Inside Wombles' HQ with Target H

She is known to the Metropolitan Police as Target H. To her anarchist friends around the country's squats she is known as Sky. Her true identity is unclear but this woman, who is in her late twenties and has a Continental accent, is back in London and ready to riot again.

The Met were surprised at our revelation today. They had been working on the assumption that Target H was a man.

But we were there as Sky spent yesterday and last night at a squat near Liverpool Street station. Posing as students from Edinburgh and sympathetic to the May Day cause, we were looking for an insight into who it is that has brought such notoriety to May Day in recent years.

The squat where Sky and many others spent the last hours before today's protest was a disused Italian cafÈ called Speedy's. We were directed there after attending a weekend meeting hosted by Alessio Lunghi, described as the leader of the Wombles anarchist group.

At Conway Hall in Holborn, Lunghi, 24, an Italian-born British anarchist, held a workshop attended by sympathisers from all over North America and Europe. He and his associates lectured those present on how to construct body armour to wear under the Wombles' trademark white boiler suits.

The preferred method is to tear down an estate agent's sign and fold the cardboard before tucking it under the clothes. The protection is completed with a builder's or bicycle helmet.

This meeting finished with the handing out of mobile telephone numbers. It was through calling one of these that we were directed to the squat in Great Eastern Street. We turned up two days ago and spent two nights there.

The anarchists had only broken into the cafÈ on Friday night but already had made the place their own. Sprayed political slogans - numerous encircled capital As, denoting anarchy, many goading the "Pigs", as the police are routinely described - and newspaper cuttings about May Day, were plastered on the walls. As many as 50 people were there at any time. They came from Spain, Denmark, Canada, Ireland, Italy.

By the front door a sign cautioned: "Do not open the doors to the police." Beneath this stood a pile of copies of an expensivelyproduced spoof newspaper, the Hate Mail, glorifying anarchists and pillorying the police and media.

Lunghi himself stayed at the cafÈ on Monday night. He seemed increasingly fraught and finally left yesterday morning, saying he was certain the police would launch a raid. The mood became even jumpier when a young woman with a Home Counties accent ran in saying: "There are masses of police at Liverpool Street - they're coming for us."

Panic ensued. People fled clutching whatever they could carry. Only slowly did it become clear that this was a false alarm. One Italian summed up the mood: "It's a siege mentality. They try to close in on us and freak us out. It's working. There's a lot of tension between people."

But gradually confidence returned. There was a palpable sense of excitement at the prospect of causing mayhem in London once again. In their wilder moments they lost their sense of reality.

"You never know, there may be a revolution tomorrow," one man suggested. The cafÈ's remaining fittings were put to good use. In the kitchen, vegetarian stews were produced in two huge pots. Guests ate this at the original formica tables, sitting beneath menu boards still offering dishes such as Parma ham.

The kitchen was run by a woman who spoke with a Spanish or Italian accent. She had pale skin and black hair, and dressed all in black. One Irishman asked where she was from. "The Universe", she replied.

Last night, one woman came in clutching the Evening Standard, in which five pictures of rioters wanted by police from last year's demonstration were published.

"It's you!" she said, passing the page to Sky. Sky glanced at the picture then hurled the paper down in fury, cursing and storming upstairs.

Later the tins of superstrength lager, cheap red wine, cannabis joints and bongs were produced. Some people went to bed early, at midnight, in sleeping bags on the bare wooden floorboards, to save their strength for today. Others stayed up chatting excitedly into the early hours.

As dawn broke we slipped out. Once we were safely away from the squat, we notified the police that Target H had been staying there. It may only be when she finally appears in court that we learn who she really is.