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

Far fewer emotions were surfacing in my mind than might be expected. Emotions, fears and feelings are all buried away in the deepfreeze, ready to be thawed out when you need them. The type of character who dwells on the thousand and one ways one could get killed or maimed in Iraq doesn’t last long in the job. The average security contractor tends to concentrate any intellectual focus on close observation of potential threats in the immediate area, combined with as much forward planning and anticipation as possible. That and the sad choice between lamb or chicken, and I was bored to tears with roast lamb.

I made eye contact with Hendriks as he stepped out of the space between the two vehicles. He shrugged as if to say, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ and I returned the gesture.

‘What’s up?’

‘Fuck-up,’ I said and he smiled.

Hendriks was one of the three South Africans keeping guard over the Opel and Nissan Patrol 4 × 4. With seventy years’ experience between them fighting bush wars in Namibia, Angola and Mozambique I imagined it would take a regiment to wrest the vehicles from their hands. Hendriks and Cobus had RPD light machine guns out with the belts loaded. Cobus had his propped on the bonnet of the Nissan and was slowly scanning the terminal building. Hendriks had his RPD on its sling at his hip. Etienne was in the driver’s seat in the 4 × 4 humming along to Bing.

The company you keep takes care of any feelings of fear. The raised pulse is the adrenaline kicking in and what I felt most as I continued passing my gaze over the rooftops was a sense of frustration. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone had screwed up. Looking on the bright side, at least I knew it wasn’t the guys I was with.

Seamus Hayes, with his toned muscles and icy stare, was the archetypal professional soldier who had done fourteen years with the Paras, leaving as a Colour Sergeant. He knew his stuff. So did Les; he was stamped from the same mould, a former Royal Engineer Staff Sergeant who had done both the Para and Commando course and had been an instructor on the latter. They were men just into their forties, British soldiers of the old school and as hard as coffin nails.

As for myself, I was used to giving orders and ready to react when things went bad. I’d had the brass on my shoulders after passing out of the ‘chap factory’, as we called Sandhurst, and had been relieved to see that under contact from the enemy during operational tours I had remained calm and focused. Did Seamus and Les have the same leadership skills? Would they be watching my back when the bullets were flying?

Damn right they would.

It was a relief to be out of that office and working with men who knew what they were doing. In the world of private security, ex-sergeants and ex-officers were keen to know a man’s prior rank because it revealed their skills in a single word. Reading a guy’s CV told you the rest: he was a sniper, for example, a jungle or arctic warfare instructor, or both. You knew with British soldiers and Royal Marines that you were with a modern-day Tommy Atkins and could have complete confidence. In a hostile environment, in my experience, Brits consistently displayed qualities of character, loyalty, toughness and humour that could get you out of most trouble spots as well as giving Johnny Foreigner a damned good hiding at the same time. After all, as an Empire we had ruled the world once, hadn’t we?

Speaking of colonies, I glanced back at the South Africans.

Our Afrikaners all had big families and were paying off their mortgages; bonds they called them. They had no employment future in the new South Africa and had taken to the life of soldiers for hire. Etienne and Cobus were fair-skinned, ruddy-faced typical Boers with moustaches and blond hair. Etienne was a bluff, cheerful, naïve man and a devout Christian. Cobus, the youngest, was the prankster of the group. Hendriks was sharp and cynical. He had short cropped brown hair, a scarred face with skin burned black by the African sun and cold grey eyes like chips of frost. The trio were utterly reliable and crack shots with anything that fired bullets. We Brits were more than happy to point out that that was because in their backward country if they didn’t hit what they shot their families went hungry. An old joke that brought a satisfied smile to Hendriks’s face every time he pocketed his winnings from our team’s weekly shooting competition. I had lost ninety dollars to him in the last two weeks. Dai Jones, a Welshman who was back in the UK on leave, had lost twice that amount and he had been a British Army sniper.

Six of us at an empty airport.

Contractors, that was us, and although there was nothing in the contract about regimental spirit or patriotic duty, there was definitely a high standard of team loyalty and personal pride in one’s skills. We avoided the word mercenary with its villainous connotations and clothed ourselves in new acronyms◦– we were a PSD on CP: a Private Security Detail on Close Protection. This was a new kind of conflict. A new kind of war. We were writing the rules as we went along.

It was basic maths: that with more reporters covering Iraq, more were being killed and the media digging in their pockets for security was a bottomless new source of income for Spartan.

When thirteen Red Cross workers were killed in Afghanistan, the International Red Cross switched 20 per cent of its budget to security; other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) followed suit. The UN building in Baghdad had been bombed in August. A week later, the HQ of the Red Cross would also be blown up. In this war, the enemy would accept no one as neutral. Not journalists, Christian peacekeepers, not humanitarian aid workers. For security companies it looked as if business would be very good indeed.

High-ranking US officers, even Coalition supremo Ambassador Paul Bremer, were using private contractors to chaperone them around Baghdad because the US government lacked adequate Special Forces to do the job. As war goes private, a nation’s defence capabilities become less important than its security arrangements, especially for the people who matter. Tony Blair’s holiday destination in summer 2005 was top secret. Hollywood stars, Saudi princesses and the Beckhams can’t shop without bodyguards. There was a time when the rich would say, ‘I’ll send my butler,’ when there was something urgent to attend to. Now they send their SAS man.

We had rehearsed our drills and bonded over barbecues with crates of black-market lager and Johnnie Walker, swinging the lantern and swapping campfire tales of old battles. There had been some confusion when Hendriks kept referring to his battles in ‘Vambuland’. Upon questioning he clarified unhelpfully that this was ‘the land of the Vambus’. When we were still none the wiser, he informed us that it was also known as South West Africa.

‘Namibia, you mean?’

‘ Ja , that is what the blacks call it now.’

We slapped our sides and refilled our glasses.

Now the team was in the field for the first time I had every reason to believe we were a team and not just a bunch of chancers. The South Africans seemed solid. The Brits I knew were reliable. As the months passed and I came into contact with many more contractors, I would meet some good guys, good at their jobs, as well as some total losers, and would come to appreciate how lucky we were to have our particular Afrikaners. They were bloody amazing cooks for a start.

‘What the fuck’s going on –’

Seamus had finally got through to HQ on the satellite phone and was giving someone an earful. I removed my shades and as I gave the lenses a polish I gathered through the barrage of invective we’d been sent to the civilian airport in error. Turns out there was a military side to the airport and we now had detailed directions how to get there.