First Into Action (42 page)

There was a knock at the door. I opened it. A short, oldish ship’s officer in uniform walked in, more like scurried in, a little out of breath and carrying quite a heavy suitcase. He shut the door behind him quickly.

‘Duncan?’ he said and offered his hand. ‘Jeff. I’m the head security officer.’

I said ‘Hi’ and nothing else, expecting him to be the man who would tell me what this was all about.

He carried the suitcase to the bed and unlocked it.

‘I think there’s everything you need here,’ he said as he opened it.

I looked at the contents. I recognised everything inside. H&K 9mm pistol, shoulder harness, Sat-com, signal flares, torches, climbing harness, spare rounds, batteries and a bullet-proof vest.

‘What is all this?’ I said.

‘You don’t know what that lot is?’ he asked, surprised.

‘No. I know what all that is. What am I doing here?’

‘You don’t know?’ he looked incredulous.

‘I wouldn’t be asking, would I?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s straightforward, really. There are a bunch of important people on board and their wives. They need to travel around the Med, all over the place, as far as Russia, and they’re worried about terrorists. They put in a request to London for protection and here you are.’

He handed me a file from inside the case. ‘It’s all in there. I’ve gotta go, we’re sailing in a few hours. If you need anything, contact me. The captain knows you’re on board but not who you are. No one else on board has any idea about you. You’re a journalist – a guest of the company. Other than that, have a good trip.’

With that he sneaked out of the cabin and left me alone.

I flicked through the orders. I wasn’t going into Iraq or anywhere near the Gulf. I was to stay on board or close by, and in the event the ship came under attack and was taken by terrorists, I was to stay mobile, communicate with the SBS assault team that would move in to retake the ship, and help secure their landing. The reason I was in a top-deck suite was that the Sat-com would not work below decks.

Everyone on board, older couples mostly, were important dignitaries and wealthy businessmen. I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or not. I didn’t mind the thought of leaping about doing a Die Hard on a boat, but I felt the odds of it happening would be slim. I decided to take a wander around the boat.

It was certainly luxurious. I wondered what I was going to do with myself for a couple of months, which was the initial plan for the voyage. I hoped they had a library on board as I had only brought along one book. I went below to check out the gym that was listed on the map of the boat. At least I could get a serious workout every day.

I had a master key for every lock on board, but the gym was open. I opened the door and stepped inside. There was a small pool and a Jacuzzi on one side of the room. I went further in to look at the mirror-walled weights room and stopped in my tracks apologetically. There, in various parts of the room, stretching out or lifting light dumb-bells, were six beautiful girls, members of a dance troupe that were on board to entertain the guests. And I was apparently the only eligible male guest on board.

If at this stage the reader is feeling somewhat sceptical about this story, sorry to disappoint you, but it’s true. I had to sit down in my suite and smile as it sunk in, too. And it gets worse.

That evening, as the yacht cruised out of the Lido, past the bobbing gondolas, I stood on deck in the warm air wearing my tuxedo. Under my jacket rested my 9mm in its holster, and in my hand I held a slender glass of champagne. I had no illusions of being ‘Bond’. But after so many years of hardship operations, which, don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed, even more so as memories, I was finally fulfilling the image of what many fantasise the job to be. I accepted it as a well-earned reward. I had arrived.

During the Gulf War, while the lads were up to their necks in sand, and frustratingly so for the most part, I could be found dining in Istanbul, watching a ballet in Odessa in my Armani suit (holstered gun hidden underneath, of course), or riding a camel to watch the sun rise over the Sphinx in Cairo (and yes, with a couple of the dancers in tow and a bottle of champagne just to rub it in). The phrase ‘Oh, what a lovely war’ sprung to mind. But someone had to do it.

The Gulf War was not all that it was hoped to be for special forces, which is why it was not such a personal disappointment to miss in the end. It was the Americans’ war, and that meant a greater share of the work was done by technology. Military targets that once required a man to get close to them, photograph and describe them in detail prior to being attacked can now be reconnoitred by satellite or long-range radar, optical and listening devices. Where special forces were once needed to move in and plant explosives on that target far behind enemy lines, weapons can now be programmed to travel the distance and strike it. Special forces are generally only needed where technology alone cannot succeed.

This was the reason behind the first special forces mission of the Gulf War inside Iraq, and the SBS, above all others, were chosen by the Americans to execute it.

The American high command was originally reluctant to use any special forces in Iraq during the Gulf War apart from to assist smart-bombs on to their targets using laser guidance systems – the smart-bombs were not quite as smart as the media reported. This reluctance was probably based on the very poor combat record in recent decades of American special forces. Tehran was the most publicised abortion, Grenada goes down in history as one of the worst-planned military conflicts in modern times, and Panama and Somalia were chequered with screw-ups. The US Navy SEALs, for instance, the US’s primary special forces unit and the most heavily funded, and some ten times the size of the SBS, had only one operative allowed to set foot inside Iraq during the entire war, and that was as a guest of the SBS during their first mission, and only then because he happened to have been attached to the SBS prior to the outbreak of war.

To argue the American side, their special forces have seen little action since Vietnam. Special forces need a certain amount of exposure to ‘live’ activity to maintain the high standards required of them and the Americans have not had the opportunities that we have had. The British have been fighting somewhere in the world every day for the last 500 years or more, with just a couple of days’ break after the Suez crisis.

Another factor for American special forces’ inactivity is the American government’s reluctance to send them abroad, having suffered politically over the last few decades due to the notoriety of its clandestine operations. The American people are also highly vocal when it comes to losing even a single American soldier on foreign soil. America now has a very strict nonintervention rule. These factors irritate most American special forces operatives who, like all of us, joined up to be professional soldiers. The SEALs number one team do little more than bodyguard duties these days, but at least they get decorated for it. Excuse the little dig, lads.

The target for the first special forces operation ofthe Gulf War was a high-tech fibre-optic communications system that spanned the length of Iraq and was buried underground. American intelligence discovered that the system linked the Scud missile units and helped coordinate Iraqi attacks on Israel. The cable was also supported by microwave links to fill the gaps in any breaks in the flow of important data. The system could be disabled if certain sections of it were destroyed. The Air Force had made several attempts to destroy the buried cable with bombs, but every mission had failed. This operation is an example of men having to be used where technology fails.

The original plan was to send in teams that would destroy these links over a number of days, but there was an increase in political pressure to neutralise the Scud threat right away and so a team was hastily put together and sent out at the first opportunity.

The total flight-time there and back was estimated at five hours and therefore, taking into consideration the hours of darkness, fuel and load capacities, the team had less than two hours on target to locate and destroy the cables. This was not a lot of time. Satellite photographs revealed that the cable ran parallel to an oil pipeline and its service road, but its precise distance from these landmarks and depth below ground was unknown. It was going to have to be found before it could be blown up, and that was going to take as much luck as effort.

Another factor was the high possibility of attack from any of a number of mobile enemy troop concentrations in the immediate area. Reconnaissance flights a few days before had indicated that the cable was constantly patrolled. It was decided that the Chinooks were to remain on the ground within sight of the teams, their rotors disengaged but engines running so that the men could bug out in the event of an enemy assault.

The operation was carried out by twenty-seven heavily armed SBS operatives (and one US Navy SEAL guest). They left under cover of darkness in two Chinook CH47 helicopters from a forward base a hundred miles south of the Iraqi border. They flew a tight, pre-planned, zig-zag route to avoid enemy radar and anti-aircraft missiles for a distance of nearly 300 miles to a point just thirty miles south of Baghdad. This was a particularly hazardous flight because the radar and anti-aircraft missile sites were mobile and constantly changing their positions.

The choppers flew fifty feet above the ground for most of the journey and when they arrived they touched down within 200 metres of the pipeline. When the rear ramps of the Chinooks opened, the SBS stormed out and spread to their pre-planned positions. Most of the men were deployed to form a circle to protect the target area from assault while the rest hurried to the pipeline carrying shovels, electric cable locators and, of course, explosives. The ground was flat and featureless and no Iraqi troops were in the immediate area at the time. The flank parties dug in heavy machine-guns, lightweight mortars, rocket-launchers and grenade-launchers. If the Iraqis did arrive, they would get a warm welcome for at least the first few minutes, after which ammunition would run low and the teams would have to get out before the enemy recovered and counter-attacked.

After a quick recce, the demolition team chose a spot and started digging into the sand. Within thirty minutes they found a cable. But after an inspection it was discovered not to be the fibre-optic they were after. Time was moving on and there were already fears that this somewhat hit-and-miss operation might be a tough nut to crack, mainly because it was dependent more on luck than judgement. The SBS have a long, unbroken string of successes to their name and they did not want to start off this war with a miss.

A few miles away American B52s bombed a couple of Iraqi troop locations, which the Iraqis answered with anti-aircraft batteries. The bombing was part of a diversionary attack to keep the Iraqis occupied, and it was working like a charm.

The men started another hole, but again, after many precious minutes of digging, it was a false call. Yet another hole was dug, but after an hour and a quarter on the ground the cable had not been found. With only forty-five minutes left, there was a distinct feeling of concern for the success of the operation.

The pilots were also growing anxious: sitting inside their gently throbbing cockpits waiting to lift off at a moment’s notice was probably more difficult than having things to do. But they waited patiently while the surrounding defensive positions kept their vigil.

Yet another hole was dug. This one also revealed nothing – the time was ticking away to barely minutes left. A decision had to be made.

The team leader studied the pattern of holes and knew that one of them was within feet of the optic cable. With a minute to go, he decided.

‘Fuck it. Shove all the explosives in this hole. We’ll make it big enough to lose a truck in.’

The team placed all 500 pounds of high explosive into the hole then shovelled the sand back in to act as a tamp and direct the force of the blast further down and to the sides. The formula for this particular type of charge is known as ‘P’, for plenty.

They were ready to go. The time delays on the charge were initiated and the flank protection teams were ordered back into the choppers. The rotors were engaged and the explosives team ran on board, the last man on being the team leader. His last thought as the ramp of the Chinook came up was, had he chosen the right hole?

The two Chinooks lifted off and turned back towards the border. A few minutes into the air they heard a heavy boom behind them as the charge went off.

They flew their zig-zag route back to the border and arrived at the forward base unmolested. The choppers touched down and the teams walked off. Everyone was wondering the same thing. As they walked off the helipad the team leader was met by the operations officer.

‘Well done,’ he said calmly. ‘The cable was cut.’

Because of the success of the SBS operation, General Schwarzkopf regained some of his confidence in special forces.

The rest of the war was disappointing for the SBS in general. The squadrons worked ceaselessly preparing many possible operations, few of which came to fruition, most being cancelled at the last moment for one reason or another. The SAS would have had an equally uneventful time had they not gone off chasing mobile Scud missile sites, another problem technology could not yet solve. Finding a mobile site through the camera of a satellite is like looking for a penny on a football pitch through a straw – you have to know where to point the straw within a few inches before you can hope to find the penny. The SBS might well have sent out its own patrols in search of the Scuds, which again was a more political than tactical move to keep the Israelis happy, but the SAS were up to their old tricks again back in special forces HQ in Riyadh. They successfully blocked all attempts by the SBS to get involved in that department. So much for the combined special forces concept. In retrospect, missing out on chasing Scuds was not such a bad thing as the missions mostly turned out to be either fruitless or suicidal. At any one time during the war the SAS had at least twenty-two men on the ground, and out of communication with their HQ, who had to be considered missing in action. Considering the relative size of the conflict, and what little there was to do for the strength of force the allies had put against the Iraqis, this seemed amateurish. The SAS were acting like a bunch of soccer hooligans leaping all over the desert looking for someone to bash and getting lost in the process.