by Chris Ryan
'Unattributable!' echoed the CO. 'I should think it bloody well would be. The least attributable operation ever mounted by the Regiment!'
To give himselfa moment to think, he started talking about the lack of time. 'According to their last deadline, we've only got until midday on Tuesday,' he said. 'It's Thursday already. Not much room for manoeuvre.'
'Enough,' I said, 'if you can handle the bureaucracy, I guarantee I can manage the logistics.'
I sat back, feeling slightly out of breath, amazed that I was talking to the colonel as if I were of equal rank, planning an operation equally between the two of us.
The truth was, we were both caught up in the excite ment of the idea.
'Well,' he prevaricated. 'What does Special Branch think of it?'
'The Commander thinks I'm crazy. He doesn't realise how easy it would be, but all the same he's coming round to a position supporting me.'
'Does he reckon the regular police would cooperate?'
'I haven't asked him. I expect the answer's no, but as I said it would be a different matter if word came down from the top.'
'The plan's utterly outrageous, of course. I don't think we've a hope in hell of getting it sanctioned.' The CO looked at his watch. 'I'll play fair with you, though.
I'll run the idea through the system. It's now 1035. Give me till lunchtime, OK? Back here at one. Meanwhile, get the bones of your plan on to paper. One of the clerks will do the donkey work for you on a word- processor, but get it all down as briefly as possible in note form. We'll push it up to the Director by secure fax and see what the reaction is.'
I walked out feeling pretty low and extremely tired. I knew the Boss was sympathetic, but he was a realist as well, and it was obvious he didn't think my idea had a chance. I could tell from the look of him that he'd only been humouring me. For a while I walked around outside, trying to clear my head, then I thought, Sod it, I'll get a plan done anyway. I've nothing to lose by that.
In the adjutant's office I grabbed the services of a clerk called Andy, whose grammar and spelling were streaks ahead of mine, and in twenty minutes we'd hammered out the briefing. Back in the incident room I tried to raise my spirits by saying to Fraser, 'Better get your skates on, Commander. It looks like the wagon's going to roll.'
'You're joking.'
'Not entirely. The Boss is taking Plan Zulu seriously.
At least, he's making enquiries at high level.'
'Am I supposed to know about it?'
'He knows I told you my idea, but probably it's better not to say anything until I've been back to him.
We're meeting again at one o'clock to see if we can take it farther.'
To fill in time I sought out Tony. I'd spun him the outline of my scheme during our day in the OP, so there was little need for further explanation. 'If this goes down,' I told him, 'I'm going to make bloody sure you're on it with me. In fact, I hope we can keep the Ostrich team together. We understand each other as well as we ever will; I know we can muster the necessary skills between us. Listen, it may be premature, but why don't we get a few things planned?'
We settled ourselves at a table in the incident room with a road atlas and a notebook.
'Plotting the revolution, are you?' Fraser quipped as he came past.
'More or less. You don't mind us being here?'
'Not at all. You're welcome to carry on.'
Out of the blue there had come into my mind an image of the new bypass round Ludlow, the market town in Shropshire. The road was a single-carriageway but fast and open, curving gently in a wide semicircle, with several miles from one roundabout to the next and no side-turnings in between. A perfect setting for an intercept. There was a similar ring-road round Evesham, I knew — and in a way that would be a more appropriate location, since it would fit in with rumours that the prisoner was being moved to Long Lartin — but the country through which it ran was too flat and open, with too many houses in sight. Ludlow presented a wilder and therefore more attractive option.
'This is the place,' I told Tony, indicating the northern end of the bypass. 'If the police block out other vehicles for five minutes before the convoy comes through, the entire system will be empty. We can.ram the prison van off the road anywhere here. Plenty of room to stage a mock battle, grab Farrell, and away.'
'How do we stop him seeing too much?'
'He won't see anything at all. First, we'll do it at night. Second, when we hit the meat wagon, our opening move is to fill the back of it with CS gas.
That'll disable him and the guards as well.'
'How do we get into it?'
'We whack a hole out of the side. Power-saw with a carbon fibre blade.'
'OK.' Tony scribbled in his notebook. 'I'm making a list. We're gonna need CS, a saw, breathing kit for ourselves… What else?'
'Two cars. We'll draw a couple from the training pool at Llangwern — something pretty-fast and beefy.
Some kind of a hefty van for the intercept itself.'
'How many guys on the team?'
'Two drivers, and at least three others: two to handle
Farrell, one spare in case someone gets hurt.'
'How do you pick the team?'
'As I said, I'd like to stick to the Ostrich crowd — if the head-shed will let us. So it's us two, Whinger and Stew. That'll be the core. We need one more really.
Maybe Yorky can spare someone.'
Tony got up and walked around. 'How are we going to control Farrell?'
'Handcuffs. We keep him cuffed to one of us all the time.'
'Two pairs,' said Tony as he wrote. 'Whenever you change his guard, you want him linked to the new guy before the old one lets go. And a chain: when you're hitched to a guy, you need room to manoeuvre.'
'OK,' I agreed. 'Two pairs and a chain. Next thing.
He'll be cuffed to a screw in the van before we get to him. So we need bolt shears as well. And a hood to put on him.'
'And what happens when we've got him?'
'We drive him to a safe house and get in touch with the Pll?i to set up a rendezvous, where we exchange him for the hostages.'
'What safe house?'
'The legiment owns several — holiday cottages, mostly. Some of them belong to former members.
Tucked-away places where a guy can thin out for a while if he has to disappear.'
'Are there any available right now? I mean, it's holiday season. They could all be full.'
'There'll have to be one. We can probably find something in the Welsh mountains.'
'How about bugging Farrell's clothes?'
'He'll be in prison uniform when we get him. So it'll make sense to have a set of civilian clothes for him to change into. We'll get a belt and some shoes doctored up.'
'In that case we need to get his sizes. I'll make a note of that too.'
We tried to plan timings, but it was practically impossible without knowing how the PItLA would react to the news that their man was out of custody — or rather, out of giol. I reckoned we should stage the exchange of prisoners as soon as possible after we'd lifted Farrell, to cut down the chance of him escaping or anything else going wrong. The best scenario I could see was that we'd get our hands on Farrell on Friday night, pass word to the PI1LA immediately, and set up the exchange for Saturday. But that was only our programme. Given the way the terrorists were inclined to piss about, there was no guarantee they would get their act together in time.
'I don't know where they'll propose,' I said. 'They'll assume our lift is going to take place somewhere close to Birmingham. But if they're in London, as we think, they'll probably opt for a handover rendezvous somewhere around the capital.'
'Who are we supposed to be? The other members of the team.' Tony asked.
'Friends of mine. The rest can be former members of the Regiment, but you — well, you're just an American pal, over here on holiday. You'll be a positive help in the deception, because Farrell won't connect an American with the SAS.'
'What'
s my profession, then?'
'Peanut farmer.'
'Thanks, pal. I'll write that down too.'
Tony grinned before going on. 'Our clothes…'
'What about them?'
'Got to be civilian.'
'That's right. And no weapons showing. No covert radios or other specialist gear. Whatever back-up we have has got to be well out of sight.'
After a salad in the sergeants' mess I was back at the CO's office for one o'clock — and from the look of suppressed excitement on his face I could see that we were in business.
'Bit of luck,' he began.
'What's happened?'
'I don't know whether you'd call it lateral thinking or lateral influence or what, but outside events seem to be working to our advantage. This came in from Special Branch this morning.' He picked up a sheet of fax paper and held it off the desk with both hands. At first I thought he was going to give it to me, but it seemed that he preferred to paraphrase its contents. 'Through an intercept, SB have got wind of PItkA plans for a high- level political assassination in London. They believe the target's the Prime Minister himself.'
'Charming!' I muttered. 'They're aiming high.'
'They are. The man SB overheard on the phone was talking about a special weapon they've brought over to do the shoot.'
'Not that rifle they were using in Armagh?'
'The very one. A Barrett Light Fifty — at least, we assume that's what it is. A five-oh, anyway.'
'Jesus! One hell of a weapon. That means they're planning a long-range shoot.'
'Exactly,' the CO agreed. 'That puts the police on the spot. They're organised for close-quarter protection, but they can't occupy every building in line of sight every time the Prime Minister goes somewhere.'
'No.' I thought for a moment, then said, 'What's that got to do with us?'
'Nothing directly.' The CO pushed his chair back.
'Except that SB believes the crowd they overheard are the same lot as the ones holding your people — the West London ASU. The thought is that if Plan Zulu goes ahead, you may get in among them and break up the cell.'
'You mean we can go ahead?' I nearly jumped off my chair.
The Boss gave-me a beady look and nodded his head.
'You want to watch yourself. The Director is not chuffed with you.'
'What's wrong?'
'He's had to spend the morning at an emergency meeting in the COBI, liaising with Downing Street, the Home Office and Scotland Yard. That meant he couldn't clear other things off his desk, and he reckons you've buggered his weekend.'
I thought of the big fat brigadier, huffing and puffing in the Cabinet Office Briefing loom, the underground sanctum in Central London which is activated to deal with major emergencies… but I didn't feel too sorry for him.
'Mind you,' the CO added, 'if you smash the West London ASU I think he'll forgive you. The security forces have been trying to bust the organisation for years, and haven't managed it. They've made a number of arrests, but never got the key players.'
'All right then,' I said thoughtfully. 'What we're going to do is set a fucking great trap, and let the PIRA walk into it.'
When I asked Yorky for someone to replace Norm on the team, he promise.d to have a quick think; but before he came back to me I had an idea of my own. Living in Hereford having recently retired from the Pegiment was a guy called 'Doughnut' Dyson,“ formerly of D Squadron. He'd had a job BG'ing some Arab sheikh, but at the moment he was out of work. I suddenly realised he would be ideal. For one thing, he was older than the rest of us, and looked it; for another, he really was ex-SAS, and if necessary could prove it by talking about his BG work. He'd add credibility to my claim that my team was a private army. Further, Doughnut was a hefty guy, and I foresaw that weight and muscle would come in handy when we were dragging Farrell around.
Doughnut was a larger version of Pat — dark, straight hair, rosy cheeks — powerfully built and into weights, but nippy with it. He was quick-minded too: when I rang him at home to brief him he picked up the situation in a flash. Above all he was cheerful, the sort of guy who fits easily into any team and is a pleasure to have around.
His real name was Eric, but he had once made the mistake of appearing for a rugby trial in a cream- colouredjersey with a red blob in the middle. He never wore the damn thing again, but from that moment he was Doughnut.
He possessed one other minor advantage: whereas the rest of us has short, scrubby haircuts, his was fairly long and had a less military appearance.
A full O-group was called for 1700 that evening. But before the forces of law and order could assemble we had a pile of things to do. My first reaction was to collect the lads and put it to them straight.
As Plan Zulu was my benefit number, none of them was obliged to take part; they were officially on leave after Ostrich, and could duck out if they wanted. The fact that nobody did gave me a big boost. Far from trying to slide off, they all came on-side with so much enthusiasm and emotion that it nearly choked me.
By the time we'd cleared the air on that one, we had three hours left before the O-group. A safe house had been found — Laurel Cottage, near lkuardean in the Forest of Dean, less than half an hour to the southeast of Hereford — so we despatched Whinger m suss the place out. Stew and Doughnut shot off down to the Llangwern Army Training Area over the Welsh border to collect a couple of the intercept cars, while Tony and I hammered away to Ludlow to recce the bypass and pick a spot for out interception.
In the MT Section in camp a dark-blue Ford Transit van, bought second-hand for cash an hour before, was being prepared for use as the ramming vehicle. Half a ton of concrete blocks were wired and bolted to the floor in the back, a heavy bar was welded to the front bumper, and an anti-roll cage fitted inside the cab.
Other people pressed ahead with the logistics of the operation, sorting out food and drink for the cottage, finding out Farrell's sizes from the prison authorities and buying civilian clothes for him, and bugging a couple of pairs of shoes.
Before Tony and I set out, I needed to send a message to the PI1LA, to gear them up for action. 'How do we do this?' I asked Fraser. 'If anything goes through your channels, they'll smell a rat and realise I'm working with you:
'That's right. It's got to be a direct call. Make it from your own number, and if they bother to trace it back they'll be happy. Dial 192 and get the Sinn Fein number in Belfast from Directory Enquiries.'
With Fraser's guidance I composed a cryptic message — but when I got through I was disconcerted to find myself connected to an answerphone. I put my hand over the receiver and whispered as much to Fraser, who indicated that I should talk anyway. So off I went:
'This is Geordie Sharp speaking from Keeper's Cottage, Hereford, at 1400 hours on Thursday the twenty-seventh of May. I have a breakthrough as regards your man. He should be with me by midnight tomorrow, Friday the twenty-eighth of May. If he reaches me safely, I'll contact you again immediately to arrange a mutually convenient rendezvous, location to be proposed by you. Leave a number for quick contact.
Message ends.'
It took us only forty minutes to whip up through Leominster and on along the A49 towards Shrewsbury.
The weather had turned thundery with heavy cloud cover, and on that gloomy afternoon there was little traffic moving. As we passed a sign for Kimbolton to our right Tony said, 'Hey, I know that name! It was a USAF base during World War Two. I'm sure it was…' but he couldn't remember which squadrons had been stationed there.
Heading north, we came on to the Ludlow bypass from the wrong direction, so to speak, and drove straight to the northern end of it before slowing to check things in detail.
'OK,' I said as we hit the northern roundabout. 'The ring-road starts here. Call this Point Alpha.'
Once again Tony was taking notes and making sketches. 'What d'you call this damn thing? A circle?'
'Round about. Don't you have them in the States?'
'We may have, but I don't think I
ever saw one.'
'Point Alpha, anyway. I'm going round it again. That other road leading off is the A4113 to Knighton. Get that? OK… let's time ourselves from here to the next roundabout. I'll take it steady, simulate the prison convoy.'
I headed back south at 40 m.p.h. We went over the old main road on a bridge, then under a smaller one, and reached the second roundabout in two minutes and twenty seconds. 'Point Bravo,' I told Tony. 'Signed Ludlow to the east, the A4117 to the west. I reckon this next link will be the one for us.'
I continued driving slowly, and after a minute or so we came to a stretch where there was a wide verge on the left with a big, gently sloping grass bank behind it.
'Look at this!' I exclaimed. 'Could have been made for it. One minute twenty after Point B. Got that?'
'Sure.'
Through a cufting in the grass bank on our left, a farm or forestry track ran down a shallow ramp to join the road. Clearly it had been built as a concession to the landowner when the new road went through, to give him access to the highway. Changing down into second, I swung left off the tarmac and eased the Cavalier up the track, gravel scrunching under the tyres.
'Hear that?' I said. 'They went so far as to put down hardcore for our benefit. Even if it's raining, the van'll get up here no bother.'
At the back of the bank, out of sight of the road, we found a small turning-area, with a wooden-rail fence and gate bordering a plantation of young oaks: an ideal LUP for the rammer van.
'All we need do now is measure the distance to the centre of the highway,' I said. 'What is it? Sixty metres?'
'Seventy,' Tony suggested. 'I'll step it out.'
'OK. Stand on the edge of the tarmac, and when there's nobody coming, wave me down for a trial run.'
As he strode off down the ramp, taking deliberately long paces, I turned the car and lined it up five metres back from the lip of the bank. Then, at his signal, I started forward, gently at first, to simulate a laden van, then accelerating, before I braked hard and slewed to a halt on the shoulder of the road.