Zero Six Bravo (6 page)
Grey and Scruff fell into an easy step as the rough, worn path wound away below them. Shortly, they caught up with the distinctive figure of Delta Jim, who was also heading down. Jim was a super-fit guy and a hugely experienced soldier: before joining US Special Forces he’d served in the U.S. Rangers. He had chiseled features and close-cropped blond hair, and he spoke with a weird half-British, half-American accent.
“So how d’you reckon the Squadron’s done?” Scruff ventured.
“Six weeks’ beat-up training,” Grey panted. “Could’ve done with six months.”
“You’ve been taught by the best,” Jim remarked with a wide smile. Then more seriously: “We couldn’t have done more in the time available. It’s been relentless, for you and for us.”
“Yeah, but we could have done with more time,” Grey repeated. “For a lot of the blokes this is all the mobility work they’ve ever done. And a lot of us were exhausted—utterly finished—and that was before Kenya. We’d gone from the MV
Nisha
to months of Afghan ops, now Kenya and soon Iraq. It’s been nonstop.”
Delta Jim eyed Grey for a long second. “So you’d rather not be going to Iraq?”
Grey held his look. “There’s not a bloke isn’t dying to get deployed, and that includes the new lads. It’s just that the Squadron’s washed-up. Who wouldn’t be, after six months in the Afghan mountains surviving on British Army rations, plus hot air and bullshit?”
Jim laughed. “All routes to war right now lead to Iraq. It’s the only place to be.”
“It’s route, not
rowt
,” Grey needled him. “Ever heard yourself? A Liverpool boy with a Texas accent. Dunno how your gorgeous young American wife puts up with it.”
“In our outfit, we even get the Padre to bless our weapons,” Jim retorted, “and my wife sure is blessed to be married to a regular Mr. Nice Guy like me.”
This was partly true. Jim’s unit did get their main weapon—invariably the superlative Colt 7.62mm assault rifle—blessed by their priest, before going into battle.
“Mate, you’ve been watching us over the weeks,” Scruff remarked to Delta Jim. “How d’you reckon the Squadron’s shaping up for Iraq?”
“Way I see it, you’re like one big soccer team,” Jim replied. “There are a lot of characters, a lot of star strikers, who don’t always rub along that well together. But come Iraq you’re gonna have to knit together as one team at war. Those strikers are gonna have to learn to put rivalries aside and pass the ball so as to score. That’s the only way you’ll ever get through whatever’s coming.”
“Thanks,” Grey grunted. “That sounds like an easy way of telling us bugger all.”
“You’re only as good as your weakest link, obviously,” Jim continued. “And like any dogs of war you’re gonna need to pull those new guys through. But if you want my opinion, yeah, I figure the Squadron’ll do fine out there.”
For a moment Grey pondered who his weakest links were; most likely Moth and the Dude. He ran them through the on-the-run test. It was one that he often used to gauge the measure of a man. If they got badly whacked in Iraq and were forced to go on the run, who would he choose to be with, Moth or Dude? He figured it had to be the Dude. At least with him you’d have a laugh as the enemy hunted you down. He was sharp as a pin and you could bounce ideas off him. There was no way to read Moth, and after a few days alone together Grey figured he’d want to murder the young operator, even if the Iraqis failed to nail him.
But in truth there were no limp-wristed belly dancers among any of his men. The last few weeks of training had revealed a real mental toughness, and when push came to shove it was that that mattered most. Psychological strength had got them through SBS selection, which was designed to make even the most physically fit and hardened crack. It was when the mind told a soldier that he couldn’t go on that most failed selection, not when the body broke.
As they continued down the mountain, Grey threw Delta Jim a shrewd, appraising look. He figured Jim had ended up in U.S. Special Forces—as opposed to the SBS or SAS—by a simple twist of
fate: his marriage to an American. But he clearly missed the camaraderie and easy piss-taking of a predominantly British unit. During the coming Iraq conflict there was no telling who the Squadron might be paired up with, and either the SEALs or Delta Force were their natural partners.
Having spent several weeks training together, there was every chance that Jim’s unit might join M Squadron on joint ops. While Jim had witnessed the Squadron’s lack of expertise in vehicle mobility work, Grey sensed a hunger in the guy to go in alongside them. It was well known within Special Forces circles that the Brits—along with their Kiwi and Aussie counterparts—tended to get the most extreme and “out-there” kind of missions.
“You’d like to be coming with us, wouldn’t you, mate?” Grey asked him. “All that apple pie and godliness you get in your outfit—not really your kind of thing, is it?”
Jim paused for a second. “Honestly, mate, I’d jump at the chance, even if it meant driving one of those rat-shit Pinkies all the way to Baghdad.”
It was a matter of a few weeks and a whirlwind of activity before M Squadron found itself heading to a forward mounting base before deploying to Iraq. But by then—and unbeknown to all but the military’s top commanders—the scenario for the coming war had shifted beyond all recognition.
On March 1, 2003 the Turkish parliament had rejected a resolution allowing United States and allied forces to deploy via their territory. In one fell swoop, the opening of a northern front for the coming war had been scuppered, for the only other nations that have borders with northern Iraq are Syria and Iran, and neither is a particular friend of the West. Turkey’s refusal to provide access constituted a massive blow to the American and British war plans, and came as a major shock. Turkey was a fellow NATO member, and she had enjoyed a long strategic alliance with the United States. Over protracted negotiations, the American government had agreed to a multibillion-dollar aid package plus preferential treatment for
Turkish companies doing business with America—all in return for the use of the nation’s territory.
But at the last moment the powerful Turkish military—not to mention the overwhelming opposition of the Turkish public—had halted the bill’s passage through parliament. On its southern border Turkey had long been fighting a rebellion by the thirty-million-strong Kurdish people. The Kurds are spread across a mountainous region that straddles Turkey and Iraq, which they call Kurdistan. Various Kurdish armed-resistance movements had been fighting against both Turkish and Iraqi rule, seeking to carve out a Kurdish homeland.
Over the years Saddam had suppressed such insurrections with an unbelievable savagery, and the Turkish military had also launched brutal crackdowns. The Turks feared that invading Iraq and toppling Saddam would give the Kurds their chance, not to mention risk destabilizing the entire region. Saddam was no particular friend of Turkey, but he was at least the devil they knew, and his iron rule had kept the Kurds in hand.
In the final analysis the risks of doing a deal with the Americans had outweighed the possible benefits as far as the Turkish military—and the nation’s people—were concerned, and no NATO forces were going to be allowed into Iraq via their territory.
The surprise rejection by Turkey had caught the American administration on the hop. Some 60,000 American troops had already been dispatched, en route to military bases in Turkey. The massive force that had planned to mass on Iraq’s northern border now had no way of doing so. Any push into Iraq would have to go in from one front alone now—Kuwait, to the far south of Iraq—and those forces en route to Turkey had to be re-routed to Kuwait, instead.
And in the aftermath of Turkey’s shock decision, M Squadron was about to be given the mission of a lifetime.
Grey could hardly believe it when first he laid eyes on the man. He was in the stores tent, part of a makeshift camp under canvas tucked away in a discreet corner of the forward mounting base. M Squadron had deployed here complete with weapons, ammo, vehicles, and all the communications and other equipment they would need for war. This was the last stop before Iraq, and here was this guy straight from central casting drawing a brand-new set of equipment from the stores.
The man was tall, lanky, and distinctly well-bred in appearance, lacking the weather-beaten, grizzled look of an SF soldier. But what really singled him out was his snowy-white complexion, in contrast to the rest of the Squadron—Moth included—who had managed to get something of a Kenyan tan. Grey watched as Stores handed him a set of ironed and pressed combats, a pair of shiny boots, plus a mess tin with the cellophane packaging still wrapped round it.
“All right, mate?” Grey greeted the stranger as he loaded up his pile of gleaming gear.
The man’s face lit up. “Good morning. Yes, I’m absolutely fine, thanks.”
The voice confirmed it. The guy spoke with the kind of crisp upper-class accent that only long years of the finest private schools and the coldest showers could nurture. He looked to be in his
mid-twenties, no older, and he was springing about like an eager puppy. What on earth was this guy doing in a camp set aside for M Squadron—a Special Forces unit in lockdown that was screened and sanitized for war?
“So, erm—who exactly are you, then, mate?” Grey asked.
“Oh, sorry.” A hand was extended. “Sebastian. Seb to my friends. Seb March-Phillips. I’m your Iraq terp.”
“Terp” was military slang for interpreter. Grey took the proffered hand—which was noticeably smooth and uncallused—and shook it. “Glad to have you with us, mate.” What else was there to say?
Grey watched in fascination as the new guy unpacked the uniform, which was several sizes too big for him. For some reason Stores only had extra-large. The combat jacket would reach to the guy’s knees, while the pants would need six-inch turn-ups. Next, the guy unwrapped his clomping great Army boots. He stared at them in horror for several seconds.
“You know, I’ve got this pair of civvy boots,” he remarked to Grey. “They’re absolutely fabulous. Do I really have to wear these? I hope I don’t get blisters. Will we be doing much walking, do you think?”
Grey was lost for words. This guy had just pitched up to join a Special Forces squadron heading to war, yet he appeared to be completely and utterly blasé about whatever might lie ahead. He struck Grey as being one of those classic English eccentrics who love an adventure, and whose innocent enthusiasm seems to trump everything—and a part of Grey just couldn’t help liking him for it.
In quick time Grey got the guy’s story from him. Until a few days ago he’d been working for an investment banking firm in London. Some months back he’d joined a specialist unit—so he could learn some soldiering in his spare time. It was there that someone had realized he was fluent in Arabic. He’d been brought up on a military base in the Middle East, hence the language skills. And from there it had apparently been a short step to him being recruited as the terp for M Squadron’s coming deployment to Iraq.
A few minutes chatting to the guy, and Grey could tell that he was phenomenally intelligent. It seemed that he could mention
just about anything—a geranium, maybe—and Sebastian would start going: “Okay-yah, the geranium—more commonly known as cranesbills, due to the fruit looking like the beak of a crane. Take
Geranium magnificum
, for example . . .” Compared to most of the men in the Squadron—a dose of doughnuts who’d fallen out of school and into the military—Sebastian was a rocket scientist.
As Grey and Sebastian left the stores, they bumped into Mick “Gunner” McGrath, the commander of the Squadron’s quad bikes. While each quad formed part of a single-vehicle team, the quad operators also had a man in overall charge of them as a distinct force. That way they could work as one coordinated unit when scouting out the Squadron’s route and searching for the enemy.
Gunner was a shaven-headed, solid chunk of fighting man—a real soldier’s soldier. He was a supremely capable Special Forces operator, but he was also known to be fiery and impulsive. He’d been with the Squadron for an age; he was another of the old and the bold. Gunner was also a real gym queen, always pumping iron. By contrast, Grey put in only the odd appearance on the weights whenever he felt age was getting the better of him.
Grey and Gunner had a certain respect for each other, one forged over long years of elite soldiering. Grey did the introductions with Sebastian, stood back, and waited for the sparks to fly. Sebastian launched into a long welcome speech, delivered in his best public-school-boy accent and peppered with lots of syllables. Once he was done, Gunner stared at him in silence for several seconds.
“Terp?” he finally grunted. “What the hell do we need a terp for? We don’t want to
talk
to the fuckers.” Then: “You do weights?”
In his long-winded way Sebastian explained that pumping iron wasn’t really his thing. Gunner had not another word to say to him.
Before Grey and the Squadron’s New Bloke parted company, Sebastian pulled out a cell phone. He waved it in Grey’s direction. “If you need to speak to anyone, feel free to use mine. I know it can be terribly tough getting comms home, but I’ve got this super-duper new cell provider.”
“Not really supposed to, mate,” Grey told him. “Didn’t anyone warn you? We’re supposed to be in lockdown. Isolation. No comms to anyone, family included.”
“No. No one’s mentioned a thing. My parents are actually very concerned about me. I’ve been phoning home every day.”
A little later that morning the Squadron was called together for a special briefing. There was a distinct tension in the air, for they were about to be addressed by the director of Special Forces (DSF), Brigadier Graeme Lamb, known to the men as “Lamby.” They gathered in the cookhouse tent, which was about the one space large enough to house the entire Squadron. If Lamby was about to address them all, then something momentous had to be afoot, and the men sensed they were about to learn the nature of their coming mission.