Braver Men Walk Away Read online

  I studied the X-ray of the wiring circuit and identified what I thought was the final arming connection. Slowly and carefully I made a cut in the wrapping paper just above that connection. Only then did I see the second layer of wrapping paper. It was black.

  It didn’t make sense: why would anyone want to wrap up a parcel bomb in two layers of paper? And why black paper? Black wrapping was found on photographic paper, on materials which had to be shielded from the light … Realization suddenly dawned.

  Instead of assuming how the bomb would function, I should have taken another X-ray at right angles to the first. This would have shown that the photo-electric cell was actually in a cleverly fashioned recess on top of the container, positioned in such a way that the action of tearing off the paper would initiate detonation. The paper was black to prevent light getting in, and I’d just cut through it.

  All these thoughts flashed quickly through my head. Within split-seconds of cutting the black paper I had understood its significance, visualized how the bomb would function, and realized the scale of my error. I had pressed my hand down on to the cut and, as both the parcel and I were still intact, everything seemed OK.

  But now what? I was standing in New Addington Police Station with a parcel bomb which would very likely explode if I took my hand off it. If I didn’t take my hand off I wouldn’t be able to deal with it. The bomb and I had just become inseparable.

  I used my free hand to fumble for my radio and called my driver. I asked him to get hold of the station duty officer; I needed a totally blacked-out police cell.

  The cell led directly off the Charge Room so I was able to watch my driver and a young police constable as they used heavy fabric and adhesive tape to shut out all the available light. The cell window required special care; the young policeman smiled apologetically at me. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘but I wondered … Could you give us a hand to cover this thing up?’

  I smiled back and told him I thought that might be a little inadvisable. ‘This thing I’m holding. If I remove my hand, the light could set it off.’ He stared at the way my hand was clamped over the package and swallowed hard.

  Finally the cell was ready and I went into pitch blackness. There was no way of telling if this was overkill or not because the performance of a photo-electric cell is variable and adjustable: it may take only a glimmer of light to set it off or it may need a flashbulb. I didn’t know how the bomber had adjusted the thing and I certainly didn’t intend to make any more assumptions.

  I set the package down on what felt like the cell bed. I had already taken care to memorize the X-ray image so now it was merely a case of locating the photo-electric cell and cutting the correct leg wire.

  So much for the theory. The practice proved a little different: I was wearing surgeon’s gloves, working in total darkness, and using a roll of Sellotape for insulation purposes. The bomb was on a bed still covered by a woolly blanket. The Sellotape finished up stuck to the blanket, to me, to my wire-cutters and to the bomb. Moreover, if I allowed these problems to interfere with my mental image of the X-ray then I’d lose complete track of the bomb’s circuitry. I seemed to be in the darkness of the New Addington Police Station cell for a very long time.

  Eventually the job was done: I cut the correct wire, insulated its ends, and disentangled myself from what had seemed to be the world’s woolliest blanket.

  Subsequent analysis of the device showed that it contained around 1¼ pounds of gunpowder with an initiatory system based on a photo-electric cell, thyristor, and four modified torch bulbs acting as hot-wire igniters. The circuit, which lacked any kind of safety mechanism, was capable of functioning on exposure to light.

  For me, this was the end of the story. Detective Inspector Stephenson and Detective Constable Reilly from the Met’s Anti-Terrorist Branch were now drafted in. The latter was a local man with extensive local knowledge, a factor which was to be of crucial significance to the outcome of the case.

  On 2 January 1978 an explosive device was discovered at the offices of a charitable organization in Horsham, Surrey, and rendered safe by a colleague of mine from the Explosives Office. The device bore a strong resemblance to the one I had so recently dealt with: it contained a similar photo-electric cell and thyristor initiatory system as well as a four-torch-bulb hot-wire igniter arrangement. The charge was bigger, though – almost 3 pounds of home-made explosive in a 1-litre solvent tin. Analysis also showed something else: mixed in with the explosive were fragments of glass from a 4-ounce Nescafé coffee jar. Marks had been made on the glass with a black felt-tip pen.

  It seemed that both devices had been designed by the same bomb-maker. His intended victims had had lucky escapes so far. The investigation was stepped up and the police learned that the photo-electric cells had come from a batch of 115,000 and the thyristors from a batch of 20,000. Both the cells and the thyristors had been sold by a shop in London’s Edgware Road. As for the torch bulbs, they were traced to Boots in Croydon.

  While the laborious procedure of interviewing and statement-taking continued, Detective Constable Reilly happened to spend some off-duty time on a shopping trip to Croydon. When he saw some graffiti on the wall of a town-centre multi-storey car park, he remembered that there had previously been a complaint to the police about the vandalism; he went to check it for any clues. The graffiti was vehemently anti-abortionist, and Reilly remembered that this same wall had earlier been covered with graffiti denouncing the fluoridation of the local water supplies – graffiti in similar handwriting. As he looked at the way the individual letters were formed, Reilly realized that the last time he had seen handwriting like this was on the parcel bombs – bombs aimed at people who had, at one time or another, advocated more easily obtainable abortions.

  It was not, thought Reilly, a coincidence, but it did not provide any clue to the writer’s identity. This was sought by the police in the readers’ letters pages of the local paper, which had, over a period of time, printed a variety of letters from a variety of readers on fluoridation and abortion. Only one correspondent, however, had written to express opposition on both topics. The letters were signed T. D. Lascelles.

  On 10 January 1978 two detectives called at a house only a mile or so from New Addington Police Station. They were shown into Thomas David Lascelles’s workroom. It was clean and tidy and contained a number of coffee jars with black felt-tip pen marks. In a box of rubbish the detectives found pieces of broken glass. Eventually something else was discovered: a 300-page diary detailing the author’s activities during the previous year. Elegantly written in the style of Samuel Pepys, the diary documented the eloquent concern which became a deadly obsession, and the chilling and sad disintegration of a brilliant mind – the mind of a seventeen-year-old schoolboy.

  Thomas David Lascelles admitted responsibility for the two bombs as well as a number of other attempted incendiary incidents in and around Croydon. He spoke calmly and clearly and even congratulated the arresting officers on the efficiency of their investigation.

  I saw Lascelles from across a hushed Old Bailey Courtroom in July 1978. He sat quietly, impassively, a well-groomed and soberly dressed young man from a loving home. It was not difficult to believe that he had demonstrated an IQ of 160 at eight years old. Legal argument centred not so much on whether Lascelles was responsible for his actions as whether his psychopathic condition was treatable within the meaning of the Mental Health Act. Ultimately, he was saved from detention in a mental institution for an indefinite period of time but given six life sentences, one for each of the crimes as charged, in order to keep him away from the public.

  In December 1988, eleven years after I grappled with his bomb in the cell at New Addington Police Station, Lascelles was found hanged in his cell at Kingston Prison, Portsmouth.

  Today bombings account for over fifty per cent of all terrorist incidents worldwide; kidnapping and hostage-taking account for only around fifteen per cent. The Cold War is over, and preoccupations with ‘th
e Bomb’ have diminished, yet the threat of death and destruction from devices of infinitely less explosive power has, paradoxically, never been higher.

  At an international conference hosted by the FBI and attended by EOD professionals from throughout the world, the keynote address (given by a member of the Office of the Ambassador at Large for Counter-Terrorism, US Department of State) opened thus:

  There are memorial plaques in the State Department lobby listing the names of American diplomats who died in the line of duty since 1776.

  When I joined the Foreign Service, twenty years ago, there were eighty-one names on those plaques. All but seven died from earthquakes, plagues and other non-purposeful causes.

  But during the last twenty years, seventy-three additional names have been added to those plaques. In other words, for the first 190 years of our nation’s existence, we lost embassy personnel to violent death about once every twenty-seven years. Since I joined the Foreign Service, we have averaged one such loss every ninety days.

  Terrorism is encountered everywhere, as I discovered for myself far from the Met’s usual beat.

  The story began in Malatya, a city in eastern Turkey, in 1978, when a parcel bomb killed the Mayor and his daughter. A description of the parcel was issued over Turkish radio and, by chance, was heard by the recipient of a second parcel bomb: the Chief of Police of a community not far from Malatya. What happened then was bizarre to say the least: as the parcel actually featured the sender’s address, the Police Chief marked it IADE (acronym for the Turkish version of ‘Return To Sender’) and promptly put it back in the post, knowing what it contained. Efforts to deliver it failed because the address in Ankara was fictitious. Stuck with a parcel they couldn’t deliver, the postal authorities decided to contact the addressee to see if he could help them. They rang the Police Chief. He told them it was a bomb. The parcel was hastily transported to Ankara’s main police station, where no one seemed to know what to do with it; though their EOD operators examined it, they felt they were not capable of dealing with such a device.

  By coincidence, Sir Lawrence Byford, an inspector of constabulary and a former chief constable of Lincolnshire, happened to be carrying out a police inspection that day in Ankara at the request of the Turkish government. During a tour of the main police station, he was advised not to go into one particular cell. As there seemed no good reason not to, and as he was, after all, acting at the request of the Government, he pushed open the door and went in to discover three parcels lying on the floor.

  ‘What are these parcels doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘We think they’re bombs.’

  ‘Bombs? What are you doing with bombs in a police station? How are you going to deal with them?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  Byford rushed to the telephone and, as a result, I found myself boarding an aircraft to Turkey less than twenty-four hours later with instructions to defuze the devices.

  As it turned out, two of the parcels were innocuous; the third contained the peripatetic bomb. I defuzed it and the Turkish police seemed impressed with my work and asked if I could take a look at their EOD teams and general EOD practice.

  Everything was wrong, both in terms of lack of training and equipment and the general approach to EOD work. There was a horrifically macho quality to their attitude, and their methodology beggared belief: they would shoot at suspect bombs with pistols or chuck stones at them in hope of either initiating detonation or knocking them to pieces. I remember thinking at the scene of one incident that, as stone-throwers went, they were pretty good.

  After a ten-day sojourn in what seemed like a lethal Wonderland with me unwittingly cast in the role of Alice, I returned to London, wrote a lengthy report with a wide range of recommendations, filed it, and forgot it.

  Some weeks later the relevant authorities decided that, in the spirit of international co-operation, the Turkish police should be given assistance in bringing their EOD operators up to an acceptable standard. I was chosen to do the work and I asked Ken to accompany me. Not only were we old friends; Ken was both a very good explosives officer and a far better administrator than I. Since Roger’s death we had become closer than ever before, a contrasting pair: me, tall and slim, Ken a broad-chested, blunt-speaking North Countryman.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I do all the donkey work and you get all the glamour.’

  I feigned injured surprise. ‘Come on. You know me better than that.’

  He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of the woollen cardigan he always wore. Finally: ‘All right. I suppose somebody who knows what they’re doing had better go.’

  For the next six months we worked together in Turkey. Rarely had there been so much to do in so short a time; and rarely had there been better hosts: at every level of society the Turkish people proved themselves to be generous as well as joyous. From that date, longstanding friendships were formed; Ken and I looked forward to going back.

  9

  The Bomb-makers

  My work at the Met brought me increasing satisfaction, especially when, in the wake of the London car bombs of March 1973, ten IRA terrorists were arrested, convicted in part on the strength of the evidence we had recovered from the vehicles and the defuzed car bombs. It was gratifying to know that I had not only taken out a threat but also helped to convict those responsible.

  The war against the bombers had continued unabated, generally grim, usually depressing, only occasionally enlivened by encounters with alarm clocks with no hands and, in May 1974, a classic example of ‘the Paddy Factor’.

  The house was in Penystone Road, Maidenhead. An Irish gentleman owned the property but had let it to two other Irishmen while he attempted to sell it. The property was placed in the hands of a local estate agent, whose representative duly let himself in to examine the empty premises. His first surprise was that it showed signs of current occupancy, even though no one was there at the time of his visit. Then he discovered what looked like a large bag of catering sugar, about 12 pounds of the stuff. He telephoned the Maidenhead police to say that he’d stumbled across something which might be a bag filled with explosive. They arrived and checked the bag. No, they said, it wasn’t explosive; it was just 12 pounds of catering sugar. However – they pointed to what seemed to be a 15-pound bag of cocoa powder – this could be explosive. At this point they called for an explosives officer and I was tasked to the scene.

  By the time I arrived they’d completed the initial stages of a thoroughly professional job. Not only had they put a discreet security ring around the house by evacuating the residents on either side, a preliminary search of the rooms had yielded two detonators and a 9mm pistol. I went in to carry on the search while the police waited for the temporary occupant, or occupants, to return.

  I began with the suspect explosive. It was cocoa. I rechecked the bag of sugar. It was sugar. I went upstairs and found almost 110 pounds of explosive and detonators. And then someone was knocking on the front door.

  A policeman opened it and saw a young couple who could easily have been terrorists, except one of them then said: ‘Excuse me, but we understand this house is for sale … ?’

  No one was in a mood to take anyone at face value. They were slammed up against the wall, searched and then bundled off in a police car. They probably gave up house-hunting after that.

  I went back to my search until someone else arrived downstairs: an Irishman who let himself in with a key. He walked along the hall and past the first room, at which point an armed policeman came out behind him while another jumped down the stairs and threw himself on to the floor with gun arm raised. At the end of the hall a third policeman also materialized with gun aimed. The terrorist lost control of his bladder. Wet and shaking, he was taken away.

  I worked on into the night, searching as many corners and crevices of the house as possible.

  It was dark when the other terrorist turned up. He was drunk and careless. He threw the back door open so hard that it slammed into t
he policeman who had been hiding behind it with gun cocked. The gun went off. The bullet smashed through the door and winged its way out across the driveway and into the kitchen of the neighbouring house. I was sitting next to a pile of highly sensitive nitroglycerine-based explosive; if the bullet had gone upwards instead of sideways the consequences could have been serious.

  Like bis compatriot, this second IRA terrorist was taken off to Maidenhead Police Station. He was very sober now, promising to be good and co-operative. The bombers were about as bright as they were brave: apart from the items we had found earlier, the police soon discovered all the evidence they needed to earn the pair very lengthy prison sentences. Though the terrorists had painstakingly hoovered up traces of their activities – dust, wrappings, tiny sections of cut wire – they hadn’t thought to empty the vacuum cleaner’s bag.

  Another success story came on my forty-fourth birthday, 12 December 1975 – the day the Balcombe Street siege ended.

  Four suspected IRA terrorists had opened fire when a policeman intercepted them near Marylebone Station. They ran into an apartment block in Balcombe Street, presumably thinking there was a way out through the back. There wasn’t. They burst into a flat occupied by John and Sheila Matthews and took them hostage. Police ringed the building and waited.

  After a week of headlines and high drama and painstaking negotiations, on the morning of 12 December Sheila Matthews was released. She was asked if the terrorists were in possession of explosives. She didn’t know. They’d been carrying all kinds of things with them when they invaded the apartment, but she had seen them tie wire to the handle of one of the interior doors.