Time to get ready. Jim stripped to his underwear and reached for the first article of assault kit. In a matter of seconds he climbed into the black flameproof overalls and fastened the zip. We both sneezed as the CS gas trapped in the creases of the material was released into the atmosphere. With tears in my eyes I handed him the Northern Ireland lightweight boots. He immediately recognized the para-cord bootlaces and told me a great joke about his charity parachuting days. Choking back the tears and the laughter, I helped him strap on the Len Dixon belt kit and checked that the 9-milly Browning was unloaded. He fastened his leg-strap like a seasoned gunfighter and holstered the shooter. He then threaded the abseil rope round his waist and secured it with a Karabiner. Finally, he lifted the respirator off the bed and, with a professional touch, checked the tightness of the canister and adjusted the mask's securing straps. With a last impish grin and an enthusiastic thumbs-up, he pulled on the respirator, coiled the abseil rope over his forearm, opened the hotel door and stepped out into the darkened corridor.
With cat-like stealth, we moved down the corridor, opened a concealed door near the fire exit and began climbing a rickety staircase. 'You go first, Jim, and I'll cover you.' Jim grunted through the rubber of the respirator and snaked his way tactically up the narrow stairs. I could have sworn he imagined he was on operations.
The staircase led to a minstrels' gallery which overlooked the bar and cabaret lounge. The bar was now filled to capacity with team members and percentage players quaffing their thirst gratefully on case after case of champagne sent in by the public, including one from an old lady in Torquay, who'd been saving it for years 'for a special occasion'. Earlier in the day, I had blocked off the safety-rail running across the gallery front with plywood sheeting. We were totally hidden from the crowd below. As we crawled into position across the wooden boards of the balcony, desperately trying not to make them creak, I looked at my watch. 8.55pm. Five minutes to go. I tapped Jim on the shoulder and showed him five fingers. He gave me the thumbs-up and handed me the wire that was connected to the small explosive charge I had put in position that afternoon. I took the two bare ends of the D10 wire and pushed them into the shrike exploder. I pressed the test button and got the green light. Good, complete circuit, we're ready to go.
I took a look at my watch. Thirty seconds to go. I tapped Jim on the shoulder and pointed towards the safety-rail. As he moved into position, I pressed the priming button on the shrike. The red 'fire' light flashed in the gloom. At precisely 9.00pm I pressed the firing button. Bang! The small stage charge took the drinkers completely by surprise. Heads whipped round and the odd Walter Mitty gatecrasher reached for a non-existent shoulder holster.
Jim jumped to his feet and threw the abseil rope over the balcony. For a few tense moments he trod the gallery boards, shooting menacing glances at the crowd below. Then, in one quick, efficient movement, he removed his respirator and, to roars of applause, launched straight into his first joke.
'A man dies and goes up to the Pearly Gates. He sees St Peter standing there with rows and rows of clocks behind him. When asked the purpose of the clocks, St Peter replies that every person on earth is given an allotted span of time and the clocks keep a record. Suddenly one of the clocks goes round a full hour in a couple of seconds. "That man has just slept with his neighbour's wife," explains St Peter with a frown. Then another clock jerks round a full two hours. "That man has just mugged an old lady in the street," intones St Peter. At that moment, the newly arrived man sees a clock immediately behind St Peter frantically spinning round at high speed. "Ah, that clock," says St Peter…,' and here Jim paused a moment, looked me straight between the eyes, then continued, '" …that clock belongs to a certain member of B Squadron SAS. We use it as a fan to keep us cool in the hot weather."'
* * *
Better to be tried by twelve than to be carried by six, I thought, as I waited in the corridor outside Westminster Coroner's Court. The jokes and the back-slapping were over. Nine months on from the siege, now it was into the serious business of the inquest. I was more nervous at the prospect of doing battle in the legal cut and thrust with clued-up solicitors and highly paid barristers than I'd ever been before going in to tackle Oan and his band. I'd been away for nearly a year, travelled twice around the world on training missions, and here I was being called to account before the cold, impassive power of the law for actions whose precise sequences were already beginning to blur in my mind. Worst of all, I was to bare my soul and that of the Regiment in public. I was to give details of an SAS operation before the massed ranks of the media crammed into the public galleries, at least five dozen hardened journalists, pens poised in excitement, awaiting with schoolboy eagerness the unfolding of tomorrow's guaranteed bestseller. I'd spent eleven years of total anonymity and secrecy with the SAS. But since the television exposure of the siege had blown our cover, the Head Shed felt compelled to go against all their normal instincts. We now had to be seen to be accountable. Democracy in action. It marked a new stage in the Regiment's history, a new dimension in the psychological warfare against terrorists.
I was one of the chosen four due to appear in court – the ones who'd drawn the short straws. I'd spent three days in court in Hong Kong and was deemed to have the necessary experience. A legal veteran! It was thought I was better equipped to withstand the pressure than some of the other lads. I was to be a star witness. A real patsy, a scapegoat for the percentage players! This sort of exposure can't go on, I thought, this must be rectified for the future. Some precautions had been taken. The coroner had ordered that no photographs or sketches be taken in court in any circumstances whatever. Furthermore, it had been agreed that we could be identified by alphabetical designations to avoid the use of our real names. The cover was scant in the extreme. It offered little consolation.
My confidence in the system had already been severely dented by events prior to our reaching court. There were four of us: Sam, the superstitious one who'd refused to play the Ouija board with Valdez just before Operation Jaguar, Steve, Tom the Fijian abseiler – now recovered from his burns – and myself. We'd been at Group HQ, awaiting the arrival of a Black Maria to spirit us unnoticed to the court. What should turn up but a bright red Vauxhall Viva!
Worse still, on arrival at the court, instead of being taken to the back entrance we were driven up to the front where all the press were waiting. They spotted the car immediately and came running towards us, cameras flashing. 'Get to the back! Get to the mortuary door at the back!' Sam was yelling at the driver as we all ducked down. Luckily the police driver was well trained. With tyres squealing, he did an emergency reverse and about-turn and, with Fleet Street's finest in hot pursuit, roared towards the rear entrance, through a large gate and into a courtyard. We were through the back door before the perspiring gentlemen of the press were able to catch up with us.
Just inside the mortuary door we were faced with a gruesome sight: the naked body of an old man laid out on a trolley. He had recently been subjected to a post-mortem. A huge cut stretching from breastbone to navel had been peremptorily sewn back up with large blanket stitches. The crown of his shaven head had been lopped off like the top of a hard-boiled egg and it, too had been clumsily sewn back on again. The stench of formaldehyde was sickening.
While I was waiting outside the courtroom to be called, my spirits rose a little when one of our senior officers, who'd come to meet us for our final brief, revealed that the member of the jury nearest the witness box was a very pretty young thing no more than twenty years old. I decided that when I was asked to relate how Faisal had ended up with thirty bullet-holes in him, I would tell the story directly to her personally, gory details and all. A nice intimate conversation, just she and I. At least it would take my mind off the court ordeal.
I came back to reality with the rumour that newspaper reporters were climbing onto the roofs all around the building to get pictures of our exit. I just hoped to God the police would get it right this time and reverse a
Black Maria right up to the back door.
The usher nodded to me to get ready. I got up and waited just outside the swing door that led into the court. I pushed the door open a few inches with my foot to try and get a feel of the atmosphere inside so I could be a little better prepared when I entered the arena. I eyed the young female juror with expectation. Then the coroner looked up from his notes and said in measured tones, 'We will now hear evidence from the military personnel who brought the siege to a conclusion.'
With eyes like hawks, everyone present spun round to face the door where I stood. A deathly hush descended on the court.
A voice boomed out, 'Soldier I: take the stand.'
The name’s Winner, Pete Winner. Prince Charles’ close-protection instructor poses with his charge’s Aston Martin.
Hong Kong, 1978. Pete (right) with Clint, the inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police’s Special Duties Unit.
The SAS seven-a-side rugby team, with Pete, their coach and manager, at the far right. Here, just after an Army Cup victory, the team poses in front of the clock tower at Stirling Lines.
Prior to the siege, B Squadron practices house assault tactics at the Combat Village at Elm Farm near Hereford, a compound of half-a-dozen buildings used for combat training.
Training at the mock-Embassy, built to resemble a small British Embassy of the type often found in global troublespots. In an emergency the SAS expected to be deployed to defend such embassies, as they did in Zaire in 1991. To the right is the Methods of Entry wall, where troopers practised blowing in windows and doors.
In this rare image, the assault team is briefed in front of a scale model of the Iranian Embassy, in the SAS’s Forward Holding Area next door, at No. 14–15 Princes Gate. At the far left of the model are the cellars, where Pete’s team entered the Embassy.
Fast-roping from a helicopter in full assault kit, onto the roof of the mock-Embassy training building, Elm Farm. Pete is the figure in the foreground.
The abseil team prepares on the roof, ground scouted by Pete’s team on the evening of 2 May.
The second-floor balcony of the Iranian Embassy. At far left in the top photo, Tommy Palmer is about to enter the building, his gas-mask and hood burned off, while Tom the Fijian dangles in the flames at top right, his abseil rope jammed. Before he was cut down, Tom suffered serious burns, but he still entered the Embassy with his team – an action for which he was awarded the George Medal. In the small world of ex-SAS private security, Tom and Pete would later do another job in Kensington together, but this time guarding diamonds.
1 Perched on the roof, assault teams abseil down the rear of the building, in the course of which a trooper inadvertently breaks a window with his boot, arousing the terrorists’ suspicions that something is amiss.
2 As a diversionary tactic, SAS explosives experts lower a powerful charge through the central glass dome, detonating it moments before simultaneous assaults are launched against the front and rear of the embassy.
3 A team leader’s abseil rope becomes snarled, abruptly halting his descent, suspending him helplessly above the second-floor rear balcony, and thus obliging the other members of his team to forego the use of frame charges and smash their way through the windows with hooligan bars. Stun grenades set fire to the curtains and carpet, causing flames to emerge from the windows and burn the entangled trooper.
4 An assault team crosses into the garden, smashes its way through the french doors leading into the library and proceeds to clear the ground floor and cellar, which are discovered unoccupied.
5 Crossing from an adjacent building, an assault team detonates frame charges against the armoured windows on the front balcony, throws in stun grenades and enters the building amidst billowing smoke.
6 While PC Lock and the terrorist leader, Oan, are locked in mortal combat in a room on the first floor, an SAS trooper from the front assault team bursts in, warns the constable off and shoots Oan with a burst from his MP5.
7 One of the rear assault teams, shooting dead one terrorist as he flees towards the front of the embassy, reaches the telex room, where three terrorists have managed to kill one hostage and injure two others only moments before. The SAS men dispatch two terrorists with automatic fire but fail to recognise the presence of the third, who masquerades as a hostage and retains possession of a hand grenade.
8 The female hostages, discovered unguarded in a room on the second floor, are hurriedly joined with their now liberated male counterparts and manhandled downstairs for evacuation out of the rear of the embassy.
9 Clutching a hand grenade and still concealed amongst the hostages as they are hustled downstairs, the undetected terrorist from the telex room is recognized by Staff Sergeant PeteWinner who, unable to open fire for fear of inflicting casualties on the hostages or his colleagues, strikes the terrorist on the back of the head with the butt of his weapon, causing his victim to tumble to the base of the stairway where other SAS men riddle him with machine-gun fire.
10 (Not visible) Frightened and confused, the rescued hostages emerge into the garden at the rear of the embassy, where their SAS escort place them face down on the ground, secure their wrists, and identify them, thus discovering and arresting the only surviving terrorist of the original six.
Tak, a long-standing comrade-in-arms. This photo was taken around the time of the battle of Mirbat.
Lesotho, 1991. Training South African special forces as a mercenary, two years after leaving the SAS.
14
The Falklands
'She was squirming in her seat, giggling with excitement, wide-eyed and eager. I fixed her very deliberately with my best macho stare as I related the unsavoury details of Faisal's demise. She wasn't put off. Far from it. She was hanging on every word, raring to go. One thing is for certain: if I hadn't been married I could have got her number and I would have had a guaranteed jump that night – and I'm not talking about parachuting.' I took another gulp of beer. 'But the funniest part was when I'd just finished giving evidence and was stepping from the witness box. Ron Morris came charging across the courtroom, his arm outstretched. He gripped me by the hand and said to the coroner, "Excuse me, sir, but I must shake hands with this man. I want to thank him and his mates for all they did for us." I was quite taken aback, embarrassed, almost.'
The alcohol was flowing freely. I was sitting reminiscing about the Embassy inquest in the Volcano Club, an American airmen's gin palace that clung like a limpet to the edge of Wideawake airfield on Ascension Island. If you draw a cross whose horizontal axis links Brazil in South America to Angola in West Africa, and whose vertical axis bisects the island of Ireland from north to south, in the centre of the cross you will find Ascension Island, a scab of volcanic rock and dust in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, a British telecommunications centre, US airbase and US space-research station. It was 1982. We'd not long since flown out from Hereford; the Falklands War was in full swing.
'Take No Prisoners!' The name of the newly christened cocktail was shouted to the rafters as several half-pint glasses of a milky-coloured liquid appeared on the plastic-topped table in front of the troop hierarchy. The lethal-looking concoction had just been invented by an ex-Para called Paul. Before joining the Army, Paul had worked as a croupier in a South Coast casino, until he got fed up with the well-heeled punters, who would blow clouds of smoke from expensive cigars in his face as a distraction. Young, hard but amiable, a rebel from the maroon machine, he was the troop new boy. 'A warmer in the bank before the Last Supper,' he would announce invitingly as he raised his glass.
Disorientated by the octane rating of this Molotov-strength cocktail, the troop would then await with mouth-watering relish the arrival of the Volcano's special grill. The steak was a joy to behold. It was so vast it overlapped the plate at both ends. It must have been at least one inch thick and came generously garnished with garlic butter. With the passing of each evening, and our departure for the Falklands becoming more and more imminent, this gastronomic deli
ght really did become known as the Last Supper. It helped clear the mind of gremlins after a day of green-slime briefings.
As this particular day's Last Supper entered its closing stages the lads in the troop, actively encouraged by Big Fred the Fijian and aided and abetted by Tak – once again setting off on a great adventure alongside me – were required to take part in an initiation test steeped in ritual. Each member of the mission had to finish off the evening by drinking a flaming Drambuie. Big Fred would half fill a standard spirit glass with the liqueur, and Tak would step forward and ignite it. A nine-inch Bunsen flame would then shoot upwards from the surface of the liquid. The initiation test required the drinker to place the flaming spirit glass to his lips, drain the Drambuie, then put the empty glass back on the table with the blue flame still leaping off its rim. (This ritual was an SAS refinement of the 'dance of the flaming arseholes' – a custom peculiar to the crap-hats – in which pieces of newspaper were rolled up tightly and inserted into the anal orifices of two rookie squad members. Both were then set alight. The first man to pull out the flaming roll bought the drinks.) The last time the SAS attempted this before abandoning it as childish was back in 1972, when Del, the guy who was later to help me stitch up Malcolm the clerk during the Embassy siege, decided to liven up the proceedings by throwing a glass of Drambuie over the back of a Nine Troop man called Frenchie. It burst into flames and badly burned Frenchie's back.
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