Gordon Stevens - Peace on Earth

At nine thirty that morning the lawyer representing Mannheim issued a press statement on behalf of his client, spelling out a list of demands and stating that, unless they were met, his client had that morning begun a fast to death.

One hour later, a bomb exploded beneath the perimeter fence of the NATO military school in Oberammergau. At precisely the same time a second bomb exploded outside the NATO headquarters in Brussels. Damage in both cases was minimal: what attracted the attention of the press, however, was that in both cases investigations showed that the bombs had been planted the night before. And in both cases the communiqués claiming responsibility were signed by a group bearing a name which was new to international terrorism: the Commando of the Martyr Klars Christian Mannheim.

The first frosts of winter were settling in the courtyard below the window. In the training camps where he had spent the past days, in the mountains where the camps were hidden, the snow had been on the ground for two weeks. Now Damascus would feel its bite.

It had started, Nabil thought, just like the snow, slowly and inevitably: the military campaign, the two men he hoped to ensnare in the tangle of Middle East politics, the first assassination in London, the sustained, deliberate build-up through Europe, the clues and connections for the authorities to spot, to feed to the press, for the press to tell the people, for the people to begin to worry, to put pressure on the authorities, for the authorities in turn to feel the tightening of the screw. Then the hunger strike. And now the beginning of the next stage, the last link in the chain.

He wondered how he should tell Haddad, how he would explain the job, the possibility that Haddad would not necessarily return from it. He did not know it then, would not know it for days, even weeks, but he would remember the moment, remember it the next time he stood at the window and wondered how he should tell Haddad.

He heard the knock on the door and turned back into the room as Issam Sharaf entered with the man he had sent to London, welcoming them both, offering them chairs and a coffee, both men sitting down, accepting.

Haddad waited, feeling the liquid warm him, and wondered why he had been summoned.

‘A good job in London,’ said Nabil.

They had already discussed it. Walid Haddad wondered again why he had been summoned, knew why he was always summoned. ‘It was as you said. Little security, he was wide open.’ He shook his head, remembering the final security lapses on the part of the driver, not mentioning the minutes on the motorway from the airport.

‘There’s another job.’

There was always another job, Haddad thought.

‘It’s important,’ continued Nabil, ‘very important.’ He chose his words carefully, meaning what he was about to say. ‘In its way, it’s the most important job we have ever done.’ He looked at Walid Haddad. ‘I would like you to take charge of it.’

Haddad knew they expected his first reaction would be to ask what the job was. ‘Where is it?’ he asked.

‘It depends. Partly your choice. Probably, almost certainly, Europe.’

‘How dangerous?’

‘Very.’

The first suspicion of what it was crossed his mind. ‘Who else will be involved?’

Nabil gave him the part of the answer that concerned him. ‘Your decision. A team job. I imagine you will decide yourself plus three or four others.’

The suspicion was growing. ‘What conditions?’

‘On the team you choose? Only one condition, one of the team must be a West German.’

‘Why a West German?’

‘Because we will be making demands of the West German government.’

He knew what it was. ‘When?’ he asked.

‘Ten weeks, possibly eleven.’

The hunger strike that had started that morning, Haddad thought, knew for certain what the job was.

‘What is it?’ he asked at last.

‘A hijack,’ said Nabil.

The first snows of the year had settled on the sides of the hills surrounding the city, laying its blanket over the valleys and moorlands where they had their secret places. The ground was already hard with frost, and the cold in the air took his breath away. He wondered what it would be like in the Brecons, in the disused quarries and the forgotten valleys where he and his men would practise their craft.

He left home at seven thirty and began the ten minute drive to the barracks on the southern side of the city. It was his first day on duty since he had returned from Northern Ireland, it was also the first day for as long as he could remember that he would return home when he came off duty that night. He turned out of the road and began the drop into the city. Jane and the children were still on Christmas holidays, they had booked seats for the pantomime that evening. The traffic was light, he crossed the bridge over the river, turned right at the post office and began the drive along the edge of the barracks, the wire of the outer fence glistening in the cold of the sun. The man at the main gate looked into the car as he stopped. He knew what was going to happen.

‘It’s the bloody pin-up boy,’ the man joked. ‘Can I have your autograph?’

‘Sod off,’ Enderson told him.

The barrier lifted and he drove through.

The key number in the organisation of the Special Air Service, ever since its inception by David Stirling in the deserts of North Africa in 1941, is the number four. The regiment is divided into four active service squadrons, named Sabre squadrons. Each squadron is, in turn, divided into four troops; each troop in its turn, is divided into four patrols; each patrol is made up of four men. Each Sabre squadron is an entity in itself; there are, therefore, in principle at least, a minimum of four tours of duty in which the SAS may be engaged at any one time. Three of those are normally overseas, and in recent years the fourth has been British-based. It is the anti-terrorist duty. Other circumstances permitting, each squadron takes that duty in turn, with the in-built precaution of an over-lap period during which the outgoing squadron remains in place while the incoming squadron begins its training and familiarises itself with the places and locations in which it might be called upon to operate.

That morning Graham Enderson’s squadron went on anti-terrorist duty.

The briefing began at eleven, and the equipment was issued at twelve. While on the anti-terrorist duty, as well as the two-week period when the squadron which would take over from his were being trained up, Enderson would be on twenty-four-hour call. His equipment, the assault suit, the gas-mask with the built-in radio, the Heckler and Koch MP5K sub-machine gun, his small arms, the streamlights and stun grenades, as well as his body armour, would be kept in place in the special rooms in the centre of the barracks at Hereford. When the units were on red alert, he and his men would sit in the rooms fully geared; when he went home each evening, and when he came to work each day, he would carry with him a small hold-all with his personal items in it, as well as a Browning hand gun. He would also take a bleeper with him wherever he went, starting with the pantomime that night.

By five o’clock it was dark, Enderson left the barracks and drove home. The house was warm and bright, the Christmas decorations still in place, the tea on the kitchen table.

‘What’s that?’ his wife asked, looking at the hold-all.

‘Something from work,’ he replied vaguely. ‘Where are the kids?’

‘Getting ready.’

He went upstairs, locked the hold-all in the wardrobe at the foot of the bed, and changed.

The pantomime that evening was ‘The Gingerbread Man’, the theatre was crowded; Jane did not query why he took the bleeper with him, nor did she ask again about the hold-all, assuming she would become accustomed to it. She did, however, object when the bleeper was checked at six o’clock the next morning, waking her up, groaning as Enderson told her it was routine.