Stand By Stand By

by Chris Ryan

  On the Monday morning when I went back to work, things took a turn for the better. At Morning Prayers in the Squadron Interest Room the sergeant major asked me to see him in his office immediately afterwards, and when I went in there he said, ‘Geordie, I’m glad to say you’re in luck. You don’t fucking deserve it, but there’s a slot come up for you. Geoff Hunt, who’s been on the SP team, fell off a pissy little wall on Friday and broke his ankle. That means we need a guy to take his place. You’re a trained assaulter, so in you go.’

  ‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘How long will it be for?’

  ‘There’s six weeks of the squadron’s tour left. After that, we’ll find you something else.’

  ‘Great!’

  My enthusiasm wasn’t just for show. I’d been dreading the possibility that they were going to make me ops sergeant – the worst job around, as it amounted to sitting on your backside in the ops room and being little more than tea-boy for the head-shed, with endless paperwork. I was genuinely glad to go back into the Special Projects (or Counter-Terrorist) Team for a spell. I’d already done one tour with them and enjoyed it, so it was no trouble to slip back into harness.

  The task of the unit was to respond instantaneously to any terrorist attack, such as the hijack of an aircraft or seizure of a building. Of the two teams, Red and Blue, one was always at thirty minutes’ readiness, with vehicles loaded, ready to roll, and the other at three hours. In fact the first team was often capable of taking off within ten minutes of an alert.

  Life on the SP team could be quite exciting. If a callout came, you could never be sure whether it was an exercise or a genuine emergency. One of the Regiment’s greatest ever hits – the siege at the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980 – began with just such uncertainty. On the morning of 30 May, a former member of the Regiment, Dusty Gray, phoned the head-shed from Heathrow Airport and tipped them off that all the Metropolitan Police’s terrorist dogs had suddenly been whipped away to London.

  It so happened that at that moment a major exercise was getting under way. According to the scenario, there’d been a hijack attempt at an airfield in the northeast, and the SP team was about to deploy in response. Then in came this call from Dusty Gray. At first the CO thought it was someone trying to take the piss and screw up the start of the exercise by feeding him duff information, but then he decided it was for real. Before any official notification came in, he said, ‘Bugger the exercise,’ and deployed the SP team to a holding location on the way to London. The result was that when the media later came and camped outside the gates to watch for warriors departing, they saw fuck-all – until six days later, when every television screen in the country showed our guys abseiling down from the Embassy roof in their black kit and taking the villains out. Twelve years on from that historic event, the terrorist threat remained much the same, and the head-shed often sprang an exercise without any warning to keep the guys on their toes.

  In between, we were ceaselessly training. The thirty-minute team had to stay within easy range of camp and train locally, but the rest were free to go up country and do things like practise aircraft-entry and visit prominent buildings that might become targets for terrorist take-over.

  Being on the team meant that I could carry on living at home, because my address was easily within the thirty-minute limit. At night, when the roads were clear, I could be inside the warehouse within eleven minutes. Like everyone else, I carried a bleeper wherever I went. If all the numbers appearing on its screen were one, I knew it was a practice call-out; what we wanted was all the nines – the real thing.

  There were sixteen of us assaulters on the Blue Team, and for me it was a bit of a comedown to be merely one of the pack. On my earlier tour I’d been Sniper Team Commander – in effect the third in command of the whole outfit, under the boss (a captain) and a staff sergeant. But any active employment was better than being stuck behind the desk in the ops room.

  We usually began our day at 0830 with an hour’s fitness training. Then we’d practise abseiling, fast-roping out of helicopters, climbing glass walls with suckers, entry into rooms – all pretty physical stuff. I enjoyed the challenge of getting really fit again, and put in extra hours at the gym; in that role you need all the strength you can muster – you’re forever lifting people, pulling them about or restraining them. You’re also carrying a lot of extra weight – apart from the MP 5 sub-machine-gun and pistol, there’s the body armour, kevlar helmet and ops waistcoat (loaded with axe, stun grenades and ammunition). For all these reasons, upper-body strength is a real asset.

  The other thing we did was fire pistols. We fired pistols until we were almost out of our minds. Hundreds of rounds a day. Sometimes at Hun’s Head targets on the camp’s own range, sometimes in the Killing House, sometimes in the Garaback down at LATA. It would have been easy to go stale, get bored of it, but I concentrated by imagining (still) that my target was Farrell, and telling myself that somewhere, sometime, all these practice rounds would pay off.

  Inevitably, our training was repetitive. We fast-roped until we could do it in our sleep. We practised entry into rooms until it was second nature. I had an advantage, coming in towards the end of the tour – I hadn’t been doing these things for such a long time. I could see that some of the guys were already bored witless. They’d begun to take outrageous risks, like urging the chopper pilot to go in at a higher speed when we were about to fast-rope down to the top of the building, or even dispensing with the rope altogether, jumping instead. This, apparently, was where my predecessor had come unstuck: the head-shed had been led to believe he’d hurt himself jumping off a wall, but in fact he’d been attempting an unscheduled, ropeless descent from a helicopter.

  With a month of the SP tour to go, a new buzz-word suddenly started circulating: Colombia. A fastball job had come up – the squadron had been tasked to send out a team at short notice to train the president’s bodyguard.

  ‘Colombia?’ said Murdo McFarlane, the redheaded Jock, in the canteen one lunchtime. ‘Is that in Canada?’

  ‘Is it bollocks,’ big Johnny Ellis said. ‘That’s Columbia with a U, twat. This one’s in South America. It’s a hotbed of drugs and fucking corruption. Cocaine pours out of it like water out of the Amazon. That’s why El Presidente needs so much guarding: the drug barons spend their lives trying to top the bastard.’

  ‘How d’you know so much about it?’ I asked. ‘Have you been out there?’

  ‘No, I just saw a video.’

  ‘Spanish-speaking, I suppose?’

  ‘Absolutamente.’

  The gossip set me thinking. Maybe, with my good result in the Spanish course, I would be in with a chance of getting on board.

  A couple more days passed, then up went a list on the Orderly Room notice board, headed ‘Operation Bluebird’. The ten-man bodyguard training team, it announced, would be commanded by Captain Peter Black; second in command would be Sergeant Geordie Sharp. Specially attached as interpreter and liaison officer would be Sergeant Tony Lopez (US SEAL, now of D Squadron). The team would deploy via RAF Brize Norton on 10 March 1992 – barely three weeks away. That meant we had to start sorting ourselves out straight away.

  On the day after the announcement I had a preliminary meeting with the Rupert. I’d seen him about the camp – a tall, slim, fair-haired fellow, only twenty-five or so – but I hadn’t had any real contact with him. Rumour reported that he’d been to Eton, and that he seemed only a little the worse for the experience; certainly he’d come from the Grenadier Guards. Whatever else, he was quite a physical sort of guy, and ran like the wind; he’d played as a winger for the squadron’s Rugby XV, and had scored a good few tries. Anyone who could do that and survive had my admiration, because the methods used in those matches are horrendous – real caveman stuff. But I’d been warned about him by one of the sergeants in Training Wing, who’d described him as ‘a flaming idiot’, able to talk his way out of anything but lacking in any soldiering skills. On the range he’d proved positively dang
erous. The safest place to be when he was firing a weapon was straight in front of him. Under the stress of using live rounds his command and control went out the window. On the other hand, when giving a briefing or appreciation, he could sound quite impressive. No doubt that was why he’d passed Officers’ Week on selection.

  So I had severe reservations about him. My antipathy was increased by a factor of which nobody in the head-shed could possibly be aware. At a Christmas party in the officers’ mess, to which civilian staff from the camp had been invited, he’d come on strong with Tracy and tried to take her back to his room. When she refused he kept on at her, not just that evening but on several later occasions as well – so much so that I almost went round and briefed him up to keep away.

  The result was that, when we met formally in the Squadron OC’s office, I was fairly cool.

  ‘Geordie,’ the OC said, ‘have you met Peter Black? He joined the squadron while you were away. He’s going to command Air Troop.’

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Yeah – I’ve seen you around.’ We shook hands and sat down in front of the OC’s desk.

  The boss then ran through the arrangements for the forthcoming team job. I was to be in command, and Black was to act as our liaison link between the British Embassy and the Colombians, for administrative purposes.

  ‘Peter,’ he said, ‘Geordie’s had plenty of experience, so if you have any problems, it’ll be best to consult him first.’

  ‘I expect we’ll manage,’ Black replied, but I could see the OC’s remark had pissed him off.

  There were a few more general points to be settled, and when the boss had finished, Black and I went into the Squadron Interest Room to work out details.

  He certainly had a posh accent, and his eyes were set rather too close together in his narrow face.

  ‘What do you know about Colombia?’ he asked.

  ‘Fuck-all, to put it bluntly.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’ He grinned. ‘There’s a briefing laid on for tomorrow, so we’ll start learning then. You’ve been in the Regiment more years than I have months, and you know a hell of a lot more about it. So I’m going to be leaning on you for advice.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Now. When we get out there, the team’s going to be based at a Colombian army camp at a place called Santa Rosa, about 250 ks south of Bogotá. You’ll be there – obviously – and Tony Lopez will be helping liaise with the Colombians locally. But it looks as though I’m going to be stuck mostly in Bogotá itself, liaising with the British Embassy . . .’

  He went on to ask my opinion of the other guys nominated for the team, and we assigned each one a particular lesson that he would teach: personal security, residential security, hotel security, vehicle anti-ambush drill, counter-attack team drill, movement by helicopter and so on – about twenty in all.

  ‘What about Ellis?’ he asked. ‘What’s his special strength?’

  ‘Johnny Ellis? His advantage is just that: strength. He’s built like a bloody gorilla; a really hard man. He’s the guy for the physical training and unarmed combat. He’ll sort out the Colombians, no bother. Him and Murdo.’

  ‘Is that McFarlane?’

  ‘Right. If Johnny’s a gorilla, Murdo’s a yeti. The only difference between them is their colour. One’s got fair hair, the other red.’

  ‘Is it Murdo who plays the pipes?’

  ‘It is, and it’s a fucking disaster. You can’t stop him.’

  Gradually, we got everyone sorted. Other key members of the team were Stewart McQuarrie (also a Jock) and Mel Scott, both in their mid-twenties and fairly new to the Regiment. Stew was another very physical guy, strong and quick on his feet – a free-fall specialist who liked walking out on to the wings of biplanes and dropping off. We nominated him to take charge of the close-protection training, on which he’d done a lot of work and contributed some new ideas. Mel, who came from Liverpool, was small, and rather quiet, though given to occasional lightning repartee. He was also an excellent instructor with a gift for putting things over in a clear, amusing way – and off-duty he was one of the squadron’s leading piss-artists.

  I myself opted for weapon and demolition training, at which I’d had a good deal of experience. All of us, of course, were primarily fighting men, trained to kill, but we looked forward to sharing some of our skills with other people. Closer acquaintance with Black didn’t improve my opinion of him. Just as his face was a little ferrety, with its close-set eyes and pointed nose, so there was something of the ferret in his approach to things. He kept asking quick, sharp questions, and seemed insatiable in his quest for information. Whether or not he was going to use it sensibly was another matter. I felt I was going to have to keep a close eye on him – I hoped he wouldn’t do anything stupid while he was at the embassy. Ruperts on their own, away from the guys and with a captive audience, are notorious for adopting James Bond attitudes and telling tall stories about the Regiment.

  One of the most important features of team jobs overseas is discretion. The SAS quietly trains special units in countries all over the world, and our guys depend on the British embassies for liaison with foreign governments. I’d seen this in practice in Africa, when one of the lads had a car accident. Because of the good relationship between the team and the embassy, everything was quickly sorted out, and the driver escaped a dose of prison. Instead of losing a member – which would have disrupted the training programme – the team remained intact.

  I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the roles of officers and men within the SAS. In most Regiments the lower ranks automatically salute an officer as a form of respect. In the SAS nobody salutes. Respect is not necessarily accorded to rank: it has to be won. This doesn’t mean that the other ranks look down on the officers. Far from it – there are plenty of first-class Ruperts. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of pricks; and now it looked as though I’d been landed with one of them.

  Next day, in the evening, we had a briefing on Colombia and its problems, given by an Int officer who had come down from London. He was a good, articulate speaker, and knew his stuff, but a lot of the political complications he mentioned went over our heads. Naturally our main interest centred on drugs – to be precise, on cocaine.

  ‘Now, it’s not my job to tell you fellows how to carry on,’ he began, ‘but I do suggest very strongly that you don’t get involved in drugs of any kind. You’re bound to be offered them in towns, but for God’s sake don’t touch them. The vendors may easily be trying to set you up; they may even be plain-clothes police.

  ‘As I’m sure you know, pure cocaine comes in the form of fine white powder. But in Colombia there’s also stuff called basuco, the base from which cocaine is refined. It’s coarser and greyer – looks a bit like granulated sugar. Another drug to be aware of is burundanga, which removes your will to resist. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s just what it does. Villains put it into food or drinks, and then, when they ask for your wallet or your car keys, you just hand them over. As burundanga has no taste or smell, the only way to make sure you avoid it is to keep reasonable company.’

  He paused, took a drink of water, and went on: ‘Fortunately, you’re going to be working with, and for, DAS, the secret police. They’re by far the most powerful official organization in the country. Everyone else lives in fear of them – they do what they want, and they can even order the army about. They’re a bit like the Gestapo in Nazi Germany, or the Savak in Iran under the Shah.

  ‘The sheer scale of the drug problem is difficult to grasp. If I say that Colombia controls eighty per cent of the world market in cocaine, it doesn’t mean much. But look at it this way: the drug barons are so rich and powerful that they have their own ocean-going ships, their own jet aircraft, their own islands, even, for moving their products around the world. If they want to eliminate some enemy, they don’t hesitate to blow up a civilian airliner in flight and kill everybody on board. A hundred and fifty innocent people murdered – that’s nothing to
them, provided they get their man. On the ground, by the way, a favourite method of dealing with an opponent is to give him the Colombian necktie: they cut his throat, and leave him with his tongue hanging out through the slit.’

  That made all the guys pay attention. This was getting interesting. It reminded me of the day at LATA when Morrison began to talk about the PIRA and its methods.

  The drug business, our visitor went on, was controlled by a few regional mafias, known as cartels. During the 1980s the strongest of these had been the Medellin cartel, centred round the city of that name to the north-west of Bogotá. When the government tried to take it on, the cartel responded with a long-running campaign, during which the Minister of Justice, the publisher of the leading newspaper El Espectador, and the Attorney General were all assassinated.

  When the president declared all-out war in 1989, government forces seized nearly a thousand buildings and ranches, more than 350 aircraft, numerous boats, over a thousand weapons and 30,000 rounds of ammunition. The cartel retaliated by downing an aircraft belonging to the national airline Avianca on a scheduled flight from Bogotá to Cali, with the loss of everyone on board. They also blew up the newspaper offices and police headquarters in the capital. Eventually a colossal man-hunt ended with the death of one of the Medellin leaders, Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, known as ‘El Mexicano’. Subsequently most of his former colleagues gave themselves up, including the notorious Pablo Escobar.

  That name rang a loud bell for me. I remembered being fascinated by a newspaper picture of a sleek young guy with thick black wavy hair and a lazy right eye, described as the richest criminal in the world.

  ‘As usual in Colombia,’ said the speaker, ‘it was a colossal fix. In effect the drug barons surrendered on their own terms. They were given token sentences, and allowed to serve them in a purpose-built prison at Envigado, Escobar’s home town, where they’re living in luxury.

  ‘When they were put away, the power of the Medellin cartel declined, and narco-terrorism subsided for some time. But all that happened was that the Cali cartel came up in its place, and the drug trade kept on growing. Cocaine paste continued to pour in from Peru and Bolivia. The Colombians refined it at clandestine laboratories hidden deep in the jungle, and exported pure cocaine to countries all over the world, but mainly to North America.