Soldier I

by Kennedy, Michael

  This potent mixture of wealth and adulation presented a security challenge of the first order. This was our very first event in Russia. We were all going into the unknown, though I'd a pretty good idea it wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Back home, Pete McAleese – exD-Squadron – had already painted a vivid picture of training Russia's Inland Revenue teams. No pen-pushers these. These tax inspectors were being trained in combat techniques for when they had to storm office buildings in full body armour. Not your normal tax inspectors.

  We headed off to check out the venue for the big event – the sales convention the following day. The expected audience was 26,000. Not bad for your first event. The auditorium was massive, like an aeroplane hangar with seats. It looked just like the NEC with tiered rows all the way up to the roof, arranged in a 180-degree arc around the stage. I was reassured to know that we'd drafted in a load of conscripts from the Red Army as extra security. With an arena this big we'd need them. We checked and double-checked everything. No stone was left unturned. Nothing could be left to chance. I was standing with Rusty discussing the final plans when suddenly in saunters this guy who nonchalantly swaggers across the floor towards us. He was taller than me – and that's not something I say very often. A stocky Ronnie Kray lookalike, complete with slicked-back hair and double-breasted jacket. If he'd had the word 'Mafia' written across his forehead it couldn't have been more obvious. I whispered to Rusty, 'Hey, Russ. It's the local Gendarme. This guy's Mafia.'

  Rusty nodded. 'Yep. Here we go.'

  Big events inspire big curiosity. Full of cockiness, he strode up to us. 'Good afternoon, gentlemen.' He spoke remarkably good English. 'My name is Serge. I've been told you guys are in charge of security for tomorrow's event. Yes?'

  'That's right, mate,' I said. 'You've got the right people.'

  Without changing his impassive expression one iota he went, 'Great pity that. We are going to have to close you down.'

  I played along. 'Whaaaat! What are you talking about?'

  He went on, 'Your fire regulations are out of order.'

  I couldn't believe it. He was pulling the oldest con in the book, the fire regulations. The Kray brothers used to play that one in London in the 1960s. Unbelievable! They were fifty years behind the racketeering times in Moscow. These guys didn't need finesse and they didn't bother.

  I decided to wind our friend up a bit further. 'Fire regulations? That can't be right.' I looked nonplussed. 'We've had them all checked out. A fire officer from the Moscow Fire Department came round and gave us a certificate.'

  'Ah, yes. But some new government regulations have just come in. Not everyone is up to date with them yet.'

  I pushed him a bit further. 'Where exactly are you from?'

  He didn't bat an eyelid. 'I'm from the authorities.'

  I'd had enough of the pantomime. I said, 'Right, mate. Let's get in the back room and discuss it in private.' We had a little security office in the back of the building. We went in and locked the door so we could talk confidentially. The guy, still as cocky as ever, plonked himself in the only executive swivel chair as if he owned the place. Which effectively he did. As if to make his point, he casually unbuttoned his jacket and opened it to reveal his shoulder holster.

  Rusty took control. 'OK, mate. What's the score?'

  He persisted in the charade, really laying it on. 'It's your fire regulations. We've had an outside assessor check them out. They are out of order. A long time out of date. You are not qualified for an event of this size. Unfortunately we are going to have to close you down.'

  This was not the time for the old school act, the stiff upper lip in the face of adversity, holding out for your own set of standards come what may. We had to play by their rules, simple as that. 'Let's cut to the chase,' said Rusty, 'How much will it cost to bring the venue up to date?'

  He did a bit of chin rubbing. 'It is difficult to say…'

  I could barely contain myself. I was pinching myself to stop myself bursting out laughing. He was like a cartoon gangster from the Sixties. Except this guy was for real. As was his gun.

  He carried on doing his Marlon Brando impersonation. 'Well, let me see. These certificates don't come cheap, you know. A lot of work is involved.'

  Rusty was getting impatient now. 'Look. Cards on the table. What do you want?'

  'Let's say if you put in an envelope 300 tickets for the event tomorrow night, we can arrange all the details.'

  So that was it. Sorted. Three hundred tickets for the black market. Touted at double the face value of $25 each, that's $15,000. A nice little earner for one night's work. I knew he would keep it sweet for us. We'd followed their rulebook. I knew he would put the word out to let the event go ahead without further interruption.

  My heart sank when Serge turned up again three hours later with one of those looks on his face. Surely I hadn't got him so wrong? Was this the sting? Did he want another 300 tickets? He smiled. 'We do good business together. I like you and Rusty. To say thank you, my men will look after your event, make sure it goes smooth. You will find they are first class. They do a lot of this work in the bars and clubs around town.' It goes without saying that we accepted his kind offer.

  The convention passed off without a hitch. Serge kept his bargain. His heavies did a good job and they had the advantage over us of speaking the language. Whilst the Red Army soldiers were stationed up and down all the aisles looking like ornate commissionaires, Serge's team were mixing it on the front barricades, keeping back the seething hordes of over-enthusiastic Muscovites, shouting and swearing at them in Russian.

  Our principal jetted off back to the States early the next morning. We had a few hours to kill before our flight to London. Time for a bit of R & R, I thought. I had access to an S-class Mercedes that we'd used to ferry around the executives, so I thought I'd do a tour of the Moscow sights in it. I got hold of one of the Russian translators who'd been working with us and asked him to show me around. We got talking in the Merc and it turned out he was ex-KGB! Not only that, but he showed me his old ID card. There he was in his uniform with all his medals on. He had been a colonel! I asked, 'What are you doing as a translator?'

  'Ah well. What can you do? When the Berlin Wall came down a lot of us KGB guys were kicked out. We were no longer needed. We've done what you guys have done. We've set up private security companies. Now I am a translator and bodyguard.'

  So there I was being driven round Moscow by an ex-KGB colonel. I thought, 'My God! Times have changed. Fantastic!'

  He insisted on taking me to the outskirts. 'You must see this,' he said. 'This is why the Russian Army is not going to win any more big wars. Look over there.' He was pointing to acres of allotments full of vegetables. Young men were tilling the soil. 'You see those men? They are conscripts in the Russian Army. They don't get paid properly or fed properly. They have to grow their own food. This is the Russian Army of today. Their morale is rock-bottom. They are only young kids, straight out of school some of them. And this is what they have to do.'

  We headed back into town and suddenly he said, 'Watch out. Here we go.' In front of us there was a Portakabin and barriers, just like a Northern Ireland checkpoint. 'Traffic police. It's the car,' he said. He pulled up into the side of the road just before the barriers. 'Do not worry. Do not worry. I will claim it on my expenses.' With that he got out his driving licence and a folded a hundred-dollar bill into the centre of it. 'Now watch this.'

  We drove forward to the barrier. It was manned by this fierce-looking guy and he was dressed like the Gestapo. He knocked on the window. My driver wound the window down and they exchanged a few words in Russian. He handed the guard his licence. The guard made the hundred-dollar bill disappear into his inside pocket like Paul Daniels on speed. Up came the barrier and we were through without another word. As we drove off, the KGB guy said, 'If I hadn't done that, you see that Portakabin? They'd have whipped us in there and interrogated us for hours wanting to know who we were, where the car came from, w
here did we get our money, had we paid all the taxes. Standard procedure. You grease their palm and they wave you through. They see the car and they see dollar signs in their eyes.'

  The trip came to a successful end. Serge had looked after us. They were clever people. Business is business, Russian style. As long as you greased the palms of the men who mattered, everything would be fine. They didn't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. They didn't want to double-cross people or make excessive demands which would deter companies from coming to Moscow altogether.

  Suits you sir! I enjoyed this lifestyle, the world of big deals and bigger business. It was regular work and it was very well paid. The bonus with this job was that I really liked the principal. Being his bodyguard, I had to have many a restaurant meal with him. He wasn't at all the prima donna, the remote, ruthless boss. He was very friendly and approachable. That's why I was so devastated when he died at the tragically young age of forty-four.

  After that, my work suddenly dried up. That was bad enough. But worse was to come. I was careering headlong towards the gutter. Something happened which meant I was on the verge of losing my security operator's licence. If I lost that, I'd lost my whole livelihood.

  How come my licence was under threat? I was up in court on a charge of assault and battery.

  30

  Revenge is Sweet

  You can't beat a good punch-up. It's the best possible therapy, an instant stress-reliever. What is it the medics say to depressed people, 'Get more exercise'? Well a good punch-up is the finest stress-relieving workout in the world.

  And I've had a few punch-ups in my time, probably more than my share. But was it all the result of the stress of combat? Was I going down with PTSD? Absolutely not. And I can prove it. Just like I got a piece of paper from Ward 11 to prove I was sane whilst I was still serving in the SAS, I can prove I'm not now suffering from PTSD. How can I do that? I'll tell you how. I can prove it because I beat up my next-door neighbour.

  Trouble had been brewing for months. They were the original neighbours from hell, totally out of control. They'd have fearsome rows in the house with the windows wide open, and we'd hear the pair of them swearing at each other in the garden. The language was filthy. I was remarried by now, and my daughter couldn't even go in the garden at times, she was so upset. To make matters worse, he had a highperformance car with a loud exhaust. He'd often come back at one or two in the morning, deliberately revving it up on the drive, waking up the neighbourhood. I didn't storm in at the first provocation. I gave them bags of slack. I turned a blind eye, hoping it would go away. But it didn't.

  It all came to a head in September. It was a lovely warm afternoon, and he'd recently purchased one of those mini-motorbikes, with a proper little engine and a proper tinny little noise. Really, really annoying. The pitch of the noise just cut right through you, and it was grating on my nerves. This particular day he'd started revving it in the middle of the afternoon and he went on revving it for at least an hour and a half. I'm all for a bit of give and take, a bit of live and let live. But at the end of the day, I'm not Mother Teresa. I thought, 'Right! Enough's enough. I must have words.'

  I went out and looked over the fence. There he was, sitting on his little bike, completely oblivious to the rest of the world, mindlessly revving it. I said, 'Excuse me, mate. Is there any need to keep revving that bike?' He didn't say anything. He simply glanced up. Straightaway I could see the look of insolence on his face. So I said 'Look, I'm an exengineer. Revving it like that will damage the cylinder and the piston.' He still didn't say anything, but his expression hardened into one of total contempt. I gave him one last chance. 'Are you going to stop making that racket? You're upsetting my daughter.' Silence. Another screaming rev of the engine. 'I'm asking you for the last time,' I said. 'Are you going to pack it in?'

  He glanced up with disdain. 'You can fuck off.'

  By this time his missus had come out to see what all the commotion was about. A real mouthy one she was. She sneered at me and said, 'You heard what my husband said. You can fuck off.'

  That's when I snapped. I raced down our drive and round towards their house. His missus was standing at the gate, an iron bar in her hand. She must have kept it just inside the house in case of emergencies. I thought, 'I'd best not go near her. Scrapping with a woman won't look too good.' So I vaulted over the fence to go straight down the side of their house where her husband was and bypass her. I was still very much in control of my anger. I was still willing to talk to this guy. I walked quietly up to him. I had yet to utter a single swear word. But as he saw me coming, he leapt off the bike, and held it up by the handlebars as if it was a shield. I closed in on him, still willing to talk. He suddenly reared up the bike and tried to ram it into my groin. I jumped back to avoid the impact. I thought, 'Fuck this for a game of soldiers. That's it.'

  Whack! I punched him straight into the side of his jaw. Not hard enough to really hurt him, just enough for him to get the message. Trouble is, he didn't. He staggered backwards a couple of steps, then recoiled back towards me like a ship's cannon. He grabbed a piece of trellis fence from the ground and tried to ram it into me. I seized hold of the thing and we started wrestling with it. He was quite handily built and his rage had made him even stronger. He was like a bear on steroids and he was pushing me backwards. This was awkward. His garden was a tip and I was in danger of tripping up over the discarded rubbish. I dug my feet in, summoned up all my strength and held him steady. 'You can't do this,' I said. 'You aren't in the club.'

  For a split second he looked puzzled. 'What club, you wanker?'

  I reached round the side of the trellis and measured my fist against his nose with a real piledriver of a punch. Smack!

  'Welcome to the Hellfire Club!' I roared, as he collapsed backwards.

  The red mist started to come down. I wanted to teach the scrote a lesson in neighbourly respect he'd never forget. I wanted to practice my tap dancing skills on his head. But then I suddenly had a flashback to Hong Kong. That's what held me back. Oh, no, no, no. I can't do that. I'll be in deep trouble. That would be actual bodily harm.

  I had to restrain myself. Reasonable force only. That's when I knew I wasn't suffering from PTSD. It would have been so easy for me to lose it and beat the man to a pulp. If I'd been suffering from PTSD that's what would have happened. There's no way I'd have had the self-control.

  He was in a complete daze, the trellis fence still on top of him. He raised his head a fraction, trying to focus on me. He pointed a shaky finger at me and spat the words out, 'You've had it now. You've had it now.'

  'Best get away from here,' I thought. 'I've proved my point.' So I strode away. His wife took a step back and dropped the iron bar as if it was red-hot. Was she scared of me? Nah. I'd caught her eyes. That's when I knew I was in trouble. There was no look of concern for her husband's welfare, no look of fear that she was about to be assaulted by this next-door Neanderthal. Just lots and lots of pound signs. Oh, no! Here we go. The 'C' word. Compensation! Next thing I know, her mobile was out. She was phoning the police, getting the first shout in.

  I went back to my house, made a brew, sat down and waited for the coppers to arrive. I looked at the clock and thought, 'Let's see how long they take to respond.' It didn't take them very long at all. I heard the screech of brakes – they'd obviously been watching too many cops and robbers programmes on TV. Next thing, I hear the bang-bang-bang on the door. These two coppers came in. 'We've had a report you've attacked your next-door neighbour.'

  I said, 'I'm the victim here. Why don't you go and arrest him? He attacked me. I used self-defence.'

  The copper goes, 'Your neighbour's got blood all over his face. I don't see any blood on your face, Mr Winner.'

  A modern-day Sherlock Holmes, obviously. I said, 'Have you not seen the mini-motorbike? He attacked me with that.'

  'We've got no evidence of that. We have a report from his wife that you attacked him. We're going to have to charge you with
common assault and take you down the station.'

  I said, 'Aren't you going to arrest him too?'

  'We can't. We've no evidence. They made the complaint. That's the procedure. We have to arrest you. We won't handcuff you if you come quietly.'

  I was really hacked off. I was taken to the local nick and locked away in a cell like a common criminal, with only a hard wooden bench to sit on. They wouldn't give me anything to eat, only a cup of tea. They charged me officially with common assault and I pleaded not guilty. In due course I was processed in the normal manner – mugshot, fingerprints, DNA sample for the database, and finally a statement with the duty solicitor. I didn't get back till eleven at night.