What do you remember most about the London 2012 Olympics? Is it that the British could still organise an international event involving 204 countries from Algeria to Zimbabwe, competing in 39 disciplines as diverse as Greco-Roman wrestling to archery? Or was it that the Games were viewed by an astonishing 3.64 billion people who watched in awe and admiration at Britain’s ability to stage the greatest show on earth.
Or perhaps you recall the Queen being “pushed out of a helicopter” by James Bond and landing safely in the royal box well in time to open the Games. Or Mo Farah winning the 5,000 metres gold, adding to his 10,000 metres triumph earlier in the week. Or Usain Bolt crossing the finishing line to win the 100 metres gold medal in a new Olympic record of 9.63 seconds (breaking the 20mph speed limit).
Less likely, perhaps, you felt a sense of relief when the Olympics formally closed on August 12, with no major incidents or security breaches that would have made the Games memorable, for all the wrong reasons. We all took it for granted that the Games were safe and secure.
This was not by chance but rather the result of a huge and complex security operation. Behind the polished performance that was celebrated around the world, dozens of major and minor incidents threatened to derail the Games on a daily – or even hourly – basis. For example, there were the minor incidents that the press chose to ignore, or relegate to below the fold on page seven.
Embarrassingly, when the North Korean women’s football team played Colombia at Hampden Park in Glasgow, the screen came up displaying the South Korean flag and played the South Korean national anthem. The North Koreans were understandably completely furious – it nearly turned into an unpleasant diplomatic incident – but Seb Coe issued a personal apology on behalf of the Olympic Committee and saved the day. Fortunately North Korea won the match 2-0 and all was forgotten. But some threats went way beyond a minor diplomatic incident.
While writing the eight novels in my William Warwick series, I have been advised by two former Metropolitan Police officers who act as my researchers – Chief Superintendent John Sutherland, who was head of the murder squad, and Detective Sergeant Michelle Roycroft, who worked in the arts and antiques department.
They both check and double check the facts, and don’t allow me much latitude whenever my imagination runs wild. They have also been responsible for supplying an expert in particular fields, depending on what subject I selected for the next book, be it murder, drug trafficking, art fraud, royal protection or an attempt to steal the crown jewels (Traitors Gate).
However, when I decided that End Game, the final book in the William Warwick series, would be set against the backdrop of the London 2012 Olympics, I already thought I knew who my expert would be. I turned to my old friend and colleague in the House of Lords, Sebastian Coe, to advise me.
The following week I travelled to Monaco to visit him at his office (he is president of World Athletics), in the hope he would regale me with stories of Olympic near-misses.
To be fair, it was Seb who told me about the North Korean incident, and the role he had played in mollifying the injured party. But he also suggested that I should contact Commander Bob Broadhurst OBE QPM (Ret) who was in charge of security for the London Games – so Seb assured me he knew where all the bodies were buried
John Sutherland contacted Commander Broadhurst in the hope he might supply me with some inside information no one knew about and to my surprise and delight he came up with 13 incidents. What the commander proceeded to reveal took me by surprise.
These were well-kept secrets that the public, and even Seb Coe, were completely unaware of. Secrets that, once revealed, would totally alter how you recall those two glorious weeks, as there were moments when we were literally seconds away from international humiliation. On the night of the opening ceremony, as the world watched the Queen and the lighting of the Olympic flame, a potential disaster was building on the streets of London. Hundreds of cyclists were gathering to mount a legal protest.
The opening ceremony that was so widely praised – and rightly so – was within minutes of being cancelled. And during the next four weeks, there were multiple incidents, two in particular, that could have ensured the London Games ended not in triumph, but in ignominy.
The cyclists’ plan, well thought out and well rehearsed, was to make sure the Queen was held up for long enough to ruin the opening ceremony. Had they succeeded the press would have had a field day. Imagine for a moment: the Queen jumps out of a plane with James Bond and is never seen again. You can write your own headlines.
And if that wasn’t enough, on the same night Commander Bob Broadhurst had to face the threat of a cyber-attack which would have put the stadium lights out for four hours, with a billion and a half television viewers around the world watching a blank screen while a 100,000 spectators in the stadium would have been left in total darkness, panicking in 51 different languages.
Once again imagine the headlines in the national papers the next morning. As Bob reminded me, a successful security operation has no headlines and no heroes, but it’s remarkable how close we came.
Armed with all this inside information, I sat down to write the final book in the William Warwick series, putting Commander William Warwick in charge of security for the London Games, and all 13 incidents revealed by Commander Broadhurst (and
also written about in his excellent book Panic Slowly, which is yet to be published) come to life in End Game.
However, I added another nine of my own – so it’s up to the reader to decide which 13 actually happened and which nine are nothing more than a figment of my imagination. I’ve asked a few early readers to try and guess – and so far no one has scored 22 out of 22, including Seb Coe (19)!
End Game is the last in the William Warwick series – but as he bows out, William faces his biggest challenge ever. As do readers… if even Seb Coe can’t work out which of the incidents are true and which are false, I doubt if anyone will. But I hope people will have a lot of fun speculating which nearly derailed the greatest show on earth… you can decide.
- End Game by Jeffrey Archer (HarperCollins, £22) is published today. Buy it here