by Jack Freeman
Azar had left the radio playing quietly in the bedroom when she set out for her leafleting duties and Max woke to further heated news reports of the disgraceful scenes at Friends’ House and on Euston Road the night before. Max could not help feeling that the whole event was being greatly exaggerated. Perhaps, because it involved mainly foreigners on British soil that made it even more objectionable than a riot among locals would be. Yes, some obscure Brit law of hospitality had been breached. We let you lot in and you can stay as long as you behave yourselves. That was the deal and battling in the streets was stretching the understanding. He lay dozing for the next three hours while having disturbing dreams in which Azar’s brother was killed by Jack Johnson during the fighting at Friends’ House while he, Max, was paralysed under a mass of wrestling bodies.
At 10.00 a.m. as Max was deciding which shirt was least dirty and so would be that day’s choice to wear, he heard the screeching brakes and rumbling engine of a poorly maintained vehicle drawing up outside the shop. Peering through a hole in the tattered curtains in the bedroom, he saw through the grimy window that an unmarked white van had stopped in the street below his window. It was raining again and the van was parked in the midst of a large puddle which was threatening to overflow the pavement and potentially flood the shop. The man who got out of the van looked similar to Mansur’s aide from last night, Ali, and was dressed in blue overalls with a chauffeur style cap pulled down as far as it would go. The delivery man, who might be Ali, pressed the bookshop bell continuously. Max’s assistant, Alan, was not about yet and he was not expected to arrive before 11 a.m.
Max decided it probably was Ali and that it was best to go down and open the door as he would to any delivery man. He rushed down the steep, narrow and uneven steps, and after struggling with the stiff lock, opened the door wide and said:
“Hi. Are those the books I ordered from the importers last week?”
“Dunno, mate. I’m just the delivery man, right, and this delivery is for “London Lights” bookshop. That’s you, right? Ok, sign here,” replied the man in unmistakeable East End tones.
The man opened up the van and began manoeuvring a large oblong cardboard box marked “Rare Books – Urgent” out of the back. Max took one end and they carried it into the shop before it got too wet. The man then left with Max still not completely sure if it had been Ali from last night or not; Ali had been silent throughout the meeting in Greek Street the previous night and so the voice was no guide. But if it was Ali, how had he come to have an East End accent?
Max slowly manhandled the slightly damp box upstairs and into the living room of the flat. It was good that Alan was not around. He did not want Alan there when the box was opened, in case the contents were not innocent books and awkward questions might arise. The less Alan knew, the better he could play dumb.
Max carefully opened the box to reveal a large black holdall roll bag and an envelope marked “Confidential. Only for eyes of Max Blue.” Max slit open the envelope and read the message: “Hit Grosvenor Square US Embassy within 24 hours of 10.15 am today. Tools are in the bag. Return immediately after use to last night’s venue.” Max put the heavy black roll bag on the table and slowly opened it, to find layers of cloth rags inside. Within the rags he felt the unmistakeable outlines of a Thompson sub-machine gun. Opening up the wrapping he saw it was an M1928 model with a 100 round drum. Nice, he thought, hmm, firing rate about 600 rounds per minute so just a quick spray or a few short bursts is all we can do. Should shock the Embassy people but may not do that much damage especially if I do the attack at night, which would be reasonable, to reduce chances of getting caught on day one of my new job as an international urban guerrilla.
From below came the sounds of the shop door opening and a tuneless whistling of “Only the lonely,” indicating that Alan had arrived to start a short day of playing at being a bookshop assistant.
Max quickly tucked the heavy gun back in the roll bag and began to muse on his next moves. He would try to get a message to Jack Johnson that the Embassy was to be hit that night, but that Jack should make everything appear normal there and the Embassy could announce afterwards that major casualties had occurred even if none had. Max would certainly try to avoid hitting anyone but with bullets flying around at the rate of 10 per second it couldn’t be completely guaranteed. He would leave a phone message from the flat for Jack to definitely check the message drop site this evening. It wouldn’t be safe to use a street telephone box as the RPI would probably be watching him and wonder who he was phoning. He couldn’t contact Azar. She would be with RPI minders all day and likely through the evening too, and it wouldn’t look good if he turned up at Oxford Street tube station for a chat. It would be best to keep out of sight most of today, given also that the cops were looking out for the troublemaker who had set off the Battle of Friends’ House. On that thought, Max decided to cut his hair as the radio news bulletins always mentioned the troublemaker’s long blond hair. Azar had some electric clippers so he could do a home made approximation to a crew cut.
The next decisions to be taken were when exactly to carry out the hit and how to do it. The Embassy was a new building that took up one side of Grosvenor Square. In the middle of the Square was a garden with plenty large bushes for cover. He could hide in the bushes as it got dark by 7 pm. A camouflage jacket and cap would be useful for this job and he just happened to have both of those items. Good. He was pretty sure the gardens were locked up at sunset so they would be empty at night. That did leave the question of how to escape over the railings when the job was done. From memory, the railings were not too high, maybe 5 feet, and could be vaulted if needs be. As for timing, Max felt that about 11 pm for the hit would be a good time since there would still be crowds in near by streets to melt into and the Tube would still be running to get him far from the scene quickly. OK. So, the plan is to get to Grosvenor Square by 6.30, tonight, hide in the bushes while the gardens are locked up, wait there till near 11 pm, execute task, get out, merge with the crowds and take the nearest tube, to get on the underground network which he could then ride with frequent line switches for an hour or so, and end up at the RPI flat on Greek Street to return the tools and get his next instructions.
By 4.30 pm that afternoon, Max felt that he was ready. He had cut his hair short with clippers and was wearing a camouflage jacket, cap, khaki trousers and black army boots. He was happy that the military look would distance him from yesterday’s long haired beatnik freak image. Earlier, he had made the call to Jack Johnson’s number about the upcoming message drop and a note had been made by a clerk for onward transmission. He went downstairs to the shop to brief Alan with some limited and misleading information.
“Wow. Look at you! Mr Warmonger or what?” said Alan, shaking his head but with a wide grin.
“Yeah, very funny, thing is, Alan, I’m in a bit of trouble with the Man and I may be layin’ low for a while. Going “Underground”, you might say. If anyone asks, I left just saying I was away on business, but you don’t know where and you don’t know when I’ll be back. Azar may or may not be back tonight and as we mentioned yesterday she might be gone for a while too. The thing is, it’s best you don’t know too much.”
“Hah. Ok. The plot thickens…don’t worry I ain’t seen nothin’ and I don’t know nothin’ neither. I’ll keep the place ticking over till normal service resumes,” replied Alan with a sly smile as he brushed his long hair away from his eyes, which were still bloodshot from the previous night’s heavy session on McEwan’s Export ale at the Scotch Corner pub in Camden. There had been a long debate about the personal and the political struggle. Should revolutionaries focus on changing themselves through drugs, mysticism, and meditation or should they concentrate on changing society through direct action. And if the latter, what sort of direct action? Just demos, or something stronger? No definite conclusions were reached and Alan was distracted by a mini skirted girl with long booted legs, pale make up and died black hair in a bob cut, who h
ad joined their group, looking for grass. The rest of the night had been a blur and Alan had woken on the floor of some unknown person’s flat. Luckily, it was near the shop and he had not been much later than usual in turning up for work. Tonight, it would be beat poetry reading at the Roundhouse. He decided not to wonder what Max and Azar were up to. Some things it was best not to know, then you couldn’t be forced to give away secrets of the struggle when the Man came for you with his truth drugs and older, cruder methods.
Max slipped out of the shop at 4.45 p.m. with brief glances up and down the street. Fortunately, it had stopped raining though a mist seemed to have rolled up from the Thames as far as Bloomsbury. The mist was thinning and should not be a problem but he certainly did not want to be under bushes in Grosvenor square for hours in the rain. No suspicious looking loiterers were in sight. Max had already written the coded message on the inside of a Senior Service cigarette packet advising Jack of the hit, asking him that all be kept looking normal at the Embassy tonight and that casualties be exaggerated when the story broke. The message also said that Max and Azar were misinforming the RPI that Mohsan had died in CIA hands and that their motivation for working with the RPI was revenge. He walked casually down to Tavistock Square with his roll bag over one shoulder, looking like an off-duty GI seeing the sights of London. He still saw no sign of being tailed but, nonetheless, he had an intuitive feeling of being watched. He would have to slip the message into the drop very unobtrusively as he wandered past Ghandi’s statue, which faced out to the street around the garden. Fortunately, the back of the statue was just off the path through the park. Just before he came near the plinth, Max began looking down at his feet and when he actually reached the plinth, he bent down to fix an apparently loose lace. While he got up, the folded cigarette packet was transferred from his left hand smoothly into the gap beneath the plinth and the drop action was shielded from view all round.
As he left the park, he noted with satisfaction that Jack himself was sitting on a bench, apparently engrossed in a copy of that day’s International Herald Tribune with a headline reporting “Increasing Tension over Berlin Wall Moves.” The paper had been slightly modified with an unobtrusive slit in the first page through which Jack could survey the scene undetected. Jack grinned behind his newspaper and felt happy that the action was under way. He waited till Max had left the park before strolling casually over to the plinth and extracting the message unobtrusively. Going back to his seat he slipped the message into the newspaper and read it masked by the front page. Yeah, thought Jack, the game really is afoot, as Sherlock used to say. He caught a black cab within minutes and had the driver go as fast as possible to the Embassy with the incentive of an extra £5 if Jack was satisfied with the time taken. This incentive was more than enough to make record time back to the Embassy. Max’s note mentioned meeting Wong, Nasir Mansur and Ali Saeed. Jack checked the files for these characters.
Wong was well known to the authorities and had a thick file. He was born in Birmingham in 1930. He had studied politics and economics at LSE but was kicked out in 1953 for assaulting a right wing visiting speaker during an over-lively meeting. He then was described as a professional agitator who founded his own party, The Workers’ Solidarity League, as existing left wing parties were insufficiently militant, in his view. He had found wealthy backers among actors and playwrights who were susceptible to his charisma. Wong had built up a cult-like following and at the movement’s redoubt in Devon, known as the Red Castle, the staff consisted of a regularly changing cast of young female activists who worked for free and were rumoured to act as a harem for the charismatic Wong. He had been on every major anti-US demo that there had been for the past 10 years in both the UK and the continent of Europe. He seemed to have been on every picket line, of which there had been many, in this strike happy country since way back when, thought Jack. The overall assessment was that he was tub-thumping rabble-rouser, who could, if circumstances became truly pre-revolutionary, become a real threat to the order of things. The Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police and MI5 had him on their separate round up lists which would be activated if a state of emergency was declared. This would probably lead to a fight between the two agencies about who would not hold this character, thought Jack.
Mansur’s file was slim. He had been born in Isfahan in 1928. After Technical College in Tehran, he had trained at Imperial College, London, 1951-4, had been an engineer in Iran working on hydro-electric projects, then got involved in labour disputes, which inevitably led to Savak taking an interest in him, followed by jail, torture, exile and he joined the RPI in Italy five years ago. He had been suspected in Italy of involvement in assassinations of members of rival émigré parties but charges were never laid against him. This probably means he is a dangerous guy who knows how to cover his tracks, thought Jack. Mansur is now officially the RPI spokesman in London, although rarely appearing in the media, as the media just weren’t interested in Iran, as long as the oil kept flowing West and not too many protestors were shown being shot and beaten to death at any one time on the evening TV news bulletins.
Ali Saeed was a relatively new face and his file was thin, indicating only that he had been born in Tehran in 1938 and was a naturalised British citizen, suspected of links to Iranian revolutionary groups. Jack added in to the file that he was definitely involved with the RPI as an activist.
Leaving Tavistock Square, Max hailed a black taxi cab, so that his progress to Grosvenor Square would have fewer witnesses. Affecting a marked Berlin German accent he asked for “Gross Vennor Platz, Jah?” The driver laughed, “I take it you mean Grosvenor Square, mein Herr,” and pulled away, heading west through the early evening traffic.
It was nearly sunset as Max walked into the gardens faced by the Embassy in Grosvenor Square. Jack had beaten him to the building by ten minutes. Max nodded to the statue of Benjamin Franklin and mouthed an apology for what he was about to do to US sovereign territory. The Stars and Stripes flag was being lowered for the night over the vast modern building, which had only recently been completed to a clean lined design by Finnish American architect, Eero Saarinen, as Max saw a very suitable clump of bushes to use as a hiding place. The well tended gardens were deserted by now and he quickly slipped into the selected bushes, took out the gun and lay down on top of the roll bag for a long wait. Soon after settling down in the bushes, he heard the gates being locked and then darkness fell, as the sun finally set somewhere west of Heathrow.
Lying as still as possible on the damp ground, under foliage, strongly reminded Max of his days with the anti-soviet partisans in the forests of Estonia in 1953. He was a new agent then, on his first independent mission. To help roll back the Soviet Empire, he was to meet up with leaders of the Estonian resistance fighters, known as the “Forest Brothers”, and get first hand briefings on what they needed from the West. It turned out that the Forest Brothers’ entire leadership was riddled with double agents and Max very narrowly missed being rounded up by the KGB on his first mission. From the mid-50s onwards, the whole story of the Baltic resistance had been suppressed in both East and West as neither side came out well. The Soviets wouldn’t admit there was an armed struggle against their enlightened rule and the West didn’t want to admit to the failure of the resistance, despite Western backing. The partisans were great guys, thought Max, but the odds were way against. It was the war of the flea but the beast was too big and the fleas too few. The cold and damp of the gardens reminded Max also of an operation with the Warsaw urban resistance when he spent more time than anyone should in sewers. Again, the fighters were great guys but the operation had been futile and remained a cold war secret.
His reminiscing having reached a natural stopping point, Max checked the luminous dial on his watch and saw it was near 11 p.m. He slowly raised himself into a crouching position and moved slowly to the black iron railings facing the illuminated front of the Embassy. He scanned the building and the street between him and the Embassy. All looked clear
. There were no passers by and just one Marine guard in sight by the main door at the top of a short flight of stairs. There was a low parapet the Marine could duck behind, if he had any sense, when the shooting started.
Ok, thought Max, and mentally addressed God with the promise that he would be good if he got through this. This was a promise which he had often made but never so far kept.
Max released the safety catch and raised the gun into firing position. Aiming far to the left of the Marine guard, Max let off a burst at the first floor windows. Apparently simultaneously, the silence exploded, the windows shattered, star shaped pock marks appeared in the concrete facing of the building and the guard disappeared from view. Max then swept the gun round, raking the building in a second longer burst that emptied the magazine. It was all over in less than 15 seconds.
Jack Johnson was on the opposite side of the Embassy in the CIA Station’s situation room when he heard the machine gun and the shattering of windows on the Square side of the building. The staff had also been gathered at the far side of the building except the guard who had been briefed that a mock attack was to take place and he should dive behind the low wall as soon as the firing started and then fire back for appearance’s sake, but to fire wide, without hitting civilians who might be passing. Jack immediately got on the phone to the Reuters news agency wire service and reported that the US Embassy London had been attacked by a machine gunner and that there were several dead and wounded staff.
Max stuffed the hot gun into the roll bag, grabbed the bag and ran as fast as he could to the far railings on the opposite side to the Embassy. From behind him he could hear shouting and alarms sounding, then police sirens and whistles could be heard coming from all directions. As he threw the heavy bag containing the machine gun over the park railings, automatic gun fire began ripping up the lawn and smashing into the nearby trees. Shit, thought Max, either the guard wasn’t briefed or this is Jack’s idea to make it look authentic. Max threw himself at the railings and scrambled over, stumbling onto the pavement and falling in the roadway. Bullets were now striking the railings behind him. Crouching, he crossed the road as quickly as he could and began running. As he turned the corner into Davies Street, he collided heavily with a police sergeant who was running in the opposite direction accompanied by a red-faced young constable. The roll bag fell heavily to the ground making a metallic clang. Max fell on top of the sergeant while the constable began beating him on the head with a small wooden truncheon. The Sergeant pushed the dazed Max off and gasped to the constable to stop the beating and get the cuffs out. The two officers then flipped Max over on his back and as the constable began applying handcuffs to his ankles the Sergeant began yelling “You’re going down for this you fuckin’ bastard…” His tirade was interrupted by two loud explosions and Max became aware that the Sergeant’s head had vanished and that he was lying in a pool of blood mixed with a viscous substance he didn’t want to identify.