Juggernaut

Back in the bar, Amanda drank chardonnay and got maudlin. This was their last war. Voss was thirty-eight. Toon was forty-three. Old-timers.

Amanda took out her phone and asked the barman to take a group shot. They clustered round the portrait of Saddam that hung at the back of the bar near the jukebox. Beret, shades, big rip down his face. An inscription in English: ‘Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, the Anointed One, the Glorious Leader, direct descendant of the Prophet, president of Iraq, chairman of the revolutionary Command Council, field marshal of its armies, doctor of its laws, and great uncle to all its peoples.’ Someone had taped a newsprint picture to the portrait to obscure the man’s sash and braids: Saddam in his underpants in an interrogation cell looking haggard and frightened.

Lucy and her crew grinned and threw gang signs. They toasted the camera. They shouted ‘money’ as the bartender pressed the shutter release.

Pop. Flash. A frozen moment.

Lucy watched dunes blur beneath them.

Toon drained his mineral water dry. He turned in his seat, unzipped and pissed in the bottle. He tossed the bottle out the open side door.

‘All right there, Kaffir?’ said Voss.’ Trouble with your prostate?’

‘Burnt any good crosses lately, Nazi motherfucker?’

Jabril watched the men, unsure if they were joking around.

Voss took a packet of biltong from his pocket. He threw it across the compartment. Toon folded a strip into his mouth.

Lucy tugged Jabril’s sleeve. They had dressed him in combat gear. Coyote tan. Boots and field jacket from the Victory PX. She helped him with shirt buttons. He didn’t object to US uniform. ‘I’m a pragmatist. That’s how I survive.’

She pointed at the desert ahead.

‘What’s that?’

Something in the sand. A long black line, cutting through the dunes.

‘The fence.’ Jabril shouted to be heard over rotor noise. ‘Two hundred miles long.’ He pointed with the metal hook at the end of his right arm. ‘Skull and crossbones. Warns off Bedouin. It means we are entering the contamination zone.’

Amber cabin light. Twenty minutes from target. Cue to suit up.

They checked laces, checked belts and knee-pads, tightened the straps of their ballistic vests.

They checked mag pockets. Each of them carried eight clips of green-tip tungsten carbine penetrators.

They unholstered Glock 17s and press-checked for brass.

They pulled their rifles from vinyl dust sleeves. The barrel and muzzle vents of each weapon were patched with duct tape to seal them from sand. They slapped home STANAG magazines and chambered a round.

They each carried two M67 frag grenades hooked to their webbing, rings taped down.

They each wore a quart canteen on their belt and a three-litre Camelbak hydration bladder strapped to their backs.

Voss slotted shells into his shotgun.

Toon hefted a SAW from the floor and held it in his lap. Squad Automatic Weapon: a compact belt-feed machine gun. He attached a two-hundred-round box magazine. He fed the belt into the receiver and slapped it closed.

They strapped on sand goggles.

Lucy leant close to Jabril. She held out a Glock.

‘You should carry a pistol,’ she shouted. ‘Just in case.’

Jabril shook his head.

Red light. One minute.

A quick descent.

Gaunt lowered the collective and eased the cyclic forward.

Combat landing. They came in fast. Heavy touchdown. Rotor-wash kicked up a dust storm.

Smooth deployment. The team jumped clear of the helos, ran through a blustering typhoon of sand and grit.

Defensive quadrant, guns trained on empty terrain. They each scanned their designated sector of fire.

Rotors decelerated and engine noise dwindled to silence.

‘Clear.’

‘Clear and covering.’

‘All clear, boss.’

‘All right. Stand easy.’

Middle of the Western Desert. Silence. Desolation. A faint breeze blew dust from the crest of each dune like a wisp of smoke.

Lucy took compact Barska binoculars from her chest rig. Three-sixty scan of the horizon. Brilliant blue sky. Rolling sand.

‘Let’s get the choppers under cover.’

Gaunt and Raphael unlaced bundles of desert camouflage netting and threw them over each chopper. They tented the nets with poles. The fabric coat masked thermal infra-red and absorbed radar. It protected the choppers from detection by ISTAR: Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance. The satellite network monitoring the Middle East battle zone. It would pick up nothing but sand.

Gaunt climbed the fuselage of each bird. He shook dust from filters. He stretched canvas covers over intakes and exhaust fairings.