start to me. The nondescript, two-storey building that served as JCU-NI HQ had more to it than met the eye. The building, despite already being within a high-security British army base, was also discreetly guarded by heavily armed civilian officers. No vehicles were allowed to park anywhere near it. The windows were coated with an anti-surveillance film and were blast-proof. On entering the building through a normal-looking door, you were met with an inner steel door that was remotely opened by the duty signals operator once your identity had been confirmed and cleared. Non-JCU-NI personnel were never allowed inside the building under any circumstances.
Everyone who was armed unloaded their pistols and handed them in to the armoury before we made our way to the bar, which was already filling up. I was impressed with how lavish it was in comparison to other rooms. Beer in hand, I mingled a bit, bumping into a few mates I knew from other units who were now posted to JCU-NI. Before long, Andy Workshops grabbed me.
‘Time for you to meet the boss! The CO [Commanding Officer] and the RSM [regimental sergeant major] are the only ones you call “sir” here, by the way. With everyone else it’s first names only. Never ask for anyone’s surname.’
We made our way through the crowd until I was in front of someone clearly of a quite high rank, the tweed jacket and tie a dead giveaway.
‘Sir, let me introduce Seán Hartnett, just arrived from 14th Signal Regiment today.’ Andy was grinning and my instincts told me this wasn’t a good thing.
‘Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m looking forward to working here,’ I said as I stuck out my hand to shake the hand the CO was already offering in greeting. His hand recoiled before I could get a hold of it.
‘You must be fucking kidding me,’ he blurted out on hearing my thick Southern accent. I later learned that the CO was a deeply religious man and rarely swore. Clearly his surprise was so great on this occasion that a swear got out. He regained his composure and apologised.
‘Excuse me, Seán. I’m … I’m … I’m sure you’ve been properly vetted for this and are more than capable. I’m … well, just a little surprised to have a Southerner in this unit.’
‘No problem, sir,’ I replied in typical Irish fashion, ‘I’m just as surprised every time I see a British soldier in Northern Ireland.’ Both the CO and RSM laughed. Andy didn’t see the funny side.
The bitter truth of the matter, though, was that I should never have been posted to JCU-NI. Yes, I fitted the technical requirements, but not the security profile, not for a black ops unit anyhow. (A black ops unit doesn’t exist on paper and requires the highest level of security vetting.) Some clerk in the manning and records section in Glasgow must have simply seen the need for a radio technician at a unit called JCU-NI, and then seen my request to join the unit, and put the two together, oblivious to JCU-NI’s true purpose and my possible ulterior motives for wanting to join it. It was a serious flaw in the system, reflecting one of the problems of conducting ‘black operations’ through a dummy unit: how can you integrate it with the ‘normal’ operations of the army?
I spent the next hour or so chatting with the CO. He was genuinely interested in why I had joined up and in my background (though I left out the bits that might have made things more awkward for me). Over the years that followed, I actually built up a great relationship with the man, and on a number of occasions he asked if I’d be interested in taking the operator’s course. My answer was always the same: I knew my limits and was perfectly content being a technician.
Later that night Bob FoS sidled up to me.
‘Look at us, an Ulster Prod and Free State Fenian working together. Who would have thought?’ he laughed. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Seán, but I’m not the one to worry about. That fucker Andy Workshops thinks you shouldn’t be here and he’ll do what he can to get you out, so keep your nose clean!’ Irrespective of the copious amount of alcohol we had both consumed, I believed him. Great, I thought, day one and I already had to watch my back!
The rest of that weekend was spent socialising with the other JCU-NI members at Thiepval, in particular the technicians from Cameras and Radios. One thing that became obvious was that none of the JCU-NI technicians fancied the idea of a ‘North Det posting’. Every time it was mentioned, they’d laugh, pitying whichever of us three new boys ended up there.
The following Monday morning our training began, and my fellow technicians and I drew our weapons from the armoury, SIG sauer 9mm pistols and HK53 assault rifles, weapons normally reserved for British Special Forces units. I was starting to wonder why Royal Signals technicians were going to need such firepower. We headed to RAF Aldergrove, a stone’s throw from Belfast International Airport, where we were among about a dozen other JCUNI new arrivals under the tutelage of three special-duty veterans. We spent the morning on the firing ranges, learning handling drills and how to zero the scopes of our new weapons. We then drove the forty miles to the base at Ballykinler in Co. Down. JCU-NI had a special area reserved at one end of the camp where they had a complete replica of a typical small Irish town.
First off, they gave us a demonstration of the devastating effects of an improvised explosive device (IED). About 500m from the reinforced observation bunker where we stood was a car with approximately four pounds of Semtex explosives attached to the underside. Before the bomb disposal officer pushed the switch to detonate the device, he informed us, ‘This is one of the IRA’s favourite booby-trap devices, used to kill police and prison officers, soldiers and Loyalist paramilitaries. Here’s why you always check your vehicle for an IED.’ No sooner had the words left his mouth than the car erupted in a ball of flames and was lifted from the ground like it was a toy. As it crashed back down to earth, all the chatter and jokes ceased and the grim realisation of what we risked hit us.
Over the next three days we ran through various scenarios we might find ourselves in while moving around Northern Ireland: paramilitary roadblocks, car hijackings, armed robberies, paramilitary punishment beatings, ambushes and suchlike. We also learned how to manoeuvre our modified vehicles, with their Kevlar armour plates fitted to the doors and seats, which made them a lot trickier to handle. (I suddenly understood the weight of the door on the car that Dave had collected me in.)
While my approach to some of the scenarios we trained for, including using my thickest Cork accent, perplexed the training staff, it was how I planned to deal with things here on my own turf, so to speak, so I wasn’t for changing or apologising. I planned to use my Irish background to my advantage whenever possible. This strategy also came in handy for one of my operations officers.
6 HOWES AND WOOD
The only overt thing about our overt cameras was the fact that you could see them if you looked. Their true nature was actually extremely covert, highly classified, and one of JCUNI’s best-kept secrets.
These cameras could read a vehicle number plate clearly from 1.8km away. They could pan, tilt and zoom in any direction in a matter of milliseconds. Each had a number of pre-programmed positions, and a simple push of a number on the keyboard controller would send the camera to that position in an instant. Using state-of-the-art low-light technology, they could even ‘see’ in the dark. There was nowhere to hide.
Connecting the cameras was a vast network of encrypted fibre-optic cables spread throughout Northern Ireland for the exclusive use of British Intelligence. The encryption ensured that even if the feed from a surveillance camera was intercepted, it would be indecipherable. This allowed real-time control of feeds from all the JCU-NI’s surveillance cameras.
Thanks to the distance between the camera locations and our ‘targets’, the paramilitaries didn’t associate the cameras with surveillance. Over time, they ignored the overt
