Truthteller by Stephen Davis

Author:Stephen Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd

John left for Heathrow by taxi on the afternoon of 1 August 1990. He checked in under his cover name. The team all carried with them radio and surveillance gear, disguised as professional camera and geophysical surveying equipment to do survey and engineering work for an oil company. It was assumed that the plane would land, refuel, disembark some of the passengers and then continue on to its next destination, Madras, before the invasion started. None of the civilians on BA149 would be any the wiser.

No weapons were taken on board. British Embassy staff in Kuwait had concealed weapons and rations in various storage places hidden around the city so that they could be collected later. They had also arranged for a couple of locals to work as baggage handlers at the airport to help the team get their gear out of the plane quickly. Vehicles were to be collected from a local car dealer just minutes away from the international airport.

John boarded the plane last, waiting in case there was any late change of orders. Despite the team’s careful preparations, their last-minute arrival had attracted the interest of some of their fellow passengers and their one-way tickets caused raised eyebrows among the crew. On board were 367 passengers, including eleven children, American, British, French, Indian, Malaysian, Italian, Spanish, German and Australian, as well as one Canadian and two New Zealanders and eighteen crew.

Two of the passengers, Daphne and Henry Halkyard, were unhappy about being on the plane. The retired couple, in their sixties, were on their way back to New Zealand to their home in the riverside town of Warkworth in the North Island, after a holiday in Greece. Both were British-born but they had lived in New Zealand for over 30 years and were dual passport holders. For convenience they travelled on their British passports because they allowed visa-free access to more countries than their New Zealand ones.

Henry had served in the army in the Middle East. He had not enjoyed the experience and had no desire to return. He was alarmed to discover that the flight was scheduled to land in Kuwait for refuelling and a change of crew. The Halkyards had also heard the news about Iraqi troop movements and they expressed their worries forcefully to the British Airways check-in staff and anyone else from the airline they could find.

Aware that some of the passengers were anxious about what they had heard on the news, Clive Earthy made an announcement over the plane’s PA system. ‘We have been assured that it is safe to fly to Kuwait,’ he told them. That was the government advice, but if problems arose the plane would be diverted. The passengers breathed sighs of relief and some even clapped. Earthy’s reassuring announcement before take-off surprised Dr Paul Dieppe, a consulting physician from Bristol who was en route to Kuala Lumpur. He had been so busy with his job that he had cancelled plans to fly on Air Malaysia two days previously and at the last minute booked himself on BA149.

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