Andy McNab - Crossfire

Pete had been nodding along. He gave a burst of laughter louder than a 30mm. 'I got chucked out too! Wrongly accused of being the previous owner of a turd they found floating in the deep end. Wasn't you, was it? Too much exotic veg?'

I pointed at the screen. 'That Tallulah?'

'Yes.' He beamed. 'And that's the birthday girl.' His finger touched the screen and lingered as she blew out the candles on her cake. He was lost in his own world for a bit. 'I've missed every one of the last three…' He looked up suddenly. 'But do you know what, Nick? I'm not fucking missing her seventh, in three weeks' time. Or any of the others after that. I'm jacking it in, mate. Local news and quality family time, that's me from now on.'

I wasn't sure if he was serious. 'But you'd miss all this.' I waved my arm to embrace the chaos.

'Miss what? A reporter on a personal crusade he won't let me in on, crap tea – no offence – and an arse full of sand?' He tapped the screen again. 'No contest, mate.'

I understood the tea and sand bit. 'Crusade?'

He blew out his cheeks. 'He's always been hungry for it. Passionate, you know? I used to be up there with him, righting wrongs, changing the world. But I just don't have the appetite for it any more. It's partly the fact that all we're producing here is tomorrow's chip paper. Disposable news – nobody gives a fuck.' His eyes roamed back to the birthday party. 'Partly that other things, like spending time with Tallulah and watching Ruby grow up, are a whole lot more important to me now.' He shrugged. 'Don't get me wrong, the awards we got for the Kabul doc mean something because they were recognition for exposing the fucking nightmare out there, but I just… I just don't share Dom's passion any more.'

'And the new passion is drugs? That's the crusade?'

He leant forward to get his face closer to mine. 'He's so fixated he even had me secret-filming in Dublin a couple of weeks ago…' He slumped back and stared up at the ornate ceiling. 'But I'm checking out now. Maybe I'll do the odd wildlife documentary. Just as long as I can know what my schedule is far enough in advance not to risk missing another of Ruby's birthdays…' His eyes narrowed. 'You got family, Nick?'

'I did have, once.' I got a sudden rush of pins and needles in my legs, a sensation I hadn't experienced for a long, long time. 'A little girl who was a lot like your Ruby, as a matter of fact. Her parents were killed, I was her guardian.' I was vaguely aware that sweat was now leaking more heavily down my face and tried to wipe it away. 'I never really got the birthday thing right… In the end I had to ask someone more reliable to take over.'

My memory stick was set to locked, and that was the way I liked it. Somebody once told me I lived life with the lid on, and I guessed they were right. It was the way it had to be. How was I supposed to function if I spent all my time clicking thumbnails of a teenager dead on a King's Cross bed? The image I tried to cling to was of her bright and sparkly at the one birthday I did manage to get right, at the replica of the Golden Hind on the Thames.

I was spared having to go there, and poor Pete was spared having to listen. One of the rifle-company lads appeared and stood next to me, but it was Pete he was after. He had a blue Helly Hansen T-shirt on under his armour, and a brand-new tattoo of barbed wire curling round his right arm. Here and there a few scabs still clung to the ink – but not as many as there were on the zits he'd popped on his face.

Pete looked up at him with a big smile. 'Hello, mate. What can I do you for?'

The young lad smiled back. 'I heard you was a tankie. My dad was, too – Jim Duggan, you know him?'

Pete moved his head from side to side in thought mode. 'No, mate, sorry, don't ring any bells. He still in?'

The lad was Welsh, and flushed with pride for his dad. 'No, he's here, in Iraq, working for one of the security companies.'

Duggan… The name suddenly rang a bell with me. He was the boy who needed bigging up. I held out a hand. 'I'm Nick, that's Pete. You number one on the door tonight?'

He got even prouder. 'Terry. Yeah, first time. The platoon swaps round the entry teams.'

'Good luck, mate. You know, until about four years ago only special forces would be doing that shit.'

His eyes widened and he kept shaking my hand, and Pete just kept looking at him, deep in thought.

'Yeah?'

'That's right, mate. Big day. Good luck.'

One of the RMP girls walked past and Terry's eyes swivelled. Pete laid down his iBook, stood up and wrapped a fatherly arm round him. 'You do good tonight, my son, and she'll be all over you like a rash.'

Terry might have been about to get the party gear on and make entry into a house packed with guys wanting to kill him, but he was maybe nineteen at a push. The RMP would have had him soft-boiled for breakfast.

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?'

The tank park 2340 hrs '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.