by Tom Marcus
Walking back down the stairs to have our photograph taken, we looked at our badges and each other’s photos. It was before the badge and card were redesigned and to Dave’s excitement the photo ID part still had a monogram of Vernon Kell, the service’s founder, and the words ‘On Her Majesty’s Service’ on it. The other side of the black folded wallet held a gold Security Service crest. In the real world, we’d hardly ever use these to identify ourselves. Only as a last resort and it would only be to the police to allow us to proceed or if we’d been arrested. Mine would remain hidden in a sports Tubigrip around my ankle.
I was now officially an officer with MI5, the Security Service of the United Kingdom, a defender of the realm. True to form, having our course photograph with my new team mates I looked like the runt of the litter. It was a proud day, but I just wanted to go home to my family, rather than the safe house.
CHAPTER FOUR
Walking with no back-up into a pub in Glasgow that’s a known terrorist meeting place takes a certain amount of balls. You have to disregard any concerns you might have for your personal safety. Especially when you’re an undercover MI5 operator and four of your targets are inside to talk about policemen they might potentially murder.
I’d worked against Irish terrorists for years. I preferred them to the Islamic extremists because they had a cause; they believed in what they were doing for the future of Northern Ireland. It became family duty. The self-radicalized Islamic guys just didn’t have that, they just wanted to commit mass murder anywhere they could. It wasn’t about religion or creating a caliphate. The leaders of these groups, particularly in Syria, Iraq and Africa, want power and control; they have merely used the lure of religion as a vehicle to drive that need, using people as pawns to carve out their own areas of control. At least when the IRA planted a car bomb, most of the time they would ring through a coded message to evacuate the area.
Preferring them didn’t mean I liked them. They were far more dangerous to people like me. Their operational security and how they actively looked for us was better than any Russian intelligence officer. Irish paramilitaries like the IRA and UDA noticed the slightest detail out of place and they knew their surroundings extremely well. I was acutely mindful that they had caught people in the past.
As we drove close to the pub, I could hear over the radio my team taking up positions.
‘Charlie Four, got the northern pedestrian route.’
‘Charlie Five has eyes on the entrance to the pub and can give a standby.’
‘One Eight has the south on foot.’
‘Zero Six, do you read? Base.’
‘Yes. Yes, go ahead.’ This would be my last transmission on my body radio as I needed to remove it prior to going into the pub.
‘Zero Six, be advised – the pub is extremely busy and all targets have left their phones at their home address. Roger so far?’
‘Zero Six, roger.’
This wasn’t good news. We didn’t know what targets, if any, were already in the bar. It was mega-busy too, which would make it even more difficult to spot our targets. Basically, I would be going in blind.
‘Further, the landlord’s son is suspected in the murder of a known Loyalist paramilitary last week in Shankill, Belfast. Base out.’
Well, fuck me, let’s just invite more hardline Republicans to the pub, in fact let’s invite them all to Thames House for a tour of MI5 HQ and throw me to the fucking wolves.
‘All stations from Zero Six, I’m in the area, will be into the pub figures five, ears out, ears out.’
I had to take my covert radio off and leave it in the van. The Irish paramilitaries were seriously good at outing undercover Special Forces and police. However, when high-profile targets like these came together only MI5 were allowed anywhere near them.
Our operating methods are different from those of other covert forces. Our profiles are all completely different. If you put us all in a room you’d never guess we were working together. Young, old, black, white, geeks, sheikhs, Muslims, men, women – the list is endless. Then we throw into the mix the way we dress – as builders, tramps, drunks, businessmen, pregnant mothers, OAPs … Even our vehicles have to match our profile. You can’t be dressed as a tramp getting out of a brand-new Audi.
My current profile is a painter and decorator drowning his sorrows after losing his arse on the horses. As I remove my radio and place it in the glove box of the van, I memorize the map on the passenger seat. I need to know the local area in case it all goes to rat shit. How would I get to the main road as fast as possible to enable my team to pick me up?
I grab the paintbrush and pot of white emulsion I need to complete the look of a working decorator. I’ve done this so many times. Stepping out of the car in my white painter’s coveralls splashed with various colours of paint and the odd splash of varnish, complete with my comfy paint-splattered trainers, I dip the paintbrush into the tin.
Just wearing the clothes won’t do; you need to dispel any doubt in people’s minds that you fit your profile, because when there is doubt, there is no doubt. Holding the brush over my left hand, I slide my right thumb over the bristles, flicking paint splatters over my hands and wrist, repeating on my right hand and hair, and I’m done. Tiny little paint spots cover my skin, as if I’ve just finished painting a ceiling in a local house. Then I throw the paint pot and brush into the back of my battered white van. I know I look the part; I am living my cover.
I quickly dart into the betting shop next to the target pub, as I need to remember a few of the races that afternoon and place a few bets. All this gives me reason to be in the area, provides talking points if I’m asked questions in the pub, and removes suspicion about me.
Making my way from the bookies to the pub, I scan the area subtly. I can’t see any of our team cars. This is a good sign; if I can’t see them, neither can anyone else. I am mainly trying to work out if the pub is being watched. The Irish are extremely good at identifying surveillance and security forces. It is their bread and butter.
OK, I know the meeting will happen now. Three hooded teenagers are sitting on a wall covering the main road past the pub; they can see everything, including all the vehicle movements in the area. I have to walk right past them. Betting slip in hand, I slow my pace down slightly, allowing my trainers to gently scuff the pavement as I walk past.
One of the group briefly turns his attention to me, but quickly discounts me as a threat. He obviously isn’t looking for a scruffy painter down on his betting luck on his way to sit in the bottom of a beer or ten.
From inside the pub, I can hear the TVs blaring out the Celtic match. It’s busy. Really busy. I count twelve men, all in Celtic football tops, smoking outside, but none of them take notice of me as they laugh and joke. Good start: no one watching outside on alert.
I’m hoping none of our targets are inside the pub yet; it will give me time to settle into the environment, choose my positioning and get to know the locals quickly. That said, you need to be aware of hostile teams already inside, making sure it’s safe for their commanders to hold a meeting.
I squeeze through the packed crowd of men and the dense smoke to make my way straight to the bar. Choosing a drink in situations like this is always critical. You don’t want to stand out by getting it wrong. Little things matter and that’s why only the best operators from MI5 are allowed near these guys. You’re in a pub, especially a rowdy lawless one like this – you have to fucking drink.
Quickly scanning the empties, I notice most people are on bottles of Budweiser. This is good news because the glass of the bottle is brown, so it allows me to control my rate of drinking and it’s not easy to see how little I have drunk. The other advantage is, I can use it to crack someone’s head open if this goes tits up.
There is a huge difference, often fatal, between a normal undercover operator and someone like me. You have to live your cover. Even when paying for a drink in a pub, I’m a down-on-my-luck, self-employed painter and decorator trying
to pay next week’s rent by betting on the horses. Handing a crisp £20 note to the landlord behind the bar wouldn’t fit my profile. This landlord is probably looking out for people like me, given that his son was now an accomplished killer.
‘Bottle of Bud, shot of JD.’
I put a handful of coins on the sticky wooden bar, picking out the £1 coins, and pay him in small change. At these prices I know the whiskey will have been watered down. The landlord turns to me: ‘You look like you need a double.’ I recognize the accent straight away: West Belfast. He raises the dirty glass to the whiskey optic to fill it, then turns to put the glass and bottle down in front of me.
Facing the bar and my drinks, with my back to the door, I am surrounded by cheering football fans, all offering their insights into how they would manage world-class players.
You have to wait and settle in situations like this, you can’t take a position watching the door or trying to identify who is in the bar, because that would get you killed in a pub such as this one. I have no clue if our targets are here, and what’s more I don’t know who the hostile counter-surveillance team is and where they are.
The only thing I can control is how the landlord perceives me. Grabbing the change into my right fist, I return it to my pocket in a disgruntled shove. I throw my betting slip on the bar, pick up my glass of whiskey and in one seamless motion neck it.
I fucking hate whiskey, but it serves two purposes. It gives a strong smell of heavy alcohol on me and reduces suspicion from anyone who’d kill you if they even suspected you of being a member of the security forces, never mind MI5.
My empty glass doesn’t have a chance to hit the bar before the landlord is over. I can barely hear him over the jeers and shouting; there must be close to a hundred people in the council-estate boozer, keeping a sure footing as drunks get bounced around, beer is spilled on the already-sticky floor, and every sentence includes at least one ‘cunt’, three ‘fucks’ and half a dozen ‘twats’.
‘Another one?’
The landlord is a bald, skinny wretch of a man. His appearance is typical: thin gold crucifix chain, sovereign ring on his right little finger, badly stained teeth to match his T-shirt, which states FUCK YOU in bold black lettering.
I lift my bottle of Bud and take a long swig of the warm beer and shake my head; he’s sounding me out. I turn to watch the match on one of the many TVs, this one just to the left of the spirits rack, which is backed by mirrors, allowing me to keep my back to the door while having a fairly open view of the people around and behind me.
A good twenty minutes go by and I am on my second bottle. I haven’t moved from my spot at the bar, but am now very slowly and briefly switching my focus from the TV to the mirrors, just for one or two seconds every couple of minutes. I need to build up a mental picture of who is in here. I know I’ll have hours in debrief going through target-associate profiles so it’s vital I remember who’s in here and who they’re talking to, how alert they are.
It’s an art, being able to remember the smallest of details on a massive scale. A lot of people simply can’t do it. Throw into the mix the fact that you need to do all this without getting caught, in a hostile environment surrounded by known killers who would love the kudos of taking out someone like me, and you’re probably down to a handful of individuals in the whole world who can do this, day in day out.
That’s why I was recruited. I am part of this community already, and without knowing it they accept me. Just as serving military can spot other soldiers on leave, killers recognize their own. I just hope I don’t have to go that far today.
I haven’t moved from this position for nearly an hour now. The match is over but the atmosphere is still filled with macho friendly aggression, everyone trying to be the alpha male without upsetting anyone else. I’ve identified nearly everyone in the pub via the mirrors and just as I pay for my third bottle of Bud the time has come. My targets are here.
Four senior players and the main Continuity IRA commander, who rose up the ranks in the Provisional IRA but didn’t want the Good Friday Agreement to succeed, so he moved over to CIRA. The commander – ‘the Shanker’, as he’s known to his soldiers, based on how many Loyalists he’s personally killed in the Shankill area of Belfast – is deep in conversation with a guy I don’t recognize: slim, well-dressed, with a short, neat beard, approximately six foot two to four inches tall.
As they move through the crowded pub the atmosphere changes very subtly. I look towards the TV, taking a slow slug from my bottle and holding my betting slip in my hand; the races are on now. I need to live my cover, not watch the targets.
I recognize the four senior members with the Shanker, all of them counter-intelligence within CIRA, responsible for punishment and discipline within their own ranks if they suspect anyone of betraying them. They are animals: knee-cappings aren’t their style. A bullet to the head is too quick. These guys enjoy torturing people.
Everyone in the pub obviously recognizes them and respects their positions, and only for a brief moment do the laughter and jeers quieten down before resuming full volume. All six move towards the back of the L-shaped pub. A group of tables immediately becomes vacant when the occupants realize who is walking towards them.
I have to quarter-turn my body towards them, away from the TV, to be able to see them properly, and there is absolutely no point in doing this. Other less experienced operators may try to do this but all you’re going to do is highlight that your body language is interested in them, while gaining absolutely zero intelligence.
Remaining in position, I watch the races and think to myself how thankful I am that I ditched my radio in the van. It is far too crowded in here to move around freely, and someone would have felt it had I brushed past them at any point.
The landlord has disappeared, presumably upstairs to the pub’s living area, and his son comes down and begins serving. Very cocky, early twenties, wet-look gel in his slicked-back hair, he has a look of a Kray twin about him. I tilt my bottle towards him and he does a straight swap for another lukewarm Budweiser. I pass him a crumpled £5 note, which gives me ample opportunity to look across at the target meeting while the landlord’s son gets my change.
The four counter-intelligence players sit at tables either side of their boss and the skinny unknown, all very aware, looking towards the door at all times while assessing everyone in the pub. They aren’t part of the meeting, they’re bodyguards.
The intelligence on this job isn’t fitting the picture I’m seeing: this isn’t attack planning. This is a new contact, so I need to find out who this well-dressed, skinny man is. I need opportunity, and the team outside need to follow him once he leaves. The Shanker is no longer the priority.
Turning away from the group and looking back towards the TV gives me time to think while keeping an eye on the door. I am still in a very hostile environment, surrounded by some of the most dangerous terrorists in Europe, if not the world, and I’m being served booze by a known killer. This is the game I play, but you only lose once.
A good twenty or thirty minutes pass, the group have their drinks brought over to them, and now on my fifth bottle I am starting to feel the effects. I either need to eat something or slow my drinking down; neither easy in a place where people inhale their alcohol in seconds and the only food sold is in the form of crisps.
Fumbling my change to give the impression that I am far more drunk than I actually am, I buy two bags of crisps and use the opportunity to turn away from the bar and look back towards the door. Again the atmosphere changes, much more intimidating this time; everyone starts looking towards the entrance. Someone is here. Police.
Fuck me, what’s a plain-clothes copper doing in here?
Landlord’s son.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the Shanker’s protection detail signal two guys to the right of me. As the slightly dumpy young police officer worms his way through towards the bar, it is clear he wants to speak to the lad behind it, I can only pres
ume about the murder last week.
Now he’s only five steps from me. I look towards the two guys who’ve obviously been instructed to dispose of this idiot copper who clearly doesn’t realize where he is. Both hooded teenagers flick open matt-black butterfly knives. I need to get this copper out of here. But to do so will blow my cover and we’ll both be killed.
He looks young enough for this to probably be his first plain-clothes visit to find someone, and I am betting by his lack of knowledge of those people and this pub that his senior officers haven’t sent any uniformed police along to help. It isn’t his fault he’s naïve, and I can’t let him die. Fuck me, I hope this is going to work.
Grabbing the neck of my bottle, I slide off my stool. I move towards the policeman and I put my left hand around his tie and shirt collar, my fingernails scratching the skin on his neck, my grip instant. Bringing the bottle over with a massive amount of force, I look into his eyes. Fear: he knows what’s coming.
I need this to look real; I have to fuck this guy up in order to save his life. From experience, I know I have to hit the front quarter of his forehead with the middle of the bottle for it to smash and cut him. The danger is that if I get this wrong, the bottle won’t smash and the impact will cause him major brain damage. But I need him out of the pub.
As the bottle connects, I keep my momentum going forward. Bits of brown glass scatter all over my controlling hand near his neck. ‘Fucking pig, I’ll fucking do every one of you!’
Forcing his limp body towards the doorway, I am now running with him, smashing his bloody head into the doors. They swing open and with one last scream I throw him to the ground outside. ‘Tell all your fucking mates they better stay away from me!’
He is dazed but conscious. I rifle through his pockets quickly and grab his loose cash and phone. This is my opportunity, but I need to control the pack of wolves behind me; they want in, they want blood too.