Andy McNab: Crossfire

We'd had a big rush out of town to start with, as the locals tried to leg it, but then it died down when they realized no one was going to escape with their hauls of weapons, explosives and drugs.

The problem was, no vehicles meant no locals the insurgents had to worry about killing by mistake, so we were an unprotected target. 'Open season,' Pete muttered.

Dom climbed back in and the two of them got back to work.

I sat down with my brew near the open doorway and watched as a battered 4x4 crept into the VCP.

Many of the vehicles I'd seen looked brand-new. Some had Kuwait or Dubai numberplates. All flew a white flag. This one was a Land Cruiser, and its best days were behind it. Paul's feet shifted as he shadowed it with his Minimi. I watched as it moved into the safe ground. A white pillowcase hung from its aerial.

Five males of fighting age got out with their hands in the air. They knew the drill; they'd been doing it for nearly four years now.

I stretched my legs along the seat. Pete tapped away at the keyboard, preparing to send TVZ 24 the latest report from its star correspondent.

It was Poland's first twenty-four-hour news channel. I'd watched a few of Dom's pieces. It looked like Sky, News 24 or CNN with additional gobbledegook; they were all the same format, lots of primary colours, rousing music, girls with big hair and white teeth. Their headquarters were in Krakow, but TVZ 24 didn't only beam out to Poland: plumbers and builders all over Europe were regular viewers on satellite or cable. Dom and Pete worked out of the Dublin office. There were better tax breaks in the Republic than in the UK.

It wasn't only the Poles who knew our hero. Dominik Condratowicz was a bit of a celeb in reporting circles, the golden boy of war journalism with platinum-plated bollocks. He was one of those people who believed he would never get shot or damaged, the sort, Pete said, who walked into nothing but good. He wore a memory stick on a chain round his neck. Maybe it was to ward off evil spirits.

He was tall and annoyingly good-looking, even when a thick layer of dust had given him a horror-film face. His Top Gun-style dark brown hair, blindingly white teeth and firm jawline were featured most weeks next to his wife's in Poland's answer to Hello!. As far as I knew, he lived in Dublin with Siobhan, his Irish wife, and her son. He kept things close to his chest, did Platinum Bollocks.

Pete was getting pissed off with the dust billowing off Dom's jacket. 'Here, Dracula, you going to take your fucking cloak off or what?' Dom's mother was from Transylvania. When he'd found out Pete obviously thought he'd died and gone to heaven. He was laughing so much he had to close his iBook to stop his own dust getting on the keys.

Dom cocked an ear as Pete went back to his edit. 'Talking of creatures of the night…' His English had an accent, but it was a whole lot better than mine. This guy had education behind him.

An unmanned aerial vehicle – the battle group's eyes – buzzed overhead in the brilliantly clear sky. Like a large model plane with a huge wingspan and a couple of cameras in the body, the UAV was flown by remote control from one of the Warriors.

Pete took the final bite of his Yorkie, pulled a can of compressed air from his Bat-belt and gave the laptop keys a few bursts. As he treated himself to a blast down the front of his shirt, I spotted a memory stick like Dom's round his neck. I hadn't realized superstition was so rife in this business.

Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq. They'd been there, seen it, done it together, and Pete had filmed Dom wearing the T-shirt. He never lost an opportunity to remind Dom it was his camerawork that had won them all their awards. They'd picked up an Emmy last year for a documentary on women's rights in Afghanistan – almost non-existent under the Taliban, and not much improved, apparently, under new management.

A couple of cars and trucks were still being held at either end of the chicane, waiting to be fed into the safe ground.

Pete was about to upload the report. He joined Paul in the mortar hatch and plonked his sat phone on a flat stretch of hull. The BGAN Explorer 500 looked more like a George Foreman grill than a mobile. Lying on its side with the lid open, it was pointing straight at Paul.

'Mind the old family jewels, mate.' Pete grinned from ear to ear. 'You know what they say about them microwaves…'

Pete used a little inbuilt button compass to point it towards the satellite, then ran the USB lead back down through the hatch and into his iBook. The power lead was plugged into the vehicle supply.

'All set?' Dom closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable.

Pete tapped away. 'On its way.'

A shaft of early-morning light shone through the mortar hatch and on to my face.

'Back in your coffin, Drac.' Pete wasn't missing a trick this morning.

Dom kept his eyes shut but couldn't stop a grin.

'What now, Pete?' I shifted a day sack out of the way. 'You going to go and talk tanks with your new mates?'

He shook his head. 'Had enough of that shit when I was in. I never liked the fucking things even then. Besides, Tallulah wants me to give Ruby a virtual bollocking.'

Pete logged on to BT at least once a day and checked his emails. The ones he got from seven-year-old Ruby and her step-mum Tallulah always raised a smile with him. They did with me, too, but only because Ruby and Tallulah sounded more like a Eurovision Song Contest entry than real people.

Emails were OK, but no one out here was allowed to use a mobile phone to call home. The insurgents had infiltrated the phone companies, and if a soldier was allowed to waffle to his family they could triangulate the signal, get a fix on his location and an early warning of any troop movement across the desert. Which meant they could scatter – or they could attack.

Pete was in his late forties, and had been a squaddy himself for four or five years when he was younger. Hussars, dragoons, lancers – some tank regiment, I'd never understood who was what. I liked him a lot, and it wasn't just because of his accent. The moment I'd heard it at Amman airport, I'd known we had a lot more in common than an army past.

What we didn't share was his almost obsessive-compulsive approach to organization. Pete had to be the most fastidious man on the planet. Maybe that wasn't so surprising, after being cooped up for the whole of his army career with a crew who farted every five minutes and pissed in empty plastic bottles. He washed his socks and underwear every night, even though he had a fortnight's worth in his bag, and spent so long with the Colgate and floss I thought he was going to wear his teeth out.

''Ere, Nick… You want to get online before the Prince of Darkness here hogs the fucking thing?' He looked across at Dom and the smile evaporated.

Dom seemed to spend longer on the phone and email than a lovestruck teenager, and it never seemed to be to his wife. His hours online were to Moira, his producer back in Dublin.

'The price of fame.' I raised an eyebrow.

'Rather him than me,' Pete said. 'She's an arsehole.'

It was true. The only decent person I'd spoken to in the whole office was Kate, her PA.

He went back to his laptop. It still felt strange to me that they were able to maintain contact with the outside world and conduct their lives almost normally while sitting in the back of one of these things in the middle of a war zone. It wasn't just the technology that amazed me. It was sustaining the relationship.

An RPG kicked off somewhere in the city. A 30mm fired up and gave it a few rounds back.

Dom opened his eyes and reached for a bottle of water. He took a few swigs and offered it to Pete, who looked at him in disgust. 'After you've had your fangs round it?'