I slid the safety off and waited for the expected reaction.
Sure enough, five Iraqi soldiers, half dressed and ill prepared, came round the corner from their mess room and met death from my AK 47.
It took me twenty minutes to locate and kill the other four members of the patrol. The last one to die was the man who’d shot me in the knee.
I found him hiding in the toilet. His eyes widened in surprise.
“You?” he said in Arabic.
“Me!”
He’d gone for his gun, so I shot him in the elbow. He screamed like a girl, clutching the shattered joint.
“Hurts like fuck, doesn’t it?” I asked.
“You Satan spawn!” he swore.
“Now, now. We don’t even know each other yet!” I said.
“Who are you?” he said, shaking with fear.
“My name is Curtis, Staff Sergeant Rob Curtis, British SAS, and you, my sadistic friend, are an ex-Iraqi!”
I let the information filter through that camel-dung-heap of a brain. Then I smiled and shot him the head.
There was an old Land Rover and a beaten up army truck parked outside the school, so as the keys were in the ignition of the Land Rover, I borrowed it. It took me a couple of hours to find our lines, but as soon as I saw the Americans, I felt close to terrified. I knew they always shot first and asked questions later - much later, at the court of enquiry. I really didn’t want to look like an Arab at this moment in time!
However, they didn’t shoot me. I could tell a Texan Marine wanted to, but his buddies didn’t let him, fortunately. He looked rather disappointed as a reasonably intelligent US Army Captain managed to understand plain English. Three hours later, I was in hospital.
We kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait and then, in my opinion, fucked up big time by not following through and taking out Saddam. However, no bugger asked me, as, with a knackered knee, I was no longer of any use to the Regiment. The medics tried, but there was too much collateral damage. After a series of operations and months of physiotherapy, I could weight bear and just about walk with a limp, but my active days were over. They told me I needed a poly-carbon and titanium joint, which was the best they could get. However, the Ministry of Defence claimed they couldn’t afford it, so I was patched up and sent home.
The MOD looked after me when I left the mob (nickname for the British Army, not the Cosa Nostra) and became a Security Consultant with a firm based in Hereford, so was never out of work. It helped I spoke Arabic and a couple of other languages, German and Russian. With a little from medical insurance and some of my savings, I went for the new joint.
That had all happened in 1990. Debbie had at least waited for me to get over the final operation before she announced she was leaving me. I’d left the forces and was working abroad just as much as I had been before. We sold the family house, splitting the proceeds. She had been having an affair with Adrian for two years before our split and he was a heck of a lot better off than I was. I bought a small flat in Ruislip and lived a lonely existence.
When mum died, she left me a small cottage in Hertfordshire. I sold it and put the money in trust for Bruce, thereby obviating any maintenance for Debbie. I took a five-year protection contract with a wealthy Arab in Dubai and topped up my suntan and Arabic.
After six months, the contract was terminated. Not my fault, but my Arab was less wealthy than he’d assumed. Some bad investments and a penchant for gambling meant he had to make some cuts. I was one of the cuts. His father gave me a £50,000 payoff and a plane ticket back to the UK.
As soon as I returned, I paid off my mortgage and made it known I was back in the country and available for work. Perhaps the phone call was my boat finally coming in. The world was a very nervous place these days. 9/11 was a tragic event, but for men in my line of business, it was a hectic time, as many multinational organisations and corporations realised how vulnerable they were. It suited me, as the work was still risky and on the edge of danger, so my inner compulsions were never entertained.
I shaved and washed my hair. It didn’t take long as I kept it almost shorn. A ‘number two’, it was called, just enough to tell I had hair. It was going grey now, and I had some juicy scars on my scalp from various fields of conflict. When in the army, I’d always had a ‘number one’ I’d acquired the nickname ‘Curly’ after my disposition to shave my head in such a fashion. However, now I was a civilian, I thought I’d let it grow to at least an eighth of an inch.
I got out of the bath and dried myself off, slipping on my tee shirt and boxers, wincing as the usual pains shot up my leg.
On replaying the answer-phone, the Colonel’s clipped accent identified himself within the first few seconds.
“Hello Rob, Howard. Heard you got back. Sorry about Shamir, heard he got into a fifty million debt with some bookies and Daddy pulled the plug. Tough luck, old son. Still, I may have a little job for you, if you’re still interested, that is. Give me a ring; you know my hours. Toodleoo.”
Lieutenant Colonel Howard Leech-Thomas, ex-Coldstream Guards and SAS, now ‘something’ in the Ministry of Defence. He’d been my Major when I’d first joined the regiment. Unlike other ranks (including NCOs and Warrant officers), Commissioned Officers were only attached to the Regiment, except the CO and his adjutant.
From the best possible family, best schools and Cambridge, where he acquired a first in History, Howard was one of the most ruthless bastards I knew. He was also an utter gentleman and commanded more respect and loyalty than any man I had ever met. He laid his life on the line for his blokes on more than one occasion, so most of us who’d served with him would have died for him.
I rang him back. I could picture him in his study in Knightsbridge, fine brandy in his hand as he read through the briefing notes for the minister, before he sent them on.
“Colonel, it’s Rob.” He was one of the few men with whom I’d never use my nickname.
“Rob, dear boy. How are you?”
“Okay, boss, thanks, you?”
“The usual, you know. Thanks for calling, free tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Ten hundred hours, the usual place.”
“Right, boss, thanks.”
“Good night, Rob.”
“Night, boss.”
I put the phone down and smiled. This was better.
Two days after that call, I parked my elderly Range Rover Classic V8 in the lay-by of the A413 north of Wendover and short of Aylesbury. My target was an old MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) site that the MOD bought three years ago. It used to be a research centre for fertilisers and their effect upon the environment. It had closed down five years ago and had stood vacant until the MOD took it over.
It was situated in the middle of nowhere, still giving the appearance of being a derelict and disused facility. It was two miles from the main road, surrounded by woodland with a single tarmac drive, of about half a mile in length, leading from the minor road up to the facility. There had been some tree-hugger activity back in the early nineties, when a group of the Great Unwashed turned up and demonstrated against something they didn’t understand. Several million pounds worth of police bills and damage later, they moved off to target the building of some ring road somewhere in Berkshire.
The brand new razor wire, CCTV pods and other recently added power cables were an indication that the facility was not as disused as it appeared.
No patrolling guards, no dogs and very few signs of life added to the initial impression it wasn’t an important facility. There was one elderly and tatty sign warning people to keep out, as there may be the remains of some vaguely toxic chemicals on the site. The skull and crossed bones a stark reminder of the possibility of serious harm if one was inclined to venture into the compound.