10 - CQB Training:
First thing in the morning and I was in the gym at Beacon Barracks for the CQB course.
"Fancy meeting you here."
The voice came behind me. I turned and found myself facing Nick Stone.
"Are you on the course?" I asked.
"I am," he grinned malevolently, "as in I'm leading it."
"Oh bugger!" I let out a hoarse whisper.
Stone walked off grinning.
"Who was that?" VJ asked.
"You remember when I went to Sennybridge on that course in January?"
"The one where the bloke put an IED under your seat?"
"That's it," I nodded. "Well, he's the guy who planted the bomb."
"Seriously?" Vik looked shocked. "Is he on this course?"
"He's teaching it," I replied glumly.
The rest of the class joined us, there were eight students in total. Three were from the Royal Corps of Signals Electronic Warfare Team. They were based here at Beacon Barracks, and sometimes had to work covertly - as in out of uniform - when they were on ops. Which explained why they were required to do this course.
There was also a trio were guys I recognised from my time with SAS Reserves.
There was one other person with the SAS detachment I recognised; Lee 'Spider' Webb. The last time I'd met Spider was in January, returning from the course in Wales as it happens.
When I bumped into him at Birmingham New Street station, he failed mentioned that he was in the reserves, let alone in the Regiment. It's not the sort of thing that just slips your mind.
We were all dressed in gym kit. The guys from the Signals were in standard army PT gear: grey t-shirts with their regimental badge printed on the left breast and black shorts.
The guys from the regiment wore expensive sports kit - not that they were showing off. But they were.
VJ and I wore t-shirts that was all about our passions. Mine was olive green with a red star, a book and a pistol and the message: "The Clash - know your rights." VJ's was grey with a black and yellow disc and the scales of justice. It read: "In legal trouble? Better call Saul!".
Stone called us together.
"Today, we're going to cover basic unarmed combat," he announced, marching up and down in front of our loose rank. "OK. I want you to imagine that you're on a covert op. The bad guys have pinged you. Someone walks up to you and whips out a pistol then tells you to put your hands up. What do you do?"
He turned to face us, his arms folded across his chest. His hawk-like gaze scanned us.
"Mike, you've worked with me before, come on down," he sounded like a bad host on a TV game show.
I reluctantly shuffled out of the line up. Stone reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a rubber replica of an automatic pistol. He handed the pistol to me and waved me off until I stood about six feet from him. I knew what to do and assumed the Weaver stance, putting weight on my forward foot, right arm extended straight, left slightly bent, locking the gun arm straight.
"Obviously, if he squeezes the trigger he's going to hit me. Well, at this range even an MoD civil servant can't miss," Stone waited for a polite but restrained titter of laughter to run its course. "But if someone's holding you up like this then they clearly don't intend to execute you on the spot. So that gives you a small window of time in which to do something like this..."
Stone's right hand shot out fast and twisted the pistol away from his chest. At the same time his other hand reached out and raked down my face. I relinquished my hold on the weapon and put my hands to my face.
"Notice that when I grabbed the pistol I gripped the body of the weapon. It's a semi-automatic pistol, so applying downward pressure on the working parts will cause the gun to malfunction and it'll jam after the first shot."
Stone retrieved the rubber dummy pistol and waved me back to the line of students. I stood next to VJ. He glanced sideways at me and gave a pitying shrug.
