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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