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in secret radio communication, watching every move the drug barons made, ready to warn the search teams if they looked in danger of returning suddenly to the room, or even if they just stood up and walked out for a piss.
    The search squad hit the room running, knowing it was a race against time to get in and get away. First in was the Polaroid Man. It was his job to move round the room taking instant stills of everything that was likely to be rummaged. Vital because we had to make sure that every single item was replaced exactly as the suspects had left it, not even a millimeter out. This was the sort of detail that made SO10 the best in the world at this kind of thing. After the Polaroid Man had taken his snaps, the gloved-up search teams swung into action. Drawers, cupboards, desks, cases, clothing – we searched every inch. Then we found the shipping charts. Great evidence which told us where the Atlantic exchange would take place; plane tickets told us where they had been flying to and from, hoping it would point to the source nation for the cannabis. We found fantastic first-class evidence which reinforced our belief that we were dealing with the foremost cannabis gang in the world.
    With the maritime charts, we were now able to play our ace card – the trip out to Poseidon. The Royal Navy were put on standby, with ministerial consent, to shadow the entire operation and seize the Poseidon. Every scrap of evidence we found was photographedon conventional film for the evidence file. Then we put everything back where it was when we started, using the Polaroid shots to ensure 100 per cent accuracy. ‘Move that curtain to the left a bit, the suitcase to the right a bit. Yes, that’s it, spot on.’ All the time, we had our covert earpieces tuned in to the guys downstairs in the restaurant watching the suspects. At one point, Feviet got up from the table to go to the bog. Fucking panic stations upstairs. Shit, was he coming up to the room? Heart-stopping stuff. No, just a piss.
    Just in case of a potential disaster, we also had undercover guys in hotel livery ready to delay the lifts with baggage trolleys to give us space to get out. Seconds could be vital. But no problems, thank God. Our teams were in and out like ghosts without Feviet and Co ever knowing we’d been there.
    It was nearing D-Day for Poseidon and our little fishing trawler. Mick, and another SO10 stalwart, Paul, had been accepted as skipper and crewman for the harrowing trip into the wild Atlantic. A couple of equally courageous Customs investigators had also managed to get aboard as decides. The rest of the crew were UK drug-dealers off on a shopping trip to a floating cannabis supermarket.
    The trawler left a South Coast port on a cold and blustery day in early November 1993 for its rendezvous with Poseidon, which was sitting in a huge Atlantic swell off Portugal. She had been bought by the drugs cartel specifically for the purpose of large-scale drug-trafficking , registered under a flag of convenience in the British Virgin Islands, and fitted out with no expense having been spared on equipment and comfort. A considerable upgrade in some respects on her previous life as a somewhat battered remnant ofthe German Navy.
    By the time our boat had battled its way out to the mother ship, on precise compass bearings given by the master of the Poseidon, gales had churned the sea into a terrifying turbulence that was going to make the transfer of the cannabis bales from one ship to another – known as coopering – a hazardous and frightening job. The game plan had been to transfer the entire cargo, packed into dozens of multi-coloured, polythene-wrapped bales, on to the trawler and sail straight back to Littlehampton. But because the sea was now so rough, the hired crane on the Poseidon had broken and the crews were left with no alternative but to haul the bales manually from one ship to the other. They started by using a rigid inflatable boat called a rib,