Trusted Mole: A Soldier’s Journey into Bosnia’s Heart of Darkness

‘Is there anyone you want to call?’

I think – Mum? ‘Hi Mum, I’ve just been arrested by MoD Plod for being a spy … how’s the weather in Cornwall?’ Sister? She’d freak out.

I shake my head, ‘No. No one.’

The PC frowns again and hands me a booklet. ‘You might want to read this in the cell … your rights.’ He stresses the word, glancing at The Taller One. Something clicks – you’ve just made your second mistake, you plonker – two in less than half an hour!

The Taller One and Pot Belly go one way, back out, and I go the other. I’m led down a linoleum-floored passage, the left-hand side punctuated by grey steel doors. The sergeant stops at the last, selects a key from the long chain on his belt, turns it in the lock and heaves open the solid door. I step into the cell.

‘Want anything just press this button – coffee or a light, just buzz for it.’

The door slams heavily shut. The key turns in the lock. Silence. For the first time in my life I find myself on the wrong side of the law and the wrong side of a cell door. I feel weak and sick. My knees tremble. I’m sweating slightly. Delayed shock starts to creep over me.

The cell stinks. Shit, piss, puke, stale smoke, disinfectant. I stare in shock at my bleak surroundings. The cell measures maybe twelve by twelve feet, painted a faded, chipped blue-grey. There are two fixed wooden benches; on top of each of them a blue plastic mattress is propped against the wall. To the left is a small alcove with a toilet – chipped and dirty porcelain, no seat, no chain.

I sit down heavily on the right-hand bench. It’s cold and hard. Dumbly, I stare down at my leather brogues – so out of place – and then fish around in my pockets for a light. I need a cigarette. Shit. No light.

I press the buzzer. Nothing happens. I wait a minute and buzz again. Still nothing. I’m about to try again when a little metal grate, half way up the door, scrapes open. A bored voice says, ‘Yeah. Whaddaya want?’ Whaddaya want!!! … YOU … somehow, my criminalisation is now complete.

‘… Er … do you have a light, please?’ I’m trying to be polite here.

‘… Yeah …’

As if by magic a cheap red lighter appears between fat fingers. For a second there I think it’s Pot Belly’s hand, but he’s busy ransacking my house. A dirty thumb strikes a flame. Gratefully I bend and suck in my first lungful of smoke.

‘Thanks very mu—’ The grate slams shut. Silence again. I exhale noisily and sit back down. My mind is now going bananas. What? Why? Who? When? How?

The tip of the cigarette glows angrily. I’m smoking hard. I light another one from it. What to do with the stub? I hold it in my hand and search for an ashtray. There isn’t one. Above the other bench there’s a barred, thick, frosted glass window. On its ledge there are five or six Styrofoam cups lined up like soldiers. I grab one. It’s brimming with cigarette butts. So’s the next, only these are smeared with garish red lipstick – I wonder who you were?

I sit and chainsmoke five cigarettes. Blue smoke hangs in the cell. The nervous, sinking feeling in my stomach gets worse. My bowels are churning furiously. My head is bursting. Pain straight up my neck, around my brain and down into my teeth. How did this happen?

One minute you’re a student half way through a two-year Staff Course, one of the so-called ‘elite’ top five per cent; doing well, head above water, bright future. And the next, here you are, career blown to smithereens by an arrest warrant for espionage – for spying!? … espionage? … a traitor? Howthe fuck did this happen? How? How? How?

Despite the pain, ache and worry I’m thinking furiously. How? Connections, seemingly unrelated snippets from the past year and a half.

I’m trying to connect. Random telephone calls. A mysterious major from MoD security. Taped conversations. Jamie’s telling me that people don’t trust me. I voice my concerns. Nothing happens. No one gets back to me.

And then there are the watchers, followers. Horrible, uncomfortable feeling that I’m being watched, followed … for a long time. Eighteen months perhaps. I’ve seen them occasionally – just faces, out of place, people doing nothing, with no reason to be there. Who were they? Croats? Bosnians? Serbs? Someone is watching me. Paranoia? I know I’m being watched. Who’s doing it? Why?

The cell door crashes open, severing my train of thought. I leap to my feet not quite knowing what to expect. It’s the young PC. He’s looking at me, uncertainly, almost sympathetically.

‘We’re not happy about this. I’ve been upstairs to see the Inspector. He agrees with me. We think your civil rights have been abused. You’re entitled to make a phone call. It was obvious to me that you had no one in mind when I asked you who you’d like to call, so, who do you want to call?’

I’m stunned. I can’t believe it. Good on him for doing his job properly.

‘Dunno. Don’t know anyone,’ I stammer.

He’s adamant. ‘Look, it’s only advice, but you do need a lawyer. Really you do.’

‘But I don’t know any lawy—’

He cuts me short. ‘We’ll call you a duty lawyer if you like.’ I nod. He disappears and the door clangs shut. I glance at my watch. Over two hours since I was booked in. Bloody heavy-handed MoD Plod – GUILTY, now let’s prove the case!

Ten minutes later the PC is back. ‘We’ve got you a lawyer. She’s on the phone right now … come on!’ I’m led from the cell and shown to a phone hanging off a wall. The handset’s almost touching the floor. I pick it up and put it to my ear.

‘Hello, I’m Issy White from Tanner and Taylor in Farnborough. I understand you need help …’ Help. What can you do for me?

‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

‘What can you tell me?’ What can I tell you? What should I tell her? How much? All of it? Some of it? Which bits to leave out?

‘Er … well … it’s all very sensitive … I can’t … well, not on the phone …’

‘I’ll be round shortly.’ She’s curt.

I’m pathetically grateful that someone, anyone, has shown interest. Face to face she’s as brusque as she was on the phone. In three hours she has my story, all but the really sensitive stuff. She doesn’t need to know about that at the moment. I tell her about my time out there, about the List, the gong, the phone calls, about everything that matters. She scribbles furiously throughout.

‘Does all this sound unbelievable to you, Issy?’

She looks up and quite matter of factly says, ‘No. It all sounds true. I can spot a liar a mile off.’ She’s very serious.

‘No. I don’t really mean “unbelievable”, I suppose I mean “weird”.’

‘Weird? …’ She pauses, ‘… I’ve never heard anything like it.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s all true, every word of it …’ I feel tired ‘… It’s all true. It happened.’

Issy promises to get me some more cigarettes. She thinks they’ll be finished with my house by two o’clock. She leaves and tells me she’ll be back for ‘question time’.

Back in the cell I’ve got nothing to do except mull over the same old thoughts. Two o’clock comes and goes. Nothing. Three o’clock. Still nothing. I’m dog tired but still thinking, sick and churning but still thinking. What should I tell them? All of it? That would implicate Rose and Smith. Keep it from them. Tell them the minimum. I know what this is about. It’s about phone calls. It’s about a lot more than that. But for now, it’s about phone calls. I’m not about to bubble away Rose, Smith and the others. Not yet anyway. Keep the List out of it.

I’m sitting there staring at my shoes again, my elbows on my knees, head in my hands. I’ve smoked my last cigarette. There’s nothing else to think about. There’s nothing left anymore. Staff College and all that’s happened in the last two and a half years – a dream, a lifetime ago. And now they’re utterly irrelevant to me. Reality is where the illusion is strongest. This is where it’s strongest. Reality is this cell. Nothing else exists and I’m so tired, so, so tired. I have to sleep. Get some strength. Must sleep.

I take off my blazer and lie down on the bench. I can’t be bothered with the mattress. I cover my head with the blazer. It’s all so cold and dark, just like it was then, a thousand years ago – cold, dark, unknown and terrifying. I close my eyes. The tape starts playing and I’m back there. Reality. I can hear the shouts and screams, feel the cold, the panic and the terror. I’m there again.

TWO Operation Grapple – Bosnia (#ulink_33c0abf5-6cae-54a7-9a22-76da49749162)

8 January 1993 – British National Support Element Base, Tomislavgrad

The Americans were about to bomb the Iraqis again. On the hour, every hour, the television fixed high in a corner of the dusty warehouse spewed out the impassioned, near hysterical commentaries of the drama unfolding in the Middle East. Iraqi non-compliance with some UN Security Council Resolution seemed to be the issue; cruise missiles were poised to fly, midnight the deadline. In another place at another time we’d all have been glued to the box as we had been in 1991, eagerly anticipating the voyeuristic thrill of technowar. But not this time, not here and not tonight. The crisis in the Persian Gulf seemed so remote, so distant, so unreal. Shattered and numbed by the day’s events, nearly all the soldiers had shuffled off to their makeshift bunk beds, stacked four high around the warehouse.

Being less tired and having nothing more appealing than a sleeping bag on a cold concrete floor to look forward to, I’d delayed getting my head down. I was alone at a small wooden table, determined to finish recording the day’s hectic events in an airmail ‘bluey’ to a stewardess friend at British Airways. I glanced at my bedspace and marvelled that Seb had somehow managed to stuff his massive frame into his doss bag. Even more astonishingly, he’d managed to doze off despite the freezing concrete.

2225. The time flashed on the TV screen as the latest news from the Gulf came in from CNN. I turned back to the letter. Over the page and I’d be done, ‘… so, once the Boss realised what was going on, the three of us spent most of the day driving like madmen to get down here, but it was all over when we arr—.’

Ink splattered across the page. The pen sprang from my fingers as I leapt out of my skin knocking over the table. The newsreader had disappeared from the TV screen, obliterated. My ears were ringing, my mind stunned as a deep WOOOMF slammed into the warehouse, rattled the filthy windows and rolled over and around us. The air was filled with a fluttering, ripping sound and then another shockingly loud detonation somewhere beyond the wall. I was rooted to the spot. My legs started trembling. Adrenalin gushed through my veins.

‘Fuck! Shit! Oh, Christ, not again!’ Expletives echoed around the warehouse.