by Andy McNab
The Rifleman guarding the door pointed at Dom's camera. 'Not here, mate. Just let her do her stuff. Leave the women alone and they'll tell you more than these cunts.'
Flashes from Pete's camera bounced into the hallway from the third room. I went with Dom to see the body of another man of fighting age, a bit older than the last, stretched out on the floor. His blood soaked the carpet and had splattered over a pile of what looked like mud bricks wrapped in heavy polythene in front of the TV. Tom and Jerry kicked the shit out of each other on screen. An AK lay in the corner. There was a pistol tucked under the waistband of his jeans. Muqtada Al-Sadr, sunbeams radiating from behind his head, gazed down at him from a massive poster on the wall.
Terry stood over him, waiting to see who he'd dropped.
A corporal with a set of picture cards was down on his knees, inspecting his handiwork. 'Yep, you got him. One of the bombers.'
Dom was examining the pile of brown blocks. 'And what looks like half Afghanistan's heroin output for a month.'
The lad's face lit up as he took slaps on the back from the lads.
Pete did the same. 'Well done, mate – and still alive to tell your old man the tale. Good news.'
Our PRRs sparked up. 'One dead, one lifted,' the company commander said. 'They've confirmed, we've got them both.'
A mobile phone rang the Nokia tune and its display flashed in the dead man's jeans.
Dom and Pete filmed the AK and the polythene blocks of heroin being placed in clear-plastic evidence bags. Kingsmen took digital pictures of notebooks, photographs and anything else evidential before it, too, was bagged up and taken away.
Terry nodded down at the body. The mobile was still ringing. 'Wonder if it's his mates warning him there's a patrol.'
Pete smiled back. 'Nah, it's the neighbours telling him to turn the fucking noise down.'
Our PRRs sparked up once more as Dave now took control from the street. 'OK, listen in. Barney, your snipers set?'
'Set.'
'Wagon commanders, set?'
'Yeah, all set.' The Fijian sounded as if he was ordering pizza.
'Strike team, crack on and finish the search. I want this done quickly before we're taking incoming.'
They lifted books from their shelves, flicked through all the pages, and pulled drawers from an antique sideboard that might have been looted from Basra Palace.
We moved back into the other room. Dom filmed the live body again. The guy was still on his knees, but his plasticuffed hands were now covered with a clear-plastic bag to preserve any explosive or weapon residue on his skin. He also had a set of defenders over his ears, and a white markerboard hung round his neck on a loop of paracord upon which the name SADIQ had been written in marker pen. A yellow cyalume stick was taped to the board to help with ID in the confusion and darkness. The interrogator stood over him, taking digital pictures.
Dave came into the building and got on his PRR. 'All call signs, stand to. They'll be here soon.'
He grabbed a squaddy in body armour moving past him. 'Where are the women and kids?'
He was directed to the middle room. He knocked on the door. 'OK, girls, let's get them out.'
The kids were playing with colouring books, plastic toys, the sort of stuff they hand out on long-haul flights. The women were totally covered. Evidence bags containing three mobile phones and a couple of notebooks lay by their feet. The RMPs were scribbling details.
The search teams had unearthed more weapons. A couple of AKs, some pistols and ammunition were being bagged up, together with some DVDs. According to the crude photocopies on the covers, they were of Western hostages being decapitated, Algerian soldiers having their throats slit, and IED attacks on American Humvees. Dom filmed it all with the IR.
The RMPs and a couple of Riflemen escorted the women and kids to a Bulldog. They would sit out the next couple of hours in cover while the rest of us waited for the inevitable.
The search team entered the newly vacated room and started to rip it apart.
As if on cue, two shots rang out from the snipers above us. Barney's voice barked over the net: 'That's one down. I'm claiming it.'
15
'Tel, mate, look over 'ere . . .'
Pete kept snapping away as Terry and the strike teams prepared to surge out of the house and back on to the street. Dave was sharp with him. 'No more flash – you'll make yourself a target.'
Pete's tin helmet was tilted back so he could get the camera to his right eye. He looked ridiculous. Even the Riflemen laughed at him as they ran past. He packed his stills camera away in his Batman utility belt and took over with the IR handheld, changing batteries like Riflemen change magazines. Always have a full weapon.
I leant against one of the interior walls near the door and watched the guys look mega-warlike for the camera as they waited their turn to move out. I felt a pang of jealousy. At least they were in control. It always felt good to be able to fire back.
A Manchester lad of eighteen or nineteen did a last check of the link on his Minimi before moving out with his team. He was about as tall as his weapon – and with the collapsible butt folded down, that wasn't much bigger than a ketchup bottle. Sweat poured down his face and dripped off his nose.
His lance corporal eyeballed him. 'You OK?'
The lad nodded.
Dom moved away and rolled up the dead man's sleeves. I could see the trackmarks even from where I was standing. He looked up at the lad. 'They're high as kites. Be careful.'
It was nearly the Rifleman's turn to leg it out of the building. He nodded at me. 'Where the fuck's he from?' Manchester, by the sound of it.
'He's Polish. He's the Polish Jeremy Bowen.'
He glanced back at me blankly as he got the go from his corporal. 'Who the fuck's Jeremy Bowen?' He legged it out on to the street before I could answer.
The rest of the team followed. The PRRs were full of chatter but soon cut it when the first burst of AK rattled down the street.
Dave appeared next to me. 'Here we go.' He jerked a thumb as the last man disappeared through the hole in the wall and into the street. 'It's up to you what you lot do. Stay in the house, go back to the wagon, or get out there. Just don't get in the lads' way, OK?'
Pete shouted over at Dom: 'We going, Drac, or what?'
The AK kicked off again and six or seven SA80s gave some back. All of a sudden it seemed the whole street was alive with gunfire. AK rounds bounced off the wagons and into walls.
The Riflemen gave it back in spades.
I caught Pete's eye. 'You all right?' It seemed the thing to say when this sort of shit was happening.
'Don't be fucking stupid. I'm shitting myself.'
The air filled with the roar of engines and the squeal of tracks as the wagons moved out to make better use of their guns.
Dave called for sit reps from the roof snipers. It was pointless Pete asking Dom what he wanted to do. We both knew.
'Wait here.' I left the building and stuck my head through the gap in the wall where there'd once been a door. Most of the Bulldogs were on the move, taking both ends of the street and covering the corners with their GPMGs. One, the rear command vehicle, stayed static. Its top cover cracked off rounds in all directions. Every dog and human in the neighbourhood was going berserk.
Pete was behind me, camera up. Dom was redundant until he could get his report in, but he was tucked in behind him.
We legged it to the command Bulldog and moved along its flank to a Rifleman at the front-corner bar armour.
Briefly, a bright burst of muzzle fire lit the dark. Weapon reports echoed along the street, making it hard to work out where they had originated. The Rifleman loosed off six or seven shots in reply.
I held Pete by his body armour to steady and control him as he filmed. 'Follow the road up on the left, about a hundred. There's an alleyway. That's where they're firing from.'
Suddenly the Rifleman stopped firing and jumped back. I yanked Pete so the guy could get into cover
. Pro that he was, Pete filmed the lad as he hit his release catch and the mag fell to the ground. He slammed in a fresh one, hit the release catch for the working parts to go forward, and swung back into position. Pete moved behind him, filming over his shoulder.
Dom tugged at my arm. 'Let's go.'
Another bright burst of AK lit the alley mouth and thudded into the command wagon. Pete turned back to Dom. 'Go forward? You got a death wish, Drac, or what? We'll get enough good gear here.'
Before he'd even finished, all hell let loose on the PRR. The snipers had seen more Iraqis moving in.
16
Dave didn't want to know about the dramas, he just wanted a body count.
Barney got on the air. 'Five. But we got groups of two or three moving all over the arc.'
'Wait out. Boss – Chindit?'
You could have heard a pin drop on the net. Nobody was going to talk over the top of those two.
'Chindit now mobile.'
It was hard to see exactly what was happening in the dark now the street-lighting was dead. Riflemen ran all over the place. Contacts could be heard left and right, as well as beyond the buildings on both sides of the street. Shouts and screams of command filled the short lulls when the Bulldog guns weren't firing. I didn't try to work out what was going on. It's always best just to get on with your own stuff.
An eight-strong Rifleman patrol came up behind us, panting and sweating, just as the wagon's gunner aimed a long burst at the end of the road. My ears rang. Empty cases tumbled off the hull and clinked on to the crumbling tarmac.
The patrol's NCO yelled at the gunner. 'We're moving into the alley, crossing your front!'
The last thing they wanted was a blue on blue.
Pete filmed them as they hunched behind the Bulldog, waiting for the gun to stop. 'All right, Tel?'
Pete had the handheld up to his eye. He couldn't use the hinged screen like a tourist because of the telltale glow.
Dom got into reporter mode. 'Can you tell me what's happening?'
The NCO didn't bother looking at him or the camera as he replied. His eyes switched between the road and the gunner, who was still firing. He had to force the words out as he tried to regain his breath. 'We're going to go down the alley and bomb-burst out the other side of the building. We got movement in cover over there and the snipers can't get 'em – so we're going to flush 'em out.'
Pete put the camera on Terry, but only for a second before our gun stopped and the NCO legged it. The patrol followed. I watched the last man, the little Manchester lad, as he ran across the street and veered right, up towards the alley mouth. Blue cyalumes hung off buildings either side.
There was no need for discussion. Dom was already on his feet and about to follow.
I restrained him as another long burst came from the other side of the buildings, and checked he and Pete still had IR cyalumes gaffered to the backs of their helmets. 'You've definitely bent those things?'
They nodded. I kept low and followed the patrol, who were well ahead of us now. An RPG kicked off to our right and flew straight down the middle of the road. It slammed into a building fifty metres further on and exploded. Lumps of concrete rained down on us. When I looked up again, the last man was disappearing into the alley.
'Come on, quick!' We needed to get there before they were swallowed into the darkness.
I stopped at the intersection.
A dull glow shone along the alley from the street a couple of hundred beyond it. It was about two metres wide. Rusty metal doors and barred windows lined both sides. The ground was strewn with litter, rubble, puddles, dog shit. The patrol was nowhere to be seen. They had already bomb-burst out the other end.
We crunched our way towards it. Dom needed controlling. He'd switched on his forcefield again and was surging ahead.
'No one goes any further than the end, OK? We've got snipers above us and we don't know what the fuck's going on out there.'
Pete snorted. 'You won't have to tell me twice, mate.'
Dom got there first. He was scoping up and down as I joined him. Out there somewhere was the distant rumble of Chindit Company's Warrior tracks. Immediately ahead, across about thirty metres of sewage-covered wasteground, lay a rabbit warren of side-streets, ramshackle buildings and bomb-blasted sewers. That was where the patrol must have gone.
I gripped Dom, the stench of shit burning deep into my sinuses. 'This is as far as we go, all right?'
He pointed frantically to a fallen wall about fifteen away. 'There, Peter, look!'
A body lay motionless in the half-light, face down on the wasteground.
Pete started filming. With his camera's night-viewing capability he could see better than we could. 'He's got one round through the nut and there's an AK next to him.'
Dom spotted another body sprawled on the road further on, just before the warren where the patrol must be. The snipers couldn't have missed the fuckers at that range.
SA80s stuttered behind us back in the street. Pete arranged Dom at the edge of the alley so he had the body in the background. Dom started gobbing off to camera in hushed and dramatic Polish.
Above us, another sniper added to the soundtrack. It was going to be award-winning footage.
17
Pete was still filming as a burst of AK screamed out of the warren. The rounds zinged over our heads and into the walls behind us.
Pete jerked the camera away from Dom. 'Tel!'
I turned to see a body staggering out of a half-demolished building and into the wasteground.
It was a Rifleman – the dome of his helmet was silhouetted against the distant glow. He stumbled a few steps more and fell.
Pete pushed the camera into Dom's hands and legged it across the wasteground.
'Pete, stop!'
Either he couldn't hear me or he didn't want to. I shoved Dom back against the wall. 'Stay here!'
I tried to gain ground and catch up with him but it wasn't long before my boots were sinking into calf-deep puddles of sewage.
The Rifleman lay prone on the ground. Sniper fire cracked off above us. The rest of the patrol was now engaged in a contact inside the warren. As long as they kept the fire going I could get Pete and the Rifleman – if he was still alive – back into cover.
Pete was bent over the body. I fell on my knees next to him. Sewage splashed up my Osprey.
Pete must have spotted Terry through the viewfinder. The boy groaned.
'Pete, he's OK, he's alive. Come on, let's get him up.'
Terry had taken a couple of rounds into his front plate. The force would have knocked him to the ground, but he wasn't injured, just bruised. He lay there in shock at still being alive. 'Fuck . . . fuck . . .'
For Pete it was relief.
'Get up, both of you. Come on!'
I grabbed Pete as a scream from the snipers told us to get out of the killing ground. They cracked a couple of rounds over our heads.
I looked up towards the warren as a body dropped just metres away. His AK hit the ground before he did.
More bodies poured from the darkness. They weren't firing.
