Terence Strong
The Tick Tock Man
For Felix
The men and women” of 321 EOD Squadron and the Explosives Section of the Metropolitan Police.
And for those innocent survivors of terrorist bombs who have to carry on when the rest of the world so soon forgets.
Author’s Note
It’s called the most dangerous job in the world.
Seventeen bomb-disposal operators and three team members of 321 Explosives Ordnance Disposal Squadron (Royal Logistics Corps) have been killed in Northern Ireland since the unit was formed in 1971.
Twenty-six have been injured, many seriously; two such incidents occurred while this book was being written.
As often as not these men have been the deliberate target of terrorist booby traps; or else time and their luck ran out.
Yet in that time well over five thousand devices have been neutralised by EOD teams, saving an estimated bill for damages of some 500 pounds million; the saving of innocent life and limb has been inestimable.
Between them, those teams have received two George Cross medals, 16 OBEs, 22 MBEs, 19 BEMs, 33 George Medals and 65 Queen’s Gallantry Medals, with 115 Mentions in Dispatches. Probably that says it all.
Therefore it is a privilege to have written probably the first thriller ever to go deep into the bomb man’s closed and frightening world.
Achieving this has been due in no small part to the kind cooperation of the British Army and in particular to members of ‘Felix’ (the traditional EOD call sign) in Northern Ireland and in mainland.Britain.
I am particularly indebted to CATO (‘Top Cat’) for a tour of front-line bases and for allowing me to witness the incredibly realistic training procedures. My thanks to all those I met, for the warmth of their welcome, for sharing their experiences and some of their most private fears, and for their patient explanations. This could not have been written without them.
Thanks also to the Metropolitan Police. Although their equally courageous Explosives Section (all former EOD operators) were more reticent, I have attempted to portray their role and methods accurately.
The bombs in this book are my own invention; I felt it fair to ask the experts only how to dismantle them. For obvious reasons, some data and other information have been made deliberately vague.
Incidentally readers may be interested to know that Trafalgar House (unrelated to the company of the same name) really does exist. At the time this book is set it was empty and up for sale.
Finally I should like to give an extra special thanks to those who have been my guides in this unfamiliar world: Hugh, Gary, Andy and Kevin Callaghan GM OGM (the author of A Price On My Head from Owl Books).
These are the people who have really made this book possible.
Terence Strong London 1994
Many others have contributed time and expertise which have assisted in the writing of this story:
The staff of the London Evening Standard, including managing editor Craig Orr; editor Stewart Steven for allowing me to sit in on conference; news editor Steve Clackson and my good friend Steve Pryer. They’ve all promised not to sue for any unintentionally unethical behaviour by my fictitious characters!
In Northern Ireland I was grateful for the hospitality, advice and observations of Pauline Reynolds; Richard Crawford, new author of a cracking thriller called Fall When Hit; writer and journalist Eamonn Mallie, and Mike and Brad at Lisburn for smoothing the way.
On the medical front I thank my long-term adviser Major Janice Perkins (long overdue a credit) and Lieutenant Colonel Roddy MacDonald and Lieutenant Colonel Graham Hopkins and staff of the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot.
Those close to both sides of the paramilitary divide in Northern Ireland were kind enough to explain their political beliefs both eloquently and passionately: Ken (for Sinn Fein) and Steve and Charlie (for the Loyalists), which I hope will go some way to explaining what so many of us have failed to understand fully.
Other ‘regulars’ on my team have again done sterling work with technical advice: Neil, Robin and Leslie, and on the editorial production front I thank my wife Lindy, my editor Carolyn Caughey and typist Judy Coombes for performing another minor miracle.
And, of course, to those who have inspired but cannot be named. They know who they are.
Prologue
The soldier had died instantly.
A single sniper round had shattered his skull without i warning. One moment he was a bright and friendly nineteen-year-old on his first tour of Belfast, an entire lifetime stretching ahead of him; the next he was a corpse who would never grow old. A crumpled sack of camouflaged combat fatigues, virtually indistinguishable from the weeds and rubbish on the overgrown patch of wasteland. Virtually trapped on the open plot and fearing another unerringly accurate shot, the dead man’s foot patrol had been obliged to seek what little cover they could find for almost ten minutes. They couldn’t fire because there was nothing to shoot at, and they couldn’t manoeuvre because they were sitting ducks.
At last reinforcements of 1 Light Infantry moved in to surround the row of derelict houses from which the shot was believed to have come.
The body of the dead soldier had only just been retrieved when the Ammunition Technical Officer, Captain Tom Harrison, arrived. The two Humber Tigs’ and Saracen of 321 Explosives Ordnance Disposal Squadron, which had been tasked to the incident, pulled in behind the ambulance. Armoured Land-Rovers of the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary had already gathered. Harrison jumped down from the cab to be met by the first subaltern to have arrived on the scene. With him was the Light Infantry sergeant who had been leading the patrol.
‘Another shoot, ATO, I’m afraid,’ the infantry officer confirmed. Despite his confident manner, he looked ridiculously young for the job, the down of fair hair above his upper lip hardly looking as though it had need of a razor. ‘Paddy is playing with his new toy again. That’s the third time this month.’
Harrison watched the dead man being zipped into the body bag. ‘The Tikka?’
‘I think so, sir.’ It was the NCO who spoke. Unlike the junior officer by his side, the sergeant looked a decade older than his twenty-five years, an age he shared with Harrison. The eyes amid the cam cream were wary and red-rimmed with fatigue as he introduced himself. ‘Sarn’t Copes, sir. I was leading the patrol when we heard the crack and the thump. Next thing we knew, Bates was down. Poor bleeder didn’t stand a chance. Took half his fucking head off.’
Certainly sounds like the Tikka, Harrison thought.
According to ‘Whiz’, the Weapons Intelligence Section, it had been used in this Ballymurphy ghetto area on the two previous ‘shoots’ that month. A deadly new toy indeed for the terrorists. The Finnish-made bolt-action rifle capable of throwing a hollow point 7mm cartridge five hundred and fifty metres with deadly accuracy. As the veteran sergeant had said, the dead soldier hadn’t stood a chance.
Harrison viewed the stretch of wasteland with its weeds, windstrewn rubbish and abandoned household appliances. Each side of the redevelopment area was flanked by the gable-end walls of terraced housing. They were adorned with elaborate and sinister pro-Republican graffiti. The far side was denoted by the next parallel street and a row of derelict houses like rotten teeth awaiting extraction.
Car bombs and derelicts. They were Harrison’s very private fears. Fears that he never shared with another human soul. And on which he didn’t even allow his own mind to dwell. Yet those fears were always lurking at the back of his mind like the proverbial black dog. Because the truth was that a car or a derelict building was never necessarily what it seemed. Even if a vehicle had been subjected to a controlled explosion, there was never any guarantee that there wasn’t something very nasty lying in wait for the unsuspecting ATO. There were a hundred hidden recesses in which something could be secreted. Likewise with an empty house. Plenty of time for a terrorist to plan his deadly trap and even more places to hide a device.