THE REAL WAR AGAINST TERROR by an EX-MI5 SPY

Two Islamic terrorists seconds from firing into a packed park A white supremacist about to petrol bomb a school But both plots foiled by true-life MI5 heroes... as told by one of its officers in a heart-stopping book

AS A surveillance officer for MI5, you need to be 100 per cent sure you can do the jobs your team needs you to do, whether it’s following a suicide-bomber from their makeshift bomb factory all the way to their intended target without being seen, or talking your way out of danger when drug- dealers want to know what you’re doing on their turf.

We are not superhuman but we do have a unique set of skills that allow us to keep people safe. When our country is under attack from thousands of hostile threats, the public need people like us to stand between them and pure, unrelenting evil.

You can’t politely ask our enemies to kindly not blow our children up while they are at a concert, or offer forgiveness to those who hire a van and mow people down in the street.

If the intelligence officers tell us you’re a threat to our country and its people, we’re going to track down you and every single person helping you.

Together with my team, I helped stop hundreds of attacks over the years. We’d been to Bradford many times before, normally on the hunt for Islamic extremists, ranging from the facilitators to the men and women ready to commit mass murder at the drop of a hat.

As the team waited for our target to emerge, we maintained our cover within the local area. Passers-by would never have known we were MI5: variously, we looked like painters, builders, local chavs, business types, pregnant women, old age pensioners — we matched the whole landscape of the community.

I was starting to get the feeling, as the other members of the team would have been, that we weren’t going to see the target today.

Suddenly the radio fired up, ordering us to switch operations instantly to a new set of targets. ‘ All stations from Base, Congo Cat and Green Town are to the south of you in the area of Hall Lane.’

These were code-names for a husband and wife who were talking about potential attacks.

This was obviously a priority and I needed to move fast as I was some way away from the sighting.

Fortunately, code ‘ Steel Badge’ had been authorised, an operational command that allows us to exceed the speed limits and not stop if we clip another vehicle. If required on an operation, we will drive beyond what is probably considered safe — all without sirens or flashing lights.

Approaching a red light at a crossroads, I slid up on the outside of the waiting vehicles, floored the accelerator and went straight through a gap in the traffic. No fuss, no screeching tyres or upsetting the locals, just fast, progressive driving.

‘From Base, all stations be aware that Congo Cat and Green Town are likely to be armed and about to launch an attack. We’ve notified executive Action but it’s highly likely you are going to be the first to get hold of them.’

THE good thing was that the armed units of the executive Action teams were on their way, whether that was the Police Counter Terrorism Specialist Firearms Officers or military, we didn’t know yet.

But they weren’t here yet and if the two suspected terrorists were on their way to launch an attack, we’d have to delay them somehow.

I hadn’t seen these two for ages but I still remembered what they looked like — although if they were intending to attack right now it was likely Congo Cat would have shaved his enormous beard, common when an extremist is about to launch an attack.

I drove through another set of red lights, and took a short cut against the direction of the traffic through a roundabout.

emma, the team’s biker, came screaming up behind me at well over 100mph and followed me through.

A message from base: ‘ executive Action is now five minutes out.’

It was up to us to delay Congo Cat and Green Town long enough for the strike team to deal with them before they reached their intended target.

emma was the first to spot them. ‘Stand by. Congo Cat and Green Town walking south- west on Bowling Park drive. He is in black top, black bottoms, clean shaven, carrying large holdall. She is in full black tracksuit, white trainers.’

It was a bad sign that Green Town wasn’t wearing a burqa. Any change in a target’s normal pattern of life is a clue they are about to do something out of the ordinary.

I caught sight of our targets walking down the pavement in the distance. ‘ executive Action four minutes out,’ Base informed us.

This was not looking good, especially after a call from another of our team. ‘There is a large crowd at the top of the park. Congo Cat has just pointed towards them. About 100 metres ahead.’

S***, they would probably be at the crowd before the strike team got here. ‘ From Base, that could be the start of a large anti-farRight demonstration, due to start marching from the park.’ That had to be their target. I moved behind emma’s bike. Then things went from bad to worse. emma was back on the radio. ‘Congo Cat has stopped and opened the bag, showing Green Town the contents. I can see from here it’s definitely the butt of a weapon. Confirmed. He’s given Green Town a pistol. Where the hell is the strike team?’ People were about to die. The rest of the team wasn’t close enough yet. emma was right to raise her voice on the net, demanding an answer.

‘From Base, strike team is 60 seconds out.’

‘That’s too late, they have started running towards the crowd now. Green Cat is carrying the pistol in her right hand.’

Two armed terrorists were about to start firing into a crowd of 400 people who hadn’t even seen them approaching. Only emma and I could stop them.

emma bumped her bike up on the pavement and twisted the throttle hard, battling to keep the front wheel down as she rode as fast as she could towards the backs of both targets. She was putting her life on the line here.

The noise from the bike was deafening and the speed at which she came gave the two targets a massive shock. They spun round, eyes wide.

Speeding up behind, I dived out of the car and sprinted towards them. I saw the bag on the pavement where it had been dropped.

I grabbed it before Congo Cat had a chance to go for it, glimpsing two shotguns and a number of large hunting knives inside.

I passed it to emma, who cradled it across her fuel tank and rode back onto the road and away.

Two more strides and I’d taken the pistol from Green Town wn n before her brain had a chance to process what was as a s happening. I couldn’t tell l i if f she had a suicide vest o on n under her tracksuit and I wasn’t sn n’ n’t n ’t t about to stick around to check. ck k k. .

I ran back to my car and an nd n d climbed in, just as my rear ea e a ar r mirrors lit up with blue flashes he h es s followed by sirens, as three police ce e vehicles from the executive Action team came flying up the road.

Putting the pistol on the passenger seat, I covered it up p with my map book and waited d for a gap in the transmissions ns s from Graeme, our team leader, er, er r, who was rapidly describing what ha at t was happening with the targets.

‘executive Action team have e control of Congo Cat and Green n Town, who are on the floor. No shots fired.’

‘Roger that from Base, happy for you all to withdraw back to garages for debrief.’

There, I gave the weapons I’d d seized to a Special Branch officer.

Graeme came up to us. ‘emma, Tom, I wanted to make sure you are both OK.’ ‘Yeah, fine,’ we both replied. ‘See you tomorrow, mate.’ And that was it. We work extremely hard on the ground so when we get a chance to go home we disappear quickly. I wanted some family time, to be with my wife and read a bedtime story to my son. MY PHONe had been vibrating for less than a second when I reached down the side of the bed to read the summons: ‘Full team on air ten minutes.’

even though I was meant to be at home with my family that day, and watching my son’s nursery Nativity play in the afternoon, the night before I’d still laid out my operational kit and clothes. Three minutes later I was out of the door and into my car. It was 4.36am.

A message came from our team leader: ‘Head towards Liverpool.’ I was dressed ss s se e d for work — i in n ripped tracksuit ks k su uit ui it t bottoms an a and nd n d grubby sweatshirt at a t - and driving ng n g a dirty, dull-blue ue u e old Ford escort. rt r t t. .

Why? Because u se s e in the areas we e usually operate, no one looks twice at someone like me in a car like this.

The job is never about jumping over bonnets wearing aviator sunglasses. It’s always about getting the maximum amount of

intelligence without being seen, in order to keep people alive.

‘Good morning Green Team,’ Base said over the radio. ‘Apologies for the early call-out. A brand-new target came in last night, codename Space Junk. Intelligence is showing he intends to firebomb a local school.

‘Details and images have been uploaded to your mobile devices. We don’t have a specific location for him yet. You need to find him. Once you do we’ll bring in the Executive Action team that’s on standby to deal with him.’

From Space Junk’s profile, I could see he was white, 22 years old, with a large scar down the right side of his face. There were no known vehicles attached to him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be driving or a passenger.

His last known location was the Edge Hill area of Liverpool, and that’s where we were all heading. We didn’t need to know the ins and outs of his ideology. The job was to hunt him down and prevent him trying to kill children.

We rolled into Liverpool on a dark and rainy December morning. Some people were up and travelling early to work. Soon the school runs would begin.

We needed to search in a way that didn’t light up the area. If you start doubling back, taking corners too quickly, engine revs too high or speed too slow it all raises your profile to the locals.

The trouble was that we had few clues to go on, so all we could do for now was take up positions and wait for more information. I was tucking into sausage and egg in a workers’ cafe when a call came in:

‘Standby from Eight Six, I have control of Space Junk walking west on Falkner Square. Green jacket, black trousers, carrying a grey rucksack, which looks full.’ Karen had spotted him.

I left the cafe and got into my car to give her back-up.

‘Base, Executive Action is five minutes out.’ As I closed in, listening to Karen’s commentary, I could see others from our team on foot ready to assist with the follow. ‘From Eight Six, Space Junk is now running to the road junction.’

‘From Base, there are several schools in this area. Executive Action is two minutes out.’

‘Eight Six, you can let him run to the junction — I’m there now.’ Mark was already at the junction and that prevented the need for Karen to start running after Space Junk. ‘Six Eight has control, Space Junk still running. He’s got one arm behind him trying to support his rucksack and stop it bouncing. It looks like it’s wet at the bottom.’

Mark’s constant commentary was vital to the strike team moving in to nail the target.

‘Base, Space Junk hasn’t seen the first strike vehicle coming at him. He’s also just run past a police undercover car parked up.’

Obviously this guy was so focused on what he was about to do that he’d missed the two armed police officers in black kit in an unmarked BMW, and hadn’t noticed the headlights screaming towards him.

‘Stations, from Six Eight, Executive Action team out on foot taking control of target. Base, I will keep eyes on until he’s secure.’

‘Roger, thanks, talking to their team commander now.’

Two more vehicles, now with sirens and lights, came blasting past. ‘From Six Eight, Space Junk is being plasti-cuffed on the floor, backpack removed.’

I eased into a space in a row of parked cars just in front of Karen. She got into the car and we drove away. We never stick around once the strike teams have control, just in case the locals turn investigative journalists.

The official call came to stand down: ‘ Green Team, cease and withdraw.’ This was followed by a debrief over the radio from the operations room at MI5’s Thames House headquarters. ‘ Space Junk is now in police custody. The backpack he was carrying was full of petrol bombs. He’s already started to talk about the intended target of non-white children and, I quote, “they should burn”. I’ll spare you the rest.’

It’s not very often we get terrorists who fall into the bracket of white supremacist, but this guy wanted to kill children because they weren’t white and, by the sounds of it, he wanted to do so to further his own ideology. We prevented that.

Right now, these children were bouncing into school looking for their friends, wondering what their parents had put in their lunch boxes. They were blissfully unaware that a top-secret operation which had begun while they were asleep was brought to an end just metres from the school gates.

ONCE the debrief had ended, I had nothing to do except drive and think. The time to think is an operator’s worst enemy. As usual my mind was dwelling on all the what-ifs. What if we hadn’t found Space Junk? What if he’d got away from us? How much damage would he have done?

We hunted the most dangerous terrorists in the world, out on the streets walking among people who were potentially about to be killed by these cowards. We prevented almost all attacks, but you can’t stop every single one. It’s impossible.

And we will get hit again. It might be next week, might be next year, but it will happen. The thing to remember is that our intelligence and military is the best fighting force in the world. Like any world champion, some attacks will find a way through our defences, but we can take the blows and keep fighting. Our guard never drops.

I Spy: My Life in MI5 by Tom Marcus will be published by Macmillan on May 30 at £18.99. © 2019 Tom Marcus. To buy a copy for £15.19 (20% discount) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640. Offer valid until May 25, p&p free on orders over £15. Spend £30 on books and get FREE premium delivery.