The dazzling lights of the checkpoint were switched off and the machine guns began to turn away from us, as the gunmen loaded onto the technical and started to move off after the motorcade.
We sat in utter disbelief as we realised that, instead of having to fight for our lives, we were, once again, joining the convoy of hostages and hijackers.
“Well, fuck my old boots,” said Randy with a beaming smile. “Looks like we are back on the waggon train.”
Just as we entered the busy streets of the city and caught up with the vehicles ahead of us, the column split into three. Two cars and one technical turned right, and another car and a second technical turned left and disappeared down narrow side roads. The bus and the remaining vehicles carried straight on
“Stick with the bus,” ordered Chuck as he waved to the car behind us to follow on. Just then the vehicle directly in front of us came to a halt, blocking the way, as the bus, with the majority of the hostages on board, disappeared into the bustling side roads of southern Beirut.
We were desperate to find where the hostages were going to be housed, but despite driving like blue-arsed flies, around the area where the convoy was last seen, for at least a couple of hours, we found nothing. We couldn’t even give any reasonable estimate of where they might then be being imprisoned, in order for a rescue mission to be launched. I am sure we all felt deflated and demoralised but we had to report the situation to our headquarters – a Sitrep as it was known to us. Just before dawn we were ordered to return to the helicopter drop-off point in Israel to be picked up and returned to the FOB in Cyprus.
About two weeks after our return the hostages were released, unharmed, from a number of different locations across the southern suburbs of Beirut, after more than seven hundred Shiite prisoners were freed from Israeli jails, thereby meeting the initial demands of the hostage-takers. The United States Government, however, steadfastly denied that they had given in to the terrorists, claiming that they had secured the release of all the hostages only by clever diplomatic negotiations. It was, they insisted, pure coincidence that the hijackers had demanded that seven hundred prisoners be released from Israel, and that, just before they arranged the release of the hostages a very similar number just happened to be allowed to leave Israeli jails
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SILVER MOUNTAIN
“Right leg or left leg?”
“I prefer right.”
“Well so do I.”
“Look. We can’t both go for right – unless you want to go around in fucking circles for the next six days.”
“Ok. Ok. Let’s toss for it then. His Excellency is getting really pissed off.”
The conversation, which I admit, might sound a bit weird, was between Don Craven and myself. We were arguing over which legs we should strap together before attempting to climb Mount Kilimanjaro ‘three-legged’. The British High Commissioner from the consulate in Dar es Salaam was present, and waiting to seal the bonds with his official ‘waxy thingamajig’.
We planned to meet six days later, after returning from the peak, when he would then confirm that the seal had not been broken to authenticate that the charity stunt had been completed successfully.
Don and I were both serving members of the Army Air Corps at the time. We had done some climbing together in the Italian Alps and the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Neither of us was, what you might call, an accomplished mountaineer. It was more a case of us wanting to get away for a couple of weeks each year without having to pay for a package holiday. Adventurous training was, very much, encouraged in the British Army. Organising expeditions and taking younger soldiers on such trips was a good way to do it at Her Majesty’s expense. It was 1982 and, although life was far from dull. we still felt that we needed some sort of wheeze to get away to somewhere interesting for a fortnight or so.
That year was the Silver Jubilee Year of the Army Air Corps and between us, we hatched a plot.
To coincide with the silver jubilee year why not climb the ‘Silver Mountain’, the name given to Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa? And why not climb it to raise money for charity? And, while we were at it, why not attempt to set a world record by climbing it ‘three-legged’?
“What a great idea,” we both agreed. “Don’t suppose, for one minute, that the top brass will fall for it, but let’s give it a try anyway.”
We put the proposal together and sent it to the Ministry of Defence via our regimental headquarters, not expecting, for one minute, that it would be accepted.
A few weeks later, much to our surprise, our proposal was officially sanctioned, and Exercise Silver Mountain was up and running.
I won the toss. We strapped our legs together, my right with Don’s left.
His Excellency applied the official seal of Her Britannic Majesty’s representative in Tanzania, looked at us as if we were completely bonkers, and left us at the base of the mountain. The starting point was just outside Moshi were we all agreed to meet, after the climb, for the High Commissioner to confirm that the seal was still intact.
Don and I had reached the peak of the mountain a few weeks previously, on a recce, so we knew what to expect.
Kilimanjaro is a cat’s whisker short of twenty thousand feet high. A dormant volcano, rising up from the Serengeti Plain in northern Tanzania, it was first climbed by Doctor Hans Meyer in 1889 and it was long disbelieved that snow could remain without melting, so close to the equator. Not only is Mount Kilimanjaro permanently covered in snow, but the icecap is no less than two hundred feet thick. The route to the top of the volcano, Uhuru Peak, cannot be described as a ‘technical climb’ in mountaineering terms. It is a walk, with a bit of a scramble up the final two thousand feet or so.
The main stumbling block with an ascent such as the one we were about to undertake, was likely to be altitude sickness. Neither of us had suffered much from it on any previous climbs so we felt pretty relaxed, and didn’t expect to encounter any real problems.
Our main concern was rather more basic. We were going to be tethered to one and other for six days. We had to eat and drink – the consequences of which were inevitable. Anything more serious than a pee stop was not something we looked forward to, but it was something we had thought about, at great length, and prepared for in true military fashion.
There was a procedure which we had put in place which had to be adhered to. Once one of us became aware that the need for a ‘comfort break’ was becoming necessary, we would call out two numbers. Unless just a pee was needed the first would always be ‘two’. The second would progress from ‘one’ to ‘six’ depending on the level of desperation. For example, ‘Two one’, spoken in a, gently modulated, and controlled voice, meant that there was no immediate urgency, and we had plenty of time to carry out the well-rehearsed routine.
‘Two six’, uttered in a high-pitched squeal, however, meant that the situation was critical and was not something either of us was looking forward to hearing.
Upon receipt of the coded message, and depending upon the magnitude of the second digit we would break off from the well-trodden path and endeavour to find a reasonably flat piece of ground. (Not always the easiest of things to find on the side of a mountain.) Coping with a steep slope was something we never really came to terms with or even agreed upon an ideal strategy. Was the best manoeuvre to face uphill, downhill, or athwartships? The question seemed to be unfathomable. The potential for a mishap on anything steeper than a one-in-five gradient was enormous. Throw in the fact that we might be dealing with a ‘two four’, or even a ‘two six’, and the outcome had the potential to be disastrous.
Once a reasonably level area of the mountainside had been identified, the next thing to do was to wet the first finger of one’s right hand, stick it up in the air, and assess the direction of the wind. Whichever one of us was not in need would then face into the prevailing wind, lie on the ground, and bury their face, as far into the earth, as they could bear. Ramming fingers into each ear and sing
ing ‘La, La, La’ at the top of their voice was an alternative to eating dirt, but this was left entirely to the individual’s discretion.
At night, we would sleep, intermittently, on the floor of one of the huts provided by the National Park Authority rather than share one of the small bunk beds.
We completed the climb successfully and arrived back at the rendezvous point, outside Moshi, at the agreed time, eager to get our bonds released. After waiting for more than an hour for the high commissioner, we realised that we had been stood up. Not wanting to spend any more time strapped together than we had to, we asked the chief ranger to issue us with a certificate stating that we had successfully completed the climb ‘three-legged’. Which, thankfully, he agreed to, for a small price, of course. We released the strap which had bound us together for more than six days, swearing never to come within a yard of each other ever again.
We raised almost twenty thousand pounds for our chosen charities. Giving ten thousand to the Rockfield Centre for the Mentally Handicapped in Hereford for them to build a new classroom, and the remainder of the money we donated to the Army Air Corps Benevolent Fund. We left a plaque engraved with details of the climb secured to a rock on the peak and, so far as I am aware, it is still there. Whether or not the event was ever recorded as a world record was of little consequence to us. We had raised a substantial amount of money for charity and had a whole load of laughs along the way. So, as far as we were concerned, the object of the exercise had certainly been achieved.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
SIERRA LEONE
In 1994 I was married for the second time, and living in a converted barn on the edge of the West Pennine Moor in Lancashire. Not quite retired, but my employment with MI6 was not full-time, which meant that I had plenty of free time away from the rigours of flying and spying.
Life was good, and I could afford to spend, not only time but also money, on improving my pleasant rural retreat, with its lake and six acres of land.
As I was putting the finishing touches to the dry-stone wall, which I had built along the edge of the lake, and, of which I was immensely proud, my phone rang. (To be honest, I didn’t have a lake – it was more of a pond, and not a very big one, at that.)
It was a long-term friend of mine from our days in the SAS, and, more recently, our involvement with Sir David Sterling’s Private Security Company KAS, which he ran from his offices in 22 South Audley Street in Mayfair. (I never did deduce whether Sir David having his offices in 22 South Audley Street – 22 SAS – was by accident or design.)
My long-term friend explained that he was involved in a couple of projects in West Africa and wondered if I might like to get involved.
“Could be very interesting, and exciting for you Red,” he said with a chuckle. “And you will be working with our old mate Fred, so it’s bound to be fun.”
When mixed together, the cocktail of the words interesting, exciting, fun. West Africa and, most of all, Fred, had the potential to lead to a perilous situation, especially when coming from the mouth of one such as Simon Mann, better known to me as ‘Captain Chaos’.
Ten years previously Simon had worked with Fred and me when we had first left the Army, and started the company KAS, with Sir David Stirling as chairman and Colonel Ian Crook as the managing director.
In the company offices in Mayfair, we would often sit around the fire in the boardroom, conspiring about KAS’s future, and working out ways of making money for the fledgling business. I was certainly no accountant, but it seemed to me that most of the company funds were being spent on – vodka for the chairman; Sancerre, for the managing director; and expensive cigars, which they both smoked incessantly. David was insistent that alcohol and tobacco were not luxuries, but were essential for the smooth running of the company, and were, therefore, perfectly legitimate business expenses.
Shortly after KAS was formed, Sir David, Crookie and myself went on a trip to the United States in an attempt to drum up some much-needed, business. Whilst staying in the capital we met with President Reagan, and then had lunch with George Bush and the deputy director of the secret service, Bob de Prospero, in the White House. Just across the road from the White House was the Hay Adams Hotel, then the most prestigious, and expensive in Washington, and of course, at the chairman’s insistence, that is where we had to stay.
With such huge outgoings and very little income, the company was doomed, and it wasn’t long before KAS was wound up.
Working so closely with the legendary founder of the SAS had been a great privilege. His eccentricity and roguish sense of humour had made it tremendous fun, and it was a sad day indeed when we packed up and left South Audley Street for the last time. As a farewell present Sir David Stirling DSO, OBE, gave me his old desk, which he had brought down from his family’s estate in Scotland, and a photocopying machine, to help me get started in business. The desk I still have, and cherish. The photocopier has long since been disposed of.
I caught the West Coast train from Preston to London Euston and from there continued on the Tube to Sloane Square. Seeing as it was such a pleasant spring day I decided to walk the length of the Kings Road to the offices of Branch Energy, which was then run by Tony Buckingham.
Tony, Simon and I sat around the boardroom table for our meeting.
It came as something of a surprise when I was asked, without undue ceremony, if I would like to help, in some way, with the fight against the rebels in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa, with its capital Freetown was, until 1961 a British colony, and then one of the wealthiest countries on the continent. In recent years, it had been reduced to a shambles and a civil war broke out in 1990. Valentine Strasser, an ex-captain in the Army, and now the country’s incumbent president, had risen to power after staging a military coup in 1992.
A drug-fuelled rebel group known as the RUF was reigning terror throughout the villages and towns of the country’s interior, inflicting almost unspeakable atrocities on the population.
Villages were raided indiscriminately. Women and children were raped and tortured. Often whole families were herded into their huts and burned to death. One of the RUF’s trademarks and sources of amusement was to ask a terrified victim if he, or she, preferred to wear long or short sleeves, before hacking off their arms at the wrist or elbow.
Large, natural sources of mineral wealth, existed in the country, such as rutile and bauxite. But the commodity that aroused the most interest to those inside, and outside, of the country was diamonds.
Executive Outcomes (EO), a private military company, based in South Africa, in which Tony and Simon had some interest, was becoming established in Sierra Leone to support the government in its struggle against the RUF.
It was proposed that, once in the theatre, I would work alongside Fred, who was already based in a suburb of Freetown. Fred and I would be required to come under the command and control of EO. This was a loose arrangement, which was necessary due to the dangerous environment existing for any expatriates, or foreigners, operating just about anywhere, in the country at that time. Working under EO’s umbrella would mean that we would be able to call on them to get us out of the shit, should the need ever arise.
It didn’t take long for the need to arise. Shortly after starting our operation Fred and I were desperately in need of the South Africans, with their helicopters, and their military expertise.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
After leaving London and transiting through Schiphol in the Netherlands I arrived in Lungi, the nation’s only airport, about ten miles north of Freetown. First impressions were not good. The terminal buildings and hangars were in dire need of a lick of paint. The grassed areas were overgrown, tumbleweed blew across the taxiways, and a few, tatty-looking old Russian aircraft littered the dispersal areas. The only two aircraft that looked at least half-decent were the ones in white livery with large black ‘UN’ insignia emblazoned on each tail-fin. It’s a fairly safe bet that, in any country
in the world that is ravaged by war or starvation, the toothless and, in my opinion, ineffectual, United Nations will invariably be found. Their personnel safely tucked away in a heavily fortified UN compound or, driving around in their top-of-the-range, air-conditioned bulletproof Land Cruisers. Again, in my humble opinion, the UN soldiers have become the world’s past masters at ‘standing by and watching what’s going on’.
As I stepped off the plane into the oppressive West African heat, I was met, at the bottom of the steps by my old friend Fred.
“Welcome brother,” he said, almost lifting me off the ground in a bear hug.
Fred was a larger-than-life, ex-SAS warrant officer, who hailed from the Fijian, South Pacific island of Rotuma. He was known to be fiercely loyal and honest, and wanted passionately to help the subjugated and terrorised people of this war-torn country. Not because he was scheming to capitalise further down the line if peace ever came. But he was, quite simply, a decent and caring individual.
I couldn’t wait to get into the terminal building, out of the stifling heat of the African sun. But passing through the ‘Arrivals’ door turned out to be a big disappointment – it was even hotter inside than it was outside. A mass of people was packed into the arrivals hall, pushing and shoving each other, to get to the front of the queues for each of the many counters. Behind each of the counters stood at least one official that had to be dealt with before entry clearance could be granted; baggage collection, customs, immigration, visa payment, visa issue, police and security. Each official, in turn, had to be presented, not only with one’s passport, but also a processing fee and, a ‘small gratuity’. Without a good elbow action, and a ready supply of ten-dollar bills the whole process could take hours.
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