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

He laughed and held his plump hands to his chest. ‘I am ready.’

At 11.30 on the last Thursday of January, the day before payday, Cobus raced into my office suited up with his vest and rifle.

‘Ash, back to the house.’

‘All right, mate, soon as I’ve finished this email.’

‘No, Code Red, we have to go now.’

I had drawn up the evacuation plan and our standard drill, assuming a minimum of two hours’ notice, was first to put a bullet through the hard drives in the computers, burn all documents then withdraw to the house to remove weapons, ammo and anything that might help the enemy. Cobus made it clear there wasn’t time. Our emergency escape SOP was to grab weapons and bug-out bags and leg it to the emergency RV (rendezvous), in this case with the American Special Forces guys a ten-minute drive from the villa.

I grabbed my rifle and vest, chased out of the office block and followed Cobus across the courtyard. The rest of the gang was in the living room ready for Seamus’s brief. The two cleaning women and eight of the Kurdish house guards were also there, hanging around translating but not really sure what to do.

Major Razak, a Sunni rival of Ibrahim, had radioed in that the guards were gathering to storm the house. The rumour that they were not going to be paid had broken out again. It was the last month of the contract now and, by Iraqi reasoning, that made perfect sense. We did not know where the rumour had started, but Major Razak reported that Ibrahim had promised to sort the matter out, not with us, but with the minister . Meaning that he had definitely blamed the non-payment on us white-eyes.

Razak had bravely gone to the five guard posts, one at each end of the street and three surrounding the office, and had confiscated the weapons. The guards had gone home to get their own AKs, buying us a valuable few moments. Most of our security guards were out at the water plant ten minutes’ drive away. They were still armed and they were still using our radios. They were coming to get us and they would arrive in fifteen minutes. Major Razak had gone in search of Ibrahim and was now cut off.

We split up. Les went out to start the HAV while the rest of us chased about the house stocking up on ammo. Cobus and I grabbed sleeping bags and threw in cameras, wedding photos and laptops. There was no time for much more. We ran out to find Les cursing.

‘I don’t fucking believe this,’ he said.

The gas had been siphoned from the armoured car, our emergency bug-out vehicle. We still had the old Peugeot, but it wasn’t armoured and, even without the Kurds, there were seven of us. We wouldn’t fit.

The two women stood there nursing their hands. The Kurdish guards seemed ashamed that the other guards, mainly Shia it has to be said, were coming for us. Their radios were still crackling.

‘Mister Seamus, they are on the way,’ one of them said.

‘How long?’

‘Very soon.’

Although the guards often flared up, it usually blew over without anything happening. But there was something different this time, we could feel it in the air. The mood was different. Seamus took a snap decision which was absolutely the right thing to do. He told the Kurds there was no point in them getting into a firefight. They would still have to live in Aradisa Idah after we had gone.

‘Go home,’ he said. ‘Go home and come back later tonight and see if we’re still here.’

We had a good relationship with these men. We had interviewed them personally before giving them their jobs. They had worked beside us, guarded us at night while we slept and learned a lot of fruity English from Dai Jones. There was no time for long goodbyes.

‘Go. Go,’ said Seamus, and slammed the door to the armoured car.

The Kurds looked relieved, and ran off, taking the two women with them. It was the last possible moment for a safe escape. We could already hear in the distance AKs being shot into the air, the sound of voices growing louder as the mob approached.

There was one more vehicle, an open pick-up truck used by the guards and almost certainly fully fuelled. It was parked behind the office block but to get to it would require leaving the compound and going around the perimeter wall. We’d run out of time. We could see our guards through the main gate. We raced back into the house and up the stairs. I was the last man up on the roof and threw the weighted end of the coil of razor wire down the stairwell, sealing that route off.

The plan was to escape across the roof, drop down on the office roof and then drop down to the waste ground where the pick-up was parked.

Over the black canvas cover-from-view sheet on the roof we could see a mob of nearly 200 guards. I was mortified that they were not taking cover; they were ignoring all the training I had drilled into them over and over again for the last year and were ambling down the middle of the road in a typically shambolic Iraqi fashion, shouting and waving their rifles. The intermittent shots in the air were intoxicating and with encouragement from the ringleaders the rest of the mob joined in. The gunshots set the dogs off. Our neighbour, the policeman with the beautiful daughters, now had three dogs and they were barking like machine guns.

I could see a few of the guards, including Ali, the armourer, and Ra’ad, the tea boy, trying to restrain the others, but Obi-Wan Kenobi was leading the pack and he was the first man to lower his AK and put a few rounds in the compound wall.

‘I knew I should have sacked that cunt.’ Les had already set up the PKM machine gun in one of the corner sangars and was hooking a box of ammo under it.

‘Right, let’s start moving now,’ said Seamus. ‘Wayne, Etienne and Les, you first. Les, grab the keys from the office and give us a shout when you get the vehicle started.’

The rest of the guards were following Obi. Their shots were wild, but they were coming in our direction and I sourly recalled the few guards at the range who’d had suspiciously good marksmanship skills.

Wayne took his knife to the black canvas screen at the back, ripped it apart and held it for Etienne and Les. Wayne followed as they slipped down the side of the building and clattered their way across the corrugated iron roof that gave shade to the vehicles. They dropped one after the other on to the office roof where they were immediately pinned down by the guards who had seen them.

‘Warning shots,’ Seamus yelled.

As our guards fired at us, we fired back over their heads.

Seamus gave Hendriks and Cobus a hard stare. ‘And don’t fucking shoot any of them until I give the order,’ he said.

‘Right, mate,’ said Cobus.

Hendriks glanced at Seamus then returned his concentration back down the sights of his rifle.

We opened up with ‘deliberate fire’, one aimed shot every few seconds into the street six feet in front of the guards. The volume of shouting doubled but the shooting ceased as all our guards ran and threw themselves over the nearest garden wall.

I had slung my M4 on my back and taken hold of the PKM. It already had a full 200-round box underneath, which I kept as a spare, and stripped out a 200-round belt from another box and loaded that. I had a good view down the main street that led to the front of the house and also the alleyway down the backs of all the houses on our street.

As the guards started to reorganise themselves in the gardens, I let off a 20-round burst that stitched up the entire length of the street.

‘Good, keep their fucking heads down,’ Seamus said. He was covering the back of the house.

I could see Obi-Wan Kenobi rallying the guards to continue the assault. I put a closer burst along the street and he disappeared again. Hendriks and Cobus were picking their targets and putting single rounds so dangerously close to the guards they must have tasted the dust as they thumped into the walls beside them.