Tears in Tripoli: A Jake Collins Novel (Jake Collins Novels Book 1)

by Paul A. Rice

  After getting some more camera pieces and doing a sound piece, Andi decided that we should follow the group of fighters who had now gathered in the area. I agreed and said that as long as we held back a bit, then we should be Okay.

  ‘But, if the fighting kicks-off in front of us then my advice is to peel-off into one of the side streets and stay in cover until we can figure-out the situation,’ I said, looking pointedly in Gino’s direction.

  Andi nodded, saying: ‘Yeah, Jake’s right – I want us to set up the satellite dish somewhere permanent as we’ve got to go live anytime now.’ She glanced at her watch and looked across at Bill. The producer nodded and told us that we had about ninety minutes to get something sorted-out.

  ‘Okay, well, let’s follow on and then we’ll make a decision down the road – make sure you’ve all got your kit on,’ I said, referring to their body armour and helmets.

  Jumping back into our vehicles, we headed off on the tail of the rebels as they roared away down the road without a care in the world. I can honestly say that those guys were some of the bravest, craziest people I have ever seen in action. They just didn’t seem to portray any fear whatsoever. No armour, no decent equipment, the sound of gunfire and aerial bombing all around them, and they didn’t give a shit. They just piled on-board the nearest pickup, gave a decent round of ‘Allah u Akbars’ and away they went, laughing and shouting as they headed straight into the teeth of those defending Gadaffi’s compound.

  Looking out of the rear window, I could see that Gino was standing in the back of Jim’s pickup and was rolling his camera as we raced along. I also noticed that he’d ditched his armour and helmet – some people just can’t be reached. I didn’t care, if he got whacked the first thing that the insurance company would ask was if he was wearing protective gear – if they found out he wasn’t, then his family would be lucky to see a pay-out. Some people just don’t give a shit.

  I hoped the camera shots were going to worth it.

  Luckily for us, Gino’s shots were to be worth it. Unbeknownst to our little crew, we were about to get some of the best pieces of that day, and also of the entire conflict, perhaps. Yes, it was going to be a very good day for being a news team, a very good day indeed.

  But, there’s always a price to be paid for everything, and it was only to be a few days later when things didn’t go quite so well for us…

  However, at the time we didn’t know that, and so, with adrenaline coursing through our veins and those crazy rebels leading the way, we headed into the heart of Tripoli.

  7

  Vantage Point

  Racing into the city, we once more found our way blocked by a rebel-held checkpoint; only this time they weren’t letting us go past. As far as they were concerned, it was the end of the line for anyone other than their bloodthirsty comrades.

  ‘You no more go into city!’ the checkpoint commander ordered. ‘Big fighting on the road, big shooting in the streets, everywhere we are going forward – you no go forward, you stay here and make camera…’ He made the sign of a camera, holding his hands up to his eye and peering through the imaginary eyepiece.

  Seeing the amount of fighters starting to turn up at the checkpoint, there were now at least thirty of the overloaded technicals queuing up with at least a hundred guys, both on foot and also crammed into the backs of the trucks, we decided that perhaps the guy wasn’t joking. The noise of battle coming from down the street was extremely loud. Every few minutes we could literally feel the ground shake as NATO played their part in the onslaught of Gadaffi’s fortress, the compound otherwise known as Bab al-Aziziya.

  The sound of small-arms’ fire was now almost unrecognisable, either because it was being drowned-out by the sound of much heavier weapons, or simply because it had become like white noise to us. Seeing the quite obvious change in the fighters’ mood, we decided to heed his words.

  ‘Okay, let’s get set up,’ Andi said. ‘Bill – can we get a satellite link from here?’ she asked, glancing around at the tall buildings that surrounded us.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he replied. ‘I’ll get the techs to sort it out.’ Turning away, he walked back to the second vehicle. Moments later they were unloading all the equipment needed to set up a live broadcasting station.

  Whilst they got sorted, I had a quick check of our local area, just in case we need to take cover somewhere. I didn’t have much luck as every door I tried was locked and all the windows had their metal shutters rolled completely down. The only place I did see that may have been of use was a deserted petrol station, which lay about fifty metres across the other side of the highway. It had an empty office that, by the looks of things, was wide open. There was also a large, concrete canopy covering most of the forecourt.

  Deciding to take a closer look, I took a quick jog across the road, a jog that rapidly became a sprint – as soon as I stepped out from the cover of the checkpoint, the vicious snapping noise of passing high-velocity bullets, filled the air around me.

  ‘Fucking-hell, there’s no need for that!’ I thought, legging it across the street like an Olympic athlete on steroids.

  The loud, smacking sound of a round hitting the concrete lamp post just behind me, soon removed any more witty thoughts from my racing mind. I leapt over the low brick wall like a maniac and sprinted into the deserted building. That in itself was a risk as the building could have been booby-trapped, but the noise of copper-jacketed slugs, whining away in fury after ploughing into the pavement where I had only recently been standing, didn’t really leave me any other choices. I skittered into the empty room and hit the deck. Luckily for me, the place wasn’t wired-up; the only weapon in there lay in the shape of a dried turd, which lay, stacked neatly in the corner.

  ‘Well done, JC, you pillock!’ I thought, angrily. ‘Yeah, well at least I know that this place is a no-goer in the event of a drama!’

  Talk about underestimating the situation… Just as I was contemplating on how the hell I was going to get back over and join the crew, I heard Andi shouting.

  ‘Jake! Jake! Are you Okay?’

  I looked up and saw that she was standing behind the cover of the wall on the other side of the street – she looked beautiful. Blonde hair flying from under her helmet and blue eyes gleaming, even from across the street I could see those eyes. I lay there and looked at her, in one of those rare moments when micro-seconds become minutes, I saw how gorgeous she was. I could have stayed there all day.

  Jimbo had other ideas…

  ‘Oi, you silly old fool – get ready to move! These guys are gonna give you some covering fire!’

  ‘Okay!’ I yelled back. ‘I’m fine – I just fancied a little stroll, is all. Keep your wigs on! Ready when you are…’

  The checkpoint erupted, as one, all the vehicles in a suitable position to fire at the snipers down the street, did so. The weight of fire they delivered was unbelievable. I was mesmerised by the sheer noise of their fire. Gathering my senses and scrabbling to my feet, I dashed out from the building, hurdled over a low wall, and sprinted for all I was worth. I simply flew across that street, sliding like a baseball player into the dust and litter that lay alongside the wall where the others waited in cover for me.

  ‘Bloody-hell, you mad bastard!’ Jim exclaimed.

  I sat down with my back against the wall and stuck my fingers in my ears. ‘What… I can’t hear you, what’s the problem?’ I said, with a big grin plastered across my sweating features.

  It wasn’t really that much of a joke as the roar of the rebels’ weapons was horrendous and we were all shouting just to be heard over the noise they were making.

  Andi came over and squatted in front of me. As she looked at me, those amazing blue eyes did their flashing thing again. Only this time they were just three feet away from my face. There were gold flecks in them, and I noticed that she had a tiny dimple on her left cheek, she…

  ‘Jake Collins!’ she said, interrupting my daydreams. ‘I’m quite sure that was probably not t
hat much of a big-deal for you, but it scared the shit right out of me – please don’t do that again! I really wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you!’

  I grinned up at her. ‘You see, she does have a thing for you, JC, my old son – yeah, she’s got it bad,’ I thought, swiftly followed a mental punch to my own face for being such a fool.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just needed to check out our surroundings – and, as you can see, that side of the street is probably best kept out of bounds for the time being!’ I grinned again and watched as Andi tried not to do the same.

  With a toss of her head, she stood up and went to join the techs in their preparation of the gear. That was another thing I admired about her – Andi didn’t mind getting her hands dirty. Many others I had worked with wouldn’t have dreamed of lending a hand with the humping-and-dumping. Not her, though. Andi was in there like a trooper and I admired that. I admired her.

  Dragging my sorry arse up off the pavement, I started giving the crew a hand in setting up their equipment. It wasn’t long before they had everything ready, the thrum of their generators adding to the noise surrounding us. Andi and Bill were busy going over the sequence of their impending broadcast, Gino had set up his camera on its tripod, and even though the sun was now blazing down on us, he still erected a powerful light that shone on the spot where Andi would be standing. Several phone-calls later – via their own satellite link – and the crew were ready to go.

  From previous experience I knew that I would be needed to watch their backs during the broadcast as the crew’s focus would be on the job in hand. I’d had several incidents before when the cameraman or the correspondent had only narrowly-avoided being run-over whilst doing a live piece. In my opinion, that would be a pretty stupid way to die, especially when you are in the middle of a warzone. I positioned myself in such a way that not only would I be able to keep an eye on what was happening down towards the fighting, but also be able to watch the road.

  ‘5-4-3-2-1…’ Bill held up his hand, counting down the fingers and the seconds as some faraway producer talked into his ear. Then they were live – beaming shots to the world of Andi as she stood on the corner of some random, Libyan street. The ferocity of the fighting had now moved away and provided an excellent, audible backdrop to their piece. I knew that their news desk would be interspersing the piece with the shots Gino had taken before, then they would switch back to Andi, and then she would do her thing.

  It has to be said, my affections for the tall, blonde woman apart, that Andi was very good at what she did. The words simply streamed from her mouth, the way in which she linked everything together and her knowledge of the situation, were very impressive. Her piece must have looked pretty damned good at the other end.

  By now, more and more rebel vehicles were starting to roar past our position – I pushed out from the side-street and made sure that they gave our crew a wide berth. The noise of battle now seemed to have switched to a different area – somewhere over to our northeast, about a kilometre away, sounded like the centre of the party.

  The crew finished their live piece and so, leaving the camera rolling, its lens directed down the road in order to capture anything that may occur down there, we all stepped into a large doorway for a quick break. The crew decided that perhaps we should try and get onto a rooftop in order to get some panoramic shots of the city – that’s what Andi had hoped for, and it would be good as we should be able to see some of the fighting from such an elevated position.

  I agreed and trundled off to go and ask some of the locals if they could get us some access to a roof.

  It turned out to be a good decision as we found ourselves being told by one of the rebels that they weren’t going to allow us to go any further forward than our current position anyway.

  ‘There are too many snipers near Gadaffi’s compound,’ said the tall, heavily-bearded fighter. ‘You should wait here until we are inside!’ We agreed and told him of our plans to get on a roof. It turned out that he was a local commander and was busily involved with replenishing all the fighters and troops as they rotated from the frontline. Hearing our plan, he walked off only to return a few minutes later with another man in tow. Seemingly, the other man was the owner of a tall building, which lay just down the street. After a few pleasantries we gained permission to use the roof of his place to carry out our filming.

  By now it was close to eleven o’clock in the morning and the sun was absolutely blazing down, the amount of heavy equipment that the crew needed to get up on the roof meant that we were all soon sweating like crazy. The rooftop position was five flights of stairs up and a good clamber over some walls that lay in a maze on the flat, concrete roof. The effort was worth it as the vantage point it gave us was superb. Almost the whole of the city could be seen; we had a fairly decent view of the compound and could also pan through three-hundred-and-sixty degrees to catch anything else that may happen elsewhere.

  Andi was ecstatic. ‘That’s brilliant, guys!’ she said. ‘Let’s get going and see what we can see!’

  There was a small, deserted building on the roof, it only had one room and that was mostly filled with rubbish, but it provided a nice piece of cover for the crew, not only from the dangers of hurtling bullets and the suchlike, but also from the sun. It was truly scorching on that day and I was already getting amongst the crew, badgering them to wear their hats and making sure there was plenty of water available, and that they drank it.

  After the marathon of carrying the gear up to the roof, we had all abandoned our helmets for the welcome relief of some floppy hats or shemaghs – anyone who was going to be exposed, such as Andi and Gino during the live shots, would be fully kitted-out in their protective gear whilst they were in the open, but, just as long as they were below the parapet of the waist-high wall that surrounded the roof when they weren’t filming, then I gave them the go-ahead to take the armour off. It was not ideal but the situation with the heat meant that the likelihood of someone going down with heat-stroke was definitely a reality. Sometimes you just have to do what’s best at that particular moment, and making an issue out of people not wearing their armour, whilst they’re hardly able to breathe in the heat, is not the way I do things. They’re all adults, they can see me with my armour on, but if they choose to do otherwise then that’s their call.

  Jim had stayed on the street below, making sure that our vehicles and the drivers were ready to go should the need to bug-out arise. He would also spend time in watching was going on in our area, and try and speak to any locals or other camera crews who appeared. The junction where we had stopped was now becoming a regular little enclave for western news crews. Being as that the rebels on the checkpoint weren’t letting anyone past, our side street was soon turning into a car park for the world’s media.

  Bill and Gino set up the camera position so that it overlooked the direction of Gadaffi’s compound, keeping the camera rolling constantly so that there was plenty of background material for when they went live – I think it was constantly feeding to their news desk anyway, but I’m not sure as I was too busy looking at the events that lay in the streets below.

  No matter what anyone says, when you first enter an urban-warfare environment, things are very confusing, to say the least. The noise is totally disorientating. Which way is the fire coming from? Is it incoming, or outgoing? Is it friendly or hostile – is it a mortar round landing just streets away, or is it the sound of a heavy weapon firing, the noise of which echoes and bounces around the streets and buildings making it sound like a mortar round impacting? The harshness of the noise of battle in a built-up area takes a good few minutes to get used to, but after a while you gradually build-up a picture in your mind of what’s going on and then you start to be able to identify the different weapons and, more importantly, which way they’re being fired.

  Luckily for me, as I crouched on the rooftop trying to gain an idea of what was happening, moving from one wall to the next, keeping low and peering over to
look at the sprawling city that lay spread on all sides, I was suddenly joined by a young, Libyan man. He was very slightly built, wore smart clothes and had a shiny pair of shoes on his feet. He also spoke perfect English. Kneeling next to me, the guy said his name was Ziad and that it was his father who owned the building, which we were currently sitting on top of.

  What Ziad didn’t know about Tripoli, wasn’t worth knowing. In about five minutes he had orientated me fully, spending a lot of time in pointing out where the rebels were, where the compound lay, and what the rebels were trying to do. Grabbing my little pair of binos, I followed his pointed directions and it wasn’t too long before I had gained a much better idea of what the hell was going on.

  It was precious information and I hurriedly passed it on to Bill and Andi – it’s one of the most valuable things that someone like me can do for a news team. They are so busy and under pressure from their news desks that many a time they don’t get the context of a particular situation. If I get the time, or get lucky enough to meet someone like Ziad who can clue me in, then I will always pass what I know onto the crew.

  After I finished giving them a rundown on what I knew, Andi looked me in the eye and said, ‘Thanks a hell of a lot, Jake! That’s fantastic! Bill – can we put some colour on that, maybe use it as a lead-in for when the rebels break-in to the compound?’ Bill nodded and started to write down lots of stuff in his notebook.

  Andi turned back to me, saying: ‘You’re a star, Jake. Thanks a lot for this, when we get out of here the beers will be one me!’ She bushed her hair back from her forehead and then gave me a little wink.

  That dimple of hers just completed the picture, she was totally gorgeous – I felt my gut tightening and tried to stop the feeling from going any further south...

  ‘Yeah, no worries, Andi,’ I said. ‘It’s all part of the service – keep your head down and then we can all go for that beer when this is over, I hope you’ve got lots of money…’