and for which I thanked him of course, had been planned and run by this same rear admiral. He had even been on board Royal Navy destroyer from which raiding party had been sent and which shadowed us as we continued our voyage to Makassar.’
‘So who is this rear admiral?’
‘Ha! No names, no pack-drill. That was one of Archie’s sayings. I never understood where it came from. He was full of old English sayings I had never learned when studying English. But I can only tell you Archie’s name because it is in public domain. He is even writing autobiography, would you believe this, so I know his name but not admiral’s name. All I know is that he operates from unit in British Defence Intelligence. International Maritime Task Force. Was set up to fight maritime terrorism and piracy. That is why they were effective with raid in Sulu Sea. They work with British Special Forces. IMTF carries out investigation, then works with Royal Marines or Special Boat Service for planning and execution. Even with SAS sometimes. IMTF is small department. No big network of agents. Just use NOCs – I mean non-official cover, sometimes marine investigators, MI6, Special Forces, whoever needed for the job.
‘So that day in park Archie wanted to say goodbye and tell me how things would work in future. He knew I was more or less sleeper since I had come ashore. Even when I was at sea I was only passing routine intel reports back to London from whatever port I could. That depended on case officer being available, which wasn’t always possible. For example, in Hong Kong it worked. In Makassar, forget it! I had to wait until we reached a port where there was British embassy or consulate and dead-drop arrangements would be made there.
‘But all was going to change now, he said. London was worried about Soviet missile sites being established in Baltic states at that time, especially in Latvia: the Dvina missile silo had four launchers for R-12 ballistic missiles. Such missiles could attack targets at a range of thousands of kilometres. The radars in Skrunda-1 town in western Latvia covered the airspace of all Western Europe. They could detect any launch of ballistic missile from that area. Remember, all this was in middle of ’70s. It is just ghost town now. Then there was Zeltini Nuclear Missile Base in north-east of country. Now you can visit it as tourist if you want. Would you believe it?’
‘Valdis, I don’t want to visit it as a tourist. No offence, but I want to get out of Latvia and never come back! Why are you telling me all this stuff?’ I was getting uncomfortable again about these sensitive disclosures, even if the Soviet Union was dead and gone.
‘Because you need to understand full story if you are to help me. Please, Angus, be patient a little longer and everything will become clear, I promise. And do not let your attention leave you! So, to continue, Zeltini storage and launch complex was originally built for 2.3 megaton single-warhead nuclear missile. But also kept there was smaller SS-21 Scarab, or what the Soviets called Tochka missile. Can fire 100 kiloton nuclear warhead distance of 185 kilometres. It is tactical weapon for use on battlefield. Short range.’
‘These names and numbers mean nothing to me,’ I said impatiently.
‘Listen to me! Missile system – same system sent to Cuba in 1962 – did not have extra range needed to reach targets in Europe from faraway in Russia. This made Baltic region very interesting to Soviet military, and that is why Zeltini was built
and was updated and kept in active state until end of Soviet Union and withdrawal of Red Army back to Russia. And of course they carried away all those weapons with them. Or we thought they did.
‘Then, that day in park, Archie says they want me to start investigating these sites. By “they” he means Admiral’s IMTF. At first I was worried about undertaking such dangerous work, but he told me, relax. He was good at that and I knew I would miss his words of encouragement. He was kind man. He had good English sense of humour too. But sitting there on bench that day in rain and feeling worried, I had to remind myself, this was what I had always wanted, ever since Cuba: to play my part in nuclear disarmament.
‘But there was more. They needed to know about what Twice Red-Banner Baltic Fleet. This supported northern flank of European theatre in case of confrontation with NATO. This was very valuable strategically and if war broke out, this fleet would be carrying out amphibious assaults against the coasts of Denmark and Germany. I knew now my time had come. The intelligence gathering I had been doing so far was small potato. Now serious work would begin. And I was ready. So we said goodbye there in park and I returned to Ventspils feeling sad to be saying goodbye to an old friend, and a little excited and afraid – all at once. It was very emotional day for me.’
‘So what happened? Did you find what they wanted?’
‘Finding information on Twice Red Banner Baltic fleet was not so difficult for me. I had access through my work, you know. But missile sites were different matter. I used my job as assistant harbourmaster to get information, and this is important to what I tell you shortly. Morflot fleet was used to ship military equipment, including missiles, and they used Latvian ports like Ventspils. So I could ask questions without going near GRU. And my new masters, IMTF, had clever ways for me to transfer this intelligence without arousing suspicion.’ He laughed. ‘“Let’s keep it simple”, they would say. And we did. A British shipping line would call at Ventspils every two weeks in those days. It was routine for me to visit the ships when they called, so no problem for me to pass envelope to captain. And captain had been briefed by Admiral’s people. Easy!’