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

Months earlier, when we had started shooting drills, I had suggested to Sammy that the next group of men to shoot should come inside the protective berm, stand behind the firing detail to get used to the noise and to see what they were doing right or wrong, and then they would shoot afterwards. Sammy had looked at me in complete shock that I would even consider having an extra ten men inside the range.

‘No, Mister James. Too many people will die,’ he said simply.

He had been right. Every time we finished a range exercise we both thanked Allah that we had not been killed nor lost any of the guards. Having said that, there would always be about one in twenty of our recruits who was a crack shot, nailing all his rounds into a tight grouping. They would deny ever having been in the army but I knew better.

What this meant was that the guards waiting to shoot had to wait out in the open ground where they would invariably ignore instructions to wait behind the berm, and would crowd around the entrance to watch what was going on. They were then in line of sight from the plantation wall where the bad guys set up to do their own target practice.

Sammy had taken on conducting range practices on his own when I was busy and had earned his pay after a similar contact a week or so before. Bandits had shot up the range and the new guards had instantly dropped their rifles and bolted. I didn’t for one minute believe the enemy were after the weapons, since they were cheap and easy to buy on the black market in Sadr City. The shots had probably been a warning to the new boys that the insurgents knew who they were and were dishing out punishment for taking dirty money from the American Zionist Conspiracy.

When the guards fled on that occasion, Sammy collected every AK he could find while still under fire, stacked them in the company pick-up truck and returned to HQ. Personally, I would have fired the whole bunch of young recruits, but they were hard to come by, even at a starting salary of $150 a month. I had to make do with giving Sammy a bollocking for risking his life. He just saluted and grinned.

‘It is my duty,’ he said. ‘They will not steal the Spartan rifles, Mister James.’

‘Sammy, how many times have I asked you to call me Ash?’

‘So many times I have lost count.’

I shook my head. ‘Sammy, Spartan can buy some more fucking rifles for a few hundred dollars. Rifles you can get anywhere. Remember you have children, Sammy, we can’t afford to lose you.’

He flushed bright red. ‘Thank you very much, Mister James. You are very good man. You are my brother.’

This morning’s contact was different though. As the runner translated the Arabic cascading from channel one on the radio, Seamus’s IRAQNA phone rang. It was Gus Gazzard, a US Lieutenant from 82nd Airborne, the CF unit closest to us. He was a good officer and I got to know him well.

It appeared that the insurgents had simultaneously opened fire on our guards at the range and on the US unit opposite the plantation across the Tigris. Sammy and one guard, no doubt one of those ex-soldiers who knew how to hit the target, returned a lot of rounds and the enemy disappeared while the rest of the trainees had dropped rifles and run.

Four US Kiowa Warrior helicopters◦– small but heavily armed observation helicopters◦– had arrived five minutes later to kick ass and the only Iraqis they could find were my thirty trainees being herded together by Sammy. The arrival of the Kiowas spooked the guards again and resulted in further weapons-dropping-and-running-away activity, this time including the guards manning towers 2 and 3 at the water plant.

Fortunately the pilots had recognised our uniforms and did not open fire. The guards were dressed in the standard FPS kit of black trousers, grey shirts and navy blue brassards. We had added the refinement of black baseball caps to give them a distinctive silhouette, especially at night. Insurgents wore balaclavas or shemaghs and wouldn’t be caught dead in American baseball caps.

Before Christmas there would have been a very strong probability of the Kiowa Warriors strafing the area and killing a bunch of guards. The fact that they didn’t meant Coalition Forces and Iraqi security were working in harmony and that, in the long run, was to everyone’s benefit.

The same alarm call that had brought the helicopters had also alerted the CF ground units on this side of the river and Gus Gazzard’s platoon had been on shift to react to incidents. He was at the range now, telling Seamus over the phone that everything was under control but could one of us expats come and calm the Spartan guards. I nodded to Seamus, grabbed my Kevlar vest and rifle and slipped on my shades. My Browning was already holstered in my thigh rig.

It was only a short drive to the range but there was no point in taking any chances. I took the armourer, Ali, and Abeer, one of the guards, with me. Now that Ibrahim was a colonel it was not appropriate for him to be stacking and degreasing the guard force weapons and Ali had taken over a lot of his duties. Ali was a tiny, lean man but as wiry and hard as beef jerky. His close-cropped hair and moustache were silver and he was a weapons expert after twenty years as a paratrooper in the Iraqi army. He always had a Browning stuffed down the back of his belt, sometimes two, and the week before had shot two of the three men who had carjacked him. When he reported the loss of a company vehicle he had expected to be sacked and was stunned that we rewarded him for killing the two insurgents.

‘But, Mister, I kill just one,’ he had protested. His English wasn’t that good and he mimed how he had shot one man in the head, ‘ Th’nyeen talkat ’, two bullets, and the other in the stomach, ‘ Arba talkat ’, four bullets, before the second guy staggered off and was driven away in the vehicle by the third carjacker. So he had double-tapped one guy and filled the other full of lead. I had seen Iraqi hospitals, the second man was definitely a goner. I looked at Les who opened the box of petty cash and gave Ali $200, one hundred for each man. He was thrilled and went out fingering his pistol, looking left and right for more enemy. That was a month’s pay he had just earned.

We took one of the guard pick-up trucks and headed out towards the fields.

‘We go range, shooting?’ asked Ali, smiling.

‘ La, Ali baba ,’ I replied, miming shooting with one hand. ‘Sah’b aksam .’ Cock weapons. Ali and Abeer lost their smiles, made ready and pointed their AKs out left and right.

As we approached the range, I slowed to make sure the Americans could identify us and wave us in. Sammy was already talking animatedly with Gus. I drove the last 20 metres at crawling speed so as not to deluge them in a cloud of dust from my truck.

‘Hey Ash, good to see you,’ Gus said and we shook hands as I stepped out of the vehicle.

On Gus’s wrist was a pewter cuff with the name, rank and date of one of his former sergeants. When I had asked him what it was he had mumbled that it was a memory thing for a friend killed in Afghanistan. Many of the guys in his platoon wore similar bracelets. Whatever the press or US Government may have said were the reasons for invading Iraq, the guys in that platoon were there to avenge the deaths of dead comrades.

Sammy was clutching his AK. I touched my hand to my chest. Lieutenant Usama, the handcrusher, was hanging around trying, in front of his men, to appear as if he had something to contribute despite not speaking a word of English. Usama would have been the guard who had stood his ground with Sammy and held off the enemy. I greeted him warmly, shaking hands and touching my chest.

‘ Shlonek, zeeyen ?’ How are you, good?