Rob Lewis - Like No Other Soldier: The Shadowy World of Security, Protection and Surveillance

This book is dedicated to my mother and father for having to put up with my various escapades. It could not have been easy.

Like No Other Soldier is a true recollection of my life experiences since leaving the British army in May 1991.

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Where real names appear, they are used in cases of historical fact and their inclusion is supported by independent, publicly available material.

I had filled in my voluntary discharge papers at army headquarters in Northern Ireland, Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn. It was time to move on to a new life and career in the civilian security and investigation world.

The chief clerk at headquarters had assured me that it would take about two months for the paperwork to be completed. I would have to attend a few interviews before I was fully cleared and debriefed, but I was happy just to have another few months of pay before I left for good.

I had already managed to get a year-long extension of the two-year tour I had done with the Force Research Unit (FRU). This was the elite, undercover military intelligence squad that ran agents during the Troubles I have previously chronicled my career with this controversial outfit in Fishers of Men. Human resources decided I now had to either return to my regular unit, the Royal Armoured Corps, who were posted in Germany at the time, or transfer to the Intelligence Corps to be posted to a security section in England. I was not entirely enthused by either choice. For the past few years, I had been working undercover on secret operations gathering intelligence to fight terrorism and the prospect of wearing a uniform and having a short back and sides in the world of regular, tank-park soldiering was something that just did not appeal.

Dont get me wrong I had enjoyed myself in the army and had made some great mates who would be lifelong friends, but it was just not for me. I could never quite understand why the military restricted the length of an operational tour with special duties. It took a significant period of time for anyone to work up good intelligence Special Branch officers at the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) took on their job for life. Obviously, that work came with huge personal risks, but it also led to large amounts of quality intelligence, experience and knowledge. As the old saying goes, Knowledge is power and they had that power!

There was nothing for it I had to accept the standard way of doing things. I carried on with my normal operational tasks, carrying out covert surveillance and targeting, recruiting and handling informants while beginning the process of slowly but surely handing over my usual role to a new operator.

Informants sometimes become emotionally attached to their handlers; over time they come to rely on us for friendship, guidance and money. On average, I would make a point of meeting the informants I ran at least once a week to maintain a real relationship with them and now, gradually, I introduced my replacement to give my informants time to adjust to me standing down. Towards the end of that process I would only show my face at the occasional meeting, just to keep the sense of continuity. I was not involved in the debriefing process, which would be down to the new team.

I had various chats with my commanding officer about how I might carry on with this kind of work for other agencies perhaps MI5 or even MI6. The Commanding Officer was a great bloke, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in rank and had previously been in the Gordon Highlanders before transferring into the Intelligence Corps. He had family links to the Fermanagh area and he played rugby for Enniskillen, a team that he was to introduce me into, and I played regularly for them, it obviously opened up a great social life as well. He told me that he would see what he could arrange. I returned to Lisburn headquarters and met with the senior controller for the security service in Northern Ireland. He seemed like quite a nice guy but was very dismissive about my joining his organisation. The majority of his surveillance operatives were little more than school kids, he said, and I could find myself in teams led by people who had far less experience and knowledge than I did. It would be quite hard for me to integrate into their structure. I would, more than likely, be London-based, have to make a commitment to weekend working at least three times a month and would have to live on starter civil service wages. He didnt put me off. I asked about having a role handling sources there was bound to be an opening there, surely? The answer was that I would need to have been educated to degree level. It seemed to me that either he was being kind and didnt want to bluntly let me know that I was not appropriate for his organisation or he was being totally honest in suggesting the work wouldnt be a good fit, given my previous experience. Id like to think it was the latter.

The next week we received intelligence from one of our sources that an AR-15 ArmaLite rifle was to be used to murder a member of the RUC. One of our sources would have control of the weapon and had been told to hold on to it until he was given a location for delivery the address was to be given to him in person by a senior member of the Fermanagh and Tyrone Irish Republican Army (IRA) and we knew he would not have the time to let us know where he would be going with the rifle. His property was put under surveillance, with a covert van parked up in direct sight, while a motorbike rider and two cars covered the three possible routes he could take when leaving the area. I was parked in a quiet side street about half a mile away with the potential to cover two of his routes.

We stayed in position for two hours at which point, under normal operational practice, we would have to move on; it tends to get a bit dangerous to stay in one place too long. Passers-by can get very suspicious. Today, because of the need to keep tabs on the weapon, we stretched out a while longer. Everyone on the team was happy to continue as nobody felt that they had been compromised. We also had a Gazelle helicopter at our disposal for top cover; the helicopter was fitted with an optical sight operated by one of our team. If need be, he would be able to control the operation from around two thousand feet without compromising the ground surveillance. Helicopters were a regular daily sight all over the province and nobody really paid any attention to them.

Standby, standby.

The covert van operative let all call signs know that there was activity at the target address and everyone also knew not to say anything over the radio, to keep it clear until we heard the next instruction. The operator with eyes on now had control of the task and we all waited patiently for his next radio transmission.

Bravo one, complete with package at alpha one.

The AR-15 was about to be delivered. We used the prefixes alpha, bravo and charlie over the radio to indicate address, person and vehicle. Radio transmissions were always in real-time: the operator in the van was describing the activity as it happened.

Drop off complete and that is bravo two, in charlie one, heading towards blue two zero. Our informant had possession of the rifle and was driving his own car towards the main road.

We used spot codes made up of colours and numbers to indicate locations, as opposed to speaking road and street names. It was more efficient for surveillance operations, keeping transmissions sharp and direct. Our source who dropped the weapon off was allowed to leave the area unhindered it was imperative that his identity was not compromised and, as we knew who he was and as the drop-off had been filmed, he could always be picked up later. For the time being, we let the rifle travel to its next destination under surveillance.