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SUNDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 1992
HEATHROW AIRPORT

`Just my luck,' I thought, as the tall, well-dressed blonde sat down in the aisle seat. For the first time in my life I get to sit next to somebody interesting on the plane, and I'm stuck with an alias name and fictional background. Probably a trick anyway - Ball and Long had no doubt arranged for attractive undercover women to sit next to all of us on our flights, hoping that one of us would accidentally drop our cover and let something about our real lives slip out. Ball warned us in the SOLO briefing that one trainee once fell for such a trick. He was at Manchester airport, waiting in the departure lounge for his flight to Amsterdam, when an attractive woman sat down next to him. She started chatting to him and he responded, at first sticking to his cover story; but, becoming increasingly attracted, he wanted to get in touch after the exercise and crassly told her that he was an undercover MI6 officer and gave her his real home phone number. At the post-exercise debrief, his newly acquired `girlfriend' strolled in and revealed that she was an undercover customs officer. Needless to say, he was never allowed to undertake any real natural cover work. There was no way that Ball was going to dupe me into the same error during our two-hour flight from Heathrow to Rome's Fiumicino airport.

The girl turned towards me, smiling. `Hi, I'm Rebecca. Are you staying long in Rome?'

The DS would expect me at least to give out part of my cover story. I was posing as a nerdy academic, so hopefully it would put her off. `I'm Dan. I'm just off to Velletri for a week.'

`Oh really?' she replied. `What are you doing there?'

`I'm a historian, writing a post-doctoral thesis on the contrasting approaches to urban reconstruction after the Second World War in the UK and Italy.' To my relief, her friendly smile waned. Pulling out a weighty academic book on post-war urban redevelopment in Italy, borrowed from London University library, I started to study earnestly. With a shrug of her shoulders, she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out Hello magazine. We sat in silence for the rest of the flight.

Velletri in February was not an enticing place and it had not been easy to devise a plausible cover story for visiting such an unremarkable town in the depths of winter. It had no industry of note, ruling out business cover. Journalism, the other mainstay cover for MI6 officers, was also not easy as I discovered in my research through the library archives that little of note ever happened in Velletri. Indeed, the only reference to the town in the Italian tourist office in London was that it had been heavily bombed by the American air force during the last days of the Second World War as they drove the retreating German army northwards. In the absence of anything more plausible, this bombing campaign would have to form the basis of my cover for the visit.

In my spare time in the fortnight preceding EXERCISE SOLO I carefully built up a thick file of notes, photocopies and cuttings about Velletri. The archives of the Imperial War Museum, fortuitously only a stone's throw from Century House, furnished a wealth of detail on the wartime events in the town. Noticing one day an advertisement in the education supplement of The Guardian for a vacant post-doctoral urban-redevelopment teaching post at University College, London, I applied using an alias and false academic qualifications, forged by TOS. An invitation to interview arrived shortly afterwards. I would not attend, of course, but the letter slipped into my briefcase would add credibility. Every other piece of paper in my briefcase, every dry-cleaning slip or receipt in my wallet, every item of clothing, would have to match the legend that I was a Daniel Noonan, a post-doctoral history student.

Arriving at Velletri's small railway station on a cool Monday morning, I felt comfortable in my alias identity and well prepared for the exercise. After checking into the Pensione Arena, a tiny bed and breakfast tucked away on the Via Cannetoli, I spent the rest of the evening exploring the narrow cobbled streets and winding alleys of the hilltop medieval town. First I recced the Caf‚ Leoni on the Corso della Repubblica, just off Piazza Cairoli, where a meeting was scheduled with Eric, and then found the Bar Venezia on Via Lata where I was to meet APOCALYPSE.

Ball told us that we would be under surveillance throughout the exercise by Italian teams. He was probably bluffing, as the Italians would probably not divert their limited surveillance resources to our exercise, but taking no chances I mentally noted useful antisurveillance traps. At the same time, I tried to immerse myself completely in my false identity, mentally rehearsing every small detail of my cover, trying to think and act just like a real historian would do on a research trip. I stopped to examine and photograph any buildings which were of pre-war origin - all the churches, the town halls - and my research had revealed where some of the USAF bombs had landed, so I inspected the repairs and reconstruction. Everything was noted in copious detail in notebooks, building up documentation to support my cover story.

That evening was spent eating a simple meal of pizza and chianti at the Bar Centrale on the main town piazza. There did not seem to be much nightlife in Velletri, so I went to bed early in the low budget pensione. There was a long day ahead of me on the morrow, and I would need a good night's sleep.

On Tuesday I arrived at Bar Venezia at 10.50 a.m., ten minutes before APOCALYPSE was due, ordered a cappuccino, and sat down at the table furthest from the bar, my back to the wall so that the quiet street outside was visible. The five or six other tables were deserted; the only other customer, an old man, sipped a brandy at the bar. He wore a faded black beret and a padded jacket with one pocket nearly torn off. Two fingers were missing from his calloused right hand and an old sheepdog lay dozing under his stool. Not the sort that even the Italians would use for surveillance. I pulled out a copy of The Economist from my shoulder bag and laid it on the table in front of me. It was the all-clear sign for APOCALYPSE.

I spotted him out on the street just before he entered the caf‚. In his mid-40s, thickset, neat short hair, dressed in fleece jacket, jeans and Timberland boots - the clothing gave him away as a Brit. He didn't acknowledge me but went straight to the counter and ordered an expresso. The sheepdog sniffed the air, growled softly and went back to sleep.

APOCALYPSE brought his coffee over to my table. `Do you mind if I take a seat?' he greeted me cautiously.

I didn't stand up to greet him - that would disclose to an observer that we were expecting each other - but indicated for him to sit down and, following Ball's briefing introduced myself as successor to `Peter', APOCALYPSE's former case officer. I established a cover story for our meeting as quickly as possible, as we had been trained. `If anybody should ask how we met, you should simply say that you walked into the caf‚, saw me reading The Economist, and went up to speak to me as a fellow Brit.' APOCALYPSE nodded, but he still seemed cautious. Ball had trained us on the IONEC to build a rapport with an agent to ease nerves or suspicion. `Nice boots,' I commented, nodding at his new Timberlands. `Did you buy them here?'

Soldiers love talking about boots and APOCALYPSE was no exception. `Aye, excellent piece of kit, these, can't fault 'em.' APOCALYPSE started to open up and once the rapport was established it was time to start the debrief. APOCALYPSE briefed me that he was in Italy to meet a contact in the Italian mafia who had access to Soviet weaponry by virtue of their links with the Libyan government. APOCALYPSE had negotiated the purchase of 20 SA-14 anti-aircraft missiles. The consignment would be shipped from Tripoli in a tramp steamer to the Irish coast, where, under cover of darkness, it would be unloaded into rigid hull inflatables. Once landed, the missiles would be driven overnight to an IRA safe house near the border.

It was important information, but APOCALYPSE didn't know the sort of detail which would enable Head Office to act on the intelligence. They would want the name of the tramp steamer, its departure date, the exact date it would arrive in Ireland. APOCALYPSE promised that he could get the answers from his fictional contact. We arranged to meet again two days later, this time in a different caf‚, the Bar di Poniente on the west side of the town. I reminded APOCALYPSE of our cover story for the meeting and left.

I scurried back to the Pensione Arena, locked the door of the simple room and, using the Pentel pen provided by TOS/SW, wrote up the intelligence in block capitals in the standard format of a CX report. At the top, a brief one-line summary of the intelligence. Next, the date of the meeting at which the information had been acquired. Then a brief description of the source - `An excellent source with direct access, who has reported reliably in the past,' I wrote. Then the text of the intelligence. It all fitted on to one page of A4 paper from my pad of water-soluble paper. Putting the sheet face-up on the bedside locker, I laid a sheet of ordinary A4 over it, then on top of them both The Theory of Postwar Urban Redevelopment. Five minutes was enough for the imprint transfer to the ordinary A4. The sheet of water soluble paper went into the toilet bowl and in seconds all that was left was a translucent scum on the surface of the water which was flushed away. Back in the bedroom I took the sheet of A4, folded it into a brown manilla envelope and taped it into the inside of a copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport. I had to work quickly because there wasn't much time before the 2 p.m. meeting with the Eric.

He was sitting at the Caf‚ Leoni's crowded bar, milling with office workers on their lunchbreak. His dark jacket and red tie, recognition features which Ball had briefed us to look out for, were easy to pick out. In front of him was a nearly finished glass of beer and a folded copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport. Squeezing into a gap between him and another customer, I placed my own copy next to his and ordered a coffee. Wordlessly, Eric picked up my paper and left. I enjoyed my coffee, leaving 15 minutes later with Eric's newspaper under my arm. Even if surveillance were watching me, only the most acute observer would have noticed the brush contact.

There was not another meeting scheduled with Eric until the following morning, but there was plenty to keep me occupied for the rest of the afternoon. Ball had told us to do a house recce, as we had learnt on PERFECT NEIGHBOUR. The scenario was the same - it was a suspected IRA safe house and we were to help TOS plan a bugging operation. Number 41 Via Antonio Gruinaci was on the east side of the town. That afternoon, a casual stroll past gave me a first look. A detached three-storey house, probably of post-war construction, it was stuccoed in a creamy colour and set just off the road with a small iron gate leading into the front garden. There was a new and expensive Lancia parked in the drive. I strained to get a better look at the small plaque hanging from the side gate: `Studio di Architectura, M di Rossi, Pietrangelo Di Vito, M Caracci.' I memorised as much detail as I could but no amount of written detail can beat a good photograph. We had not been issued with covert cameras - that would be far too compromising if we were arrested - so I took a photograph openly with my Pentax SLR. If questioned, I would claim that it was part of my research. It would be enough to make a good report for the DS - not as good as on PERFECT NEIGHBOUR, but good enough given the limited time. I stashed the camera away and hurried back to the pension.

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing the work a real academic on a research visit might do. Maria Vialli, a pretty assistant clerk in the town hall planning department, provided me with maps of the town before and after the war and photocopies of town records. `You're in luck,' she told me in good English, `the local priest who has lived here all his life is displaying his collection of sketches of the town from 1945 to present - you should go and have a chat with him.' She gave me her business card in case I needed to contact her again. At the gallery, just underneath the town hall, the priest, Monsignor Berlingieri, was hosting the exhibition, humbly showing visitors around his pictures. He was delighted to escort me around the collection and two hours later, the tour finished, I pressed a calling card into his hand to ensure that he would remember my name.

Eric was waiting for me the following morning in a third caf‚, just off the town square. The Gazzetta dello Sport swap was two-way this time. My copy contained the write-up of the house recce and a canister containing the undeveloped film and there was a message for me in Eric's copy.

Back in my room at the Arena, the brown envelope inside the paper contained a plain sheet of A4 paper. Surprisingly, there was also a thick wadge of œ50 notes, amounting to œ1,000 in total. Eager for an explanation, I moistened a ball of cotton wool with the doctored Polo aftershave and applied it to the blank sheet and waited. Nothing happened. I reversed the sheet and tried again. This time typed script gradually appeared, faint pink at first, then darkening to a deep purple. It was a message from the Rome station:

MESSAGE BEGINS

1. CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR SUCCESSFUL FIRST MEETING WITH APOCALYPSE. THE INTELLIGENCE WAS EXCELLENT BUT, AS YOU POINT OUT, WE NEED FURTHER DETAIL. UNFORTUNATELY APOCALYPSE CONTACTED ROME STATION YESTERDAY AT 1900 HOURS ON HIS EMERGENCY CONTACT NUMBER. HIS MAFIA CONTACT HAS REQUESTED A MEETING IN MILAN AT 2100 TODAY. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU DEBRIEF APOCALYPSE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE MEETING. WE FEAR HE MAY BE IN TROUBLE. WE ENCLOSE £1,000 STERLING TO PAY HIM IF REQUIRED.
2. YOU SHOULD MAKE YOUR WAY TO MILAN THIS EVENING. ROM/1 SEC WILL MEET YOU IN THE LOBBY OF THE HOTEL TREVISO AT 2130. APOCALYPSE IS DRIVING TO MILAN FROM YOUR LOCATION AFTER YOUR MEETING. WE SUGGEST YOU ACCOMPANY HIM. GRS0000ENDS

There was no smoke alarm in the room, but nevertheless I took the sheet of paper bearing the instructions and carefully folded it, concertina fashion, into four and stood it in the empty bathroom sink. Lit at the top, it would burn downwards and make much less smoke than when lit from the bottom. The Zippo's flame touched the paper and, accelerated by the alcohol-based aftershave, quickly consumed it. I swilled the ashes down the plughole, taking care that no trace of soot was left in the sink.

I met APOCALYPSE again later that afternoon in a small caf‚ just behind the town church. He had arrived early and was sitting on his own in the corner table. The school day had just finished and the other tables were crowded with giggling adolescents. APOCALYPSE didn't look too comfortable. `Shall we go somewhere else?' I offered.

`We'll only be a minute or so. I've got you lots more information,' APOCALYPSE whispered. He delved into his small backpack and handed me three photocopies. They were the specifications for the SA-14s. `I've also got you lots more detail on the tramp steamer and the shipment. You'll need pen and paper to write it down,' he said firmly. I fished out my notebook and he dictated the name of the fictitious ship, sailing date, expected rendezvous date in Ireland, cargo bill-of-loading number and the number of the end-user certificate which the Libyans had used to acquire the weaponry.

I guessed that APOCALYPSE was loading me up with documentation so that when I came to be arrested, there would be plenty of incriminating material on me for my interrogators. But I couldn't throw the papers away. The exercise scenario was that I should give them to H/ROM SEC in the Hotel Treviso that evening, and the DS wouldn't be too happy if I jettisoned them. While APOCALYPSE excused himself to visit the bathroom, I slipped the scrap of paper down the inside of my sock. Dealing with the other papers would have to wait.

APOCALYPSE returned to his seat. `Listen, I've got to go to Milan tonight to meet the mafia guys. I don't know what they want. I want you to come up with me in case there's trouble.'

APOCALYPSE's invitation reeked of a trap, but the DS wanted me to fall for it. `Yes, I got the same message last night,' I replied. `I've got my bag. Let's go.'

Minutes later, we were speeding up the S7 superstrada towards Rome in APOCALYPSE's hired Fiat Panda. APOCALYPSE drove in silence, deep in thought. We were nearing the centre of the capital before he turned to me. `I've got to make a phone call to my girlfriend. I'll just be a minute.' He pulled into an AGIP petrol station on the Via 20 Settembre, and left the car to make the call. I guessed that he would probably be calling the DS, alerting them that we would soon be arriving at the arrest site.

Using a 500-lire coin, I partially unscrewed the trim panel from the side of the passenger footwell, stuffed the three sheets of information on the SA-14s down the gap and had just finished screwing it back together when APOCALYPSE returned. `OK, everything's in order,' he announced, 'Let's get on our way to Milan.'

We navigated northwards through the busy Rome traffic and were approaching the entry to the A1 autostrada when we came upon a carabinieri roadblock controlling the traffic flowing on to the motorway. Four uniformed officers were questioning the driver of a battered Fiat 500, their dark-blue Alfa-Romeos parked alongside. As we drew closer, one raised a white gloved hand, indicating for us to pull in. `Shit' exclaimed APOCALYPSE, a little too vehemently. We drew to a halt just as the little Fiat accelerated away in a cloud of blue exhaust smoke.

One of the carabinieri strutted over to APOCALYPSE's window, dark glasses hiding his eyes. `Documenti,' he snapped, clicking his fingers.

APOCALYPSE looked at me, bemused. `He wants your driving licence and insurance details,' I urged.

`I haven't got them,' replied APOCALYPSE with a shrug of his shoulders.

The carabinieri glared back. `Documenti,' he repeated, then in accented English, `Passport.'

APOCALYPSE shrugged his shoulders, `I left it in my hotel,' he replied, speaking slowly and deliberately.

The carabinieri beckoned to his boss who strutted over and barked out a few orders. `Chiavi,' he demanded impatiently, while the first carabinieri went round to the front of our car to send the registration number through to their control centre. The officer reached through the window, grabbed the ignition keys and ordered us out of the car. Two other carabinieri started searching the boot. `Whose car is this?' the senior officer asked in heavily accented English.

`It's a Hertz rental car' answered APOCALYPSE.

The officer conferred on his radio again and ordered us to wait. I had expected to be arrested but still was not sure if this was a mock arrest or whether we had genuinely stumbled into one of the many random traffic controls on Italian roads. Surely the DS would not plan a mock arrest to this level of detail? That smoking Fiat 500 pulling away as we arrived was so plausible. Could this be a real road block? Was the exercise was about to go spectacularly wrong?

The senior officer came back and snapped a few orders to his subordinates, then turned to us. `There are some irregularities in the paperwork of your car. You must come with us to the station while we investigate further.'

They bundled us into the back of separate Alfa-Romeos, carabinieri clambering in either side of me, SMGs cradled in their laps. Two other officers took charge of APOCALYPSE's Fiat. With sirens blaring and blue lights flashing, we hurtled down the autostrada, traffic parting in front of us.

We turned off ten kilometres later and pulled into a carabinieri station in the shadows of the flyover. My captors wordlessly dragged me out of the Alfa-Romeo, escorted me into a large room and pushed me into a chair in front of a substantial steel desk. Four armed guards stood over me. Another officer walked in, causing the guards to spring to attention. He was dressed in civilian clothes and spoke impeccable English. `I'm sorry to treat you like this, but we have had intelligence that two mafia contacts were making their way up to Milan in a car like yours. We need to eliminate you from our enquiries.'

He handed me some forms and ordered me to fill in details of name, address, occupation and date of birth. The DS would check that we had remembered all the basic details of our alias cover story. I handed back the paper and the civilian cross-examined me on them. I answered confidently, determined not to let him catch me out so easily.

One of the carabinieri who made the original arrest entered and interrupted proceedings. `Capitano, ho trovato niente nella macchina.' It was close enough to Spanish for me to understand that they had failed to find anything incriminating in the hire car. The captain glared at his subordinate and irritably ordered him to go back and continue searching. Eventually they would find the papers hidden in the door panel, but hopefully it would take them a while. Meanwhile, I rehearsed in my head a cover story to explain their existence.

The captain questioned me politely for the next hour, checking through the minutiae of my cover story. It reminded me of the Mendoza police interrogation in Argentina. I did not diverge from my cover story and he was starting to run out of justification for holding me when the carabinieri returned, triumphantly clutching the photocopies. The captain studied them for a few minutes, then turned to me. `So, Dr Noonan, if you really are a historian as you claim, how do you explain these papers in your car?' He shuffled through them in front of me. `They appear to be detailed descriptions of a shoulder-launched anti-helicopter weapon, which we know the mafia have just acquired from Libya.'

I faked an innocent expression. `I've never seen them before,' I replied, shrugging my shoulders. `They must have been left in the car by the previous hirer.'

It was a plausible explanation. The captain had not uncovered even a tiny chink in my cover story, but I knew he would not release me yet as the DS would want to hold me until my cover was broken. The captain got up and left.

Half an hour later, he returned. His mood was more hostile. `Dr Noonan, I do not believe your story. I am arresting you under Italian anti-terrorist laws. You do not have the right to call a lawyer.' He snapped his fingers. Two of the four guards handcuffed me and frogmarched me back outside. Their grip on me was vice-like. If these guys were acting, they were doing a good job. As they pushed me towards the two Alfa-Romeo patrol cars, I caught a glimpse of the Fiat. The wheels were off, both front seats and all the carpets were stripped out and the bonnet insulation had been pulled away. Foolishly, I couldn't hold back a smirk. One of the guards noticed and, as he bundled me into the back of the Alfa, he gave my head a stealthy bash against the door pillar. Armed carabinieri climbed in on either side. One of them blindfolded me, then thrust my head down between my knees, viciously tightening the handcuffs a couple of notches so they bit into my wrists.

They dragged me from the car, stiff, aching and still blindfolded some 40 minutes later, and escorted me indoors. I didn't know it, but I was at the main carabinieri HQ just outside Rome. The blindfold was pulled away and I found myself in a small cell, no more than ten feet by ten feet, furnished with a simple iron bed with a mattress and one pillow. In the corner was a continental-style hole-in-the-floor toilet, with a shower rose above it.

One of the guards released the handcuffs, letting blood flow back into my numbed hands, and ordered me to strip. As I removed each garment, he shook them and examined them carefully for hidden objects. The scrap of paper bearing the details of the ship and end user certificates was still in my right sock. Steadying myself by leaning on the mattress, I pulled off the sock, secreting the wedge of paper between thumb and palm. Handing the sock to him with my left hand, I steadied myself with my right hand as I pulled off my left sock. As he examined and shook it, I slipped the incriminating evidence under the pillow.

My clothes were stuffed into a black bin liner and the carabinieri handed me a pair of grey overalls a size too small, blindfolded me again, then handcuffed me face downwards to the bed. The heavy door clanged shut so probably the guards were gone, but I waited for five minutes, listening carefully, before moving. There wasn't much slack on the chain of the handcuffs but by sliding them along the rail of the bedstead I groped for the scrap of paper under the pillow, transferred it to my mouth and swallowed it.

Lying chained to the bed felt isolated and slightly humiliating, but it was just an exercise. I tried to imagine what it would really be like to be caught working under natural cover. Ball told us that it had happened only once to an MI6 officer. He was working in Geneva when, unbeknown to him, a fellow guest in his hotel was murdered. One of the staff had noticed the officer chatting - wholly innocently - to the guest earlier in the evening, so he became a key suspect. At 4 a.m., the police burst into his room and arrested him. His cover story was solid, however, and he survived the police interrogation. He was eventually released.

It seemed like hours before the door opened again. The guards unlocked me from the bed, handcuffed my wrists, hauled me to my feet and man-handled me down a corridor and out into welcome fresh air. It must have been just after nightfall because the still air was laden with dew. The guards forced me up some stairs and into another building. I heard the guards whispering something in Italian to a third person and then got a whiff of the strong, unmistakable smell of stale cigarettes and whisky, indicating that Ball was nearby. The guards pushed me onwards for a few more yards, forced me into a chair, handcuffed my wrists behind me and pulled the blindfold away.

I was in a large high-ceilinged room, big enough to be a school dining-hall or army drill-hall. Twenty feet or so in front of me three interrogators sat behind a long desk on a low stage. In the middle was an athletic-looking man in his early 40s, whose groomed jet-black hair and perfectly symmetrical handlebar moustache suggested that he spent a lot of time in front of a mirror. To his right sat the captain who had interviewed me earlier in the carabinieri station. To his left sat a dark-haired woman, whose heavy wrinkles on a once-attractive face were explained by the foul-smelling cigarette she was holding. The three stared at me impassively and disdainfully and it felt like several minutes before the moustache spoke.

`So, Dr Noonan,' he began imperiously. `I understand from my colleague that you are a historian, visiting our town of Velletri.' He paused for effect. `Let me tell you. We don't believe your story. We have intelligence that you are involved in an operation to smuggle weapons from Sicily to the IRA. What have you got to say for yourself?'

`Rubbish!' I replied with convincing irritation. `Your intelligence is wrong and you've arrested the wrong person.'

The moustache questioned me for 20 minutes or so, cross-examining me on details of my cover - my fictitious date of birth, address, where I worked, how long I had worked there, names of members of my family. The only thing he didn't ask was the name of my dog.

Then it was the wrinkly's turn to question me. `Who is this woman, Maria Vialli? Where did you meet her?' she asked cattily, holding her business card.

`Why not ring her up and ask her,' I replied. `Better still,' I added, `why not ring Monsignor Berlingieri, the priest at the church of Mary Magdalene?' My interrogators looked at each other, seeking inspiration. It was not going well for them.

The moustache snapped his fingers and the guards behind me sprung forward, blindfolded me and dragged me back to my cell. They gave me a glass of water and slice of bread before shackling me on to the bed again. It seemed like four or five hours before they took me back before my interrogators where they asked me the same questions again, only this time more impatiently. `We have interviewed your companion, with whom you were arrested,' snapped the moustache. `So tell me, Dr Noonan, where did you meet him?' Hoping that APOCALYPSE had stuck to the agreed cover story, I explained that he had seen me reading The Economist in a cafe‚ and had introduced himself as a fellow Brit. APOCALYPSE must have remembered, because the moustache seemed satisfied with my explanation. He changed tack. `Do you know who I am?' Without waiting for a reply, he continued. `I am Major Claudio Pagalucca, of the airborne carabinieri.' He puffed out his chest with pride. `I have three medals, won for bravery. Do you know what that means?'

I was tempted to reply flippantly but bit my lip. `No, I've not a clue. I'm just an academic - that sort of thing's got nothing to do with me.'

Pagalucca looked deflated. The airborne carabinieri are Italy's equivalent of the SAS. Their role is to work against the mafia and they are parachute-trained in order to launch surprise attacks against mafia hideouts in Sicilian valleys. When asked the same question in his interrogation, Hare had been unable to resist a jibe at Pagalucca's vanity. `Some sort of parachuting aerial traffic warden, is it?' he replied flippantly. Pagalucca held him in detention for four hours longer than the rest of us.

Between interrogation sessions, the only discomfort was boredom, and there was no physical hardship. The resistance to interrogation exercise I had done in the TA was tougher physically. But whereas on the SAS exercise the actual interrogation interview was easy - we just had to ensure that we did not give away any more than our name, rank, date of birth and army number - here the difficulty was keeping every detail of our cover story entirely consistent between interrogation sessions. One little slip would be spotted and exploited ruthlessly and once the cover story started unravelling, it would be very difficult to retract the damage. But by my third session, some four or five hours later, my interrogators had not prised open my story. Pagalucca gave up and only the wrinkly asked a few easy questions. The session lasted less than ten minutes, so I guessed that they were close to releasing me.

I had not been in my cell for long when the door opened again. The guards pulled off my blindfold, released my handcuffs and handed over the bag containing my clothes. I fumbled for my watch. It showed 5 p.m., just over 24 hours since the arrest. Once I was dressed, the guards led me out into the evening darkness over to another building up a short flight of steps and, with a friendly smile and a handshake, indicated that I should go inside.

Ball, Long, Eric and APOCALYPSE were all waiting to shake my hand inside the room. `Congratulations,' said Ball. `We had to let you out early. We just couldn't pin anything on you - you did an excellent job.' He ushered me over to a trestle table laden with food, beer and wine. `We'll debrief you properly later. For the moment, get yourself a drink.' Over a beer, Ball explained what was going on. `Some of the others should be along in a while, but they've still got a bit of explaining to do...'

One by one, the other students emerged from their captivity to join us around the buffet table and to tell their stories. Spencer was the next to be released, an hour or so later. He had pretended to be a priest and although the cover story held for a while, it unravelled when he was asked to say a few prayers and had been unable to even recite the Lord's prayer in full. Markham panicked when he saw the roadblock and threw the papers and the thousand pounds out of the window of the moving car, causing chaos on the autostrada. Bart had done well. His cover as a scientist was too complicated for Pagalucca to probe with any authority and his prodigious memory had enabled him to maintain a consistent cover story. Castle's suit and business cover was not plausible in his small market town and his story folded. Forton's cover was as a chorister on a tour of churches in Rome and when Pagalucca asked him to prove his singing prowess, Forton started and did not stop, to Pagalucca's irritation.

But there was something else that was still puzzling me about the exercise. Ball was standing on his own in the corner, as ever with a cigarette in one hand and a whisky in the other, rocking gently backwards and forwards with a satisfied smile on his face. `Jonathan,' I asked, `where's that pretty blonde you put next to me on the plane? Is she not coming tonight?'

`What girl?' Ball replied, genuinely bemused.

`Oh come on,' I replied, `the girl you put next to me on the plane to test my cover story.'

`Nothing to do with us!' Ball assured me. `You missed an opportunity there,' he laughed.

We flew back from Rome to Southampton the next morning on the S&D Hercules C-130 at spectacularly low level over the Alps. Arriving back at the Fort that evening we were demob happy. We had spent an intensive six months in each other's company and had got to know each other well. Even Bart and Markham were now mates. Officers on the same IONEC tend to keep in touch throughout their subsequent careers and no doubt we would too, but for the moment we were all keen to get into our new jobs. Our IONEC scores and first Head Office postings were to be announced the following day.

There is a formal performance appraisal system in MI6. Approximately every six months line managers summarise a subordinate's performance on a `Staff Appraisal Form' or SAF. The most important part of the SAF is the overall grading or `box number'. A `Box 3', signifying a satisfactory performance, is the median and the grade most commonly awarded. `Box 1' is outstanding, `Box 2' above average, `Box 4' substandard; `Box 5' indicates a seriously deficient performance and can lead to a rapid exit from the service. Each SAF is sent to personnel department where they play an important role in determining the career structure of each officer, deciding postings and seniority. Ball and Long were responsible for preparing our SAFs on the IONEC and the following day they gave us the morning off while they considered our grades.

While they deliberated, Nixon kept us busy with a shooting competition down on the Fort's outdoor range. We were now moderately proficient and could handle a Browning 9mm safely, which was an improvement on when we started. Most of the time most of us managed to hit the centre of the figure 12 (half-size man) target from ten metres on a fast draw with the Browning, and we were accurate at that range within a few centimetres with the Heckler and Koch MP5. Hare ironically reckoned that he had personally shot more rounds of 9mm during the IONEC than during his entire eight-year army career. Our training was a wasteful extravagance, but one that we all enjoyed. Even the mild-mannered and liberal Forton, who initially regarded guns with distaste, now approached the lessons with relish. One round of Nixon's competition was to knock down empty beer cans against the clock with the Heckler & Koch set on its single-shot setting. Forton won by flicking the sub-machine gun into automatic mode and spraying the row of cans with a full magazine, grinning wildly like a raver on ecstasy.

As the competition progressed, one by one we were called away to see the DS in main wing. Bart went first - he was awarded a Box 2 and was posted to counter-proliferation section, a job I was disappointed not to get myself. Castle got a Box 2 and became a junior R officer in the Middle East controllerate. Markham was posted to a junior P desk in the West European controllerate with a Box 2. Hare was assigned to a joint section with MI5 to work against Middle East terrorists, also with a Box 2. Spencer was relieved to get a Box 2 and went to work as a targeting officer in the East European controllerate. Forton was badly criticised for his performance on Exercise Solo and for annoying the SAS with his Frank Sinatra impression. He was marked down to a Box 3 and posted to an R desk in the Africa controllerate, much to his disappointment. I was called away from the shooting competition just as Forton, chuckling maniacally, was about to demolish an old safe with a Remington Wingmaster repeat-action shotgun, and walked over to see Ball in the west wing.

`Congratulations,' Ball announced, shaking my hand. `Your performance throughout the course was outstanding. You never put a foot wrong and we feel we had no other alternative but to award you a Box 1 for your outstanding performance.' Long beamed in the background, as Ball continued. `It is a remarkable achievement. We've checked through personnel department records, and nobody has ever before received a Box 1 on the IONEC.' Ball handed me my SAF and let me read it for a few minutes. It was filled with glowing praise, and I felt justifiably proud. `In view of your grade, we've decided to post you to SOV/OPS department,' Ball announced.

`That's a great post,' Long added, `you'll get lots of travel and will get to work on some really interesting operations. H/SOV/OPS asked for you especially.'