It was like being caught in a tornado. I had never seen anything like it before. Helmeted, flameproof balaclavas and massive in their heavy-duty uniform, some were wearing glass suits (special material that protected them when they climbed windows full of glass splinters). They mowed into the gaunt addicts, screaming, ‘Get on the fucking floor. Now.’ And beating them with batons. The poor junkies! The war on drugs was total crap! A political sleight of hand.
Both the drug dealer and I had frozen in terror. He looked at me—his eyes were wide with fear. In that second I realized that he was no tough kingpin, but a frightened little boy who was as much a victim as the desperados he served. The small-time drug dealers were just as vulnerable and in need of real help as the addicts were. He, me, Luke we were all victims. At that moment: did he know? Who I was?
Then he was running to flush the drugs. He didn’t know Federica had already blocked the toilet. He ran straight into a beefy figure in black. One second after he was pushed face first into a wall. I was toppled. A large officer pressed my face into the ground and I felt the grit and the dirt from the filthy floor scrape into my skin. The two rocks in my hand fell out.
The cuffs were on me in seconds. ‘You’re nicked. Possession of Class A drugs,’ the officer gleefully proclaimed.
‘Just do exactly as you are told,’ Federica muttered under her breath next to me.
I went limp.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was all under control. They had completely trashed the place and everybody was in cuffs. Incredibly, it had all lasted only seconds.
I could see Robin play-acting, calling the cops ‘cunts’, and Federica was yelling abuse in Italian, but I could also see that they were high on the adrenalin of a successful bust-up. Of knowing they had closed down another despicable crack house. I knew I should have felt the same, but I was too much in shock. I could not forget the look in the drug dealer’s eyes. None of those arrested would be given the help that they desperately needed, and were too ill to obtain themselves. They would simply be holed up somewhere for some time and then released, and the whole cycle would repeat again. This was a war where there would be no winners, only ‘good’ crime figures, praise from superiors, and more funding for the drug squad.
Out through the smashed door I staggered in the bright light of the afternoon. I could have wept from the relief of the light. I took deep gulps of fresh air and turned my face upwards as if in prayer. For a few seconds my soul blossomed and then I was roughly uprooted as if I was no more than a dandelion that does not belong and pushed into a waiting drug squad car. I looked out of the window and saw that neighbors had gathered to watch. One of them met my eyes. There was no pity or compassion, only condemnation and disgust in her face. I was just another junkie fouling up her neighborhood.
I turned to the arresting officer. ‘I’m a cop. I’m a UCO.’ It ran hollow. So hollow it echoed in my brain.
And so hollow the cop said sarcastically, ‘No doubt.’
I said nothing else until Robin came to get me at the local police station where we had been taken.
‘We got them,’ he said, still buzzing.
‘And you were great,’ Federica added. She looked elated.
I was too shocked and shaken to reply. I felt my lip start trembling and tears welling up behind my eyes, but somehow, I clenched my teeth, swallowed my emotions and put on a brave face. I realized that both of them had known that it was not going to be a simple test purchase exercise. It was a full-blown bust-up, but they had not informed me because it had been a test of sorts.
I was not going to fail by falling apart.
I wanted their report to note that I was strong.
That I was the mouse to catch a lion.
FIVE
The next morning I stood in DS Dickie Mills’ spartan office. He used to be a UCO—for many years. Now he was top brass running the Met’s covert ops program together with five other undercover officers. He drove a 7 Series BMW and was unashamedly and brazenly tough as nails.
He was wearing a gray Armani polo neck, cream trousers with knife edge creases, and Prada loafers. When he rested his palms on the edge of his desk his gold Rolex peeked through.
‘There’s an undercover course in two days’ time. I want you on it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get the details from Robin.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I responded confidently.
‘That will be all.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Come and see me after… If you pass.’
The undercover course, held at Hendon Training Centre, turned out to be a two-week long, bloody hard training session packed with interrogations, role-plays, cameos, pretend UC operations in real time, psychometric tests, psychological evaluations, and a final interview with cold-eyed UC officers.
There were twelve of us on the course. If I had thought my Police Academy training was a means of sucking the recruits’ individuality out and brainwashing them to unquestioningly obey the chain of authority at all times, then the undercover course was breaking down and hardwiring recruits on steroids.
For two weeks we were kept tired, stressed and disorientated with an incredibly intensive schedule and lack of sleep. Once I went to bed at 5.30 a.m. and had to be back in the classroom at 8.00 a.m. Our tutors frequently subjected us to abuse and degrading names. One even called me a cunt. Three students were simply arbitrarily dismissed and we never saw them again. Two broke down in tears and left.
We were expected, in fact compelled, to drink until the early morning hours with the staff and sometimes with the role-play carried on throughout the night to see if we could keep our created personas when we were drunk. Even the weekends brought no respite—we were given tasks that necessitated us traveling all over London and finishing at midnight.
My first time in the interrogation chair left me a shaking mess. I was supposed to take on the persona of a runaway turned stripper who dabbled in drugs and was looking for a job in a lap dancing joint. Tensely, I took the chair and perched on the end of it nervously. They began.
First they lulled you into a sense of false confidence by asking simple questions. With me it was the kind of drugs I had taken.
Easy. I felt myself relax.
Then they asked me for the street prices of those drugs.
I sailed through those.
Then they asked about the last hostel I had stayed in.
I was prepared. I told them.
‘What street is it on?’
I swallowed. I knew that. I had memorized it. But my mind was a blank.
‘Is it the one near Aldi supermarket?’ one of them asked, his eyes gleaming, sensing weakness.
I floundered. I had absolutely no idea. ‘I’m not sure. I didn’t go out much,’ I evaded. Black thoughts swirled in my head. After all this, I was not going to pass, after all. I felt so bad the tears pricked at the backs of my eyes, but crying, I knew, would only make them jeer and hound me mercilessly. I had seen them heap abuse on others for crying. I bit my lip hard and looked them in the eye.
‘So who was running the hostel that year, then?’
Oh shit. ‘I… I’ve forgotten,’ I stammered.
‘This is fucking bullshit,’ he roared.
‘Load of old bollocks,’ the other interrogator agreed, fixing me with a mean stare.
I was falling apart inside, but I kept my face calm. ‘Look, I didn’t want to say this before, but when I was in that hostel I was a total wreck. I took so many drugs I didn’t know whether I was coming or going,’ I said in a contrite tone of someone confessing.
I batted more questions. By the time I rejoined the others I was shaking with nerves and exhilaration. The fuckers had not broken me down.
By the end of the course, I was mentally exhausted, and had lost nearly half a stone in weight. There were five of us left standing. There were no awards or medals or ceremony to tell us we had passed. We just gathered in a restaurant for a meal an
d that was that.
Two of us went off to join foreign forces, another two were taken as part of the part-time index, which meant that they would be available for part-time UC work alongside their day job in whatever police department they belonged to. And I alone was taken on as part of the full UC unit.
I had passed!