Soldier L: The Embassy Siege

by Shaun Clarke

  ‘A what?’ Bobs-boy asked.

  ‘An undiplomatic reception,’ the Controller repeated with a grin. ‘That means you will manhandle everyone found in the Embassy – terrorists and hostages alike – out into the back garden and there search them, bind their hands and feet, lay them face down on the grass, and proceed to question them until you’ve ascertained who’s a terrorist and who a hostage. You will do so with dispatch, tolerating no protest and being a little rough if necessary. That’s why it’s called an undiplomatic reception.’

  ‘Neat,’ the trooper said.

  ‘Who’s orchestrating the operation?’ asked Jock.

  ‘A command group led by myself and a controller, operating from a sixth-floor flat overlooking the rear of the Embassy, out of sight of the journalists.’

  ‘How long do you think the siege will last, boss?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I only know that those men are determined, so it could last for a long time.’

  ‘What do we do while we wait?’

  ‘Immediately after this briefing you’ll pack your kit and prepare to be insinuated into the Forward Holding Area in the Royal College of Medical Practitioners, located next door to the Embassy. While you wait on stand-by, you’ll familiarize yourselves with both the Immediate Action Plan and the Deliberate Assault Plan, training with full kit and studying every photograph, drawing, report we’ve got on the terrorists and their unfortunate hostages. Another hostage has been released since our arrival here and that means even more information on the terrorists and their arms and state of mind. Also, a replica of the Embassy has been constructed in the Forward Holding Area and you’ll use that to familiarize yourselves with the building and your own place in both the Deliberate Assault Plan and the Immediate Action Plan. As the former becomes more defined, its most important elements will be fed into the latter: the scheme to storm the building as a prompt response to any murders. The learning process will therefore be non-stop – at least until you’re either stood down for good or called to implement the attack plan. Rest assured, you’ll be busy. Any more questions?’

  When his question was followed by the silent shaking of heads, the Controller said: ‘All right, men, let’s go.’

  Heavily burdened with weapons, sledgehammers, ladders, abseiling ropes and other equipment, the men in the sinister black CRW outfits marched out of the dormitory and clambered into the vans parked outside. The convoy eventually rolled out of Regent’s Park Barracks and headed south-westwards for Princes Gate.

  7

  Once in the Royal College of Medical Practitioners, at 14 Princes Gate, the men of Red Team clambered up onto the gently sloping roof in full CRW gear, then made their way stealthily across to the adjoining roof of the Embassy, where they quietly tied the required number of abseiling ropes to the chimneys, then left the rest coiled up beside each chimney.

  When this was done, they crossed back to the college and made their way back down to the rooms designated as their Forward Holding Area. There, the learning process for Red Team did indeed become non-stop in the frustrating periods between false alerts and being stood down again. This happened many times during their first twenty-three hours in the college.

  When on stand-by, the men of Red Team were allowed to strip off their heavy CRW outfits to wear casual clothing. But as each new terrorist deadline approached, they had to get into their fighting equipment and out onto the roof to prepare to go into action, on a radio message, ‘London Bridge’, at four minutes’ notice. They were, however, stood down repeatedly, which caused much frustration.

  ‘This is driving me crazy,’ grumbled Phil McArthur as he divested himself of his CRW gear for the fourth time. ‘Why the hell don’t they let us cross that roof and get on with the job?’

  ‘It’s because they’re trying to talk the terrorists out instead of sending us in,’ Staff-Sergeant Harrison informed him.

  ‘Damned Met!’ Trooper Alan Pyle said in his oddly distracted drawl, showing no real irritation. ‘They’re only good for directing the traffic and they’re not good at that. What are they good at?’

  In fact, he was recalling how, from the roof of the college, he had been able to look all the way along to the metal scaffolding and canvas marquee of the press enclosure hastily constructed in Hyde Park, as well as the numerous vans, cars and trailers of the police and media, with TV and communications cables snaking across the road. Down on the street, directly in front of the adjoining Embassy, inside an area cordoned off with coloured tape, a plain-clothes policeman had been negotiating with the terrorists, speaking English when conveying his message via the hostages Sim Harris and PC Lock, or through an interpreter when speaking directly to a terrorist. It had looked like a circus down there, but nothing seemed to be happening.

  ‘All they do,’ Alan continued, ‘is talk, talk, talk, while those bloody terrorists create one deadline after another, just stringing the bloody coppers along. They should send us in right now.’

  ‘They can’t make up their minds because the terrorists’ demands keep changing,’ Jock explained.

  ‘That’s exactly what Alan meant,’ Baby Face said. ‘Those terrorists are calling all the shots, so we should go in right now.’

  ‘I agree,’ Sergeant Inman said. ‘The more we wait, the more hysterical they’ll get and the more dangerous that makes them. Also, the more we wait, the more they’ll expect us, which loses us the element of surprise.’

  ‘Right,’ Baby Face said. ‘They’re thinking it’s early days yet and we should move while they’re thinking that. We could take them before they blink.’

  ‘You’re a pair of fucking warmongers, you two,’ Jock broke in. ‘You’re only interest is in having a little mix and tasting their blood. Your interest stops right there.’

  ‘And you?’ Inman asked.

  ‘What about me?’ Jock replied.

  ‘Whose interest do you have at heart, since you’re sounding so noble?’

  ‘Don’t be insolent, Sergeant. I’m still the senior NCO. You try to cut me with that sharp tongue and I’ll tear it out of your throat.’

  ‘That’s pulling rank, Staff-Sergeant.’

  ‘I treat a mad dog like a mad dog.’

  ‘I’m just saying that the element of surprise is all we’ve got here – and we’re losing it fast.’

  Jock nodded, showing no animosity. ‘Maybe you’re right, pal. Who knows? You just might be.’

  The first message about the occupation had been received by phone at the Guardian newspaper. Conveyed from the terrorist leader, by now known by all as Salim, his real name, via the hostage journalist Mustafa Karkouti, it stated that the terrorists had occupied the Embassy for their ‘human and legitimate rights’, which were ‘freedom, autonomy and recognition of the Arabistan people’. The second phone message, conveyed by Karkouti to a Senior Deputy Editor of the BBC’s External Services, was a clarification that the terrorists were from Iran – not Iraq as had been widely believed – and a demand for the release of 91 prisoners being held in Arabistan.

  At four-thirty p.m. on the first day the terrorists had released a female Iranian hostage, wrongly thinking, because she had fainted, that she was pregnant. Shortly after the woman’s release, police activity outside the Embassy was intensified, with cordons completely ringing the area, the nearby main road, Kensington Gore, barred to traffic between the Albert Hall and Knightsbridge Barracks, and a carefully guarded press enclosure created near Exhibition Road.

  A Police Forward Operations Room, Alpha Control, was set up in the Royal School of Needlework at 25 Princes Gate, from where all police and military activity was controlled.

  By six o’clock all the buildings around the Embassy had been evacuated and the Metropolitan Police had begun speaking directly to the terrorists, either by phone or through the Embassy windows, in English and Arabic.

  During the first of those conversations, Salim stated that if his demand for the release of the prisoners in Arabistan was not met by noon the f
ollowing day, he would blow up the Embassy and all inside it.

  At eleven-thirty that same night, another hostage, Dr Afrouz, the Embassy’s chargé d’affaires, telephoned the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, to explain that the terrorists were all Iranian citizens, Muslim brothers, and that they would end the siege when the Iranian government agreed to a degree of autonomy for Arabistan.

  Nothing had happened during the first night, but in the early hours of Day Two, Thursday, 1 May, another message from Oan-Ali informed a BBC News Desk deputy editor that the British hostages and other non-Iranian hostages would not be harmed, though the deadline for the safety of the others was still valid.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Staff-Sergeant Harrison told his frustrated Red Team as they crouched in full CRW battle gear, surrounded by weapons, abseiling equipment and sledgehammers, on the windy roof of the college, ‘thermal imagers and bugging devices planted in the walls of the Embassy have revealed that the hostages, men and women alike, are presently being held in Room 9A on the second floor.’

  Shortly after this revelation, the audio-surveillance devices picked up the sound of a terrorist firing a threatening burst into the ceiling of Room 9A, causing some of the women to scream. This was followed by a phone call from one of the hostages, BBC sound recordist Sim Harris, explaining that his fellow hostage, BBC news organizer Chris Cramer, was writhing in increasing pain from the symptoms of a virulent dysentery he had picked up in Rhodesia, and needed a doctor.

  The police refused the request.

  A second request met with the same response, though this time the police cleverly suggested that Harris should try persuading the terrorists to release his friend. Harris did so, and at eleven-fifteen that morning the Embassy door was opened to enable Cramer to stagger to a waiting ambulance.

  ‘Those two hostages,’ Harrison explained, ‘when questioned by the police, revealed a great deal about what’s going on inside the Embassy.’

  ‘So?’ Baby Face asked.

  Harrison sighed at the trooper’s ignorance. ‘With each new scrap of information from a hostage, our assault plans are changing. That’s why we never stop rehearsing – and why each one is different. As for Cramer, he’s told us a lot. So you lot are now in for lots of work.’

  ‘What kind of work?’

  ‘More rehearsals of revised situations. They should keep you busy.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ GG said.

  Ten minutes after the noon deadline, Salim phoned to say, in his poor English, that he was giving the Iranian Government until two that afternoon to meet his demands. When that deadline also passed with no response from the Iranian Government, there was no sound of an explosion inside the Embassy.

  ‘It seems that Salim has changed his mind,’ Staff-Sergeant Harrison told them after speaking on the radio phone to the Controller, who was based for the time being in Alpha Control at 25 Princes Gate. ‘He’s holding out for more than they’re offering and they’re going to call his bluff.’

  ‘Calling his bluff could get a hostage killed,’ Inman responded. ‘Those fucking Arabs aren’t playing games.’

  ‘Nor are we, Sarge. We’re just engaged in a bit of the old in-and-out: a little cry of protest here, a sigh of gratitude there; first cold, then hot; now advancing, now retreating; giving a little, then taking some away; stepping forward, then back again, maybe turning in circles. It’s what’s known as a protracted negotiation and the Met are good at it.’

  ‘I’m glad they’re good at something,’ Alan chipped in. ‘I was giving up hope.’

  ‘Oh, they’re good,’ Harrison insisted. ‘The police negotiators are very good indeed and have, I believe, managed to cool things down a little. All is calm for the moment.’

  But things were hotting up outside. There, beyond the police cordons, nearly 400 Khomeini loyalists demonstrated and were met by abuse from hordes of British louts howling derision and shaking their fists. Many were arrested.

  That afternoon, the terrorists again insisted that if the Iranian Government acceded to their modest demands, the siege would end peacefully. Again the Government did not respond. This encouraged Salim to ask for three Arab ambassadors – from Jordan, Iraq and Algeria – to arrange for a plane to take him and his fellow terrorists out of Britain, when they were ready to go.

  Shortly after eight p.m., when the police were drilling holes in the walls of the Embassy to insert more audio-surveillance probes, two of the hostages, Mustafa Karkouti and PC Lock, appeared at a first-floor window, both covered by a terrorist gunman, to ask what the noises were. The police denied that they were responsible and another night passed peacefully.

  Throughout that tense first twenty-three hours, the SAS’s Red Team had been repeatedly put on alert, each time having to don their full CRW outfits, collect their weapons and equipment, including abseiling ropes and harness, then go out onto the roof of the college, ready to clamber over onto the roof of the Embassy. Each time, to their immense frustration, they were made to stand down again.

  They were, however, given no rest. Instead, they studied every photograph, drawing, report and other scrap of information fed to them about the people next door. Also, with the helpful narration of a former Embassy caretaker, they repeatedly studied a plywood scale model of the Embassy, working out just how they would enter, what routes they would take once inside, and what specific targets, or rooms, each team would be responsible for clearing. Their positions and routes were demonstrated with the aid of toy soldiers placed at various points outside and in the corridors and rooms of the scale model.

  ‘I feel like a right dick doing this,’ Alan said.

  ‘You are a right dick,’ Phil told him, ‘so you’ve nothing to lose.’

  ‘Toy soldiers and doll’s houses,’ Trooper Ken Passmore said. ‘It takes me back to my school days.’

  ‘You played with doll’s houses? Phil asked him.

  ‘And wore skirts,’ Ken replied. ‘I managed to get into the SAS by flashing my knickers at the drill instructors. It’s a common girl’s trick.’

  ‘Do we go left or right at the end of that corridor?’ Baby Face asked, pointing at the model of the Embassy and looking as sombre as always.

  ‘Left,’ Harrison said, then offered a loud sigh. ‘It’s nice to know I’ve got one trooper with concentration. Any more questions, lads?’

  ‘Yes,’ Phil said. ‘Who do I have to fuck to get off this job?’

  ‘Ken Passmore!’ they all cried out in chorus, being desperate for light relief.

  This they did not get, however. After twenty-three hours of being called out onto the roof of the college, fully armed and dressed, and with abseiling equipment, ladders and explosives to hand, only to be stood down again and returned to yet more planning around the scale model, the men of Red Team were not only immensely exhausted, but fast running out of patience.

  They returned to the Regent’s Park Barracks to catch up on their sleep.

  Blue Team arrived at the FHA at three-thirty a.m. on Day Three. Like Red Team, they had been transported from Bradbury Lines to the Regent’s Park Barracks by van, then moved on to the college in furniture vans. While Red Team caught up with a little sleep, the twenty-four-man Blue Team, headed by an SAS captain, took over the responsibility for the Immediate Action Plan and, like Red Team, were compelled to spend hours studying the scale model of the Embassy next door. They, too, were called out more than once, then stood down again.

  ‘It’s driving me bonkers,’ Danny Boy said after the third alert and stand-down. ‘Up on that fucking roof, all set to roll, then called back down again. What the hell are they playing at?’

  ‘The terrorists keep changing their demands,’ Jock informed him. ‘Oan-Ali threatens to blow up the building, so we’re called out on alert. Then instead of blowing the building up, he releases a hostage, so we’re stood down again. It’s a form of psychological warfare and it’s very effective.’

  ‘It’s certainly affecting me,’ GG complained. ‘If we’re stood do
wn once more, I’ll throw myself off this fucking roof.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ Danny Boy said.

  ‘Fuck you,’ GG shot back.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Trooper ‘Bobs-boy’ Quayle said. ‘At least they’re keeping us busy.’

  ‘I’d rather keep myself busy with a pint of bitter,’ GG said. ‘All this stop-go’s no good for me.’

  ‘Stop whining, you lot,’ Jock told them. ‘I’m fed up with the sound of your voices. Now let’s go back down.’

  ‘Yes, boss!’ they all sang in unison, picking up their weapons and equipment and following their leader back down the stairs to the FHA below.

  By this time, confirmation had been received from the audio-surveillance team that the hostages were indeed in Room 9A on the second floor.

  Shortly after this information was conveyed to the police and SAS, Salim appeared at the window, pointing a pistol at the head of a terrified hostage, the Embassy’s cultural attaché, Dr Abul Fazi Ezzatti, whom he threatened to kill unless he was allowed to talk to the media by telephone or telex.

  ‘I’m sorry, Salim,’ the police negotiator told the terrorist leader, ‘but we can’t do that just yet. We need time to set it up.’

  ‘Liars!’ the Iranian screamed.

  Nevertheless, instead of killing the visibly distressed hostage, he merely pushed him roughly aside, out of sight behind the window frame. Intelligence later discovered that the terrified Ezzatti had then collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

  ‘The terrorist leader is clearly reaching the end of his tether,’ the Controller told the exasperated men of the Blue Team shortly after they had been called down yet again. ‘My personal belief is that the killing will start soon and we’ll have to go in there.’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ the action-hungry Sergeant Inman said. ‘I’m brain-dead from sitting here.’

  Another deadline was set for a few hours later. This time the terrorists demanded a talk with someone from the BBC, which they would conduct through their hostage Sim Harris. Though the police at first refused, more death threats from the terrorists finally made them relent.