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January 14 2001 FOCUS

A rebel spy on the run (part 3)

As the rejection letters piled up, the idea of publishing a book again
reared its head. In May at the Sydney offices of Transworld Publishers I
outlined my book to Shona Martyn, a publishing executive, disguising names
and operational detail.

She was initially sceptical but asked me to write a synopsis. I was
reluctant. If it fell into the wrong hands, I'd be vulnerable to legal
action. Martyn pointed to her steel filing cabinet and said: "It'll be

locked up in there."

Back in my apartment near Bondi beach, I typed an anodyne outline and
dropped it into Transworld's office.

With no job prospects in sight, I returned to England to work for Stewart.

It amounted to little more than a school-leaver's job. I looked for
something better but my CV problem reared its head. I appealed to MI6,
which replied: "The service has discharged all its obligations under the
Madrid agreement by finding your current employment and we are therefore
not minded to help you further."

Angered by this arrogance, I fired off an e-mail to Shona Martyn in Sydney
in early September, asking if she was interested in the book project. A few
days later my home near Milton Keynes was ransacked. The identity of the
culprits was not hard to guess as the only item of value taken was the
laptop containing the draft of my book.

The phoney war was ending. Clearly, MI6 had intercepted my e-mail. It
wasn't difficult for the service to track down Martyn, too. On October 24,
unknown to me, an Australian federal police agent approached Transworld,
asking to speak to her.

A few days later, I popped home from work at lunchtime. As I was putting
the kettle on, there was a knock on the door. It was a young constable who
had investigated the burglary. With him was a plain-clothes inspector.

The PC told me: "There have been some new developments about your burglary,
and we want to ask you a few more questions about it." I let them in.

"Would you mind taking a seat?" the inspector said in a tone that gave me
no option. He stood over me menacingly and announced: "You are under arrest
for breaking section 1 of the 1989 Official Secrets Act." He grabbed one
wrist, the PC the other, and I was in handcuffs.

More cars pulled up on the gravel drive and my flat was filled with
plain-clothes officers. Two more stood over me. I caught glimpses of gun
holsters under their jackets.

A little moustached Welshman opened up: "Okay, Tomlinson, where's the
f****** gun?"

"What gun?"

"The gun. Don't f*** us around. Where's your gun?"

"I haven't got a gun, never have had one, and I'm never likely to want one."

"We have information that you brought back a gun from your time in Bosnia."

"Ah, now I understand!" I laughed. "That gun's rusting at the bottom of the
Adriatic."

I had dumped the gun in the sea because I didn't want it. MI6 must have
told the police that I had kept it, perhaps to persuade them to make the
arrest as heavy-handed as possible.

For the next three hours, forced by the rigid handcuffs to hunch with my
wrists by my chin and elbows in my lap like a stuffed chicken, I watched
latex-gloved officers dismantle my flat.

A bald-headed officer, searching my motorcycle jacket, suddenly piped up:

"Got something, here, sir." Prodding at the lining, Baldy pulled out a
small package wrapped in masking tape. It was my false passport, driving
licence and credit card.

I spent that night at Charing Cross police station. The next morning, two
police officers introduced themselves as Detective Inspectors Ratcliffe and
Durn of the Special Branch. They grilled me and it emerged that they had
flown to Sydney to interview Shona Martyn. Just before 6pm, they charged me
with breaking section 1 of the 1989 OSA.

As the Group 4 prison van drove south over Vauxhall bridge, I peered at MI6
headquarters. I had gone from being an intelligence officer entrusted with
secrets denied to all but the highest officials to becoming a scruffy
prisoner heading for Brixton prison.

My crime was to have written the bland book synposis. In camera at the Old
Bailey, after I had pleaded guilty, a former senior MI6 officer bleated
that it had "endangered the lives of officers". I was jailed for one year.

Less than five months later, on May 1, 1998, I left Belmarsh prison in
southeast London. I was free on licence, but MI6 had not finished with me.

It was about to hound me around the world at huge expense to British
taxpayers.

I went home to Kennington (near MI6 headquarters) for a decent shower
before an appointment at Scotland Yard, where Ratcliffe was waiting.

"Have you bought your passports?" he asked. It was a condition of my
probation that I surrender them.

"Sorry, I forgot," I lied.
The following morning, a green Vauxhall Astra with two male occupants was
in a "trigger" position that enabled them to watch both my front door and
side entrance. Walking towards Kennington police station, I picked up a
possible watcher, a young, slightly plump female.

Ratcliffe was waiting. I slapped my British passport on the desk.
"And have you posted your New Zealand passport to the high commission?"

"Oh yes."

"When and where?"

"In the post box by the Oval Tube station."

Ratcliffe knew I was lying but could not admit that I had been under
surveillance.

That afternoon, I confirmed repeat sightings on three watchers, and picked
up a possible fourth. Next day, rollerblading in Kensington Gardens and
Hyde Park, I found that a Metropolitan police helicopter was contantly
droning 1,000ft above me. Surely they wouldn't go to such expense to follow
me?

There was only one way to find out. I sped down to Trafalgar Square. The
helicopter was soon overhead again. When I returned to Hyde Park, the
helicopter droned over once more. Convinced not to play around any further,
I posted off my NZ passport.

There was no more obvious physical surveillance, but MI6 was tapping my
phones. Whenever I heard a good joke down at the pub, I rang my home
answerphone and repeated it to liven up the day of the transcribers at
Vauxhall Cross. I confirmed that my mail was under surveillance by posting
letters to myself with anti-tamper tricks.