The Network (14 page)

I can’t help asking if he’s comfortable with me taking a bag full of weapons to my home.

‘Just try not to get nicked on your way. I can’t keep them here anyway. Sally would kill me if she knew I had weapons in the house.’ His wife’s aversion to guns seems an incongruous thing in the life of a professional soldier. Perhaps it’s the secret of their apparent happiness.

By degrees my training is moving from the abstract to the very concrete. H is a gentle but thorough taskmaster, who never hurries or raises his voice, nor pushes me too fast with anything I feel unsure about. He shares his knowledge freely and without any trace of pretension. I much prefer his manner and method to the arrogant mystification of Seethrough, who seems to delight in making me feel ignorant.

We walk again the following day, pushing the pace a little harder. It’s overcast but mercifully dry, saving us the discomfort of getting soaked by sweat under our waterproofs. We take the same route to Pen-y-Fan, then leave the summit on the steep eastern side in the direction of the pyramidal face of Cribyn, crossing the valley by the reservoir and climbing onto the broad plateau above. After a further two hours’ walking, a long downward traverse puts us on the road a mile and a half from the car. I run this stretch in considerable pain while H mutters encouragement at my side.

In the afternoon we begin drafting notes for the tasks and routines we need to cover. Then, breaking for tea, H wanders outside and feels the grass on his lawn. It’s dry enough and he has an idea. It’s one thing to be on the right side of a weapon, he says, but finding oneself unexpectedly at the business end is another matter. It’s time to practise disarming techniques.

At the heart of the theory of disarming – jap-slapping, as it’s unofficially called by Regiment men – lies the notion that, if a weapon is pointed close enough to one’s body, it’s possible to knock it aside before the attacker can pull the trigger. It’s difficult to believe at first, so the point of disarming routines is to demonstrate the truth of it. Unless the belief is there, says H, you’re liable to hesitate.

We start with the pistol, using the Browning in the manner of a hold-up. I push the muzzle into the small of H’s back. His hands go up; he shuffles forward and begins to babble as if terrified, then looks at me over his left shoulder. I’ve agreed to pull the trigger at the first moment I sense alarm. I feel his body turn and am about to respond, but within the space of a second I find myself on the ground, looking up at him. His left hand is clenched around the shirt on my chest, which he’s pulled up at the last moment to prevent my head from hitting the ground too hard. His right hand is poised above me, ready to strike. The pistol lies on the grass. I’m shaken, and very impressed.

‘Easy,’ he says, pulling me gently to my feet. ‘Let’s break it down into stages.’

Everything depends on confidence in the key idea that the weapon can be deflected before it can be fired. The rest is more or less common sense, says H. It’s an expression he’s fond of, I notice. There’s an element of stealth – glimpsing but not fixing on the threatening weapon – and distraction – dropping one’s keys or wallet onto the ground at the moment before counter-attacking. The counter-attack comes in the form of a swift turn and, at the same moment, a downward blow to deflect the weapon and open the attacker’s body to further disabling strikes.

‘Better not to launch into it at the first instant,’ says H. ‘That’s when a gunman’s most tense because he’s expecting you to try it on. Choose your moment. Get him talking and his mind off the weapon. Then check the hand it’s in by glancing over your shoulder. Pushing against the weapon is useful too, because when you start to turn it’ll slide off-target. The downward strike is hard and fast. Follow up with an open hand to the chin and a knee in the groin.’

There are more precise methods for seizing a pistol without harming an attacker, he tells me, but they take too long to learn.

‘Forget about Jackie Chan. The aim here is to disarm and disable, not circus tricks. Besides,’ he adds with a solemn look, ‘anyone who puts a weapon on you deserves whatever they get.’

This is the first glimpse I have of the steel beneath the velvet.

We practise being held up from front and back, applying the same principles with slight variations. A pistol to the head, pointed in the manner of an over-zealous gangster, is in fact the easiest of all threats to counter. But no two attacks are exactly the same, says H, and we practise until the moves come without thought. After this, he demonstrates optional refinements such as breaking the attacker’s trigger finger or nose.

Then he goes into the house and returns with the AK. We run through a similar routine, as he explains that a rifle is in fact less risky to deal with than a pistol. The defender can move past the point of danger – the muzzle – and prevent the rifle returning to its target by moving in close and blocking it. The bulky foresight on the muzzle of an AK also makes it ideal to grab, and allows the defender to control the weapon. As the attacker goes down, a few jerks on the barrel is usually enough to break his grip.

‘Once it’s yours, you can decide what you want to do,’ he says.

We try this out from the front a few times, at increasing speeds. H recommends a succession of kicks to the attacker’s knee and sharp pulls on the barrel of the rifle. We move on to the variation from behind. He jabs the muzzle into my back and shouts, ‘Move it!’ and I turn and strike the barrel, feeling the outer side of my palm connect with the foresight. But I hit it too hard, and the skin on the edge of my hand splits open like a banana peel. I finish the move, but there’s blood streaming over our clothes. H shoulders the AK with one hand and squeezes the sides of the cut together.

‘Bad luck,’ he says, ‘but I think you’ve got the hang of it.’ He leads me indoors, still holding the bloody hand, which drips over the kitchen floor. He stretches a few surgical strips across the wound, then binds it up in a bandage.

‘Lucky the memsahib’s away for a few days. She can’t stand the sight of blood.’

Life at home after our sessions together seems quiet. I study the weapons manual, practise stripping the AK, the Makarov and the Browning, and wonder how the Jehovah’s Witnesses might react if I came to the door with an AK at the ready. I perfect the skill of trapping small rodents, because the organisation of night-time ambushes in secondary jungle is not really practical in my garden, with the help of another manual H has lent me called
Operational Techniques Under Special Conditions
. I also force myself to run, and begin to shave seconds off my circuit times, though the margin is proving disappointingly difficult to improve on. My thighs are in fierce protest after the slopes of the Beacons, and running makes my calf muscles hurt all day long. I’m in constant discomfort.

The following week, my training with H follows the same pattern. His wife Sally is away again, visiting family over the weekend, and we have the house to ourselves. We walk and run long circuits in the mornings and go over practical skills in the afternoons. In the evenings we add more detail to the overall plan.

H says we’ll need to practise car drills too.

‘If our opsec is up to scratch, no one who doesn’t need to will ever know what we’re doing. But we have to plan for worst-case scenarios.’ He’s right. It’s not impossible that someone might try to rob us. In Afghanistan there are unofficial checkpoints where we might be held up, or worse. ‘Best way to deal with a bogus VCP is to never get into one,’ says H. ‘Next best is to turn around fast. Last resort is to drive through.’ We agree that driving through vehicle checkpoints isn’t such a great idea because trigger-happy Afghans are inclined to shoot at the occupants, rather than the tyres, of disobedient vehicles, and Afghans tend to be good shots. The problem of banditry has been much reduced by the Taliban, but their Arab allies affiliated with al-Qaeda are known to be cruel and frequently ruthless, and make Afghan bandits seem kindly.

One morning, another week later, he reverses his Range Rover into the centre of the driveway, and we stand by it as he speaks, imagining the scenario of coming under attack on some lonely stretch of Afghan road.

The interior of a vehicle, unless it’s armoured, offers no protection at all, which makes getting out fast a priority. H explains that a high-velocity round has no difficulty going through the body of a car and that the only part of a normal vehicle which can provide cover is either the engine block or the wheels. Since you can’t manoeuvre from behind an engine block, that leaves the wheels.

‘There’s just one problem,’ he says, asking me to lie down behind one of the wheels and imagine that I’m trying to return fire. Between the ground and the underside of the car is a thin strip of space, beyond which the ground obscures everything. The only thing I’ll be able to shoot from this position is our attacker’s toes.

‘You can’t see a bloody thing,’ I say.

‘Exactly.’

At that moment I hear a rapid panting in my ear as H’s terrier runs up and begins feverishly licking my face.

‘Jeffrey!’ hisses H. ‘Get out of it! Fuck off!’ The dog persists, so he leads it back into the house and, apologising, settles down beside me again.

‘If you stick your head up over the wheel, you’ll have a better view.’

That makes sense. Steadying my imaginary weapon over the bonnet of the car, I line up on an enemy sheep in the field beyond.

‘Get the idea?’ H retrieves the AK, puts it on the rear seat, and we get into the car. ‘Most important is to agree who goes where, so we don’t end up on top of each other. Let’s say we’re coming under fire from my side. You go back, I’ll go front. Shall we try it?’

I throw open the door and tumble out, slamming it behind me instinctively just as H is trying to dive out. He blocks it with his hand and peers at me over the edge of the seat with a tolerant look I haven’t seen before.

‘Best not to slam the door in my face. Let’s try again.’

We return to the seats.

‘Last one out gets the AK. Enemy left – go!’

H rolls out of the passenger side and crouches behind the front wheel as I follow, grab the AK out of the back and position myself behind the rear wheel, firing imaginary rounds at our attackers.

‘Better,’ he says.

‘You must feel pretty vulnerable with your head sticking out like that,’ I say.

‘You do,’ he replies. ‘That’s why you don’t want to be there too long.’

We install ourselves back in the car.

‘Now we’ll withdraw under fire.’ He points around the garden. ‘I’ll move to that tree while you give covering fire. When I say, you move along the same path until we’re both behind the rhododendrons. When one of us is moving, the other is firing.’

‘Got it.’

We tumble out again at his signal.
Bang bang bang bang bang!
H runs to the tree. Then I follow as he covers me from the bushes beyond.
Bang bang bang bang bang!
We end up lying beside each other thirty yards from the car.

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘But I probably would have shot you. You ran through my line of fire. Try to keep a sense of where I am.’

Leaving me feeling like a small child, H disappears inside his garage and emerges with two black nylon waist packs.

‘Here,’ he says, handing me one of them, ‘your go bag.’ From the weight of it I know the Browning is inside. We check the weapons, which are unloaded, and put the packs on the bonnet.

‘You’ll usually have something like this on an op,’ he says, unzipping the main pouch of his bag. ‘Medical kit, E & E stuff, money, maps, heli marker for your exfil, and some other bits and pieces – it depends on what you need at the time. We’ll pretend these are ours and keep them under the seats.’

We stash the bags behind our heels and pretend once again to be heading into an ambush. If we’re expecting trouble, the best place for the Browning is on the seat under one’s leg, which saves having to scramble about for it. I copy him as he slides the weapon under his thigh with the butt facing out.

The Brownings are in our hands as we dive out again, then bound in turn across the drive into the garden.

‘Good, but you forgot the bag.’

But I’m learning. We repeat the drill several more times, upping the tempo each time until we’ve covered all the combinations. Speed, aggression and determination are the keys to success, he says. If there are only a few attackers, a concerted counter-attack with a high rate of fire from the AK can turn the tables, but it has to happen quickly.

We break for tea and H starts his ritual note-taking at the kitchen table. We draw up some general notes on security, with a plan to refine them as we go along. He draws a map of the ideas we need to understand. He lists the possible threats we’ll face, and how to defeat or minimise our vulnerability to them. He’s concerned with communications and transport, and getting safely from A to B, and not letting our plans be known to others. The level of detail borders on obsessive, but being methodical is what gives the SAS its reputation.

H talks at length about vehicle security: not choosing taxis which offer themselves, avoiding fixed routes, not getting boxed in when in heavy traffic, how to carry out a quick inspection of a vehicle to see if it’s been tampered with, code words for agreed sites, identifying safe havens to divert to in an emergency, and the need for back-up plans.