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

It was chilling to contemplate and that brief nod from Les Trevellick told me I wouldn’t be left behind. If there was absolutely no chance of escape a head shot from one of my team-mates would make sure I wasn’t taken alive.

It also occurred to me that any reservations Seamus and Les may have had working with an untried Rupert would also have gone. The kind of men who gravitate to security work tend to be those who showed the best qualities when they were in the military: determination, initiative, guts, pride, loyalty. Seamus and Les would definitely be watching my back, the same as I would be watching theirs.

Now, we were still being shot at and continued answering fire with fire, picking out shadows that moved along the rooftops, while the Yaapies were putting random bursts into the flyover wall above.

I was reasonably certain the three insurgents we had shot were dead but they were out of sight and there was no way to be sure. When you hit an enemy you want them dead, none of this shooting them in the leg rubbish; an injured man who is still armed is just as dangerous. I know I bloody would be.

‘Magazine.’

I shouted this out to let the guys know that for the next few seconds I would be inoperative. I had shot perhaps 15 or 16 rounds from my second mag of 30, but during the lull it was time to change to a full mag. You don’t keep firing until the last bullet, then change. If badness popped its ugly head up again I wanted a full mag good to go. I also scooped up my pistol, gave it a cursory wipe and holstered it on my thigh.

‘Back in.’

Enemy fire was becoming untargeted and intermittent.

Les went through his mag-changing ritual. I could hear him saying to Lori, ‘It’s all right, love. It’s over now.’ She turned and half wriggled out from under him. There was dust on her cheeks and her dark eyes were shiny in the dull light.

Seamus had quit trying to get reception on his mobile and was giving a concise contact report to Ops on the Thuraya satellite phone.

The soldiers at the near checkpoint had finally stopped shooting up the buildings and traffic with their light machine guns.

Once the noise had died down, I could hear the familiar rumble of an armoured vehicle. I assumed at first that it was one of the Abrams, but then realised it was the Bradley on the other side of the highway nosing its way through the checkpoint to get a better view.

The fire from the buildings had fallen to no more than a sporadic shot or two. We could not see the firing point, and as the Americans were not firing back, then it was probably just shots let off into the air as the rebels fled to fight another day. Only the dead were left. Amazingly about a hundred civvies in the middle of the road were still alive and started raising their heads from the tarmac. They began to stand up, but shouts from the American soldiers got them to change their minds and they laid back down again.

‘I dink vee got three confirmed,’ shouted Cobus to us.

‘Glad you managed to learn something in Bongo Bongo,’ shouted Les.

‘If vee don’t hit vot vee shoot vee don’t eat,’ shouted Cobus, repeating our own joke.

‘Speak the bloody Queen’s, will you. Christ, do this lot come with subtitles?’

‘ Ja. Ja. Ja . The Queen’s Own Bloody English vee kick out of Africa. Vee kick the bloody Rooinek ass.’

The Americans had their weapons trained on the buildings and their binoculars trained on us. I was relieved they weren’t listening in on this outburst of banter, the release of tension that comes after a contact.

I used this moment to crawl back in the car for my daysack. In the front pouch there were two four-foot flags: a Stars and Stripes and a Union Jack. By the time I got back out of the Opel, Seamus had come to his feet and was brandishing his pass at the Americans. I unrolled Old Glory, stepped away from the car and waved the flag for all I was worth.

The Bradley had stopped and two soldiers popped out of the vehicle to take a look at us. One of the guards at the checkpoint had his M249 trained on us and the gunner on the Abrams, safely buttoned up inside his tank, still had the long barrel of the main armament pointed in our direction. The squat armoured vehicle was like a giant insect emerging out of the dust and smoke. A fucking huge, monstrous insect the size of a whale.

Seamus took a few steps forward, removed the CPA pass from around his neck and held it up again.

‘We’re British,’ he shouted.

‘Freeze. Don’t fucking move, motherfucker,’ came the reply.

‘Listen, you wanker. We’re British. We’re coming in.’

‘Don’t fucking move,’ shouted the American.

It seemed like half an hour had gone by since the start of the shooting but it was probably no more than five minutes. My pulse was racing and as I stood there in the open with the US flag I began to visualise hordes of hostile Iraqis pouring out of the buildings and regrouping around the backstreets ready for another assault. I had watched this scene in Ridley Scott’s film Black Hawk Down and the image had printed itself on my mind like a photograph.

I gave the flag another flutter, all to no effect. As far as I could see, we had three lousy options: (1) sit in the middle of the killing area with no cover and wait for either the enraged horde to arrive or for this dickhead at the gate to calm down and realise that we are on the same side; (2) get back in the vehicles, swing under the bridge through the killing area, shoot past the Bradley on the far gate with its deadly 25mm and drive off into Baghdad to circle around to another gate; (3) reverse back down Route Irish, the most dangerous road in the world, hoping that the enemy cut-off group had scarpered, catch lunch at Burger King in Camp Victory and come back later.

Seamus must have been contemplating the same options.

He shouted to the American corporal: ‘We are going to get back in the vehicles and drive away. Don’t shoot.’

As he made his way towards the Opel, the guard at the checkpoint sent a couple of warning shots cracking over our heads. Lori was on her feet. She screamed, but at the same time her hands were busy unclasping a pouch at her waist. I then heard the click and buzz of her digital camera as she snapped off picture after picture of the contact area. She was shaken but doing her job. Good girl.

‘I said, freeze you motherfucker!’

It was a standoff. The guard had told us to freeze and we stood there, sweating like pigs.

It should have been blatantly obvious that we were security contractors: six white men, four of our number with fair hair. We were wearing bulletproof vests, thigh rigs and Ray-Bans, Western trappings shunned by the holy warriors waging jihad .

But we were carrying Kalashnikovs and the guys doing the peacekeeping were taking no chances. They had fought their way across the desert from the Kuwaiti border to Baghdad City. They weren’t exactly trigger-happy, but they were not shy of letting loose with a few rounds if there was a sniff of danger. They had seen their buddies get shot.

Their president had told them the war was over, and their buddies were still getting shot. They knew about the coffins waiting at the military airport and they didn’t want to be going home in one.

Seamus was back on the Thuraya seeing if anyone in HQ had comms with anyone in the CF who could come up to the gate and sort this mess out. I gave the flag the occasional flick and stood straight-backed, shoulders square, getting bored with this impasse. I was relieved when a patrol of four Humvees, the standard 4 × 4 vehicle used by the US forces, came rolling round the chicanes behind us on Route Irish.

‘Don’t worry, love, here comes the cavalry,’ I heard Les saying, and I couldn’t help wondering if Lori got the irony in his tone.