by Damien Lewis
‘Right, as you lot probably know already you’re deploying on a bona fide marine counter-terrorism operation. This is not, I repeat not, a rehearsal,’ the CSM announced, pausing for a second to let his words sink in and to help get over his nerves. ‘You are to hit the MV Nisha, a merchant ship suspected of carrying a chemical weapon and bound for London. Your priority is to stop the ship, keep it on a heading, search her and apprehend any terrorists on board.
‘The assault will take place in international waters, off the Sussex coast. We’re still trying to clarify exactly what time you’re going to hit the ship, but expect it to be under cover of darkness, most likely just before first light. At all costs that vessel must be stopped before she reaches the Thames estuary. Every available man of the SBS together with twenty-six of our SAS colleagues will be going in on this one. I want you to swamp her with maximum firepower so as to prevent the ship’s crew triggering any device that may be on board. Make no mistake, you are to use all necessary measures – whatever it takes – to stop that ship.
‘Right, that’s the formal mission brief over with. Now to the specifics. You are to hit the MV Nisha simultaneously from the air and the ocean – roping down from Chinooks, and using RIBs and hook-and-pole ladders to scale her from the sea. Obviously, no one’s diving on this one. The Nisha’s underway and likely to remain that way until we stop her, so there’s no way we can hit her from under the water. You’ll have two Lynx attack helicopters in support, and four Sea Kings coming in directly behind them. Now, this is a recent photo of the Nisha taken by some of our intel people.’ The CSM pulled up an aerial photo of the MV Nisha on the projector screen. The ship consisted of a long hull packed full of cargo holds, with a towering white superstructure at the rear. For the assembled SBS and SAS soldiers this was the first image they’d seen of the target. It looked like a bog-standard cargo ship as far as they could tell.
‘I’ll leave it to the intel boys to give you the whole how’s your father on the make-up of the ship,’ the CSM continued. ‘But the overall assault plan works like this. There’ll be four RIBs [rigid inflatable boats] launched from HMS Sutherland, out of visual range of the ship, each with one fire team on board. That force will take the starboard bow, then work through the cargo holds from the bow to the stern. There’ll be two Chinooks with the rest of you on board. You lot’ll rope down from the choppers on to the rear of the ship, here.’ He indicated two flat areas on the roof of the ship’s bridge. ‘Now, this part of the assault is bleedin’ critical. If we’re hitting the ship at night – as I presume we will be – the majority of the crew should still be asleep. So, it’s crucial you hit them hard in their beds before they have time to wake up to the attack. If you are spotted by any watchmen when you hit the ship, the snipers on board the Lynx choppers will be tasked with taking them out. The two Chinooks and the four RIBs will be hitting the ship at exactly the same time.’
The CSM then ran through the specifics of the operation peculiar to this particular assault. Each four-man team would have one member of the Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit on hand, so if they came across any bombs then the EOD men could disable them. Royal Engineers from 49 Field Squadron would also be present and tasked with disabling any complex and/or non-conventional explosive devices. A reception/handover cell for prisoners would be established at Thorny Island, in Chichester harbour – the nearest secure landfall to the intended location of the ship interception and assault. There, sixteen members of CSMR – chemical and biological warfare specialists attached to the SBS/SAS – would be on standby with a full nuclear, biological and chemical decontamination unit. The four Sea King choppers would carry the command and control elements of the assault, plus teams from HM Customs & Excise and Special Branch.
‘I’ll leave your troop leaders to brief each of you on your team-specific roles,’ the CSM said, rounding off his brief. ‘You all know the drill, cos you’ve rehearsed this more times than I can remember. I have every confidence in you all. So go in and take down that ship. Any questions?’
‘Who’s first on to the target, boss?’ one of the SBS lads asked.
‘Mat Morrisey’s team will take the lead role – first down the fast ropes and on to the bridge.’
A groan went up from the rest of the SBS teams, who’d all wanted the honour of taking the lead.
‘Doughnut! Why does bubba get the lead?’ someone shouted out. ‘Hardly able to squeeze himself out of a chopper at the best of times.’
‘Go fuck yourself, Dogboy,’ Mat fired back. ‘At least when I do I know one end of me MP5 from another, which is more than can be said for a desk-bound fuck like you.’
‘Calm it, lads,’ the CSM interjected. ‘Very funny. Anyone got anything serious to say? Anyone got any more questions?’
‘You said you’re still trying to work out when we hit the ship,’ Jamie asked. ‘Why’s that, boss? Surely we should go in at the dead of night, to maximise surprise?’
‘In an ideal world, yes,’ the CSM grunted. ‘But we’re having a few problems with our political taskmasters over this one. Seems there’s some saying we should hit it in daylight, so as not to frighten the poor crew members too much when the black death hits them.’
‘You what, boss?’ Tom Knight piped up. ‘You can’t be fuckin’ serious.’
‘’Fraid I am – seems even terrorists have rights. Anything else?’
‘Why is the first priority of attack the bridge?’ Mat asked. ‘Why not the ship’s hold where the bomb is supposed to be?’
‘You can have a bomb on board, lad, but it needs someone to detonate it. Take out the crew and your bomb’s as good as safe. Make sense? Any more for any more?’
‘How many crew on board and are they armed?’ one of the SAS lads asked. ‘And what sort of hardware have they got?’
‘I’ll leave all that sort of detailed stuff to the intel boys,’ the CSM said, nodding in their direction. ‘So if there’s no more questions, that’s that. I’ve still got to go negotiate what ruddy time we’re allowed to hit this thing,’ he added, shaking his head in disgust.
As the CSM disappeared into the ops room an intelligence officer stood up to start the next briefing. Mat noticed that he was all ‘suited and booted’, done up in a grey pinstripe suit and a pair of shiny shoes. City gent attire, Mat thought to himself, dismissively. Hardly appropriate dress for a military base. The Green Slime always seemed to look the same – grey men in grey suits with generally a lot of grey stuff to say. As the intel officer cleared his throat, Mucker leaned over to whisper in Mat’s ear.
‘About the only rights the fuckers on that ship should have is the right to choose how they want to die.’
‘Too right,’ Mat replied. ‘Terrorist rights? It’s a crock of shite, mate.’
‘Gentlemen, the MV Nisha is a tramp steamer, a cargo ship some three hundred yards long with five main cargo holds,’ the intelligence officer began, pulling up a slide of a cross-section plan of the ship. ‘The rear superstructure is made up of four main decks, including a bridge – here – crew quarters – here – a mess – here – and engine rooms – here and here. Forward of the superstructure are the sealed bulkheads containing the cargo – some 26,000 tonnes of sugar. Any explosive device will be situated somewhere in the cargo area, we believe. The ship has recently been in the Red Sea, around Somalia, which first got our suspicions going and those of our US colleagues. We believe she may have picked up al-Qaeda terrorists in and around that area, before starting her present journey to London. We also have credible intel that she’s got some kind of improvised chemical weapon on board.’
The intelligence officer stopped to catch his breath, and Mat and Jamie exchanged glances. This was going to be some operation. Sounded like they were up against a bunch of al-Qaeda fanatics in charge of a cargo ship that had basically been turned into a massive chemical bomb.
‘We believe there’s sixteen crew members and that they will be armed, although we have no details of what weapon
s they may be carrying,’ the intel officer continued. ‘There is a high possibility that they will violently resist attack – although whether they’re carrying shorts, longs, grenades or whatever we don’t exactly know. Some of the terrorists are likely to be Mauritanians, and they may be linked to Hezbollah, a group you’ll all be familiar with, I’m sure. That’s about it as far as intel is concerned. Any questions?’
‘What sort of distances are we talking here?’ Mat asked. ‘Bow to stern and the like?’
‘She’s 450 feet end to end,’ the MI6 officer said. ‘And she’s approximately eighty feet high at the stern, where the main superstructure is. Plus she’s 17,000 tonnes unladen weight.’
‘So, she’s pretty bloody big then,’ Mat remarked. ‘Like, a lot of territory to cover looking for sixteen terrorists and a chemical bomb.’
‘I suppose you could say that, yes,’ the intel officer said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah. Where was the ship bound for, mate?’ Tom Knight piped up. ‘Officially, like, before we was ordered to stop her?’
‘London. To the Tate and Lyle sugar refinery. Which just happens to be on a dock on the Thames adjacent to the City of London. Hence our concern.’
‘So, have you asked them – Tate and Lyle, like – what she’s carrying?’
‘No. For the simple reason that this is a highly sensitive mission and potentially an extremely dangerous target. It’s been handled on a need-to-know basis only.’
‘Fair ’nough, mate,’ Tom acknowledged. ‘I was just askin’.’
As the intel briefer stood down, the MOD lawyer stood up to commence the legal brief.
‘From that intel alone you can see that you’ve got a clear legal right to go on board that ship and use whatever means are necessary to stop her,’ he began. ‘When you go into a room on that ship – they’re armed, al-Qaeda terrorists or whatever, picked up illegally, there’s some kind of chemical or biological warfare device on board – you’re cleared for whatever means are necessary. If there were an inquiry, in a court of law the whole scenario would be put to a jury, and they would know that on the intel you have before you now it has been identified as a terrorist vessel. That intel comes from the highest level in Whitehall and it says that a ship crewed by terrorists is going to attack London with a chemical device. Clearly, you will be justified in using whatever measures you see fit.’
After the legal briefing, there was one by the doctor outlining where the emergency medical facilities would be established in case there were casualties. This was followed by a comms briefing, detailing call signs, frequencies to be used and any mission-specific reporting practices. Once the general briefing was over, the men broke down into their individual four-man teams to run through the whole brief several times over, until all the details were clear in their minds. Over in their corner of the giant hangar Mat’s troop leader, Captain Pete Trotter, was running over their team-specific tasks one last time with Mat’s team.
‘As Team 1 – that’s your lot, Mat – hit the bridge, you’ll have Team 2 going into their primary target directly behind you, which is the radio room. After they secure that, two of their guys should move into their secondary, which is your primary, the bridge, so freeing you lot up to move on to your secondary target, the crew quarters. Team 2 will in turn be replaced on the bridge by an HQ element, which will run the show from there on in. So, you’ll keep leapfrogging from one TAOR [tactical area of responsibility] to the next. Your TAOR is always the immediate target area your team is securing. Hell, you’ve all done this so many times, I don’t need to remind you how it’s done. Once the command-and-control element are established on the bridge, you’ll be radioing in your sitreps to them. Are you all pretty clear on it now? Any questions?’
‘Yeah, who’s going to be first down the ropes then, boss?’ Mucker asked. ‘Cos it sure as fuck ain’t going to be me.’
‘Why ever not?’ Captain Trotter replied, with a grin.
‘Cos knowing my luck I’ll get me balls shot off,’ Mucker replied, ‘and then I really will be in the shite, cos my old lady’s very partial to them, she is.’
‘That’s honking sick, that is, mate,’ Mat interjected, disgustedly. ‘Filthy. What do we want to know about you and your missus’s sex life for?’
‘Cos it’s a fuck sight more interesting than –’ Mucker started to reply, but the captain cut him off.
‘Well, if there’s no volunteers to be first down the ropes …?’
‘I ain’t bothered,’ Mat spoke up. ‘I don’t mind doing it.’
‘Well, I know I wouldn’t want to be the first, Mat,’ the captain replied. ‘So let’s pull straws to decide, eh?’
The captain grabbed hold of some plastic sticks used for stirring the tea. He took four and broke them into different lengths. As Mat’s unit were to be first down the fast ropes, they all knew that they had been given the most dangerous part of the operation. They would be first into action hitting the bridge, the nerve centre of the whole ship, and it was bound to be manned at all times.
‘Pick one then, Mucker,’ Captain Trotter offered, holding out the plastic sticks, their true lengths hidden in the palm of his hand. ‘Longest one gets the honour of going first.’
‘And gets his balls shot off,’ Mucker retorted. ‘No way am I choosing first.’
‘Shouldn’t it be the shortest one?’ Tom interjected. ‘It’s drawing the short straw, innit?’
‘Fine by me,’ the captain replied. ‘Whoever gets the shortest straw is first down the ropes.’
Mat drew the first straw, followed by the others. As it happened he picked the shortest. So, that decided it. Mat Morrisey would be first man down the fast ropes.
‘Congratulations, Mat, looks like you got what you wanted,’ the captain remarked. ‘Right, if there’s nothing else?’
‘Just one more thing, boss,’ Mat said. ‘Whenever we’ve trained for this, we’ve been going in at the dead of night. So now it’s for bloody real why’re we being told we have to go in during the hours of daylight? Makes no bloody sense to me at all.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more. We’re still arguing for hitting it under the cover of darkness, but the powers that be don’t want us to. We’re being told it has to be a daylight op – which takes away the element of surprise, obviously. Maybe it’s because a night-time assault is seen as being too aggressive – more aggressive than a daytime one is, anyway.’
‘Too bloody aggressive?’ Mat snorted. ‘What, with a ship packed with a poor man’s WMD, crewed by terrorists and bound for London? Nowt can be too aggressive with that little lot, if you ask me.’
‘I agree entirely. But it’s politics, isn’t it?’
‘Fuck all the politics of it, mate,’ muttered Tom. ‘Let’s just get in there and get it on.’
‘That’s pretty much what we are doing,’ the captain replied. ‘We hope we’re reaching a compromise that’ll satisfy everyone. Officially, daylight time starts at 0530 hours. At 0530 hours this time of year it’s still dark. So, that’s when we’re saying we are willing to hit the ship. Seeing as though it’s midwinter it’ll still be dark enough at that time to cover the assault, and then the follow-up can take place in daylight.’
‘So, do we take it as read that we’re going in at 0530 hours?’ Mat asked. ‘Cos if we are then there’s time for a bit of kip, which’d be no bad thing.’
‘If I hear otherwise I’ll let you know,’ Captain Trotter answered. ‘In the meantime, you can get your heads down.’
It was 11 p.m. by the time Mat and his team finally settled down to get some sleep. The same thoughts were running through each of their minds regarding the assault: will it or won’t it happen?
The nearest the SBS/SAS had ever come to a live ship assault was over thirty years ago. On 17 May 1972, the QE2 – the pride of the Cunard fleet of ocean-going liners – was in mid-Atlantic, en route from New York to London. That evening a call was received at Cunard’s New York offices. An unidentified
American male informed the company that he had two accomplices on board the QE2 with instructions to detonate six bombs and blow the ship out of the water. Both accomplices had terminal illnesses, he said, and neither cared if they lived or died. The only way to save the ship and the 1,438 passengers on board was to deliver $350,000 in cash into the caller’s hands.
Almost immediately the search of the ship got underway. But William Law, the ship’s veteran captain, informed Cunard that it was an almost impossible task to check the whole ship. She had thirteen decks, a thousand cabins and miles of corridors, not to mention the below-deck gantries, bulkheads and engine rooms. Scotland Yard and the FBI began scrutinising the passenger list to see if the bombers could somehow be identified that way, and all ship-to-shore communications were put under surveillance in case the shore-based blackmailer tried to contact his on-board accomplices. Meanwhile, the MOD put the SBS and SAS on standby, along with bomb disposal experts. Even if the QE2’s crew did discover any bombs, it would need experts to diffuse and disarm them.
Some eighteen hours after the blackmailer had made his initial bomb threat, two SBS operatives headed up to RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire. They were joined by a colleague from the SAS and a bomb disposal specialist. After a short delay the four men boarded an RAF C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and headed out on the 1,500-mile flight across the Atlantic to the Cunard liner. En route Captain Williams, the bomb disposal expert, was receiving intensive coaching from the SBS operators on how to parachute into the sea. He had never done any military parachuting of any sort before, let alone jumping into the cold and uninviting waters of a choppy May Atlantic.