and plenty of public  transport  and public facilities. People keep
themselves to themselves, and as long as the way you look and behave doesn't
attract attention, you can move around freely. A place like Beirut, however,
with  strong family  networks, local  loyalties, or a  repressive  political
regime, will be much harder to move about in-and movement is important: It's
easier not to be asked questions if you're not standing still.
     Simon, the Int Corps fellow,  spoke fluent Arabic and had spent most of
his working life in the Middle East, including a  long tour  with the Sultan
of Oman's forces  as an Int collater  and a spell  in Beirut itself when the
Brits supplied people to the UN forces. Now a warrant  officer,  he had been
with the Regiment for many years.
     He said, "I'll warn you of something now.  It's such a fucking maze and
there's  so  many different factions running around  that  if you're in  the
shit-if  the operation  goes  wrong and you're not killed and survive-I  can
promise you you'll land up best mates with Terry Waite.
     The sooner you're  in,  and  the sooner  you're  out,  the  better."  I
wondered what would happen if I did become a hostage. I knew that I'd have a
hard time initially, getting filled in, but after that I'd land up sharing a
piss-pot  with old Tel. At  that stage I didn't  really  worry about it; the
moment I knew  the exact location we were going to hit,  I  would make it my
business to learn by heart the locations of all the embassies and consulates
and  the location of the  American University of  Beirut  and the main areas
where all the reporters lived.
     But, I told myself-and it was a big but-there was no way I was going to
get captured. I had a big gun, loads of rounds, and it would all be over and
done with  in a quarter of  an hour. No fucker was going to stop me  getting
back on the heli.
     James sparked up and said, "When do we get over to Beirut then and have
a look?"
     "That's being organized now with the embassies. The  boys over there at
the moment will rig  it  all  up and orientate you quickly. The helicopter's
going to be  doing  some  more practice  runs in the next couple of days. As
soon as that happens, we'll get you on board and off you go.
     "The people in the embassies  are trying to organize some tennis courts
as  an LS. A  friendly power wants to pull its embassy staff out of the area
as a cost-saving measure, but politically they can't be seen to withdraw.
     By their  letting us use their  embassy gardens and  tennis courts as a
helicopter landing site, we're getting  two  birds killed with one stone. We
secure  a method of infil and exfil, and  as  part of the bargain we'll pick
all their people up and bring them back with us.
     They could then say that they'd  had to withdraw  because they'd helped
the Brits.
     "We  can  get  some  helis  in  there easily and  quickly,  which  will
obviously make it easier to  get into the center  of the city.  Or we  might
have to go in covertly; 'we don't really know yet."
     Sean stood up and  said, "If you G Squadron  lads want  to bin it then,
see you!"
     He then started to give the rest of us a brief.  "What we're looking at
just  now are three  main  options. Once  intelligence  comes  in  and  it's
confirmed  where  they are-assuming that  they are  alive-we'll then get the
okay to go. Depending on where it is and the numbers required, we might have
to call in the standby squadron.
     However, that's where you come into it: You're here, and you've got the
continuity, so you'll be able to take them in.
     "At the moment we're looking at going straight in and doing a big crash
and bang. Pumas or Chinooks, depending on where the  target is and  where we
can  get  the  aircraft  in,  then  straight in  and take it  out, grab  the
hostages,  into the  aircraft and back over. The most important part of that
for you is not so  much getting in and getting them, because I know you  can
square that away,  it's if they're in shit state or  if  they're wounded and
need to be sorted out on the aircraft. We've got some major trauma care gear
to go on the aircraft.
     You'll  be taking the medic packs on target  as  well because we  don't
have a clue what  state they'll be in.  You might  have to  bung them  on  a
stretcher.
     "There's a problem with refueling. We're just trying to work it out. We
hope we can get in with the Chinook because they've got internal  fuel tanks
on board. If it's Pumas,  we  might  have to  refuel in Beirut,  but  again,
that's  being  organized  at  the  moment.  Another possibility is that  the
Americans will refuel us at sea.
     "So   that's   the  first  and  most  ideal  option-a  straightforward,
hard-hitting, quick attack: Get in there,  get  them, and get out. But until
we know where they are, it's one for the back burner.
     "The next option is again to  go in by heli. There's  normal helicopter
traffic going in and out, so no problem there-landing and moving covertly in
vehicles.
     "The way we're  looking  at  it at the moment is that the boys  already
there  will get us on target;  we  don't even have . e to  know where  we're
going. It would be a green option [in normal army uniform]. The vans stop at
the target; we go straight in and do it.
     Then back in the vans and go for it back to the nearest safety area and
organize the helis to get us out. At the moment that's not our problem; that
doesn't  interest us. All  we want to know is where the target is so we  can
hit it and get these people out.
     "The last option is a covert entry and covert exfil.
     How we'd do that  I don't know:  whether  we  go over  by boat  and get
picked up by the boys from the embassy, I just don't know."
     James  said,  "There's   nothing  I  like  more  than  taking  over   a
well-organized job. Good one, G Squadron!"
     "Well, that's all we  know," Sean said. "The one and only thing  we  do
know for sure is  that we've  been sent here. There might or might not  be a
job on in  Beirut, but if there  is, it's to rescue the hostages. You four,"
he said,  pointing to  us,  "get your weapons, go down the range, and rezero
and  check them out. I then want you to see Tony; he'll show you the four  G
Squadron blokes who are leaving, and  they'll start handing over the medical
kit and HE."
     Still in jeans and trainers, we drove down to the range. We zeroed G3s,
.203s,  MP5s and  tested all the magazines. Everybody was  fairly nonchalant
and bored.
     We knew our weapons were zeroed, but we had to check them.
     We cleaned the  weapons and  went  over to G Squadron for the equipment
handover. We 'Checked all  the  hemocell, all  the giving  sets, the fold-up
nylon stretchers, first field  dressings,  oxygen sets. We  also  had little
miner's lights  to  wear around our heads for  working on somebody at night,
and  inflatable antishock trousers,  an excellent bit of American kit, which
are wrapped around the lower body and then pumped up to  restrict the  flood
of  blood and  keep fluids in the top  half  of the body; the  basic  aim of
trauma  management is  to  stop  the loss  of blood and replace  fluids, and
that'll keep them alive. If we can keep them screaming, they're breathing.
     The blokes  from G Squadron  were well pleased  to be off. Later in the
day,  as they boarded  the aircraft,  they thought they'd got away with  not
giving their Ray - Bans over. But  Sean appeared from nowhere and said, "And
don't forget the glasses; they're squadron property."
     For the next couple of days we were hanging around again. If we weren't
eating, we were going for a run around the compound, and if we weren't doing
that, we were training. We had to practice all the different options because
we  still  didn't know how  we were going to get in, and  at that  stage  we
didn't even know exactly where the hostages were being held or the layout of
the buildings.
     Everything  was  getting in motion. All  we  had to do  was jump in the
aircraft and go in and do the option that had been decided on. The objective
never changed; that had to be to  drag  them out of there  as  quickly as we
could and get away. We  had no idea of the condition they  were going  to be
in. They might need stabilizing; they  might be in shit state; they might be
drugged;  they might  be totally exhausted and incapable of moving. So  we'd
have to take the lotyen  down to bolt cutters so we could cut them away from
whatever they were chained to.
     We had computer-enhanced pictures of what they might look like now-with
beards,  without  beards,  having  lost  weight, lost  some  hair, some with
graying hair, some with scarred faces or wearing glasses.
     We would  be going into a  hostile environment quickly, so it very much
had to be a matter of speed, aggression, and surprise. By the time they were
starting to react, we'd be gone.  For ten minutes of work, it might take ten
weeks of  preparation  to get  it  right.  We were  practicing,  practicing,
practicing, but as soon as we got the okay, we would be ready to go.
     We  practiced  going in by  helicopter, then moving  into  vehicles and
dropping  off at different points around the  location and all walking in at
the same time. We'd done  it plenty of times  over the water; everybody just
casually walks in and bang! It then goes overt as soon as everybody's in the
area. You're banging and crashing,.you're getting through to the target, and
there's either vehicles or a helicopter coming in to get you out.
     We  also practiced  going  in  by  boat.  We'd  meet  somebody  at  the
beachhead, who would then put us in vehicles and drive us off to the target.
At the same time a helicopter would be holding off; as soon as we went bang,
crash, the helis would come in; they would either lift us direct or get into
the embassy and wait for us to arrive by vehicle.
     Another version we tried was for the heli to go straight in.
     People already on the ground would have marked the area. We'd fast-rope
down, take  the building  out, and while that was happening, the heli either
still airborne, waiting, or it goes and sets down.
     The  people on the ground covered the helicopter,  and that became part
of the exfiltration.
     Eventually it looked as though  it was going to be a  helicopter  going
into the embassy; from there we would sort ourselves and go in  on target by
vehicle. We'd get in there, get McCarthy, Waite, and anybody else who wanted
a free ticket out of town, and come back in vehicles to the embassy. As soon
as the first heli lifted off, there would be another one  holding up to come
in. The priority would be  to get the hostages out  on  the first heli, with
any other civilian personnel that were there.
     The assaulters would get on the last helicopter.
     It  looked as if we  were  going to go in on a  green option  with body
armor, and then over that we'd have coat for the covert infil. We were going
to drive up to the building and do an explosive entry. We'd need information
on the doors; we  didn't know what was on the other side. We didn't  want to
start killing the people we were supposed to be saving. The charges for that
were all made up. We were going to drive along  three  different routes, and
everybody would have personal comms, on one frequency.
     Then  it was a question-as so often-Of hurry up and wait, and check and
test, check and test-and yet another six hours of Basil, Sybil, and Manuel.
     Finally  we  were told by Sean, "Okay, they're going in tomorrow night;
the pilot's going to practice  going in on NVGs. So if you want  to go along
for the ride, away you go. You've got to go in uniform, no weapons. Carry an
ID card with you, and ID tags."
     All four of us met the aircrew near the Puma.
     "How's it going?" I said.
     "Boring  as  usual," was the reply.  "These  luxury hotels all look the
same to me."
     "Fuck you."
     "Right, we'll go in about three-quarters of an hour.
     Basically all we're  trying to do is practice going in on  NVGs  and do
some time checks. We'll land on a new LS."
     They were  in flying suits and  life jackets,  pens  and  bits of paper
dangling off all over them. We put on life jackets and sat in the back.
     The flight was uneventful. There was nothing to see as we flew over the
Mediterranean. Then, as  we approached  Beirut, I craned my neck to look out
of  the window.  Disappointingly it  looked like any other Middle East city.
There were lights in houses, car headlights  carving  their way through dark
areas. What we couldn't see with the naked eye was the infrared flash of the
Firefly equipment that was guiding the pilot into the middle of the city.
     I heard the rotors slowing down, and we lost height.
     Minutes  later we  were on  the ground; the rotors  kept turning as the
loadie opened the door and  two blokes from G Squadron came  running  toward
us.  Their job  was  to  be  liaison and  mark the LS  for  us and bring the
aircraft in. The loadie waved for two other boys to come forward. They, too,
were G Squadron, and what they were after  was the mailbag we were carrying.
They grabbed it and ran  hunched double into the darkness. I saw a vehicle's
headlights go on and watched it drive off. At almost the same time the  heli
lifted; we did a big circuit and flew on to our refuel point.
     I turned to James and said, "Er, so that was us in Beirut then?"
     "Never mind," he said, "at least we know the flying times."
     Everybody slagged us off the next morning about our big sortie.
     "How was Terry then? Any messages for the archbishop?"
     There  was a cross  section of people  who  were feeling sorry for  the
hostages and those who simply didn't care.
     "What  the  fuck was Waite doing  there anyway? He didn't have to  be a
brain surgeon to know that he was going to get caught."
     Then, at about four o'clock one morning, one of the scaleys on  stag on
the radio net came screaming in. He threw  all  the lights  on  and shouted,
'We've got a standby! It's on! They want you in the briefing room now!"
     Good news!
     We  pulled some  kit  on and ran down to  the briefing room. Simon  was
there   to   greet  us  with   the  words  "It's  on:  we're  going  in   at
oh-eight-hundred."
     He  was standing there in running  shorts,  flip-flops, and a big baggy
T-shirt, and his glasses were on wonky from all the rushing around. "They've
got the location.
     We're just waiting for it to be confirmed. It's coming to us now."
     Sean stood up and said, "Everybody,  listen  in. What we're going to do
is a smash and  grab. The aircrew are coming in now.  As soon as we know the
location, we'll have a look at it. No time to fuck around.
     If we can get on target in the  helis, we're just going  to go straight
in.
     "I want to  go through the  rules of engagement before we start. Do not
shoot at anybody unless he's firing at you or putting someone else's life in
danger. I repeat,  do not shoot unless there's somebody putting your life or
someone else's  life  in danger. We  don't want the fucking OK  Corral  down
there, all  right? just get in there, get it done, and get on the  aircraft.
The mission is to get the hostages.  As soon as we know the location,  we're
going to run through a quick set of orders.
     We've been told it must be done today. Okay, sort yourselves out.
     It'll be a green option."
     There  wasn't an air of excitement or tension. After  so  many weeks of
practice we just wanted to get it done. I put on my green DPM and  smock and
the  lightweight boots  I  used on the  team. We  wouldn't  be tabbing great
distances;  we  were only going to  be on the ground for maybe half an hour.
Over my  smock I put my chest harness with ten magazines of 7.62. I took the
G3 with a folding stock because it had more firepower than anything else. In
a  bag I took an MP5. If things changed while we were  in the  air, I had to
make sure I'd catered for it.
     On  my back I had a small day sack  containing. two liters of  hemocell
plasma replacement and four giving sets. The rest was  packed out with field
dressings and a nylon fold-up stretcher.
     Around my  neck I had my  dog  tags and my ID card, through which I had
burned a small hole  and put some string, and two Syrettes  of morphine. The
drugs  were unlikely to be  used; it's not good to  use morphine for gunshot
wounds to the chest,  stomach, or  head.  In any event,  we should  be  back
drinking tea and ordering our duty-frees before it was needed.
     We came back over to the briefing room.
     "Still waiting," Sean said.
     By now all  the air crews had arrived and  I could hear rotors turning.
The air crews came  in, flying  suits, pistols tucked in their harness, maps
and chinographs and bits of paper and radios all over them.
     We sat  there.  After ten minutes somebody said,  "Let's get  a  cup of
tea."
     Sean  said, "Yep, fuck off. But the only places I want You to be are in
the cookhouse, the living accommodation, or here."
     The scaleys said, "Let's sort out these radios  while we're waiting for
the brief."
     We checked  that our radios between us and the helicopter were working.
The helicopter would be  relaying everything. On  the  ground we'd only need
comms between us personally, working one to one with an earpiece.
     We sat there and waited, cups  of tea in hand. It was now  six o'clock.
The start time was eight o'clock. Sean let us  go to the cookhouse. A couple
of  people  wandered back to the living  accommodation, had  a wash, brushed
their teeth.
     Then what we got from Sean was: "Bin it. It's canceled."
     Oh, for fuck's sake. So near and yet so far.
     We kept all the kit in the o.ps room, went for a run, watched more -tv,
read the newspapers.  Later that afternoon we went for another  briefing. We
were told, "It's finished. It's binnedWe don't know why, so don't ask."
     We packed all our  own kit and handed the other stuff in to the stores.
We had two days off, so the most  important thing,  now that the weather was
hotter, was getting the wagons and having a couple of days on the beach.
     At  the end of the day we weren't that particularly fussed about it. It
was just another job that we'd got pretty bored practicing for.
     Soon  afterward  and  article  appeared  in  the  Times,  accusing  the
government of "squandering chances" to rescue the hostages. A Foreign Office
spokesman was  quoted  as  saying,  "We have vigorously followed up the many
approaches which have been made  to us.  All  of these have, sadly, run into
sand for a variety of reasons."
     Oh,  well, we never  found  out  what the sand was, but  at  least we'd
tried-and got a nice tan.
     The lecture room  in Hereford  was full as Bert from Int Corps  gave  B
Squadron the background.
     "As you are  aware, the Regiment has been involved in many antinarcotic
measures. We have worked with a  number of American drug  agencies,  such as
the  D.E.A,  whose personnel have visited Hereford on a number of occasions.
Members of the Regiment have also assisted the U.S Coast Guard with antidrug
patrols.
     On the  domestic front, the Regiment has been  involved in drug-busting
operations in London, mainly to stop PIRA's fund-raising drug operations.
     "The  main market for narcotics is still  the United States, but Europe
is catching up fast; the inner cities have become major distribution points,
and it's feared there could be a major epidemic.
     Now it has been decided at the highest  levels that several UK agencies
will join in the fight, and you are one of them.
     "So, gentlemen"-Bert  pulled  down a roller  map of  Central  and South
America and jabbed at a specific  region-"I give you a theater of operations
that is  so  secret  that  anyone heard discussing it-even  in camp will  be
R.T.U'D on the spot." Then,  allowing himself a  brief tongue-in-cheek grin,
he said, "So to get you into the habit straightaway, even I am only going to
refer to this place as a certain Latin American country."
     His face  serious once more, he went on. "This is not going to be easy.
Our certain Latin American country' is one of the most violent in the world,
apart  from those physically  at war. There  were more  than twenty thousand
murders last year-at least three  thousand  drugrelated killings in one town
alone. In fact  these  days a local male  between  the ages  of eighteen and
sixty is more likely to be murdered than to die of any other cause.
     "The Latin  American drug  trade has  developed  from a  small  cottage
industry in the  early seventies into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, with
its own distribution  network and armies of narcoguerrillas to make sure  it
stays  that  way.  The  chief  villains  of  the  piece   are  the  cartels,
associations of  drug producers and smugglers who have combined to divvy  up
the market and intimidate the authorities. Their vast profits  have  brought
them power; they've killed politicians, judges, and senior army officers-and
got  away with  it. Measures have been  taken,  but it's  like pushing water
uphill.
     "All efforts must be made to fight the drug trade in its  own backyard.
If we  can  hit them at  source and slow down the growth and  production, we
will then see the effect back in the UK."
     Bert distributed photocopies of an intelligence report that showed that
according  to  the  U.S  State  Department, three Latin  American  countries
between them produced enough coca leaves in 1988 to yield  360 tons of  pure
cocaine. At fourteen  thousand  dollars for a  kilo at  onethird purity, the
suppliers' income  would be fifteen billion  dollars from cocaine  alone-and
that  took  no  account  of  the massive  quantities of marijuana grown  and
processed. However,  since  the  cartels  also  controlled  distribution and
retail  sales, their profits were, in fact, much  higher-an estimated margin
of 12,000 percent from production cost to' street value.
     "To look  just at  cocaine  for  a moment,"  Bert said,  "it  takes two
hundred kilos of leaves  to produce one kilo of paste. The leaves have to be
converted  into coca paste  in their  country of  origin because  the  sheer
volume and weight of leaves make it impossible to move them very far.
     The plantations  were  scattered in  the  valleys,  with  thousands  of
collection points at which the leaves were rendered down. The coca paste was
then taken to one of thousands of small dirt airstrips hidden in the jungle,
and from there to  drug  manufacturing  plants to  be  converted  first into
cocaine base (it took 2.5 kilos of paste to produce 1 kilo of base) and then
into cocaine  hydrochloride-pure cocaine. IMTo run the drug production line,
the cartels  had ' ported skilled  technicians, many of whom were Europeans,
as well  as  specialized  equipment  and  supplies. They  also  handled  the
smuggling operation and had even set up  their  own distribution networks in
America and Europe.
     Bert said, "In the last two years the number of addicts in New York has
trebled  from  one  hundred eighty-two thousand to six hundred  thousand-and
that's without the up-and-coming generation of heroin users. just looking at
one of the problems  that  we've  got-cocaine-the size  of  the  job can  be
measured by a recent seizure: In September police  in Los  Angeles impounded
the largest single-consignment ever discovered, over twenty tons.
     Its  value was about two billion dollars wholesale, yet the seizure had
no effect on price. In other words, supply still exceeded demand.
     "Our  'certain  Latin  American  country'  is  itself  not a  fantastic
producer.  However,  rather  than  try  to  convince  other  governments  to
defoliate millions of acres of marijuana and  coca, it makes sense to attack
further down the chain, at the drug manufacturing plants.
     "We don't want that sort of problem to happen in the UK. We need to hit
the problem at  source. It is a proactive strike, a first strike;  if we are
successful in our task, we will cut down the stream of drugs into t'he UK."
     G Squadron  had been the first to deploy. I didn't mind going in  after
them a  few  months later.  In many  ways  it was better to  take over  from
somebody else; they'd have had all the cock-ups and found out all the little
bits and pieces that we needed to know, and squared them all away.
     B  Squadron started  to  plan and prepare for the  takeover. The  first
priority  was  to learn the language  to a passable standard,  as  it  would
obviously make our job i easier if we could communicate directly with people
rather than have  to go through a third  party; what is said can  be wrongly
understood by the interpreter, and his translation can't be confirmed.
     I  seemed  to  live  in  the  language  lab. All  around  me  blokes in
headphones were shouting, "Fuck it!" in  frustration and either storming off
for i brew or binning it for the day. Personally I used to go for a run when
the grammar got too much for me.  I  wasn't that fussed ah .  out getting it
exactly right.  I  just wanted  to get to grips  with  the  verbs.  When I'd
learned Swahili, I'd found that if I got hold of those,  I could work around
everything  else. Spanish is in fact  not that hard  to learn; within a  few
weeks I could hold my own in any conversation about the price of tomatoes or
the time of the next train.
     Some  of  the blokes picked  it  up  really well,  and one  of them  in
particular even appeared to have the accent down  to  a T. I thought, great,
if  ever we get time off, I'll stay near him. I changed my mind when I heard
him trying to chat up a Spanish all pair in the town one day.
     "Hello, love," he said. "At what time this evening do you terminate?"
     We were also doing  all the normal planning and  preparing that we'd do
for any operation,  as well  as  making sure  the weapons were okay  and the
equipment was sorted  out. Bert gave us detailed in-country briefs, teaching
us more about the main players.
     The Int  people dragged  in all the local  newspapers  and weekly  news
magazines.  A couple of the blokes had Spanish wives, and they came  in  and
chatted to us. It was  all part of  the  process of  getting tuned in to the
country, which we took seriously-so much so there was  a strong  rumor going
around at one stage that the boys in B Squadron were taking lambada  lessons
at Bartestree Village Hall. It all went back to the way people looked at the
squadrons, and B Squadron was definitely seen as the yee-hah party squadron.
     Some of G Squadron were going to come back with us to ensure continuity
in the task. They started  briefing us, confirming  what we  had been taught
but also giving their version of what had gone on  and suggestions as to how
we could make things better next time around.
     Our job was  going to be in two  phases.  First, we were  going to grab
hold of the paramilitary police and  assess their standard of training. Then
we would start training them from that baseline, taking them through all the
basic skills  that were going to be required, such as aggressive patrolling,
OPs,  and close target  recces. The object was to show them how to find  the
DMP (drug manufacturing plant),  then stay in close proximity and  send back
the information. It wouldn't be an easy task.
     "A  lot  of  DMPs  are  deep  hides in the jungle,"  said  Tony from  G
Squadron. "Fantastic setups,  well guarded  and  well  alarmed. They have  a
system of tunnels and escape routes for leaving the plant in the event of an
attack. By  the time they hear the aircraft bringing in a heliborne assault,
they'll be  away-down  the  tunnels, into other hides, or along  the  escape
routes."
     We  were  going  to  enter  Bert's  "certain  Latin  American  country"
covertly, not exactly sneaking in like spies, but  the Regiment's experience
was that if a trip was unannounced, there was less to go wrong.
     The first leg was by C130 to St. John's, Newfoundland, for an overnight
stop. The interior of a Hercules is  spartan,  not much  more  than rows  of
nylon seats  an'd luggage  racks, and this  one  was  also bulked  out  with
equipment. I tied  my hammock  to the aircraft frame and climbed  in with my
Walkman and a book. By the  time we all had our hammocks up the interior  of
the  aircraft looked  like a  nest  of  hanging  grubs  waiting to grow into
something nice.  Slaphead  nabbed  the prime spot  near the  tailgate, where
there was plenty of  room for a hammock and all your gear;  the only problem
was the proximity of the toilet, a curtained-off oil drum full of chemicals.
The stench was grim.
     We  stepped off the aircraft  in summer  clothes to  find  that it  was
winter in St. John's. We made our way to  the hotel in temperatures of minus
twenty.
     "We've got to go out on the town," said Slaphead, get a few bevies down
us."
     During the mad dash from the hotel into  the town Slaphead's dome froze
over and I grew ice on  my mustache. By  the time  we  reached  the drinking
district everybody was purple.
     Slaphead strode  up to  the bar,  ran his eye along the optics  of sour
mash whisky, and said, "Hot chocolate, please."
     The following  morning we took off again, finally reaching the military
airfield in  darkness. We  flew  in with the aircraft  unlit and the crew on
PNG.  As we landed and were taxiing along the runway,  I saw the silhouettes
of  twenty  or  thirty  aircraft  parked  up  on  the  grass:  small   jets,
twin-engine, an old Junkers 88, a couple of Dakotas.
     "Some of the aircraft  that've been confiscated from the  drugs  boys,"
said Tony. "Now they're just sitting there, rotting."
     Despite Bert's briefing sessions,  we'd all had  visions of being  in a
nice warm place-balmy  South American climate and  all that. In fact  it lay
high up on the  plain and was anything but  tropical. As we stepped from the
aircraft  into a  freezing  cold night, B Squadron's O.C and the SM, who had
gone  out the week before  with the  light HQ  group, were  there  shivering
inside their Gucci leather coats.
     Vehicles were there to  collect half the squadron and our equipment and
take  us  to  the  camp. "It's about twenty minutes  from  here,"  said  the
sergeant major. "If there's no traffic."
     "And if there is traffic?" asked Slaphead.
     "Three hours."
     There was traffic. Even so, we were the lucky ones.
     The other half  of B Squadron was  going  elsewhere, and that  was four
hours away-"when there is no traffic."
     We arrived at first light at the police camp where we'd be  staying. As
we came up the drive,. it looked quite a pleasant site.
     The  paramilitaries' camp looked  well maintained and very  clean, with
large, long buildings that were old but  in good repair. Then we turned left
and landed up in  a stinking old hut the size  of an  average sitting  room.
There were bunk beds and a table, and shower room off to one side. There was
no storage space. It felt like we were living in a submarine.
     "We've had to use the shower as a storeroom," I honked to Gar.
     "Just as well," he said. "There's no water anyway."
     We  soon found  out that  the toilets didn't work either, so  they also
became a  cache for bergens and other  kit. I put  my sleeping  bag  on  the
nearest bed, and that was it: home.
     In the morning we had a walk around the camp with Tony, who had been on
my second Selection but failed.
     He had come back straightaway and passed the second time.
     The police were  very much  the  paramilitary force  I was expecting to
see.  Their equipment  was  mainly supplied  by  the  Americans,  but I also
spotted a lot of European kit. Their weapons were also a mixture of U.S M16s
and Israeli Gauls, and quite a few Russian AKs.
     However,  the  patrols  that  we were  to  be  training  just  had  the
Galil-basically AK47 parts with a different barrel and furniture.
     "An excellent  weapon," said  Tony  as he stopped to  shake hands  with
people that he knew. "Unfortunately they don't know how to use them yet."
     The boys  were  dressed smartly,  and  all looked  very  organized.  He
introduced me to them, and they struck me as very open and sociable people.
     "The camp's looking good on the outside,"  Tony said, "but in fact it's
a heap 'of shit once  you scratch the  surface. Their living  conditions are
not  very good  at  allbetter than  ours, but  still not  good. The  food is
absolutely heaving, even by their standards."
     I wasn't  sure whether to believe him, until we went past the cookhouse
and two boys who had just eaten breakfast came out and puked it all up again
on the ground. The building reeked like a shithouse in an abattoir.
     "These  people  are the creme de la creme, but they aren't particularly
well treated," he went on. "However,  if you're  a peasant farmer with  jack
shit, six kids, and a donkey, why  not become  part  of the system? At least
you're getting paid, and in theory the family are getting looked after."
     Having  seen the  people outside the cookhouse,  I decided to  stick to
what we'd all brought with us. As usual, we had arrived laden down with tins
of tuna, bags of pasta, and bottles of curry sauce.
     Billy  from G Squadron,  the'world's smallest and most aggressive curly
blond-haired jock, was sleeping on the bottom bunk. As soon as he woke up in
the morning, he unzipped his sleeping  bag and  got his little petrol cooker
going  on the  floor. The  water went on  for  his brew; then  he  mixed his
porridge up.
     I peered over the edge of the bunk. "Oh, good, what's for breakfast?" I
asked pleasantly.
     "I'm surprised you're hungry, you bastard," he said.
     "We've spent all frigging night chewing on your farts."
     "Sorry," I said.  "Jet lag." I  got up, sat next to him,  and then kept
looking at him and smiling until he gave me a mug of hot chocolate  and some
porridge. Over the  next few days he got more and more annoyed that I wasn't
making my  share of the breakfast, which was exactly my intention.  Finally,
honking at me for being a lazy bastard, he picked the cooker up to  throw it
at me and forgot that he'd just used it.
     There was a sizzling sound, the smell of burned flesh, and the shape of
the  cooker top burned  into  his  hand.  It made quite  a  nice pattern,  I
thought.
     Since the shower room was now the storeroom, we had to go  and wash  at
outdoor taps around the corner.
     The water was freezing.
     The weather was a bit nippy  in the morning but then wonderful when the
sun rose in the sky. We were high up in the hills and were warned that  we'd
be getting out of breath for the first couple of days until we acclimatized.
Of course no one took any notice, and all went up the hills for a run. Billy
was loving it as. we were all in shit state.
     Everything  was  a  competition to  him  and he  enjoyed  stopping  and
shouting, "B Squadron, a bag of shite."
     I . watched the arrival of the people we were going to train.
     There were about  forty or fifty of them  all told,  and they swaggered
malevolently about the place like a convention of nightclub bouncers.
     The mentality  of  the  Latin  American male  was very macho;  we  were
somehow  going  to have  to  harness the  machismo and try and  turn it into
something of substance.
     We were sitting against our hut wall watching them assemble.
     Billy  started to laugh  and said, "If they stick their chests out  any
more, they're going to explode. I love this part-watch this!"
     He then  got up and walked into the middle of them and started shouting
out commands to get  them  organized. After all  this macho stuff they  were
getting ordered about by a two-foot midget barking at their kneecaps.
     Whenever  I met troops that  I was going to be staying with, their body
language was nearly always "We don't  need you; we're  hard as  fuck." Above
them,  the  prime personalities in the organization  also resented  us to an
extent because we were undermining their authority.
     We'd have to  be  really tactful  in the way that  we treated  them; no
lording it over thetil and playing the Great I Am, because that wouldn't get
the results. We'd have to  show respect to their leaders at even  the lowest
level so  they  didn't turn  against us, but at  the same  time  we had  the
problem that familiarity breeds contempt. By and large, however, we'd just I
make sure  we  were  friendly  and approachable; everything was  a  learning
opportunity, and we hoped to learn as much from Ithem as they from us.
     The paramilitaries  were  an  incrdible  sight. They  were  wearing the
world's  supply of  belt kit  and  webbing,  with  knives hanging  off  them
everywhere and six-shooters in holsters around their hips.
     Gar  and I swapped glances. We  couldn't just say, "This is  a heap  of
shit-get rid of this, get rid of that," because it wouldn't work.
     They'd  go against  us, and we wouldn't get what we wanted. So to start
with, we didn't say anything.
     Each one of us was given ten blokes, and it would be our responsibility
to take them from the  basics and build them up. The very first thing to  do
was sort them out.
     with some equipment.  We gave each of them a bergen, a sleeping bag,  a
sleeping bag liner, a waterproof outer, and a compass. You'd have thought we
were  giving them the crown jewels. A compass to them was gold dust. Even at
officer  level,  none  of them could read a map  ok use a  compass, so these
blokes had credibility straightaway with all their contemporaries; they were
the team with compasses. Nobody  knew what to do with them yet, but that was
beside the point.
     Before we could  start teaching them any sort of tactics, we had to get
to grips with their shooting. Their idea of firing a weapon was to loose off
countless rounds on full automatic and make lots of noise.
     It  was totally ineffective. The  weapons started to  go high, and they
mostly missed the targets.
     "Very good," I beamed. "Now can I show you a few little tricks somebody
taught me recently?"
     The camp  we were in was built  on the top of a hill of sandy soil, the
sides of which made excellent ranges.
     The first lesson was to teach them to conserve ammunition. "It's a good
idea  to  make every  round  count,"  I said.  "If you're getting through  a
magazine every five seconds, your ammunition won't last long.
     If you want to look after your ass, look after your ammunition."
     We took them  back  to first principles, starting with how to  lie down
with a weapon and  fire at a target, nice  and controlled.  Once we'd got to
that stage, we taught them in the kneeling and standing positions. We taught
them on  the  ranges, not  under  pressure,  but in a friendly atmosphere-no
shouting, no hollering, just attempting to get good results.
     These boys were soon starting to perform well  on the  ranges,  and the
other police who were not part of our group  were jealous, especially  those
of higher rank.
     None of them knew how to use their  weapons properly; I saw  some Gauls
and  M16s that were  still smeared  with  the grease they had been packed in
when they arrived.
     I was on the ranges one day  with the boys. We'd got to the stage where
they were moving from the lying position into the kneeling position and then
into standing, doing timed shots at about a hundred  meters. The  equivalent
of  a  sergeant major  from  another group came storming over and  said, "My
weapon does not work.
     Every time I fire it, it alms off. I need you to correct it."
     It was nothing to do with us, but I got the zeroing tool  out and did a
couple of twists  to the foresight  and rear I t sight. I looked, hrough and
said, "Yep, that's much better. You have look, see what you reckon."
     . He got  the weapon into  the  shoulder, looked through it, and was as
happy as a sandboy. As far as he was concerned, he was ready for Bisley.
     just as with young recruits 'at Winchester,  there was no such thing as
a bad soldier, only a bad instructor-once you had the right material. We got
them  to the stage where they could  fire their  weapons and  frequently hit
what  they were aiming  at. Whether  they could do  that  under pressure was
another matter, and our lives could depend on it at a later date.
     We started incorporating  live firing exercises. The average contact in
the jungle was  going to be at  a range of about five meters; they'd have to
recognize a target and shoot quickly and accurately.
     We'd  go out into the hills and rig up a scenario: They'd walk  down it
first as  individuals, recognize a  target, snapshoot and kill it, then move
back. Then we'd  do it in pairs, firing and  maneuvering,  moving  down  the
range. It reminded me of Selection.
     When we sat with them at lunchtime,  we'd be  chatting away, trying  to
find out how they lived. It was easy to see what the food was like.
     The storeroom their ration  packs came from was obviously Infested with
rats because everything that wasn't canned was chewed to bits.
     They threw it away and opened the cans.
     We were away from the camp training one day. The air was crisp, the sky
more blue than I thought possible.
     Everybody was boiling water on hexy burners, us for our pasta, them for
their coffee.
     "What about  all  this  fantastic coffee I've  heard so  much  about in
television commercials?" I said.
     I  knew  there  were  some  coffees  that you couldn't take  out of the
country, the penalty being something like a six-year prison sentence.
     They were throwing out tons and tons of drugs  all over  the world, but
if you took coffee beans home, you landed up in prison.
     "Yeah,  what's the  best coffee to  take home  from  all  the different
blends and roasts and so on?" Slaphead asked.
     "You don't want any of that shit," one of them said.
     "Our favorite is Nescaf instant."
     And ag we found out, they were right. Some of the coffee was dire.
     The first morning I took the group, I'd asked their names. "I am one of
three  Joses," this boy had said; in my confusion at using Spanish for  real
for the first time, I took it to be one of those long compound Spanish names
and replied, "Pleased to meet you, One-of-three-Jos&s."
     The name stuck.
     We talked about the situation here with  the cartels running everything
and the fact that all the farmers were workin for them.
     "If you're a farmer,",he  now said, "and  the government came along and
they  give  you  two  dollars an acre to grow  corn-and that's it,"no health
system,  just  a little bit of schooling, and you're living in a tin  hut in
the middle of  the jungle-and then along come  a  cartel, and they say, 'You
grow  for  us, we'll  give you seven  dollars  an acre; we'll also  build  a
football  pitch, we'll give you  medical  care, and we'll also educate  your
kids," what do  you do? Of course  you grow coca leaf; you don't care  about
what happens to the gringos. The farmer just thinks, Where's it  going? It's
going to  America. I  hate  the Americans, so I'm  getting my own back; fuck
them, it's their problem, the monkey on their back."
     The police  knew they were losing  the  battle,  but most of them  were
there for exactly  the same reason-job security. They  had families to feed,
and they didn't  particularly give a tuppenny damn if the  Americans had the
cocaine  or  not.  All  they knew  was  that they  were making  money out of
fighting it and securing food for their families.
     They'd got the nation behind them, and quite rightly so; if  I'd been a
farmer, I'd have been growing for them.
     Their whole culture revcilved around the drug trade.
     Marijuana and coca plants  were  a part of everyday life, so  plentiful
they even grew at the  roadside. In fact the police  themselves used to wrap
coca leaf around sugar lumps and suck away: they believed it would make them
macho and virile. As far as  they were  concerned, it kept  them  strong and
alert to go and fight the cartels, and nobody seemed to spot the irony.
     "The whole culture is based on violence," they said.
     "In the towns the  secret police will drag young  street urchins out of
the sewers where they live and kill them."
     At night, apparently, the ordinary sounds of the cities were punctuated
by gunfire.
     "A bus crashed  over a hillside in  the jungle about a month before you
arrived. When the  rescue services arrived on the scene, they  found all the
local  villagers  scavenging  through  the  wreckage.  Many  passengers  had
survived but were injured. The villagers ignored them in the rush to rip the
watches and the rings and wallets off the corpses."
     "It's true. The police had to cock their weapons and start shooting the
villagers to get them away," said  One of-three-Joses. "And as soon  as they
left, some of the police started doing exactly the same."
     "There is a disregard for life," another fellow said.
     "Life here revolves around death."
     We had  two interpreters with us to get all the technical details over.
Bruce  was  from D  Squadron and had only one arm; the other on'e  had  been
blown  off. The  Regiment always  kept its cripples.  We had blokes with one
arm,  one eye, one leg; two blokes in B Squadron only had about six  fingers
between them. There was a wonderful picture in the interest room of them  on
a  mountain-climbing course,  trying  to tie knots  with  only  a couple  of
fingers  each.  Some blokes  had lost legs  or  suffered  disabling  gunshot
wounds. One bloke who turned up for every Selection  to run around the hills
and man checkpoints had only one arm and one eye.
     It was just  part and  parcel of life; if they're living quite a  harsh
existence and  spending time on operations,  people will get injured or shot
or collect diseases that impair them at a later date.
     They were kept in the Regiment for two reasons. First, if we  were ever
in the shit,  we'd know at the back of our  mind that  even if we were hurt,
we'd have a future. Second, why pension off somebody who  has experience and
knowledge that could be used in training?
     We started looking at the tactics we would need  to carry out the  task
of attacking a DMP. At  this stage we didn't know exactly what we were going
to be attacking, so there was a bit of guesswork involved.
     We took it from the real basics, looking at  the sort of equipment they
had, which was essentially a  bit  of belt kit, a weapon, and their uniform,
and that was it. Then we looked at how they were going  to  move with it and
how  they  were going  to  live in the field.  They had a problem with  hard
routine. They liked to have the big fires  going at night to keep themselves
warm  and  boost their  morale  and  couldn't immediately  see the  tactical
benefits of shivering in a sleeping bag and eating cold food. This was where
the bonding and  the friendship came in. We  did hard routine ourselves, and
they copied us.
     We got out in the field for days on end and practiced moving tactically
around the jungle and the savanna.
     They learned to hold up before last light, get into a little L.U.P, and
stand to; at first light they stood to again, ready to move off.
     After a while they actually enjoyed it; it was something  different, it
looked macho, and everybody else wanted a piece of the action.
     We spent  weeks teaching  them  OPs  and  how  to  hide  up  and  watch
locations. They'd be holed up for a couple of days and have  to report  what
they saw, and they got very good at it.
     We also taught them how to do  close target recces  on locations: to go
in, try to get as much  information as possible on the target without  being
seen, then watch it and, when the time was right, hit it. They could destroy
all the ether,  chemicals,  and processing equipment,  but what  they really
wanted were the skilled people who did the processing; once they were out of
the  picture the  cartels would have  to replace  them, and we presumed  the
supply wasn't infinite.
     Map-reading lessons were hilarious. There's a big myth that the natives
of a country will  know the,"r way instinctively around the jungle. The fact
is, nine times out of ten, they're as stuffed as everybody else is without a
map,  and  they  just  stick to  high  ground,  tracks,  and  rivers.  In my
experience of people in the Middle East, the Far East, Asia, and Africa, the
locals  always  knew the  easiest route-and they found  it by  following the
animals, which  always take  the  easy option. Take the boys off that route,
and they're scratching their heads.
     When  they travel  across savanna for  hundreds of  miles,  they're not
navigating,  they're following minimal herds.  if  the  animals got lost, so
would they.
     We got all  forty  or fifty of  them  together in  the cookhouse  after
breakfast because it was  the biggest sheltered place where we could get the
maps spread out on tables and get them around. I hated the sessions, because
the place was stinking.
     Gar taught the map reading. "This is the compass," he'd say. "We take a
bearing like this."
     The rest  of  us would be moving up and down the  tables,  checking and
helping where we could. It was a total gang fuck. We had to interpret to the
soldiers what was going on; they  then had to come back with  any questions,
which had to be answered. It just went on and on.
     In the end we'd just start laughing, and they'd join in.  Gar  would go
mad and shout:  "Stop! Come  back  in half  an hour."  He would then compose
himself, after giving us a bollocking for not taking it seriously.
     We had to teach them how to look at the ground and interpret the map-to
be able to say, "Okay, we found a DMP; now we've got to tell people where it
is." It's hard enough in the British Army to teach soldiers how to map-read;
it's not  a  science, it's in art, and the only way a recruit can get a feel
for it is by getting on the ground and practicing the skills.
     Once they'd got the basics of using the compass, that was it; as far as
they were concerned, it was the best lesson of their lives.
     Officers  started  calling by,  saying,  "Any chance  of one  of  these
compasses?"  Not  to  use,  mind-they  just wanted them  dangling  on  their
uniforms to make them look good.
     These guys were going  to be  fighting in  a "real  time" war, and they
needed a taste of realism. More important, though, we were practicing in the
areas where they  would be  operating anyway,  so  if the shit hit  the  fan
during training, we had live ammunition on hand. They weren't too  impressed
to  start with, most of  them looking very worried about the  possibility of
shooting  themselves.  After a  while,  however,  they got into it  and then
started to come over all macho, swaggering all over the camp.
     "They think they're going to go off and kill every fucker," I said.
     Gar said, "We'll soon put paid to that."
     He got some P.E, and  we rigged it up around the training area.  We had
all  the  boys  lying down ready to go  forward, as if  they were on a start
line. One or two of them were lying there giggling and chanting, "Rambo!
     Rambo!"
     As they started to move forward, we initiated the explosives.
     There was shit flying everywhere;  they could feel the pressure of  the
explosives, and then dirt and bits of wood showered down on them.
     They hit  the ground, then  looked around sheepishly, suitably cut down
to size. Some of them looked  as if they were going to cry They quit the Sly
Stallone routine after that.
     We had to knock  all that shit out of them because as soon as the first
one of them got killed, and there probably would be quite a few killed, they
would be in for a very nasty shock.
     We  were  getting invitations back to their houses when they had  their
two  days off every  couple of weeks. We had to try to dodge  and  weave  as
diplomatically  as  we  could,  because  we didn't  really  want  to get too
familiar.
     We wanted the  bonding  relationship, but we wanted  it in slow phases;
otherwise it would affect the training.
     Apart from that, we wanted to get downtown, have a shopping frenzy, and
generally get around and see the place and have some fun.
     By  now  we'd gradually  weaned  them off  the  great  big daggers  and
six-shooters that  had been hanging off their kits. We'd convinced them that
the thing about kit dangling all over the place is that it gets entwined  in
the  undergrowth  and  leaves  sign. We'd actually got  them  looking fairly
professional.
     We'd  got them tactically  okay and  they we're doing  live  attacks on
different targets,  training  for  every  eventuality.  What we  now started
looking  for was  certain  aptitudes  required  by a recce-cum-OP-cum-attack
force.
     Their job  would  be to find the  locations,  look on the map, find out
where they were, and get as much information on the places as possible. They
would  then go forward with an attack force to take the place  out or put in
an OP and gather more nformation.
     OP work calls for people who are naturally quiet,  not active  or hyper
sorts.  They  have  to  spend  a  long  time  in a  cramped  position,  just
observing-two, three, maybe four of them in  a location,  gathering as  much
information as possible and sending it back over the radio so that the F.O.B
can plan and prepare. The ideal  is  to attack when.the processing personnel
are  there  and  all the  equipment  is  in  place.  Then  you can  get  the
personalities, as well as the kit, and close the place down.
     The people in the OP might be there for two or  three weeks,  living on
hard routine, shitting in plastic bags, 418
     pissing  in  water  canisters, not  moving  around,  and  under  severe
pressure because they were right on top  of  the  target; because they  were
operating in the jungle, they  were  going to be  much  closer to the target
than if they were out on the savanna.
     We were also trying to pick out the natural leaders.
     There  were designated leaders with  ranks, but that didn't  mean to us
they were  the  right  ones;  people  got  ranked  for  certain things,  not
necessarily their command of man management or leadership.
     It was  a  pain in  the  arse  trying to  bring  on the natural leaders
because  the  system  was   so  regimented.  Everything  had  to   be   done
diplomatically and by giving the prospective leaders responsibilities rather
than stripes.
     By picking the most capable blokes,  we had  more chance of getting the
result that we wanted: the successful  completion of a task.  And because it
was highly likely we would be there  with them,  we'd also stand more chance
of getting out alive. The best man in my group was One-of-three-Joses.
     Every chance we  had  we'd get  downtown. I found it  quite  a  modern,
cosmopolitan city,  with  mega  office blocks,  big  shopping  centers,  and
good-class hotels. But as in many other places, it was very evident that the
locals had either enormous amounts of money  or absolutely none. Ultramodern
skyscrapers stood next to derelict shanties; Mercedes limos drove over holes
in the  ground  where  the sewage  system  had collapsed  and kids had taken
shelter.
     The  city was  also one of  the dirtiest and noisiest  places I'd  ever
seen. People seemed to throw away their rubbish wherever they were standing,
and  music blasted out in the streets, restaurants, and long-distance buses;
it seemed to be  an  integral part of  daily life,  culminating at night  in
discotheques, tabernas, and private parties.
     The blare of TV was just as bad. It appeared that sets in Latin America
had two unique features: It seemed impossible to switch them off  until late
at  night, and  the  volume  control  had only  two settings-very  loud  and
deafening.
     The traffic noise was something else. I'd heard antiquated A.P.C.S that
were quieter than some of the deathtraps running around. Traffic jams seemed
frequent, and the etiquette if you were stuck in one seemed to be to lean on
your 'horn until you moved. When vehicles were  not stuck in a  traffic jam,
it seemed important to the  locals that they be driven at well above maximum
recommended  revs. I'd  already seen buses  flying at  breakneck speed  down
twisting mountain roads; in the city they speeded up.  There  was an amazing
variety  of taxis, ranging from old American Fords, made during  the time of
JFK, to brand-new Mazdas.
     There  were  traffic lights everywhere.  You  could cross  the  road on
either green or red and have an equal chance of being hit.  I found it  paid
to look both ways  several  timels before sprinting across, even if it was a
one-way street.
     Living and working  in  Dodge City,  we  all needed to  wear  concealed
weapons. I was sitting in the breakfast bar of  the hotel one morning when a
couple  of  whiteeyes  turned up. Normally  I'd  have  just  given them  the
once-over, but this time it was  a  double take. By the way  they wore their
shirts  I guessed they  were carrying weapons. Then it dawned on me  that  I
knew their  faces:  They  were two ex-members of G  Squadron.  Sometimes, on
different jobs around the world, we'd be working and  see somebody we  knew.
Nothing would  be said; everybody would ignore one another. They didn't know
what we were doing or who we were supposed to be, and  vice versa. Until one
approached the other, there'd always be a silly little standoff.
     Eventually the ritual finished, and it was okay. They came over and sat
down.
     "How's it going?"
     "Not too  bad', Another  part - of this ritual  was  not really getting
straight  down to what you wanted to talk about. Most people were cagey when
it came to discussing their activities.
     We  chatted  away  about normal things, as you  do when  you  bump into
ex-members of the Regiment  on  the other  side  of  the  world. We  stagged
everybody down that  we knew and  discussed  what was  going  on in downtown
Hereford.
     After a while I asked the question,  expecting a "Fuck off,  big nose"'
in reponse: "So, what are you doing then?"
     "We have  a close protection job  here for  a while,  up north. Are you
still in or are you working?"
     Straightaway I realized that they were having the same doubts about me.
I decided to play them along for a while.
     "Yeah,  I've been here for a few weeks now on a training job. The money
is good, but the people can be a pain in the arse."
     "What's the money like? Maybe we could get a job with you?"
     "Same as if you were a corporal in the Regiment."
     T  . their job, it turned out, involved  protecting  people against the
cartels.
     I wondered if ex-members  of the Regiment  really were working  for the
cartels,  earning fantastic amounts of money, adopting  the same attitude as
everyone sitting around us in this hotel; if these people want to use drugs,
more fool  them. Allegedly lots  of Americans and Canadians were working for
the  drug  barons; the Yanks were  advising, teaching, and  sorting  out the
business end.  The  cartels  had  fantastic wealth;  working  for them would
probably be  a cozy number.  But lucrative as  it might  have been, I didn't
think it was for me.
     A meeting  was  fixed for the  following week, but by then other events
had overtaken us.
     Things had not  been going  well. We'd been intheater for a  while now,
and every time we'd gone  in against  a DMP we found we'd captured the Marie
Celeste. Security had been fearsomely lax.
     Corruption  appeared  to  be  a  part of life;  it  wasn't unknown  for
helicopters, on the way to pick up troops for an attack, to fly over some of
the  processing factories as anearly  warning.  I  felt we were  fighting  a
losing battle.
     However, Gar gpt us  in the hut one  day  and  said,  "Right, there's a
change in  the  system. We're going to go and look for a  plant over in  the
west. . We'll get you in there  covertly. You go and find the place, take it
on, and then and only then will we brin the helicopters in.
     What's more, you'll report directly to us on the net back in HQ."
     We looked at a map that was spread out on his table.
     "We  know  there's a plant in here somewhere," he  said, indicating  an
area of about sixteen square kilometers.
     "We'll take four patrols in to  go and look for it-that's four Ks each.
The  patrols  are Tony's, Andy's, Rod's,  and Terry's. If we  find it, we'll
take it, because this is getting to be a pain in the arse.
     "Once an'y of you find the target, I want you to put a CTR  in. I  want
photography, I  want video, and I want as  much information as possible sent
over the net to me.
     I'll then  organize the helis. We'll  keep it strictly between us;  the
boys  are  not to  know until we  actually go on the op. Once  we're  on the
ground we'll give them orders.
     Helis  will be on  standby, but they won't know where  or  when they're
going. The only people who'll know what's  going on are us and the head shed
at HQ."
     None of us had any questions, and everybody probably felt the same as I
did: absolutely  delighted that we  were breaking out of  the vicious circle
and that everything  suddenly looked so positive. "All we have to do now  is
find it," said Rod.
     I sat on the steps of the hut and ate some food as I watched Wayne, who
had  chatted  one of the policemen into letting  him ride  his  horse,  come
screaming past  on an animal that 'Was well  and truly on Zanussi. Wayne was
tali, dark,  good-looking, funny, and intelligent-all the things you hate in
a  person.  He  had been brought up  with horses, which was  probably why he
hated  everything about them apart  from riding. They disappeared from sight
behind some buildings,  and the  next  time I saw him, about an hour  later,
Wayne was covered in cuts, bruises, and abrasions.
     "Fucking thing,"  he said.  "How come of  all the bloody  nags  in this
country I get the one that's just snorted a nose bag of white powder?"
     Each recce  patrol,  consisting of four policemen and one of us,  would
search an area of four grid squares-four  square kilometers. Time out on the
ground would be anything up to ten days, and  the object, as always, was not
to kill the people in  the manufacturing plant but to arrest them-especially
the European chemists-and then to destroy the equipment.
     At  the muster parade the next morning  Gar  announced to our trainees,
"We're going to  go out  and  do  some  training. We're going to be away for
about two weeks. Pack your kit,and be ready at lunchtime to move off."
     We  drove to  an area about an  hour  away  that  we had been using for
training.  Gar  told the boys to relax and get a  brew on, then said, "We're
not going training.
     We're going out on  another operation.  The lack of success  that we've
been having is because of leaks by informers in the system.
     We're going to  take you out of here  now,  and you're going  to go and
look for a DMP that is to the west.
     "It's up  to you to make sure  that  you put in all  your best efforts.
You've  done all this training, and you're getting  really  well paid. We're
expecting you to perform.
     We know you can do the job, we know you're good,  and we're going to be
with  you  all the way. We hope we're going  to find the  target-imagine the
prestige when you succeed. All you have to do is exactly what  we tell  you,
end everything will be  fine. Now let's get out there. The quicker we do it,
the quicker we can all get home."
     We got into our own little  groups  around the wagons and started to do
our orders. I could hear the others talking to their groups around  the area
of the wagons.
     Wayne and Gar were sorting out rations for the patrols.
     To my four  boys I said, "Once we've succeeded,  you will  have all the
credibility that you want and  deserve. If we fail, maybe they  will disband
the paramilitaries."
     I saw four worried faces, perhaps picturing  themselves back on traffic
duty.
     I said, I hoped in my best Spanish, "So, we're going to go and locate a
drug manufacturing plant.  We've  been  told that it's  roughly in  an  area
sixteen Ks square somewhere in  the  west. We don't know where  it is or how
big it is. We don't know if people are still there.
     If we find it, we're going to put a CTR on it, bring  all the  other ap
trois in, and then we'll get a plan together to go and attack it.
     There'll be  lots of  helicopter support coming in, and plenty of other
troops. if another patrol finds it, we'll  go to meet them, join forces, and
attack it."
     The ' boys were still looking worried. This  operation  was going to be
totally alien from  what they were used  to. Usually it was  the  helicopter
screaming in on top of the location, and everything all over and done within
a couple of hours. What we were looking at now was a prolonged operation,  a
very different kettle of fish.
     "Another  change  is that this time we're  not  going to helicopter in;
we're  going to drive in  the vehicles down to the area and gradually patrol
in. We don't want anybody to  see us or to know  that we're there. This time
we might find something. Do you say yes to that?"
     Four nervous smiles and a chorus of "Yes!"
     "It might take a couple of days to get into the area," I  went on, "but
it will be worth it. We'll be  taking our time; we've got plenty of food; we
know what we're doing. There'll be no problems."
     I laid  out  as much  information  in front  of  them  as  possible:  a
small-scale map, some drawings,  the area in general, and then a large-scale
map  for the detailed  briefs.  I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't
dealing with professional soldiers. I had to sit them  down and say, "Before
we start, does anybody want to go to the toilet? Anybody need to do anything
before I start?"
     After  every phase of the orders I made  a point of pausing and asking,
"Are  there  any questions?" They had to feel  comfortable about asking,  no
matter how stupid the question. It was important not to take the piss out of
them when they did  come  out with something really  bone, and  not to allow
others to either.
     I first  gave them all the political and military factors and made sure
they realized how  important it was  that they pushed themselves  forward to
stop the trafficking. I then talked about the ground, starting with the area
in general-all known enemy locations, all old processing sites,  and all our
own locations.
     We didn't have a target as yet,  but I  talked  about the  terrain, the
weather conditions, what we expected  the going to be  like, what the locals
were  like, the names of any towns and villages, the direction of the ma' in
rivers. al If the shit hit the f and they were on their own, they would know
that if  they followed a certain  river downstream, they were going to hit a
town. As I spoke, they checked everything on their maps.
     I then went into the situation. I told them everything  they needed  to
know about the enemy in order to carry out the task, including the fact that
the local barons were feeling pretty confident at the moment and would fight
if we came up against them. I described what  weapons they had and what they
dressed like.
     "Now-friendly forces," I said.  "There  will  be another three  patrols
that are  going to be patrolling in other grid squares." On the detailed map
I showed them the rough area where the other patrols would be operating.
     Next came  the mission. "Mission:  to locate  and CTR  the DMP in these
grid squares here." I repeated it, then went into the execution, which I had
broken down into phases.
     "Phase One, the infiltration. We're going  in by vehicle- As you  know,
once the stuff is ready it has to be moved out by aircraft or vehicle. There
is usually a road within ten to twenty kilometers of one of these plants.
     With trucks, we'll  keep control  of security.  It might take us two or
three days to patrol into the area, but that's what we get paid for."
     We'd be on hard routine. "I'll have a scout out at the  front, and I'll
be doing the map reading myself,  with the local patrol  commander checking.
There will also be  pacers and  check  pacers.  If it's dense  canopy, we'll
probably  patrol  in daylight and bin it at nighttime. If the terrain allows
us to patrol  at nighttime, all well and good, we'll do that as well. But in
that sort of terrain I don't anticipate any movement by night."
     We understood  the boys  well  by  now, and they understood  us. We had
mutual respect that bordered on friendship; when we said we wanted something
done, we expected them to comply-and they did. They no longer questioned our
orders because they trusted us.
     The slings had disappeared long ago from the 7.62
     Galits, following our  example. The swing  swivels  had also been taken
off  or taped down;  they were  designed to move,  and therefore  they  made
noise. Every man had about four to five  meters of paracord, so if we-had to
do any river crossings, they could tie their weapon securely.
     As a navigation  aid, I had taped a Silva compass onto the  stock of my
weapon, with the  big  arrow covered up to avoid having a  fearsome luminous
object moving through the jungle. If I was moving forward as a lead scout, I
knew the  rough bearing that I wanted to go  on and the compass supplied  an
instant  reference. As the patrol commander, with  the scout out in front of
me, I could also give an immediate indication of direction if required.
     When  the patrols were first issued with  magazines for their  weapons,
they started  taping  them together because they'd  seen a few  Oliver Stone
movies, and they thought it looked rather macho. We discouraged them as much
as we could.  The  7.62 is  a heavy round, and a twenty-round magazine is  a
hefty object. When they were down on the ground, some of the lads could only
just  about lift  the rifle up, let alone deal with the  weight  of a double
magazine.
     The Regiment  blokes all took 9MM  Brownings.  The pistols the  rest of
their patrol took were weird and wonderful.  Some had  cowboy  six-shooters;
some had Colt  .45s. What they expected  to do with  them probably even they
didn't know.
     We carried plenty of plastic explosive for destroying the DMP, and also
we had the means to burn down any fields that we came across-P.E4
     mostly and  American  C4, and all  the odds and hods  that went with it
such as detonating cord, detonators, and claymores for our own defense.
     Once we'd  found  the  target we'd  put  in a  CTR. A  picture speaks a
thousand words when it comes to  reconnaissance,  especially  if the  troops
you're  briefing  don't speak your mother  tongue. We therefore also carried
cameras  and video  recorders  and  portable darkroom  equipment to  produce
negatives. I favored a Nikon  with a zoom lens, plus  a 28  men lens for I.R
photography, and a Canon point-and-shoot, also fitted with an I.R filter for
night photography.
     A video camera was excellent for CTRS, and we also had with us a little
Sony  play-back  machine; with  it, we could brief  the patrols with  visual
reference, so  they'd know what they were looking for when they got onto the
ground. The video had a manual-focus lens; an auto-focus lens  latches on to
the nearest  object in the center of the field of vision, which in jungle is
almost always a leaf.
     We   also   took   night-viewing  aids,   either   pocket   scopes   or
weapon-mounteds, and all the kit had to be waterproofed.
     Almost more important  than the kit we  took was  what we  didn't take.
Everybody had to go out sterile, apart from any  obvious documentation.  The
boys carried their police warrant cards,  but no home  addresses or pictures
of the wife  and kids. They all knew the statistics;  they'd all had family,
friends, or colleagues gunned down in the street.
     We  set  off  that afternoon  in  a  convoy of four  cattle trucks  and
traveled through the night. Everybody was subdued;  nobody was talking much.
The  occasional fag flared in the darkness. It reminded me of Selection  and
the long drives  to  the  Elan valley, and I tried to get as  much rest as I
could;  I knew I'd be running around like  a lunatic for  the next couple of
weeks.
     For most of the  next day  we  traveled through towns and villages, the
roads getting more and more outrageous.  A couple of hours before last light
we stopped and had a brew. Gar came over and said, "We're going to split off
about three Ks up  the road. I'm going to take two groups, Wayne's  going to
map-read your lot. If there's any dramas, get on the net, because we've  got
the helicopters standing by.
     Don't fuck about, just get  on the net and  get the people out. See you
soon."
     We got back on the wagons. I was in Wayne's vehicle, which was leading.
The road  was metaled but badly potholed. The  suspension was shaking itself
to pieces, and we were getting shunted about in the back; soon everybody was
standing up to save himself from a battering.
     It was coming to last light. The vehicle stopped; the engine was turned
off. It went very quiet, and  the noises of the savanna took over. Wayne got
out and said: "This is your dropoff point."
     I got the  blokes off the wagon. They looked as  if they didn't want to
get off but at the same time knew the job had to be done.
     Shades again of Selection.
     "We aren't going to do anything tonight," I said. "All we have to do is
tab into our area."
     It  was all in slow time. We got our bergens on, sorted ourselves  out,
and started to walk off toward the  cover about  half a kilometer away. Once
we'd gone  a  couple of hundred meters we  heard  the engines  start up then
drive away.  After a minute or two there  was total  silence. I watched  the
headlights  threading their  way  along  the  road and  disappear  into  the
distance.
     I could hear my breath. I'd  had twenty-four hours of total inactivity,
and now I was starting to get my second wind.
     The weather  was  very  warm and moist. The  night was  full of  'ungly
sounds, though we were still in savanna."could hear crickets.
     There was  a very  light  breeze. It was moderately cloudy, but I could
see stars.
     I was feeling fairly comfortable.  We had  plenty of food and water and
were  going  to get  our heads  down for the night. I  was actually  looking
forward to a few hours in my hammock.
     In the morning, because we weren't in any danger,  I let the guys start
with a brew and hot scoff.
     One of the blokes in the patrol was called Rodriguez.
     He was about  twenty-two, tall,  black,  and rather effeminate.  He had
unnaturally long  eyelashes  and very  fine,  defined features, a  pianist's
hands and immaculate nails.
     He spoke  with a soft tone  and seemed to  apologize for everything  he
did.  He  was, however, very good  at  his  job, and  I wanted him to be the
scout.
     I said, "I want you to set off on this bearing, Rodriguez.  We're going
to go forward, and after about an hour we're  going to stop and have a brew.
Keep your eyes,open and keep on the bearing; we don't want to start  getting
lost. Do you understand? We are depending on you!"
     "Si." He smiled. "Si, sorry, no problem."
     The scout kept far enough ahead to give advance  warning  of a problem,
but close  enough for  me  to  see  him and signal occasional directions. He
really dictated the movement of  the patrol as The moved along: If he wanted
us to stop, he'd  tell  us  to.  If he stopped dead, I'd also stop dead, and
everybody else would do the same.
     He was the first set of eyes.
     After  an hour Rodriguez stopped in a  dip in the ground under a  large
tree. We hunkered down and got a  brew on.  Birds twittered  in the branches
overhead; some form of  wildlife rustled  in  the undergrowth. We  talked in
quiet whispers.
     "This will be the last brew," I  said. "Make sure you don't tell anyone
I let you have it!"
     They were pleased to think it was our little secret.
     I looked at . them and said, "Let's crack on and do it.
     Nobody let me down. Any problems with that?"
     "No. no  problems." Rodriguez wanted to be the  scout  again, so  I let
him.
     Normally I'd have changed the  scout  every couple  of hours because it
was  a  strenuous job. Chopping  his way through would  have made noise  and
leave sign;  the  scout  had  to move  the  vegetation out of the way as  he
patrolled through.  He was on the  lookout for movement or any sign of there
having  been movement.  It could  be ground sign, such  as mud prints, or it
could be top sign, such as leaves overturned. A large rubber leaf  or  fern,
for example, doesn't naturally turn up onto its underside, and after a short
while it would  turn its way back to the sun-so  something  must have turned
it, and that meant that somebody had been there quite recently.
     The scout was looking, too, for any signs of animal traps.
     Indigenous  people  leave  signs that these things are  around, and  we
didn't  want to land up in a net dangling from a tree.  He was  also looking
for any  signs  of the DMP. This could be a lot of footprints  going  in one
direction; it could  be a noise; it could  be a smell. If he spotted people,
we wouldn't take them on;  the object was to avol id them, to see where they
went, and to follow them.
     It took us  nearly  half a day to start  getting into the rough area of
our four grid squares. By now we were all wet with sweat. It hadn't  rained;
I was just hoping that if it did, it was before last light so we didn't have
to sort ourselves out that night in a downpour.
     Then we started our search pattern, which varied with the terrain.
     Sometimes we might be  paralleling  along grid squares; at others  we'd
fan out from prominent  objects.  About once  every  hour we'd stop for five
minutes. That gave us time to tuck our shirts in, pull our trousers up, have
a drink, refill the  water bottles.  Every time we came to a source of water
we'd  fill up; if the  bottles were already full, then we'd drink as much as
we could. Some of the blokes  put lemon powder in one of their water bottles
and had the other as plain water. I preferred both to be plain.
     For  the  first afternoon  all the blokes  were keen,  but then fatigue
started to take its toll-the mental  fatigue of continually looking for sign
and the  physical fatigue of carrying a  bergen' in the heat. It was showing
on these people quite a lot.
     About an  hour before  last light it was time  to look for  a  place to
L.U.P, but  first we'd need to break track to make sure no one was following
us. Gonzalo-Gonzwas  the scout.  I  gave him  the  signal to  stop and  went
forward.
     "We're going to look for an L.U.P-I said into his ear.
     A big  smile came up  on his face.  He had massive tombstone teeth with
black marks between from chewing tobacco.
     I said, "Follow me," and he tagged on behind.
     Gonz was  about twenty-three or twenty-four.  He had a  really youthful
look on his face, as if he  still had puppy  fat, and was always smiling. At
times  I didn't know  if he  was  stupid or just happy. It was a mischievous
sort  of smile; I  never really  knew what was going on in  his mind, but  I
hoped there was a lot more tucked away than there appeared to be.
     We looped the  track and put in an  instant  ambush  on our  own trail,
because no matter  how carefully we went  through the jungle, we were always
going to leave sign.
     Then,  when  we were happy, three blokes stayed with the bergens, while
Gonzalo and I went to look for an L.U.P.
     The  ideal site was  not necessarily somewhere  that could be defended;
the main consideration was concealment.
     Everybody knew  what was going on now and was happy at  the prospect of
getting his head down.
     At  the  site  we  took our  bergens  off again and got into  all-round
defense, standing to until last light. First,  however,  came a good dousing
of  mozzie rep. All  around  my  head I  heard  the steady  buzz of insects.
Standing to  in the jungle, you  always see  and  hear a lot more  than  you
realized  was around you. You think you're moving covertly, but the wildlife
has  you sussed, and by the time you get there they're well and  truly gone.
Now,  just sitting there, doing nothing, I could  hear everything around me.
Apart from  the mosquitoes it  was lovely,  being sort  of  embraced by  the
jungle.
     As soon as it was last light, we put up our hammocks and ponchos.
     There was  no  need  to talk; everybody knew what  to do, taking it  in
turns. While two of us got ourselves organized,  the  other three looked and
listened.
     I put my dry  kit on and got into my hammock and fell  asleep listening
to the hums and rustles and the rain that came about midnight.
     About an hour before first light we packed our equipment up.
     Again, there was  no reason  to talk; we just did everything slowly and
carefully to avoid making a noise.
     We left as soon as it was light enough to move.
     We  patrolled  for about two hours, then stopped to  make our sitrep to
the F.O.B, giving  our location, any  enemy location  or activity  that we'd
seen, and our  own activity and  future intentions, which  in this case  was
"carry on patrolling." Back at the HQ the blokes would  then plot us on  the
map;  if the shit  hit the fan later in the day, at least  they'd know where
we'd been at 0800.
     The boys sat there eating sugar and corned beef.
     For the next few days that was the routine:  moving off,  changing over
scouts, changing over check pacers.
     Once  or  twice  we  got  lost. We stopped,  moved  off track,  sat  in
all-round defense, and got the map out.
     "Where were we last time we  definitely  knew where we were?" I said to
Gonz.
     We methodically worked it out from there; it was no good running around
like lunatics,  chasing shadows.  I  sent two boys out on  a short  recce to
confirm that the next feature was five hundred meters further along. I hoped
they'd come  back and report, "Yes, there is a river, and it flows from left
to right."
     On the third occasion I sent out Gonz and One-of three-Joses on a recce
patrol. "Go down there no more than four hundred meters. As you start moving
down towards the  low ground, we should be on the highest point. Look around
and there should be no higher ground around you.
     If  not, we have una problems. And there should be a river  about three
hundred meters further down, running left to right."
     Off they went, Gonz with a big black toothy smile on his face.
     They came back much  sooner than  I had expected,  and Gonz's smile had
vanished.
     Putting his mouth  to my ear, Gonz said, "We got down there. We were on
the  highest ground,  but there's movement ahead. We heard  a sound of metal
and some shouting."
     I got everybody together and said, "There's something down there.
     We  don't  know what it is. What  we're going  to do is move forward as
best we can. Gonz is going to  take us down there to the area where he heard
it, and we'll stop and take it from there. Is everybody ready?
     Just take your time; there's no need to flap."
     Everybody  started to  switch  on.  We moved down  the  hill very, very
slowly. Gonz was ahead of me, the others behind. I couldn't hear anything.
     Gonz stopped and pointed forward.
     I motioned for him  to come  with me, and the other three to stay  with
the bergens. "If there's any problems, you're soon going to hear.
     If we're not back by last light,  wait until  midday  tomorrow and then
skirt around  the noise,  hit the river, and turn  right  until  you hit the
road.
     We'll sort ourselves out. Leave our bergens where they are."
     We crept forward through  the vegetation,  with nothing but  rifles and
belt kit. We were  going  to go just  far enough to confirm; it would be  no
good jumping up and down  thinking that we'd found it, after  only a cursory
look.
     I  inched  through the jungle, following  Gonzalo. My eyes were darting
around all over the place. He was looking ahead, concentrating on trying  to
remember  where he had heard the  noise.  Every now and again he looked back
for a bit of reassurance, and there was no smile.
     At a point about two hundred meters from where  we'd left the  bergens,
he  stopped and held up his hand. I stopped. As a technical adviser I should
now have been helping him to  go and do the CTR, but I had to make  sure the
job was done and  we  all got out safely. Motioning for him to stay where he
was and give me cover, I signaled that I was going to go and have a look.
     I got down onto my belly and  crawled forward very slowly. I took three
or  four  little crawls, stopped,  us- I tened, looked around,  and  crawled
again. After about twenty minutes I couldn't believe what I saw.
     I was looking  through  about two meters of brush,  and  then the  area
opened up  into  almost a  small industrial  complex. I  saw three  or  four
buildings. One was a long, low one, which I knew was the trademark of a DMP.
     Inside, the coca paste would be laid out on long tables.
     Two other single-story buildings  were higher. They had corrugated iron
roofs, with attempts to camouflage them with leaves and branches.
     I  heard  a  South  American voice shout  a  question. The  answer,  in
Spanish,  was slightly drowned by the  sound  of a  generator, but it  had a
strong, almost Afrikaans twang to it.
     I saw an old boy walking between two of the buildings. He wasn't armed.
     I stayed  there for about half an hour, watching and listening for more
activity, not believing our good luck.
     It was the first manufacturing plant  I had seen in operation; I didn't
want to fuck up. I couldn't see much  from my perspective but heard  another
couple of people and the occasional banging of a door.
     The  mosquitoes loved what was happening. They  could  land on my face,
and it would take  me  long, slow  seconds to bring my hand up to wipe  them
away. I didn't  want to move to another position or kneel up to get a better
view. I didn't need to do that at this stage; all I  needed  to  do was make
myself happy that it was indeed a DMP.
     I crawled my way back to Gonz. I put my mouth to his ear and gave him a
thumbs-up. "Bingo!"
     He gave,  me a  flash  of  blackened  tombstones,  but  I  knew  he was
thinking, Oh, fuck, we've found one. . . .
     We moved  back to  the  rest of the patrol. I  got everybody around and
said, "We've found it. It's down there."
     I  told  them  exactly  what  I'd seen and heard. There  was an air  of
disbelief,  together with  a  mixture  of  happiness and  apprehension.  Now
something had to be done about it.
     We  moved right out of the area to avoid any  chance of a compromise. I
told  them,   "i'm   going   to  go  in   tomorrow   at   first  light  with
One-of-three-Joses.  The other three are going to guard the equipment at the
final RP, which is where we stopped with the bergens earlier on.
     This might take a couple of days. You're to stay there for two  days if
we  don't  come back. On the morning  of  the third day, if we're not there,
you're to head down to the river, turn right, and  hit the road. If you hear
any firing, you're to come down and help us. Got that?"
     The fourth member of the patrol, nicknamed El Nino, was about nineteen.
He was about five feet seven inches and had a skinny, bony body. He found it
very difficult  to look at anyone  when  he talked, looking above or  to the
side of the other person's face; maybe he was selfconscious of the jungle of
zits that covered his  own. He didn't have a clue what was going  on. He was
always  left  to  do  as  little  as   possible.  He  was  all  right,  just
inexperienced and worried.  He would rather  be  at  home with  his mum than
doing this  shit. However, he always tried to act the macho  bit in front of
the others, who took the piss  out  of  him nonstop. He was looking severely
worried but happy that he was in the final RP group.
     "Don't put your ponchos up in the final RP," I said.
     "All I want you  to do is stay with those bergens.  It's  going to be a
long day-might be two day. Make  sure you look after the kit, and  you'll be
looking after us."
     I got the radio out and sent a sitrep back to the troop HQ. It was in a
rush because  I wanted  to bang it  out before last light. I told them  what
we'd found, what I'd seen. "Unless I'm told otherwise," I said, "we will CTR
it tomorrow."
     I  knew that back at the  squadron HQ they would be making the decision
as to whether to  tell the  other patrols on their next sitrep or wait until
it  was confirmed that it was the target.  If they told the other patrols to
stop  and  wait  out, they'd be  losing  time.  Not our problem;  we started
planning and preparing for the CTR.
     I'd go in myself with  One-of-three-Joses;  the other three would guard
the equipment at  the final  RP. A set of orders would have to  be produced,
covering all eventualities:  how  we were going  to get  there; what we were
going to do when we got there;  what we were going to do if the enemy opened
up  on  us. What would  we do if the final RP group had  a contact? How long
would the RP be open for before we changed to another RP?  What  would we do
if there was a contact and somebody got caught?
     We would plan  and  prepare in the area where we were now and then move
forward to the final RP, which would be the jumping-off point of the two-man
CTR team. The CTR might take one or two days, depending on what we could see
and where. We'd just have  to make sure that if we were  out during daylight
hours, we came back  an hour  before  last light; then we could move off and
L.U.P  somewhere  else. The ponchos  wouldn't be put up at the final RP; the
boys would just place out a couple of claymores, sit with their backs to the
bergens, their belt kits on, and then between themselves alternately stag it
and get their heads down, which wouldn't be good news.
     The teaching went to bollocks  now. In theory it should have  been  the
patrol  doing the  CTR  and conducting  any attack,  but  we'd get  only one
chance, and it had to be done properly.
     We were  about five hundred meters from the DMP  and were going to stay
there for the night. We got our ponchos and  hammocks out and settled  down.
One-of three-Joses wasn't getting his head  down, that was for  sure. He was
tossing and  turning all night, obviously flapping about what  was going  to
happen the next day.
     The others were apprehensive; they looked almost lost and lonely, as if
they wanted everybody else there as reinforcements.
     I was apprehensive myself. I didn't know what to expect; all I knew was
that if they got hold of us, we'd be in the shit. I lay there covered in cam
cream  and mozzie rep and thought  about Kate. I  tried to work out the time
difference and  wondered what she would be doing. I worked it out that she'd
probably just finished her breakfast and was getting ready for play  school.
I just wanted to get this over and done with  as  quickly as possible, so we
could get back downtown  and have a  good  time on the beach  with the  ex-G
Squadron  boys. I knew it wouldn't  be  long until I  was back in the jungle
again.
     "We'll take  the minimum  amount of  equipment  with  us,"  I  said  to
One-of-three-Joses  at  first  light.  "BasicAlly just  belt kit,  plus  the
cameras, and a pistol and rifle each."
     We had already spent lots.of time making sure that our equipment didn't
shine, by blackening it with spray paint.
     Now  we  cammed  ourselves  up, too. Skin is a reflective  surface,  no
matter if you're black, Asian, or white.
     When  the  sun shines, your  skin shines'  At he beizinnine of a jungle
patrol, cam cream was difficult to keep on because of the sweat.
     After  a few  days, however,  when  the  face started  to get  a bit of
growth, the  stuff congealed into the beard and got engrained in the creases
in the forehead.
     It  wasn't  a matter of just a  few dabs  on  the  face like Indian war
paint. We  daubed it on all  over the face, the ears, behind the  ears,  all
around  the  neck and the  back of the neck, below the " neck of the collar,
down  the V of  our chests,  on  our  hands  and  up  our  wrists.  I had my
shirtsleeves  down to  protect  me  from  all  the jungly  nasties as I  was
crawling  about,  but I still  took it up past  the wrists because my  hands
would be moving and therefore the material would be moving.
     The  way the cam cream goes on is always a sign of a good  professional
soldier.  There was no need for all the  magic colors-dark green, brown, and
light green-all in weird and wonderful patterns and shapes.
     It wasn't there as camouflage; it was there to mask the shine and break
up the lines of our face.
     We now checked one another's cam cream in the buddy-buddy system.
     I checked One-of-three-Joses, and he did me.
     "Everything okay?" I asked him.
     "Is okay." He smiled nervously.
     We all moved down toward the final RP at about  0700. Rodriguez was the
scout, and  this time he was really taking  his  time. He was stopping every
five  minutes,  looking and listening. In my mind  I was thinking about many
things: about the CTR; about One-of-three-Joses-I knew he  was going to hold
back  and I'd have to do everything-and about what  would happen if  he or I
got caught. I decided that I would not get caught and that was that.
     A  very cautious  two  hours  later we reached  the  final RP, took our
bergens off,  sat down on  them, and  waited  five  minutes for everybody to
settle down and stop panting. I took the camera  equipment out of my bergen,
already stowed in a little  day sack. I checked  all our equipment  again to
make sure that everything was tied down and secure,  that we didn't have any
rattles. I also made sure One-of-three-Joses knew where all my first-aid kit
was. I ran  a discreet eye over his uniform and  kit to  make  sure all  his
buttons were done up,  and that he wasn't taking anything  with him that was
unnecessary.
     "We are at the final  RP," I said. I confirmed our patrol and emergency
RVs and all our directions-the direction we were going out on, the direction
we'd be coming in from-and the time we'd got to be in by.
     Then it was time to go.
     I looked at One-of-three-Joses. I knew that if  I  was captured, they'd
take their frustrations  out on me; there  was a good chance  of  being held
hostage for a ransom.
     But for him the downside was much nastier, and he was sweating buckets.
The  police  were getting knocked  out left, right,  and center; even before
they finished training, many tens of them had been assassinated. The cartels
spared no effort or expense  when it came to reprisals. If  a member of  the
police was caught, he  knew he was guaranteed a slow and painful death. Many
of them  had been found dead at  the roadside, having had not a good day out
on the receiving end of a chain saw and hammer.
     Rodiguez insisted on going through all the  details again. "We're there
for two days? On  the third day we go to the river? Is that right? Sorry for
asking."
     I had built up the task at the original briefing to make them feel that
they were special. I went over to One-of three-Joses and said into  his ear,
"You  are  number  one,  the  best."  I  hoped  that  would  stop  him  from
hyperventilating- He tried  to grin,  but it came  out looking  more like  a
grimace.
     We  moved very slowly;  there was no rush.  it was hot and damp; mozzie
rep was running into my eyes. My feet and boots were soaking wet.
     CTRs in the jungle are very scary things. We would be getting right  on
to the target; if we couldn't see what we needed to  see from the perimeter,
we'd have to go forward and then even more forward until we did. It would be
no good getting just half of the information; that i could mean having to go
back in.
     When I thought of CTRS, I always imagined one of those  toys that motor
forward on little electric wheels until they hit something They turn around,
come back, and then they bounce off  into it  again. The two of us would  be
going  in, coming  out,  going back  in at  a different angle, bouncing off,
going around. We'd go  around  the entire camp initially, looking for routes
in and out and any  signs of security. If we saw people  on guard, we'd note
what weapons they were carrying and  what they  were dressed like. Did  they
look switched on, or were they casual and  nonchalant? Were they young, were
they old?
     Were the  tracks in and  out well worn? Were there fresh marks on them?
Could we tell by the sign how many people had been going through?
     What sorts of noises can we hear as welre going around?
     Whereabouts can we infiltrate into the camp?
     Has it got barbed wire up, or rattan, or is there nothing?
     Is it in a small  valley and  camouflaged? How  many  people are in the
camp? Are there any communications?
     Are there any antennas? Are there any vehicles, are there any aircraft?
     What vantage points are there? Are there places  where we  could locate
fire support  groups? Are  there places where  we  could  put an OP  in; the
decision might be  not to attack it now, but just to  OP it and watch it for
weeks. Where would be a good start line for an attack?
     Where  could  we bring  people in? What are the main  processing areas?
Where is the living accommodation?
     All these questions would have to be answered from where I was lying on
my belly and looking up, from maybe a dozen or so meters away.
     We got to about fifteen meters  from the edge of the camp and  stopped.
Very slowly I got down and took my belt kit off. I handed it and my rifle to
One-of-Three-Joses, then pointed  to him and pointed to the ground, motionin
for  him, to stay  put. I did a little walking  sign with my fingers to show
him that I  was going  to  go forward and have a  look. I pushed the  camera
around  to  rest on  my back, got onto my stomach, and started edging myself
'forward.
     Somewhere a generator was chugging. There were snatches of conversation
and the sound of a  radio,  playing panpipe music. As  doors were opened and
closed, the music got louder, then died a little.
     My breath  came in  pants; the crawling was  hard  work.  All  I had to
protect myself with was  my pistol as I kitten-crawled toward the perimeter.
I put my hands  out,  Put  pressure on  my elbows, and pushed myself forward
with the  tips  of my  toes. Six  inches  at a  time, I  moved  through  the
undergrowth.  I stopped, lifted  my head from the  dirt of the jungle floor,
looked  and listened. I heard  my own breath, and it sounded a hundred times
louder  than anything around me. The leaves crackled more than they normally
would; everything  was  magnified  ten times  in  my mind.  I inched forward
again. It took nearly an hour to  cover the distance. I was right on top  of
the  DMP now, and movement was the thing that was going to give me  away. If
one of the guards saw movement even just on the periphery of  his vision, he
would be  instantly drawn  toward  it.  I  stopped,  looked, moved  forward,
constantly looking  for alarm trips-whether they were wires, pressure  pads,
infrared beams, or maybe even a more sophisticated method based on empty tin
cans. I was right up on top of it now. If there was an opportunity, this was
the time to start taking  pictures of any personalities  in the camspecially
Europeans  or gringos. If it  all went  to ratshit, at least we'd  have some
sort of evidence of foreign involvement that the police could use.
     The sun was very bright,  making it-easier for me to see the target and
harder  for them  to  see me in the gloom of  the forest.  I could  see some
buildings, each  about  thirty feet  by twenty. They were built of  vertical
wooden planks with corrugated iron  roofs and leaves  and  rattan as a crude
form of camouflage over the top.
     The iron  sheeting had lost its  shine and was rusting, indicating that
the  camp had possibly been  there for quite a  while. Some of the slats had
gaps between them, I some were close-joined. All the  buildings had windows,
covered  with mosquito netting. There were  two doors, a wooden inner and  a
mesh outer, an antimosquito measure  that seemed strange given  the  gaps in
the wood.
     There  was  intermittent  noise-music,  a  bang  of  metal,  a  bit  of
shouting-indicating that there weren't that many people there. Very slowly I
eased the  camera bag  from my  back.  If  we were  going to hit this place,
people had  to have a  firm idea of their targets and  what  the camp looked
like.  With luck this would be the first  of many pictures as I moved around
the camp.
     I got the camera off  my head.  The biggest danger  would  be the  lens
reflecting the sun, so the whole camera was wrapped in a face net.
     It  wasn't  a  problem;  the photographs would still  come  out. ReAlly
slowly I  put  the camera on  the  ground,  aimed, and  gently  squeezed the
shutter release.  Nothing  happened. With my  thumb I tried to move the film
winder along, but it was stuck.
     There was  no time to muck about with it; I put it down by my side  and
kept  on looking. This was going to be a pain in the  arse.  I cursed myself
for not bringing the video camera; I'd  wanted to save the batteries for any
OPs that we might have