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| The Terrorist Factory Part Three, "Death in Saint James" Copyright Joe Vialls |
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| The sun crept above the black outline of the Atlas mountains in the east, gradually bathing the air base with soft diffused light. Dew sparkled on the neat line of Northrop F5 aircraft, most painted in desert camouflage and bearing the bright red and green roundels of the Moroccan Air Force. Only two aircraft were different. Painted grey with subdued American markings, both were advanced "Tiger" versions of the F5: the first a two-seat F5F, and the second a single- seat F5E. Permanently based at Alconbury in England, the Tigers were part of the crack American "Aggressor" squadron, normally used to train NATO Air Force pilots in combat techniques with dissimilar aircraft. Supersonic and highly rnanoeuvrable, the F5 Tiger had similar performance characteristics to the Russian MiG-21 Interceptor. Because of its unusual role of 'surprising' NATO forces in mock attacks, only the Aggressor squadron had easy access to airspace over nearly all European countries, making it invaluable for covert special operations activities. Julia Long watched from a distance as Otto Jewell finished his pre-flight checks on the two-seat Tiger. Satisfied, Otto climbed into the front cockpit and strapped himself in, completely ignoring the air force captain in the seat behind him. With a faint whine that slowly turned to a roar, both Tigers started engines and edged their way out of the line of parked aircraft, turning on the taxiway towards the active runway. Julia lit a cigarette and watched as the two fighters waddled along, weighed down with drop-tanks under their bellies and wings. There was a long flight ahead and both Tigers were carrying maximum fuel. Juddering slightly under braking, both aircraft lined up side by side on the runway threshold and went to one-hundred-per-cent cold thrust. As the leader dropped his white-gloved hand, both released their brakes in unison and selected afterburners. Julia heard the muffled thunder as the afterburners lit, sending the two fighters hurtling down the runway. Julia Long stood motionless, watching the bright pink glow from the afterburners fade slowly as the Tigers climbed away from her to the north. Only then, at exactly 5.48 am Greenwich Mean Time on the morning of 16th April 1984, did she finally turn and walk slowly back into the officers' mess The conditioning had gone well. In less than a week, Otto had been transformed from a 41-year-old oilman into a 27-year-old member of the RAF, and then converted into a patriotic 27-year-old member of US Special Operations - all life events beyond that age being ruthlessly suppressed by electromagnetically-induced, drug-reinforced, post-hypnotic suggestion. There was no question of Otto Jewell being a "zombie", however. He was a fully-conscious human being with a chronological age of 41 years, but with the memory and reaction times of a 27-year-old. Julia Long considered the new Otto a marked improvement over the old. Where before conditioning Otto had been slightly hesitant, he was now supremely confident. As with all terrorists manufactured by special operations, Otto believed he was invincible and that nothing could go wrong with his mission. Where in India Otto had been overweight, he was now trim enough to slide easily into a Northrop Tiger. The intense stress induced by sustained exposure to ELF electromagnetic fields and visual input, burned off weight faster than the most drastic diet ever devised by the medical fraternity. In all., Otto had shed nearly 30 pounds, virtually without moving a muscle. With his hair now dyed jet-black to match his perception of himself as a 27-year-old, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 was indeed a new man. After finishing her breakfast, Julia left the officers' mess and walked slowly back to her room to pack her bags. Her orders were clear: once Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 was on his way, her task was to return to Calcutta and wait until the twenty-first of the month. If his mission was successful, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 .would arrive back -in India that day and Julia would start the process of deleting all traces of his operational memory. Once more using ELF electromagnetic fields, she would selectively erase each and every aspect of his mission until all that was left would be a 41- year-old oilman called Otto, slightly disorientated and very tired, but completely unaware of his activities during the preceding two weeks. Otto would believe the entire period had been spent on oilfield duties in Calcutta. If the mission went badly wrong and Otto were taken alive or killed by the British police or intelligence services, special operations would take swift action to cover up all traces of any involvement. Dead or alive, Otto's 'real' life history would be discreetly leaked on the American news wires. Back in 1980, Otto had spent an entirely innocent month in Libya's Sarir oilfields sorting out problems for oil company AGECO, but that was not the story the world media would be provided with. Instead, the discreet leak on the American news wires would state that intelligence sources confirmed Otto had attended a Libyan "terrorist training camp" near the Chad border in 1980, and that he had flown to and from Libya on British Caledonian Airways out of Gatwick. With the media pack baying at its doors, British Caledonian would confirm Otto's outward and inward flights and the story would be set in stone. For ever afterwards, Otto Jewell would be known to the public only as a hired mercenary on the payroll of none other than Colonel Muammar Al Qadhafi of Libya. There was no chance of Otto breaking down under interrogation. If captured alive, he had been programmed to revert to his normal age of 41 years immediately. The severe shock of finding himself under police interrogation in London when he should have been in Calcutta, might be enough to induce a heart attack. Even if Otto survived the shock and was subjected to forensic hypnosis and drug-assisted interrogation using sodium pentathol, the worst that could happen would be the discovery of the 'decoy' hypnotic level carefully developed in Calcutta. The rela.tively shallow decoy hypnotic level revolved around drilling operations, and had absolutely nothing to do with missions in the West End of London. Special operations had covered every angle. Julia finished packing and phoned for an airman to take her bags to the waiting Gulfstrearn II executive jet. It was time to be on her way, and she was looking forward to a long bath and a five-star meal at the Oberoi Grand Hotel. After the airman loaded her bags, Julia Long sat back comfortably in a VIP seat, then reached across to the cocktail cabinet and poured herself a stiff drink. She sipped it slowly as the Gulfstream roared off the runway, turning to the north-east on the first stage of a dog-leg course that would take the aircraft to its first refuelling stop at Cairo, while allowing it to stay well clear of Algerian and then Libyan airspace over the Gulf of Sidra. Leaning back in her seat, Julia opened her MKMAD folder and extracted Otto's slim file. MKMAD was a notorious 'special access' sub-project originally run under a different acronym in parallel with Artichoke, a mind-control project from the 'fifties long believed extinct by senators and congressmen alike. Julia smiled with amusemenL Politicians were told only what they needed to know. Gordon Nobel had been adamant that Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 be conditioned with scrupulous attention to detail. There was a good chance of his surviving the London operation and being used again later. Special operations' accelerated-leaniing visual input was arranged in modules, each covering a single subject. It was critical that Otto have at least a basic knowledge of each subject in case a 'flashback' occurred. That way he would tend to associate any sudden memory recovery with earlier real-life events. After hours of questioning under hypnosis, Nobel ordered the two 'maritime' modules excluded, because Otto had no prior knowledge at all of diving or seaborne operations. Visual input in Morocco had started with Otto's brain activity under constant scrutiny as the accelerated learning process began. The procedure started quite slowly, but as the Alpha fields and direct visual-input projection forcibly punched new neural pathways through his brain, a strange thing happened: Otto's brain 'learned how to learn'. His Critical Flicker Fusion frequency, a measure of the brain's ability to discriminate between massed data inputs, increased dramatically while his reaction times halved. Julia watched her big colour monitor and listened to her head- phones with interest as the first module, an operational conversion to the Northrop F5, was slowly fed to Otto. By the time the last module on rifles and ballistics was run on day four, Julia could no longer do so. The screen was a blur, and the noise in her headphones a continual high-pitched shriek. Otto seemed unperturbed as he lay motionless on the white operating table, immobilised eyelids open and pupils dilated while his brain absorbed new data at the equivalent of ten sheets of close-typed A4 paper per second. Indoctrination was more critical. As each day passed, Otto was reinforced in the belief that he was a patriotic member of US Special Operations: a proud lieutenant colonel in a covert force formed from the outset to rid the world of communists and terrorists by whatever means necessary. Time and time again he was reminded that a small number of innocent people had to die, but that their deaths were necessary to protect true democracy for the world as a whole. Nobel worried continually about this single aspect of Otto's personality: as an Englishman from a family proud of its three hundred years' military service to Crown and country, Otto had an extremely high sense of honour. He adhered to a strict code of conduct where women and children were regarded as non- combatants, and where the Geneva Convention demanded prisoners be treated with dignity. Such outmoded principles were counter- productive to special operations work, so Gordon Nobel ordered Julia to break Otto completely. Slowly but surely, the obscene special operations doctrine took hold under the intense pressure of electromagnetic stimulation and visual input. Quite suddenly early on day three, Julia sensed a breakthrough: she had broken the jelly-mould of Otto's basic personality into a thousand different pieces, and set about rebuilding it to special operations specifications. Such was the awesome power of the techniques used, that by the morning of day four the job was complete. Otto would now ignore his hereditary honour and training, and kill on command without a shred of remorse. Indeed, Otto would shoot an American president without question, but only if US Special Operations ordered him to do so. On that fateful day in April 1984, Julia Long permanently destroyed a part of Otto's soul. Only rarely had there been direct physical training. On day two, Otto had flown in an F5F with the air force captain in the rear seat for safety purposes. There had been no hesitation and Otto flew the complete mission profile without incident, handing over control to the captain for the landing. On the afternoon of day four, Otto was taken to Tangier for a rest break; then on the morning of day five was sent south-east towards the Atlas mountains for shooting practice. His honour totally erased by US Special Operations techniques, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 cocked his Browning automatic rifle and shot an unarmed Berber tribesman through the shoulder as ordered. Subsequent examination showed the shot to be within one half-inch of the specified target. The Berber was left where he fell. Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 had hit him with a high-velocity fragmentation bullet travelling at over three thousand feet per second, the shrapnel slicing sideways and downwards through the Berber's rib cage and turning his vital organs into a bloody pulp. The rest of day five was taken up with the verbal Cosmic International mission briefing. During the afternoon of day six, two Tigers flew out across the Dutch coast just south of Zandvoort, ducking down swiftly until their wings almost brushed the whitecrested waves, as they raced across the North Sea just below the speed of sound on their last leg from Morocco. The disembodied voice of the air force captain came through the intercom: "Start a ,rate one turn to the right and reduce speed to 350 knots, " Without taking his eyes off the horizon, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 automatically moved the controls gently to the right and eased back on the throttles. More than a mile away, the second Tiger conformed without a word being spoken. Both fighters were maintaining strict radio silence. "Steady on that heading!" Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 centralised the controls and flipped the air brakes out. As the brakes extended below each wing root, both Tigers lost speed and continued flying on the new heading of 310 degrees. Two specks appeared from the west and rapidly grew in size until they became visible as two Tigers, which promptly broke formation and flew alongside the first pair. The disembodied voice spoke again: "I have control, colonel." "You have control, captain." Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 removed his hands from the controls and looked out of the cockpit with interest. The two Tigers were identical to their own. So identical that the other F5F two-seater carried exactly the same serial numbers as Mike-Alpha-Delta-3's fighter. As he watched, the F5F that had just flown out from Alconbury closed up with the single-seat F5E from Morocco, and the pair turned back towards Europe. Still maintaining strict radio silence, the two-seater from Morocco closed up with the Alconbury leader and both fighters slowly banked around and headed towards the English coastline. It was a trick special operations had used many times before, in order to fly sensitive personnel or light equipment into many different countries. In all, there were 33 different countries flying one version or other of the 2,500 Northrop F5s, and they all looked the same at a distance. Because Mike-Alpha-Delta-3's Tiger was now apparently one of a pair that left Alconbury less than an hour earlier on a low-level North Sea interception and was returning without visiting foreign soil, there would be no nosey customs or immigration officials to ask awkward questions. Entry into the target country was the most dangerous part of any special operations mission using an operative who was not a native American. Good though intelligence was, it was incapable of ensuring that the operative was not wanted by any of his home government agencies for a possibly trifling crime or offence. As an entire operation could be wrecked for the sake of a thousand dollars' worth of unpaid parking tickets, covert entry was considered essential. Departure was far less important. If he survived the mission, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 would fly out of Terminal 2 at London Airport Heathrow on 20th April. Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 watched the coast of the Wash flash past as both fighters climbed and declared their presence to West Drayton Control Centre. After approach to Alconbury was granted, they curved round neatly at 2,500 feet over Peterborough, slowly descending towards Alconbury from the north-west. Now in line astern, both lowered their flaps and wheels and turned towards the runway. The white flarepath strobes flashed a welcome, and ten seconds later there was a discreet squeak as the Tiger's main wheels contacted the runway. Late in the afternoon on 16th April, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 finally arrived in England. From that point forward, only Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 and one other man in London would know the full mission details. Different personnel had been used to position the various pieces of equipment needed the following day: the usual intelligence system of using 'cut-outs' every inch of the way. Changing into a sports jacket and trousers, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 picked up a waxed cotton Barbour coat and put it on. There was a chill in the air, and the coat would attract no attention in the country, or in London. The Barbour coat was very common, which suited his purpose very well. Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 had to stay invisible to intelligence service surveillance by fading into the background. He was politely ushered into an unmarked blue Ford saloon by its owner, who then drove towards the base's main gate. Alconbury had not been selected as the home of the Aggressor squadron by accident. The airfield lay alongside the main Al(M) trunk road which ran from London to Scotland and was continually crowded with heavy traffic, making covert entry into England a dream. As the blue Ford joined the stream of vehicles heading south to London, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 was within 15 miles of a large, familiar house in a village just outside Peterborough. The house belonged to John Dwyer, the man who first gave Otto's name to his CIA contact in Salt Lake City. Though Otto had visited the house many times, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 failed to make the connection. Otto had first met Dwyer in 1981 when he was 38 years old. Now, as the 27-year-old Mike-Alpha-Delta-3, he was not due to meet John Dwyer or see his house for another eleven years. Making the connection would have been finpossible. Though the driver of the Ford saloon was an air force major, he had no idea what his passenger's mission was. All the major had been told was that the colonel had to be delivered to a street in Watford, where he would be collected by another driver for the rest of his journey. Neither man said much as the Ford drove steadily south, the major carefully staying below the legal speed limit. At Watford, the colonel transferred to another car, the second of four used as cut-outs before he arrived at his final destination. After the fourth car dropped him, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 slowly walked the last half-mile to a small private club tucked away in a narrow West End street. Knocking discreetly, he waited patiently until the door was opened by an elderly retainer who immediately led him upstairs and ushered him into a room. His Samsonite suitcase lay on the bed and a box stood on the table by the window. After confirming his new guest would like to dine at 8 pm, the elderly retainer left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Unknown to members of the public, the club was really a fully- serviced 'safe house'. With a small bar, a dining room and less than a dozen bedrooms, it had provided discreet but very expensive cover for a lot of highly-questionable visitors over the years. After opening his suitcase and taking out a clean shirt and underwear for the morning, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 turned to the box and checked the contents before removing a bunch of keys and two other items. Unrolling a large garish plastic courier bag, he placed the box inside and sealed the bag before placing it back on the table. The address was clearly visible: "Enserch Corporation, 8 St James Square" - in reality, the discreet address of a Howard Hughes subsidiary. Next, he unfolded a large plain black plastic wallet and placed the courier bag inside. Then Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 walked downstairs for dinner in the deserted dining room, before returning to his room to get a good night's rest. It had been a long trip from Morocco, and sleep came swiftly. After waking at 7 am the next morning, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 had a long, hot bath and dressed carefully. Locking his suitcase, he turned towards the door carrying the large black plastic wallet. When the mission was complete, he would return to the discreet club to lay low for three days. The chaos following his mission would not fool the British police or intelligence services for more than a few hours, after which they would turn London upside down in a frantic attempt to find the operative responsible. With a little luck, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 would be in his room watching television until the fuss died down. Only then would he travel across London and catch the shuttle from Heathrow to Brussels on the, first leg of his complex flight schedule back to Calcutta. Walking downstairs, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 entered the dining room and ate a large breakfast of bacon and eggs before settling down to read the London morning newspapers. Later, he rose casually, donned the Barbour coat and picked up the large black plastic wallet. Leaving the club, he turned left and walked casually for three blocks. As expected, a black Honda CX-500 courier motorcycle stood waiting next to the kerb. Unlocking a side pannier with his keys, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 took the courier bag out of its plastic wallet and dropped both items into the pannier. Next, he opened the large pillion-box and removed a full-face crash-helmet before mounting the Honda and switching on the two-way courier radio. Mike-Alpha-Delta-3's helmet headphones came alive as he drove down the street. Unlike hundreds of real couriers riding black Honda CX-500 motorcycles around London that day, he listened only to the operational frequencies of the Metropolitan Police Force. The Honda attracted no attention as it weaved through the usual traffic jams in Piccadilly before turning into Jermyn Street, slowing to walking pace as it entered Duke of York. Ahead of him, Mike-Alpha- Delta-3 could see crowd-control barriers with hooded demonstrators moving around behind them. Just before turning into a service alley-way, he read the slogan on one of the demonstrator's large placards: "DOWN WITH GADDAFFI'. Special operations was on the ball, but someone should have checked the spelling. Posing as a bunch of dissident Libyan intellectuals, the hired demonstrators could reasonably be expected to know the correct name of Libya's leader Qadhafi, not Gaddafi. Turning and dismounting, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 removed the courier bag and strode purposefully to the back door of No. 8 St James Square. Unlocking the door with his own key, he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Walking through the dark sombre building, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 took the stairs to the upper floor, being careful not to touch the polished wooden banisters. Entering a front room and listening to the chanting from the square below, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 removed the box from the courier bag, and quickly fitted sonic ear-protectors before donning a black balaclava and pulling on a pair of thin surgical rubber gloves. His face masked against accidental detection, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 turned and moved slowly to the polished wooden table in the centre of the room, looking down with professional interest at the automatic assault rifle pre-positioned on the table for his use. Standing perfectly still, he watched the minute hand slowly advance around his black- faced precision chronometer. Exactly at the prearranged time, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 picked up the specially-shortened Heckler & Koch assault rifle from the table. The Heckler & Koch was fitted with a Juno muzzle-brake on its stub barrel to muffle the direction of the shots, and a short range parallax- corrected telescopic sight. He'd been briefed that the flush ammo magazine forward of the HK's trigger-guard held only five high- velocity fragmentation rounds, but they were enough. Mike-Alpha- Delta-3 had been ordered to shoot for maximum media effect, and needed only three. Carefully placing his left foot up on the low table and cocking the Heckler & Koch with his left hand, he wound his left arm firmly through the sling to steady the weapon, then pressed the fire selector down to semi-automatic with his right thumb. Next, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 rested the weapon alongside his left knee and oft up the slack on the sling to reduce recoil effect. Because he was a long way back from the window to avoid detection there was only a limited field of fire, but he knew the killing-zone by heart. Looking through the scope and studying the area, Mike-Alpha- Delta-3 moved the weapon slightly until he could see the exact killing-zone, and a small part of the inner pavement and central gardens in Saint James Square. Breathing slowly and steadily, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 waited for the two quick flashes of light that would tell him the selected target was just about to enter the killing-zone. It was not up to Mike-Alpha- Delta-3 to pick random targets: that job was reserved for his special operations controller. A helmeted man in a blue uniform walked straight through the cross-hairs of his telescopic sight, but Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 ignored him. Then there were two brief flashes of brilliant white light in the upper left quadrant of the scope, and his finger automatically took up the first pressure on the Heckler & Koch's trigger. One second later, a slim, blond woman walked slowly into the cross-hairs of the telescopic sight. Mike-Alpha-Delta-3's eyes showed no emotion, his strict code of conduct completely destroyed by covert conditioning: The target had to die to protect true democracy for the world as a whole. His trigger-finger a blur, Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 fired three aimed shots so fast, the muzzle blasts blended into a single cacophony of sound that echoed round the square. The first bullet hit the woman in the stomach and she doubled over, her hat flying into the gutter, while the second and third bullets exploded on the inner pavement, hurling shrapnel into the small crowd of demonstrators. Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 placed his weapon back on the table and watched briefly as a television cameraman rushed in to film the woman rolling on the ground in agony. She was already dying as Mike-Alpha-Delta-3 turned swiftly away from the table and removed his balaclava. Then, as he walked downstairs and closed the back door of 8 St James Square softly behind him, the carefully precalculated media hype started in earnest: "This is an urgent news flash. Minutes ago, shots rang out from the Libyan Peoples Bureau at No. 5 St James Square..." And so it was that Julia Long achieved her objective of creating intense public anger by staging an obscene mission that shocked the British public. As the news flashed round the country, millions were outraged by the slaughter in St James Square, their perception of the Libyans forcibly distorted for all time. ? Less than 24 months later, US F-111 bombers took off from British bases and headed south to destroy the "terrorists" responsible, and their wives and children. With the British media pack in full cry, the American bombers launched a premeditated attack on the civilian populations of Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya, and special operations scored a small personal bonus - a token sacrifice for true democracy for the world as a whole. Colonel Al Qadhafi's fifteen-month-old daughter Hannah was murdered by a monstrous 2,000-pound laser bomb, guided unerringly to its tiny target by an American F- 111 bomber. Listening to the news on the radio, Julia Long nodded approvingly as she lit a cigarette, before turning triumphantly to her two Marine Special Operations technicians. "That should teach the terrorist sonofabitch a lesson, huh?" During early 1996, part of the pathology report on WPC Yvonne Fletcher was made public for the first time. The report revealed she was hit in the shoulder by a single high velocity fragmentation bullet, the shrapnel slicing sideways and downwards through Policewoman Fletcher's rib cage and turning her vital organs into a bloody pulp. < Part Two Intro Page > |
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