Break Point

by Matthew Ollerton

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Selling orange juice machines.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘You could earn a grand a week.’

  Compared to what I’d been earning in the SBS, this was mega-money.

  Karl sold franchises to sell these Orange Olé juicing machines, as they were called. You bought a franchise, were given a postcode, got given ten machines, gave them to restaurants and shared the juice profits 50-50. And for every machine I managed to offload, I got 100 quid.

  I was given an area in Cornwall, which was perfect: my family was down there, so it would almost be like a working holiday. On my hit list was a cafe on Lusty Glaze Beach, this beautiful secluded cove near Newquay. There was no access by road, so I had to carry this machine down a load of steep steps. As I descended, I couldn’t help having a little chuckle to myself: here I was with an orange-juicing machine on my back, when only a few years earlier I would have been doing something similar with a pack on my back, on the Brecon Beacons. Oh how times had changed…

  I walked into this cafe and said to the owner, ‘Have you got time for a demo?’ The owner was a bit busy, but reluctantly said yes. So I plonked the machine on the bar, got some oranges out and started telling the owner how incredibly easy it was to use. ‘In fact,’ I said, ‘it’s so easy, I should ask one of your customers to do the demo.’ At that precise moment, this surfer dude walked through the door, wearing board shorts and nothing else. So I said to him, ‘If you demonstrate this orange machine for the boss, I will give you a free juice.’ So this dude put the oranges in the top, put the lid back on and I said to him, ‘See that button there? Just press that.’ I had this cocky grin on my face, because I thought I had this deal in the bag and another 100 quid in my back pocket. The dude pressed the button and his face froze into a rather intense glare, while his hair stood on end and started smoking: the fucking machine had electrocuted him. The owner was standing there looking much the same as this poor surf dude. As was I, at least for a couple of seconds. When I snapped out of it, I grabbed the machine, chucked it on my back and legged it back up the steps as fast as my legs would carry me. It was the height of summer, about 32°C, and I was sweating like a lunatic.

  When I reported the incident to head office, they told me they’d been getting calls all week. There were orange machines going wrong all over the country. One person told me that they were safe to operate as long as you were wearing shoes, which explained why the surfer dude came a cropper. Other machines were squirting juice all over people’s faces and clothes, machines were being chucked on skips and people had sacks of oranges going mouldy in their garage. I’d basically walked into an episode of Only Fools and Horses. My mates still tease me about it now. They’ll see me and start shouting, ‘Olé! Olé!’

  But that job selling faulty orange machines did get me onto the sales ladder, and the next thing I knew I was a regional sales manager, selling cash machines. I’d suspected I might become an RSM one day, except a regimental sergeant major in the military.

  I took the job to keep Helen happy, although I can’t deny that sales had always appealed to me, mainly because I thought I might be quite good at it. I was resilient and determined and all those other things the military had taught me.

  I employed a load of ex-military mates to fit the machines and it actually ran quite smoothly. But I was bored shitless. Of course I was. Even being in the SBS bored me at times. Because I was now in the civilian world, I thought I had to do what civilian people did, which was dull, uninspiring jobs. I thought there must be something wrong with me. I thought my failing relationship and lack of work satisfaction was all my fault. I’d fallen into the trap of trying to keep other people happy, while not considering my own happiness.

  There is a certain peace in war. There is a simplicity. It’s black and white. Someone wants to kill you, and you’re going to kill them if necessary. That’s why soldiers feel at home in warzones and why so many of them struggle when they come home. When you’re in a warzone, you’re a small part of a big picture. And the mundane trivialities of civilian life aren’t even in the frame.

  Strange as it might sound, life in a warzone can be so much easier than life outside the military. Soldiers come home and they’ve got wives moaning because the neighbour has parked across the drive; or they’ve bought the wrong kind of cheese; or the washing machine has broken; or the flush has gone on the toilet. They’re bickering with their partners about petty things. To a soldier who isn’t used to dealing with such trifles, that can be extremely stressful. In fact, it can feel like mayhem, and far less normal than a warzone.

  When I mentioned the concept of peace in war on SAS: Who Dares Wins, I got some incredible feedback. There were so many former soldiers who could relate to what I was saying. These weren’t just people who had PTSD, these were people who simply found civilian life so much more challenging than being in a warzone. Even people who have lost limbs crave to go back. A mate of mine got shot in the head by an Iraqi sniper and wanted to return. It’s not necessarily the danger that they miss, it’s that sense of brotherhood. Being around the lads is something you take for granted, because it’s such a natural, relaxed environment to be in. And then you leave. Suddenly you’re having to deal with bills and painting fences and tiling bathrooms and an awful lot of white noise. Perhaps it doesn’t reflect very well on civilian life, but one of the principle reasons soldiers want to return to warzones is to feel safe again.

  The rows with Helen became horrendous. She was working at a Porsche dealership as a PA, and when she went on maternity leave, she put all her stuff in a white cardboard box, brought it home and plonked it in the middle of the lounge. I went on a massive bender that night and returned at about two the following morning, without my key. Helen wouldn’t let me in, but I managed to break in through a window. I fell onto a couch in the lounge and the next thing I knew, Helen was standing over me, screaming and shouting. I thought the world had ended. Helen then picked up the white box and the bottom fell out, scattering her office things all over the floor. Apparently, I’d used it as a substitute toilet.

  It’s not as if I made a habit of coming in drunk and urinating on Helen’s prized possessions, but it was undoubtedly a toxic environment for a baby to be around. Luke was no age, but kids are sponges and I knew the constant drinking and rowing must have been affecting him. Then, one fateful day, my old mate Mick called to tell me he could get me a job in Iraq in a heartbeat. As soon as he said that, my mind opened up to new possibilities.

  This was early 2003, when Iraq was on the verge of descending into chaos. But I needed to be back in the fold, doing something on a bigger scale, something with a greater purpose than selling cash machines. The opportunity of being in a warzone and at the sharp end of something big and important was very appealing. And the money was phenomenal. The whole time I’d been in the military, I’d been in financial straits, struggling to make ends meet. And now I was being offered £13,000 a month, tax free.

  I even thought that going away again might save our relationship. However, in moments of clarity, I realised that I just wanted to get away from Helen. Society says that you must try to save a marriage, but I didn’t want to. The bottom line was, I just wanted to make myself right and feel alive again.

  I drove straight down to London, had a meeting with a company rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq and they offered me the gig. The following day, Mick put me in touch with another company and I decided to work for them instead. It was raining jobs on the circuit. When I told Helen, she wasn’t happy. She gave me an ultimatum: ‘It’s either me and Luke or Iraq.’

  I was deploying to Iraq in two days’ time and I had made my choice. In my head, I was already on the streets of Baghdad with a weapon concealed under my jacket. Staying with Helen would have meant more mayhem, for me, her and Luke. I thought that living in a warzone was a far less complicated option. Marriage guidance counsellors are all well and good, but sometimes you can overth
ink things. We didn’t like each other, simple as that. Being in that relationship wasn’t doing my mental welfare any good. I’d had enough and I wanted out. So I said, ‘I’m going to Iraq, and that’s the end of it.’ Her giving me that ultimatum was the final nail in the coffin, my justification to leave. And it was the best decision for all three of us. Life might be harder in the short term, but it would get better.

  13

  THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD

  My first job in Iraq was working as security for American κ ‘ Ü network ABC News. Flying into Jordan, I wasn’t worried about what I might have got myself into, I was overwhelmed with excitement at being back in the mix again.

  When I reached the Jordan–Iraq border, an ex-SAS guy I knew called Ben was there to pick me up. He explained that he had some weapons buried in a cache across the border, and that as soon as we got into Iraq, we’d collect them. I was rubbing my hands together, thinking, ‘I cannot wait to get back on the tools!’

  Shortly after crossing into Iraq, we came to a halt and Ben shot off to pick up the weapons. When he returned, he passed me this tiny little Tokarev pistol. It was so small, I could hardly get my finger in the trigger guard. It looked like the kind of thing a female Bond villain would keep hidden in her garter, except it didn’t have a mother-of-pearl handle, it had a rusty metal one.

  I said to Ben, ‘Are you taking the piss?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, mate, there’s not much threat about at the moment…’

  I got back in the vehicle, looked at this gun and thought, ‘This is pathetic…’ My dreams were shattered. I was supposed to be rear protection on the transit, but I would have been better off with a sack full of rocks.

  As soon as we got to Baghdad, we started our security detail for ABC. This usually involved ferrying them around the city, mostly in ones and twos. It was only a few months after the country had been invaded and Saddam Hussein’s statue had been toppled in Firdos Square, so it was quite tense in Baghdad at the time. One day, a massive explosion went off near our compound. We jumped straight in our vehicles and soon came upon a building that had been reduced to a smouldering pile of rubble. The building had been the Canal Hotel, which the United Nations used as its headquarters in Iraq. We later learned that a 500-pound bomb had been delivered in a cement truck.

  We were the first people on the scene and found a handful of people trapped under the rubble, one of whom turned out to be a Brazilian diplomat called Sergio Vieira de Mello. We tried to dig him out, but he died at the scene. At least 22 people died in that explosion, including a British citizen.

  Because we arrived before the US military, we were taken into the inner cordon, where I started taking photos of the devastation. I didn’t think anything more of it until later that night when one of the ABC journalists came to see me and asked to see my pictures. I did a deal with Associated Press and the pictures were in newspapers and on websites all over the world.

  I should have got a lot more than the $2,000 Associated Press paid me, but it was enough to buy myself a laptop on the black market. When I got the laptop back to my hotel room, I asked ABC’s opps people to drop an internet cable down to our room. Me and my old mate Mick were the only people on the security team with a connection and we spent a lot of time messing about on chat rooms, surfing the net and shopping. But a few days after our internet was installed, it went down, as did everyone’s at ABC towers in Baghdad.

  Soon we got word that all the servers had gone down at Disney, who were ABC’s parent company, in America. Everything had crashed, nothing was working. Then an ABC journalist in Baghdad received a phone call from Disney HQ: ‘Have you got somebody working for you called Ollie? Yes? Does he have a laptop?’ The laptop I’d bought off the black market had a virus on it, and that virus had taken out the whole of Disney’s network. I’d killed Mickey Mouse.

  There was a tentative hope that the war was already over and the various news organisations were reassessing their need for security. We had a detail of about six guys, and we cost a couple of grand a day per person. And because security was so expensive, any opportunity a news organisation had to get rid of some people and save a bit of money, they took it.

  I was made up to team leader, and my first operation was to pick up the new ABC bureau chief from Jordan and drive him back to Baghdad, which was something like a 28-hour round trip (there were no flights coming into Iraq, because of the threat of surface-to-air missiles). But it wasn’t just the bureau chief I had to bring back, it was him and 11 others. And I was only allowed to take one colleague with me. And we only had access to soft-skinned civilian vehicles. In the military, it would be the other way round, 12 security personnel for two civilians. And we’d have armoured vehicles. But we were trying to keep the ABC people happy and make sure we kept getting paid, so we did it. It was a decision made against our better judgement, but what could possibly go wrong?

  We knew the bureau chief was coming to assess the need for security, so on the drive to Jordan I kept thinking, ‘Fucking hell, I left everything for this – my home, my wife, my child – and if this bloke decides we’re not needed, it could all end tomorrow.’ I was trying to get some balance back into my life, do something that made me feel alive, and this job seemed like it might be it. So I kept on telling myself, over and over again, ‘This cannot possibly end.’

  Every time I’d desperately wanted something to happen, I’d devoted a lot of time to visualising it. I hadn’t wasted time worrying too much about the journey but stayed focused on the destination. I’d stoked the passion, lived the ultimate moment, imagined what achieving that goal would look and feel like. I did the same before joining the Royal Marines and the same before joining the SBS. By the time I got in, I’d already been there a thousand times. So when we got to the InterContinental Hotel in Amman, I was sitting at the bar with my number two, Dave, when I turned to him and said, ‘Look, mate, this contract cannot end. So this is what’s going to happen for them to have to extend it: we’re going to leave here, pick the 12 of them up and drive them over the border. Then, somewhere between Fallujah and Ramadi, we’re going to get attacked. We’re going to have a gunfight, we’re going to get the ABC people out of it, and when we get to Baghdad, there’s going to be a heroes’ welcome. And once the champagne’s been popped, the bureau chief is going to sign a new contract on the spot.’

  I told Dave this story in the minutest detail, made him live it with me. He thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. I might have told the story in a light-hearted manner, but I was deadly serious. As strange as it might sound, I was living a moment that I desperately wanted to happen. I didn’t actually think we were going to get shot at, but I did talk about it as a possibility. And when I was describing it, I could smell the cordite from the bullets. Then, having arrived at the final destination, I could taste the champagne and feel the bubbles tickling my nose. I could feel the coldness of the glass in my hand and the firmness of the bureau chief’s handshake. And I could see the look of gratitude on his face.

  After telling Dave my story, we got chatting to two girls who worked for British Airways. I ended up with the pilot, Dave ended up with the flight attendant, we all ended up in their rooms, and what happened, happened. That story is relevant, in case you’re wondering, but you’ll have to find out why later.

  At 3am the following morning, we met the bureau chief and his entourage and set off in our convoy of four vehicles – four in each vehicle in front of us and me and Dave bringing up the rear. Customs on the border was a horrible experience as usual, made even worse by the amount of gear the ABC guys had with them. They were all wearing Rolex watches, they had piles of camera equipment, cases of money, and there were a lot of eyes on us. Eventually we made it through, pulled over, put our body armour on and headed for Baghdad, which was still about ten hours away…

  There was not much to see on the road from Amman to Baghdad. There was sun, of course, searing a mighty hole through acre after acre of blue. Camels and g
oats, foraging for unseen greenery. The odd bomb crater and chewed-up vehicle, including a bright red Ferrari, which would have made more sense on the moon. And mile after mile of highway, hugged by a watery haze and cutting a swathe through the flat and featureless desert landscape. And suddenly there I was, staring into the eyes of a young boy, his AK47 pointed at my face. It was the chimpanzee attack all over again: either I lay down and accepted my fate, or I went to a less comfortable place in the hope of improving my – our – situation.

  The MP5 kurz is a short weapon, but you should use it two-handed. It’s difficult to describe the complexity of using a weapon like that in a close-quarter battle scenario, while trying to keep control of a vehicle travelling at 130kph. There is absolutely no margin for error, and you could end up shooting your own arm off. But I had no choice at that moment but to pull a gangster move. I popped the weapon off my lap, rested it on my arm and the boy’s eyes almost popped out of his head. I shouted, ‘Open fire!’, before Dave and I squeezed off two sharp bursts, which shattered the closed windows on our vehicle. The enemy’s car veered into the central reservation to their left, while I slammed my foot down and put as much distance as I could between our vehicle and the enemy’s as quickly as possible.

  It was all over in a couple of seconds. Dave and I squeezed our triggers and that was it. I don’t know how many bullets hit the car, or if anyone inside was hit. There weren’t Hollywood blood splatters or screams, and the vehicle didn’t go up in flames and billow pink smoke. But I could see black plumes pouring from the bonnet and knew they weren’t coming after us. The back-up vehicle had also slowed down, which was an added bonus.

  When I looked ahead, I could see the ABC bureau chief with his hands and face pressed up against the window, his eyes like saucers. The smell of cordite singed my nostrils and my ears were filled with a piercing ringing.

  As soon as it was likely that the enemy vehicles weren’t coming after us, I got straight on the radio to Baghdad and told them what had happened – ‘No casualties on our side, I believe there may be casualties on their side’ – and headed home. Dave and I didn’t say much for a few hours. We were still on high alert. It was only when we entered the relative safety of Baghdad that Dave said to me, ‘Fuck me. Didn’t you say that was going to happen?’