Bodyguard (17 page)

Child number one was no more than a photo. In walked the supposed grandfather of a twenty-month-old child, sensationally here behind the mother's back and wanting to sell. My first instinct when I saw him was that he was a low-life scrote. Again, there was no way of verifying that he was who he said he was. His story was just ridiculous, coming to trade with neither the knowledge of the mother, nor the child in his possession.

Harry was lining up any old peasant. Twenty minutes with one, then wheel in the next one.

The grandfather only wanted money – the picture he showed us depicted a poor mountain scene, a rundown building behind the child, the background implying a hand-to-mouth existence in a small community. Unlike Fatia's show pony parents, your old fella here hadn't really pulled out all the stops. Here's the reality check of what a bastard he was. After Harry and his superiors had taken their cut, would he even walk away with 600 euros? What on earth was his life like if that was so life-changing? It was a piss-take on every front. At McDonald's I had promised Harry a decision within five to seven days. I could knock this one back right now. Boss's wife not like. He would soon get the message.

Next came Nazar. It all just spelt poverty. Her dad and his brother had brought her. It was like something out of a different era. The dad wore a blue vest. He had scruffy black hair, lacked some teeth at the front and had that oh-so-trendy YMCA-type tache. The brother was wearing a white t-shirt that looked as though somebody had thrown black paint down it. These were your classic Romany Gypsies.

Then I saw Nazar. She was stunning, her brown hair in bunches and her ears pierced, dressed beautifully in a mauve t-shirt and shorts with a blue necklace around her neck. That old granddad before should have taken notes. Make a bloody effort if you want to offload your
kids for cash. I didn't care, of course, because it wasn't my problem, my child, my financial situation, my welfare state, my crime network or my legal system. But it was my story.

Her beauty knocked me for a split second – she would have been the one if I really was an East End gangster wanting to buy. When I held her, she was more responsive than Fatia. When the father lifted her up to take a photo, she looked me straight in the eye and put her finger in her mouth. She looked prepped, even at the age of three or four. This wasn't me at all, buying her a drink and spoiling her. If I had put the money on the table there and then, they would have let me take her, too. They were desperate for cash and didn't care for
paperwork
. Their body language just said ‘Pay up and take her'. They wanted the money before I changed my mind, or went on to see another child. Harry had done a good job bigging me up to the Gypsy community. Of course, he controlled them, so he wouldn't have let me pay them direct – not before he had siphoned off the lion's share himself.

At the back of my mind, the programme was in the bag, and we were forbidden from actually handing over the money, so all I was bothered about was getting back, editing, and notifying the authorities. ‘I think Nazar is probably the one the wife will like,' I told Harry as Dom palmed them off with another twenty euros for a cab back. ‘We need to go back to London now, show her the photos, have a chat and then, if she's happy, we'll get the flight out in a day or so time, and work out how to get Nazar back to England.'

Harry was now my best mate – high fives and hugs again, jumping through hoops as though back on his coke, a massive grin permanently etched on his face; this the longest of goodbyes, but only because the cheapskate was dragging it out, flagging up whatever future business we might be doing. His guard had completely collapsed, neglecting of course, the key point that a deal is never truly done until it is done. The only thing done for here was Harry.

At the hotel, we reviewed the tapes once again. A specialist Romany translator confirmed the authenticity. McDonald's last night
had been good enough, but I was glad we had come back for seconds. Nazar was just as good, and would have been the one. Crucially, despite the wildcard of the granddad, hanging around for more had established a pattern – there was a definite trade and an established network after all.

Events in the future would show that sometimes you stick with an investigation only to hit a dead end within a whisker of a sting, and this at times had been that close, but there was no greater feeling than hanging in for the long haul, building relationships, befriending the underworld, and then handing them over to the powers that be. Or so I thought on that last night in Varna.

There was one more call to make. At nine that evening, I told Paul to ring Harry.

‘It looks really, really good. The wife is really happy,' Paul bullshitted.

‘She trusts me but wants to fly out, probably tomorrow, to see the kids,' I butted in.

He wanted money; the parents wanted money; we had money. His guard was well past down when he asked me how soon I could get it. He knew the kids were a phone call away.

‘The wife will bring the 40k for the deposit and the middle part – is that enough, Harry?' I asked.

‘Not a problem Boss. That's exactly what the business deal is,' he replied. Down the telephone line I could hear the Cheshire cat grinning.

‘Boss wants me to handle it now,' Paul came back on. ‘I will do business with you from now. He doesn't want any more part of it on the phone. The boss's wife will come over tomorrow.' Paul wrapped it up by saying he would touch base as soon as the wife arrived.

‘Will you want to see the girls tomorrow night?' Harry was already counting his cash.

‘Yes,' Paul confirmed. ‘Let's get it done tomorrow.'

My dear old wife Sangita never got to see the child she craved! She wasn't flying out here to see Nazar, instead heading to Sofia to try
to talk on camera to the authorities and tidying up some shots in the locality, making sure we had good footage of the garage where Harry had met Paul and Dom. I would leave the experts to the edit and get the next plane out of there.

The next morning we went straight to the airport and left Varna for the last time. I had only the one regret. I wanted to be there when the Bulgarian police knocked on Harry's door. As much as I wanted to see his face when he got turned over, discretion was the only option. I had my doubts of how the local justice system would play out; I didn't know if Harry had any friends within it, but he had got away with all sorts up to now and had only done time in Germany. You could never really know if there would be any fallout, or any of these characters might wander back into another storyline in the future. Dom moved in these circles and was heading back to Sofia, too, but this was his bread and butter. This was how he worked. I knew he could handle himself.

If there was such thing as a textbook op, this was it – from the patience and long-term strategy to the role-playing involved. It gave me massive kudos and for the first time I wasn't only the guy pointing the camera in a tight situation. I had shown my journalistic skills, which a few years ago I didn't even know I had. I now brought
something
to the table that the BBC veterans I worked alongside didn't possess. I was another rung up the ladder, and defining my own role in real life, too, as well as the fake ones I could create for the job. In the modern era post 9/11, military nous met journalistic hunch half way and it worked.

We had resisted the temptation to film undercover one last time at the moment of arrest and, when we got back to London, Paul rang Harry as soon as he knew he was awake. After everything that had gone on at his end, the least he could expect was ‘Problem, problem' from us. He was remarkably cool when we told him there was a slight issue with the wife getting over and we would be back in touch soon, possibly landing the day after next. He had no
choice really, given the future riches that he was convinced were on the way. Little did he know that we were simply building in a delay; equally, we were unaware that the Bulgarian authorities now had him under surveillance.

Twenty-four hours later, we were the top story on all BBC news channels. There was one footnote to the reports: the Bulgarian police had arrested Hasan Ahmed Hasan. Harry's Game was over.

That same evening that we reported Harry had been taken into custody, we learned to our dismay that he had been released. It had all been a big set-up, he claimed. He pinned it on me, the gangster. He told the police that he had taken me to a genuine orphanage but that I'd told him if he didn't get me any children, I would use my contacts to sort him.

At the last, he played a blinder. I had been so convincing in the part that he took the fiction to a natural end, citing fear. Only now did that surreal trip to the orphanage, which at the time, seemed just bullshit, show its true hand. That visit was a double-edged sword. He was gauging our interest and whetting the appetite, but Harry was also putting his alibi into place. He had told the Varna police a complete pack of lies. I knew he had them in his pocket.

And then it got worse. They threw the book at the BBC,
accusing
us of misportraying Varna as a drug-taking, child-trafficking prostitute-ridden resort. Our footage showed that behind the layers of sunshine and tourists, there was some truth in that. They overlooked the films where Harry had told us he had smuggled children into Norway and Germany, citing conspiracy from the Corporation. It was a classic case of a home decision by the ref. Our story had been perfect – I hadn't overplayed the role and had never threatened to bring the muscle in. We had done everything correctly by BBC guidelines and appropriately in terms of
leading
questions to minors. Then we had handed it all over to the law. Meanwhile he had come to us with everything and told us that he could provide the kids, supply false documents and even accompany
the children. He flagged up his trafficking via Cherbourg to Rosslare. He put his own criminal past on the table.

Annie told me that their people were writing to us and it was serious. No such letter ever arrived. I knew I had walked right up to the legal line, which was exactly what the job required. There was talk of me being summoned to Bulgaria to give statements. Again, that was just a smokescreen to turn it back on us.

As you would expect, the
Daily Mail
didn't fail to go into BBC bashing overdrive – reporters Michael Leidig and Glen Owen claimed that we were now dragged into a fresh row over standards; that our investigation had been misleading; and they flowered the whole piece up with quotes from Commissioner Petrov in Varna. ‘It was a sad day' that the BBC should ‘fall so low' he began. ‘The BBC led this man on the promise of vast riches … he was provoked …' And the best of all: ‘It would have been a brilliant story worthy of the highest honour, but the reality is quite different.' Typical political bullshit.

What staggered me was that after all our months of footage and multiple trips, Harry was in and out of custody within hours, and they drew a line under it without further investigation. I think anyone who saw the piece would draw their own conclusions. They made no effort to track down the supposed parents, brothers or grandparents; and when we rang Harry, of course he didn't answer. His phone was dead and they never tracked him after his release. The authorities had given him a green light to go to ground – nobody ever saw Harry again. Norway, Germany or Ireland would have been a good place to start looking.

Even though our work was undermined by his release, it had definitely been worth it. Madeleine McCann had indeed been a motivation for this story. She was the highest-profile child
disappearance
in living memory. Craig Oliver at the Ten had access to Home Office documentation showing that at least 330 children had been sold to UK citizens between 2005 and 2006 – and these were just the cases that they knew about. In terms of the Corporation, this was
exactly what the BBC did – everybody knew that, and I knew that the public would know it was good stuff. For myself, my name was all over the story almost for the first time.

I
t was October 2007 and I was heading to Prague to buy guns with Allan Little. I was as excited as I had been about working with John Simpson. Our paths had crossed briefly in Pakistan and Afghanistan and I knew that I was working with a pro whose reputation in Newsgathering was exemplary. He was very busy, running a tight line on other stories and due back out shortly in Sierra Leone, so we wouldn’t bring him in until we had to, but I knew that when we did, he was the kind of journalist who would give it his all. His work would invariably be seen at the top of the bulletin.

Dom and Paul were also back on the job – the pair of them had more than proven themselves in Bulgaria and their network of contacts in Eastern Europe was second to none. The former was a massive Allan Little fan who had developed a Balkan obsession after reading Allan’s book. Also back on board from Harry’s Game was the best cameraman in the business, Tony Fallshaw. I had the A-Team back together. The lads had come in to pitch just a couple of weeks before, and in no time, we were up and running. No bloody Business Class this time – we were to drive all the way.

Operation Trident had been everywhere in the UK – there had been a few shootouts in Birmingham and there was significant gun crime in Manchester. The police were making very big
statements
about getting all the guns off the streets. Just two months
before, young Rhys Jones had been gunned down on his own estate in Liverpool.

‘We’ve got access to buy some guns,’ Dom and Paul had said. ‘What do you think?’

It only needed a two-word reply. ‘Fucking brilliant.’

Once again we were back down Romany Way – Dom had befriended a gypsy boy called David. Together with his dad, they ran a cab firm in Prague. His English was poor, but access was first class. In the world of Eastern European gangsters, he knew everyone. I wouldn’t have been surprised if his and Harry’s paths had crossed at some point. Who could ever know? I just took it on trust that Dom and Paul had worked their magic through third parties and had penetrated the right people. Their stock was also high after Harry’s Game. I didn’t ask too many questions; as long as they hadn’t broken the law, I didn’t need to know. In this game, their reputation lived from one story to the next. My job was to join it now, and devise the cover story. This was a lot simpler than the story with my estranged wife Sangita – though, of course, Craig Summers was still an East End gangster. Never stray too far away from the character that you needed to play.

I now owned a couple of pubs in London next to West Ham. Some Albanian immigrants had been giving me grief and were coming down heavy with their threats. I had even seen weapons on them. I couldn’t go to the Met because all the booze and half the cash going through my gaff was bent, shipped in from Europe. Paul’s
relations
were from Ilford and had done some work for me in the pub; Dom was his mate from Bulgaria. Dom knew David. I needed to get to Prague to buy a couple of pistols. It didn’t get any simpler or more complicated than that, and I loved it.

Within two weeks of Paul and Dom bringing us the story, the producer Claire Gibson and I were hiring a car and driving to Litvínov – about ninety minutes north of Prague, and home to the CZ gun factory. (As lovely as Claire was, how dull was it listening
to her Robbie shite all the way? I took control of the dashboard and whacked up some Springsteen: car rules at play here – driver picks the tunes.) We were prepared to sit it out for a couple of days when we got there if we had to wait on the guns. Our aim was to show how quick and how easy it was to buy them, and how often
decommissioned
weapons were coming onto the open market. You could spot a decommissioned gun because the barrel would be full of lead so you can’t fire the bullet, and the firing pin would have been removed. Otherwise it looked the same as a normal gun. A metal smith could easily bore out the barrel and make a firing pin to shoot. This was the cuts ’n’ shuts of the gun world.

Our other objective was to link them to young British gangs in the UK. We had to drive because we wanted to take the haul through a British port – that was the route they were entering the country by. We fell short of notionally supplying a genuine order to any such gang – we didn’t have time to penetrate that world. This was a quick hit operation.

Claire and I arrived on the Thursday after a day and a half of pegging it across Europe, overnighting in Dresden. Allan and Tony jetted in on the same evening. It was going to be a pretty simple task, and we’d be out of there come Monday morning. My first job was to identify the gun shops. Frankly, this was a doddle. Can you
imagine
knowing where to find a legitimate gun shop in London? Here I could just wander in and buy a decommissioned gun – and, as we wanted to show, do it without any paperwork.

So I did. They were just like hunting and fishing shops – like a Millets – generally with only one or two people ever in there. ‘I’m interested in buying this one,’ I said, straight into the story. It was as simple as that. ‘How easy is it to buy a pistol? Do I need paperwork?’

I already knew the answer. I would need to show some ID to get a real gun but nothing for a decommissioned one. The ID was just to show who I was and they didn’t care to make copies. In return I wouldn’t get any paperwork back. It was all a bit casual. Editorially,
I couldn’t really buy a live gun over the counter. I would have had to take that to the police and that would have ruined the programme.

They wanted 250 euros. It was brand spanking new – immaculate condition. So close to the CZ factory, almost all the weapons on show were in this state. After twenty minutes feigning interest in their entire range, I whacked five 50-euro notes on the table and got my gun – cash talked. It was as easy as buying chocolate at the newsagent. Next I bought a replica with bits of the gun cut away – this would be the weapon we would take through Customs, the sort nobody would use but might hang on the wall or occasionally wheel out for one those nonky re-enactments that freaks attend on bank holiday weekends.

I left with both weapons. I didn’t expect to get caught at Customs. I knew it was that easy. If they pulled me over, I would play the BBC card, while protesting my ignorance of the fact that I wasn’t meant to bring it back in to the country. The truth was somewhat different – I had been told that the sum total of guns going backwards and forwards across the English Channel was in four figures. This would get you at least five years inside.

I needed to see Allan. We met in the underground car park of the hotel and started rolling while I showed him exactly what I had. We deliberately shot here to make it look even more seedy.

‘Can this weapon be re-commissioned and used on the streets in the UK?’ I said yes.

‘Can you explain how it’s done?’

I made it sound like any old monkey could do it, which they could.

‘What else are you going to do when you’re here?’ he asked.

‘We’re going to meet some real gangland members and I’m going to buy some illegal weapons.’

It was a tame start, but we had established the parameters. As yet, we didn’t really have a story. That evening we would make plans over dinner – that was the theory anyway, but while I sat there with my first genuine opportunity to get to know Allan properly, Dom was yakking in my ear, anoraking Allan over his Yugoslavia book.

Outside in the car, too embarrassed to come and eat with us, our contact from the Gypsy world was waiting for us. We had met briefly to introduce ourselves last night at the hotel. He looked like Gollum, but I quite liked him. He would refer to me as the boss – of course. I felt he was easily controllable and, unlike Harry, not really
answerable
to any bigger authority – well, just his dad – but he equally was sniffing out a bigger future with bigger bucks out of me, if he pulled this job off. I sensed he had a few dodgy sidelines – his BMW looked like a ringer. If I asked him about it, he would merely shrug it off as
katastrofik
. If he didn’t want to talk about something, it was always
katastrofik
. Some of the players we would meet in the next
twenty-four
hours –
katastrofik
.

When he finally came into the restaurant to join us for a drink, we were in the middle of taking the piss. A day after meeting him, we too decided everything was
katastrofik
! Our plan was for Allan and Tony to get some general shots of Wenceslas Square in Prague and then film another exchange between Allan and myself – more theatre just for the camera. By night, we were going to drive to the outer suburbs of Prague to meet David’s Romany boys, who in turn were mates of the gangs in Litvínov. David was extremely well connected in this world. In time I would see that he always succeeded in keeping himself just outside the circle of knowledge. He knew enough to take you there, but didn’t know any more than that, so he could never be convicted of anything himself. The location was set – outside a kebab shop! That in itself made me think this wasn’t for real. Gangsters didn’t do business in front of kebab shops. Paul and Dom assured me that David was reliable so I took it on trust, even though he didn’t give that air. He was just a typical Eastern European character – a bit like Bill Sykes, always puffing on his fags. When I pulled him up on his fake clothes, all he said was
katastrofik
. That probably confirmed it. He wasn’t stupid though – he clearly had danced around a lot of deals and other people seemed to respect him.

By seven, we were in position. It was a dark, freezing night and I had pulled the hoodie on my fleece up to make me look a more imposing 6ft 6. Two Gypsy guys in their mid twenties were waiting for us. I didn’t consider the meet a danger.

‘He’s here to buy some pistols,’ David spoke to them in dialect. ‘If you can’t help, is it OK to speak to the guys in Litvínov?’

This was the new pecking order. You couldn’t go to Litvínov without coming here first. They couldn’t help us but did promise to call ‘Martin and the boys’ there to see if they would assist. And what exactly were we after? I told them straight. I wanted a couple of 9mm pistols. They would call David later that night. I turned and walked away.

Just feet from the car, I couldn’t resist any longer. ‘That was
katastrofik
,’ I said to Dom. I didn’t want to blow the job but I couldn’t resist. I was pissed off. I wanted to buy there and then and get filming, but then if they were proper gangsters they wouldn’t have sold on the streets. We all got in the car laughing and filled in Paul, who had been waiting. I quizzed him on how far Litvínov was – we would have to go right up near the German border.

Back at the hotel, I briefed Claire. Once again, it was the usual waiting game but David had assured me it would happen – we had only two days to nail the story.

First thing the next morning, Paul knocked on my door. ‘David’s just called. It’s on for tonight.’

I got the sense that the Litvínov gang were used to dealing with bigger fish than me, and the lot last night weren’t really serious players. David, too, was just the driver with connections. Nothing more, nothing less – that was how he wanted it.

I spent the day preparing my head – there was nothing to do but kill time. We were on for 19.45. Litvínov was an hour and a half away. Usual rules applied on not filming at the first meet but the SIM in my mobile was sending a broadcast quality audio feed back to London. That phone would remain switched off at all times – the sound would be one of those slightly crackly undercover
recordings where you put subtitles up. It was good enough to air, but that little detail added to the theatre. I had never ever suffered by not filming on the first date. As Harry showed, you would be more than enriched with footage later. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance – potentially, these guys could have been anybody from gangsterland.

We set off soon after four. I told everyone we needed to be firm when we got there, show them that we were the real deal and stick to the cover story at all times. I talked the boys through my Albanian nightmare one final time. The car journey was all about getting back into the part. The more miles it took to get there, the more in
character
the lads became. I left the hotel as Craig Summers, ready to record. I got out of the black BMW a proper East End landlord.

Litvínov had seen better days – a real northern Eastern European one-horse town – cute but with nothing really there. It wasn’t industrial, but not far off it. An oil refinery had been the traditional source of work for many. It smacked of high unemployment, and the kind of place where everybody knew everybody else. Oddly, it was the birthplace of the supermodel Eva Herzigová.

Our instructions were to meet at a bar called The Radniční Sklípek. It must have looked pretty unusual, the four of us getting out of the BMW and leaving it outside in the street. We just didn’t look as if we were from round these parts. It was that kind of place. David stayed outside on watch while Paul, Dom and I wandered in as casually as we could.

To the left was the dining area; on the right was the bar. A massive set of stairs led up to a huge Victorian-type building. We made for the left to tactically choose a table. I positioned Dom to the right and Paul on the other side. I would always take the middle ground. The boys lit up to create the mood, and ordered drinks for the table. We couldn’t just sit there and wait – every prop added to our
authenticity
. Adjacent to us, a couple in their mid thirties were having a romantic meal.

Dom would occasionally step out to check with David if anyone was coming – they were always on the way, he would assure us. Beyond that, I didn’t want Dom to do much of the talking. If any of the three of us was slightly less confident, it might be Dom who would say the wrong thing. I was loving my latest role though. I knew this was either going to be a complete load of bollocks like last night or I was about to meet some very tasty people.

After fifteen minutes, Paul’s phone rang. It was David. They – whoever they were – were on the way, fitting us in early before a night of drugs, prostitutes and gambling. Just like Harry. David didn’t know exactly who to wait for. He was just on lookout, a bit further up the road.