Andy McNab - Deep Black

Rob turned and must have seen me, but we still didn't have eye to eye. In fact nobody was talking much, apart from the four Iraqi women. Everyone looked apprehensive as the soldiers dug about in their bags, made them spark up their laptops and tried to look like they knew what they were doing.

I reckoned they were poking around just for the fun of it. If you were going to bring anything illegal into this country, you'd go the Ali Baba route. There were hundreds of miles of unpatrolled desert that everyone, from drug traffickers to armed militants, was pouring across.

After the checks were complete we had to move round to the other side of the table and collect our bags before being led through the hangar. Logistics people sat at tables, tapping busily on their laptops. This being the US military, the bulk of the hangar was stuffed with racks and racks of shiny new equipment. The kit would be rushed to whoever needed it. In the British Army, there'd have been six quartermasters guarding one ration pack, and even that couldn't be claimed without a requisition order signed by the chief of the General Staff.

We reached a corridor and things got smarter. US soldiers sat drinking cans of Coke on old, recently liberated, gilded settees. It looked like this area had been the front office for whatever the hangar had once been used for. Right now it was home to the all-new Iraqi immigration service. Several officials in friendly blue shirts sat at desks, each equipped with a PC and digital camera. Behind them sat a group of Americans, some in uniform, giving everyone the once-over as they went through.

Beyond the tables was a blur of people in uniforms and civvies. It was obviously the ad hoc arrivals and departures zone, but it looked more like the reception area at the UN building. A bunch of Koreans in American BDUs stood around with a group of Italians. Every nationality had their flag stitched on to a sleeve. The smartest-looking troops were the Germans, in crisply laundered black cargoes, T-shirts and matching body armour. Their flag was almost invisible, but with their brown boots, Mediterranean tans and blond hair, they won the best-dressed-for-war competition hands down.

I filed through, showing my Nick Stone passport. I bullshitted Jerry that Collins was my Irish mother's maiden name. I'd applied for an Irish passport, but I lost it in a move and hadn't needed it for years. Not that he believed me, of course, but what did it matter? There'd probably be worse things to worry about once we got into the city. An Iraqi took my picture, stamped my passport and waved me through.

Jerry wasn't so lucky. Either the Arab face on the American passport threw them a bit, or they were just trying to show off to their new bosses who'd given them such nice shirts.

I waited for him in the general area. It was hot and noisy, and most of the noise was Italian. They put the four women to shame, and their hand gestures were much better as well.

It wasn't just the soldiers who were armed. The place was heaving with guys wearing body armour over their civvies and carrying AK47s, MP5s, M16s, pistols, you name it. It made me feel good. Even if I was just holding Jerry's hand, I was working, and I was back with my own kind.

This was where I felt comfortable; this was my world. Maybe I had done the right thing coming here.

Dazzling sunshine streamed through a dust-covered window. I peered through and wondered how we'd get into the city. There were no taxis because they couldn't get on to the base. We were in a fortified confine: all I could see were rows of unmarked 4x4s with darkened windows and a few guys standing around with body armour under the obligatory sand-coloured safari vest, sun-gigs hanging off their noses, shoulder-slung MP5s at the ready. To complete the effect they had boom mikes stuck to their mouths to help them look like they were on top of the job. They hardly needed to be: there were more soldiers on show here than there were in the entire British Army. I reckoned they were the official freelancers in town, probably protecting the American and Brit bureaucrats who ran the country, looking good so the CPA thought they were getting their money's worth.

In the midst of this chaos one thing was for sure: Rob wouldn't be queuing up for a bus. He'd have organized everything down to the last detail, and was probably already gliding towards Baghdad in an air-conditioned 4x4.

It looked like the Canadian had got herself sorted too. Gap Man was busy loading her bag into the boot of a white Suburban as she jumped into the back and the BG started the engine.

Jerry was still being questioned. I caught his eye and indicated that I was going outside. He nodded, then turned back to yabber some more to his new friend. Ever since we'd got into Jordan he'd been saying how strange it was speaking Arabic all the time. Apparently this was the first occasion he'd ever used it, apart from talking to his grandmother and his mum or going round to one of the corner shops in Lackawanna.

I put my sunglasses back on and walked outside. The midday sun drilled into me as I looked round for transport. I hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a loud cockney voice bellowed behind me, 'Oi, shit-for-brains, how's it going?'

I recognized him at once, even with Aviators on. I hadn't seen him since leaving the squadron, but there was no mistaking Gary Mackie. No discreet stuff for Gaz: it had never been his style to obey the written rules, let alone unwritten ones.

He was still shorter than me, and was still hitting the weights. His arms and chest were huge.

I came out with the regular greeting you give people when you bump into them like this. 'Fucking hell, I heard you were dead!'

He didn't answer. He just advanced on me with his arms wide open and banged himself into me for a big bear-hug. Then he stood back, still holding me by the shoulders. His eyes were level with my nose. 'Fucking hell, mate, you look a bag of shit!'

Fair one: I probably did. Gaz had to be in his early fifties now, but looked much younger. His black sweatshirt was soaking wet, front and back. It had started out with long sleeves but they'd been ripped off, leaving the threads hanging over the top of his big tanned Popeye arms. He'd been in the Light Infantry before the Regiment, and still had a faded tattoo of his old cap badge on his right biceps. Only now it looked more like an anchor.

'Thanks, Gaz, good to see you too. How long you been here?'

He was jumping up and down, speaking with his hands. 'Six months. It's fucking brilliant, know what I mean?' He pulled his jeans up by their thick leather belt. A 9mm sat in a pancake holder at his side. 'Who you working for, Nicky boy?'

'Newspaper guy, American. He's still in Immigration.'

He grabbed my arm. 'Come here – come and see my crew.' All smiles, he dragged me towards the four guys lounging in the shade nearby, all dressed in his regulation jeans and T-shirt combo. I'd never seen Gaz firing on less than six cylinders: everything was always great with him. He'd been married more times than Liz Taylor and still loved every one of them. They probably felt the same about him.

He punched me in the arm. 'It's good to see you, mate. I didn't know you was on the circuit. I haven't heard about you since fuck knows when.'

Once I'd left the Regiment and started to work for the Firm, I dropped out of almost everything I'd known. That was just how it had to be.

The 'circuit' was the job market for the ex-military. Security companies snap up personnel for helping out in a war, VIP protection, guarding pipelines, training foreign armies, that sort of thing. There's a whole bunch of firms, British and American, some more reliable than others. The work is mostly freelance, payment always by the day. You're responsible for your own tax and insurance, which means that most blokes don't take care of either. It's called the circuit because you bounce from one company to another. If you hear of a better job, you drop the one you're doing and move on.