Dirty Deeds Done Cheap Read Online Free PDF

the most dangerous place in the world. ‘We were helicopter pilots in Afghan war, Iraq no bother us,’ was their answer. So here I was flying in broad daylight into the most dangerous place in the world piloted by two psycho Russian shot-to-pieces war veterans! At this time the military wouldn’t even fly into Mosul in broad daylight, fearing it was too dangerous! So I went back to my seat, feeling pretty nervous (on military aircraft you at least have quite a few countermeasures against missile attacks, but on civilian aircraft you have none). I sat down and buckled in. Two hours later we were coming in to land. I was just waiting for some sort of projectile to hit us but everything went fine. In fact we could have been landing anywhere in the world and you wouldn’t have known any difference. Very smooth, these pilots weren’t fazed by anything. They were proper headcases.
    As soon as we landed the steps came up to the main door and we emerged into the bright sunshine. At the bottom of the steps a flatbed truck was waiting for us. Our kit was offloaded in double-quick time and we chucked all of it onto the back and then all piled on. This was Mosul Airport, one of the most dodgy airports on the planet! It was a very small airport, which had been taken over by the American military as an airstrip to fly equipment in and to supply logistics to the north of the country for their missions. It had now been turned into a huge military base.
    As we travelled across the runways we came up to one of the most mental things I have ever seen: six Toyota Hiluxes with all the doors taken off (for the purpose of quick exit), all welded together with homemade armour, and in the back each vehicle had a big gun mounted – M240s, M19 grenade launchers and .50-cals! I’ve never seen anything like it. It looked like a scene from a Mad Max movie with everyone in the trucks armed to the teeth. The Hiluxes were battered and covered in bullet and shrapnel holes. I was bricking it a bit now – these guys had obviously been in a lot of action. Maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Whatever, I would soon find out. I then saw Phillipe and we said our hellos.
    It was now around 17.30 and I was told that we’d have to get a move on because it was even more dangerous travelling at night across Mosul than during the day for us. I was given an M16 and two thirty-round magazines, and got put in the back seat in the middle of one of the Toyotas (the safest place in one of those vehicles). Manning the machine-gun turrets in the back were Fijians and Gurkhas. Everyone was facing outwards in the trucks with their weapons at the ready. We were joined by other vehicles and formed a convoy.
    The convoy drove out of camp at full throttle. I didn’t know what to expect. As we went round the first bend into the town a car approached us. One of our guys put his hand up, to indicate to the driver to stop. The car still came towards us. Bang! Bang! He fired two rounds in front of the car. The car stopped. It was company policy not to actually shoot the car or its occupants unless it was absolutely necessary, but we could take no chances. We were to fire warning shots only and to kill only if it was absolutely necessary. However, there are some wankers working in Iraq who seemed just to shoot anything or anyone for fun. This is totally unprofessional and does nothing for hearts and minds. I believe it is counterproductive but, unfortunately, there are quite a few contractors in Iraq who think it’s OK to open up on anything. The guys I was working with, though, were of the highest standard.
    As we went through town all the guys were hard-targeting (aiming their weapons along their lines of sight), looking down side streets, looking for anywhere we could be ambushed from or shot at. It was not unknown for the insurgents to hide their bombs in absolutely anything or anywhere (even explosives concealed inside dead animals). However, the guys I was