Oh, well, we never found out what the sand was, but at least we'd tried-and got a nice tan.
The lecture room in Hereford was full as Bert from Int Corps gave B Squadron the background.
"As you are aware, the Regiment has been involved in many antinarcotic measures. We have worked with a number of American drug agencies, such as the D.E.A, whose personnel have visited Hereford on a number of occasions. Members of the Regiment have also assisted the U.S Coast Guard with antidrug patrols.
On the domestic front, the Regiment has been involved in drug-busting operations in London, mainly to stop PIRA's fund-raising drug operations.
"The main market for narcotics is still the United States, but Europe is catching up fast; the inner cities have become major distribution points, and it's feared there could be a major epidemic.
Now it has been decided at the highest levels that several UK agencies will join in the fight, and you are one of them.
"So, gentlemen"-Bert pulled down a roller map of Central and South America and jabbed at a specific region-"I give you a theater of operations that is so secret that anyone heard discussing it-even in camp will be R.T.U'D on the spot." Then, allowing himself a brief tongue-in-cheek grin, he said, "So to get you into the habit straightaway, even I am only going to refer to this place as a certain Latin American country."
His face serious once more, he went on. "This is not going to be easy.
Our certain Latin American country' is one of the most violent in the world, apart from those physically at war. There were more than twenty thousand murders last year-at least three thousand drugrelated killings in one town alone. In fact these days a local male between the ages of eighteen and sixty is more likely to be murdered than to die of any other cause.
"The Latin American drug trade has developed from a small cottage industry in the early seventies into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, with its own distribution network and armies of narcoguerrillas to make sure it stays that way. The chief villains of the piece are the cartels, associations of drug producers and smugglers who have combined to divvy up the market and intimidate the authorities. Their vast profits have brought them power; they've killed politicians, judges, and senior army officers-and got away with it. Measures have been taken, but it's like pushing water uphill.
"All efforts must be made to fight the drug trade in its own backyard.
If we can hit them at source and slow down the growth and production, we will then see the effect back in the UK."
Bert distributed photocopies of an intelligence report that showed that according to the U.S State Department, three Latin American countries between them produced enough coca leaves in 1988 to yield 360 tons of pure cocaine. At fourteen thousand dollars for a kilo at onethird purity, the suppliers' income would be fifteen billion dollars from cocaine alone-and that took no account of the massive quantities of marijuana grown and processed. However, since the cartels also controlled distribution and retail sales, their profits were, in fact, much higher-an estimated margin of 12,000 percent from production cost to' street value.
"To look just at cocaine for a moment," Bert said, "it takes two hundred kilos of leaves to produce one kilo of paste. The leaves have to be converted into coca paste in their country of origin because the sheer volume and weight of leaves make it impossible to move them very far.
The plantations were scattered in the valleys, with thousands of collection points at which the leaves were rendered down. The coca paste was then taken to one of thousands of small dirt airstrips hidden in the jungle, and from there to drug manufacturing plants to be converted first into cocaine base (it took 2.5 kilos of paste to produce 1 kilo of base) and then into cocaine hydrochloride-pure cocaine. IMTo run the drug production line, the cartels had ' ported skilled technicians, many of whom were Europeans, as well as specialized equipment and supplies. They also handled the smuggling operation and had even set up their own distribution networks in America and Europe.
Bert said, "In the last two years the number of addicts in New York has trebled from one hundred eighty-two thousand to six hundred thousand-and that's without the up-and-coming generation of heroin users. just looking at one of the problems that we've got-cocaine-the size of the job can be measured by a recent seizure: In September police in Los Angeles impounded the largest single-consignment ever discovered, over twenty tons.
Its value was about two billion dollars wholesale, yet the seizure had no effect on price. In other words, supply still exceeded demand.
"Our 'certain Latin American country' is itself not a fantastic producer. However, rather than try to convince other governments to defoliate millions of acres of marijuana and coca, it makes sense to attack further down the chain, at the drug manufacturing plants.
"We don't want that sort of problem to happen in the UK. We need to hit the problem at source. It is a proactive strike, a first strike; if we are successful in our task, we will cut down the stream of drugs into t'he UK."
G Squadron had been the first to deploy. I didn't mind going in after them a few months later. In many ways it was better to take over from somebody else; they'd have had all the cock-ups and found out all the little bits and pieces that we needed to know, and squared them all away.
B Squadron started to plan and prepare for the takeover. The first priority was to learn the language to a passable standard, as it would obviously make our job i easier if we could communicate directly with people rather than have to go through a third party; what is said can be wrongly understood by the interpreter, and his translation can't be confirmed.
I seemed to live in the language lab. All around me blokes in headphones were shouting, "Fuck it!" in frustration and either storming off for i brew or binning it for the day. Personally I used to go for a run when the grammar got too much for me. I wasn't that fussed ah. out getting it exactly right. I just wanted to get to grips with the verbs.
When I'd learned Swahili, I'd found that if I got hold of those, I could work around everything else. Spanish is in fact not that hard to learn; within a few weeks I could hold my own in any conversation about the price of tomatoes or the time of the next train.
Some of the blokes picked it up really well, and one of them in particular even appeared to have the accent down to a T. I thought, great, if ever we get time off, I'll stay near him. I changed my mind when I heard him trying to chat up a Spanish all pair in the town one day.
"Hello, love," he said. "At what time this evening do you terminate?"
We were also doing all the normal planning and preparing that we'd do for any operation, as well as making sure the weapons were okay and the equipment was sorted out. Bert gave us detailed in-country briefs, teaching us more about the main players.
The Int people dragged in all the local newspapers and weekly news magazines. A couple of the blokes had Spanish wives, and they came in and chatted to us. It was all part of the process of getting tuned in to the country, which we took seriously-so much so there was a strong rumor going around at one stage that the boys in B Squadron were taking lambada lessons at Bartestree Village Hall. It all went back to the way people looked at the squadrons, and B Squadron was definitely seen as the yee-hah party squadron.
Some of G Squadron were going to come back with us to ensure continuity in the task. They started briefing us, confirming what we had been taught but also giving their version of what had gone on and suggestions as to how we could make things better next time around.
Our job was going to be in two phases. First, we were going to grab hold of the paramilitary police and assess their standard of training.
Then we would start training them from that baseline, taking them through all the basic skills that were going to be required, such as aggressive patrolling, OPs, and close target recces. The object was to show them how to find the DMP (drug manufacturing plant), then stay in close proximity and send back the information. It wouldn't be an easy task.
"A lot of DMPs are deep hides in the jungle," said Tony from G Squadron.
"Fantastic setups, well guarded and well alarmed. They have a system of tunnels and escape routes for leaving the plant in the event of an attack. By the time they hear the aircraft bringing in a heliborne assault, they'll be away-down the tunnels, into other hides, or along the escape routes."
We were going to enter Bert's "certain Latin American country" covertly, not exactly sneaking in like spies, but the Regiment's experience was that if a trip was unannounced, there was less to go wrong.
The first leg was by C130 to St. John's, Newfoundland, for an overnight stop. The interior of a Hercules is spartan, not much more than rows of nylon seats an'd luggage racks, and this one was also bulked out with equipment. I tied my hammock to the aircraft frame and climbed in with my Walkman and a book. By the time we all had our hammocks up the interior of the aircraft looked like a nest of hanging grubs waiting to grow into something nice. Slaphead nabbed the prime spot near the tailgate, where there was plenty of room for a hammock and all your gear; the only problem was the proximity of the toilet, a curtained-off oil drum full of chemicals. The stench was grim.
We stepped off the aircraft in summer clothes to find that it was winter in St. John's. We made our way to the hotel in temperatures of minus twenty.
"We've got to go out on the town," said Slaphead, get a few bevies down us."
During the mad dash from the hotel into the town Slaphead's dome froze over and I grew ice on my mustache. By the time we reached the drinking district everybody was purple.
Slaphead strode up to the bar, ran his eye along the optics of sour mash whisky, and said, "Hot chocolate, please."
The following morning we took off again, finally reaching the military airfield in darkness. We flew in with the aircraft unlit and the crew on PNG. As we landed and were taxiing along the runway, I saw the silhouettes of twenty or thirty aircraft parked up on the grass: small jets, twin-engine, an old Junkers 88, a couple of Dakotas.
"Some of the aircraft that've been confiscated from the drugs boys," said Tony. "Now they're just sitting there, rotting."
Despite Bert's briefing sessions, we'd all had visions of being in a nice warm place-balmy South American climate and all that. In fact it lay high up on the plain and was anything but tropical. As we stepped from the aircraft into a freezing cold night, B Squadron's O.C and the SM, who had gone out the week before with the light HQ group, were there shivering inside their Gucci leather coats.
Vehicles were there to collect half the squadron and our equipment and take us to the camp. "It's about twenty minutes from here," said the sergeant major. "If there's no traffic."
"And if there is traffic?" asked Slaphead.
"Three hours."
There was traffic. Even so, we were the lucky ones.
The other half of B Squadron was going elsewhere, and that was four hours away-"when there is no traffic."
We arrived at first light at the police camp where we'd be staying. As we came up the drive,. it looked quite a pleasant site.
The paramilitaries' camp looked well maintained and very clean, with large, long buildings that were old but in good repair. Then we turned left and landed up in a stinking old hut the size of an average sitting room. There were bunk beds and a table, and shower room off to one side. There was no storage space. It felt like we were living in a submarine.
"We've had to use the shower as a storeroom," I honked to Gar.
"Just as well," he said. "There's no water anyway."
We soon found out that the toilets didn't work either, so they also became a cache for bergens and other kit. I put my sleeping bag on the nearest bed, and that was it: home.
In the morning we had a walk around the camp with Tony, who had been on my second Selection but failed.
He had come back straightaway and passed the second time.
The police were very much the paramilitary force I was expecting to see.
Their equipment was mainly supplied by the Americans, but I also spotted a lot of European kit. Their weapons were also a mixture of U.S M16s and Israeli Gauls, and quite a few Russian AKs.
However, the patrols that we were to be training just had the Galil-basically AK47 parts with a different barrel and furniture.
"An excellent weapon," said Tony as he stopped to shake hands with people that he knew. "Unfortunately they don't know how to use them yet."
The boys were dressed smartly, and all looked very organized. He introduced me to them, and they struck me as very open and sociable people.
"The camp's looking good on the outside," Tony said, "but in fact it's a heap 'of shit once you scratch the surface. Their living conditions are not very good at allbetter than ours, but still not good. The food is absolutely heaving, even by their standards."
I wasn't sure whether to believe him, until we went past the cookhouse and two boys who had just eaten breakfast came out and puked it all up again on the ground. The building reeked like a shithouse in an abattoir.
"These people are the creme de la creme, but they aren't particularly well treated," he went on. "However, if you're a peasant farmer with jack shit, six kids, and a donkey, why not become part of the system? At least you're getting paid, and in theory the family are getting looked after."
Having seen the people outside the cookhouse, I decided to stick to what we'd all brought with us. As usual, we had arrived laden down with tins of tuna, bags of pasta, and bottles of curry sauce.