Hitherto – and probably still so – the SAS were often deployed as the operational wing of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) on overseas operations, but rarely on home soil on behalf of the Secret Service (MI5). Though Margaret Thatcher quite publicly did so as early as 1980 during the Iranian Embassy siege in London. That got me thinking again…

What if an MI5 Intelligence Officer was permanently stationed with an SAS team as its strategic lead, while the head of the military unit would have authority and free reign on the ground?

Intelligence Officer Bertram Hastings and Captain Vernon Jackson were born. Thatcher herself requested Jackson as she had experience of his no-nonsense approach. An experienced SAS trooper but a maverick. He gets the job done but often in unconventional ways. He is loved and hated by his senior officers.

Hastings also an excentric, but efficient at what he does: an excellent spy and handler of agents. He was not recruited by the usual ‘tap on the shoulder’ at university, in fact, he didn’t attend higher education which often causes conflict with his own superiors.

Jackson recruits his trusted sergeant, Dave, ‘Geordie’ Crompton, a veteran SAS Tropper and explosives expert. A deep-thinker and excellent tactician. Together with Trooper Mark ‘Tone Deaf’ Harris who plays the guitar badly, but is a maestro with a sniper rifle, bar none. He is also the best surveillance driver and bike rider Jackson has ever seen. And Trooper Ian ‘Tickets Please’ King an ex-paratrooper and former Army heavyweight boxer, who started off as a British Transport Policeman and can’t shake off his nickname from that time.

Red Troop is born.

They are sent to Northern Ireland and secretly stationed within Lisburn Barracks near Belfast, the headquarters of the Army in the province. Only the Commander Land Forces – Northern Ireland, and the General Officer Commanding (who is in command of all armed forces in Northern Ireland) know of Red Troop’s existence.

Their brief: take the fight to the terrorists irrespective of which side of the sectarian divide they are on; by all means necessary.

***

In WITH PREJUDICE Jackson is tasked to identify and stop a Provisional IRA hardliner, Brendan Lynch, who is hell-bent on igniting a war to destroy all Loyalist Terrorists, and drive all Protestants out of Ulster.

A series of attacks take place, each more audacious than the last, with the final target so horrific, Lynch does not inform the IRA for fear that they would try to stop him.
Hastings’s ace-in-pack is a top-level informer deep inside the Provisional IRA. Lynch discovers this and takes desperate measures to ‘out the tout’.
It becomes a race-against-time to stop Lynch and protect the informant.

***

In SHOOT TO KILL the Provisional IRA suffer severe financial setback at the hands of Red Troop, following a tip-off from America.

Meanwhile, women are being snatched off the streets of Dublin and dumped, bound and gagged, outside a Belfast police station. They are escapees from justice who were used by the IRA as ‘honeytraps’ to kill soldiers and policemen.

Loyalist UFF commander Billy Campbell is behind the extra-judicial extraditions, driven by a personal hatred of the honeytrap tactic. He is also hell-bent on escalating the sectarian war to unseen levels. The IRA are hell-bent on killing him.

Red Troop must stop this by getting to Campbell, but he is always one step ahead as he receives help from within the RUC.

Then a ghost from Jackson’s past threatens to disband Red Troop if they fail in their assignment.

In a race-against-time to stop PIRA and the UFF from escalating the conflict, Jackson and Hastings have to consider doing the unthinkable…

But will their audacious plan work? And at what price?

Roger A. Price.