Pete gestured at the iBook. 'If that old man of yours is on email, you want to drop him a line? Tell him you're OK?'
Pete and I exchanged a glance. He knew as well as I did that if tonight went to rat shit this might be the last time he ever made contact.
Terry was even more made up as he sat and started tapping away.
Pete stepped over to me, looking pleased with himself. 'You know what? There would be stuff I'd miss. Mostly the camaraderie. The brotherhood. It's a bit like being a squaddy, what we do. Even when you're up to your neck in shit, you're surrounded by mates.' He smiled. 'We were in Kabul when Ruby's mum fucked off to Spain with the bloke who built our extension. It was Dom and all the other guys who kept me afloat.'
He slapped my arm. 'Sorry, mate, too much information. If you do ever get there, though, the Gandamack Lodge is the place to drown your sorrows. Great bar. The city's not exactly awash with them. All the news crews stay there, and it's the circuit's watering-hole. Plenty of company.'
The shout went up that the attack was over, but we stayed where we were. The area still had to be cleared before anyone could move.
'Talking of keeping afloat…' he hit my arm again… 'when Tel's finished, why don't you go online to Sad Fucks Reunited, see if you can hunt down the old diving team?'
10
'Where the fuck is Peter with those drinks?'
It was the first time I'd heard Dom swear. Things obviously weren't too hunky-dory on Planet Platinum Bollocks. He'd come back fuming from his session at the FCO building. Pete and I had tried to draw him out, but he stayed tight-lipped.
It was H-hour minus twenty, and we were choking on the exhaust from B Company's nine Bulldogs. Their back doors were open. In the dull red glow from the interiors I could see a mass of last-minute checks going on. I watched Terry as he tugged his chest harness over his Osprey body armour and positioned the pouches to make sure his mags, frag and smoke grenades were secure. Once he was sorted, he couldn't resist having another quick squeeze of a zit.
All I had to check was the field dressing in the left map pocket of my cargos, same place everyone kept one. That way we knew where to grab it if someone took a hit and started leaking.
The ear pad of my PRR crackled as guys blew into their mikes to test their radios were working and on the right channel.
Dom turned to me. The guys were around us so he kept his voice low. 'They are so young.'
I pointed to Terry, now pulling on his gloves — maybe to stop himself attacking his face. 'That little fucker there's first through the door tonight.'
Dom moved a few steps to check he really was seeing teenage spots on the man leading the attack.
'That's how it is.' I shrugged. 'They're infantry, they're all young fuckers.'
Dom was still brooding as Terry clambered into the back of his Bulldog. Maybe he was thinking how lucky that stepson of his was in comparison. I guessed he'd be tucked away in a nice warm university bed right now, probably not his own. Good for him. I always wished I'd had the chance of college instead of running round like Terry, with a tin hat on, getting shot at.
Pete returned with three white cups and caught the fag end of the conversation. 'That kid who's first through the door tonight is only nineteen.'
I took my brew but Dom shook his head.
'Take it, you'll like this one. I got us some real coffee. I told 'em vampires can't drink tea, it kills them. Go on, it'll calm you down. You shouldn't go chasing after those fuckers. It winds you up too much.'
I took a sip of the strong, milky brew as Dave came on the PRR. 'All call signs. Ten minutes.'
Around us, working parts were cocked.
''Ere, Drac, you get any one of those spooks to interview yet? We got a busy day tomorrow?'
Dom's mobile rang before he got the chance to answer. 'Baz! You sure?' He jammed a finger in his other ear and shouted: 'Is that better? I said, are you sure it's him? That's great news. When did you find out?'
He closed down and put the phone back in his pocket. He looked at Pete. 'I've got a lead.'
'Want me to come with you?'
'No, I'll go first thing — should only be a few days. Just get lots of footage. You know, the boys emailing home, that sort of thing. Bread-and-butter stuff. Cover for me with Moira. You know how much she hates me doing my stuff on her dime.'
Pete was frowning. 'What are you—'
There was an explosion two hundred away, followed closely by another.
'Take cover!'
As if anyone needed telling. Cups dropped to the tarmac as we legged it into our Bulldog.
Pete grabbed my arm. 'Something's wrong, Nick. This is about more than an interview.'
'Personal?'
'Very.'
Dave was already on the net. 'Soon as all call signs are complete, we're mobile.'
Thirty seconds later, the company rolled out of the tank park in their nine wagons, just as another Katyusha piled into the compound. The explosion sounded much closer this time. Yet another whooshed over the open mortar hatches, its rocket even louder than the wagon's engines and tracks.
The Bulldog was essentially the old APC (armoured personnel carrier) that had been rumbling over the Westphalian plains of Germany for thirty or forty years as part of the BAOR and during the Cold War. I'd spent two years in them myself as mechanized infantry, and remembered them as slow and sluggish. But this lot had been geared up with a brand-new power pack so they could scream along at fifty m.p.h., keeping pace with the Challengers and Warriors. They also had brand-new armour all round, including bar armour to keep the RPGs at bay, and a turret with a GPMG had been mounted where the wagon's commander would normally sit and poke his head out to watch thousands of Russian tanks screaming towards him.
Ours was the command vehicle, at the rear of the column. Dom, Pete and I were crammed into the back, along with Dave, two medics, the company commander and his signaller.
The company commander, a major, was on the net to another rifle company, Chindit, to tell them we were leaving early. Chindit were from 2 Lancs, who were defending the OSB (Old State Building) in the centre of the city.
They'd be backing us once the contacts started. The plan was to let the militants run and drive into the contact area and take us on. As soon as that happened, Chindit Company, reinforced by three extra Warriors from Rhett and his recce platoon, would scream out of the OSB in their Warriors and cordon them off. With so many Warriors on the ground, the militants would have nowhere to run. It was then the job of both companies to dispose of as many insurgents as they could in the killing ground they had created.
This was just one of the four strike ops that would be going in tonight. The other companies from 2 Rifles would be doing the same in other areas, also with 2 Lancs backing them in their Warriors. It was going to be one fuck of a party.
I bent my five-inch plastic IR cyalume stick so that the glass inside broke, mixing the chemicals that made the thing glow, though only when viewed through NVAs.
Everyone else was doing the same, then attaching them to the back of their helmet or Osprey. In the confusion of contact it was a good way of knowing where your mates were before you decided to take a shot through your night sight at a moving body.
11
It was just as suffocating inside the Bulldog as it was in the Warrior, even with the mortar hatches open. Dust and exhaust fumes blasted in as we roared towards the compound exit.
Dave sat next to the door handle and pointed out where all the wagon's shit was located. 'Behind the boss there, morphine and tourniquets. Spare ammo is here.' He kicked the metal boxes below his seat with his heel.