Wilco- Lone Wolf 22

by Geoff Wolak

  ‘Knowing that you have four rounds left in the magazine, one in the breech, will keep you alive. You make the magazine swap with two rounds left, not when you’re empty. If you start to swap the magazine and see movement, you have those two rounds.

  ‘We practise swapping magazines quickly, and in pairs and teams of four. That way we live longer, not get surprised by a click on empty.’

  I held up the Valmet. ‘This rifle came about after the Finnish manufacturers came to see me and offered to make a custom rifle. They already had a shiny plastic AKML look-a-like, so it was not hard for them.

  ‘First, I wanted a sloping magazine port, easy to get a magazine in quickly for a man in a hurry with wet muddy hands. I also considered the speed of magazine change, and the old FN SLR that the British Army used, so we had the thumb release added, to compliment the usual AK47 style release forwards of the trigger.

  ‘The idea was this. You aim at the movement, you fire, you know you have two rounds left. You keep your left hand holding the rifle - aimed at the movement, then use the right hand to get a fresh magazine. Only when the new magazine is next to the old magazine do you drop the old magazine, quickly getting the new one in, still a round in the chamber, still aiming at the movement.

  ‘That’s what keeps you alive. A regular soldier may turn around, release the magazine then get a fresh one, then he gets hit in the back and is … a bit dead. Never stop looking at the movement, keep the aim on target, and live longer.’

  I could see the actor studying me intently, his mouth twitching.

  ‘Next came the barrel, and I asked for a heavy barrel, and a little longer than the AKML, so that we had a sniper rifle and assault rifle all in one. The gas recycling port was moved forwards, and that again helped with barrel stability in sniper mode. The gas reload can be turned off, so you then have a heavy and stable sniper rile.

  ‘If I see a man at 600yards, I can hit that man, and my snipers are excellent at hitting men a long way off, the large Velmet sights used. But after Bosnia I knew what I wanted, and I had the M16 style carry handle added so that the sights were higher, and optical.

  ‘The basic tube sight is very effective in the jungle in daytime and at night. At night, if you stare at something then the human blind spot makes that person disappear. So you scan left and right, and the tube sights gives you a black circle against a grey jungle background.

  ‘When you see movement, put the circle over the movement and fire two rounds, sights set to 200yards as a good average. In daylight, the tube sight is great in the jungle because you can aim quickly, fire as you move, an approximate aim taken, two rounds loosed off when a man sits in the black circle.

  ‘We also have the basic Valmet optical sight, and it’s accurate out to 400yards or more, and your Lone Wolves often hit men out to a 1,000yards using it. We then sat the tube sight on top of the optical sight, to save changing them.

  ‘Keep in mind that we could be in deep dark jungle, in a storm, black as night. Then it clears up, we find an opening, men 300yards off, so we use the optical sight.

  ‘The Elephant Gun was not asked for by me, but Valmet turned up with it and showed it to us, and we liked it. It’s a heavy beast, but with the good optical sight you can hit a jeep two miles away, and if someone is sneaking up on you 300yards away they have no chance; you could choose which ear to shoot off.

  ‘The long casing is favoured by us for damaging vehicles and shooting down helicopters and light aircraft, a bit of overkill to hit a man with a long-casing. If you do hit that man, the rounds goes straight through him and kills the man behind. The rounds are also great for enemy soldiers hiding in brick buildings or thin-walled concrete buildings.

  ‘What you need to keep in mind with a wall to hide behind is the pressure wave. A round may not breech the wall, but the pressure wave breaks off bits of brick or concrete and they explode like a grenade to the face, killing everyone in the room – but we find no hole through the wall, the round still lodged in the wall.’

  I tapped my Valmet. ‘I wanted a straight shoulder butt, adjustable, tall men and shorter men, and we have a bipod as well as a counter-weight that can be used in sniper mode, as well as a fast reload clip on the right hand side.

  ‘In the hands of a skilled man, he can lay down sixty rounds accurately in two minutes or so, and that’s enough to devastate an enemy patrol coming at you. And key to that is attitude and practise.

  ‘All soldiers start out nervous and then get some experience. My men learn from the older members, who have a very cynical attitude of the men attacking them. They have no respect for the enemy, and no fear, and that’s passed on to the younger lads.

  ‘In Africa, we’re often up against a man that’s high on drugs, no idea if his weapon is cocked or not. If you get shot, it’s bad luck not good aim. In one incident, we rescued hostages and were confronted by tall blacks in white underwear, all stoned, all trying to focus their eyes and shoot at us.’

  They laughed.

  ‘It was a turkey shoot, we couldn’t miss. And in Camel Toe we had the benefit of distance and clear terrain, so we chopped them up as they advanced on us. We were battling the heat and the sand, not much of a threat from the enemy, but we were all very tired by time the main attack took place.’

  I turned over the rifle. ‘Pistol grip is larger and has a lip so that men with wet muddy hands have a better grip, and the forwards grip was made longer, wider at the bottom, and we have green rubber grips that slip on. That way, a wet muddy hand is more secure, and in the jungle you’re moist all day and all night.

  ‘Back at base we have several ranges, and we have a range in the UK with simulated artillery. The men practise in a way that would see them up against an enemy patrol by themselves, rapid accurate firing, single shot. They practise that a great deal, so that when the time comes they’re not worried by six men coming at them in the jungle.

  ‘In Bosnia, when cut off, I was at first worried, concerned, certain that I was going to die. Then … then I spotted a patrol two hundred yards through the trees, and I hit six out of ten, the rest running away or tending to the wounded. I was hidden, they were walking in, and that set a technique for my teams, and a rule: the static man always wins.

  ‘I repeated that scenario a hundred times over in Bosnia, and I would hit every second man in the stomach – not the chest - before moving position, the patrol giving up and leaving. I also benefitted from my custom clothing, designed for cold wet nights in Northern Ireland. I had thick warm clothing, with leather pads in many places.’

  ‘I got me a set,’ a grey-haired man put. ‘Used it up north in winter when hunting.’

  ‘I never knew that it was available outside the military,’ I told him.

  ‘Was on sale in a gun shop, British ex-soldier sold it I guess. Labelled up as Wilco’s uniform, but I figured that a lie.’

  They laughed.

  ‘My original from Bosnia is with the SAS at headquarters, sat on a dummy for people to have a look at,’ I said with a smile. I pointed at my meet-and-greet guy. ‘I’ll have some sent over to you.’

  ‘Much appreciated,’ he enthused.

  ‘So, in Bosnia, that uniform helped to keep me warm and comfortable, and well camouflaged, especially the face mask. On several occasions the Serbs walked right by me, and I shot them in the back. And their commanding officer, he was well pissed off when I shot him in the arm.

  ‘He was in a tent, a thousand yards out. I never knew who was in the tent, or if I was hitting anything useful, I just aimed high and loosed off a magazine.’

  They laughed.

  ‘The first morning, when we knew we had company, there was a mist, the air still, but we could hear the movement all around us. I was junior at the time, and told to get in an OP and report back on the west side, peering down a hill of moist grass.

  ‘The mist slowly cleared, and lines of men came into view, and it was like facing the French at Waterloo, lines of men, but they had dogs out front.
When the mist lifted there were three hundred men coming up the hill, thirty dogs out front, and I admit to some slight hesitation.’

  They laughed loudly.

  ‘I checked with my patrol sergeant, and he agreed that we needed to slow them up, so I started to shoot the dog handlers, then the men, using a silencer, and twenty men dropped before they realised what was happening.

  ‘Then … then three hundred men all fired into the treeline on automatic, a sound that few will ever live to hear, and the trees around me were shaved clean, so many leaves falling that I couldn’t see anything, branches falling, some quite big, the sound loud enough to deafen a man.

  ‘When the barrage lifted I radioed the den, just fifty yards away: Sarge, I think they know we’re here now.’

  The group laughed loudly, heads shaking.

  ‘A little later they called in artillery, the den hit, my team all blown to bits, no complete bodies found, bits of my friends hanging from the trees. Then I was alone, surrounded, and I figured I would never get out of there.

  ‘Worst part was the dogs. I hid in a dense thicket, and when it went quiet I made a cup of tea, had a chocolate bar. Sat there, pitch black, dead quiet, I heard a growl. That’s when your sphincter opens up. I considered it either a bear, or a demon troll from hell come to collect my soul.’

  They laughed.

  ‘I got my pistol out just as the dog knocked me down and bit me, and I shot it at close range. Torch on, and there are now several sets of eyes shining in the blackness, so I shot a few. Later, I was almost delirious, walking across an open field at night. I turn around and see thirty black blobs racing towards me. That’s when you wish you never had a sphincter.’

  They again laughed, and I studied the faces, wondering if my mark was in the audience.

  ‘I shot at few, then ran. Getting to the tree line I fired a flare, and soon I wished I hadn’t, twenty or more dogs racing towards me. So I shot and killed a few, wounded a few, then clicked empty. Rifle down, pistol out, I had no idea how many rounds in the pistol.

  ‘I shot about six dogs, the last one as he bit down on the barrel, threw the pistol away and got my knife out, but the last few dogs just looked at me then ran off.

  ‘Later, after three days awake, and badly wounded, I found a dense area, injected myself with antibiotic, drank my last water and wrapped myself in my poncho, certain I would never wake up from the blood loss.

  ‘But I did wake, and I plodded north, shooting up patrols as they came at me. And, if you could have seen my face at the time, my facial muscles would not have moved at all, my eyes fixed like glass as I shot them.

  ‘I walked as if I was already dead, no care for anything, brain on automatic. When I passed out I knew it was my testicle, the size of an orange, so I did a little DIY surgery and removed it, the smell almost knocking me out. After that I felt a little better, maybe less poison in my system, and I plodded on, coming across a group of Bosnian partisans being lined up and shot.

  ‘The Serb in charge was trying to get a lady to suck his cock without much luck, so I opened up on them. Fortunately, the partisans were skilled fighters, and they grabbed weapons and killed their captors. When they saw me, when they saw the state I was in, they made signs of the cross.

  ‘When someone looks at you and does that it’s time to worry. But they got me to a house, and I got some coffee and food, got cleaned up a little, and NATO got a helo in, most of that detailed in the book.

  ‘My original AKML is still with the SAS in Hereford, and that poor rifle must have fired a thousand rounds or more. Just goes to show how reliable they are. And these Valmets, we never suffer a stoppage. Had a round fail to fire one time, cap dented an all, so I think it was a bad bit of ammo not the rifle. New magazine in and the striker was fine.

  ‘So far … no faults found with the Valmet. It’s a heavy rifle, not suitable for armoured vehicles, but we’ve done well with it. You hit a man, he goes down and never gets back up. You hit a jeep, you damage it, windscreen penetrated and the driver killed, and it’s a good stand-off weapon, four men holding off a battalion if they try and cross open ground.’

  ‘How often do you strip and clean in action?’ a man asked.

  ‘We don’t. If the action is two days we keep firing for two days, we don’t worry about stopping to clean our weapons – we’re that confident in them. I never give the order: clean weapons. If a man wants to clean it, fine, but if I saw him with his rifle in parts close to the enemy I’d kick his arse.

  ‘Camel Toe was the exception, sand everywhere. I was often telling men to point the barrel down and tap it, and to clean after a sand storm. Myself, I’d unload, cocking lever back and held, and pour water in and down the barrel, blow down the barrel afterwards. That did the trick. A bit of water in the breech is no issue for a Valmet.’

  ‘No stoppages?’

  ‘None recorded. Ever.’

  ‘And you always carry a pistol?’

  ‘When I first joined the SAS, an instructor said to me: a sniper always needs a pistol. If you’re laying down in a hide, and you hear a noise behind you, then it’s often fucking hard work to lift a rifle with a bipod up and around to shoot someone sneaking up on you.

  ‘To start, that’s why I carried a pistol. Later, during hostage rescues, a pistol was necessary since you can’t easily storm a house with a Valmet. Having a pistol has saved my life many times, and it’s essential for my men, but it’s not standard for basic infantry in NATO countries.’

  ‘Should it be?’ a man asked.

  ‘We plan for the unknown, or at least we try to. A patrol may end up in thick trees, or in a house, and then a pistol is essential, an M16 not much use in a tunnel or in a tight space.’

  ‘And when you HALO drop?’

  ‘We have a pistol under our arms, spare magazine, rest of the kit in the bag. If we lose the bag it’s an issue, but if you let your chute drift then you end up where the bag ends up. In the Congo, on a hostage rescue with the French, we drifted over a flood-lit football game.’

  They laughed,

  ‘No one looked up and started to shoot, they were focused on the action. We landed in a shit thicket and it took ages to get out of it. So much for professional soldiers.

  ‘On one job, I shout at my sergeant to shoot at a jeep and to push it down a ravine. He shoots the driver, the jeep swerves, right down the ravine. I shout at him: you lazy bastard.’

  They chuckled.

  ‘In Liberia recently, we shot down a plane attacking us, which caused more damage than if we had just left it alone to bomb us.’

  Heads swayed in laughter.

  ‘What was the issue with the French in Western Sahara?’ a man asked.

  ‘You have a good memory,’ I commended. ‘The problem … was that Paris handed the colonel on the ground a fixed plan of attack, and he stuck to it despite my warnings, and men were killed and captured. And he stuck to it because he could not be criticised from above.

  ‘If he had modified the plan, and lives had been lost, then he would have taken the blame, his career affected. After the screw up I was above the action with my team, and when we saw the fighters moving the hostages we made a snap decision to ambush them. It went off OK, but if it had been a screw-up then I would have taken the blame.’

  ‘Is there much pressure on you, to always get a good result?’

  ‘These days … less so, because all parties know what’s at stake, we all want the same thing - we all want to save lives, and none of us have a solid idea how to do that. I do suffer from a vacuum above me, simply because we’re dealing with things that there’s no manual for.

  ‘Poison on its way to Paris. It had never happened before. Is it a police matter, intel, army, what? If a plane is hijacked there’s a manual and rule book on what to do. For much of what I’m involved with there’s no manual, it’s all new, and the various agencies each dip a toe into it.

  ‘Consider Central America, and the drugs trade. Traditionally it was th
e DEA, some FBI work, some CIA work in sneaking about the jungle to raid drug labs from time to time. The DEA suffered from a few agents wanting to take cash, and the CIA was trying not to step on the toes of the DEA.

  ‘So, whose job was it, who was responsible? Fact is, ten agencies overlapped and none had a full picture of what the others were doing. The new CIA narco team is intended to use force, to have a sniper sneak up on the cartel boss and shoot the bastard – without the knowledge and consent of the government of whichever country they’re operating in.

  ‘In the past, as soon as a team landed in Panama the drug dealers knew about it, the information leaked. The new team has to take the attitude that no one can be trusted, and to send in a small team with some cash, a plan, and an escape route.

  ‘And let’s face it; in the past that was considered illegal. Problem is, if you keep that attitude - that you don’t become as bad as the people you fight, then your citizens will be slaughtered, as they nearly were.

  ‘This is too serious to ignore, too serious not to wake up to the dangers of cartels with billions of dollars in the bank. And let’s face facts; some of these cartel men are well fucking crazy, and not averse to death on a large scale.’

  ‘And the FBI mob?’ a man risked.

  ‘The drugs trade through Central America is worth billions each year, so there will always be people Stateside looking at it with envy, always men tempted to make a little something for their retirement. Best we can do is to knock back the gangs year after year, and hope for the best. The drugs trade will never go away.’

  ‘And if we militarise the border?’ came in a broad Texas accent.

  ‘Waste of time, you’ll just stop the people traffickers. The heavy drugs go by ship or plane, not in a backpack across the border.’

  ‘How come our people let you run the show?’ a man asked.

  I turned to Delaney, who nodded.

  ‘When I started out, I was sent to infiltrate a Russian gang, and to kill a few people. Whilst I was with that gang I could see an opening, so instead of destroying them I assisted them greatly, and I used British and French Intel to assist them, and your CIA. Instead of killing the men in question … I made friends with them.