The Sixteen (14 page)

No matter which of them I was actively training with at any one time, their moves were always precisely the same, completely identical. It was uncanny! Although by this time I had only learnt about seventy moves, I could feel something happening to me as we repeated things over and over, not only to get them right but also to ensure that they became like second nature. Following one particularly long session with Spot, I stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat pouring from my brow.

I was doing exactly what they were doing, it was weird! Even though I knew they had planted The Machine moves into me, it felt like I had been born with this. I could feel something happening to me as we repeated things over and over.

‘Had enough?’ Spot asked. ‘Do you want a break?’

‘No way!’ I replied.

Spot grinned. ‘You’ve got the bug, I remember when it first hit me I didn’t want to stop either. It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it? Powerful, as though you could walk over anyone? Yeah, I remember it well, Geordie. You feel good now, but wait until you know everything,
you’ll feel incredible. You’ll probably end up like Dynamo and we’ll have to tie you down for a few days!’ He laughed.

‘It gets as bad as that, does it?’ I said, laughing back at him.

‘You’d better believe it, you don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for!’

‘What exactly do you mean?’

‘Well, I don’t want to put you off—’

‘—I don’t think you’ll be able to do that,’ I interrupted him.

‘OK, then. I remember the first job I did,’ he went on. ‘Afterwards, when we got back, I felt really strange for a while, sort of guilty, knowing that I’d killed someone – but at the same time totally thrilled that I’d done it, and done it well. I think we’ve all experienced the same thing, but by the time I’d done my second job, something else seemed to have taken over. It’s a bit difficult to explain but I guess it’s got something to do with the excitement that builds up inside of you when you have to go into a hostile country where you know they hate your guts and would have absolutely no qualms about blowing your brains out. You get this huge rush of adrenalin through your body. Going in disguise into a heavily guarded area under their very noses and carrying out the operation, assassination or whatever, knowing the serious consequences of what you’re doing and coming out again without a scratch, it’s unbelievable!’

Spot looked thoughtful for a brief moment then continued: ‘The bit I really enjoy is the unknown, the element of surprise, especially when they think it’s impossible to break their security, you know? To get to our destination and find that it’s not exactly like the photos we’ve seen, having to change our plans there and then. It’s having the ability to work out any problems we may encounter, right under their very noses, to make what seems impossible, possible – that’s what gives me a kick! The things you’ll learn will never fail you. Do you see?’

I nodded. His enthusiasm was totally infectious.

‘You see, we come from the place they least expect, somewhere they’d never dream anyone would even attempt, and because of that it sometimes feels as though we’re almost cheating in some way. You could almost feel sorry for the bastards. It’s having that edge that gives you a buzz, that and the fact that usually we’re already on our way home before they even discover what’s happened. There was this one job we did, I can’t say where, but we got word back that they were suspicious about the sudden death of a guard and some valuable documents going missing. They weren’t certain exactly what had taken place but the word came back via intelligence that someone thought they’d seen something but couldn’t be sure. That’s when Ken came up with that little saying of his, “There was a man who wasn’t there, he wasn’t there again today, I wish that man would go away”.’

‘He said that to me when I first came here,’ I said, remembering.

‘Well, Geordie, it sort of sums us up, if you know what I mean. It’s a bit like the feeling when someone has been in your room, they may not have touched anything but you just know someone has been there, don’t you? Or when someone has left the house ten minutes before you get home, you can tell that they haven’t been gone very long.’

I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.

Suddenly he nudged me. ‘Hey, Geordie, you know that break you didn’t want, well I’ve just spent half an hour explaining things to you so you’ve had it whether you wanted it or not. Come on, let’s get on with it!’

And so, my training continued with them. It was great, I was learning how to move and think and be completely different. Sometimes I spent a complete week with them, returning to camp only for the weekend, then I’d be back with them again the
following week. Other times I would only train for a couple of days then spend the next two weeks back at camp. They never gave me specific times or dates when I could expect to be picked up and it appeared that nobody in my unit suspected a thing.

Whoever was covering my back was doing a first-class job, but they were undoubtedly helped by the apparent lack of organisation that was prevalent in the army system. Once you were given your orders and instructed to report to another camp, nobody seemed to care much as long as you got back when you were supposed to and that any paperwork you had was all in order.

In the beginning, they would often ask me to do something, watch me then smile or laugh and walk away shaking their heads and I thought that I must be doing it all wrong, or that they were taking the Mickey. Puzzled, I collared Chalky.

‘What are you all laughing at?’ I asked him, looking down at my trousers to see if something was wrong. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing, Geordie! Slow down a bit that’s all, you’re putting us to shame!’ he said. ‘No, honestly, I’m only joking, but you’re learning this a hell of a lot quicker than we did!’

‘Yes, you’ll soon be ready,’ Dynamo added.

‘Ready for what?’ I wanted to know.

‘You’ll find out soon enough, a job could pop up at any time and you are ready for that. At the speed you’re going, you’ll be ready to do some initiative tests pretty soon!’

‘Initiative test? I thought I’d already done that?’

‘No, these tests are used to see how quick you’re going to be at picking things up, assessing situations, learning river crossings and the like,’ he told me.

I was relieved to know that they were merely laughing with genuine surprise at the speed with which I was learning and how quickly I cottoned on to complex things that others would possibly
find difficult to fathom. They didn’t have to encourage me but nevertheless it was great to be praised for once in my life. I was totally surprised at how quickly I was learning and could remember with comparative ease what they showed me. Not for the first time, I wondered how anyone could have possibly known that I would have this kind of ability when I hadn’t even known it myself!

Although the implant of The Machine made it relatively easy, it was only after a couple of days that there came a moment when it just all clicked into place. Until then, my actions hadn’t seemed to have any real power to them at first, but then I just felt everything come together, the moves and combinations, the weapons, the boot-knives and the sash.

The aim was to turn me into some kind of fighting machine, but at first, I just couldn’t understand how these actions could possibly achieve that; they were the most unorthodox movements I had ever seen. I even thought for a while that perhaps they were exaggerating.

And the power I was developing learning the moves was incredible and the way in which I was now able to move was quite unbelievable. They were right, there was no other way of describing it, I was acting like some kind of machine!

Everything was gradually becoming clearer to me and I now knew that I had the ability without using my fists, or indeed any punching or kicking actions, to kill or do some serious damage with relative ease, breaking a man’s neck or limbs was simple to do. My actions were so powerful yet required so very little effort and used such small amounts of energy that I was never left exhausted. It was utterly incredible!

To be able to take a few men out without having to resort to gunfire or explosives it would have to be done like this. I couldn’t imagine any other way of doing it so successfully.

Whoever had designed and worked out this method of combat really knew what it was all about. The whole system was quite ingenious. All of the equipment became an extension of your body, with everything designed to connect and slot together so smoothly like the pieces of a jigsaw, and the boot-knives and sash were there to fill in any gaps.

When I started training with the sash, that wonderful piece of equipment, I was utterly amazed at what I could do. Although I hadn’t learnt all of the moves yet and only had turnips in front of me as targets, it was still incredible what I was able to achieve. It fitted in completely with everything I had learned so far and extended my range, thereby enabling me to take out anyone I couldn’t reach with my hands. I could see the total surprise an attacker would get, they wouldn’t stand a chance and I’d be able to rip them to pieces in seconds.

The whole system was just so unbelievably cleverly worked out, it was obvious why it had to be kept such a secret, why in fact they operated in the way they did. It was just the kind of knowledge that you didn’t want to be made known to just anyone. Although I seriously doubted whether any of the guys I knew would ever be able to pick up anything like these techniques; it had taken most of them weeks just to get to grips with marching up and down!

I thought taking a handgun, rifle or whatever, from someone who had no qualms about killing you, was pretty clever stuff. But to have the ability to prevent that person from shooting you just by your actions alone, and then to be able to make him do what you wanted him to do by those same actions, that was something else.

Now I could easily prevent a group of attackers from opening fire on me when I took out one of their pals, by moving in such a way that if they did use their guns they’d actually end up shooting each other. This was just another aspect of my training, learning
the art of how to completely control a situation and any action resulting from it.

It was amazing how the four of us worked together as a group. Having the ability to know where the others were all the time meant that we could each coincide our moves and keep out of the others’ way. And, because I’d mastered moving my head at one with my body as I turned, I now had the ability to constantly look around me so that I was always aware of the direction an attack might come from, which also enabled me to use my peripheral vision to its maximum efficiency.

I learned how to decide who I should attack first if surrounded. By walking backwards into my chosen victim, I would surprise him and encourage him to attack my back. Thereby controlling the situation, so that I could then move into the position I needed to be in to attack someone else, or to draw another person into attacking me, using the first person as a shield if necessary. And by doing so, I would always remain in complete control of the whole situation. By constantly moving in this way I was able to monitor 360 degrees around me at any one time. Anyone I touched was taken out, or disabled, thus eliminating the risk of having them attack me again. Anyone out of my direct reach could be taken care of by using the sash.

It was a marvellous system, as skilful and as complex as a chess game.

O
nce I became proficient with the combat moves of The Machine they began to instruct me in the specialised ways of retrieving lines, using a variety of different types of arrowheads in order to cross ravines and seemingly impassable rivers. During one of these sessions, Dynamo decided that the time had also come for me to carry out some initiative tests.

‘OK. Something has come up, Geordie, and you’ve got to grips with The Machine and the weapon training a lot faster than we expected. It’s just as well, as we’ve said before we never know when we might be called on to do a job and we need to be at full strength; there are just a few more things we have to show you. As you know, we always choose difficult crossing areas where we know no one without our skills and knowledge would be able to follow us across. Do you remember when I mentioned to you a while ago that we would be putting you through some initiative tests to see how quick you’re going to be at learning river crossings and the like?’

I nodded.

‘Well, we’re going to do some today. You see, Geordie, it’s one thing to learn the moves of The Machine but we also need to know how you’re thinking, so this is what I want you to do,’ he told me, grinning. ‘But if you don’t do this in less than half an hour, you won’t get any tea for the rest of the day.’

‘Come on.’ I laughed, knowing that he was teasing me about the amount of tea that I drank and that I was always ready for a cuppa. ‘What do you want me to do?’

He pointed to the other end of the building. ‘Look over there. Do you see that egg on top of that piece of wood?’

‘Yes, sure!’ About forty feet away from me, a short piece of wood about one to one-and-a-half inches thick and about six feet long, stood on its edge with an egg precariously balanced on top of it. It was obvious that the slightest movement would cause the egg to fall and break.

‘OK. Well, wait here for a moment.’

I did as he asked and stood looking at the egg, wondering just what he had in mind, thinking it must be some kind of a joke.

Dynamo came back carrying a ball of string together with a dog-clip (as explained earlier, this was a karabiner, a metal loop with a spring-loaded gate, used for connecting ropes when mountaineering) and a small piece of wood.

‘Don’t move, Geordie,’ he said, and taking the piece of wood, scratched a circle around me in the dirt.

‘The object of the exercise is to take the egg off the top of that piece of wood, without breaking it of course, and get it back here within this circle. At no time must the egg touch the ground, you mustn’t move out of the circle at all and no one has to help you in any way. Here’s a ball of string and a dog-clip. I’ll give you five minutes to pick up anything else you can find lying around which might be of use to you. Do you understand?’

‘This isn’t some kind of wind-up is it?’

‘No it’s not! This is serious, old boy, and your time starts now!’

There wasn’t very much lying around the area except for the old oil tin that we used as a dustbin and inside it all I found was a cardboard box, which had been torn, squashed and thrown away.

Better than nothing, I thought, although I’d no idea at that stage what possible use it could be, but there just didn’t seem to be anything else around. I’d no sooner picked it up, when Dynamo said, ‘That’s it, time’s up, get in the circle.’

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ I said. ‘I’ve only got this piece of cardboard.’

‘And a ball of string and a dog-clip, what more do you need?’ he said, still laughing.

‘I take it you’ve done this?’

‘Yeah, of course, we all have.’ He grinned. ‘Right, I’m going to give you three-quarters of an hour, starting now!’

So I sat down. Well, if they can do it so can I, I thought.

I must have sat there for about ten minutes trying to work it out, looking at the structure of the building to see what I could utilise – I knew how to get the string down there and back but the one thing they hadn’t shown me was how to pick a damn egg up without breaking it! Then suddenly it came to me. I was fairly certain that by re-shaping the cardboard back into a box and using the string and dog-clip, I would be able to do it. At one point, I thought I’d blown it when the piece of wood fell over and the egg disappeared. I fully expected to find it smashed or, at the very least cracked, but, much to their astonishment and mine, I accomplished the whole task in just over half an hour.

‘Brilliant, Geordie,’ Chalky exclaimed, as they all clapped.

‘We’ve all done it, but none of us came up with that idea,’ Spot said.

‘Does that mean I get a cup of tea, then?’

Dynamo laughed. ‘That was the easy one, lad, try this. Stay where you are in that circle and don’t move.’ He walked down to the other end of the room and placed a small table where the piece of wood and egg had been, then came back to me and handed me a brick wrapped inside a piece of sacking.

‘OK. Tie that tight underneath the table. When you’ve accomplished it there must be nothing, no string or anything else, connecting you to either it or the table. You’ve got the same length of time as before and when you’ve done this one you can have your tea.’ He paused briefly and grinned. ‘Then you’ve only got three more to do!’

I could see what he meant about the first one being the easiest!

They told me that the tasks they set me were designed to test my powers of assessment, initiative, speed of thought and actual thought processes. That’s a right mouthful, I thought.

I had to think in a way I’d never previously done, look at each task differently and carefully weigh up all of the possibilities from every angle. I’d never been asked to do anything like this before but the first task had already whetted my appetite and I found myself really enjoying it. Each task was progressively more difficult than the previous one but I found that once I got my brain running along the right lines, they actually became easier for me to do. But one in particular was a real brainteaser and gave me a pain in the head thinking about it. I might have known that when Dynamo had so readily offered me a drink of tea there would be a catch. He placed my cup on a flat piece of wood, roughly eighteen foot square and about forty-five feet away from me.

‘If you want it before it gets cold, get it back to you in that circle without spilling it. It has to stay on the piece of wood and mustn’t touch the ground,’ he called to me from the other end of the room.

At first I was stumped, and stood where I was in the circle, racking my brain, but when he walked back to where I stood and handed me two wire coat hangers, I knew exactly what to do.

The tests had been difficult, but I felt as though I’d used my brain properly for the first time and was really chuffed that I accomplished them all that afternoon. I felt a great sense of achievement.

‘Well done, lad,’ Chalky said, slapping me on the back.

‘Clever,’ Spot said slowly, stringing the word out.

‘To be honest, I’m gobsmacked at the way you’ve just tackled those tests. It’s quite amazing and that’s not bull. That type of quick thinking and assessment is vital to us, and judging by what we’ve seen so far, it’s obvious that you’ve got just the kind of natural ability to learn this type of thing very quickly,’ Dynamo told me.

I was pleased to know that they thought I was doing well although a little embarrassed at their comments. But to receive that kind of praise from these incredibly clever guys was to me quite amazing. Their keen, intelligent minds were always on the go, always querying and wanting to know ‘how’? Everything they did was, to my mind, done in a clever or trick way, even mundane, ordinary things, whether it was getting out of a vehicle, going up stairs, or even picking up a pencil. They seemed to use all of these everyday things to some effect.

‘We need to get you trained up in the use of all the equipment so we’re taking you up into the hills tomorrow,’ Dynamo went on.

‘Great!’ I told him. ‘I’ve really been looking forward to training with that gear – now I’ve a good idea what it’s used for.’

‘We’ve got quite a lot to show you, Geordie,’ Chalky said. ‘The main problem is that we can only stay in that area for a couple of days at a time. British troops regularly patrol around up there and
bumping in to any of them would be a tragedy; we’ve had a few narrow escapes in the past.’

‘What do you mean, what happened?’

‘Well, I know they’re our lads but nevertheless no one has to find out what we do.’

‘Do you mean that we would have to…?’ I said in astonishment.

‘Yes,’ Spot interrupted quickly before I could finish. ‘We’d have no option. You see we would look like terrorists to them and they might not ask any questions but just start shooting. We simply can’t take the chance of them opening fire on us.’

‘Obviously we’ve got to avoid that situation at all costs,’ Dynamo pointed out. ‘Remember we don’t exist! We simply can’t afford to let anyone know of our existence, especially our lot! Besides, as Chalky said, we’ve had one or two close shaves with them before.’

‘So let’s just hope we don’t bump into any of them, for all our sakes, eh!’ Chalky said quietly. ‘The main reason I brought the subject up is that we have to do the river crossings near the foot of the hills, as it is the only place where the rivers are anywhere near wide and deep enough for our purposes. There isn’t anything really suitable on the island so we have to make do with what is available.’

‘Oh, Geordie, do me a favour will you,’ Dynamo asked. ‘Nip outside and move the jeep around the back, will you?’

I went to do as he asked and was just about to climb into the driver’s seat when there was a sudden noise from above and Chalky came sliding down the roof and grabbed a hold of me, yanking me away from the jeep.

‘Sorry about this, Geordie,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I’ve got into the habit of doing it whenever I get out. You can’t trust these local bastards to keep their hands off anything, you know.’ And with that, he bent over and removed his boot-knife from where
he’d wedged it under the driver’s seat, blade pointing upwards and just touching the underside of the pad. Anyone plonking down on the seat would have been in for a very rude awakening!

We spent four days up and around the Troodos Mountains living rough. They taught me a variety of survival techniques, and we practised abseiling and crossing rivers or ravines, using all of the strange-looking arrowheads and equipment I’d often wondered about. There were about seven or eight different types of arrowheads and what they could do was ingenious to say the least.

No wonder they wanted to keep it all a secret, I thought, as the uses of the various arrowheads were explained to me. Suddenly the reason for their odd shapes began to make sense to me at last. It was fascinating and I was like a kid with a new toy!

As we moved around the area, they selected a number of different sites in order to demonstrate the equipment and for me to familiarise myself with it.

‘As we’ve explained before,’ Chalky said, ‘these bits of equipment are what help us to carry out the seemingly impossible and to get in and out via the most unexpected routes. Let me explain what each of these arrowheads is called and what they’re used for.’ He picked one up and gave it to me.

‘This one is called a single shot pickup. It’s used to carry a light line across a river or from one building to another, where there is only one secure point, which enables us to then get a heavier line across with only one shot. These two work together,’ he said, picking up two different ones. ‘This one is a stub end and this is a pickup, then there is another one here called a gripper. The purpose of all of them is the same as the single shot pickup, which is to carry a light line across an obstacle, which then enables the heavy line to follow.’

It was all very clever stuff. Most of which they’d devised and invented themselves.

‘The reason we have so many different types is so that we can assess each different situation then, by using the relevant piece of equipment, get the lines across no matter what the terrain is like,’ Spot explained. ‘By using these arrowheads in conjunction with either a bow or crossbow, depending on the distance, and by attaching ourselves on to the heavy line using our pulley wheels, we can cross a huge variety of obstacles and distances very quickly, without getting our feet wet!’

Although the training was as hard and intense as ever, I was in my element and thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of it. By now I was raring to go and couldn’t wait to put it all together, and eventually into practise!

The following week I spent back at camp but, as Dynamo had warned that an operation could come up at any time, I didn’t think it would be long before I was picked up again. I was right and on the following Monday Chalky was waiting on the road for me.

And now, as the battered old American jeep bounced along the scorched and dusty track, dragging behind it a billowing trail of choking white dust, he turned to me grinning from ear to ear.

‘This could be your lucky day, lad,’ he shouted above the noise of the engine. ‘You’ve been waiting to see The Machine in action, well now you’re going to get the chance! I think this is what you’ve been waiting for.’

‘Why, what’s happened? What’s the job?’ I shouted back, desperately trying to cling on to my seat as we rattled over the rough terrain. Chalky didn’t reply immediately as just then, one of the front wheels hit a large stone in the potholed track with a bone-jarring crash. The jeep rocked violently, almost overturning, and I was thrown hard against the steel frame of what had once been the
windscreen and almost over it on to the bonnet. Chalky laughed as he regained control of the vehicle and I fell back into my seat, rubbing my bruised ribs. He obviously thought this was great fun!

‘What’s the job?’ he repeated, mimicking my Geordie accent. ‘You’re beginning to sound like one of the lads already. Hang on a few minutes. You’ll find out soon enough when we get to the hut,’ he yelled, still laughing.

About ten minutes later he brought the jeep to a screeching, shuddering halt outside the dilapidated training hut then dismounted in his usual fashion onto the bonnet.