The potato chipper, p.7
The Potato Chipper, page 7
Chris would always say to me, “if you stand still, have a purpose, always have a purpose. You will eat a lot of fast food and general rubbish in doing this job and it’s not the healthiest way to live, but sometimes, it must be done. The only other way around it is to wear a fluorescent vest or jacket and carry a clipboard. You’ll stand out but can claim to be doing a traffic survey. This is great for certain situations but not all and would not have worked for our scenario.”
Returning to the job in hand, I identified a fast food restaurant facing the target location and after entering it, bought a kebab which I ate slowly before having a mobile phone ‘conversation’ with myself, in a foreign language, just to demonstrate that purpose I alluded to earlier. I managed to stay there for about forty-five minutes gaining a view from my vantage point before I felt that I was overstaying my ‘welcome’.
Part of the issue here is to avoid moving too much and fidgeting if you feel awkward. This must be avoided like the plague and I was mindful of the fact that the owners of this shop might have been ‘in league’ with the staff in the target shop opposite. All observations must be made peripherally and direct eye contact must be kept to a minimum but when you are ‘made’, if you are looked at with aggressive intent by somebody, you must prepared to look back with a ‘what the f ** are you looking at’ if the situation dictates it. This is only applicable if you believe that the person has the potential to be looking for weaknesses and is a shark looking for blood. I wouldn’t advise doing this ninety-five percent of the time and my recommendation would be that if someone catches your eye, maintain eye contact for three to five seconds, before you slowly move your head away, leaving your eyes fixed on the person and then progressively moving your eyes away from the person to look at something or somebody more interesting. Outright staring at somebody is just weird but equally, if you are ‘caught’ looking at somebody, never look away to avoid being caught because that shows a nervousness that you shouldn’t want to demonstrate in any facet of life.
I was essentially doing further observations to identify who came and went from the shop, but more specifically, to see if the guy in the car I had seen earlier entered the shop.
The aim here is to conduct and ascertain the guy’s ‘pattern of life’. This assists in performing future surveillance operations. Everything on a surveillance project is handled very slowly, with various pieces of the jigsaw slotting in, bit by bit over months.
On leaving the kebab shop, I scrolled and sent a message to Chris advising that I was moving away and would meet him at the pre-arranged RV, prior to leaving. He of course would be covering me all the way out, to see if I’d been pinged (observed by undesirables). All was clear.
The following morning, Chris decided that this would be our last day, so we proceeded in a totally different state of dress and from a completely different direction. This time we entered from the west, and it was the earliest start we’d had. It was roughly 08.00 hours when we entered the ‘field of play’, and our aim was just to have general observation of the environs of the target shop in order to identify the guy that Chris believed was the main culprit. Once again, I believed that he was playing his cards close to his chest and had a lot more information about the job than I had. I just rolled with it, knowing that it often pays not to know.
I walked a pre-formulated route around the shops in the area, had a coffee in a McDonalds and it was on extraction that I made the one significant error that probably wouldn’t have proved too costly as it was our last day of exposure, but could have caused problems had we required further action in this area.
As I moved up the high street, I decided that I wanted to find a position overlooking the target for five minutes before finally departing the area. I saw a bus stop on the street that was set back about fifty metres, obliquely sitting across the road from the target. I slowly moved up there with my mobile phone in my hand, holding it in a manner that would suggest that I was messaging people. There was one guy at the bus stop, a West Indian fellow in his early fifties, very dishevelled in appearance, clearly looking like ‘he didn’t have the full ticket’ and we noted each other’s presence with direct eye contact before I finished typing my message and departed from the bus stop after about five minutes.
Moving on, I walked up the side street for about one hundred metres before I decided to enter a phone box and give myself the opportunity to have a look around. I couldn’t see Chris anywhere and before entering the phone box, I made a point of tapping my phone as if to suggest to anybody looking at me that there was a fault with the phone (remember – purpose and reason for an action/gesture to not appear odd). As I was soon to learn, that was where I made the error.
While I was in the phone box, a message came through from Chris to ‘leave the area now’ and meet at the pre-designated RV. This I duly did. On arrival at the coffee house, once we’d satisfied ourselves that we were clear, he told me that he’d covered me all the way out and the West Indian guy in the bus stop had made a point of observing me all the way to the phone box and had registered that. He followed me no further, but Chris had covered this and had we been looking to come in once again, I would have realistically been blown and this would have ruled me out of any future operation. Chris taught me that that guy was just sitting at the bus stop, with very little apparent interest in catching any transport, and could easily have been on the payroll of our target as an observer, to note the presence of any surveillance on his ‘client’.
Maybe, maybe not, but he’d followed me for a short distance before satisfying himself that there was something odd about my manner before heading back. If he’d continued to follow me, we could have had a problem and Chris might have had to bump into him, and start an argument in order to distract him to permit my unfettered egress.
Bus stops are awkward observation points and can only be used in the short term. I have seen (and heard of) many cases where excellent surveillance operatives have had their cover blown while using a bus stop as a vantage point. In one case, a guy I knew with an excellent Special Forces background, used a bus stop during an operation overseas (against a surveillance ‘aware’ target; which basically means that he was naturally suspicious of people around him and knew how to make it difficult for individuals that were following him by continual use of anti-surveillance tactics) that was directly opposite a target location. There were twelve plus people in the bus stop.
He observed for ten minutes, the bus came and everybody got on it bar him. Suddenly, two people in the target location appeared at the front door, looking directly at him. He was blown. A totally basic error but this is what can happen. The area he was operating in was totally hostile and any direct compromise of his intention could have seen him abducted and shot, so one needs to realise that other intrinsic factors were at play, including personal safety.
Effectively, this job had concluded for the time being and we moved on to other tasks and training over the next eight to ten months, although the work was not regular enough for me to be earning at a rate whereby I could support myself acceptably. While the experience of going to the former Yugoslavia to conduct live fire anti-ambush, contact drills with pistol, sub-machine gun and rifle as well as medical training packages in Hereford in the UK was all valuable, a phone call from a friend who was passing over a contract offer overseas to me, was another option which I was to ultimately accept, after much deliberation.
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1 A to H: a system for describing an individual in a sequential manner, Age, Build, Colour, Distinguishing Marks, Elevation (Height), Facial Shape, Gait, Hair
6. The Great Game
‘Afghanistan, graveyard of empires, this time, it will be NATO.’
My life in early 2009 had become a mixture of adrenaline filled highs, followed by profound periods of reflection in which my use of hypnosis, medicinal herbs and intensive work on Tibetan Mind stilling techniques was only just patching up my self-esteem, not cementing it. Something was missing and the failed relationship from 2007/08 with Elizabeth was beginning to be a memory that suggested that it was not the cause of my lack of Shen/Spiritual energy.
Things started to look up towards the end of 2009 when I passed my instructors exam in the old Chinese Martial art of Hsing Yi Chuan. This was no mean feat and involved an hour of scrutiny after having already completed four hours of hard training and not to labour the point, this was one of the half a dozen times in my life when I felt ‘in the zone’. As a student of recreational hypnosis, I still learn more to this day about the science behind this.
It’s funny because as soon as I registered that I was ‘in it’ (the zone), I came out of it and the final all in fight that I had at the end became more of a physical, ‘hanging on in there’ scenario. Even so, I threw my opponent to the floor early in the fight and the black eye I received later was of no great significance to the overall pass result.
Part of the exam involved flying to demonstrate the swallow animal style, whipping the arms in an explosive snap that permits the proponent to escape from holds or even from being mounted while lying prone on the ground. The explosive Dragon where I would crouch down to a squat on the ground before leaping up into the air, crossing arms and throwing a kick at the same time. The falcon, that can transition from a more linear version of the jab, a cross boxer combination into an arm wrap, take down of the opponent, swiftly followed by a knee strike to the chest, accompanied simultaneously by a phoenix fist strike into the hollow area between the shoulder and the clavicle was corrected.
I felt that 2009 had got off to a good start and promptly, after a few more barren months in which a G20 job was awarded and cancelled, a call came through from my friend to the effect of, ‘would you like to do an information handling job in Kabul for a private client’. You will laugh because all I could think was that it would give me some stability. Yes, me potentially going to Kabul on a long-term contract for the Ministry of Mines for stability. I said yes, and after a few days, received an email inviting me down for an interview in the London Bridge area.
Initially, when my friend advised me that there were two slots and that the position had been widely advertised, my excitement and optimism became tempered as it dawned on me that the odds of me landing the contract were not as great as I’d initially thought; given the pool of talent that was being recruited from. I had also not done a job of that kind for ten years and technique wise, I wondered if I were behind the times.
I needn’t have worried, the interview went well. I got the slot and in late June 2009, I flew to Dubai to spend a day organising my visa. I hadn’t been to Dubai in many years and the first thing I noticed on exiting the airport was the sapping humidity that was akin to stepping into an oven. The efficient South Asian guys who resembled the Kalari wrestlers that were on the old nineteen thirties posters in my Sifu’s training hall directed me to the only too eager taxi driver and we rolled out of Terminal one into the chaotic, constant lane changing line of white and beige, mostly Toyota and Hyundai saloons, interspersed with an SUV, Range Rover and Ferrari, as we curved around past the Bustan al-Rotana which was to shortly witness (less than a month) later, an Israeli (presumably Mossad) assassination on a Hamas commander on the second floor.
Now, the Afghan consulate in Dubai is a sight to behold. During those days, it was the only embassy/consulate building with a flag on the top. I took a deep breath and arrived early as I’d been advised that there would be a rush later. My hotel driver stayed as there’s no scope to get a cab from there, given the isolated, residential nature of the Bur Dubai area, set back well away from the main road, from whence taxis can be hailed.
It was stiflingly humid and hot as I arrived and saw a guard outside a door that was partially open and headed towards it before I suggestively said to him “visas?” He nodded with a polite, but disinterested manner that indicated that his neck suffered this strain at least twenty times a day. In I went to a dark, poorly lit room, with paint cracking off the walls, with those white plastic chairs that one sees on European patios during barbecue season in a line pressed against the wall. Inside were four South Asian, probably Pakistani gentlemen, a few Filipinos and one English guy. I acknowledged him more than the others, with extra eye contact intertwined with a smirk, and we had a quick word at the main counter, which opened after about five minutes. This was the signal for us to pounce on the ledge, by the window, in order to get a good position in the ‘queue’. All our paperwork was photocopied, the fee paid, and I’d successfully fought and held my position to come at number five of twelve, soon to be forty plus, as a group of latecomers rolled into the room.
I gripped my ticket as if it were my life and soon felt the relief of knowing that the hard work was done. The chaotic nature of seeing people trying to ‘fix’ their way through the lengthy process, only to be met with smiled rebuffs amused me, as the eighty percent humidity in forty-two-degree heat helped my shirt stick to my back. First World Developed people are of the belief that money can buy them and can pave their way through anything. This is not the case and there is an etiquette to this kind of activity and I still feel, even today, that in today’s mollycoddled European/North American culture, living and conducting business in a country that is akin to the wild west can be a refreshing experience, as well as a great lesson for those who hail from countries where they (mistakenly) think that the state police have their best interests at heart and look after them.
I leaned against the wall near to the second counter as my Number five was called out, I headed to the desk to confirm what visa I required and what they were prepared to give me. Six months for a Visit Only, or Multi-Entry; the significance of which was lost on me at the time, but will be outlined further in to the passage, as this is a potential ‘stitch up’ if ever, although I just wanted to get out of the embassy.
After that, it was a question of returning mid-afternoon to collect the passport with the distinctive, orange, light brown, Afghan visa stuck inside it. This required me and one other guy to physically push our way through eight to nine Middle Eastern gentlemen and politely but firmly state at the desk, “Irish passport, is it there, ready yet?” – I could see it and knew that there wouldn’t be many other, if any Irish passports in there and the guy opened it and checked that the photo was mine. I had it and was off. Thank heavens for that. What a nightmare process which I’ve made appear easier in the above script than it was.
That evening, sitting in my hotel room in Deira, I took the level of nervous excitement in the lower part of my stomach just above my groin area as a positive, even though I then realised that there were no obstacles to my entry in to the ‘Ghan’, bar myself and I wasn’t going to permit that.
I then wanted to savour the final eight hours before I went to bed by maximising my time. My flight left at 06.25 hours the following morning so after booking the hotel car for a 04.15 hour pickup, I hurriedly undressed, put on the smooth, cool white dressing gown I found in my wardrobe, together with the white slippers and with my swimming trunks and a towel in hand, went on up for a swim in the indoor pool, followed by a sauna, steam, sauna again, spa, steam, sauna, all in that order before I relented and headed to my room at about nine p.m. to do my final packing, relax and put my feet up on the bed.
The following morning, I awoke ten minutes prior to the alarm sounding, put my clothes straight on, checked that my passport and Kam Air tickets were in my pocket and wheeled my bag around to the lift before checking out and catching my car to Terminal two, Dubai International Airport. Once again, as always, it was a strange feeling heading out of relative normality into the ‘Ghan’. On the morning I headed in, I’d always normally be very focused and in a zone that I couldn’t really describe; not too polite, not too blunt, certainly not rude; just wanting to have everything set. I would always have loose change Dirhams, usually three to five for the guys that brought my luggage, grabbed the cab right up at the front of the hotel and would slip the tip into their palm, discreetly out of sight of the other workers. My passport and ticket, together with emergency numbers would also be readily available on speed dial should there be some sort of delay.
Terminal 2 is a sight to behold and is the conduit between the world’s most hostile environments and the western world. All the airlines that use it cannot obtain IATA permits to land anywhere else (i.e., in a normal country) and Dubai has agreed to act in this role as the facilitator. Essentially, these are the cowboy airlines (some run by warlords) with poor safety records. There’s no real scope to use a normal airline as the 9/11 syndrome prevents direct flights between the world’s war zones and the US and the UK, and even Kenya has such a policy.
A few years before, a reporter from GQ Magazine had passed through this terminal and written an article entitled either ‘Destination Hell’ or ‘Destination Nowhere’ before giving a description of the process he went through and what kind of people he’d intermingled with; mostly being NGO/UN staff, aid relief workers, politicians, diplomats and mercenaries. It effectively is/was the cargo terminal and its exterior, while not too disgraceful, does have a slightly eighties feel. On entry, I headed to the departures board and couldn’t help but laugh at the list of flights on offer. This truly would be a perfect package holiday for any jihadist, extremist, or supremacist of any persuasion.
Baghdad, Basra, Beirut, Entebbe, Kabul (four flights in all), Mashad, Tehran, Addis Ababa and Sana’a were the standard fare for the day’s traffic from here. The first of three security checks were about to proceed as I zig-zagged my way up the small queue behind the Afghan guy and his family, pushing two trolleys, complete with six bags, all wrapped tightly in a cellophane see through tape. The titanic struggle to negotiate their way through the checkpoint made me think that they were only on their second trip overseas ever (I’m referring to the adults and not the children). I threw my bags onto the conveyor belt like x-ray metal detector before collecting them on the other side. The security monitor appeared to hold little interest for the overseeing member of staff charged with analysing all that went through. I couldn’t help but think that there’s was an opinion of ‘we’d be bothered if you were entering Dubai, but you’re on your way out of here and if you catch a flight from this terminal, good luck!’ All confidence inspiring stuff, but I reminded myself that I had, no have, a sense of humour.
