The radio net went ballistic as everyone was told to stop firing.
Rhett paced angrily as the net commanded a call sign to go and check if any of them had been hit. 'Little shites!'
Then he shouted into the camera, a finger jabbing at the lens with every word as Dom kept it stable on his shoulder. 'The little bastards shove a black sock over a water-bottle, put it on the end of a stick and play RPGs. It might be the only game they know, but it's going to get them killed. Or one of my guys, while he's trying to work out what the fuck's being aimed at him. It pisses me off. Why don't their parents grip the little shites?'
He stormed away to give someone else a bollocking. Our driver walked past the open rear door with an SA80 in one hand and a big wheel wrench in the other. Our Warrior had had two wheels blown off a fortnight ago by an improvised explosive device dug into the side of the road. Now the nuts on one always seemed to be coming loose, and the driver liked to tighten them at every opportunity.
''Ere, Paul . . .' Pete gestured towards the driver '. . . you Scousers, you're always at it – your mate's nicking the wheels off your own fucking wagon . . .'
The mouthful he was about to get back was interrupted as the net reported no bodies in the contact area.
'Thank fuck for that.' In helmet, padded gloves and body armour, Paul was the next best thing to the Terminator. His ballistic glasses looked like untinted Oakleys. Like the leather gloves, they were worn to protect against fragmentation from RPGs and upblast from IEDs. The original issue had been ski goggles, but nobody wanted to wear them. Maybe it was the curvature or the Perspex, but they gave a weird perspective when you took aim. These ballistic gigs gave superior vision and far more protection.
His Osprey body armour had two big plates front and rear, and a big collar that came right up to his ears to protect against upblast. I particularly liked the bat-wings – Kevlar pads extending from the shoulder to the elbow to give extra protection when he stuck his top half out of the mortar hatch, ready to back the three lads with his Minimi 5.56 machine-gun if things kicked off.
I just wished Pete, Dom and I had the same protection, instead of the blue baby armour the media always minced about in. The theory was that we stood out from the military, but through the iron sights of an AK we'd be the only blue things in the desert.
A contact kicked off in the distance, probably at a VCP on the other side of town. Tracer rounds bounced into the sky.
The VCP set-up was simple. Two Warriors parked about fifty metres apart, on opposite sides of the road and angled at forty-five degrees to it, forming a chicane. One had its 30mm cannon facing out-of-town traffic, the other facing traffic coming in. Every vehicle, even donkeys and carts, was stopped by whichever Warrior it came to first and fed through into the safe area to be searched. The rest of the platoon was spread out in fire positions as all-round defence.
We'd had a big rush out of town to start with, as the locals tried to leg it, but then it died down when they realized no one was going to escape with their hauls of weapons, explosives and drugs.
The problem was, no vehicles meant no locals the insurgents had to worry about killing by mistake, so we were an unprotected target. 'Open season,' Pete muttered.
Dom climbed back in and the two of them got back to work.
I sat down with my brew near the open doorway and watched as a battered 4x4 crept into the VCP.
4
Many of the vehicles I'd seen looked brand-new. Some had Kuwait or Dubai numberplates. All flew a white flag. This one was a Land Cruiser, and its best days were behind it. Paul's feet shifted as he shadowed it with his Minimi. I watched as it moved into the safe ground. A white pillowcase hung from its aerial.
Five males of fighting age got out with their hands in the air. They knew the drill; they'd been doing it for nearly four years now.
I stretched my legs along the seat. Pete tapped away at the