Andy McNab - Crossfire

All my kit from the palace was on a bench in the corner. There wasn't much of it, but I didn't care. Out here, whatever you had would be in shit state within seconds.

I took a breath and forced myself to sit up.

'I got bad news, Nick. It's Pete…' Rhett was grim-faced. 'He's dead, mate.'

I couldn't have heard him right.

'He got shot about four hours ago. Sorry, mate, he was a good lad.'

Pete's gone… I've got to go… I've got to go…

'Where's Dom?'

'Dunno. Probably well shook up. He saw it happen. Media Ops asked me to break the news. It's a fucker.'

I pointed over to my kit. 'Can you pass my mobile? It's in one of the side pouches.'

I was fully awake now. I was thinking about Tallulah, Ruby and those birthdays he was determined not to miss.

I sparked up the phone. Iraqna had treated me to a three-bar signal.

I called Dom. The default Vodafone Ireland message kicked in immediately.

'It's Nick. Rhett's just told me. Call me back soon as, mate. I need to know you're OK.'

I sat cradling the phone in my lap. 'What the fuck happened?'

He placed his helmet carefully on the plywood floor. 'Fucking nightmare.' He shook his head. 'We brought both of them back here from OSB. You were out of it, so Dom said they'd decided to go outside the wire to film the Merlins flying low into the city. Some fucker must have been waiting. Pete took two rounds. There's always some of those shites hanging around looking for a target. Dom ran and got help, but it was useless. He'd have died instantly. What can I say? Fucking crying shame…'

'What about the shooters?'

'The QRF [quick reaction force] were out like a bunch of fucking whippets, but they'd legged it.'

'Where's Dom?'

'His kit's gone. He's fucked off.'

I willed the phone to ring. A cameraman had died on my watch, and now the reporter was missing.

I looked up. 'Help me get dressed, mate.'

I did it as fast as I could, one-handed and with a bit of help from Rhett. My jeans and T-shirt were on my Bergen, but my boots had probably been burnt along with the rest of last night's shit-covered, infected gear. I dug out my trainers.

'You know where they keep the bodies?'

Rhett was in awkward mode. 'No, it's not the sort of place we want to go near.'

I held out my good hand and we shook. 'Thanks, Rhett. If you want to come with me and have a last look, you can.'

'Nah, I want to remember him as a gobby shite.'

He left and I finished dressing. A mirror hung on a bit of string from a section of frame by the side of the bench, and I saw what was left of a large black M that had been written on my forehead in permanent marker. At some stage I would have had a label attached to me too, to make doubly sure everybody further down the chain knew I'd been administered morphine. It affects other treatments.

With greasy, sticking-up hair and already sweating, I pushed aside the green nylon sheet that acted as a door, turned left and walked down a corridor of cubicle walls towards the sound of music. I passed air-conditioning ducts, but they weren't working.

There was another cubicle at the end of the corridor. This one was an office. Two guys in white coats sat on plastic chairs, watching MTV. They had their backs to me but I could see the mugs of brew and a packet of Rich Tea.

'Lads, where's the morgue? I think one of my mates is there – you know, the cameraman who got shot.'

They both looked round, and then at each other. It was hard to interpret their expressions. Either I wasn't allowed access, or neither of them wanted to miss Beyonce shaking her tits on MTV.

The blond one stood up. 'Next door.' He picked up his armour and helmet. 'Where's yours?'

'Don't know, mate.'

I followed him out into the blinding sunshine. I almost had to close my eyes. We turned right in the sand and headed for a concrete-block building. The guy turned back to me as we walked. 'You ever seen a dead body before, mate?'

I nodded.

Entering the building was like stepping into a fridge. This was where all the air-conditioning lived. Beyond sheets of thick plastic hanging from the ceiling lay five stone slabs like kitchen worktops.

A body lay on one, covered with a sheet. Two clear evidence bags lay on the floor next to him. One was smeared on the inside with wet blood that must have rubbed off his clothes. The other, much smaller, contained his personal effects. His wallet, his watch, his wedding ring. And his precious memory stick.

The guy went over and pulled the sheet back, then stood aside and leant against the next slab along.

Pete's couple of days' stubble would keep growing for a bit longer, but he'd been cleaned up pretty well. I realized this was the first time I'd seen him without a smile on his face.

He had two strike marks in his chest. They'd dried up and looked like big scabs. The rest of his skin was pale.

'What's going to happen now? How's he going to get home?'

'I guess we'll fly him back to Brize. That's what normally happens.'

I looked at Pete again. Something about those strike marks wasn't right.

I walked all the way round him, looking for more strikes, more marks. 'Why wasn't he wearing armour?'

The guy was getting bored now. He'd done his bit. Beyonce beckoned. 'Don't know, mate. He just got shot and brought here. That's it.'

I lifted Pete's right arm, then pulled it up a bit more until his shoulder lifted and I could see the exit wounds in his back. They were large, as they always are when the rounds are allowed to exit the body. I put his arm down where it belonged.

'I'm going to see you all right, mate…' I said quietly.

The medic came towards me with the sheet. 'No need to worry about that.'

'I wasn't talking to you.'

I picked up Pete's personal stuff and left him to it. I walked back out into the sun. Dom and I would take his gear to his family. The least we could do was make sure the stuff that was most important to him got back to the people who were most important to him. Small things in big firms always tended to go missing.

Why wasn't he wearing Osprey? Everyone had to wear it even to go for a dump. Pete was so careful. He would have had it on. Even if those two rounds had pierced his body armour by some sort of miracle, they wouldn't have exited like they did. When a high-velocity round enters the body, it creates a vortex behind it like the wake after a boat. As it leaves, the pressure equalizes. There's a small air explosion that rips the exit wound open. It's what high-velocity rounds are designed to do.

My arm hurt like fuck as it swung and I had to cradle it against my chest.

Screwing up my eyes, I turned right, headed past the morgue and into the dining tent. People were coming and going with mugs of brew. The entrance was full of people in body armour and helmets washing their hands in cleansing liquid so's not to waste water. They looked at me like I was an alien. 'I know, I haven't got any. Anybody know where Media Ops are?'

I was pointed beyond the cookhouse. I turned left by the showers and half walked, half ran, asking for directions along the way. Most people knew their own areas and that was it.

Eventually I found myself outside two Portakabins with huge air-conditioning condenser boxes. I knew where I was now. This was where we'd had our briefings.

There was movement inside the second Portakabin. I went in and the place was almost as cold as the mortuary tent. The Royal Artillery captain who'd done the meet and greet was behind a desk. I couldn't remember his name – I'd just nodded and agreed as he gave his talk, not expecting to see him again. But I did remember he was in the Territorials, and had volunteered to come out here. In the real world, he was responsible for Plymouth Council's CCTV cameras.