Dirty Deeds Done Cheap (2 page)

I was standing gazing out of the window when one of the girls at the office came over and issued me with a meal ticket. I went down the stairs and across the beach to the restaurant. The restaurant was charming and the waitresses were all very beautiful Asian women. I had the most fantastic fillet steak I’ve ever eaten in my life. I lingered there for a while, digesting my meal and drinking coffee and just soaking up the atmosphere – but hanging around in a restaurant by yourself gets boring, so I returned to the office. I was given a small brief and some travelling instructions. We were to leave at 06.00 to travel to an American airbase on the border of Iraq and Kuwait. I was now well and truly on my way.

After a restless evening with not much sleep I was up at 05.00 and grabbed some breakfast. I met up with Tom, who asked if I’d got everything I needed – passport and travel documents, etc. It was then that I noticed two other guys sitting in the corner of the office. One was a short stocky American with muscles on his muscles – he obviously spent a lot of time in the gym pushing weights. He was introduced to me as Dwight (his nickname was Hollywood – fuck knows why). The other man was a tall muscular French guy who was introduced to me as Phillipe. Dwight was an ex-US Marine, Phillipe was ex-French Foreign Legion.

We had a brief chat and it turned out that Dwight was travelling to Baghdad with me, while Phillipe was heading up to the north of Iraq on what seemed to me and everyone else to be a suicide mission from what I could gather from the briefing, but it was one I would soon find very familiar.

After a morning brief, we all loaded our kitbags, body armour and helmets into the back of a station wagon and set off for the Kuwait–Iraq border. Tom drove. As we travelled along we passed many damaged buildings, some of which been partly destroyed. It turned out that the damage had been done during the First Gulf War and had yet to be fully repaired. For an oil-rich country earning billions, you would have thought that thirteen years on they would have got around to fixing the place up; this, obviously, wasn’t the case. There seemed to be a lot of poverty, which I found to be quite shocking.

After about two hours of driving we arrived at a crossroads. We then turned right down a dusty track and drove for another two kilometres until we came to a US military checkpoint. Tom produced his ID card and then we all had to get out of the vehicle for a security search. We then all had to produce our travel documents and passports.

The US Army Military Police searched the vehicle for weapons and hidden explosives and held us while they confirmed our identities. Obviously, we did not fit the profile of a terrorist or insurgent. However, it had been known for journalists and black-marketeers to try to gain access to American bases using the excuse of being private military contractors.

We passed all the security checks then we got back into our vehicle and continued on to the airbase. Eventually, we saw what can only be described as a huge airport in the middle of the desert. There were military hangars everywhere and all types of aircraft – military, civilian and obviously CIA (they had the shiny civilian choppers).

On arriving at the terminal car park, I saw that there were all kinds of vehicles, from military tanks and armoured vehicles down to normal Ford cars. There were US troops everywhere getting ready to deploy into Iraq and in among these troops were quite a few private military contractors – or PMCs. I looked around hoping to spot some familiar faces but I couldn’t see any.

Inside the terminal was a young US army sergeant who was acting as some sort of customs officer. He checked our bags and then our paperwork again. Everything was in order and we were cleared for transport to Baghdad. The terminal was a massive hustle and bustle of activity, which could be best described as organised chaos.

Tom wished us good luck and said his goodbyes and wandered off leaving us to stew in the sweltering heat, which was now up to near 40 degrees Celsius. We all fell silent, as I guess most of us were feeling a bit tense and apprehensive. Even the young soldiers we saw were strangely quiet. I guessed that some of them were getting ready for their first tour of duty in Iraq. I felt for them – they looked so young. It reminded me of the time when I had shipped out for the First Gulf War when I was twenty years old, excited but nervous at the same time.

We waited, sweating our tits off, in the terminal for four hours, downing water like something that was going out of fashion. We’d still not acclimatised properly, as we’d been in the country for less than two days and had left England in freezing, rainy weather to come here, where it was 35–40 degrees Celsius. Eventually, at 12.30 that afternoon, we were summoned for our flight into Baghdad. We fell into line with what must have been about fifty American Marines, all armed to the teeth. Phillipe, Dwight and I donned our body armour and helmets and climbed aboard the back of a waiting truck. Some of the obviously new Marines looked as us with astonishment, not knowing who we were, but nobody asked us any questions. Various agencies working for different governments travel in and out of Iraq every day – but this was apparently new to a lot of them.

We drove across the runway to a waiting C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. It was the first time in a while that I’d been in a Herc and it was quite nostalgic. Phillipe, Dwight and I boarded last, so we were right next to the tailgate. All the US Marines had their packs between their legs, some looking more than a little nervous. I hoped that I didn’t look as apprehensive, because some of these guys really looked as if they were shitting it. I told myself that, since I had travelled in and out of quite a few war zones in my time, I knew pretty much what to expect, so I hoped that I looked a bit more confident.

The heat inside the aircraft was stifling and I couldn’t wait to get going and get airborne so we could get a bit of a through draught. I could feel the sweat running down my shirt as my body armour acted like a body
warmer
. We started to taxi for what seemed like an eternity, then the pilot gunned the throttles and we started to accelerate very rapidly. Because everyone who is a passenger in a Herc has to sit sideways we were all fighting to stay upright, against the g-force. They really pack those Hercs – I figured I knew how a sardine felt.

The plane climbed steeply and, even with my ear defenders on, the noise was still pretty deafening until the plane eventually flattened out at terminal altitude and the pilot throttled off and the noise decreased to a drone. Within a matter of minutes almost everyone was asleep.

As a young Royal Marine Commando I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I was on my first basic parachute course. You’re absolutely shitting yourself but for some strange reason the resonance, hum and vibration of the aircraft sends you to sleep. It’s almost hypnotic.

We were awoken by one of our neighbouring Marines nudging us as the loadmaster signalled that we were approaching Baghdad. Since there are only a few windows in a C-130 – and we weren’t sitting anywhere near those because they are at the front – no one could see anything. All we had was the smell of aviation fuel and the hypnotic hum.

We had learned, through the grapevine, that two weeks previously during an identical landing two guys were shot and killed in the back of one of these Hercs by insurgent snipers, so I was just praying that I wouldn’t get shot in the arse. What a way to go: done through the arse!

Just then the pilot banked hard to port and we all hung on for dear life. He then banked hard to starboard. All the time the aircraft was losing altitude at an alarming rate. We were almost weightless in the back. Everyone had now passed looking apprehensive and was bordering on shitting himself. The landing gear was soon down and within minutes we had made a perfect landing; we then all relaxed a little.

It turns out that the insurgents had been studying certain landmarks on the flight path into Baghdad International Airport and used them to work out when to fire at incoming Coalition aircraft. Sneaky bastards! All the pilot had been doing was trying to mess this up for them. I wished he had shared this information with us before take-off. It would have saved a few pairs of soiled underpants I’m sure.

Under hard braking and the roar of the engines’ reverse-thrusting we came to a halt. There was a whine of the turbines as the pilot shut down the engines and the tailgate came down. As it did so a glorious smell of aviation fuel filled the plane; I fucking love that smell.

We were now in Baghdad. I got off the plane and it was now that I was wondering whether I’d done the right thing, taking on this crazy job. We picked up our kit and walked down the ramp. I could see a white Toyota Hilux coming across the runway towards us. Behind me I could hear a US Marine drill sergeant bellowing at his men to fall in. It reminded me of being back in the mob. Discipline is so very necessary in the military because, when you have to move and take these young men into battle, there can be no room for error. When you say jump all they must do is ask, ‘How high?’ This isn’t always nice, but it is a necessity. The chain of command is essential. As PMCs, we didn’t always have or need this, as we knew we were mostly on our own, but for the regular armed forces it is vital.

The Hilux pulled up next to us and a small blond-haired guy jumped out. All he was dressed in were shorts and a T-shirt with a pistol on his waist. I couldn’t believe that he wore no body armour. We all thought that this was odd, being in the middle of Iraq and all. He introduced himself as Bruce and we all piled into the Hilux and off we went.

We drove for what seemed like quite a few miles before going through a few checkpoints. He explained to us that Baghdad airport was 45 square miles and was protected by fifty-thousand American troops and three-thousand PMCs. We all felt a bit more secure and could see why he carried only a pistol. He explained to us that apparently it wasn’t policy to wear body armour unless you were near the perimeter of the airport. We sped back across the runway and into a car park. The car park was packed with PMCs all waiting to pick up their new guys, clients or men coming back off leave. Meanwhile, we could see that there were Hercs landing all of the time. This place was very busy.

We then drove past one of Saddam Hussein’s impressive summer palaces, which it turns out I would later be living in, and all kinds of fantastic palatial buildings that Saddam had had built for his military hierarchy. They at least had been well treated, for there were swimming pools and quite a few Jacuzzis for their use. While the tyrant had been in power, he had taken all the farmers’ land and water supplies to use for his own private boating lakes and so, after the Second Gulf War, once Saddam had been overthrown, the farmers had taken all of this back and all of his lakes and pools were now dried up as the farmers had diverted the water and used it for their irrigation systems. Good on them, I say!

As we drove along Bruce was giving us a running commentary about what Dwight and I would be doing. It turned out that Bruce was the company doctor. He said he didn’t know what Phillipe would be doing but could only say he would be going up north and he thought that it was dodgy. In fact it was going to be very dangerous indeed. The north of Iraq was, and still is, a no-go area for most PMCs. The north is well known as an insurgent stronghold and to work up there you learned to expect the worse.

After a twenty-minute drive, past quite a few runways and impressive buildings, we pulled up outside a large tent. Bruce informed us that this was one of the many American chow tents (as they were known) and we could get something to eat here. Bruce cleared his pistol as we entered the compound (basically, he took the magazine off, cocked it and made sure that there was no round in the chamber) and then we went in. It was a big no-no to take a loaded weapon into the chow tent. Inside it was organised chaos with hungry soldiers and PMCs all getting their meals and talking all at the same time. We were all starving, though, and the scran – the food – smelled great.

We helped ourselves, and it was surprisingly good – a lot better than I remembered from my time when I was in the mob. I was looking around the tent – just being nosy, really – when I spotted a familiar face. I immediately got up and walked over to him. He was a guy called Lee I used to be in the Royal Marine Commandos with. Lee was working for a different company from mine, and told me that, apart from doing bodyguard work in Baghdad, he was also training the Iraqi police, which I thought sounded quite interesting.

Lee and I chewed the fat for a while and he gave me a number to get hold of him on. Lee was a really nice quiet guy and you would never believe that he was a bodyguard or ex-Marine, since he was a very passive and easy-going sort.

After quite a pleasant lunch, Bruce came over and told me that it was time to go. We left the chow tent and after a short drive we arrived at a compound surrounded by a tall fence with razor wire along the top and machine-gun posts every 50 metres or so.

On the gate were two guards carrying M16 assault rifles and a mounted M240 GPMG (general-purpose machine gun). They looked Nepalese and were obviously ex-Gurkhas. About 90 per cent of security companies in Iraq employed ex-Gurkhas or ex-Fijian army, and there were also quite a few Peruvians working out there. These guys are a lot cheaper to employ than Western expats and are very reliable, which helped the companies to keep their costs down (and almost certainly profits up).

We drove into the compound, which contained around fifty temporary huts, some accommodation, some stores and some offices. We pulled up and I looked around with interest, for this was going to be my base, my home, for how long I didn’t know.

We went to see the camp boss, who was an ex-colonel in the British Army, and introduced ourselves. He made us feel welcome and, after a quick chat and a cup of tea, we were assigned our billets and packed our stuff away. I had a quick look around the camp. The accommodation was sparse: just a bunk bed and a couple of steel lockers. There was also an air-conditioning unit, which was working but was noisy as hell – this wasn’t going to make for a pleasant stay, I thought – but I decided that for fourteen grand a month I could live with it. This was going to be home for the foreseeable future. I sat down on one of the bunks and contemplated what I’d got myself into.