12
The deployment of three teams from 321 EOD Squadron, Northern Ireland, to London with backup from 11 EOD was sanctioned by the COBRA meeting the day following Harrison’s meeting with the Home Secretary.
By the time the signal was received by Colonel ‘Tall Lloyd Williams and forwarded by the secure Brinton fibre-optic telephone line to Girdwood Park Barracks in the Ardoyne, off the Crumlin Road, Captain Peter Heathcote had already been on standby for twenty-four hours in anticipation of the move.
Four gleaming new khaki Tactica trucks, built by Glover Webb of Southampton, waited outside the reinforced blockhouse which housed the ops room. Three Mk8 Wheelbarrow robots were carried, complete with the latest remote colour TV equipment and all the other bomb-disposing gadgetry that had been developed over the years. The fourth truck carried a powerful Attack Barrow version of the robot, dedicated to destroying vehicle bombs in short order and capable of being rigged with a PAWPAW warhead for use against vans or a RAID — Rapid Access and Instant Destruction — designed to counter car bombs. An additional standard Bedford truck would transport the crews and their personal belongings, including civilian clothes, on the journey to London.
Corporal Clarke delivered the message to Heathcote. He was grinning widely, looking for all the world like a naughty, podgy schoolboy at the end of term. The capital beckoned. Booze, good food and beautiful women. ‘CATO confirms, sir. London awaits the timely arrival of the 5th Cavalry.’
They left at last light to avoid attracting the attention of Provo eyes which were always watching. As the gates in the high-security fence swung open, the small convoy sped through into the wet night.
Heathcote peered out of the window from beside the driver in the lead Tactica. Across the street from Girdwood Park was one of the most incongruous sights in Belfast, one that never ceased to fascinate and amuse him. On a patch of derelict land stood a small lone, single-storey building, closely surrounded by razor pointed security railings and with a huge satellite receiving dish dominating its flat roof. For all the world it looked like a nuclear command bunker, yet Heathcote knew it was just the local Catholic betting shop.
He wondered what would happen between now and his return from London. Somehow he doubted it would be quite the picnic Clarke and the others assumed it would be. He’d read the reports. London was in the grip of terror; it was a capital under siege. And if he and his Belfast cats were wanted there, then it was for good reason.
They boarded the Liverpool ferry for the night crossing and made Vauxhall Barracks near Oxford by noon the following day. That afternoon the Tacticas were sprayed white, allowing the paint to dry overnight. The next morning Metropolitan Police livery stripes were added by the mechanics before the convoy continued its journey to Lambeth Road in the heart of London.
Their welcome at the Section was muted. Al Pritchard treated the twelve new arrivals almost as though they didn’t exist. Although he went through the motions of welcoming them, he did so without warmth and even without one of his sardonic smiles. It was all done with the minimum of required etiquette, nothing more. In the corridors he would pass by the army personnel without acknowledgment, his eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance.
‘I feel like the bleedin’ Invisible Man,’ Corporal Clarke complained.
The Sexpo quickly and irreverently became known as Sexpot, Pilchard and then, bitterly, Prickhead.
Perhaps following their chiefs example, many of the other Expos treated the army personnel with stiff courtesy or indifference, despite the fact that all had at one time served with 321 EOD.
Noticeably different in attitude were Les Appleyard and Midge Midgely. Having worked most closely with Harrison since his arrival, they had volunteered to share their offices with the men from Belfast. That in itself created chaos because the newcomers not only worked but also lived and slept in the confined space, erecting collapsible camp beds in every available corner.
Harrison apologised to Heathcote for the cramped conditions. ‘I’d have us billeted at one of the London barracks, Peter, but if I did that we’d never get tasked. Al would just go out on call and conveniently forget to give us the location. He calls the shots here, remember, and it’s his decision whether or not to send us out. But if we’re camped all over his headquarters, he can hardly ignore us. The only time he’ll be able to let the office cleaners in is if he sends us out.’
Yet, despite everyone’s growing fears that Al Pritchard would never let them see action, they were deployed just two days later.
A white van — the description and registration plates of which exactly matched a legitimately owned vehicle in Milton Keynes was abandoned in Oxford Street, its hazard lights left pulsing as the driver mounted the pillion seat of a motorcycle which roared away north up Duke Street. Within minutes an AID AN warning had been telephoned to the Samaritans. Eight hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate fertiliser and a mere thirty-minute timer.
To Harrison’s surprise, Al Pritchard had thrown open the door to the overcrowded office. ‘We’re tasked to Oxford Street, Tom,’ he announced. ‘Time for your lads to show what they’re made of.’
Was that a smile on his face? As always it was difficult to be certain, but there appeared to be a certain glint in his eye.
Peter Heathcote and Corporal Clarke scrambled for the Tactica which carried the Attack Barrow, hurtling out of the compound doors in the wake of the Section’s Range-Rovers. With siren caterwauling from the escorting police car as it carved its way through the commuter traffic, the two men were rigging the PAWPAW warhead to the big barrow.
The work was completed just moments before the vehicle came to a halt in a side street opposite the massive D.H. Evans department store. Before them lay a stretch of eerily deserted street, the pedestrians having been hastily pushed back behind the cordons. Yet many shoppers and office workers were still being evacuated through back exits to the surrounding streets; others with no alternative means of escape were crouched in rear rooms away from windows. Both police and public had learned quickly over the past few weeks, government-issued safety advice on what to do in bomb emergencies having been widely published in the national press. Now everyone was beginning to understand the power of explosives and what they could do; a bomb was not something to gawp at from an upper floor unless you wanted to be blinded or maimed by flying shards of glass.
Harrison arrived with Al Pritchard. By the time they’d scrambled from the Range-Rovers, the aerial had already been slotted into its position atop the Tactica and the Attack Barrow was already rumbling down its ramp, operated with relish by Corporal Clarke and his hand-held remote-control box.
Parked beside the pavement a hundred metres ahead was the white van, paintwork gleaming like a showroom model, hazards blinking steadily.
‘It’s your decision, Al,’ Harrison said.
The hoods came down over Pritchard’s eyes, reminding Harrison of a predatory hawk as he surveyed the scene, weighed up the odds. What had the warning said? Eight hundred pounds of high explosive; it had been quite specific about that. And here was the bomb, parked in a canyon of tall, glass-fronted stores holding millions of pounds’ worth of merchandise. Any injuries would be unpredictable, the cost would not. And they were within five minutes of the warning deadline. Way outside the safe limit.
Pritchard swallowed. ‘Tell your team to go for it. And I just hope they’re as good as you say they are.’
Harrison turned and nodded to Heathcote and Clarke who stood poised, the Attack Barrow whirring earnestly as though eager to be going. The captain responded with a thumbs-up sign and the robot jerked into action, moving into the centre of Oxford Street and executing a neat left-hand turn.