Bloody Heroes by Damien Lewis

Author:Damien Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

8

NO SURRENDER

IT WAS THE night of 23 November when Mat and Sam deployed by Chinook to Mazar-e-Sharif, via a short refuelling stopover at a secret US airbase in Uzbekistan. The two men slept the whole of the flight, as the physical and emotional strain of the Naka Valley mission caught up with them. The highlight of the journey was their arrival at Mazar airport, whereupon they were met by an SBS reception party including Mat’s old teammates, Jamie and Tom. The last time they had seen each other was back at Bagram, when Mat had landed the Naka Valley mission and Tom and Jamie had got Mazar. They loaded all their kit into a couple of Land-Rovers and set off on the drive into the city.

‘What’s with the paint job, mate?’ Mat asked Jamie, indicating the Land-Rover’s bright white bodywork. ‘They shipped you out an Arctic vehicle by mistake, or something?’

‘I wish, mate,’ Jamie replied. ‘It’s worse than that. Cos we’re here on an “advisory” role to the Northern Alliance, we’ve been told to make like aid workers. We’re supposed to look like we’re the UN or something.’

‘What, like we’re the UN – despite the fact there’s a great big fuck-off GPMG mounted on the back of the truck?’

‘Yeah, well, it makes no sense to me, either,’ said Jamie. ‘Something about the place crawling with press and them not wanting it known there’s Brit special forces in with the Northern Alliance.’

‘Northern Alliance – sounds like a bloody building society,’ Mat grunted. ‘So what was all that shit in the OC’s briefing about “drawing blood quickly”, if we’re to make like UN aid workers? The UN’re hardly known for kicking arse, are they?’

‘No idea, mate,’ Jamie replied. ‘This op’s been a crock of shite since day one. It’s you guys who’ve been having all the fun, calling in the mother of all air strikes down south so I heard.’

‘Calling in air strikes?’ Mat snorted. ‘Calling off air strikes more like it. Ace quad-bike drivers, us, mate.’

‘How d’you mean, mate?’

‘Tell you all about it sometime,’ Mat said, pulling his woolly hat down over his eyes. ‘I got to get some kip, mate. What’s on the menu tomorrow? Bugger all, I take it?’

‘Watching a bunch of AQT surrender, or some such shite,’ said Jamie. ‘You might just want to spend the whole day snoozing, mate.’

On arrival in Mazar city, the two Land-Rovers made for the SBS’s base at the Old Turkish Schoolhouse (once a working school, until the Taliban shut it down). The three-storey building was the US military’s combined services headquarters for the Mazar region. The top floor housed the Delta Force operators and the CIA, the first floor housed the US 5th Special Operation Forces group (5th SOF) and the Rangers, while the ground floor was for the 10th Mountain troops. The British special forces had an ill-defined place in that hierarchy. Strictly speaking, the SBS lads were co-located with the 5th SOF, as they jointly made up the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) with responsibility for the Mazar region.

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