3

Stratton manoeuvred the heavy bike along a dusty track for a short distance to the main road that headed south from Mosul towards Tikrit. Over his left shoulder he caught a glimpse of the train between the eucalyptus trees and dilapidated buildings that lined the road as it chugged out of the station. Stratton opened the throttle fully, made his way up through the gears and roared down the two-lane highway, which was moderately busy.

After several miles, he reached into an inside pocket, pulled out a GPS and switched it on. Seconds later a detailed coloured map of Iraq appeared on the screen showing his position on the road as heading for Baiji, the next major town before Tikrit. It also showed the railway line paralleling east of the road. The Tigris river crossed his path halfway to Tikrit to parallel the road’s west side.

Stratton weaved around a battered orange and white taxi that was hogging the outside lane and overtook a line of oil tankers. Then, seeing the road clear ahead for half a mile, he toggled the GPS control panel until he found a specific waypoint – a preprogrammed location – which was a deserted spot west of Baiji, far out in the desert, the rail track clearly indicated less than a kilometre from it. He hit the ‘go to’ button and the information panel instantly indicated that it was a hundred and twenty kilometres away as the crow flew – more like a hundred and forty by road. The GPS also calculated that at his present speed he would arrive at the waypoint in an hour and thirty-nine minutes and he added another fifteen to allow for the road curvature which was ample time to get into position before the train arrived. That did not, of course, allow for any hold-ups.

Eighty kilometres further on, near where the railway line crossed the road, the traffic had slowed considerably and become denser. As Stratton made his way down the outside of the traffic he saw that the lead vehicles half a mile ahead had halted. That meant either a checkpoint, an IED (Improvised Explosive Device), exploded or not, or a traffic accident of which there were many in this country due to the terrible condition of the majority of vehicles combined with the atrocious standard of Iraqi driving. They had scant regard for highway codes, driving regulations and sensible speeds.

As Stratton closed on the tail end of the halted traffic he could see that it was an American military checkpoint. He slowed to cut in between the vehicles to get to the outside where he could head for the front of the line. To avoid the countless potholes and piles of trash on the verges he sometimes had to leave the road completely.

Two M111 armoured vehicles provided the main protection for the checkpoint, their 25mm heavy machine guns covering north and south of the road. There were half a dozen armoured Humvees, some a fair distance into the desert, their roof-turret M60 and .50 machine guns pointed at the line of traffic, and a couple of dozen soldiers on foot manning the vehicle funnel and supporting positions in various nearby locations.

As Stratton slowly made his way to the front of the line two soldiers reacted to his queue-jumping arrival by raising their M4 assault rifles and aiming directly at him.

‘Hey, asshole,’ one of them shouted as he moved forward. ‘Stop where you are.’

Stratton stopped immediately, took the bike’s engine out of gear and raised his hands. American soldiers were not famous for their politeness, tolerance or diplomacy. As far as persons or vehicles approaching their space were concerned, even the remotest suggestion of the presence of a weapon or a suicide bomber meant that an immediate response of the bullet kind could be expected.

‘Where you goin’ in such a hurry, ass-wipe?’ the soldier shouted as he closed in, keeping his rifle aimed at Stratton’s head. Stratton noted his shoulder flashes designating him a member of the 4th Infantry Division, based in Tikrit, that controlled this area.

The Arab occupants of the vehicles close by watched the proceedings with some interest, not that it was anything new to them. But it was of some concern to Stratton as he had a few miles to go after the checkpoint and did not want to take the chance of any local suspecting that he was a westerner. If they were to pass through the checkpoint soon after him they might be a threat and he was vulnerable on a motorbike. He decided to keep his mouth shut until the soldier got closer – although that too had its dangers.

‘I’m talkin’ to you, asshole,’ the soldier yelled as he approached, his buddy staying back to cover him. It was not unheard of for Coalition forces to be attacked by a lone fanatic carrying a concealed weapon or explosive charge and, having lost a great number of fellow countrymen during the past couple of years, the soldier’s aggressive reaction was understandable. However, things were not made any easier when soldiers assumed that every Arab could understand English.

‘Salam alycom,’ Stratton said as the soldier stopped a couple of metres in front of him, the rifle still aimed at his face.

‘Yeah, fuck you too,’ the soldier said. ‘Shut the engine and get off the bike.’ He gestured with the barrel of his gun, his finger curled warily around the trigger. ‘Off !’

Stratton slowly lowered one hand to kill the engine, then the other to grip the handlebars so that he could climb off the bike. He dropped the stand with his foot and as soon as the bike was balanced upright he raised his hands again.

‘What you got in the bag?’ the soldier asked.

Stratton wasn’t concerned so much about the explosives he was carrying. They were most uncommon and would only be recognisable to a special-forces operative. Even an army explosives engineer would have to study them carefully before becoming suspicious. Stratton remained quiet.

‘Search the motherfucker,’ the soldier shouted to his buddy who walked briskly over, slung his weapon over his shoulder and reached out to pat Stratton down.

‘I’m a British soldier,’ Stratton said, quietly but firmly.

‘What?’ the soldier said, continuing with his task, his hands patting Stratton’s shoulders and down the front of his chest.

‘I’m a Brit,’ Stratton repeated quietly. ‘A British soldier.’

The soldier’s hand touched something solid under Stratton’s left arm and stopped dead.

‘What he say?’ asked the soldier doing the covering.

‘Says he’s a Brit,’ the searcher said, his hand still on the metal object that he was certain was a pistol.

‘That is a gun you can feel,’ Stratton said, looking the searcher in the eye in case the man was unsure.

The soldier was going through his own possible scenarios that included Stratton being a fanatic who could speak English and waiting for his chance to strike. He had just a couple more weeks left out of a year-long tour of duty and wasn’t about to end up in a body-bag after all that time. If that meant blowing away even a remote suspect, so be it. All he had to do was roll away while yelling ‘Bad guy!’ and his partner would empty his magazine into Stratton.

‘I have ID in my jacket,’ Stratton said.

The soldier looked into Stratton’s pale eyes and knew they were not those of an Arab. ‘Let’s see it,’ he said. ‘Nice and easy.’

Stratton slowly reached inside his jacket, into the breast pocket of his shirt, and pulled out the plastic ID card that bore a hologram image of the Union Jack across its front, a gold information chip in a corner, and his picture. The soldier inspected the card, then looked at Stratton, only able to see his eyes. As if Stratton had read his mind, he slowly took hold of the shamagh where it covered his nose and pulled it down to reveal most of his face.

‘You SF?’ the soldier asked.

‘Yes.’

The soldier took a moment to compare the ID thoroughly with Stratton’s face, then his tension visibly lowered. ‘Wait here,’ he said, before stepping back and walking away to leave his buddy to watch Stratton.

He was conscious of the minutes ticking away but there was no point in pushing these guys. They would let him get on his way in their own time once they were satisfied that he was kosher and nothing he could say would change that. Pushing them would only make it worse.

Stratton turned his head slowly and looked into the distance to where he expected the train to come from eventually. There was no sign of it.

The traffic slowly moved through the checkpoint, each car searched for weapons and other devices. A military interpreter, an Iraqi dressed the same as the soldiers and wearing body armour but not carrying a weapon, questioned the occupants. Some vehicles were allowed to proceed while others were directed off the road to an area where they were searched more thoroughly by soldiers using dogs.

Stratton watched the soldier with his ID show it to his commanding officer who inspected it, glanced over at Stratton, said something to the soldier, then handed it back.

The soldier returned and gave the ID back to Stratton. ‘You’re outta here,’ he said dryly, unimpressed.

‘Thanks,’ Stratton said as he pocketed the card and climbed onto his bike.

‘So, what are you, Lawrence a’ fucken’ ’Rabia?’ the soldier asked.

Stratton started up the bike. ‘You take care of yourselves,’ he said, meaning it.

‘You too, Lawrence,’ the soldier said in his dry country accent, a smirk on his face.

Stratton cruised through the checkpoint. When he was clear of it he opened up the throttle and sped away.

Half an hour later he slowed to consult his GPS. He checked the lie of the land ahead, pulled off the road and steered along a track that led past a dilapidated village – a collection of mud huts, several battered vehicles, starved-looking dogs, ducks and goats, with raggedly dressed children playing amongst it all.

The uneven rock-solid ground that would be impassable mud for a bike in a couple of months’ time when the rains arrived prevented a speedy passage. He had little choice but to bump slowly along, avoiding the deeper ruts as best he could.

A mile further on, as the track became smoother, Stratton stopped to check his GPS once again, comparing its information to the desert ahead that was flat as a billiard table. Across his front as far as the eye could see in either direction were electricity pylons, all bent over as if some great storm had tried to blow them down. The clue that the damage was man-made was provided by the missing cables and terminals, which had been stripped clean by criminals to be sold as scrap metal. Behind him he could just about make out the clump of trees that surrounded the village he had passed through while ahead the orange-yellow earth with its sporadic bumps and clusters of brittle vegetation ran on for ever.

Following the GPS he left the track and drove out over the hard-packed ground. After a mile he stopped again but this time he turned off the engine. The sudden silence was like a loud shout.

Stratton climbed off the bike, laid it down on its side with some care, removed his bag from around his neck and walked on into the desert towards several sandy mounds. It was not until he was a few metres from one that he spotted the tell-tale signs of a milit ary hide: a whip antenna and a patch of camouflage net covering one side of the mound.

Stratton climbed under the back of the net and joined Jack who was looking out at the desert through a pair of high-powered binoculars.

‘Watch out for the memorabilia,’ Jack said, indic ating an anti-personnel mine a few feet away.

Stratton glanced at the small Russian-made Pog that resembled a cast-iron corn on the cob half buried on the edge of the hide.

‘The place is festering with mines,’ Jack added. ‘That one’s probably from the Iraq–Iran war. Everything go okay?’

‘Pretty much,’ Stratton said as he put down his bag, grabbed a bottle of water from a six-litre pack and drained most of it in one go. ‘One locomotive,’ he said, taking a breath, ‘three passenger carriages, and a dozen or so trucks … Forouf is in the centre carriage.’

‘Complicated?’

‘Interesting,’ Stratton decided as he finished off the bottle. Then he opened what appeared to be a small laptop inside a protective plastic jacket. He checked the power leads, plugged in the whip antenna that protruded through the cam net and turned the computer on.

‘The junction is 500 metres ahead,’ Jack informed him. ‘I’ve rigged the charge and programmed it in as device zero one zero.’

Stratton flicked through several data screens on the laptop, stopped at a page labelled ‘device queue’ and studied it.

Jack picked up a radio handset. ‘Alpha one, this is Mike four zero, the deck is loaded.’

A moment later the radio speaker crackled. ‘Alpha one, roger that. We have a visual that gives you an ETA in approximately three minutes.’

‘Roger that,’ Jack replied.

‘How did you rig the track change in the end?’ Stratton asked.

‘Well, I played with the two choices we discussed. I first went for the lever-throw option but then it started to look too complicated and so I ended up going for the push charge to shove the exchange rod directly across.’

‘Good choice.’

‘You sure?’

‘I would’ve gone for that.’

Jack nodded, privately pleased. ‘How about the carriages? How’d you rig ’em?’

‘Some interesting combinations,’ Stratton mused as he typed commands into the data queue. ‘Gave myself a few options.’

Jack glanced at him, then back to the open desert. ‘I’m looking forward to this.’

Stratton remembered something. He reached into his pocket, took out the small carving and placed it on a stone beside Jack. ‘Here,’ he said.

Jack looked at Stratton, then at the carving. ‘What’s that?’

‘What does it look like?’

Jack stared at it. ‘A camel with a harelip.’

‘It’s a present for Josh … he still collects animals, doesn’t he?’

‘He doesn’t play with them as much since you started giving him all that military crap,’ Jack said as he picked up the camel and inspected it. ‘I hope you didn’t pay for this.’

‘It’s a present from you.’

‘Oh, I see. Dad comes home with the penny camel and what do you have for him? No, let me guess. A glistening scimitar you wrested from Saddam himself just before you single-handedly destroyed all his bodyguards and brought him in.’

‘No more military crap, I promise … Since we’re not going to have a chance to go ashore and do some shopping other than at the PX on the airbase, which only sells military crap, I didn’t want you going home empty-handed.’

‘That’s nice of you,’ Jack said with unguarded sincerity.

‘He’ll love it.’

‘Yeah. He probably will,’ Jack agreed, placing it in his pocket and going back to his binoculars. ‘Thanks.’

Stratton highlighted a list of eight device codes on his data queue with marginally different signal frequencies beside each.

‘Here she comes,’ Jack said, picking up the handset. ‘Alpha one, Mike four zero has the obvious visual,’ he said into the radio.

Stratton looked through his own binoculars and found the train beneath a black trail of smoke issuing from its nose. ‘That’s it,’ he said as he went back to his laptop. ‘Give me a nod at a thousand metres?’

‘Roger that,’ Jack said as he raised the handset to his mouth again. ‘Mike four zero, we’re standby, standby.’

‘Roger, you’re standby,’ the voice repeated.

‘Give me a countdown,’ Stratton said as his fingers played the laptop with surprising agility as he went through a systems check.

‘Will do,’ Jack said, studying the train.

Stratton moved the cursor down the device queue, carrying out a receiver continuity test. When he reached the last code a red marker flashed a warning. He hit the test key again with the same result. ‘Zero one zero … Jack? I’m showing no continuity on your charge.’

‘What?’ Jack exclaimed, horrified, and moved to where he could see the screen.

Stratton ran another test. ‘That’s a negative,’ he said as he grabbed his bag and started to head out through the back of the hide.

‘No,’ Jack said, taking Stratton’s arm. ‘I laid it, I’ll fix it. You need to stay and play the board in case I can’t get back in time.’ Stratton knew that it was the wisest choice and didn’t argue.

‘What a wanker,’ Jack mumbled as he picked up his own demo -litions bag and ducked under the cam net.

‘Don’t rush it,’ Stratton called out. ‘You have time.’

‘I’m still a wanker, though,’ Jack called back as he broke into a trot to the bike, raised it onto its wheels, straddled the seat and after the second crank, gunned the engine to life. He quickly snapped it into gear and shot away across the hard ground, kicking up a thin trail of dust behind him.

Stratton looked through his binoculars to gauge the progress of the train, then moved them to check Jack’s progress. It was a risky move. Jack had to get to the charge, fix it, and get out of there before the train arrived. The engine driver would probably see the bike cross his front and his reaction would depend on how suspicious he was. Jack was wearing desert camouflage fatigues but the dust would make it difficult for anyone on the train to be sure of that until they were practically upon him. Stratton was confident that Jack would succeed but as he watched his friend and the train slowly converge he felt a twinge of fear for him.

Stratton and Jack had first met while on the same SBS selection course as young Marines many years ago. They exchanged hardly a word during the first three months of the course that began with a hundred and thirty-seven men. They only began to get to know each other during the last few weeks when the numbers were down to just twelve.

Their friendship was cemented during the final week-long exercise in Scotland when they partnered a two-man Klepper canoe along with one other pair to carry out a demolition raid against a power plant at the head of a loch. The underside skin of their canoe had been damaged during the final leg of their three-night portage across country to the foot of the loch from where they would paddle to the target. After patching it up as best they could by using a couple of oyster clamps they elected to press on, hoping that they could complete the twenty- kilometre paddle before the craft, an extremely durable wood and canvas construction, became unseaworthy. In truth, they feared the clamps would not hold for long and they put their fates in the hands of the gods simply because it would have been unthinkable not to make an attempt. The selection course was less about achieving the objective and more about tenacity and initiative in the face of extreme odds and exhaustion.

The gods, however, did indeed smile down on Jack and Stratton, for a while at least. They succeeded in planting their explosives on the target but as they made their way across the loch to the landing point where they were supposed to meet up with the other canoe, one of the oyster clamps dramatically failed and water gushed in. With more than a thousand metres to the rendezvous they quickly changed direction and paddled as fast as they could to the nearest shore, which was still two hundred metres away. But within seconds the canoe was completely submerged and although it had built-in flotation tubes, their equipment, which included rifles as well as rations for several more days, was too heavy and they abandoned it as it sank. The water was near-freezing but they were forced to ditch their jackets, boots and trousers in order to stay afloat and not follow their canoe to the bottom which was a good hundred metres below them at that point.

As they briskly swam side by side through the calm black water that had a frozen mist hovering just above it Jack and Stratton were keenly aware of the serious ness of the problem. They were in a severe survival situation that would not necessarily be solved when they reached the shore – if they could reach it, that was. They tried to distract each other from the biting cold with inane chatter as they breast-stroked towards the black line below the silhouette of trees that indicated the shore. They discussed the possibility of drowning and how probably no one would know their fates for several days since the procedure, if they failed to meet up with the other members of the team, was to make the next rendezvous some twenty miles east across country.

The exercise was run as realistically as possible and if they could not make that location they were expected to head for the final emergency escape rendezvous another twenty miles beyond that. Only then, if they did not show up, would the alarm be raised and a search party sent out to trace their route from their last known position. It could be several days on top of that before it was assumed that they had gone down in the loch and God only knew how long before a dive search was organised. In short, if they didn’t make the shore and find an immediate way of getting warm again they were screwed. To add to their problems the area was deserted for miles in every direction apart from the power station. But to seek aid there would mean, as far as the exercise was concerned, giving themselves up.

Ten minutes after bidding farewell to the canoe the pine trees that lined the distant shore seemed as far away as ever. Jack and Stratton were aware that their core temperatures were dropping dangerously low. Their limbs had long since gone numb and though it was getting more difficult to operate their muscles they increased their efforts, as much to generate body heat as to speed up their swim.

Stratton’s hand suddenly hit something which turned out to be a rock and they were instantly rejuv enated: unlike most of the loch’s shoreline that dropped almost vertically where the land met the water they had been heading for a point with a shallow gradient.

A few minutes later they were helping each other stagger up the rocky beach, unable to feel the stones beneath their bare, numb feet. As soon as they hit the shoreline they broke into a hobble, moving as fast as they could up the slope and into the wood where they stopped to take off their T-shirts, their only clothing other than their underpants, squeeze out the water and put them back on, a task that was exceedingly difficult in their condition.

‘What do you think?’ Jack asked, shivering fiercely.

‘We don’t have much choice,’ Stratton said with difficulty, his face and neck numb, the muscles almost rigid.

Stratton was referring to the power station and Jack had to agree. It was out of sight from where they were but finding it would not be difficult since all they had to do was follow the edge of the loch. The problems were the distance and if they would have enough time to get there before they collapsed.

‘There’s a road that follows the loch this side,’ Stratton said. ‘Let’s head west until we strike it.’

They headed uphill and after pushing through the dense pine wood, which was overall easier on their bare feet, they emerged onto a track that, although muddy, was fairly level and, as such, a godsend. They broke into a brisk pace along it. The track met the tarmac road ten minutes later and they pressed on without stopping, keeping to the soft verges to save their tender soles that were already lacerated. The lights of the power station became visible in the distance through the trees.

Half an hour later Jack and Stratton paused at a sharp bend in the road as it veered away to follow a river that fed the loch. The power station was less than half a mile away as the crow flew but the road showed signs of diverting along the inlet for possibly a couple of miles before crossing it and turning back towards the station. They chose to save time by going cross-country against the distance of the road and made their way down the rocky incline and into the freezing water. They swam across as quickly as they could and scrambled up the steep, rocky bank the other side and back onto the tarmac road.

By now they were literally turning blue and were well aware that hypothermia was fast setting in as their bodies closed down all extremity blood-flow to preserve what energy and heat they had left for their brains and organs. They forced conversation as best they could, talking about anything: upbringings, school, girlfriends, whatever came to mind. Once they lost control and succumbed, delirium would be followed by collapse, coma and then death.

As they rounded the final bend to the power station and stepped from gloom into the glow from the security lights that surrounded the complex they continued to question the wisdom of giving themselves up, despite their serious situation. It was the equivalent of surrendering to the enemy and, although the training team would understand it to be a life-or-death situation, in their own hearts, and in the minds of the others, they would have failed. The charges they had laid were part of a coordinated attack and were intended to detonate at the same time as others in the area. A check of their watches showed that there was a good hour before the devices were supposed to blow. Their surrender would alert the ‘enemy’, giving them time to search and perhaps find the charges, raise the alarm that special forces were about and compromise the other teams. That would be an unforgivable failure and one that neither man would want to live with. But it was also clear that they would not survive much longer in their present condition.

As Jack and Stratton approached the power station they saw a military four-ton truck parked part-way down the slope towards the main entrance and recognised it as one used by the SBS Directing Staff. The DS would no doubt be inside in the control office with the duty civilian engineers, taking advantage of the warmth and the tea and coffee facilities while watching the loch for signs of the attackers who were expected to get in and out without being seen.

Stratton and Jack made their way to the lorry and Stratton checked the cab to ensure that it was empty. The back was secured by a tailgate with a length of canvas rolled down from the roof to meet it. The canvas was not strapped to the tailgate and they reached up to pull themselves inside. But they were shocked to discover that they could not use their hands – their limbs were so cold and numb that their nerves had ceased sending information to the muscles. As they looked at each other in the stark illumination of the security lights, long past the shivering stage and stunned by the level to which their bodies had deteri orated, they began to laugh, even though they were horrified as well as amused at their ridiculous predicament. They had come this far, almost frozen to death, dripping wet, inches from possible sanctuary and couldn’t help themselves.

‘I hope I’m not as blue as you,’ Jack said.

Stratton raised one of his feet to inspect the bottom of it. ‘I think we’ve lost the soles of our feet,’ he said, and they laughed even more.

‘How long do you think we have before we die?’ Jack asked, grinning.

‘I don’t know, but not long,’ Stratton replied.

The laughter dried up and they looked soberly at each other.

‘Better get in the back of the lorry and see what’s inside, then,’ Jack suggested.

‘Let’s get the tailgate down,’ Stratton said and each took a side to take out the pins that held it in position. Stratton’s was loose and popped out immediately so he went to help Jack who was having trouble with his. They pushed on it together but it was jammed solid. Stratton managed to pick up a stone and after a couple of taps the pin came loose and they pushed it out to let it dangle on its chain. Noise was not a concern since the buildings were some fifty yards away and the wind was blowing strongly.

Together they pulled at the tailgate and, unable to hold it as it lowered, they let it swing down with a clang. After helping each other inside, they attacked the bags and boxes. The Directing Staff always carried emergency gear that included clothing, sleeping bags, rations, fuel cookers – everything that Stratton and Jack needed to survive.

They had to help each other out of their wet, near-frozen T-shirts and pulled on the dry clothing as quickly as they could, not bothering with buttons since that was impossible at that moment. The DS kept their own field kit in the lorry and Stratton and Jack raided their bags for footwear which fortunately fitted. A few minutes later they were climbing out of the back of the lorry with a backpack each, filled with necessary stores. They hobbled across the road like two old men. But it was still not over for them. They were still cold to the core and had to find a secure place where they could get into the sleeping bags and make a brew of hot, sweet tea before they could even begin to start getting back to normal.

They headed straight up a pine-covered hillside that loomed over the power station. After walking only a hundred yards into the dense wood they dropped their packs, unwrapped their sleeping bags and wriggled into them. Jack placed a petrol cooker between them and got it going while Stratton rigged a poncho across their feet to cover the glow from the cooker in case any of the DS should venture out to the truck. Within a few minutes both men were lying back, enjoying a hot brew while a meal was heating up on the cooker.

It took a while before the throbbing from the cuts on their feet began to increase – which was not all bad since it indicated that their circulations were returning. After the meal both men fell into a deep sleep despite the pain. When they woke up at dawn, having missed the first rendezvous, they decided to get going for the next later that morning despite it being daylight. They could take it nice and easy, get there by dark the following day and continue the rest of the operation. Walking would be painful but, considering the suffering they had already endured on the selection course, the fact that this was the final exercise and the last hurdle would make it that much easier, knowing they could rest all they wanted at the end of it.

Jack and Stratton remained close friends from that day on and five years later Stratton was best man at Jack’s wedding. As he watched Jack tear across the desert on the old Russian motor-bike towards the track junction with a force of militia bearing down on him he knew that Jack would not give up until he had succeeded in his task – and that was what worried him most.

Stratton forced himself to look away to concentrate on his own task as the train closed on the thousand-metre point of the track. He pulled the laptop in front of him, moved the cursor down the column of devices, highlighted one of the codes, and positioned two fingers over the two detonation keys that had to be pressed simultaneously. He looked up to check the train’s location and as it reached the point he hit the keys.

Stratton watched the coupling between the second and third carriage flash brightly as it blew apart. A second later a thunderous boom engulfed the hide and echoed across the desert.

Forouf was in the middle of a conversation with his associates when the blast shook the carriage to its wheels as it hammered the rear door from its hinges, throwing it into the long, narrow space where it slammed into a row of seats. He was first to recover and hurried to the gaping hole in time to see the carriage behind separating from his. Several of his fighters appeared, bunched in the opposite doorway, staring helplessly at the widening gap as their master gradually moved away from them.

Alif Hammad, one of Forouf ’s associates, had dropped to the floor to cover his head with his hands and remained waiting for a devastating assault that he expected to follow any second. When it did not come he got to his knees and looked out of a window to find nothing but the open desert. He had been waiting for an attack since leaving Mosul and prayed that it was not a cock-up. He did not care if they killed Forouf in the process although the man was of some importance. But Hammad was particularly concerned about his own well-being.

Stratton highlighted another device code on his laptop and hit the keys.

Forouf watched in horror as another explosion beneath the trailing carriage blew the wheels off. Its front, now unsupported, dropped. Several of his militia fell from the doorway onto the track to be instantly grated, then the carriage spun sideways and flipped over. The occupants were brutally tossed as if in the spin cycle of a washing machine before the carriage disintegrated and they were thrown away or crushed beneath the tumbling undercarriage. The trucks following behind completed the destruction as they ploughed through what was left of the carriage.

Forouf pushed angrily back into his carriage and went from side to side, searching through the windows for the enemy who had done this. But because of the angle he could not see the motorbike cutting across the front of the train.

The locomotive driver and his engineer had heard the explosions behind them that shook the train and were straining to look back out of the windows at either side of the cab. They saw the final destruction of the carriage and turned in to look at each other, shocked and completely clueless as to what they should do. The engineer then saw the motorbike ahead as it arrived at the rail junction. He shouted for the driver to look. It only served to add to their dilemma, leaving them with just two options: stop, or keep going. But since they had no communications with the boss two carriages away and were scared to make a decision that could get them shot they agreed to do nothing and keep going. One thing they were sure of: this was not a good day.

Jack leaped off the bike as it slid to the ground and hurried to the charge on the outside of the rail up against the end of the ramrod that levered the track change. It was exactly how he had left it and he studied it quickly without touching anything, unable to identify the fault. A distant crack and another explosion turned his attention to the train as a ball of smoke rose from behind the engine. Then he looked back down at the charge.

The door at the front of Forouf ’s carriage blew in as the coup -ling between his carriage and the leading one disintegrated, separating it from the rest of the train. The wind immediately ripped through uninterrupted with no doors now at either end and as Forouf hurried forward to see what this new destruction was he saw several of his men lying dead in the doorway of the leading carriage as it moved away.

Confusion, frustration, anger and fear brought him to the boil as the locomotive gradually pulled away and one thing became obvious to him. He had been deliberately isolated from his men and the engine.

Forouf hurried to the front of his carriage as some of his men appeared at the rear of the one moving away from him. ‘Awkef al qetar!’ he yelled to one of them who responded by running back through the carriage to the other end where he opened the door to reveal the rear of the locomotive. The man jumped across the coupling and grabbed at the handle of the door that led into the engine compartment but it was locked. He banged on the window and shouted in futile competition with the wind, the clattering wheels and the throb of the engines. He was joined by a colleague who nudged him and indicated the ladder that led up onto the roof of the locomotive.

Jack gave up on the charge and with no time to replace it he cursed loudly at his bad luck or ineptitude. Whichever, it was his fault. There was nothing more for it than to throw the junction switch manually. The only good news was that at least the job would get done since he’d had niggling doubts about the charge actually achieving the desired effect in the first place.

He dropped to the ground as the train closed on him and glanced up at the cab as it went past to see the engineer in the window looking down at him. As the back of the locomotive shot by he saw men climbing onto its roof. A second later the back of the carriage passed and he jumped to his feet, grabbed the heavy track-change lever and heaved on it. But the rusty joint was tight and barely moved.

Forouf ’s carriage was seconds away.

Jack slammed a foot against a sleeper and with a supreme effort, his shoulder behind it, the lever started to move.

Suddenly, bullets peppered the ground around him, zinging off the rails and slamming into the wooden sleepers. Jack glanced up in mid-effort to see the fire coming from the rear of the carriage attached to the locomotive. His instincts were screaming at him to take cover but Forouf’s carriage was almost upon him and, ignoring the shots that were fortunately poorly aimed, he invoked every ounce of his strength. An explosion suddenly destroyed the back of the locomotive, killing the men who were firing at him and Jack knew that Stratton had seen the shooting. He yelled out loud and as his strength peaked the lever gave in and the ramrod shunted the internal rack across, an instant before the front wheels of the carriage touched it.

Jack hit the ground and rolled away as the carriage flew past but he was not out of danger yet. Forouf had seen him from the window and had grabbed a weapon from one of his men, hurried to the rear of the carriage and opened fire while his men shot from the windows.

Jack was exposed where he lay and, since the carriage was slowing down, he decided that a moving target was better than one lying still and leaped to his feet, pulled the bike up, started it and sped away. Gunfire raked the ground in front of and behind him and he opened the throttle while keeping his head low.

Stratton watched his friend through his binoculars, clenching his teeth, willing him on. Then he grabbed the handset. ‘Mike four zero, go, go, go!’ he shouted.

Two Chinook helicopters carrying the reaction teams had been hovering on standby just above the ground a mile away and immediately raised their tails as the pilots applied full power, their twin rotors grabbing the air and pulling the heavy beasts forward. Within seconds they were screaming at full speed feet above the ground towards the lone carriage trundling across their front.

Stratton stepped from the hide and stood on the mound, his attention focused on Jack as he watched him speed across the desert leaving a broad trail of dust in his wake. ‘Come on, old buddy, keep it going,’ he muttered.

The choppers covered the ground in half a minute and a short distance from the carriage both of them rose up sharply and banked in opposite directions to split their attack formation. The lead chopper manoeuv red sharply in front of the carriage while the door gunner, seated behind a .50 calibre heavy belt-fed machine gun, let rip, sending a hail of fire across its front and down the sides, the intention being to frighten the occupants into ceasing fire. The second chopper came in low behind the carriage, fired a burst across the rear to scare the men with weapons in the wrecked doorway, then turned up the side, crossed beneath the other Chinook, moved ahead several hundred metres and reared up as it made ready to hover, kicking up dust that practically hid it from view. Before the rear wheels touched down, men toting M4 assault rifles and wearing desert combats, loaded webbing, and goggles against the dust, streamed down the rear ramp and split into groups. One of the teams, carrying a long roll of heavy wire mesh, ran to the track, placed it across the rails to cover the width, ran it out for twenty metres and then hurried away to take up firing positions as the carriage drew closer.

Fifty yards from the mesh another team fired grenades in through the carriage’s windows as it rolled past and seconds later it was filled with a dense white smoke. The front wheels rolled over the mesh, which wrapped around and locked them.

The second Chinook landed a team at the first crash site to secure it in case anyone had survived. Then it went in pursuit of the locomotive that was already slowing down, the engineer frantically waving a stained white rag out of the window.

As Forouf ’s carriage came to a halt the men inside practically fell out of its front and rear, coughing and spluttering, eyes streaming and mucus pouring from their noses. Forouf was among them as they were immediately leaped upon, dragged to the ground, hooded and cuffed. Hammad was treated with the same courtesy to avoid him incurring any suspicion and though he was relieved that it was over and that he had lived through it he vowed never to make such a deal again, certain that his survival had been purely by chance.

Stratton jumped off the mound and exhaled with relief as Jack headed towards him.

Jack was elated, not only with the success of the operation but with the rush of having survived the gunfire. He raised a hand and waved, then, deciding to celebrate with a bit of showmanship, climbed up onto the bike’s seat and stuck a leg in the air, balancing the machine carefully over the rugged terrain. Feeling even more confident, he took a hand off the handlebar and raised that too.

The front wheel started to wobble and Stratton shook his head, fully expecting his friend to take a tumble any second.

Jack didn’t see the small anti-personnel mine the size of a cigarette packet half buried in the sand. It had been there for a decade and a half, and had that been all he might well have survived the blast of just a few ounces of explosive hitting the bike’s wheel. But it was a not uncommon trick played by many armies to place an anti-personnel mine directly on top of a vehicle or anti-tank mine, which was the case on this occasion.

The explosion threw Jack high into the air, the bike spinning in pieces beside him. Stratton broke into a run before Jack hit the ground, ripping the shamagh from his head and screaming Jack’s name as he sprinted as fast as he could, uncaring that he could meet a similar fate.

He slid to a halt on his knees beside Jack’s horrend ously mutilated body, aware that if by some miracle Jack was still alive he would not live long, not out here, miles from a hospital. There was a medic pack back at the hide but it would be of pitiful use against these injuries. He put a hand to Jack’s throat, searching for a pulse, but there was none.

Stratton remained motionless beside his friend, barely aware of the dune buggy tearing across the desert towards him, until something in his subconscious let out a warning cry.

He jumped to his feet, took out his pistol and fired it towards the buggy, the bullets striking the ground either side of it.

The buggy came to a halt and Seaton climbed out, leaving Smiv at the wheel.

‘Mines,’ Stratton shouted.

Seaton instantly realised what had happened. He glanced around the immediate area, then back at Stratton.

Stratton knelt again beside his friend and it was only then that he noticed the little wooden camel on the ground next to Jack. He picked it up and held it as memories of their times together swept through his head. Then, suddenly, he could see Sally’s face as she heard the news. And then he thought of poor Josh.

Stratton heard his name being called and looked around at Smiv who was standing in the vehicle and shouting as loud as he could.

‘Do you want a chopper?’ Smiv repeated.

Stratton understood what he meant. The chopper could hover feet off the ground while Stratton lifted Jack inside. But there was no need for that now. He would carry his friend back to the hide, retracing his footsteps, and even though there were still dangers in doing that he did not give a damn. He wasn’t about to leave Jack out in this shit-hole for the hours that it would take to clear a route wide enough for a vehicle to get to them.

He signalled a negative response that relayed the worst. Seaton watched as Stratton crouched down, picked up Jack’s body, and walked away.