Still Alive (Surprisingly)

By John Wick and K Ratzeburg

A laugh-out-loud memoir by Parachute Regiment and 22 SAS veteran John Wick - the man who helped break the story of the 2009 MPs' Expenses Scandal. Have you ever wondered how to conduct a ransom negotiation? Would you know what to do if you accidentally found yourself in a room full of Columbian drug barons?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cranthorpe Millner Publishers
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803781297

Book preview

Foreword

By Major General (Rtd) John Holmes DSO OBE MC

It is always a privilege to be asked to write a few lines about a good friend, especially in the context of his autobiography. The challenge, though, is to reflect both the style and accuracy of the work whilst not compromising whatever is included or, for understandable reasons, excluded from the manuscript! We all have subjects that are better left alone in the litany that is personal history.

I first met John in the late 1970s when our time in the Special Air Service – SAS – overlapped. I had taken a more direct path to joining the Regiment than had John, having first been commissioned into the Scots Guards, the parent regiment of David Stirling, the founder of the SAS. As John describes in the book, David was a remarkable man and I was very proud to be able to follow in his footsteps.

To say that John took an unconventional route into the Regiment is pure understatement. From Sandhurst he was commissioned into the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and he remains, to my knowledge, the only SAS officer ever to have commanded a Mobile Bath Unit! Frivolity aside, his Commanding Officer quickly realised that life in the RAOC was not for John and he was seconded to the Parachute Regiment Battle School at Brecon in Wales as a supernumerary member of the training staff, which made good use of his outgoing and confident personality.

I cannot help wondering how John’s life would have turned out if he had not had the good fortune to be at the Battle School at the same time as Peter Walters, who was the Commanding Officer of the School. It was Peter who spotted John’s potential to be an infantry officer and insisted that he applied for P Company selection, which is the first (and most difficult) stage along the road to becoming a member of the Parachute Regiment.

His service with the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment (1 PARA) took him initially to post-Bloody-Sunday Belfast and later to Cyprus, where he was a member of the UN Peacekeeping Force. After another spell as an instructor at the Battle School in Brecon, he was posted to the Duke of York’s Barracks on the King’s Road in Chelsea.

There, the greatest danger he faced was invoking the ire of his Brigade Commander who did not approve of either John’s fashion sense or his ability to party into the early hours of the morning before reporting for duty a short while later. Thus there was perhaps an inevitability about John’s decision to volunteer for 22 SAS selection, which he successfully passed in 1976.

I have many memories of John when he arrived in Hereford, the home of 22 SAS, not least his cordiality and quiet determination to complete all tasks to the utmost of his ability. He enjoyed life to the full and his cracking sense of humour, together with a sense of the absurd, made him a true friend, which he remains to this day. Sadly, a serious parachuting accident ended his promising career in the Regiment, and eventually in the Army altogether.

At this point our paths diverged as I remained in the Service until 2001. With a wife and infant daughter to support, and a limp to live with, John decided to move to the Dhofar province of Oman to serve with the Sultan’s Special Forces. Although the family enjoyed their time in Oman, John realised that it was not a long-term prospect and so returned to England to begin a new life as a civilian.

He had a few false starts in settling on a career that made him happy, before eventually establishing a very successful security consultancy company that was both greatly respected and utilised by a variety of specialist Lloyd’s of London insurance brokers and underwriters.

At the time there were few British companies that provided the services he offered and the business prospered until economic circumstances changed. To misquote an old nursery rhyme, when things were good, John’s life was very, very good, but when they went bad, it was horrid!

His work took him around the world and although I have known him for nearly five decades, a number of the anecdotes in the book were new to me. It is probably safe to say that John has encountered many more unsavoury and dangerous characters in civilian life than he ever did in the Army.

The book ends in 2009 when he played a key role in opening the can of worms that became known as the MPs’ Expenses Scandal, which rocked the British political establishment. Even though there was a credible risk that he could be prosecuted for his involvement in the exposure, John knew that he would never forgive himself if he walked away and allowed the MPs’ false expenses claims to stay forever hidden from public scrutiny.

The essence of the man stands out in the subsequent pages of this book. The one constant is John’s personality and his ability to bounce back within a short time from any setback. He remains one of the most resilient individuals that I have had the privilege of meeting.

John Holmes was awarded a Military Cross as a Platoon Commander with the 1st Battalion Scots Guards in West Belfast in 1971. After passing SAS Selection in 1974, he spent the remainder of his very successful Army career with UK Special Forces. He commanded 22 SAS Regiment and was awarded an OBE during the 1990-91 Gulf War. He subsequently became the Director of Special Forces and was awarded a Distinguished Service Order for his role in Operation Barras in Sierra Leone in 2000. Following his retirement from the Army after thirty-three years of service, he became an independent security consultant specialising in contemporary military challenges.

Preface

In 2009, after a lifetime of operating in the shadows, I came to the attention of the British press. This was because I was responsible for passing evidence of misuses of public funds by certain Members of Parliament to The Daily Telegraph newspaper. The resulting exposé became known as the MPs’ expenses scandal.

Although I suspected that I might become the subject of intense media scrutiny, I considered it a price worth paying as I believed that the information had to be put into the public domain. However, I was recently engaged to the lovely and patient woman who is now my wife. Therefore, whatever I did had to be with the agreement of my fiancée, without whose support I wouldn’t have taken things further. Fortunately, even though she wasn’t overtly political, she felt equally angry about the information that I’d been given.

I took legal advice which, in summary, said there were various statutes under which I might be prosecuted. This allowed me to plan the release in such a way that I thought would contain the risk.

I’ve always been known for my similes and the one that sprang to mind was that opportunities are like waves. Each passes by only once; others will come, but never the same one again. Taking all this into account I decided to step up to the plate and passed the details I’d been given by the source of the leak to The Daily Telegraph.

I still believe that if I hadn’t the country would never have discovered the full extent of the fraud by various MPs. When the Palace of Westminster eventually published the third version of the list of MPs’ expenses, so much had been redacted that The Independent newspaper filled its front page with one large black square to make the point that the released information was meaningless.

Even so, I never expected the end result to become a part of political history nor for it to bring down the Speaker of the House of Commons and a number of MPs, and become a catalyst for change in how we’re governed.

Various articles were written about me at the time and a few made false allegations which were extremely hurtful to my family and friends. In the aftermath of the scandal I considered writing my side of the story but life got in the way and I never seemed to find the time. This all changed in the spring of 2020 when the world ground to a halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I was locked down in Spain and decided that it was time to set the record straight so that my wife, daughters and grandchildren have a reference point in the future.

I dug out the collection of multi-coloured Post-it Notes which my daughter Hannah had used to start mapping the adventures of my life more than a decade earlier. I put them into some semblance of order on the kitchen table and sat down and began to type…

Chapter 1

Hostages to fortune

Rover Slater and I walked into the arrivals hall of Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport and searched in vain for the driver of the car that was meant to be collecting us. I’d given strict instructions on the phone that my name shouldn’t appear on any sign, only that of the hotel.

‘Perhaps he’s outside,’ suggested Rover. ‘You stay here and guard the bags and I’ll go and look.’

He pushed his way through the crowd of people waiting for their friends and relatives to appear through the double doors from the baggage hall. Since we only had hand-luggage, Rover and I had been the first passengers to emerge after our flight.

After about ten minutes he reappeared, drenched. At over 8,600 feet above sea level, a few degrees north of the equator, the year-round average daytime temperature in Bogotá varied little from around 19C, falling about 10 degrees at night. However, it rained a lot. Although he had an umbrella it had offered little protection: the wind either blew the raindrops under it or they’d hit the pavement so hard that they’d ricocheted upwards.

‘Not there?’ I asked, though I knew from the look on Rover’s face what the answer would be. He shook his head. I looked around. The only public telephone had a sign on it in Spanish. Since it was missing both its receiver and dial, it was safe to assume it was out of order. I made my decision. ‘Let’s get a taxi otherwise we’ll be here all night.’

We picked up our bags, dashed through the downpour to the taxi-rank, and climbed into the back seat of the first one in the queue. It was old, battered, and probably unlicensed, but at least we were out of the wet.

About ten minutes into the forty-minute drive into the Columbian capital we heard a groan from the boot of the car. Rover sat forward and yanked down the back of the seat. Lying behind it was a man with a knife waiting to ambush us at some point on the journey, but it wasn’t his lucky day. First he’d developed cramp in his leg, then he was rapidly disarmed by Rover – tall, tough and totally dependable – and finally, after we’d forced the driver to stop, he was bundled out of the car and dumped on the roadside in the torrential rain. Since he was clearly in cahoots with the man in the back, we told the driver that if he delivered us safely to the hotel at no charge we wouldn’t take the matter any further. Having seen how efficiently the gringos had dealt with his colleague, he agreed. We didn’t give him a tip.

When we reached our hotel we went straight to the bar for a much-needed drink. ‘I assume we won’t be doing any exploring?’ asked Rover, with a mischievous smile.

‘Not bloody likely after last time,’ I laughed.

A few months earlier we’d been staying at a different hotel in the city. We were there because my company, ISS, operated as hostage negotiators for Lloyd’s of London insurance underwriters who provided kidnap and ransom – K&R – insurance. During a K&R response there were long periods when there was nothing to do but wait and it could become extremely tedious. Having been drinking beer all day, we decided to give our livers a rest for a bit and went for a wander around the hotel.

We came across a large ballroom with groups of chairs set around a number of small tables. For some reason we chose to sit in a corner at the furthest point from the door. I had my back to the room and hadn’t realised that it’d had begun filling up until Rover told me urgently it was time to leave. It was being used as a clearing-house for the various crime syndicates and at each table was a high-backed chair in which sat the boss, el jefe, of each gang. There were stacks of cash being passed between the tables along with packets of white powder that definitely wasn’t icing sugar.

After a brief whispered confab we calmly stood up and walked across the ballroom to the door. We’d automatically segued into a standard patrol format from our Army days: I was 15 feet in front of Rover and he was 15 feet to the side of me. As we approached the tables, chairs went flying to the floor as the heavily-armed bodyguards leapt to their feet to protect their bosses.

We walked past nonchalantly with our hands away from our sides so they didn’t think we were about to reach for a weapon. We avoided making eye contact but kept track of them with our peripheral vision. After what seemed about thirty minutes, but was probably only thirty seconds, we made it safely out of the room. We jumped into the lift and said, ‘We can’t do that again!’ We spent the rest of the day quietly in our rooms.

During the late 1980s Columbia was controlled by the drug barons, with Pablo Escobar being the most notorious. He was the founder and leader of the Medellín Cartel, which had a virtual monopoly on the cocaine imports into the USA and Escobar’s personal fortune was estimated by Forbes magazine in 1989 to be nearly US$3 billion.

Medellín is the second largest city in Columbia after Bogotá and is serviced by two airports. After one trip Rover and I had to fly from the newer international airport that lay twelve miles away on a mountain plateau 2,000 feet above the city. We were forced to stop at a roadblock that we quickly realised had been illegally set up by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – FARC, one of several revolutionary groups fighting the Colombian Government. The FARC frequently used kidnap ransoms as an income stream and it was almost certain that the men at the roadblock were there with Escobar’s permission as nothing could happen in Medellín without his approval.

We’d been in tight situations before, but this had the making of a disaster; it would be horribly ironic if the kidnap negotiators were themselves kidnapped. For some reason that we never quite worked out, we were able to persuade them in pidgin Colombian Spanish to let us through to continue our journey to the airport. The only reason we could think of is that we were driving from the city up to the airport and may have been thought of as residents rather than newly arrived visitors. We decided not to push our luck; after that we used the older municipal airport situated at the bottom of the valley, which was much less of a risk to reach.

Although the company was mine and I employed a team of excellent managers with the requisite skills, I always made sure that I was up to date on each of the company’s disciplines. Therefore at times I also deployed to K&R situations.

Over time we’d developed a very effective aide-memoire to ensure that we all followed the same procedures and maintained the high standards that clients expected from all ISS employees, including myself. We always operated below the radar and only did negotiations. However, if required, we had the skills to do extractions, but luckily they were never needed. Many years later, following the growth of modern piracy off the Horn of Africa, we used these skills when vessels were held by Somali pirates.

The ransoms could start at US$5 million or higher but we’d eventually pay a fraction of the sum initially demanded. Part of the skill of negotiating was persuading the kidnappers to accept a sensible amount of money. If we capitulated too soon, it’d make them think they could ask for more.

The majority of cases were insured, but there were a couple which were private. The targets were either high net worth individuals or members of their family, or senior executives of corporations, for example in the oil and gas industry. We did about twenty-five K&Rs and only lost one victim: an old lady who didn’t have her medicines with her and we couldn’t persuade the kidnappers to allow us to supply her with some.

Of prime importance was arranging the Crisis Management Team as quickly as possible to ensure everyone involved was on the same page. One person would be identified to take the calls from the kidnappers and negotiate with them in accordance with a script produced by us and agreed by the CMT.

Our role was to support the relatives and to advise the CMT on the rules of kidnap negotiations. Private K&R negotiations have little similarity to those undertaken by law enforcement agencies and we wouldn’t tell the police what we were doing, even in the UK, as they had different agendas. In the UK they’d want to prosecute the kidnappers; in South America they might even have been the kidnappers themselves or being paid off by them.

Although we always remained professional in our dealings with the families, they often looked to us for reassurance that their loved one would be returned alive. Whilst wealthy families in Latin America were inured to the likelihood that one day someone would be kidnapped, it didn’t make it any easier to deal with when it eventually happened to them. An average case ran between six to eight weeks though sometimes they could last even longer.

The ISS case officer had to be both sensitive and have skin as thick as a rhino. Families at times could be angry and also very emotional. They often didn’t know there was a K&R policy in place as it was one of the principal terms and conditions that its existence had to be kept secret. If it were generally known about the policy it’d make the insured parties a prime target. Therefore, only a trusted member of the company or the family was informed about the policy so they could contact either the underwriter or ISS if the worst happened.

It had to be explained to the family that the underwriters wouldn’t pay out on an insurance policy in advance to enable the ransom to be paid – that would’ve been illegal. Instead the policy reimbursed the insured party, after the ransom had been paid. Consequently, it was the family or company that had to raise the ransom money themselves. However, the mere existence of the policy meant that we could, and often did, help to raise the ransom from local sources using the policy as collateral.

Since we were on the ground, we were able to confirm to the underwriters the amount of the ransom that was eventually paid to the kidnappers, which ensured a swift pay out on the policy.

Whilst no two K&R cases were alike we tried to maintain a consistent approach, all the while recognising that we had to remain flexible and adapt our strategy in line with the specific circumstances of each case.

Hereford, England – 5:30 a.m. 2nd January

The trilling of the bedside phone dragged me out of my Bank Holiday slumber. I groaned. A call at that time of the morning could only be bad news.

It was our duty officer. ‘Morning John, Happy New Year! Sorry to wake you so early but we have a hit.’

‘Who, where and when?’

‘Juliana McCormack (names and some details have been changed for reasons of client confidentiality), the eighteen-year-old daughter of Richard McCormack who’s a British expat businessman in Cartagena. She was taken at a New Year’s Eve party at a nightclub. Her friend who was with her said that a man had come up to her and said that her mother had been taken to hospital and he’d been sent to fetch her. Her mother is Columbian and Juliana was born in the country so is bilingual.’

‘And it’s definitely a hit?’

‘Afraid so. They received the call thirty minutes ago.’

I did a quick calculation. Half an hour earlier would have been midnight in Columbia: the witching hour. ‘Any figure mentioned?’

‘Four million dollars and no police involvement. The father took the call and immediately said that he needed proof his daughter was alive. These guys obviously know what they’re doing as they had her nearby and brought her to the phone. She was only able to say she’d not been hurt before they ended the call.

‘Apparently her father’s ex-military so is used to staying calm under pressure. He’s also well-prepared. He’d read the procedures that came with the K&R policy and had already asked his brother-in-law, Miguel, to head up the CMT should the worst happen. That’s why he got in touch so quickly; he was expecting the call and had our number ready but had to cope with his distraught wife first.’

‘OK, I’m coming into the office. See you soon.’

Cartagena, Columbia – 7:30 p.m. 4th January

I wearily walked into my hotel room and poured myself a large slug of Glenmorangie single malt whisky from the bottle I’d picked up in the duty-free shop at Miami Airport. I lay down on the bed, lit a cigar and forced my body to relax even though my brain was still busy rehashing the events of the last sixty-seven hours…

My first phone call from the office was to the home of the underwriter who’d issued the McCormack’s policy. Since Richard had phoned ISS direct, the underwriter was unaware of the kidnap until I briefed him. We both had daughters and spent the first few minutes talking about how we’d cope if anybody kidnapped them. We also discussed our concerns about her physical and mental well-being if she was held for too long.

‘John, just do whatever’s necessary to get her home safely as soon as possible,’ he instructed.

Until that point I’d intended assigning the case to one of the team. However, with his exhortation still ringing in my ears, I decided to do it myself. I knew that if things went pear-shaped I’d always wonder if there’d have been a different outcome if I’d have been there.

In the dim and distant days before the internet, there were only three ways to buy plane tickets: through a travel agent, over the phone to the airline or at the airline’s desk at the airport. The travel agent we normally used was shut for the festive period and I wanted to be certain of seats so I asked the duty officer to call the airlines and book me onto that afternoon’s flight to Miami and an early morning flight to Bogotá the next day. From past experience I knew I’d easily be able to get a seat on one of the frequent flights between Bogotá and Cartagena when I reached Columbia.

He also arranged a car rental and a hotel for a minimum of two weeks as it was unlikely we’d wrap things up sooner if the starting ransom demand was US$4 million. I was expecting a long negotiation.

Whilst he was making the travel arrangements, I dialled the next number on my list. Even though it was the middle of the night, the phone was picked up on the third ring.

‘Digame!’

‘Mr McCormack?’

‘Yes?’

‘My name is John Wick. I’m your ISS case officer and I’m aiming to be with you tomorrow afternoon. However, would you mind confirming some details first?’

‘Oh thank God! Anything. Tell me what you want to know.’

I grabbed what I needed from the office, including US$20,000 in traveller’s cheques since it wasn’t always easy to find places that accepted credit cards in Latin America. The flights were uneventful and I spent as much time asleep as possible. I did though reread the aide-memoir to refresh my memory. Although I’d written it, it’d been a while since I’d last done a K&R case.

Upon landing at the coastal city of Cartagena I picked up the car and headed straight to the hotel to check-in and have some food as I didn’t know when I’d next have an opportunity to eat. Fortified by the meal and a quick shower, shave and change of clothes, I set out for the McCormack’s home.

They lived in the historic old quarter of the city in a quiet street lined with palm trees. Surrounding the house were 12-feet-high stone walls covered with pink bougainvillea. Set in the wall facing the street was a 10-feet-wide solid metal gate that blocked the driveway. I leaned out of the car window and pressed the intercom button on a post set a few feet in front of the gate. Someone answered and I gave my name and the gate slowly began to open. I drove through as soon as the gap was wide enough, and the gate immediately reversed its motion and started to shut behind me. I waited until it had before I proceeded to the house – all too often property defences were breached due to the slowness of closing gates.

The house was a beautifully restored 19th century Spanish Colonial villa. It was painted white with terracotta roof tiles and had an abundance of balconies festooning its upper storey. Over each ground-floor window was an elegant, yet practical, wrought-iron grill, whilst the front door was made of Columbian mahogany reinforced by metal bands. Although the house was by no means a fortress, it was certainly more secure than my home in Hereford. Even so, I couldn’t help thinking that you can have as much security as you like, but it’s worthless if the kidnappers can simply spin the victim a yarn and walk off with them.

The door opened and a man in his early fifties came to meet me. ‘Good evening Mr Wick, my name is Miguel Torres. I’m Richard’s brother-in-law. His wife, Maria, is my wife’s sister. Please come in.’

Having confirmed that no further communication had been received from the kidnappers, he led me down a tiled passageway into a large room at the back of the house overlooking the garden. It was clearly Richard’s study: there was large wooden desk with a Compaq computer and telephone on it and a swivel chair behind it. Filing cabinets and bookshelves lined the walls and I was delighted to see a fax machine as well. There were also several comfortable armchairs grouped around a rectangular coffee table.

Miguel invited me to sit in one of the chairs and left the room to arrange refreshments. Before he returned a younger man walked in and held out his hand – ‘John, Richard McCormack, thank you for getting here so quickly.’

Over the next few hours, fuelled by coffee, sandwiches and fruit, I built-up a picture of the family, their financial situation, Juliana’s personality, and the events surrounding the kidnapping.

Richard was in his mid-forties and had joined the Royal Marines, but a serious accident during a training exercise had forced him to seek an alternative career. He’d then joined the merchant navy and worked on freight ships. He’d met Maria during a stopover at Cartagena, which had been a major port since the days of the Spanish conquistadors in the early 16th century. One thing had led to another and he’d ended up marrying her and joined the freight-forwarding and import-export business owned by her father. Upon his father-in-law’s death, he’d taken over running the company. He and Maria owned 60 percent whist her sister, Julia, owned the remaining 40 percent.

Miguel was a commercial lawyer who acted for foreign companies that were looking to trade and invest in Columbia. He spoke both English and French fluently, albeit with a heavy Columbian accent. He and Julia had two sons who were at university in the USA.

The family firm was doing reasonably well and the McCormack family was wealthy when compared with the general population, but not excessively so. Although they employed a cook, housekeeper and gardener, the house was mortgaged and there was a business loan in place with the bank to ease cash flow as customers could be very slow in paying.

‘We certainly couldn’t raise US$4 million even knowing that we’d get most of it back from the insurers,’ Richard said. ‘But then I don’t expect we’ll have to pay that much – it’s just an opening salvo I assume?’

I was quick to reassure him. ‘The company has done a number of K&R cases, and we’ve never ended up paying more than about 10 to 15 percent of the original demand, particularly in Columbia. It’s a business here and the kidnappers want a quick turnover as it’s expensive for them to hold hostages and pay all the various people in the chain. Also, the longer it drags on, the more likely the security services will become involved.’

We then discussed Juliana, who was an only child. Richard had several photos of her in his office: she was about five and a half feet tall with long brown hair and a beaming smile. She was in her final year at school and was hoping to study fashion design in New York. She had no medical conditions, unlike her mother, who had Type 1 diabetes, which is probably why she’d believed the kidnappers’ emissary when he’d said Maria was in hospital. She loved all water sports and spent hours at the beach with her friends, swimming and water-skiing and sailing in the Caribbean Sea.

I asked the difficult question. ‘How do you think she’ll cope with her capture?’