the passenger door and under the green tarpaulin at the back. The second strand lay loose, ready to be touched to the positive.
'The battery first, Peter. Then whatever the Kingsmen do next.' Dom glanced down at what was left of the body. 'No, wait – see the trackmarks?' He pointed at the body's bloodsoaked arms. 'I need a close-up.'
I gripped the back of Pete's body armour to steady him. Left to his own devices, he'd have climbed into the cab to get a better picture and ended up kicking the loose wire on to the battery terminal.
He got the shots Dom had asked for, then zoomed in on a corporal as he ripped the wire from the battery.
Dom called us to the rear of the Hilux as a couple of Kingsmen lifted the green tarpaulin carefully from the flatbed to expose what looked like a pile of hardened mashed potato.
I tapped Pete's arm. 'Plastic explosive.' It was moulded over a cluster of six mortar bombs that had been gaffer-taped together. 'Eighty-one millimetre. Mint condition. See that? Even the brass around the percussion cap is still shiny. Look at the base of the rounds, mate. Can you get the stamps?'
Pete zoomed in. '"Lot 16 2006". They Brit or Yank?'
'Neither.'
The fact that it was written in English didn't mean they'd been factory-made in an English-speaking country, or that Islamic fundamentalists were knocking up 81mm mortar rounds in a shed behind Bolton railway station. All exported munitions carry English ID. It's the language of war and Iranian mortars. Rhett eased the detonator from the pile of mash and looked at the body on the ground. 'Fucking useless twat, doped to the eyeballs – couldn't even kill himself properly, could he?'
Dom took the two steps to me and kept his voice low so the Kingsmen couldn't hear. 'You see what I mean, Nick? These mortar rounds are coming into the country in the same shipments as the heroin. This guy's not a militant, he's a victim, just like these soldiers. They're all just pawns, Nick.' He pointed at the trackmarks, trembling with anger. 'It's not just happening here.'
He stared into the distance and his voice cracked. I thought he might be about to cry. 'Dublin. London. They're all lining their pockets. We have to do something about it. We can't just stand by and do nothing.'
7
Wednesday, 28 February
2043 hrs
Basra Airport
'Say what you like about Saddam Hussein,' the Media Ops guy said, 'but he didn't mess around when it came to ordering up the gold leaf and sculpted marble.'
We were sitting in a Portakabin at the COB (Contingency Operating Base), getting increasingly bored by the Royal Artillery captain's tour-guide spiel. We weren't the new kids on the block. All we'd needed was a brief on the situation, a timetable for the embed, and a helicopter ride out to where the action was. Personally, I wasn't that interested in hearing about the fifty-six windows on the front façade, the eighteen giant reception rooms, twelve balconies, five grand staircases and eight spacious toilets with gold taps Saddam had knocked up on a commandeered public park in 1990 while his subjects scratched a squalid living around him.
Nor was Pete, by the look of him. He was trying hard not to yawn.
'And that's just one of fifteen buildings in the same complex,' the captain went on. 'Little did he know his palace would become a fortified British camp. The grounds are now home to 2 Rifles.'
I knew the second battalion of the British Army's new rifle regiment had been formed a week or two earlier from the Light Infantry, Green Jackets and Gloucesters, but only because the Scousers had been moaning about it. This amalgamation business was all the rage. The Duke of Lancs had been the King's Regiment until five minutes ago.
The captain shrugged. 'Or maybe he did. In the end, he never came here, not even for the weekend.' He laughed at his own joke.
I felt sorry for the fucker. He would probably have much preferred to be out there doing some proper soldiering instead of fronting the army's PR machine. That said, it was my job to protect Dom and Pete, and not just from bombs and ricochets. I put up my hand. 'Is there really a Pizza Hut here? If so, can we order?'
When we'd landed from Jordan on the only civilian flight serving the city, we'd seen the rows of tents and vehicles stretching away to the horizon. To most soldiers out there, 'COB'