Kisses From Nimbus

  KISSES FROM NIMBUS

  An Autobiography

  P. J. ‘Red’ Riley

  TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIENDS

  KAUATA MARAFONO MBE

  (FRED)

  CAPTAIN WILLIAM G BOOTH

  (RICHARD)

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  SUNDAY 20th JANUARY 1990 14.35 HOURS

  HOWARD

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE MOLLY

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT OPERATION NIMROD

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN OPERATION CORPORATE

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN OPERATION LOCAL

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY SAS SELECTION

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN HEAD OF UK ANTI-HIJACK TEAM

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY HEREFORD ENGLAND, 14 JUNE 1985, 1940 HOURS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE SILVER MOUNTAIN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX SIERRA LEONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE BLOSSOM

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR SARDINIA AND PARIS

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE EXFILTRATION OF NIMBUS

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO OPERATION DRUGSTORE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT 25th DECEMBER 2004 1528 HOURS

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE RADCLIFFE ENGLAND 11th NOVEMBER 2015 0552 HOURS

  COPYRIGHT

  SUNDAY 20th JANUARY 1990 ​14.35 HOURS

  A mark, a target, a victim. What do you call a person you are about to kill? I certainly don’t want to personalise this whole sordid business by applying a name, but I will at least apply a gender – Male. That’s it then – He. He was sleeping peacefully on his back. How odd, I thought. Surely most people sleep lying on one side or the other in the foetal position. It gives them the comfort of still being in the womb I suppose. But lying, quite still, face up, seems to be making it so easy for me – just asking to be suffocated.

  I had spent the past twenty-two years of my life in the British Army. The last six of which were in the now famous and very much publicised Special Air Service. Now, after leaving the Army I have been recruited and trained as an agent in Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6 or SIS.

  It is well known that, being SAS trained, it is quite easy for me to live for at least a fortnight with nothing more than a pair of old leather bootlaces to suck on for sustenance, and, with steely cold resolve, I can send a heavily armed terrorist to his maker with just a well-aimed swift jab here or there – what a load of bollocks! I know I have to kill this man but I don’t know how to. I have no weapon. No trigger to pull, before I close my eyes to avoid the instant when white hot metal smashes into soft body tissue. I have my hands, of course, but they hardly seem adequate and they are shaking.

  Throughout my Army career, the closest I ever came to hand to hand combat was as a young soldier in basic training, being taught the finer points of bayonet drill. This consisted of fixing a six-inch steel bayonet to the end of my self-loading rifle, which had to be kept highly polished to avoid the risk of infection. The rifle also had to be kept in pristine condition to avoid I know not what and, charging towards a sack full of straw whilst screaming some ridiculous obscenity, plunge the bayonet hard into the sack. A twist for maximum internal organ damage, keep on screaming, withdraw the bayonet and continue running to the NAAFI truck for sausage baps and tea.

  My training as a killer continued but the much-preferred method was with a gun. I spent days, weeks, months even, on rifle ranges across the United Kingdom and Germany. From one hundred metre ranges for pistols and small submachine guns, to the fifteen hundred metre ranges for support weapons, such as the Bren gun or the new, state of the art, general-purpose machine gun. Whatever the weapon the emphasis was always the same – shoot to kill! Shoot to kill has always been an overriding policy of the British Army – there is no other way. Aim for the centre of the target to maximise the possibility of a hit. It matters not where the target is hit, since, in the heat of battle, it can be argued that a wounded soldier could be more of a liability to his comrades than a dead soldier. Whilst the enemy are dealing with their wounded they are less likely to be able to return fire. When it comes to killing, it is generally agreed that it is better to have as much distance as possible between the dispatcher and the recipient. A double tap from a pistol if necessary, but a better option would be a burst of automatic fire from a machine gun at two hundred metres or so. An even better option would be a single shot from a sniper rifle from as far away as a thousand metres, which would surely avoid witnessing the last look of horror as the bullet slams into the victim. Best of all, of course, is to get on the radio and call for air support for fighter ground attack aircraft to carpet bomb the complete area and keep the whole nasty business as impersonal as possible. So yes, I suppose I do qualify as a trained killer, but firing rockets, or bullets at some barely discernible target hundreds of metres away somehow doesn’t seem like killing, even if you keep your eyes open and watch the targets fall.

  What I am contemplating now is killing a man whose face I can clearly see, a young man, a handsome man, and I have no weapon to make things easier. The bed he is sleeping in is a hospital bed, a small private room with just one bed, two chairs, a small bedside cupboard and a hand wash basin. The single window in the room looks out onto a dirty grey stone wall. I draw the curtains across to prevent any casual, unsuspecting, passer-by witnessing a murder. Even with the curtains drawn there is still enough light in the room to clearly see the man’s face.

  My recently completed training to become a fully operational SIS agent certainly made no mention of ‘How to kill a sleeping man without alerting nearby nursing staff’. What I had been taught included basic ‘Tradecraft’ (the skill of being as ‘grey’ as possible and being perceived as anything but a British Secret Agent). My training also included surveillance and anti-surveillance techniques, loading and unloading dead letterboxes to collect and receive messages covertly, photography, practical disguise, communications, defensive driving, and a police advanced driving qualification.

  I quietly left the room and walked, a little nervously, towards the toilets and the hospital exit. Although the young female nurse on duty was clearly of Asian descent, she was dressed in a western-style blue and white nurses uniform. She looked up and seemed to eye me suspiciously as I approached the nurse’s station.

  ‘Everything okay Mr Riley, is there anything
I can help you with?’ she said in perfect English with, what I guessed, was a Lancastrian accent.

  ‘No thanks,’ I replied, ‘He’s sleeping like a baby.’

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea or ‘owt?’ she asked.

  Definitely, I thought, a Lancastrian accent!

  ‘No, we are just fine thanks.’ I smiled, ‘Be good if he can get a couple of hours’ sleep. I’ll give you a call if we need anything.’

  ‘Right-o luv,’ she said.

  On second thoughts she could be from the other side of the Pennines I suppose.

  As I washed my hands I stared hard at myself in the mirror. Are you insane, are you really capable of doing this? Why not just keep on walking towards the exit and leave the poor bastard in peace?

  My handlers in London had made it abundantly clear to me that if, or more likely when, the shit hit the fan, I would be completely on my own. Part of the deal I have signed up for is to be totally deniable to the United Kingdom government. I have been assured that everything possible will be done to help me, but it will be done covertly. Overtly, it will be denied that I have anything whatsoever to do with the British Secret Intelligence Service.

  Returning to the room I gave the nurse a friendly smile as I passed, which was acknowledged with nothing more than a nod. Back in the room, he was still fast asleep and thankfully, still on his back. Feeling reasonably confident that we were unlikely to be disturbed, I convinced myself that it had to be now or never. It had to be now. Suffocation seemed to be my only realistic option but there were only two pillows in the room and he was sleeping soundly on both of them. I decide not to risk waking him by trying to get to one of the pillows. On the side of the wash basin, there was a small face cloth which I decided would have to be my weapon. I examined the face cloth. It looked and felt rather porous. I carefully folded the weapon once, then twice. It was still big enough to cover his nose and mouth, but it continued to look somewhat inadequate for what I was about to do. Perhaps soaking the cloth with water would make the material stick together more, I thought, and therefore make the weapon more efficient. I soaked the cloth under the running water. I didn’t want it to be too hot or too cold. For some obscure reason, it was important for me to have the weapon at just the right temperature. I approached the bedside knowing what I had to do next. He was resting peacefully, taking short, regular and shallow breaths. Facing directly towards the ceiling, his position seemed to make it almost too easy for me to cover his mouth and nose with the improvised weapon. Getting to within an inch of his face his eyes opened wide, and he frantically grabbed my wrists with both his hands. With unexpected strength, he pushed my hands away and gasped for breath. He had an odd expression of bewilderment on his face as he stared into my eyes. After such a rude awakening, it took a few moments for him to seem to understand what I was trying to do. His expression changed. He assumed, what appeared to me to be a faint smile. He then nodded to me and closed his eyes. I again went about my planned suffocation, but for some reason, I hesitated and stopped short of actually snuffing out the young man’s life. His eyes remained closed. He raised his hands, but this time not to push me away, instead he brought his hands together as if in prayer. His body relaxed. His arms fell to his sides. He stopped breathing. Lying motionless his face very quickly turned a deathly grey. As I stood in amazement the weapon dropped from my hand and I realised for certain that he was dead.

  Peace at last for my dear brother Howard.

  HOWARD

  Howard was a beautiful man. He was born profoundly deaf, as were my elder sister Patricia, and my younger brother Craig. My sister Jackie and I were the only two siblings with normal hearing. The deafness in the family was, apparently, caused by some incompatibility between my parents’ blood types.

  Howard’s adolescent years were tough for him as he struggled with his speech difficulties due to his profound loss of hearing. He was often the butt of local youths’ jokes and behind his back, he could be teased remorselessly. I regularly got myself into fights in my efforts to protect him, finding it hard to understand their childish cruelty. I became acutely aware of the propensity for young people to ruthlessly take the piss out of Howard and as soon as I noticed the slightest smirk or snide remark, I would round on them with my fists – sometimes without genuine justification. This period of his life got even tougher when he decided to come out and live his life as a gay man.

  As an adult, things got much better for Howard and he was no longer the object of petty jokes but became very popular and respected locally. He was intelligent and had a wicked sense of humour. Howard’s ability to lip-read was outstanding and he managed to communicate with most people with remarkable ease. He grew confident and was happy to go anywhere on his own despite my mother’s insistence that he needed someone to look after him. He soon developed a desire to travel but his local bus trips and train journeys did little to appease his wanderlust and so he got himself a passport and decided that he was going to see the world.

  And see the world he did!

  I dread to think how many times Howard must have been told that he wouldn’t be able to manage travelling to different countries with his inability to speak or hear. But Howard paid not the slightest heed. As soon as he could save enough money for an airline ticket he would be on his way. At first, it was no further afield than Spain. Soon after that, it was America; California, Florida and Hawaii. He was convinced that there were no limits to where he could, and would, travel. At home in Accrington, he sometimes held down three jobs at once for him to save enough for his next trip to ever more exotic locations.

  It was on a trip to Florida with the friends he loved, that he contracted the HIV virus which rapidly developed into full blown AIDS.

  At that time the public’s perception of HIV/AIDS, Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Deficiency Syndrome, almost amounted to mass hysteria. Government leaflets were distributed to every household in the country, graphically explaining the sudden emergence of the newly discovered, incurable and out-of-control disease, which was threatening the whole of humanity. Primetime television showed dire warnings of what lay ahead for mankind as more and more people became infected and the monster, known as AIDS, permeated through every tier of society. The blame for the rise of the pandemic was laid squarely at the foot of homosexual men, resulting in most people becoming afraid of any form of contact, no matter how remote, with any gay person, or indeed anyone who might have any homosexual tendencies.

  Some people even imagined that AIDS could be spread by gay plumbers contaminating water supplies after working on pipes, or that communal swimming pools could become infected by a gay man simply taking a dip. Churchgoers even refused to sip wine during the holy communion ceremony in case there was some closeted gay lurking in the congregation.

  My sister Jackie and I went, by train, with Howard to visit the Terrance Higgins Trust, across from Kings Cross Station in London. The trust had been established in the mid-1980s as a charity to provide help and services, such as counselling and health education for people who had contracted HIV/AIDS.

  I sat in the waiting room reading my hardback copy of Paul Auster’s new book Moon Palace, fresh out of Waterstone’s and waited for Howard to get through whatever treatment he was receiving.

  After spending a few hours at the centre, Howard was feeling relaxed and happy as we left the building to make our way back to his home in Accrington. On the opposite side of the road from the entrance, a small group of protesters had gathered. There was some low-key shouting and waving of placards, displaying signs such as ‘Gay men swirl about in a human cesspit of their own making’. (A quote from some high-ranking member of the police force.) And ‘Ban gays from public toilets and swimming baths’.

  Howard was already showing signs of weakness and frailty and quickly became terrified of the display of hatred demonstrated by the crowd. He wasn’t able to hear what they were shouting but he could certainly sense their hostility. My sister and I put our arms around
our distressed brother to provide him with some protection and attempted to make our way through the gathering. One particularly aggressive protester moved towards us shouting ‘Fucking Homo’, with spittle erupting from his mouth. He was much taller than me and powerfully built.

  Empowered by the lessons I had been taught during Unarmed Combat training in the Army, the mnemonic SASAS sprang to my mind. Surprise, Aggression, Speed, Accuracy, Strength, all of which are needed for an effective strike. I adopted a submissive stance and cowed as if to accept the man’s dominance. As his spit hit my face I used the element of surprise and kicked with all my strength to the side of his knee. He buckled, and as he started to fall towards me I drove the side of my hand aggressively and accurately, as if I were some sort of karate expert, up under the bridge of his nose. I felt the cartilage snap and split under the force, as his face became a mass of blood. With the attacker writhing on the floor I placed my foot across his throat and prepared myself for the next assailant. None came forward. The crowd stood in silence as we walked slowly away from them and towards Euston Station, without any further incident.

  There is nothing pretty or fair about Unarmed Combat and there are no niceties such as the Queensbury Rules to prevent permanent injury to the adversaries. Unlike a brawl or a street fight, Unarmed Combat is taught to soldiers to be used ruthlessly and should only ever be considered as a very last resort. Gouging of eyes, snapping of bones and tearing of flesh are all perfectly acceptable as means of survival. In this case, I was wrong to use it, but if I had done as I was taught and used anything available to me as a weapon, in that case, a hardback book, then the assailant could have been killed. I suppose I should have apologised to the foul-mouthed spitting protester – but I didn’t.

  Over the next two years, Howard’s health progressively deteriorated. It was his wish to spend the last part of his life in the Terrance Higgins Trust but he quite suddenly became too ill to travel. He was admitted to the Queens Park Hospital in Blackburn. The doctors made it clear that Howard was dying and was unlikely to survive for more than the next twenty-four hours.