"Gibraltar is a soft target," Simmonds said.
"There are several potential locations for a bomb, such as the Governor's residence or the law courts, but our threat assessment is that the most likely target will be the garrison regiment, the Royal Anglians. Every Tuesday morning the band of the First Battalion parades for the changing of the guard ceremony. We think the most likely site for a bomb is a square that the band marches into after the parade. A bomb could easily be concealed in a car there."
He might have added that from a bomber's point of view it would be a near-perfect location. Because of the confined area, the blast would be tamped and therefore more effective.
"Following this assessment we stopped the ceremony on December 11. The local media reported that the Governor's guardhouse needed urgent redecoration" slight smile "In fact, we needed time while we gathered more intelligence to stop it needing rebuilding."
Not as good as his last one, but there were still a few subdued laughs.
"The local police were then reinforced by plainclothes officers from the UK, and their surveillance paid off. When the ceremony resumed on February 23, a woman, ostensibly taking a vacation on the Costa del Sol, made a trip to the Rock and photographed the parade. She was covertly checked and was found to be traveling on a stolen Irish passport.
"The following week she was there again, only this time she tagged along behind the bandsmen as they marched to the square. Even my shortsighted mother-in-law could have worked out that she was doing recon for the arrival of an Active Service Unit."
There was loud laughter. He'd done it again. I wasn't too sure if we were all laughing at his jokes or at the fact that he kept on telling them. Who the fuck was this man? This should have been one of the most serious briefings ever. Either he just didn't give a fuck or he was so powerful no one was going to say a word against him. Whatever, I could already tell his presence in Gibraltar would be a real bonus.
Simmonds stopped smiling.
"Our intelligence tells us that the bombing is to take place sometime this week. However, there is no sign that either McCann or Savage is getting ready to leave Belfast." He wasn't wrong. I had seen both of them, stinking drunk, outside a bar on the Falls Road just the night before. They didn't look that ready to me. It should take them quite a while to prepare for this one or maybe this was part of the preparation, having their last night out before work started.
"This is where we have a few problems," he went on. He was working now without his notes. Did that mean no more one-liners? Certainly, there was more of an edge to his voice.
"What are we to do with these people? If we try to move in on them too early, that would only leave other PIRA teams free to go ahead with the bombing. In any case, if the ASU travels through Malaga airport and remains on Spanish territory until the last minute, there is no guarantee that the Spanish courts will hand them over, not only because of the dispute with the UK on the question of whom Gibraltar belongs to but because the case against them could only be based on conspiracy, which is pretty flimsy.
"So, gentlemen, we must arrest them in Gibraltar." The screen went blank; there was only the light from the lectern shining on his face.
"And this throws up three options. The first is to arrest them as they cross the border from Spain.
Easier said than done; there's no guarantee we'll know what kind of vehicle they're in. There would be only about ten to fifteen seconds in which to make a positive identification and effect an arrest not an easy thing to do, especially if they are sitting in a car and probably armed.
"The second option is to arrest the team members once they're in the area of the square, but again this depends on advance warning and positive identification, and their all being together with the device. At the present time, therefore, we are going for the third option, and that's why we are all here."
He took a sip of his tea and asked for the lights to come back on.
He looked around for each group as he talked.
"The Security Service will place surveillance teams to trigger the PIRA team into Gibraltar. The two soldiers who have just arrived from Northern Ireland" Euan caught my eye that was him and me "must give positive IDs on the terrorists before the civil authorities will hand over the operation to the military. You two will not, repeat, not, conduct any arrest or contact action. You understand the reasons why?
The four men from your counterterrorist team will make a hard arrest only after they have planted the device.
"Once arrested," Simmonds went on, "they are to be handed over to the civil authorities. Of course, the normal protection will be given to the team from any court appearance."
He managed a smile.
"I think that's enough, gentlemen."
He looked at the commanding officer.
"Francis, I understand we fly to R.A.F Lyneham in ten minutes to link up with the Hercules?"
Just over three hours later I was sitting in a C-130 with Euan, who was busy worrying about a black mark on his new sneakers. Kev was checking the weapon bundles and ammunition and, more important as far as I was concerned, the medical packs. If I got dropped, I wanted fluid put into me as soon as possible.
We landed at about 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 3.
Gibraltar was still awake; lights were on everywhere. We moved off to the military area, where trucks were waiting with our advance party to get us away quickly and without fuss.
Our FOB--Field Operations Base--was in HMS Rooke, the Royal Navy shore base. We had requisitioned half a dozen rooms in the accommodation block and turned them into living space, with our own cooking area and ops room. Wires trailed everywhere, telephones were ringing, signalers ran around in track suits or jeans, testing radios and satellite communications links.
Over the din Simmonds said, "Intelligence suggests there could be a third member of the team, probably its commander.
Her name is Mairead Farrell. We'll have pictures within the hour, but here's some background for you. She's a particularly nasty piece of work: middle class, thirty-one, ex-convent schoolgirl."
He grinned, then told us more about her. She'd served ten years in prison for planting a bomb in the Conway Hotel, Belfast, in 1976, but as soon as she was released she reported straight back to PIRA for duty. There was a slight smile on his face as he explained that her lover, unbelievably named Brendan Burns, had blown himself up recently.
The meeting broke up, and a signaler came over and started handing out street maps.
"They've already been spotted up by Intelligence," he said.
As we started to look at their handiwork he went on.
"The main routes from the border to the square are marked in detail, the rest of the town fairly well, and of the outlying areas, just major points."
I looked at it. Fucking hell! There were about a hundred coordinates to learn before the ASU came over the border.
I didn't know what was tougher--the PIRA team or the homework.
"Any questions, lads?"
Kev said, "Yeah, three. Where do we sleep, where's the toilet, and has somebody got some coffee on?"
In the morning, we picked up our weapons and ammunition and went onto the range. The four on the counterterrorism team had their own pistols. The ones Euan and I had were borrowed--our own were still in Derry. Not that it mattered much; people think that blokes in the SAS are very particular about their weapons, but we aren't. So long as you know that when you pull the trigger it will fire the first time and the rounds will hit the target you're aiming at, you're happy.
Once at the range, people did their own thing. The other four just wanted to know that their mags were working OK and that the pistols had no defects after being bundled up. We wanted to do the same, but also to find out the behavior of our new weapons at different ranges. After firing off all the mags in quick succession to make sure everything worked, we then fired at five, ten, fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five yards. Good, slow, aimed shots, always aiming at the same point and checking where the rounds fell at each range. That way we knew where to aim at fifteen yards, for example, and that was at the top of the target's torso. Because of the distance, quite a lot for a pistol, the rounds would fall lower into the bottom of his chest and take him down. Every weapon is different, so it took an hour to be confident.