James Ashcroft - Making a Killing - The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq

‘Run like fuck as far from the vehicles as possible,’ Les replied. He was thinking it through. ‘They’d destroy the vehicles and not bother picking off the poor fuckers if any survived.’

‘And these guys tried to drive out of it,’ I said. ‘If they’d come under air attack they would have de-bussed and fucked off on foot. They probably saw the American armour coming for them and thought they were far enough away from them to make a withdrawal in vehicles.’

He nodded. We both knew the scenario. An M1 tank would have been able to engage these guys from a couple of Ks away, easy. The Iraqis weren’t used to long engagement ranges like that and probably would have thought they could escape in their vehicles.

I remembered the instructors at Sandhurst telling us that Abrams during the first Gulf War in 1991 had reported successful engagement ranges of up to four kilometres against static targets. There was always the possibility that artillery, the biggest killer, had taken them, but it was unlikely, bearing in mind that the huddle of modest houses and the trees nearby were untouched. One way or the other, the Iraqi troops hadn’t stood a chance.

I remembered slowly patrolling through an abandoned village in Bosnia. We could tell the direction that the attack had come from because all the walls on each house were peppered with bullet holes on one side only. After our eyes had adjusted to truly recognise what we were seeing we could even trace the course of the battle, seeing which houses had been taken first and then used as points for covering fire for assaults on the next house.

We even fancied that we could tell the differing characteristics of each squad as they leapfrogged past each other, since alternate houses showed either more accurate strikes around the windows where the defenders would have been, as opposed to every other house which had been saturated with small-arms fire. Lateral striations zigzagging across the road showed the strike of bullets as teams covered each other from each side of it.

The house at the end of the village was clearly where the last stand had been mounted, and the houses nearest it bore evidence of that fact on their walls. They were riddled with bullet holes, not only from the direction in which the attackers had come when they took them, but also on the other side, facing towards them coming from the defenders. This last house had been completely flattened to rubble, and tank tracks in the field next door told us how that particular fight had ended.

The destroyed vehicles were behind us and we started seeing more and more built-up areas with shops, gas stations and family houses. We had left the flat barren desert behind and were soon driving in the middle of a substantial city.

‘Is this Baghdad?’ I asked Mohammed.

‘ Na’am , Baghdad,’ he grinned and lit a cigarette.

The buildings were all two-storey blocks, residential houses or apartment buildings with flat roofs flying flags of washing. In some areas, the buildings had shops on the ground floor. All of them were a uniform mud-brown colour lacking features or architectural interest. A friend of mine at Oxford had once told me that Baghdad was the most beautiful city in the world. She must have been dreaming. In biblical times, maybe. Burned-out cars, car tyres and broken masonry littered the streets. Men stood around on street corners and goats grazed on rubbish dumps.

Eventually we drove up to an American checkpoint. Mohammed showed them a laminated ID card and Les and I showed our passports. Behind us I noticed Hayder’s team all showing ID as well. This was the entrance to the CPA, the Green Zone, where many of the private security companies were based. Two minutes later we were pulling up outside a walled villa.

‘Spartan,’ Mohammed said, grinning at us. Two white men walked out of the house to greet us. Angus McGrath was one of them. I pointed him out to Les.

‘That’s Seamus Hayes,’ he said, pointing to the other one.

He looked as fit as a butcher’s dog and sported a massive, 70s-style Mexican moustache.

Both Angus and Seamus were wearing mirrored Oakleys which looked both cool and mean.

Bollocks.

The four guys in the escort car jumped out and lined up to unload their rifles with the muzzles pointing into an oil drum filled with sand: a primitive but effective loading/unloading bay.

‘I’m impressed,’ I said to Angus as he came to shake hands.

‘We had a couple of NDs in the early days.’

An ND (negligent discharge) is someone accidentally firing off a round from his weapon; a serious offence in the army and potentially lethal for any poor sod standing nearby.

Angus was the Ops officer in charge of organising the house security force among other things.

‘You should sort out some uniforms or armbands,’ I said, ‘or your locals are going to get slotted by the first American patrol that sees them.’

‘I’ve had a word with the local CF unit and let them know where we are, but you’re right, some uniforms are on order.’

‘CF?’

‘Coalition Forces. The Yanks.’

Of course. Silly me.

Seamus shook my hand. ‘Nice to have you on board,’ he said, and turned away as Les pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels and a couple of magazines about triathlons out of his bag.

‘Here you are,’ he said.

‘That’s fucking great, Les. Nice one.’

Angus led us inside and of course I felt like shit that I hadn’t thought to bring him some small gift. In a narrow corridor he pointed out a couple of rooms. Les was sharing with Seamus and I was in a room with a Welshman named Dai Jones. They had prepared everything for us; sheets, duvets and towels were already laid out on the beds like in boarding school. We each had a bulletproof vest. I tapped mine. Soft with no ceramic plates. We dumped our bags and came back out. Both of us went straight to the lavatory. Five hours in a taxi tends to strain the bladder.

Seamus waved us over towards him.

‘Come on, let’s get you to the armoury and sort some weapons out.’

‘Ash, I’ll see you later at scoff. I have to get back to the office,’ Angus called as he disappeared into another doorway at the end of the hall.

Les and I followed Seamus out of the house, through a courtyard with several 4 × 4 vehicles and into a steel shipping container with a doorway cut in the side. The armoury was basic but functional. AK-47s filled the racks of crude wooden shelves and in one corner a rack on the floor held several RPD light machine guns. Half a dozen Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns were on a separate shelf as well as two Sterling SMGs.

Les and I ignored them. I had used the HK weapons a great deal when in COP (close observation platoon). I liked them, but when you’re battling through an urban environment you want a full-calibre battle rifle to punch through doors, walls, windscreens and especially the enemy. We both examined the AKs carefully.

Some of the weapons were in a shit state, some looked new. We each chose a decent-looking AK, both opting for folding stocks. Seamus unlocked a steel cupboard with a key from the armourer, a quiet man who introduced himself as Phil Rhoden. Seamus pulled out two Browning pistols for us.

‘The last two decent shorts in the armoury,’ he said. ‘Until we get the permits sorted and get some Glocks and Sigs the best we can get so far on the black market are Brownings. Otherwise we have a handful of Tariqs.’

He also gave us three mags each for the pistols. We stuffed the mags into pockets and checked the pistols were clear.

I’d never seen a Tariq before and Seamus obliged me by pulling out what looked like a cheap and nasty Beretta. They were locally made, single-column magazine and the mag release was in the butt of the pistol grip. He showed me a magazine, then replaced them both in the cupboard.