We went down to the CQB house for a couple of hours, got back, swept the hangar out, and then binned it. For once we were all nodding in agreement: a sports afternoon, a good thing to do.
Gar was sitting there reading the paper, and he said, "Fucking hell, look, this is news to me."
The Dally Express had the headline: S.A.S SCOUR CRISIS CITY FOR WAFTE.
"Pity we're going gn this other job," Gar said. "We might have been getting a suntan soon by the looks of things."
Nobody was really that concerned about it. If it didn't involve us immediately, we weren't particularly interested.
I said to Gar, "It was obvious he was going to get lifted. I don't think there's a bookie in the land would have taken a bet on him not joining McCarthy."
"I know," Gar said. "And now some lucky fucker's going to be asked to risk his life to get him out." Because she'd been so sick during her pregnancy, Fiona had to go into hospital for the last three or four days. I visited her as often as I could and kept badgering the nurses into agreeing to induce.
"Don't worry," they said, "we'll sort it all out."
I went into work and explained the situation to the SSM. "What's the latest time I can get away on the Tuesday?" I asked.
The SSM went over to the clerk and said, "Danny, what's the score on that job? What time are they leaving?"
Danny shuffled through bits of paper and said, "If he gets his toe down, if he leaves at half past one, he'll get to Heathrow on time."
"There you go," said the SSM. "Half past one."
As I started walking out, he said, "Andy, make sure you're there.
Don't fuck up."
I went back to the hospital, saw Fiona, and said, "Tomorrow, at one-thirty, I have to walk out of here whether we have our child or not."
"I understand, but don't worry, we'll sort something out with the doctors."
I was getting quite upset; I really wanted to be there when my baby was born. I kissed her good-bye and said, "Get your finger out! Get this baby born!"
By now her parents had traveled up from Hampshire and were going to stay at the house while I was away.
Her mother said, "Don't worry, if she comes into labor now, you stay with her until one o'clock and then I'll come over."
I drove back to work to sort myself out so everything was ready to go. I had to run around to find somebody else who was on the team job with me.
Johnny two Combs was on it, but I couldn't find him. I went up to the gym and there were Fat Boy and Paul Hill on the weights, taking the piss out of each other.
Paul had joined the army after a career as a croupier in clubs.
He had an outrageous lifestyle and was the ultimate party animal, out every night, coming in to work knackered in the morning. He and Fat Boy were in the Far East once, playing blackjack in a really downmarket casino. Paul with all his experience and expertise was counting the cards and all sorts-and losing left, right, and center.
Fat Boy, so pissed he could hardly sit in his chair, walked awa ' with a fortune. y I said, "My kit's packed; it's in the block. When you go, can you make sure it gets on the wagon?"
"No drama."
I got back in the car, went home, and spent the night sitting by the telephone.
Nothing happened.
Next morning, the moment I got in the shower, the phone rang.
Fiona's father said, "She's going into labor. They said there's no rush. Go down in about an hour."
I was at the hospital ten minutes later.
The contractions started, and we sat there drinking tea. She was moved to another room; they put the radio on and brought in the papers.
She was scared; I was scared for her. Then she said, "If the baby doesn't come before you have to go, it's not a problem, but I'd really love you to be here."
It was the first time-ever that I'd thought: I don't want to go away.
Tomorrow, maybe even in another few hours, but for this moment I don't want to go. I so much wanted to see this thing that I had created; I had never felt so much affection and attachment as I did for this child that I hadn't even seen.
At nine o'clock a nurse came in and said there was a phone call.
Fuck! Fiona and I looked at each other. We were both thinking the same, that they wanted me down there now.
I picked up the phone, and it was Paul. "There's been a change of plan," he said.
My whole body sankHe started laughing. "Gotcha! just to say, we've decided we might as well all leave together at half one."
The labor continued. There was me drinking more tea, her getting worse with the contractions, and then, at midday, all the pain started.
She was swearing and hollering, even with an epidural, calling me every name under the sun. I felt useless. There was nothing I could do except hold her hand. Then she didn't want me to do that. Then she did.
It was a noisy hour. I felt guilty because she was in pain, and even guiltier that I knew I had to leave.
Ever the sensitive father-to-be, I said, "Look, you'd really better go for it here. I'm off in half an hour."
"I know, I know, I know."
Her mum poked her head around the door at quarter past one.
I gave Fiona a kiss on the forehead and said, "I've got to go."
"I know-you bastard!"
"I'll see you."
I got in the car and went straight down to work. Everybody was waiting by the Ministry of Defense Police lodge.
"What's happened?"
"Jack shit."
We drove to Heathrow at Warp Speed Two, me very pissed off on the backseat and not involved in the banter.
. As soon as we arrived, I phoned the hospital. Nothing. I checked in and phoned again.
"Anything happened?"
"Who are you?"
"I'm the father."
"Okay, wait."
I waited forever. "Nothing yet."
I went and had another coffee. The other boys were up at the bar, having a drink.
I phoned again. Still nothing. It was time to board the aircraft. One more call. Nothing. just as we were lining up to hand in the boarding passes, I gave it one more try.
"It's McNab again."
"Wait, wait. I think her mother's going to come and speak to you."
I heard the phone go down and footsteps running along the corridor.
Her mother picked up the receiver, out of breath.
"Just happened! A couple of minutes ago!"
"All the arms, all the legs?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"It's a girl. She's beautiful. I don't know the weight yet, but everything's fine."
A girl!
I knew her name was Kate. We'd already worked out what it was going to be. It was quite a shock. It wasn't high elation. I felt numbed; I just thought, I'm a father now-and it must have been very smoky in the departures lounge that day because as I put the phone down, my eyes were watering.
I joined the others on the aircraft, and Paul said, "She had it?"
"Yeah, it's a girl."
"Congratulations, mate." He shook my hand, all smiles. "It feels great, doesn't it?"
Even Paul, who lived his life somersaulting from good time to good time, could remember what it felt like. He had a passion about his daughter that I'd never been able to understand; it seemed so strange, coming from him. This bloke who didn't seem to care about anything, just having fun and working and really going for it, down in his heart and at the back of his head, continuously, was his daughter. Now I understood.
Now I knew exactly how he felt.
One of the benefits of going on a team job was that we traveled club class, so it was straight into the little bottles of champagne as we toasted my good news. It was a long flight, and the six of us got quietly pissed.
For weeks I was waiting for more news. Letters always had to go to Hereford for collation and were then sent on to an embassy or a consulate or the agency that we were working for in whichever country.
It took awhile for them to get to us, and I was gagging for a picture.
At last two letters turned up. I could feel that there were pictures inside. As I ripped open the envelopes, blokes gathered around.
Two-Combs looked over my shoulder and said, "She's beautiful, isn't she?"
"Fuck off," I said. "She's all greasy and covered in mucus.
However, yes, she is."
Then we all sat around cooing and admiring.
It was a really shifty job for me, tucked away on the side of a mountain for weeks on end, wishing that I was back in Hereford. But you have to make a positive out of a negative, which in this case was that at least it was another part of the world I hadn't seen.
I came back in late May 1987, having lost two stone. with dysentery, but not in such a bad way as was Two-Combs, who was diagnosed as having typhoid.
Two days later they decided it was a rupturing appendix.
We got back to the camp and unloaded all the kit. Fat Boy phoned his wife to come and pick him up and said he'd drop me home.
As we drove around to the house, I saw the curtain twitch, and then Fiona came out onto the path with a bundle in her arms.
I gave Fiona a kiss, then took the baby, all wrapped up and asleep. I peeked inside the shawl and saw her face for the first time.
I had a shock; her lip looked deformed. However, the most beautiful deformed baby in the world.
"What's wrong with her?" I said. "Is she all right?"
"She's only sucking her lip." Fiona laughed. "Don't worry, she's perfect."
Mr. and Mrs. Fat Boy came over, clucking like two hens. They were as smitten as I was, and that was the start of it; for the next few years they were producing children like people possessed.
It was wonderful to have some time with Kate. I spent hours watching her little hands all clenched up, and I kept thinking: I made that! I hated the time that she was asleep and willed her to wake up; I soon learned that all they're doing at that age is sleeping and shitting, but that was beside the point.
Eno and I got an approach to take a two-year sabbatical from the Regiment and join the "Det," an intelligence unit operating in Northern Ireland. I was on the M.O.E team at the time, and Eno was on the sniper team.
We were having an administration morning in the crew room, dragging our kit out, scrubbing it' and cleaning weapons. The clerk came over and said, "Andy and Eno, the squadron O.C wants to see you."
"Have we fucked up anywhere?" I said.
"I don't think so."
Eno looked as nonchalant and unconcerned as ever; he was so unflappable his heart must have only just about ticked over.
The Boss was sitting at his desk. "Right," he said, I.C what would you say if I said to you, Do you fancy going over the water for two years with the Det?"
We both said, "No way."
The Det had once wanted a Regiment bloke to go and hide in Dungannon, watching people go in and out of a betting office. The OP was compromised by kids, and the bloke got away, but the Det wanted him to go back the next day and do exactly the same. The ops officer of the Det was overheard saying, "It doesn't really matter if he gets compromised because he's not one of us."
John, who was running the troop, heard about this and went over and sorted it out in his normal persuasive manner.
Now it appeared that two blokes from each squadron were getting approached and asked if they wanted to go.
Most of them were saying no; in the end the CO called in all the squadrons and said, "The Det is something that you will do. The skills that they've got, we must have back. We're starting to lose it, yet we're the ones that developed it. One way or another we will regain that skill. It's all part of becoming a complete soldier; we need complete soldiers." He was quite a forceful characp ter. You either loved him or hated him; there was no in between.
A few days later we were called back to the O.C. "You have two options," he said. "You're either going over the water for two years, or you're going nowhere. You volunteered for the Regiment; you volunteered for operations. This is an operation; if you're refusing to go on operations, you're not staying in the Regiment."
So that was us off to the Det then.
In the old days, with a division of responsibilities in Northern Ireland between MIS and M16, intelligence generally was piss poor. As a result, in 1972, the army established its own secret intelligence gathering unit, which was given the cover name 14th Intelligence Unit, or 14 Int for short. Recruits were taken from regular army regiments and put through a course that lasted several weeks and covered elementary techniques of covert surveillance, communications, and agent running.
Selection forInt, known to us as the Det, emphasized the need for resourcefulness and psychological strength. There was not much call for the physical stamina needed for the Regiment. It was designed to find people-usually officers and NCOs in their mid to late twenties, in all three of the services-who were able to carry out long-term surveillance, sometimes only a few feet from armed terrorists.
My appreciation of what was going on at the time was that the Det was looking for a role beyond Northern Ireland. They started saying they could do all our forward recces for us in dangerous areas around the world, but that was a load of nonsense. All their training was for Northern Ireland; they couldn't go forward and do our recces because they didn't know, for example, what our mortars or helicopters and troops would require. Little wonder they were called the Waits-short for Walter Mittys.