Crossfire ns-10 Read online

  Paul's head appeared through the hatch. He was straight back on the Minimi and resumed firing, directly into the cab. The body behind the wheel jerked and danced as the rounds thumped home.

  Rhett was up on his feet and running. He was joined by two of the platoon. They stood and emptied their magazines into the cab until he finally raised his arm. 'Stop! Stop! Check firing!'

  He took the last couple of steps, jumped up on the bar armour and peered through the smashed glass. 'We can't make the cunt any more dead.'

  Pete appeared, camera up, and filmed the three Kingsmen at the driver's door.

  I let go of Dom and helped him to his feet.

  Rhett wrenched the door open. The body rolled out on to the sand-covered tarmac. The only sound was the steady rumble of the Warriors' engines, and the hiss of steam.

  Rhett beckoned us forward. He pointed to a car battery in the footwell. The negative terminal was already connected to one of the two-core cables running out of the passenger door and under the green tarpaulin at the back. The second strand lay loose, ready to be touched to the positive.

  'The battery first, Peter. Then whatever the Kingsmen do next.' Dom glanced down at what was left of the body. 'No, wait – see the trackmarks?' He pointed at the body's bloodsoaked arms. 'I need a close-up.'

  I gripped the back of Pete's body armour to steady him. Left to his own devices, he'd have climbed into the cab to get a better picture and ended up kicking the loose wire on to the battery terminal.

  He got the shots Dom had asked for, then zoomed in on a corporal as he ripped the wire from the battery.

  Dom called us to the rear of the Hilux as a couple of Kingsmen lifted the green tarpaulin carefully from the flatbed to expose what looked like a pile of hardened mashed potato.

  I tapped Pete's arm. 'Plastic explosive.' It was moulded over a cluster of six mortar bombs that had been gaffer-taped together. 'Eighty-one millimetre. Mint condition. See that? Even the brass around the percussion cap is still shiny. Look at the base of the rounds, mate. Can you get the stamps?'

  Pete zoomed in. '"Lot 16 2006". They Brit or Yank?'

  'Neither.'

  The fact that it was written in English didn't mean they'd been factory-made in an English-speaking country, or that Islamic fundamentalists were knocking up 81mm mortar rounds in a shed behind Bolton railway station. All exported munitions carry English ID. It's the language of war and Iranian mortars. Rhett eased the detonator from the pile of mash and looked at the body on the ground. 'Fucking useless twat, doped to the eyeballs – couldn't even kill himself properly, could he?'

  Dom took the two steps to me and kept his voice low so the Kingsmen couldn't hear. 'You see what I mean, Nick? These mortar rounds are coming into the country in the same shipments as the heroin. This guy's not a militant, he's a victim, just like these soldiers. They're all just pawns, Nick.' He pointed at the trackmarks, trembling with anger. 'It's not just happening here.'

  He stared into the distance and his voice cracked. I thought he might be about to cry. 'Dublin. London. They're all lining their pockets. We have to do something about it. We can't just stand by and do nothing.'

  7

  Wednesday, 28 February 2043 hrs Basra Airport 'Say what you like about Saddam Hussein,' the Media Ops guy said, 'but he didn't mess around when it came to ordering up the gold leaf and sculpted marble.'

  We were sitting in a Portakabin at the COB (Contingency Operating Base), getting increasingly bored by the Royal Artillery captain's tour-guide spiel. We weren't the new kids on the block. All we'd needed was a brief on the situation, a timetable for the embed, and a helicopter ride out to where the action was. Personally, I wasn't that interested in hearing about the fifty-six windows on the front facade, the eighteen giant reception rooms, twelve balconies, five grand staircases and eight spacious toilets with gold taps Saddam had knocked up on a commandeered public park in 1990 while his subjects scratched a squalid living around him.

  Nor was Pete, by the look of him. He was trying hard not to yawn.

  'And that's just one of fifteen buildings in the same complex,' the captain went on. 'Little did he know his palace would become a fortified British camp. The grounds are now home to 2 Rifles.'

  I knew the second battalion of the British Army's new rifle regiment had been formed a week or two earlier from the Light Infantry, Green Jackets and Gloucesters, but only because the Scousers had been moaning about it. This amalgamation business was all the rage. The Duke of Lancs had been the King's Regiment until five minutes ago.

  The captain shrugged. 'Or maybe he did. In the end, he never came here, not even for the weekend.' He laughed at his own joke.

  I felt sorry for the fucker. He would probably have much preferred to be out there doing some proper soldiering instead of fronting the army's PR machine. That said, it was my job to protect Dom and Pete, and not just from bombs and ricochets. I put up my hand. 'Is there really a Pizza Hut here? If so, can we order?'

  When we'd landed from Jordan on the only civilian flight serving the city, we'd seen the rows of tents and vehicles stretching away to the horizon. To most soldiers out there, 'COB' was just another way of saying 'in the rear with the gear'. Word had it they even had two Indian guys running round on mopeds delivering American Hots with extra pepperoni.

  The captain looked at his watch. 'No time, I'm afraid. Your carriage awaits.'

  Even at night, which was the only time it wasn't too dangerous to fly into the compound, the pilot had to keep the rear tailgate down so the gunner had a good arc of fire. It gave us a spectacular view of the Shatt-Al-Arab waterway, glinting in the moonlight as it snaked through a series of mansions. They were flanked by palm trees and what had probably once been exotic gardens. Now they were just tank parks for 2 Rifles' armour, and as the Merlin dropped closer to the ground it looked as if every square metre had been rotavated by IDF (indirect fire).

  The heli touched down just long enough for the loadmaster to kick us out and then it was airborne again. As briefed, we ran towards the torchlight that flickered on the edge of the pad, sweating in our Osprey body armour and helmets. Things were going to be different in the city. Our baby armour would have been as much protection here as an extra pullover.

  A total blackout was in force. Fuck knows who held the torch, but he came from Essex. 'You can expect at least three or four mortar or rocket attacks a day while you're here.'

  We followed him past wall upon wall of HESCOs, massive defences made from circular bins of galvanized steel mesh and polypropylene, filled with whatever was to hand. 'Sand's the material of choice around here,' our guy quipped, loving the chance to showboat a little. 'But it stops shrapnel all the same.'

  We soon reached a building. Moonlight shone on huge marble pillars supporting a stone portico.

  'Fuck me.' Pete craned his neck. 'That's Tallulah straight off to B amp;Q when I send her the pics.'

  We went through a pair of five-metre-tall doors, and into a marble-floored hall. The guy with the torch had to be the army's oldest corporal.

  Pete surveyed the empty room. 'Couldn't he afford any furniture, then?'

  'Looters had it away before the Royal Marines arrived during the war.' The corporal nodded at a door to the left. 'Just a few gold taps left in the bogs. Fancy a brew?'

  There was a loud thud out in the compound, then another.

  'Katyushas.' The corporal poured hot water into white styrofoam cups. 'Hundred-and-seven-millimetre. All brand-new stock. Everyone knows it can't be local. No heavy-calibre munitions have been made in Iraq since 2003.'

  Pete asked the obvious question: 'So where is it being made, then?'

  He handed Pete a steaming cup. 'Iran, mate. The border's just ten K away.'

  8

  Thursday, 1 March 1829 hrs Basra Palace 'I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about him.' Pete sipped his brew, trying not to burn his lips and fingers.

  We were sitting at the back of one of Saddam's old state rooms as we l
istened to the CSM's confirmatory orders. Dom had disappeared to a different part of the palace complex to have another go at the FCO. I'd offered to escort him, but he insisted he was fine.

  'I mean, there's more chance of being struck by lightning than getting an interview with the spooks and the Foreign Office lot. Drac knows that, but he's gone back for more. I don't like the way they treat him. Particularly since he comes straight back and takes it out on me.'

  I tried to make light of it. 'Maybe that's what pisses him off. Somebody actually refusing to be interviewed by Platinum Bollocks.'

  Pete leant over to talk quietly in my ear. The CSM didn't take kindly to people chatting in his Orders, even if they weren't on his payroll. 'He's been really off, this last three or four weeks.'

  'You want me to have a word? It's my job – I'm supposed to look after you. Whatever's bugging him could affect his safety.'

  He thought about it for a second. 'Nah, I've been trying to work out what goes on in that head of his for years.' He shrugged. 'I just have a laugh with the bit of Dom I know.'

  I looked around me. We were sitting just a few feet from the famous toilet that every newspaper in the world seemed to have printed a picture of. Sculptures of men and women with stern faces and square jaws were carved into the marble walls, pointing heroically skyward. They were a bit less heroic now they had dark glasses, moustaches and teeth, courtesy of a string of bored squaddies with marker pens.

  The marble floors were cracked and scraped after years of abuse from boots, chairs and desks. Gaffer-taped cables snaked underfoot and up the walls. The rooms were subdivided into offices and briefing areas by sheets of 3x3-metre plywood. The partition doors, also made of plywood, were pulled shut by a two-litre water-bottle suspended on a length of paracord running through a hole in the frame.

  Phones rang incessantly. Kettles boiled 24/7 alongside ration packs of brew kit.

  'Any questions?' The CSM's voice boomed round the room. He had some sort of northern accent, but at least it wasn't Scouse. Even though he spoke at a million miles an hour, I could understand him. He may have been plain Dave to his wife and other civvies, but he was 'sir' to anyone in uniform below the rank of major, and he had everyone's complete attention. It wasn't just because the army insisted on it: piled on the floor to my left were the remains of some mortar rounds and rockets that had thumped into the compound over the months of their tour – we were in serious country.

  The twenty or so team commanders for tonight's strike operation, all NCOs, had had their formal orders earlier in the day, followed by full tabletop rehearsals. Dom had been present for those. Dave was now doing the final run-through.

  'No? Good. OK, the house we're going to hit…' He glanced at the huge wall map of the city behind him. Satellite photos and int briefs lined its sides. 'The spooks over in the west wing have strong reason to believe it's part of the supply chain between Iran and local insurgents. Weapons, ordnance, explosives – they think we'll find the lot. No need to remind you, this affects us all. We've lost enough good people.'

  He tapped the satellite photography with his steel pointer. 'Take a lot of care. Look again at the junctions either side, look at the buildings all around. Before we move out, make sure your people are aware of where they need to be, what they need to do, where everyone else is and what they're doing. There will be no fuck-ups.'

  B Company's target, in the Gazaya district of the city, the main stronghold of Muqtada Al- Sadr's Mahdi Army, was a small two-storey building surrounded by a concrete-block wall with a steel door on to the street.

  The strike was phase two of the operation to kill and disperse the insurgents in the Brits' area of operations. They had also been gathering in Gazaya over the past two weeks, and their numbers would have kicked up a notch if any had managed to escape the Kingsmen's attacks out in the sandpit.

  It was obvious from the photos there hadn't been any town planners around when Gazaya went up. Houses and apartment blocks up to four storeys high seemed to have been piled on top of each other with a warren of alleyways and wasteground between them.

  Dave gobbed away about the outlying areas, the other houses that were going to be hit by the other rifle companies, where they'd had contacts in the past, where their guys had been shot. The team commanders nodded; so did the two female RMPs (Royal Miltary Police) and a medic. None of them could have been over twenty-five. Some things don't change. I'd been a corporal in this very battalion when I was nineteen.

  By comparison Dave was an old man. He must have been about forty; either he was using hair dye, or he was so laid-back he was almost horizontal. There wasn't a grey hair in sight, and his face was almost completely unlined, except for a thin scar that ran from the edge of his top lip up the side of his cheek.

  'Number one on the door is Rifleman Duggan.' He turned to his lads and stabbed a finger at them, more out of pride than aggression. He was the CSM, this was his rifle company, and the respect between them was so solid you could reach out and touch it. 'You lot make sure you big him up before tonight. It's a big deal for him. It's a big deal for anyone.' He paused to make sure it sank in. 'He leads us in and we take on whoever's there. We lift the targets, then the film crew come in to do their thing and make you all famous.'

  A ripple of laughter spread round the room. They knew a couple of the young lads would be taking up fire positions a little more dramatically than usual if Pete and his camera were nearby.

  'And then we stay and fight. But remember, this is a hard-arsed area. They like to keep all their mortars and explosives to themselves. We've never left there without a contact.'

  There was a loud thud out in the compound. We jerked down to tighten our body armour and get our helmets from under our seats. Nobody went anywhere without them.

  Then, maybe fifty metres away, a second rocket exploded. We were being IDFd by 107mm Katyushas.

  'Remember.' Dave scanned the room as the third and fourth rockets slammed into the compound. 'The house is probably holding the guys who killed the Marines last Remembrance Day. That's why the media are coming with B Company. We're going to show some payback.'

  He jerked a thumb at the vehicle-group commander, a Fijian corporal with a head the size of a watermelon and hands that made his notebook look like a postage stamp. 'If they start firing, you hit them with everything you've got, you understand me? I want all our lads out of there alive – and that's an order.'

  This was a really tight company. You could feel it. Even if I'd told them I was from the Green Jackets and later the Regiment it wouldn't have counted for anything. They were fighting a war together and didn't give a shit about anyone else.

  Dave was still going nineteen to the dozen; maybe he had his eye on another brew. 'Once we're in there, we're staying. We'll wait for the fuckers to try it on and see what happens. Corporal Barney,' he pointed to the sniper commander, who looked up from his notes, 'you tell your lot to get a few drops of that Optrex stuff down their eyes. I don't want them missing anyone coming our way.

  'If it kicks off, don't worry, I've got more brass in my wagon to resupply your lot than they had at the Alamo. We might need it. C Company were in there last week. Five fucking hours that contact lasted.'

  His jaw tightened as there was another explosion in the compound. 'Remember the two lads killed last week, and the poor fucker sent back to the UK with half his guts hanging out after one of those fucking things landed on him. Just make sure you look after your people and keep them alive, OK?'

  There was a murmur as everyone stood. We headed for the brew area. Nobody was going anywhere until the attack had stopped and the munitions guys had got out there to clear the compound.

  9

  Pete stood up with his empty cup still in his hand and his helmet at a jaunty angle. He didn't wear one of the black Wehrmacht-style helmets like the rest of the media. He said the lip at the front got in the way when he filmed. Instead, he'd got hold of an old British steel helmet on eBay, and ground down the f
ront of the rim.

  He wore it tipped back and to the left, with a square of shammy leather underneath so it stayed at the same angle and didn't slide about on his bald head. With the corners of the shammy hanging down over his ears, all he needed was a Capstan Full Strength glued to his bottom lip and he'd have been a ringer for old Tommy Atkins in the trenches.

  I tapped his arm. 'Finish your emails, Bermondsey Boy, I'll see to these.'

  'Thanks.' He passed his cup. 'That's if the sat phone ain't shot to bits.'

  Pete went to the other side of the room, where his iBook was rigged up to a BGAN wire running out through the window. The BGAN itself was sitting on top of one of the HESCOs outside.

  Yet another rocket landed with a dull crump. It was the fourth attack we'd had that day. The last one had been mortars and had taken out two of the quartermaster's steel freight containers. No one was killed or injured, so I could just imagine the QM rubbing his hands as he prepared to compile a list of bomb-damaged goods long enough to fill two ships, let alone two containers.

  When I got back to Pete with his Shirley Temple, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, back against the wall, his iBook on his lap. The memory stick he normally wore round his neck was jutting out of the USB port.

  He wore a big smile under the helmet.

  'Family stuff?' I laughed. 'So that's what you keep on those things. I thought you boys had 'em as some sort of good-luck charm. Fucking Dom walks round like he's immune to everything except green kryptonite.'

  'Don't I know it, mate. It's a worry. Here you are…' He shifted the screen so I could share. 'Last year's birthday party. Six years old and bright as a button.'

  A tall woman in a bikini with long wavy blonde hair was doing her best to keep control of half a dozen kids in armbands and goggles. The camera panned to take in more of the background.