Soldier Spy

by Tom Marcus

  ‘Roger, Bravo Nine, same deal with HUNGRY WORM. Base are going to coordinate with you on channel one and put in a police stop on her.’

  ‘Roger, Base, switching channels now.’

  ‘Base, roger.’

  The police stops now gave the service and the prime minister deniability. The Russians aren’t stupid though; they would know we’d been watching them trying to steal this information, but now we had enough of a story we could spin it if it became a press war when we kicked the Russian ‘diplomat’ out of the country.

  ‘From Charlie Six One Four, police have taken the driver of the taxi into the back of their police car. Dog handler is now letting dog sniff the taxi.’

  ‘Third police officer now out of the vehicle and walking towards the taxi, DIRTY BOOT being asked to get out.’

  This was the Special Branch officer we used as our police liaison. The other two uniformed officers wouldn’t know the real reason behind this stop and would be gently led to have enough reason to take DIRTY BOOT and the driver into custody to do a proper search.

  ‘From Charlie Six One Four. Both officers now handcuffing DIRTY BOOT and performing search.’

  ‘Yeah, from Charlie Six One Four. One of the officers is now pulling sheets of paper from the back of DIRTY BOOT’s trousers and walking him towards the back of the police car.’

  ‘Roger that, Charlie Six One Four, all stations cease and withdraw back to Base for debrief. Acknowledge down the list.’

  ‘From Base, just for information, HUNGRY WORM and driver of her taxi have just been arrested too.’

  ‘Roger that, Base. Pass our thanks to Bravo Nine. Fucking great job!’

  I was hungry, and dying for a piss. But it looked like we got them. It would be unlikely any of this would hit the press. Right now I didn’t give a fuck if we paraded them both on the News at Ten for all to see; I needed food and sleep. I’d been running on adrenaline for so long and now that the operation had finished, I almost instantly crashed.

  It was a long drive back to the Operations Centre from here, which is why we were staying in hotels, but now the team leader popped up on the net with the good news.

  ‘Stations, go home. We’ll debrief tomorrow first thing at the ops centre, bright and early. Well done and thank you for all your hard work.’

  Thank fuck for that. Last thing any of us wanted to do was a mega-long drive back to Base then another hour or so’s drive home. Just as I settled into the drive and switched my car communications off, my service-issue mobile started to ring. It was my team leader.

  ‘TC, me and the ops room staff have decided to keep quiet what you did in the executive suite this morning. I will trust you not to say anything to anyone either.’

  ‘Roger that, boss, I won’t say anything. Good result, wasn’t it?’

  I wasn’t expecting a pat on the back, rather an acknowledgement that getting that information off the greeting card wasn’t going to be held against me if I did something similar in the future.

  ‘It was, but listen. You could have fucked the entire job if you got that wrong this morning. We have procedures and a chain of command. You’re not in the army any more and we expect people to think on their feet, but your actions this morning could have had massive implications beyond your career. Just slow down a bit sometimes, mate.’

  ‘Roger.’

  Sensing I was angry, he lightened the tone and wished me a good evening with my family when I eventually got home. Yes, it was risky getting the information from the flowers, but if I hadn’t the Russians would have been clear away with the information in the folder. I should be on a high with the rest of the team, knowing Russia’s best weren’t good enough for us. Yet all I could think about was my team leader telling me to slow down. I had so much respect for him and he was a fantastic operator, but being blamed for something that didn’t actually happen was really pissing me off.

  Admittedly, if I had got the information wrong or had been caught then it would have been bad, but we take risks every day, the reward was worth the effort.

  The following morning at the debrief, the operations officer told us that DIRTY BOOT had been escorted to the airport and told to leave the country. HUNGRY WORM was still in custody and more than likely wouldn’t go to jail as she was providing information on the Russian and how he contacted her. She was treated as an asset and moved to a new area, had her identity changed and given a new job in Scotland. The fat engineer who was head over heels in love with the blonde was never told how he lost a file from the mountain of Top Secret paperwork that he brought home with him to carry on working late.

  The engineer’s boss was made aware of his lack of personal security, and his subordinate was warned not to be so fucking stupid again. He was a bright guy, though, and probably knew that being bollocked and the sudden disappearance of his new-found love were connected. Embarrassment was his only punishment.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘Fuck you, pig!’

  The young policewoman I directed my abuse to looked shocked, but she’d get over it. We needed to survive here.

  I had to take control; the crowd was growing. The police were moving in with their riot shields and starting to replace the normal uniformed police who’d been trying to keep control of the situation as the cleric continued to tell everyone how Blair and Bush should be arrested for their ‘war crimes’. Danny was new to the team and this was one of his first operations. I had to get him to live his cover, because we were the only ones in this crowd who weren’t covering our faces and shouting ‘Death to America’.

  Showing aggression towards the police was hopefully going to achieve two things: it’d show the young male crowd that we hated the police too and allow us to move freely within them, but secondly and more importantly it would show Danny we were OK and hopefully give him the confidence that we weren’t going to be pulled off the streets and beheaded, with a bit of luck.

  As the riot shields grew closer I started to sense some of the more vocal males taking a strong interest in us. We stood out a mile. We weren’t in shalwar kameez like the other hundred or so males here, and our faces were the only two, apart from the cleric on the loudspeaker, that weren’t being hidden by military-style shemaghs or balaclavas. I had a responsibility for Danny here, and I could see the fear in his eyes as it got louder from all directions; the cleric on his platform and loudspeaker behind us calling for sharia law and how all non-Muslims are infidels, his every word filling the crowd with cocaine-like energy. And to our front the police had us completely ring-fenced to try to control the crowd and stop an all-out riot, which ironically incensed the crowd and gave them even more will to become more threatening.

  ‘You, you, what you doing here? You ain’t Muslim.’

  Four of the crowd had started to bear down on me and Danny. I could smell this guy’s breath through the black and white shemagh covering his face, his eyes were black, aggressive and focused on me. Out of my periphery I could see two of them holding Danny’s arms just above his elbows as if they were about to take him away. As I was constantly getting battered by a riot shield to my left shoulder, I could see the cleric behind this fucker with the awful breath; he’d stopped talking on the loudspeaker and was watching what was going on with us two. Bollocks, if this crowd wanted to take us these police wouldn’t be able to save us; I’d just told one of them to fuck off.

  ‘It ain’t right, the way these cunts treat you. I shared a table with some Muslims in lockup, and they were proper good to me. All these fuckers do is arrest innocent people, I’ve fucking had it!’

  Turning away from my would-be captives, I shoved the police riot shield back, hitting the very top to knock it out of balance for the massive copper holding it. I knew from my time in Northern Ireland where to hit the weak points in these shields. As the shield pivoted around the hands of the copper, I grabbed the bottom of his shield, pushing him further back. This was my opportunity to get me and Danny out of here.

  ‘Pigs! We
ain’t doin’ nuffin’ wrong!’

  The young lads released their grip on Danny as he started hurling abuse at the riot police too. It didn’t take much to win the trust of these guys, but on the flip side I’d properly pissed off one of the biggest coppers here and thanks to the way me and Danny looked it was going to be easy to spot us if they decided to charge the crowd and start arresting us.

  The cleric started shouting on his loudspeaker again as the one with the bad breath guided me and Danny through the crowd towards the entrance of the mosque.

  ‘You need guidance, brother. Can you read?’

  Resisting the urge to tell him, ‘Actually I’m dyslexic but I only found that out when I gained Top Secret clearance to work for MI5,’ I continued to live my cover, making sure I had Danny right next to me now.

  ‘Did a bit when I was locked up, why?’

  Living your cover is a combination of playing to your audience but remaining true to who you are. If you want to ask a question then nine times out of ten you’d ask the same question. No one rolls over for everything, and people, especially ones with shady history behind them, know when they are being played. My cover, although I’d just manufactured it in the previous few minutes, was an angry guy with no direction straight out of prison.

  ‘Brother, read this. It will save you and fill that void you have.’

  Fucking hell. Despite being in a near full-on riot and only moments earlier having been about to get kidnapped by this guy and his mates or be arrested by the police, these words actually stopped me in my tracks for a second. Did I have a void that needed filling? Was something missing that I was overcompensating for? Was I missing my family so much I’d forgotten who I was? I couldn’t think about that now, I had to get us two out of here.

  He handed me and Danny a Quran each, and we were told to come back tomorrow morning and meet them at the mosque gates and they’d show us ‘what to do’. It was moments like this that made my world a funny place to be; here I was pretending to be someone else in order to find one of our targets who’d gone missing, and we’d ended up getting pinned into an extremist protest, but yet once I bared some of my soul by attacking the shields of the riot police one of the crowd had noticed something in me that he was trying to help with. I was under no illusion he would have tried recruiting me to join their jihad at some point in the future, but that wasn’t the point.

  This young extremist, despite his views against women, the West and our way of life, had recognized something in me he could exploit to his advantage. I just hoped it wasn’t anything my team could see too.

  Overemphasizing our gratitude for our new saviours, I hugged the guy with the horrendous breath, thanking him and gesturing with the Quran that we would be back tomorrow. At that point the police started a surge forward, trying to push the crowd back, and this was our chance to run for it. Grabbing Danny, I shouted in his face, ‘We have to go, fucking move now!’

  Running against the crowd but with the flow of the advancing police, we made our way towards the back, past the cleric, continuing to the very rear of the crowd. I could see more riot police advancing towards the rear to try to pin us all in. They were out to arrest people here, and the last thing my team leader would want was for us to be arrested. I’d given up looking for our target, this was about getting out of here now. Danny was still panicking and starting to shut down; he’d clearly never been exposed to anything like this before. His eyes were looking straight ahead, he wasn’t taking in his periphery at all and more worryingly he’d stopped talking.

  As we fought our way towards the very back of the crowd, the riot police at the back were now about twenty-five metres away and charging towards us. Holding on to Danny’s arm with my fingers in his left armpit I was directing him like a toddler: side street, that’s our exit. Pushing him down in between two houses, I hoped this was a gap the police hadn’t plugged yet. We didn’t have our radios because of our closeness to everyone in the crowd. I needed to get us back to my team car and let the team leader know we were OK but we couldn’t see the target. I had to sort Danny out first, because if the team saw him like this it’s likely he’d be pulled off the team straight away.

  As we got to the end of the little street I could see police vans everywhere with their riot covers down over the windscreens, but no cordons in place. We had a straight run through to the other side of the street. Relaxing my grip on Danny, I spoke to him calmly as we walked at a pace that was almost running speed.

  ‘Mate, get to the other side of these houses down that alley there – my car is on the other side, then we’ll drive round and get yours, yeah?’

  ‘OK.’

  He’d almost shut down here. I felt bad for him. This wasn’t a particularly scary situation, I’d been in a lot worse, and we got out alive, but Danny had never seen anything like this and he was clearly from a well-off background. He had a couple of degrees and his own place in London, which for such a young guy on our salaries obviously meant his parents were helping him out.

  Finally at my car, I unlocked it and let Danny get into the passenger seat. Engine on, my door now closed and locked, I switch the car radio on.

  ‘Charlie Two Two, complete with Nine Seven.’

  ‘Roger. Did you locate RUBBER PASSPORT?’

  ‘Negative. Riot police on scene, we’ve extracted.’

  ‘Roger that, good call. Move to the north, please, and we’ll wait out for update from Base, all stations acknowledge.’

  As the other vehicle call signs responded, I set off driving. I noticed Danny hadn’t put his seatbelt on, and I was just about to prompt him when his eyes started to well up with tears. Fuck me, this had taken its toll on him. I had to help.

  ‘Bro, let’s get a Maccy’s on the way to your car, yeah?’

  I roughly knew where he’d parked but he couldn’t be on his own yet anyway, so there was no need to push him. Hopefully a burger and a drink would bring him round before we ended up back in the debrief in front of the team. Moving through the drive-through, I collected the food and passed it over to Danny. I saw tears streaming down his face and his lip quivering like a small child’s when they’d fallen over at the park.

  I’ve seen a lot of people cry over the years, it wasn’t shocking, nor did it strike any emotion in me, but this kid was part of my team. If I didn’t help him the team would suffer, which meant I’d suffer. Shouting at him to man up wouldn’t work with Danny; he was in his mid-twenties, but still quite naïve in the world. I had to distract him to allow me to get into his head, but I had to be quick before the team leader started to question why Danny wasn’t in his own car yet and why I was still out of position.

  ‘Pass me that bag, brother. We’re gonna have a bet. I win, you let me have your fries – you win, and you get my fries AND my burger, deal?’

  Looking at me for the first time since we escaped the crowd outside the mosque, he tried to smile in a way that said yes. Taking a paper napkin out of the food bag, I unfolded it to make a square.

  ‘I bet you that you can’t fold this paper in half exactly more than eight times. So you fold it in half exactly, that’s once! Then fold it in half again exactly that’s twice and so on. If you can’t do it MORE than eight times, you give me your fries …’

  Handing him the napkin, I watch his focus slowly switch to the folding task. Making constant jokes, I was trying to eat my fries as fast as I could so that I could ‘make room for your chips, fucker!’ He sniffed and wiped the tears away as he struggled on the seventh fold, the paper now becoming impossibly small.

  ‘Come on, two more folds and my food is all yours … apart from the chips I’ve just had!’

  Failing to fold it past the eighth, he smiled. ‘TC, that’s impossible.’

  ‘All right then, mate, I’ll give you another go while we head to your car.’

  Taking another napkin, I separated it from the other sheets, making one ultra-thin sheet of paper.

  ‘Thinnest paper, and I bet you still
can’t do it.’

  As Danny focused, I could see him returning to his normal self while I moved through London traffic towards the area of his car.

  ‘Dude, is your car first left off the main?’

  ‘No, second left by the phone box.’

  This was good, he was engaged with me again. On his eighth fold, he couldn’t make that final fold.

  ‘Mate, there has to be a way of doing that, what’s the trick?’

  Letting him keep his food, I continued to joke with him.

  ‘No trick, mate, it’s just fucking impossible. I think you need to be some mad ninja or a blind monk on a mountain trained in voodoo-jitsu or some shit to do it.’

  He was laughing as he stuffed his face with burger at my voodoo-jitsu comment, but I had to make sure he was OK before he got into his car on his own.

  ‘Dude, you OK? Scary shit.’

  Clearing his voice, Danny tried to regain some composure, slightly ashamed he’d become so vulnerable.

  ‘Er, yeah. Sorry, mate.’

  ‘Listen, Danny, there is no shame in being frightened–’

  As he interrupted me, I could sense he was starting to beat himself up over this.

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t see you panicking. I’d be dead without you.’

  ‘Shut up, you dick, we’re fine. Look, mate, I can’t do half the shit you can. You’ve got education coming out of your arse, you remember things and know more about current affairs than most. You found being in a hostile crowd scary, you found being battered by riot police scary … So what, it WAS scary! You’re fucking human, you bell end.’

  Danny started to laugh. He knew what I was trying to do. Giving him a few minutes to move from my car to his and sort his car out, I started to think about the situation we were in. I didn’t find it scary: was something wrong with me? Or did I find it scary but my brain was locking it away like it did with the gang in Moss Side?

  Hearing Danny shout up on the net, I watched him drive away to his new position. Following him for a few turns, I eventually pulled off and parked up to the north. I had to ring the team leader to let him know that me and Danny needed to be kept away from this target now on foot if we did find him; we would be noticed again because we got caught up in the crowd outside the mosque. Pulling my service-issue mobile out of my pocket, I could see the screen flashing. It was on silent.