The Tick Tock Man

Author’s Note

It’s called the most dangerous job in the world.

Seventeen bomb-disposal operators and three team members of 321 Explosives Ordnance Disposal Squadron (Royal Logistics Corps) have been killed in Northern Ireland since the unit was formed in 1971.

Twenty-six have been injured, many seriously; two such incidents occurred while this book was being written.

As often as not these men have been the deliberate target of terrorist booby traps; or else time and their luck ran out.

Yet in that time well over five thousand devices have been neutralised by EOD teams, saving an estimated bill for damages of some 500 pounds million; the saving of innocent life and limb has been inestimable.

Between them, those teams have received two George Cross medals, 16 OBEs, 22 MBEs, 19 BEMs, 33 George Medals and 65 Queen’s Gallantry Medals, with 115 Mentions in Dispatches. Probably that says it all.

Therefore it is a privilege to have written probably the first thriller ever to go deep into the bomb man’s closed and frightening world.

Achieving this has been due in no small part to the kind cooperation of the British Army and in particular to members of ‘Felix’ (the traditional EOD call sign) in Northern Ireland and in mainland.Britain.

I am particularly indebted to CATO (‘Top Cat’) for a tour of front-line bases and for allowing me to witness the incredibly realistic training procedures. My thanks to all those I met, for the warmth of their welcome, for sharing their experiences and some of their most private fears, and for their patient explanations. This could not have been written without them.

Thanks also to the Metropolitan Police. Although their equally courageous Explosives Section (all former EOD operators) were more reticent, I have attempted to portray their role and methods accurately.

The bombs in this book are my own invention; I felt it fair to ask the experts only how to dismantle them. For obvious reasons, some data and other information have been made deliberately vague.

Incidentally readers may be interested to know that Trafalgar House (unrelated to the company of the same name) really does exist. At the time this book is set it was empty and up for sale.

Finally I should like to give an extra special thanks to those who have been my guides in this unfamiliar world: Hugh, Gary, Andy and Kevin Callaghan GM OGM (the author of A Price On My Head from Owl Books).

These are the people who have really made this book possible.

Terence Strong London 1994