by Tom Marcus
As Amrik entered the market he had a head-on with our target, who was leaving at exactly the same time. Amrik did the right thing and continued to walk into the marketplace naturally with the crowd, but his profile was now blown as SHARP PENCIL would have seen him.
It’s moments like this we desperately try to avoid; having a head-on with the target meant Amrik was now out of play to get close to SHARP PENCIL. He was one of the few Muslims on the team so to have him potentially seen and remembered was a big blow, especially if we needed to get close to the target when he went to last prayers at the mosque.
Drinking my coffee, I heard a standby signal cut across the net seconds before I saw the target leaving the market.
‘From Zero Six, STAND BY, STAND BY! SHARP PENCIL OUT, out and north on Chalk Farm road on the west side.’
The standby signal came from Amrik. As soon as I saw the target leave I picked my coffee cup up naturally and walked out of the coffee shop without looking at the target. I gave the team my update.
‘Roger that, Zero Six, three more out on foot, please.’
The team leader knew this was the second time I’d had control already this morning and with SHARP PENCIL going in and out of places we needed more people on foot to control him properly without being noticed. Within seconds my radio filled with that familiar safe feeling of your team springing into action to back you up.
‘Zero Nine backing.’
‘Two Nine, roger.’
‘Zero Eight, roger.’
The principles of mobile surveillance hadn’t changed a great deal for the last thirty or forty years; our ability and technical support had, though, and it’s a combination of that and our day-in, day-out experience on the ground that makes MI5’s A4 surveillance teams the very best in the world. I didn’t need to look behind me to see my team mates, I knew where they would be. The target was still walking north on the west side of the road. I was about twenty metres behind him on the east side of the road. Simon, who was ‘backing’ me, would take over control if the target took a turning down a side street or if I felt over-exposed, He would be in the vicinity and ready to take over. Sue, who was known as ‘Two Nine’, would be on the same side of the road as me but even further behind Simon. As a team we were so used to operating together that we could virtually do a foot follow without radios.
SHARP PENCIL continued walking north without looking back at all, and was walking back towards the general direction of his home address. So far, very little intelligence had been gained here, but as always you have to question absolutely everything you see. The biggest questions I had were: where did the plastic bag go, and what was the purpose of this trip? He carried on walking north to the junction near his home address, which we had well covered.
‘Base, do you read, Zero Six?’
‘Yes, go ahead.’
‘If SHARP PENCIL takes his next right towards his HA, can I let him run to you?’
‘Yes, we have good picture of his front door.’
‘Zero Six, roger.’
Passing the parcel around the team had worked so far and only Amrik had got caught out when the music stopped as the target had left the second marketplace. So far, so good.
‘SHARP PENCIL looking to cross the road west to east, HOLD BACK, HOLD BACK!’ Issuing the other guys on foot the order to ‘Hold Back’ gives them time to get into cover like a shop or to move behind a crowd so the target can’t see them.
‘Yeah, he’s moved west to east towards the end of his road. Base, if he goes down his street I will let him run to you. Zero Nine, can you confirm him down the street?’
‘Zero Nine, yes.’
‘Base, roger.’
So the plan was very simple and working nicely. Once SHARP PENCIL was out of my sight down his home street, I’d take myself off the street by going into a greasy-spoon café, and let Simon continue walking north on the west side of the road to catch a glimpse of the target heading towards his home address. The danger of just letting him run on the assumption that he was going to go home was that he might jump into a car and we would lose him completely.
I ordered my bacon butty with brown sauce from the world’s filthiest café, and got confirmation from Simon that the target was almost at his home address.
‘Zero Nine, SHARP PENCIL ten metres away from his HA. Base, all yours.’
‘Base, roger, SHARP PENCIL IN, IN home address.’
My team leader popped up on the net, asking people to reposition now for a quick foot or vehicle move if the target decided that he was going to leave his home within the next few minutes. Because the team would have been moving their positions constantly around during our foot follow, we’d have most of the vehicles in position already, but those of us out on foot now needed to get back to our respective vehicles. It was going to take me around ten minutes to walk back to my car, and I needed to maintain my cover. I might well still deploy in this area again today so I had to remain invisible to the locals.
I could hear the net starting to go quiet as the transmissions became less frequent, but I knew the intelligence picture was still unfolding because SHARP PENCIL had electronic intercept on his house. This meant that the boffins back at Thames House in A2A were listening to everything he did via the eavesdropping devices planted throughout his building and his car. He was pretty much tied up, as were his associates.
Approaching my car, I was the last one out on foot, as I’d heard the others tell the team leader on the net that they had returned to their vehicles.
‘Charlie Two Two, complete.’
‘Roger that. North, please, ready for a vehicle move.’
Reversing the car, I flicked the door locks to secure the vehicle, switched my personal radio off to save its battery and turned on the radio in the car. I concentrated on driving out of the area southbound and worked my way round to the northern position. It was smart to now keep me away from the target, even though he wouldn’t have seen me.
Once your target is at their home address and you start your repositioning ready for another move if they come out again, you still drive faster than most other road users but usually you wouldn’t go through red lights or use pavements to get round traffic – there isn’t any need – but if the target is getting away or not under control then you do everything humanly possible to get control of them quickly. As I wove in and out of the lighter than normal London traffic, I had to change the look of my profile, I slipped my jacket off one arm at a time with one hand on the steering wheel. I paused from undressing briefly to change gear; I’d now transformed the colour of my top half from light green to dark blue.
Changing your profile can be as simple as a making a subtle colour change. Unless you’ve been spotted up close and your face has been remembered, then at a distance you could be a completely different person. It has to be done subtly and at the right point – you can’t just do a fucking Superman walk into a phone box wearing a suit and leave two minutes later dressed as a tramp.
Glancing down at the map I’d pulled on to my lap from the door pocket, I flicked through to get the right page for the target’s address, constantly glancing to see where I was on the road and making sure I wasn’t about to smash into anyone. I finally got the right page and could settle into a fairly simple drive to my new position.
‘Stations, security checks down the list, please, starting with Charlie One.’
The team leader needed to make sure everyone in the team was safe; the areas we operate in are dangerous and the speeds we drive at mean we are more likely to have a serious crash if something goes drastically wrong, so every fifteen minutes he’d make sure everyone shouts up on the net to say they are OK. The team started replying, but when it got to my turn to say I was fine, I was interrupted: ‘WAIT OUT, WAIT OUT! STAND BY, STAND BY, SHARP PENCIL in his green Toyota Avensis heading northbound running free!’
Fuck me, this was now going to be a scramble to get hold of him because not everyone was in position yet. Why the fuck di
dn’t the Operations Centre give him out leaving his home address? I could hear the anger in the team leader’s voice.
‘Roger. Base, did you SEE him leave the HA?’
‘Negative.’
Bollocks, we’d lost him.
‘Roger that, any stations north to assist?’
‘Charlie Two Two, negative, still coming into the area.’
I knew I was being counted on here to get hold of SHARP PENCIL as he drove away from his house, but I wasn’t in position yet. If I was going to break a lot of road traffic laws, I needed extra assurances here that I would be backed up from Thames House. Usually we are allowed to break the speed limits, drive through red traffic lights, mount pavements – all the usual stuff you’d expect us to deal with when hunting the world’s most dangerous terrorists. We have something in place for extreme cases, though, called STEEL BADGE, in which we are given permission to bump cars out of our way, though never to hurt other road users. If a gap is slightly too narrow for our car we can use minimal necessary force to squeeze through, which can cause damage to other cars and invariably involves the police chasing us. Such permission isn’t given very often, usually only when we know a target is about to blow something up and there is a direct and immediate threat to life.
‘From Charlie Two Two, do we have STEEL BADGE in play?’
‘NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE.’
Base was extremely quick to react to my request for STEEL BADGE permission to get to the north position and find SHARP PENCIL without worrying about creating a bit of mess. They obviously thought he was on a normal day out without any attack planning, but I still needed to get through this traffic quickly; coming the long way round to save me driving through the area I had just crossed on foot was hurting me.
Another set of red traffic lights. I could see a smoky old Mercedes at the head of the queue and I guessed it would be driven by someone elderly, which meant I could cut them up and pick my way through the oncoming crossing traffic while everyone else was held at red. Dropping down a gear into first, I bumped the car wheels up on to the pavement to give me just enough room to slide on the outside of the traffic. As I pulled up alongside the dark blue Mercedes, I could see it was a woman probably in her early seventies at the wheel. Lights were starting to change from red to amber, oncoming traffic had stopped and I was now in front and accelerating away, 35mph, into third gear, up to 50mph, into fourth gear and resting the engine, still accelerating up to 80mph.
I was about two minutes away from the rough area where SHARP PENCIL was last seen and about to transmit to let my team know just as Stacy shouted up on the net: ‘STAND BY, STAND BY! From Charlie Seven One Zero, I have control of SHARP PENCIL’s vehicle northbound Highgate Road, Kentish Town. Doing this at a distance, can anyone help out?’
Stacey was right to be asking for help. She was close to him back at Camden Market and we needed someone to take control so she could move away out of the area.
‘All stations, that’s a STOP, STOP, STOP!’
So far that day, SHARP PENCIL’s movements hadn’t been overly out of character. Yes, we constantly question everything we see and don’t see, but sandwiched around that is the experience of knowing people. Humans are creatures of habit, predictable. As operators it’s one of the first things we learn. Think about when you go about your normal day: you probably wake up virtually the same time and go through the same routine, whether that be eating, making a coffee or using the toilet. When you take the kids to school or travel to your place of work, it’ll be nearly always similar to the previous time. When you go into your local supermarket you’ll collect your trolley or basket and probably start at the same place each time and buy mostly the same things. You’ll wear similar clothes most of the time, make your favourite drink the same way.
Once you get round the fact that the people we hunt are the scum of the earth, they become predictable; people stop at seemingly random places and do strange things. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that what SHARP PENCIL was doing was out of the ordinary, but we still needed to get a grip of him. We’d been on him for years. He was a fucker, and smart, so we had to be on top of our game when he was out in the open.
‘From Charlie Seven One Zero, SHARP PENCIL is out of his vehicle now, walking to an address on the east side, no house number, doing this at a distance.’
‘Charlie Two Two, roger, is the house north or south of the school?’
I didn’t know this area at all, but driving towards Kentish Town I could see a school marked on the map, so I replied, ‘South of the school entrance, approximately fifty metres, vehicle parked outside the house on the east side facing north.’
This was perfect; I was coming in from the north end and would wait further up the road to get control if he moved away in a vehicle.
Driving down the side streets, I box round to be facing north on a different road.
‘Charlie Two Two in position for a north move on a standby.’
‘Charlie Seven One Zero, roger that – thanks, mate.’
I could sense Stacey’s anxiety. This was starting to get risky having the same operators and vehicles close to the target.
Parking up a few doors down so I could see where SHARP PENCIL’s car would have to pass if he drove north I turned down the volume on the car’s radio. The team leader was asking permission from Stacey to ask Base to give us information on house addresses in this area; there was absolutely nothing showing on the grid. The Operations Centre had done a great job in identifying that there was a drugs arrest a few years ago at a house that was roughly in the same area our target had gone into, but nothing terrorist-related.
‘Charlie Two Two, can you check a possible driving north, please? I’ve been blocked by a bus.’
‘Yes, checking now … STAND BY, STAND BY, that’s SHARP PENCIL driving north on Highgate Road towards the school.’
‘Roger that, Charlie Two Two, all stations, we’ll go with this.’
The team leader was happy that we’d got hold of the target again despite the scramble earlier. As I slowly drove up on a side road, I glimpsed the rear of his car. This was perfect timing as he’d have no way of seeing the profile of my car. I needed to get behind him now, and accelerated towards the junction, praying there would be another car or two to use as cover between us.
‘Vehicle now approaching the roundabout with Highgate Westhill, no indication.’
I still wasn’t behind him at this stage, I’d nosed my car to a junction approximately twenty-five metres behind his car but to his right.
‘Target vehicle exit one, exit one, northbound on Highgate Westhill. I have control.’
Thankfully I made it look like I wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere and two cars, a red Golf and a blue Mondeo, followed SHARP PENCIL’s car and I slipped in behind them. They provided my cover as I took exit one on the roundabout too. While I was in control of the vehicle, maintaining visual the whole time, I was determined to make sure nearly if not all of my car’s profile was hidden.
‘Vehicle still northbound, speed three zero past the junction of South Grove.’
‘Roger, Charlie Three Five backing.’
SHARP PENCIL was driving his car fairly relaxed, sticking to the speed limits, but my immediate concern wasn’t him, it was the two cars in front of me. Each had three males inside, all appearing very agitated, their heads constantly back and forth to each other, in their mirrors, looking down side streets. It felt like they were gang members looking for someone or they’d spent most of the day so far taking drugs.
‘Stations, be aware of a blue Mondeo, last three Victor Mike Victor, and a red Golf last three Mike Zulu Papa, behind the target’s vehicle; occupants seem very agitated.’
This was unlikely to be related to our operation, but when we’ve had people die or attacked on operations before they have been spotted by a third party, because local gangs always know when their area is red hot and there are people around who shouldn’t be. We always aim to pass over co
ntrol as much as we can when we are following targets, unless we’re on extremely long motorway follows where you can get away with being behind the same car for long periods. I handed over the follow to the backing car, Charlie Three Five and pulled down a side street. Not long after, it came over on the net that the suspicious cars I’d pointed out earlier had pulled away too.
The car journey went on for the next few hours as SHARP PENCIL drove around seemingly aimlessly, making the odd stop at a takeaway to get some fried chicken. The team leader had asked the officers in the Operations Centre if any intelligence was coming out of the eavesdropping devices we had fitted in the target’s Toyota Avensis. Nothing had come back yet but there was another large job running at the same time in Bournemouth and nearly everyone was working on that operation.
As it started to get dark, SHARP PENCIL was driving back towards the area of the mosque he usually attended. With it being Friday, we expected him to go for food once he had prayed with his associates, but despite him being a ‘true Muslim’ we hadn’t seen him pray yet.
The team had been handing over control all day, constantly swapping around to keep our cover. When I heard Charlie Seven One Zero take control of the vehicle follow I was surprised, because Stacey should have changed that vehicle at the garage hours ago. SHARP PENCIL finally got out on foot roughly five minutes away from the mosque. Now it was raining and dark I was happy getting out of my car and following him again because I’d changed my profile and most people keep their heads down in weather like this. The operator in front of me who had control of SHARP PENCIL would tell me on the radio where he’d gone and carry on past, then guide me in or clear the corner for me so I wouldn’t be walking into a trap.
I loved this weather, but fucking hated it at the same time. Freezing-cold rain was hitting my face, with only the yellow glare of the streetlights offering any sort of warmth in this shit side street. We were back in the target’s traditional ground where he’d spend most of his time; the only thing littering the streets more than the full bin bags of rubbish were the local gangs dealing drugs. This had been an incredibly long surveillance follow, I hadn’t eaten or been for a piss for hours and thanks to the strong coffee I’d had that morning in Camden my bladder was about to burst.